Book review | 'Agnikaal': Different shades of medieval commander Malik Kafur

Beyond the confines of academia, there is not much in the public domain about the key historical figures of the mediaeval period. As new wave historiography is making progress in India, it is being made possible to revitalise the phases and characters which influenced the course of history. Against the backdrop, arrival of a new book “Agnikaal” by Yugal Joshi reassures of a new trend that is in search of a deeper historical inquiry about India’s past.

Born in a remote village in Uttarakhand, Yugal Joshi is a policymaker with a deep sense of language, storytelling and historical contexts. He has studied at IIT, Delhi University and National University of Singapore. Yugal Joshi, who has a keen interest in water, history and myths, has published several books so far, prominent among which is Singapore Water Story (translated into five languages). This is his first novel in Hindi.

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“Agnikaal” is a story about the famous mediaeval commander Malik Kafur, who was the deputy in the court of Allauddin Khilji. Kafur was made a eunuch and sold many times and later he reached Khilji’s court. He accomplished great feats. He protected Delhi from Mongol attacks, conquered the Deccan and conquered the kingdoms of Devagiri and Warangal and placed them at the feet of the Sultan. But his ambition later overwhelmed him and led to his downfall. There are many colours of life in this story and there is also an outpouring of human emotions.

Malik Kafur gets only a fleeting mention in the history books on mediaeval India. These books mention him as a military commander who successfully led the Khilji army to Deccan and South India and brought immense wealth to Sultan Alauddin Khilji from those kingdoms. Apart from that, the present generation (perhaps) knows him as a scheming bed partner of the Sultan, as portrayed by Sanjay Leela Bhansali in his controversial film Padmavat.

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But who was real Malik Kafur? Most of the history books are silent on his childhood and youth. We only know from non-confirmed sources that he was a eunuch and a slave purchased in thousand Dinars, hence the nickname Hazar Dinari. In historian Ziauddeen Barani’s book, his story begins in the Khilji harem when Alauddin first saw him and ‘was captivated by his beauty.’ Then, we read about his exploits against the barbaric Mongols and his hugely successful campaigns to Devagiri, Warangal, Halebid, and Madurai.

But his origins, his days of slavery, his astonishing rise in the hierarchies of a conservative Muslim sultanate, and his military exploits were never given much attention by mediaeval or modern historians and researchers. Literary critic Shafey Kidwai aptly reflects on it, “How Delhi Sultanate displaced traditional ruling elite and cultural and social traditions, how a foreign and alien culture was imposed, have never been appropriately written or researched.” Yugal Joshi’s novel “Agnikaal” interestingly fulfils this void through this enjoyable historical fiction.

The picture he paints through the journey of a handsome Gujarati Hindu boy, Manik, is a kaleidoscopic painting of the intricacies and mysteries of mediaeval times. The prejudices, perfidies, and machinations of the time are presented through an arduous journey of the protagonist across barren, cruel, insensitive, and dark corridors of human behaviour. As the title suggests, time is the villain, and against this potent villain, a brilliant young man, Manik, tries to remain sane and honest about his values but fails and transforms into Malik Kafur, a man possessed by his desire for power at any cost.

The author deserves to be commended for bringing out this transformation through the protagonist’s short yet sweet love story, his ordeal in the society of eunuchs and slave markets, his learning at Somnath, at the harem, in the royal palace and on the battlefield. The struggle between the pull of evil and the bond of good is poetically depicted through Manik, aka Malik Kafur’s interactions with other characters in the novel. And the spectrum is so broad!

On the pages of the book, the reader keeps moving from small shops of Somnath to a spice seller from Malabar, from horse trade to slave trade, from eunuchs to concubines, from the tyranny of Rana to atrocities of Khilji, from helpless palace princesses to princesses in exile, from love to lust, battlefields to market reforms, sacrifices to cruel murders, from Sufi Khankah to Kazis, and from North India to South India. This fast-paced novel brings a hair-raising account of the Sultanate’s history with a narrative worthy of the best of fiction.

The restlessness of the protagonist while moving from one phase of his eventful life to another is captured beautifully through his struggles with a slowly decaying inner voice and its louder yet materialistically successful worldly manifestations. From the first page, an unsettling curiosity, an unknown fear, and a debilitating helplessness grip the reader, as may have happened to the people living in sleepy villages and towns of peaceful India when Turk invasions grew in number and intensity in the thirteenth century. Every chapter is a tale of India’s persecuted and bruised human consciousness. Reading the novel transmits you to those times and exposes you to unsafe lanes of villages and towns of mediaeval India.

Read Agnikaal, even if you have not read a Hindi novel for ages that attempts to bring out the shrouded historical facts and shapes a balanced narrative on a period not very well studied and presented thus far. You won’t regret reading it. Read it for the novel’s narration and language; it’s simple, common Hindustani and meant to add value in understanding a very important phase of India with rare authenticity. Read it to enjoy the vivid portrayal of characters and events like any great OTT series. Most importantly, read it to have an honest account of those times in an immensely indulging historical fiction.

“Agnikaal” opens up a lesser known plot and should be of interest to different sets of readers. The book highly deserves to get a long shelf-life for its refreshingly original story and narration as well.

T_he author is a policy professional, columnist and writer with a special focus on South Asia. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views._

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