Identity Crisis in Girish Karnad's "Tughlaq"

Idealism and practicability, practicability and politics, politics and power-this underlines the major theme of Karnad's Tughlaq. Tughlaq is a man full of ambiguities as history terms him "the wisest fool" and Ratan Singh calls him an 'honest scoundrel'. Perhaps these two epithets summarize his character in a nutshell. The different actors around him appear as projections of the various aspects of his persona. The identities of the various people, his subjects, the objects around conglomerate to build a towering personality the play is centered upon. The first seven scenes have Tughlaq looking forward in anticipation. The latter six scenes has the Sultan looking back in regret. Therefore, the play structurally portrays the former and the latter selves facing each other- a mirror reflection. This is the theme the play exemplifies through the metamorphosis of the persona of a dreamer - self recognition and self-discovery.

The Guise Motif

The guise motif shadows forth the conflict between the mask and the man. The guise of Abbasid which Aziz adorns is an external projection of Tughlaq's guise. Tughlaq himself recognizes his reflection which is why he forgives Aziz. It points to "what he is in spite of self-knowledge and an intense desire for divine grace." As the play progresses, the distance between the mask and the man starts decreasing till they virtually become one, with Tughlaq's face to face encounter with Aziz.. There is complete self-realisation at this stage. This also marks the engulfing of the gap between the deep and the shallow scenes, so that Tughlaq encounters his other half. As Aziz relates the various stages in his life to Tughlaq, the incorrigible logic and indelible reason comes back to Tughlaq in all familiarity; which is why the Sultan retorts with undisputed familiarity:" Yes, that was a rather important stage." Structurally, the mixing of the deep and shallow scenes also bring together the Sultan's deep and shallow selves together where the significant and the trivial no longer separate itself from each other.. It demarginalizes all social hierarchies and inhibitions.

Aziz/Aazam

Aziz is perhaps the closest parallel to Tughlaq that is the most 'aziz' (lovable) to him. This is why the Sultan pardons him even though he makes a fool of the Sultan. Aazam is the innocent thief in Tughlaq aware of his own follies and foibles; and together the pair in the akara makara tradition pays a tribute to the epithet "the wisest fool". Aziz is an opportunist and never misses a chance to climb up the ladder. Aazam is not a perfect fool, but intellectually he is no match for Aziz. Even though he protests against Aziz, it is Aziz who always wins. Aziz exclaims to Aazam that his logic is "a bit too subtle" for him (153). And Aazam acknowledges the same:" You are a clever man...I know, I am a fool" (198). Aziz is precisely that attribute of Tughlaq that wants to inflict injury and punish the person for getting afflicted by the injury, through his inscrutable logic and reasoning.

AZIZ. What's the point in raping for sheer lust? That's a mug's game. First one
must have power, the authority to rape! Then everything takes on meaning. (197)

AZIZ. One should be able to rob a man and then stay there to punish him for
getting robbed. That's called "class"-that's being a real king! (198)

AZIZ. But since Your Majesty came to the throne, I have been your most devout
servant. I have studied every order, followed every instruction, considered every
measure of Your Majesty's with the greatest attention. I insist I am Your
Majesty's true disciple. (216)

The comic pair Aazam and Aziz has also proved to be an effective tool to reflect the conflict in the Sultan's mind. The conflict goes on increasing towards the end. He eventually becomes Mad Muhammad as his traits leave one by one and is left only with a sense of hollowness and the inevitability of death. There is one aspect in which Aazam dominates over Aziz with respect to Tughlaq; that is in his pessimism. Aazam is often pessimistic about everything with the feeling that the end is around the corner and Aziz terms him as "a hopeless case.". Likewise, Tughlaq always contemplates suicide. Towards the end (197), both Muhammad and Aazam are fed up of life. There is a touch of regret in the voices of both. Aziz does note lose hope and always has a strong survival instinct. He too possesses idealism, an idealism that doe not manifest itself. He is also scientific and logical in his philosophy like Tughlaq:"No man is free of crime. Only if he commits a crime will his virtue be recognized."

Najib/Barani

Najib/Barani point to the dialectic pair honest/scoundrel. Barani is a man of integrity, and Najib is practical without scruples. Najib embraces Islam with the wish of bringing the kingdom of heaven on earth, but realizes that it is not possible. Therefore, he has decided to seize the present moment. At the same time, Najeeb also foregrounds the politician in Tughlaq, and Barani, the historian. There is definitely a historian in Tughlaq in that he wants to make history, rebuild history and become history.
He describes to his courtier Shihabuddin his "hopes of building a new future for India."
MUHAMMAD. ...one day, I shall build my own history like this, brick by
brick. (194)

MUHAMMAD. I have something to give, something to touch which may open the
eyes of history but I have to do. (198)

MUHAMMAD. History is ours to play with -ours now.

However, the politician dominates over the historian; idealism and practicability do not walk hand-in-hand. The end to history is achieved by erroneous political means. The act of prayer that is the holiest to Tughlaq is polluted by him, when he utilizes the same to slay his father and brother. In order to build a secular empire, he favours the Hindus more and practices pseudo-secularism in the process. What is ironical is that instead of blurring the distinctions between the two communities, he constantly reminds them of the same through his pronounced partiality to the Hindus. The abolishment of the Jiziya tax is an advantage to the Hindus; however it scars the sentiments of the Muslims as it goes against the basic tenets of the Quran. His move to attribute to copper coins, the same value as silver dinars acts against himself as each Hindu household renders itself into a mint for producing counterfeit copper currency. His move to develop his Kingdom into a liberal land remains a castle in the air as people are oppressed like never before. Aparna Dharwadkar tells us how Barani describes in the Tarikh-i-Firoz Shahi, the move from Delhi to Daulatabad as disastrous, as it destroyed the flourishing Islamic capital of Delhi and cost thousands of Muslim lives. Most of the uprooted journey died during the journey. And all of this, just to showcase how a Muslim ruler chose a Hindu capital. With the death of Najib, Tughlaq is left at indecision, and his condition is worsened with the death of Aazam. Aziz and Barani are irreconcilable. complementary aspects and with their pronounced departure life comes to a standstill. Bhasavaraj.S. Naikar asserts how "most of the problems encountered by Tughlaq are the result of his ability to reconcile the polarities of his own nature and the tension between dream and reality."
Tughlaq rightly asserts that Najeeb is more loyal to the throne, than Tughlaq the man. Najib is politics minus all inhibitions, which is why he tells Barani:" Courage, honest and justice! My dear Barani, we are dealing with a political problem."(158)For Barani principles are a priority and he is more loyal to Tughlaq, the man.

Sheikh-Imamuddin

Sheikh-Imamuddin is the exemplar of the emperor's ideal religious self that he wishes to project. Somewhere, at the core of Tughlaq, religion is very dear to him. Nevertheless, it proves to be only a paradigm which he does not live up to. Sheikh-Imamuddin epitomizes this ideal, which is why the both look very much like each other but have very little in common. One cannot fail to comprehend the conviction in his voice:" Do you think Parricide is a little thing? And fratricide? And the pollution of prayer?(137)There is credibility in his tone when he opines that he had wanted every act in his kingdom to be a prayer, every prayer to become a further step in knowledge, every step to lead them nearer to God. Tragically, the act of prayer that is his shrine is desecrated by himself as he pollutes the act by murdering his father and brother at it.

MUHAMMAD. I have never denied the word of God Shiekhsahib, because it is
my bread and drink. I need it most when the surrounding void pushes itself into
my soul and starts putting out every light burning there. (14)

Shihab-ud-din and Ratansingh

Shihab-ud-din and Ratansingh portray that part of Tughlaq which deceives himself or treats the other as an "adopted half" Shihab-ud-din points to that aspect that is loyal to Tughlaq, the man and it takes a lot by the others to persuade him, the main being Ratansingh who takes him to the meeting. The scene is reminiscent of the convincing of Brutus in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. Paradoxically, Ratansingh betrays Shihab-ud-din.
Shihab-ud-din is all innocence and it takes Tughlaq a savage act to kill him. With the death of Shihab-ud-din, dies all the innocence in Tughlaq. Ratansingh conspires against Shihab-ud-din for political means, like Tughlaq deceives himself for political glory.

Young Man/Old Man

The young man and the old man symbolize Tughlaq in the first half and latter half respectively. The young man is fresh, full of aspirations and energy. At the beginning of scene eight, we find the young man waiting for day-break when the old man exclaims that the night does not seem so long when you stop waiting for the day-break. The young man waits because he has dreams and the old man does not because he is marred by disillusionment. He is overcome by death, decay and stagnation. He retorts how it is "hard to breathe in this eagle nest."(192)On the entry of Muhammad, the young man fails to recognize him because at that young age, there is no self- realisation. It is only when he traverses life that the old man reaches self-discovery. And tells the young man:" Shut up, fool. It's the Sultan."
The Sultan recognizes his youth in the young man and declares that his is an age "when you think that you can clasp the whole world in your palm like a rare diamond." One must note how the young man is cautious and begs the Sultan to not go too near to the edge of the fort as it is a very steep fall. The young man is cautious, as he has so much to gain; the old man is not as he has nothing to lose.

Subjective and Objective

There are two sides to the Sultan- the subjective and objective. The subjective is manifest in his philosophizing speeches especially on pg.155 and pg.194.

I look at the Pleiades and I think of Ibn-ul-Mottaz who thought it was an ostrich
egg and Dur-rumma who thought it was a swallow. And then I want to go back into
their poetry and sink myself in their words.... Let's pray till our bodies melt and
our blood turns into air....Let's be the light and cover the earth with greenery.

The torch, the gate, the fort and the sky-all melted and flowed in my blood-stream
with the darkness of the night. The moment shed its symbols, its questions and
answers, and stood naked and calm where the stars throbbed in my veins. I was the
earth, was the grass, was the smoke, was the sky.

His objective self is more manifest in the metaphors of the symbol of chess and the kingdom. Tughlaq himself declares:" My kingdom is what I am-torn into pieces by visions whose validity I can't deny." Both the kingdom and subjects are reflections of his state of being. The persona of Tughlaq is best described by the metaphor of chess. A chess player must be intelligent and know how to make his moves. For Tughlaq, his whole life is chess, and the men associated with him are like pawns on a chess board who are nothing but puppets. There is no mercy to the opponent and they are shunned off mercilessly. The attack is not direct, but devious. He makes use of his own associations to kill his enemies. He persistently tries to solve problems on the chess board, his chess board being his kingdom. However, often we find him playing with himself and defeating himself in the process. His idealism kills his practicability and his practical nature annihilates his idealism.

When Tughlaq refers to Ain-ul-Mulk as "my fellow champion in chess", he refers to the only intellectual match for him. Barani, he says, is interested in only playing with the shadows of the dead; and Najib is too busy to breathe life into the pawns of chess.

Towards the end of the play, there is death, decay, disillusionment and stagnation. There are riots, murders and mugging without any control. Barani is perplexed at his own words that are capable of violence. The only attribute of Tughlaq that remains with him towards the end, Barani, is tired like the Sultan and wants to retire.
At the end of the play, Tughlaq senses the irreversible damnation of his soul, because consciously or unconsciously he had attempted to transform himself into another God. He is warned by Shiekh Imam-ud-din that he attempted to become omnipotent disregarding the Quran. His is a sin worse than polytheism (the only unpardonable sin in Islam), in that he attempted to become another God, and the Sheikh warns him against it. His last attempt to come to terms with himself is evocative of the last scene in Marlowe's Dr Faustus, when he reminded of the inevitable truth by the muezzin's call:

Ashahado La Elaha Illilah
Ashahado La Elaha Illilah
(I testify there is no God other than Allah
I testify there is no God other than Allah)

Ashahado Anna Muhammadur Rasool Illah
Ashahado Anna Muhammadur Rasool Illah

(I testify that Muhammad is his messenger
I testify that Muhammad is his messenger)

...Allahu Akbar,Allahu Akbar
(Allah is the greatest of all, Allah is the greatest of all)

Here, though the prayer call refers to Prophet Muhammad, it also reminds the Sultan of himself, of his spiritual obligation .As he is "awakened" by the call, he is thrown into a fit of existential amnesia as he is reminded of the nothingness of his being.