Manu S Pillai is the author of The Ivory Throne: Chronicles of the House of Travancore, for which he won the 2016 Tata Lit Live Prize for best first work of non-fiction and the 2017 Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar.

He has written three other books since: Rebel Sultans: The Deccan from Khilji to Shivaji, The Courtesan, the Mahatma & the Italian Brahmin: Tales from Indian History, and most recently, False Allies: India’s Maharajahs in the Age of Ravi Varma.

Formerly Chief of Staff to Dr Shashi Tharoor MP, Manu has also worked at the House of Lords in Britain, with Lord Karan Bilimoria CBE DL, and with the BBC on their Incarnations history series.

Manu is an alumnus of Fergusson College, Pune, and is currently enrolled as a PhD candidate at King’s College London.

Follow him on Twitter @UnamPillai and on Instagram @WaatCoconut

Host & Producer: Niki Aggarwal

Sound Engineering: Hanisha Harjani

FEATURED MUSIC

Arun Ramamurthy | Conception

Drum ani Bass | King of Good Times

pelle | Lizard Lunch

Subh Saran | Slip

Dolorblind | QQ

The painting Manu references

A map showing the four states in discussion: Vijayanagara, Deccan Sultanates, Mughal Empire, and Persian (Safavid) Empire

Annotated version with citations available here

[00:00:00] Niki: It's portrayed today as this big, large campaign, when really it was just like a bunch of men being petty.

[00:00:07] Manu Pillai: I mean, that's really sounds like contemporary politics, no? A bunch of men being really petty.

[00:00:16] Niki: Hello. Hello. My name is Niki Aggarwal and you're listening to Misrepresented, a podcast where we tell stories that highlight ways in which South Asia was erased from or skewed in the historical narrative. A few days ago, I have the pleasure of speaking with Manu Pillai about our most recent episode, the Last Hindu Empire.

Manu is so, so cool. He has written four books about South Asian history, and he's got this fantastic style of extreme historical accuracy and advanced analysis combined with wit and a tendency towards drama. Also, he's really adept at recentering women in narratives, where we are often erased. He's actually on a book tour right now for his latest work, False Allies, which is all about the subtle ways in which the Maharajahs rebelled and resisted the British Raj. Manu and I spoke for about an hour, so what you're going to hear is snippets from our conversation, as well as a couple of short clips from the original episode, for context. Speaking of context, just a reminder of what happened in the original episode, our story was centered on Rama Raya, the last major leader of the Vijayanagara empire. We followed him from his very first entry in the historical records all the way up to his death as an 80 year old man on the battlefields of Talikota. We talked about his role leading up to those events and his conflicts with the Deccan Sultanates. The second half of our episode was then about historiography and the ways in which the story of Rama Raya, Hampi and Vijayanagara got kind of skewed on purpose.

Okay. I think you're all caught up.

So the thing that kind of surprised me the most was learning that there had been this kind of mercenary culture. Rama Raya served for Golconda at the beginning of his career. Considering his lineage of his father, his grandfather, his great-grandfather having served in the Vijayanagara court, would it have raised eyebrows at all that he went to go serve in a sultanate?

[00:02:13] Manu Pillai: Obviously his having served somebody else, a political rival to the north, hadn't stood in the way of even getting into the Royal family. We don't often think about how borders were defined in that time. You know, it wasn't like there was a fence and, you know, people said, "okay this side is the Bahamani side and this side is the Vijayanagara side, and that's the border."

It's possible that even the physical frontier was not as well defined as it is today, which naturally means that even the political frontier perhaps was porous. I think you mentioned this in your podcast, that villages, districts, the forts that were there in a certain area, one season, it may be with the Bahmanis, one generation it might be with the Sultans, the next should be in the hands of Vijayanagara. Now the people who are based there, obviously, they can't, you know, sort of do a dance between these two empires constantly. Every season, it might change and they have to just deal with it. And therefore that means that they will be understanding even with the overlords that you don't penalize people under you simply because in a certain political phase, they ended up having to serve your rival or having to officially, uh, ally with the other side.

[00:03:13] Niki: So another thing I wanted to get your opinion on, about whether something was unusual, was Rama Raya's adoption of the Adil Shah.

Rama Raya's war games took a brief pause in 1557 when his son died. Rama Raya and his wife were distraught. Many noble men and statesmen traveled to Hampi to pay their respects, including, most surprisingly, one of the Deccan sultans, Ali. Ali showed up to the funeral ceremonies because he wanted to curry favor with Rama Raya. Ali was hoping that the two of them could team up against one of the other sultans. Rama Raya's wife was so touched that a former enemy could be so respectful that she ceremonially adopted him as her son. That's right. Rama Raya, effective leader of the Vijayanagara empire, was now, in name, the father of an Islamic sultan.

Like, how remarkable was that event and what did it really mean?

[00:04:18] Manu Pillai: It's us who now look at things from the prism of oh, Ali Adilshah was a Muslim. Oh wait, Rama Raya was a Hindu. This is extremely unusual that he adopted him as a son.

The fact of the matter is that it was a political ritual. It was not necessarily personal. And I don't think people at that time saw it as, as somehow, uh, personal either. It was obviously a signaling that they were now not just regular political allies, but much more deeply, uh, embedded in each other's political interests.

[00:04:46] Niki: So let's talk about the end of that relationship then. So the Adil Shah kind of came up with this flimsy excuse.

Ali was still technically Rama Raya's son. So he needed an excuse, however flimsy, to go to war with his dad. He sent an ambassador to Hampi with a ridiculous proposal. Rama Raya read it and immediately said no and dismissed the ambassador, but that was exactly what Ali wanted. It allowed him to say, oh wow, Rama Raya is being so unreasonable. I.e. he now had a cover story for declaring war.

Something that you had written in your book was other instances of sultans and other leaders coming up with however silly pretenses for invading, whether it was one king, trying to recover a debt from a merchant, someone else being spurned by a woman.

And I'm curious, who are these pretenses for? Like, these weren't democracies. They're not trying to get voters. So, why did they even need these cover stories?

[00:05:45] Manu Pillai: I don't think they needed voters, but I think it was one way of keeping political support among the elite warlords and the elite elements in the court, and sort of making sure that everybody was on board with the idea. Just as today people need excuses or reasons too, to validate what they're doing, to legitimize the upsetting of the status quo. I mean, look at what's happening in Ukraine with Russia and that kind of building up of a case on either side. And Russia's trying to build up a case to legitimize what it wants to do. People in the past, I suppose also also required such reasons.

[00:06:15] Niki: At this point, we transitioned to talking about the buildup to the final showdown between Rama Raya and the sultans. I decided to ask Manu for further context as to why the sultans were especially upset by the Vijayanagara troops destroying mosques in their territories.

You've made the point that at this point in time, violence was very ordinary. So what made this type of violence, extraordinary?

[00:06:42] Manu Pillai: Obviously this wasn't your village mosque. It wasn't some random mosque here and there. It was obviously buildings that had been constructed by the sultans to sort of burnish their own credentials, to sort of flaunt their own influence and their reach and their power and greatness and so on.

So when a mosque is destroyed that the king has built, its it's an affront to the king's position and power and throne and dignity.

[00:07:01] Niki: Let's dig deeper on the religious angle. You mentioned that the Persian Shah was a part of the decision-making to team up against Rama Raya. Can you elaborate on the relationship between the sultanates and the Persian Shah.

[00:07:15] Manu Pillai: Obviously the Shah of Iran is interested in what's happening in the Deccan because he has some kind of political slash strategic interest in the area. There was a lot of trade between that part of the world and the Deccan Sultanates. And for the north, it was the Mughals who are major rivals of the Persian empire, therefore, to have a zone or sphere of influence to the south of the Mughal empire gave him a sense that he had some kind of say in what was happening in the Indian subcontinent.

Now, the Persian Shah, he had no direct, uh, political power there, in a hard sense, but soft power, I suppose. But it mattered. For the Sultan, similarly, the Shah of Persia is a very convenient overlord, in the sense that he doesn't actually physically come and govern them. He doesn't physically have the resources to come and bully them in any way.

It's a kind of token relationship. It gives them legitimacy because the Shah of Iran is recognized as a superior power, and therefore by openly allying themselves with him and accepting vassal status under him, it's a way of also keeping the Mughals at bay. And this becomes particularly clear when the Mughals are starting to conquer the Deccan Sultanates. The Shah of Iran actually writes to the Mughal emperor saying that "why don't you leave them alone? We'll come to some settlement with Afghanistan, but leave the Deccan Sultanates alone." And therefore, the Shah of Iran, I suppose, you know, had an interest in the general welfare of the Deccan Sultanates, just as they needed him to supply some kind of ideological, political and, and ceremonial legitimacy. They also use the Shah when they needed him, but didn't necessarily always kowtow to everything he wanted.

[00:08:38] Niki: Here, Manu gave an example of when the Persian Shah wanted to solidify an allegiance with one of the sultans through a marital alliance, but the sultan refused and his daughter continued living in the Deccan.

We've covered why the individual sultanates wanted to take down Rama Raya. Questions that we've gotten from listeners were more about if they're trying to become powerful and they're always trying to expand their kingdoms, why not try to take over Vijayanagara? Why destroy Hampi and then just leave?

[00:09:09] Manu Pillai: There's a painting which shows the beheading of Rama Raya. There are people who are starting to sort of saw off Rama Raya's head. It's quite gory. And then you see an old man, which is the ?????, Pleading for Rama Raya's life, which means that the sultans themselves, much as they uh, you know, took over Hampi and sacked Hampi and so on, I think there was a bit of hesitation on upsetting the status quo all at once. Vijayanagara was defeated and one army and one conflict, but that doesn't mean the entire structure folded overnight. You know, there was still powerful laws in the countryside. The kingdom still had some kind of vitality, the empire survives for another 50, 60 years. It's not like Vijayanagara collapses when Hampi's taken. I have a suspicion that Rama Raya's brothers abandoning Hampi was the big mistake.

[00:09:53] Niki: Next in line to Rama Raya, were his two brothers, who were also on the battlefield. As soon as they learned of his death, they retreated to Hampi. Not to defend the city or its citizens. But instead, to grab the imprisoned boy king and as much gold and jewels as they could carry and run off to a summer palace down south. From there, they attempted to restore Vijayanagara rule. But having lost a substantial amount of their army, trading revenue, and geographical advantage, their version of Vijayanagara held just a fraction of its prior strength and influence.

[00:10:31] Manu Pillai: I think that was the mistake. Because, if you look at previous campaigns where Vijayanagara had been defeated, the armies would enter Vijaynagara territory. You will be able to buy them off. You'll be able to say, "okay, fine. You've made your point. Here's gold. Here's some territory as well, but you know, you go back to your kingdom and we'll just, stay over here."

And that always seems to have worked. But it's possible the sultans were expecting Rama Raya's brothers to sort of, uh, you know, pay them off for something. That didn't happen. It is possible that the capital city was engulfed already in chaos, which may be why Rama Raya's brothers did not have the capacity to restore order and then hold the city and continue.

Maybe the city was already out of their hands. Maybe looting and planting and rioting had already started. Which meant whatever troops they had with them, they just use that to gather up the gold and quickly, take off. But then if you look at how the Vijayanagara empire actually ends and how it sort of folds for good, that happens in the 17th century, as I said, a good 50, 60, 70 years later. And not because of the sultans necessarily. The Vijayanagara rulers directly controlled only a core area. The rest was in the hands of vassal lords, chieftains, and others who would've retained their capacity to fight. For a while, they continue sending tribute to Rama Raya's brothers.

Then the tribute becomes less frequent and every time Rama Raya's brothers and their heirs insist the tribute is then sent in. But each time you see the governor starting to test the equation, to see how much power the capital now has. And as they see the capital's power is fading, they start becoming stronger and stronger.

And then finally, the last Vijayanagara emperor doesn't even have a capital of his own. He lives as a guest in the territories of his own governors, moving around, no place to go by the end of it. And that was the end of that dynasty.

[00:12:06] Niki: This brings us to the end of the Vijayanagara empire and the end of my conversation with Manu, but not the end of the episode. You know how usually at this point I share a podcast recommendation? Well, today, instead of me telling you about a podcast you should listen to, I'm just going to let you listen directly to it.

Here's the trailer for season three of Shelter in Place.

[00:12:31] Laura Joyce Davis: Some days, all I want to do is escape. I'm not just talking about getting out of my house. I'm talking about standing in a cathedral of redwoods or the one time I saw the Northern lights. That feeling that I'm part of something bigger. Escape can be small too.

Like the checkout worker who knows me, even though we've never seen each other's faces. Or the friend who hugs me and won't let go. That kind of escape flips a switch. It reminds me that even when the world is on fire, there is also beauty and delight. I can let my guard down. For a moment, I'm home. Welcome to Shelter in Place, a podcast about embracing the journey in a world forever changed.

We spent season two on a pandemic Odyssey that brought us from one coast to the other. And back again. In season three, we're bringing you stories in search of home. What do I want to welcome back into my life? And what do I want to leave behind? We're not sure what home looks like anymore, but we know what we want from it.

I want to know that I belong here, not because of what I accomplished or earned, but because of who I am, I want a home where we don't pretend that our world isn't broken but we're creating beauty from that brokenness.

We're exploring how to be human in a way that feels expansive rather than exhausting. We're learning how to escape, not out of life, but into it.

Listen wherever you get podcasts or head to shelter in place podcast.org, to join us on this journey in search of home.

[00:14:17] Niki: That was Laura Joyce Davis, the host and producer of Shelter in Place. If you check out her show, let me know what you think. You can DM us on instagram@kahani.io or on Twitter at Kahani underscore IO. Or you can email me directly at niki@kahani.io. So many asynchronous communication options to take advantage of.

This episode was produced and hosted by me, Niki Aggarwal. And our sound engineer is Hamesha Harjani. Our guest was Manu Pillai. For details about the episode, a teacher's guide, all that good stuff, go check out our show notes or visit our website kahani.io/misrepresented.