[edit]
Pre-Mughal era[edit]
Agra has two histories: one of the ancient city on the east, or left, bank of the river Yamuna, going back so far as to be lost in the legends of Krishna and Mahabharata and reestablished by Sikandar Khan Lodi in 1504–1505; the other of the modern city, founded by Akbar in 1558, on the right bank of the river which is associated with the Mughals, and known throughout the world as the city of the Taj. Of ancient Agra little now remains except few traces of the foundations. It was a place of importance under various Hindu dynasties previous to the Muslim invasions of India, but its history is unclear, and possess little historical interest. The 17th century chronicler named Abdullah said it was a village before the reign of Sikandar Lodi. The king of Mathura had used the Agra fort as a jail. The degradation in the status of the site was a result of the destruction brought upon it by Mahmud of Ghazni. Masud Sa'd Salman claims to have been there when Mahmud assaulted Agra, claiming the Raja Japal surrendered after seeing a nightmare. Mahmud however proceeds to pillage the city.
The Tomb of Mariam-uz-Zamani in Sikandra was originally built as a Baradari by Sultan Sikandar Khan Lodi in 1495.
Agra's period of historical importance began during Sikandar Lodi's reign. In 1504–1505, Sultan Sikandar Lodi (reigned 1489–1517), the Afghan ruler of the Delhi Sultanate, rebuilt Agra and made it the seat of government. Sikandar Lodi appointed a commission which inspected and surveyed both sides of the Yamuna from Delhi to Etawah and finally chose a place on the left bank, or the east side of the Yamuna, as the site for the city. Agra on the left bank of the Yamuna grew into a large flourishing town with royal presence, officials, merchants, scholars, theologians and artists. The city became one of the most important centres of Islamic learning in India. The sultan founded the village of Sikandra in the northern suburbs of the city and built there a Baradari of red sandstone in 1495, which was converted into a tomb by Jahangir, and now stands as the Tomb of Mariam-uz-Zamani, Akbar's empress.
After the Sultan's death in 1517, the city passed on to his son, Sultan Ibrahim Lodi (reigned 1517–26). He ruled his sultanate from Agra until he was defeated and killed by Mughal Emperor Babur in the First battle of Panipat, fought in 1526.
Mughal era[edit]
The Town and Fort of Agra, an engraving
The golden age of the city began with the Mughals. Agra was the foremost city of the subcontinent and the capital of the Mughal Empire until 1658, when Aurangzeb shifted the entire court to Delhi.
Babur (reigned 1526–30), the founder of the Mughal dynasty, acquired Agra after defeating the Lodis and the Tomaras of Gwalior in the First Battle of Panipat in 1526. Babur's connection with Agra began immediately after the battle of Panipat. He sent forward his son Humayun, who occupied the town without opposition. The Raja of Gwalior, slain at Panipat, had left his family and the heads of his clan at Agra. In gratitude to Humayun, who treated them magnanimously, and protected them from plunder, they presented to him a quantity of jewels and precious stones as a token of homage. Among these was the famous diamond Koh-i-nur. Babur went on to lay out the first formal Mughal garden in India, the Aram Bagh (or Garden of Relaxation) on the banks of the river Yamuna. Babur was determined to establish the seat of his government at Agra, but was almost dissuaded by the desolate appearance of the region, as clear from this quote from his memoir Baburnama:
It always appears to me, that one of the chief defects of Hindustan is the want of artificial watercourses. I had intended, wherever I might fix my residence, to construct water-wheels, to produce an artificial stream, and to lay out an elegant and regularly planned pleasure ground. Shortly after coming to Agra I passed the Jumna with this object in view, and examined the country to pitch upon a fit spot for a garden. The whole was so ugly and detestable that I repassed the river quite repulsed and disgusted. In consequence of the want of beauty and of the disagreeable aspect of the country, I gave up my intention of making a charbagh (garden house); but as no better situation presented itself near Agra, I was finally compelled to make the best of this same spot.... In every corner I planted suitable gardens, in every garden I sowed roses and narcissus regularly, and in beds corresponding to each other. We were annoyed by three things in Hindustan; one was its heat, another the strong winds, and the third its dust. Baths were the means of removing all three inconveniences.— Babur, Baburnama
Very few vestiges remain of Babur's city, of his fruit and flower gardens, palaces, baths, tanks, wells and watercourses. The remnants of Babur's Charbagh can be seen today at Aram Bagh, on the east side of Yamuna. Babur was followed by his son Humayun (reigned 1530–40 and 1555–56), but he was completely defeated at Kanauj in 1539, just nine years after his ascension, by Sher Shah Suri, an Afghan nobleman, who had submitted to Babur, but revolted against his son. In this brief interruption in Mughal rule between 1540 and 1556, Sher Shah Suri, established the short lived Sur Empire, and the region was eventually reconquered by Akbar in the Second Battle of Panipat in 1556.
Under Akbar (reigned 1556–1605), and followed by his grandson Shah Jahan, Agra was immortalised in the history of the world. Akbar built the modern city of Agra on the right bank of Yamuna, where the majority of its part still lies. He converted the city into a great centre of political, cultural and economic importance, connecting it with the various parts of his vast empire. Akbar raised the towering ramparts of the Agra Fort, besides making Agra a centre for learning, arts, commerce, and religion. Akbar also built a new capital city of Fatehpur Sikri, around 35 km from Agra. The new capital city was later abandoned. Before his death, Agra had become probably one of the biggest cities in the east, with huge amounts of trade and commerce happening through its bazaars. The English traveller Ralph Fitch who visited Agra in September 1585 in the life-time of Akbar, writes about the town:
Agra is a very great city, and populous, built with stone, having fair and large streets with a fair river running by it . . . . Agra and Fatehpur Sikri are two very great cities, either of them much greater than London, and very populous. Between Agra and Fatehpur are twelve miles (kos in reality) and all the way is a market of victuals and other things as full as though a man were still in a town, and so many people as if a man were in a market.
These impressions of Fitch are corroborated by another European traveller, William Finch, who remarked about Agra:
It is spacious, large, populous beyond measure, that you can hardly pass the street . . . .
Agra continued to expand and flourish during Akbar's successor Jahangir's reign as he wrote in his autobiography Tuzuk-e-Jahangiri:
The habitable part of Agra extends on both sides of the river. On its west side, which has the greater population, its circumference is seven kos, and its breadth is one kos. The circumference of the inhabited part on the other side of the river, the side towards the east, is 21⁄2 kos, its length being one kos and its breadth half a kos. But in the number of its buildings it is equal to several cities of Iraq, Khurasan and Trans-Oxiana put together. Many persons have erected buildings of three or four storeys in it. The mass of the people is so great that moving about in the lanes and bazars is difficult.
Akbar's successor Jahangir (reigned 1605–27) had a love of flora and fauna and laid many gardens inside the Red Fort. Akbar's mausoleum at Sikandra was completed during Jahangir's reign. The Jahangiri Mahal in Agra fort and the tomb of Itmad-ud-daulah were also constructed during the reign of Jahangir. Jahangir loved Lahore and Kashmir more than Agra, but the latter continued to be the first city of the realm. It was, however, Shah Jahan (reigned 1628–58) whose building activity raised Agra to the pinnacle of its glory. Shah Jahan, known for his keen interest in architecture, gave Agra its most prized monument, the Taj Mahal. Built in loving memory of his wife Mumtaz Mahal, the mausoleum was completed in 1653. The Jama Masjid and several other notable buildings like the Diwan-i-Am, the Diwan-i-Khas, the Moti Masjid, etc., inside the fort were planned and executed under his orders.
Shah Jahan later shifted the capital to Shahjahanabad (now known as Delhi) in the year 1648, followed by his son Aurangzeb (reigned 1658–1707) moving the entire court to Delhi in 1658. With this Agra began rapidly declining. Nevertheless, the cultural and strategic importance of Agra remained unaffected and in official correspondence it continued to be referred to as the second capital of the empire.
Later periods[edit]
See also: Decline of the Mughal Empire
Agra, Main Street, c. 1858 Map of the city, 1911 Map of the city, c. 1914
The decline of the Mughal empire caused the emergence of several regional kingdoms, and in the late 18th century the control of the city fell successively to the Jats, the Marathas, the Mughals, the ruler of Gwalior, and finally the British East India Company. The Hindu Jats of Bharatpur waged many wars against the Mughal Empire and in the 17th and 18th century carried out numerous campaigns in Mughal territories. The Jats under Maharaja Suraj Mal conquered Agra on 12 June 1761, after a month-long siege culminating in the Mughals surrendering to the Jat army. After this victory, the Jats melted the silver doors of the Taj Mahal. Agra remained under Jat control until 1774, when the Mughal Commander Mirza Najaf Khan recaptured it. 11 years after the Mughals reclaimed Agra, the city was conquered in 1785 by another post-Mughal Empire power, the Marathas, before falling into the hands of the British East India Company in 1803 after the Second Anglo-Maratha War. In the years 1834–1836, Agra was the capital of the short-lived Presidency of Agra, administered by a Governor. It was then the capital of the North-Western Province from 1836 to 1858, governed by a Lieutenant-Governor. Agra was one of the centres of the Indian rebellion of 1857.
During the Indian rebellion of 1857, when East India Company rule across many parts of India was threatened, the news of the mutiny at Meerut reached Agra on 14 May. On 30 May some companies of the 44th and 67th Native Infantry sent to Mathura to bring in the treasury mutinied and carried off the treasury to the rebels in Delhi. With the fear of the rebellion spreading to Agra as well, the rest of these native infantry battalions, which were part of the garrison at Agra, were successfully disarmed by the British on 31 May. However, when the Gwalior contingent mutinied on 15 June, all other native units followed. On 2 July the rebel force of the Nimach and Nasirabad contingents reached Fatehpur Sikri. Fearing advance of the mutineers to Agra, some 6000 Europeans and associated people moved into the Agra Fort for safety on 3 July. On 5 July, the British force stationed there attempted to attack an approaching force of Mutineers, but was defeated, and the British retreated back into the fort. The Lieutenant-Governor, J.R. Colvin, died there, and was later buried in front of the Diwan-i-am. The mutineers, however, moved over to Delhi, it being a more important attraction for the rebels. Despite an uprising by a mob and extreme disorder in the city, the British managed to restore partial order by 8 July. Delhi, in turn, fell to the British in September, following which an infantry brigade led by Brigadier Edward Greathed arrived in Agra on 11 October without any opposition from rebels. But shortly after their arrival another force of mutineers attacked the brigade by surprise, but was defeated and routed. This minor victory for the British was named the Battle of Agra. It is to be said that, the uprising in Agra was relatively minor compared to Delhi, Jhansi, Meerut and other major rebellious cities and regions. After this British rule was again secured, and the British Raj ruled the city till the independence of India in 1947. The capital of the North Western Provinces was shifted from Agra to Allahabad in 1858. Gradually, Agra declined to the position of a mere provincial town, and its prosperity declined:
But in the economy of the administration of British India Agra is nothing more than a district town; its size, proportions and manifold activities have come down to its present requirements, and continued life in this city does not come above the average of that monotonous muffasil life in India which has been so often and so vividly described by many gifted Anglo-Indian writers. Agra has become of late years a large railway centre, and its commercial prosperity seems to be reviving.— Agra by 1892, as described by S.C. Mukerji, Traveller's Guide to Agra, pp 55-56Agra's role in the Indian Independence movement is not well documented. However, in the years between the mutiny and independence Agra was a major centre of Hindi and Urdu journalism.[citation needed] Paliwal park(formerly Hewitt park) in Agra is named after S.K.D Paliwal, who brought out the Hindi daily Sainik.
Post Independence and Mughal legacy[edit]
Post India's independence, Agra has been a part of Uttar Pradesh and has gradually developed into an industrial city, with a significant contribution to Uttar Pradesh's economy. The city is now a popular tourist destination and hosts tourists from across the world. The Taj Mahal and Agra Fort received UNESCO World Heritage Sites status in 1983. The Taj Mahal witnesses tourists, photographers, historians and archaeologists in massive numbers all around the year. The Taj Mahal has become a symbol of India.[better source needed] Post Independence, Taj Mahal has been visited by world leaders like US Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower (1959), Bill Clinton (2000), and Donald Trump (2020). Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom had visited Taj Mahal in 1961 on her India visit. Taj Mahal has also been visited by Russian President Vladimir Putin (1999), Chinese President Hu Jintao (2006), Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu (2018) and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (2018). Agra is the birthplace of the now extinct religion known as Din-i-Ilahi, which was founded by Akbar and also of the Radhaswami Faith,[citation needed] which has around two million followers worldwide. Agra is included on both the Golden Triangle tourist circuit, along with Delhi and Jaipur, as well as the Uttar Pradesh Heritage Arc, a tourist circuit of Uttar Pradesh, along with Lucknow and Varanasi.
