DAWN - Cowasjee Corner; 14 June, 1998
Sultans and sycophants
By Ardeshir Cowasjee
HISTORY neither forgets nor forgives those rulers who desecrate places of worship, who destroy seats of learning, who burn libraries and books, who breach the faith and trust of those over whom they rule.
In the year 997 AD the young Turkish chieftain Yamin Al-Daula Abu'l Qasim Mahmud Ibn Sebuktigin proclaimed himself Sultan of Ghazni. This new-found sultanate was poor; India, the country over the border was old, its heritage and its people were rich. In 1001, having fortified his raiding force, Mahmud crossed the border on the first of his 17 invasions. Thereafter, each winter he descended upon India, raiding and rampaging, filling his treasure chests with spoils to carry home, affording his army pleasure and amusement by giving them full freedom to plunder and pillage.
He is remembered for his admiration of the architecture and grandeur of the temple at Mathura on the Jamna. Historian Will Durant writes: " .....having judged that its duplication would cost 100 million dinars and the labour of 200 years [he] ordered it to be soaked with naphtha and burnt to the ground." Six years later, in 1026, on his final rampage, he went as far as Patan in Gujerat, annihilated 50,000 of its inhabitants and destroyed the ancient Somnath temple. Down the centuries, these acts of destruction and desecration have been remembered with disgust and loathing, as will be remembered the recent fanatical wanton destruction of the Babri Masjid at Ayodhya.
Mahmud reigned for a third of a century and when he died, full of years and honours, Muslim historians ranked him as the greatest monarch of his time and one of the greatest sovereigns of any age.
There is a famous legend told of Mahmud of Ghazni and Ab'ul Qasim Mansur Firdausi of Tus, the Persian poet of the conquered land of Khorasan. Envious of what Firdousi had written about the great Achemenian and Sassanian emperors in his Epic of the Kings, the 'Shah-nameh', conqueror Mahmud asked him to compose an epic poem on his conquests and his ancestors. But that will fill but a pamphlet, said the poet.Mahmud persisted, tempting the fun-loving spendthrift. For each verse you write in my praise I will pay you one gold dinar, he offered. That will be easy, said Firdausi, send me a few of your seasoned sycophants and I will weave the verses round the praises they sing of you and your triumphs.
The proficient sycophants delivered, and in no time 1,100 verses were written and submitted. As rich as he was, the Sultan decided to renege on his promise, and sent to Firdausi 1,100 silver dinars. The poet was in his bath when Mahmud's emissary rode in with the money. With contempt he accepted the 'base metal' and with contempt immediately distributed it. To his maid who poured his bath water he gave 200 coins, 200 to the woman who scrubbed his back, 200 to the woman who held his towel, and 200 to his woman who heated his water. To the king's messenger he threw 200 coins and 300 to the three men who had ridden with him. He fed them, entertained them, and sent them back to their master to relate what they had seen.
The scorned Firdausi then set to work with a vengeance, writing verse after verse depicting the rapacity of the real Mahmud and the atrocities committed by his armies. The poet's credibility dented the Sultan's proclaimed reputation and he relented. Once again the king's men were dispatched to Tus, this time with the promised 1,100 gold dinars. But they were too late. As they rode in through one gate of Tus, Firdausi's body was being carried out through another. He was survived by his daughter who refused to accept the money of a reneger.
But there have been good rulers and great emperors. Abu-ul- fath Jalal-ud-din Muhammad Akbar for one, the finest of the Mughals, the most enlightened, the most tolerant, the most just, a person who respected all beliefs and religions. He believed that bigotry was blind and savage, that man has no right to demand that his neighbour shall address God after his pattern, that he should be allowed to pray and worship in his own way. He believed that one man had no right to impose his own way of thinking upon others. He could never have conceived that one day it would be considered a crime, that one day a man could be jailed for intoning the time-honoured phrase, Bismillahir Rahmanir Rahim, or for greeting another with a Salaam Aleikum.
At Akbar's darbars, seats were assigned to those of different faiths - Christians, Brahmins, Jains, Buddhists, Shintos, Zarathustis. The representative of the latter faith was the high priest, Dastur Meherji Rana.
As the tale is told, at three consecutive darbars, Akbar noticed that Meherji Rana's chair remained unoccupied. Worried that he, the emperor, could have somehow hurt the scholar's feelings, he sent word requesting his presence at a private audience. Rana assured Akbar that he was not at all at fault, that it was he, Rana, who had tired of the sycophancy, the bowing and scraping exhibited by the courtiers at the darbars of the emperor. Appreciating his point of view, Akbar confided that he too had tired of it all but was unable to rid himself of the tufthunters that surrounded him.
Curious, the emperor then inquired how it was that Rana had never asked for anything, as had all the others, for land, properties, horses, arms, money. I want nothing material, responded Rana. My one request is that you occasionally call me aside in full view of your assembled darbar and whisper a few sweet nothings in my ear. This will convey to your satraps that I enjoy your confidence, and I will be left in peace. Done, said the King. Not only did he oblige the priest, but rewarded him with 200 acres of fertile crown property at Ghelkhadi, close to Navsari.
Now, at the close of the 20th century, we have our man, our present-day Sultan, who insists upon building motorways as he wishes to be remembered as a latter-day Sher Shah Suri, builder of the Grand Trunk Road. When asked why he had to plan and lay the foundations of a grotesque domed and turreted secretariat for himself at an unaffordable cost, his answer was that Emperor Shahjehan had not worried about deficit financing when he built the Taj Mahal for which he is famed.
Our prime minister is perhaps oblivious of the ultimate fate of the creator of the Taj Mahal. Shahjehan, that most unfortunate of rulers, was imprisoned by his own son, Aurangzeb. After almost eight years of incarceration, the emperor died in his lonely prison from where he had looked out through his barred window upon the beautiful tomb.
A glossy expensive-looking card, imprinted with the prime minister's smiling visage and a laudatory bio-data singing his praises, has been printed and distributed at our expense. Several paragraphs bear an asterisk to highlight them. The first of these reads:
"*Nawaz Sharif is one leader who has the confidence and trust of the Pakistani middle-classes, the traders and the business community to revive the economy and restore the nation's lost confidence in the country's future."
Nawaz Sharif has betrayed the trust of the people, and usurped their 'amanat'. He confiscated the $12 billion deposited by them, at his urging, in his treasury. He had no right to appropriate their dollars without safeguarding their return, plus the interest earned.
That he will return to them pieces of paper of lesser value magnifies the theft. That, we cannot sue him and his government, having been deprived by them of our fundamental rights, does not absolve them.
And why was banking secrecy breached? After the freeze, the State Bank could have asked the banks to notify their foreign exchange balances, with the names of the account holders codified. Why was order No II enforced (ordering the notification of names and addresses)?
The finance minister declared in Parliament that $200 million had been withdrawn by certain individuals after the freeze was notified. ("$ 200 million withdrawn from foreign accounts, admits Sartaj." Dawn, June 7). Has the government asked the persons concerned to redeposit $200 million along with a penalty of, say, an additional $200 million, or is the ruling party protecting its own?
It will take years of hard work to rise again from the ashes. It is possible. But it is not possible if we are led by amoral people devoid of integrity and credibility.