Bernier: a doctor with a difference

Detail

The European wave before Bernier

• The Portuguese reached India around c. 1500. Soon after came a stream of European writing on Indian customs and religion.
• The Jesuit Roberto Nobili went one step further — he translated Indian texts into European languages.
• The best-known early Portuguese writer was Duarte Barbosa. He wrote a detailed account of trade and society in south India.
• After 1600, the numbers grew. Dutch, English and French travellers now came in large numbers.
• Jean-Baptiste Tavernier — a French jeweller. He made at least six visits to India. He was fascinated by trading conditions, and kept comparing India with Iran and the Ottoman empire.
• Manucci — an Italian doctor. He never went back to Europe. He settled down in India for good.
• Pelsaert — a Dutchman of the early 17th century. He was shocked by Indian poverty. He called India "the home of stark want and the dwelling place of bitter woe". He blamed the state's heavy extraction from peasants, which left them with scarcely dry bread.

Who Bernier was

• François Bernier was not only a doctor. He was also a political philosopher and a historian. That mix is why the chapter calls him "a doctor with a difference".
• He was in India for twelve years, 1656–68.
• He was physician to Dara Shukoh, the eldest son of Shah Jahan.
• Later he became the intellectual and scientist companion of Danishmand Khan, an Armenian noble at the Mughal court.
• He was born at Joué in the Loire, France, and studied medicine at the University of Montpellier [2].
• Before India he travelled to Syria and Palestine (1654), lived a year in Cairo, and boarded a ship to the port of Surat on India's west coast only after learning that travel to Gondar (in present-day Ethiopia) was unsafe [2].
• In 1664 he travelled with Aurangzeb to Kashmir — "commonly called the paradise of India". He was most likely the first European to visit that province [2].

Note: the Library of Congress gives his Indian stay as 1658 to 1669, still "some 12 years" [2]. NCERT gives 1656–68. Use the NCERT dates in the exam.

What he lived through

• His master Dara Shukoh was the heir apparent. When Shah Jahan fell seriously ill in 1657, a war of succession broke out among his four sons — Dara Shikoh, Shah Shuja, Aurangzeb and Murad Bakhsh [3].
• Dara was beaten by Aurangzeb at the Battle of Samugarh, 29 May 1658. Dara's army of about 60,000 was bigger, but Aurangzeb's men were more experienced. The battle turned when Dara got down from his elephant and his troops thought he was dead [3].
• The Battle of Deorai (12–14 April 1659) confirmed Aurangzeb's hold on the throne [3].
• Dara was captured, tried for apostasy from Islam, and executed on Aurangzeb's orders in August 1659 [3].
• So Bernier wrote as an eyewitness of the civil war of 1656–59 [2]. His patron lost; the winner's India is what he then described.

His programme of writing

• Bernier's method was constant comparison — Mughal India set against Europe, point by point.
• He dedicated his major work to Louis XIV, king of France.
• His other writings were framed as letters to influential officials. One long letter went to Jean-Baptiste Colbert, finance minister to Louis XIV; such letters form part of Travels in the Mogul Empire [2].
• The aim was practical: influence policy-makers in Europe.
• Result: India appears as Europe's binary inverse — the exact opposite of Europe.
• The differences are ordered hierarchically, that is, arranged in a ladder.
• India is always placed lower than Europe.

• Virtually everything he shows is bleak.

• The chapter warns plainly that his picture is not always accurate. Read him as opinion shaped by a purpose, not as a neutral record.

Why Bernier mattered so much: print

• His book Travels in the Mughal Empire was published in France in 1670–71.
• The original French title was Histoire de la dernière révolution des états du Grand Mogol, published at Paris, 1670–71 [2].
• Within five years it was translated into English, Dutch, German and Italian.
• By 1725 it had been reprinted eight times in French.
• By 1684 it had been printed three times in English.
• Compare this with Arabic and Persian accounts of India. They circulated as manuscripts (hand-copied), and were generally not published before 1800.
• Printing is the difference. A printed book is cheap, identical in every copy, and spreads fast. A manuscript reaches a few readers.
• So Bernier's bleak India became the European image of India — not because it was the truest account, but because it was the most widely printed one.

Prelims Hooks

• François Bernier — French doctor, political philosopher and historian; in India 1656–68 (twelve years).
• He was physician to Dara Shukoh, eldest son of Shah Jahan.
• He later served Danishmand Khan, an Armenian noble at the Mughal court.
• Bernier dedicated his major work to Louis XIV of France; one of his letters was addressed to Colbert, Louis XIV's finance minister [2].
• Travels in the Mughal Empire was published in France, 1670–71; French original title Histoire de la dernière révolution des états du Grand Mogol, Paris [2].
• Translated into English, Dutch, German and Italian within five years; eight French editions by 1725; three English printings by 1684.
• Arabic and Persian travel accounts circulated as manuscripts and were generally unpublished before 1800.
• Bernier studied medicine at the University of Montpellier and entered India through the port of Surat [2].
• In 1664 he went with Aurangzeb to Kashmir, probably the first European to do so [2].
• Tavernier = French jeweller, at least six visits; Manucci = Italian doctor who never returned; Pelsaert = Dutch, "home of stark want"; Barbosa = Portuguese, south Indian trade and society; Roberto Nobili = Jesuit who translated Indian texts.

Mains Points

• Bernier's India is a constructed image, not a mirror. He wrote to advise European policy-makers, so he built India as Europe's binary opposite and ranked it below Europe. Any GS-I use of his account must first state this bias, then use his detail.
• Print versus manuscript decided whose India Europe believed. Bernier ran through eight French editions by 1725 while Persian and Arabic accounts stayed hand-copied and unpublished till 1800. Circulation technology, not accuracy, shaped the European idea of India — a direct link to later colonial arguments about Oriental despotism and crown ownership of land.
• Eyewitness value is real and should not be thrown away. He lived through the 1657–59 succession war [3], travelled to Kashmir with Aurangzeb in 1664 [2], and served inside two elite households. He gives close-up detail on court, crafts, towns and peasants that no Indian chronicle of the time gives in the same way.
• Read him beside Pelsaert and Tavernier. All three foreign observers report peasant poverty and state extraction. The agreement strengthens the point, but all three were outsiders measuring India against Europe — so the poverty is best treated as reported, not proved.