From Delhi to Palam
By
Tipu Salman Makhdoom
(Translated from Punjabi)
1803
The year 1803 was a strange, disquieting year in the annals of
history. In Europe, Napoleon was relentlessly waging war against the British,
while across a vast ocean, the US Supreme Court, in the landmark case of
"Marbury v. Madison," asserted a profound new power: the right of
courts to invalidate any government law that violated the Constitution.
This was the same year that Delhi's Red Fort stood cloaked in sorrow. It was a monument to weakness, age, and utter helplessness. Its grand walls and magnificent minarets, once the epitome of imperial splendor, seemed dull and lifeless, even under the fierce, bright sunshine of the autumn months. The Marathas, having lost their final war to the British, had surrendered the Emperor of Hindustan to the Company Bahadur. Now, the emperor's royal stipend would be paid by the very same people who had brought his empire to its knees. Upon receiving this grim news, Shah Alam had turned to his chief eunuch, Zamurrud, and asked her to recount the tale from the great book, Siyasatnama, by the Seljuk Prime Minister Nizam al-Mulk Tusi. It was the story of Umar ibn al-Layth, who, after losing the battle of Balkh, simply said, "In the morning I was a ruler, and by evening, a captive."
