‘Travellers in the Golden Realm’ book review: Dispelling the colonial hangover

In her book, Travellers in the Golden Realm, Lubaaba Al-Azami mentions a mural in St Stephen’s Hall at London’s Palace of Westminster. The painting imagines the embassy of Sir Thomas Roe to the court of the Mughal Emperor Jahangir in 1615. Painted by William Rothenstein in 1927, the mural shows Roe holding a scroll while standing in front of Jahangir, who is seated on a throne amid courtiers, soldiers and attendants. Though Roe stands while Jahangir sits, the implication is clear: they are on an equal footing. It shows, in Roe’s stance and, in the fact that the only two servitors bowing deeply are behind Roe, not in front of Jahangir.

Compare this to a contemporary Mughal painting depicting Roe at Jahangir’s court: Jahangir investing a courtier with a robe of honour, watched by Roe, shows the English ambassador tucked away among the rank and file of the court. He is not the centre of attention; he is not the star of the show. The difference between the two depictions is stark.

In Travellers in the Golden Realm, Al-Azami shows how skewed is the common perception—created by centuries of erasure of the truth—that the English and India were on a level footing. This, as Al-Azami traces the evolution of English travellers to India, is shown to be far from the truth. Even the East India Company (EIC), of which this book almost comprises a history, ended up in India accidentally. Their primary target were the spice islands of the Far East; but since thick English broadcloth—about the only thing they could offer in exchange—had no market there, the EIC turned its gaze India-wards, from where it could source Indian calicos, much prized, to be sold in the Far East for the nutmeg, mace and cinnamon the English needed.

And yet, as Al-Azami shows, long before the EIC’s arrival in India, there had been other travellers too, making the long, arduous journey from England to India: Thomas Stephens, for instance, who arrived as part of a Jesuit mission during the reign of Akbar, and spent the rest of his life in India; or Ralph Fitch, the first Englishman to spend a considerable time travelling across India. There are well-known names here, such as Captain William Hawkins, and ‘the world’s first backpacker’ (as travel writer Ed Peters dubs him), Thomas Coryate. There are also lesser-known but equally interesting characters: John Mildenhall, for one, who called himself Elizabeth I’s ambassador without being anything of the sort; or the arrogant and peacocky William Norris, who wrecked an already doomed embassy to the court of Aurangzeb.