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Monumental Matters: The Power, Subjectivity, and Space of India's Mughal Architecture
Built in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, India’s Mughal monuments—including majestic forts, mosques, palaces, and tombs, such as the Taj Mahal—are world renowned for their grandeur and association with the Mughals, the powerful Islamic empire that once ruled most of the subcontinent. In Monumental Matters , Santhi Kavuri-Bauer focuses on the prominent role of Mughal architecture in the construction and contestation of the Indian national landscape. She examines the representation and eventual preservation of the monuments, from their disrepair in the colonial past to their present status as protected heritage sites. Drawing on theories of power, subjectivity, and space, Kavuri-Bauer’s interdisciplinary analysis encompasses Urdu poetry, British landscape painting, imperial archaeological surveys, Indian Muslim identity, and British tourism, as well as postcolonial nation building, World Heritage designations, and conservation mandates. Since Independence, the state has attempted to construct a narrative of Mughal monuments as symbols of a unified, secular nation. Yet modern-day sectarian violence at these sites continues to suggest that India’s Mughal monuments remain the transformative spaces—of social ordering, identity formation, and national reinvention—that they have been for centuries.
- GenresHistory
232 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 2011
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 6, 2026
"Before taking office as viceroy, Curzon came to strongly believe in India’s importance to the vitality of the British Empire and its mastery of the world. As he argued in the preface to Problems of the Far East, India was “the true fulcrum of Asiatic dominion.” Behind this statement was also his belief in the good the British could do in this part of the world: “The best hope of salvation for the old and moribund in Asia, the wisest lessons for the emancipated and new, are still to be derived from the ascendancy of British character, and under the shelter, where so required, of British dominion.” For Curzon the viceroy, these convictions translated into a modernizing mission. No longer “a kind of living museum of the European past,” India would be reformed in the image of the European present, replete with industry, schools, railroad tracks, telegraph wires, museums, and monuments. The modernization of India was the greatest gift the British could bestow on this country, and Curzon’s restoration of Mughal monuments, in this context, can be read as his desire to banish the darkness of the past into the confines of their stones, so that British power and its progress could move unimpeded everywhere else.
[...] First, he explained to his audience that the British were the only people in India capable of such a service. He based his claim on Indian shortcomings: Indians, by themselves, had neither the resources to protect their historical structures nor an understanding of the importance of this practice. He told his audience that during his tours, he had observed “a local and ignorant population, who see only in an ancient building the means of inexpensively raising a modern one for their own convenience.” In light of these conditions, Curzon argued that the British, as the more enlightened people, had to assume the “peculiar responsibility” of preserving India’s monuments. Curzon elaborated on this racial division by citing Indian communalism and the impassioned antipathy the Hindu and Muslim communities each had for the other’s architectural spaces. The British, on the other hand, were “better fitted to guard, with a dispassionate and impartial zeal, the relics of different ages of sometimes antagonistic beliefs, than might be the descendants of the warring races or votaries of the rival creeds.” To support this claim he asked his audience to view the visible scars left by “oriental” religious fervor:
“When the Brahmans went to Ellora, they hacked away the features of all seated Buddhas... When Kutub-ud-din commenced, and Altamsh continued, the majestic mosque that flanks the Kutub Minar, it was with the spoil of Hindu temples that they reared the fabric... When we admire his [Aurungzeb’s] great mosque with its tapering minarets, which are the chief feature of the river front at Benares, how many of us remember that he tore down the holy Hindu temple of Vishveshwar to furnish the material and to supply the site? ... These successive changes, while they may have reflected little more than a despot’s caprice were yet inimical both to the completion and to the continuous existence of architectural fabrics.”
Having described the dire circumstances of Indian historical architecture, Curzon turned back to the need for a uniquely British disposition, defined by rationality and tasteful appreciation. It was at this point that Curzon combined Burgess’s and Cole’s projects to outline how the ASI [Archeological Survey of India] might teach the native population how to appreciate the past and at the same time order the monumental spaces rationally. Their scientific disposition and eye for the beautiful would thus usher the British past the pretensions of religious and local knowledge and gain them admit-tance to a monument’s universal value: “Viewed from this standpoint, the rock temple of the Brahmans stands on precisely the same footing as the Buddhist Vihara, and the Muhammadan Musjid as the Christian Cathedral.” Curzon’s speech invited the audience to admire not just the monuments of India but also itself within this space — empowered and just. The vision of the enlightened British ruler casting out the shadows of “religious fanaticism, of restless vanity, [and] of dynastic and personal pride” became the trope of Curzon’s imperial program and the constant refrain of his speeches both in regard to monument preservation and the preservation of British rule in India."
Informative and an interesting and relevant topic, but suffers from trying to cover a lot of time in little space
[...] First, he explained to his audience that the British were the only people in India capable of such a service. He based his claim on Indian shortcomings: Indians, by themselves, had neither the resources to protect their historical structures nor an understanding of the importance of this practice. He told his audience that during his tours, he had observed “a local and ignorant population, who see only in an ancient building the means of inexpensively raising a modern one for their own convenience.” In light of these conditions, Curzon argued that the British, as the more enlightened people, had to assume the “peculiar responsibility” of preserving India’s monuments. Curzon elaborated on this racial division by citing Indian communalism and the impassioned antipathy the Hindu and Muslim communities each had for the other’s architectural spaces. The British, on the other hand, were “better fitted to guard, with a dispassionate and impartial zeal, the relics of different ages of sometimes antagonistic beliefs, than might be the descendants of the warring races or votaries of the rival creeds.” To support this claim he asked his audience to view the visible scars left by “oriental” religious fervor:
“When the Brahmans went to Ellora, they hacked away the features of all seated Buddhas... When Kutub-ud-din commenced, and Altamsh continued, the majestic mosque that flanks the Kutub Minar, it was with the spoil of Hindu temples that they reared the fabric... When we admire his [Aurungzeb’s] great mosque with its tapering minarets, which are the chief feature of the river front at Benares, how many of us remember that he tore down the holy Hindu temple of Vishveshwar to furnish the material and to supply the site? ... These successive changes, while they may have reflected little more than a despot’s caprice were yet inimical both to the completion and to the continuous existence of architectural fabrics.”
Having described the dire circumstances of Indian historical architecture, Curzon turned back to the need for a uniquely British disposition, defined by rationality and tasteful appreciation. It was at this point that Curzon combined Burgess’s and Cole’s projects to outline how the ASI [Archeological Survey of India] might teach the native population how to appreciate the past and at the same time order the monumental spaces rationally. Their scientific disposition and eye for the beautiful would thus usher the British past the pretensions of religious and local knowledge and gain them admit-tance to a monument’s universal value: “Viewed from this standpoint, the rock temple of the Brahmans stands on precisely the same footing as the Buddhist Vihara, and the Muhammadan Musjid as the Christian Cathedral.” Curzon’s speech invited the audience to admire not just the monuments of India but also itself within this space — empowered and just. The vision of the enlightened British ruler casting out the shadows of “religious fanaticism, of restless vanity, [and] of dynastic and personal pride” became the trope of Curzon’s imperial program and the constant refrain of his speeches both in regard to monument preservation and the preservation of British rule in India."
Informative and an interesting and relevant topic, but suffers from trying to cover a lot of time in little space
November 2, 2017
Compelling argument on why monuments really matter through prose, poetry, artists, conservation- you name it, she persuades you that all these support the debate on the existence and importance of these structures as interactive spaces, than just pedestal(ised) antiquities.
Moreover there is a underline feature that the trained eye can discern to indicate why our society is as fractured as it is today yet holding together and what a historic structures' bygone narrative loaded with regional input has done to this.
Each chapter builds upon the previous not dwelling at all on individual perspective and till you reach the last one, the scope of background study from early artisan paintings to a relevant political science discourse makes a full circle, all while keeping the monument at the help of spatial and preservation discussion.
I bet she must have a lot still untold in terms of material collected and evidence unwarranted.
Moreover there is a underline feature that the trained eye can discern to indicate why our society is as fractured as it is today yet holding together and what a historic structures' bygone narrative loaded with regional input has done to this.
Each chapter builds upon the previous not dwelling at all on individual perspective and till you reach the last one, the scope of background study from early artisan paintings to a relevant political science discourse makes a full circle, all while keeping the monument at the help of spatial and preservation discussion.
I bet she must have a lot still untold in terms of material collected and evidence unwarranted.
December 6, 2013
Excellent work on political usages of Mughal monuments in India from the 18th century until today. Always worth checking how politicians employ culture in order to convince people of whatever they wish to convince them. Kavuri-Bauer analyses this well. In addition, she clearly loves the monuments she is discussing and is always happy to see when the monuments fight back - that is, refuse to be used and subvert the image created for them.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews