Writing Self, Writing Empire: Chandar Bhan Brahman and the Cultural World of the Indo-Persian State Secretary

The Indo-Persian state secretary has occupied center stage in the emerging discourse on bureaucracy, administration and the political formation of the Mughal state. The status and role of the munsh? (the IndoPersian state secretary) within the Mughal bureaucratic structure in 17th and 18th century have formed the basis of recent historical analysis. Scholarship on the Indo-Persian munsh? have been informed by the efforts at historicizing his status as a scribe, an administrator, a diplomat, poet, commentator on aesthetics, elite correspondent and as an agent of the Empire.(1) Scholarly attention has focused on the role of the Mughal munsh?, yet the exalted status and the power of the elite state secretary was not unique to 17th and 18thcentury India. As Sunil Kumar has argued, the Persian knowing state secretary in early medieval India was immensely influential in the construction of the public image of the Khalaji and Tughluk sultans.(2) Thus the rise of the Indo-Persian state secretary within the imperial bureaucratic structure was part of a long and continuous political formation. However, the emergence of specific caste groups like the Brahmans and Kayasthas as service elites and scribe-craft as a profession involving the acquisition of Persian and the movement of the upper-caste Hindus in ever increasing numbers in the Indo-Persian Mughal court was certainly characteristic of 17th and 18th-century north India.(3)