Rethinking Mughal India

Even as Mughal historians remain engaged with the political and economic bases of Mughal power, the study of gender relations at the Mughal court and the rethinking of political, social and cultural milieu in light of new questions that might arise in the domestic sphere is a task that has scarcely begun. Sources where such alternative history exists - visual materials, accounts of women and servants - have been rendered peripheral by existing historiography because they are thought to address trivial matters. But as this paper suggests, it is accounts like Gulbadan Banu Begum's Ahval-i Humayun Badshah that reveal the fluidity and contestation that accompanied the foundations of Mughal rule - its new power and grandeur as well as the hierarchies and traditions that accompanied it.