DARA SHUKOH – THE FAKIR AND THE THRONE OF THORNS By AMIT RANJAN

Overshadowed for centuries by the reign of Aurangzeb, Dara has largely disappeared from mainstream historical memory. Through a richly layered narrative drawing from Mughal chronicles, Sufi traditions, Bhakti poetry and European travel accounts, Ranjan restores the prince to the centre of India’s cultural and political imagination.

At the heart of the book lies a compelling historical question: What might the subcontinent have become had Dara Shukoh, not Aurangzeb, inherited the Mughal empire?

A scholar of comparative religion and a devoted student of Sufism, Dara believed that spiritual truth transcended religious boundaries. He translated the Upanishads into Persian, engaged deeply with Hindu and Islamic philosophy, and sought what he called the meeting point of two oceans, an intellectual and spiritual synthesis between traditions.

But Dara Shukoh is also the story of political betrayal and imperial violence. Defeated by Aurangzeb in the brutal Mughal war of succession, Dara was paraded through Delhi in chains before being executed in 1659, a moment Ranjan presents as not merely dynastic defeat, but the silencing of a cosmopolitan imagination.

Blending literary storytelling with historical scholarship, the book reimagines a lost India shaped by poetry, philosophy and intellectual openness.

About the Author

Amit Ranjan is a writer, poet and scholar, and a three-time Fulbright scholar. He is the author of John Lang: Wanderer of Hindoostan and the poetry collections Find Me Leonard Cohen, I’m Almost Thirty and The Knot of Juggernaut. Educated at St Stephen’s College and JNU, he has worked as a journalist, playwright, actor and academic.