Free Speech in Mughal India: Dissent and Resistance in Poetic Expression
Freedom of speech and expression is a critical indicator of the health of any society and guarantee of such freedom is integral to democracy. Yet, does a legal or constitutional guarantee necessarily translate into lived experience? One of the ways to measure freedoms is to examine the treatment meted by the State to literary and cultural dissent and resistance. In this session, we examine the status of free speech and expression in Mughal India by focussing on the treatment of dissenting and irreverent poets. Though modern India positions herself as the world’s largest democracy guaranteeing to her citizens freedom of speech and expression, in practice her writers are fettered in multiple ways. In contrast, even at the pinnacle of the allegedly authoritarian Mughal rule, the plenitude of dissenting and irreverent literature produced suggests that, while applicable laws may have been illiberal, practice was rather free. Is a professedly secular democracy giving her writers a shorter licence to disagree than ostensibly intolerant monarchies of the past?
Date: 24 January 2023, 14:00
Venue: St Antony's College, 62 Woodstock Road OX2 6JF
Venue Details: Syndicate Room
Speaker: Saif Mahmood (Bonavero Institute, Oxford)
Organising department: Asian Studies Centre
Organisers: Imre Bangha (University of Oxford), Thiruni Kelegama (Oxford)
Organiser contact email address: asian@sant.ox.ac.uk
Part of: Modern South Asian Studies Seminar Series
Booking required?: Not required
Booking url: https://www.sant.ox.ac.uk/events/free-speech-mughal-india-dissent-and-resistance-poetic-expression
Audience: Public
Editor: Clare Salter