A Slave Narrative and Search for Authority in Early Mughal India

This paper investigates a “slave narrative” produced in Persian in late sixteenth-century Mughal India. The author, Jawhar, had served the Mughal Emperor as a ewer-carrier between 1535 and 1555, and wrote his memoirs of the emperor in order to gain patronage from his son. But Jawhar also inserted himself into the narrative, describing some of his experiences and observations as a slave. “Autobiographical” writings by slaves can be found in legal documents, letters, or hagiographical texts. Their writing was encouraged but constrained by “master outlines” (as argued by James Olney for north America), “polyphony” involving captors in search of ransom (as shown by Daniel Hershenzon for the Mediterranean), “hagiographies” written by a slave’s Catholic confessors (as demonstrated by Tatiana Seijas for the Philippines), or “confessionals” obtained through torture by the inquisition (as illustrated by Matteo Salvadore for Portuguese India).

Jawhar’s case is different as we have both his original text (survived in a manuscript copied 20 years after the composition) as well as a “re-write” penned by an amanuensis at the author’s request. Thus, since he had unusual control over the narrative, Jawhar was able to exert a great deal authority in the text. He titled the work a Tazkirah, which derived from the genre of Islamic hagiography of mystics. He presented the late emperor as a saint (as argued by Nader Pournaqcheband). This allowed himself to present himself as not just as a slave but as a witness and a disciple who therefore could not be completely (or almost completely) erased from the historical record, as all his contemporaries were in Mughal India. In short, Jawhar tried to recast his servitude as the closest comparable (but honorable) institution in South Asia: Spiritual discipleship (as shown by Sunil Kumar, Indranee Chatterjee, Jessica Hinchy, and Vijay Pinch).