Meywa Jan Begum Fake Pregnancy Case | An Oriental Perspective

Hi Friends,

Sometime back Abhay had shared the case of Meywa Jan, one of Humayun's wives, who had faked her pregnancy for almost a year. Here is the link to that astounding tale:

When a Begum Faked Her Pregnancy

Today I am going to re-visit this tale from a different perspective, not that of a western translator, but that of a Indian. 


Introduction

A few days back, I came across this same tale from Gulbadan Begum's memoirs of Humayun, Ahval-i Humayun Badshah. The interesting point is that the memoirs had been translated into English by a Victorian lady, Annette Beveridge in 1902. The brief extract I came across was by an Indian Associate Professor of South Asian Civilizations at the Emory University, Atlanta. She was comparing the "original Persian manuscript" and the "English translation" and found the latter falling short on many counts.

According to her, the Victorian lady's limited knowledge of the Timurid-Mughal world flattened out its rich cultural nuances and reduced the memoirs to a flat rendition of events associated with early Mughal domestic life, as seen by Gulbadan Begum. The richness of the Persian language was lost in a literal translation, including the forced translation of Persian words that had rich historical associations and no equivalent English synonyms. Very often, even the characters, it seems, were viewed through the sensibilities of a western aristocratic colonialist, for whom only the west was civilized and the rest of the world uncivilized.

This associate professor took Meywa Jan's case as an illustration to show how Gulbadan Begum narrated an incident in her memoirs and how the tale sounds when translated literally into English by a Victorian lady. The episode is set in 1532, 2 years after the death of Babur, when Humayun is trying to retain and expand his father's territories in India.


The Curious Case of Meywa Jan Begum

The very first sentence in Gulbadan Begum's account of the case, as translated by Ms. Beveridge, is:

"My Lady Maham Begum had a great longing and desire to see a son of Humayun."

Note: Please refer to the earlier post by Abhay, whose link has been given at the beginning of this post, for the complete account of Meywa Jan. {Link}

In the Timurid-Mughal world, it was the duty of the younger wives to carry forward the lineage by begetting children and the responsibility of the senior women to advise the younger wives about such duties. Now, this may sound offensive to our modern sensibilities as, no doubt, it did to Ms. Beveridge with her western sensibility that a woman should be considered just a reproductive machine. (But, don't we all recognize this as a very Indian tradition?)

However, in the Timurid-Mughal world, the birth of a royal child meant the perpetuation of the family and empire. It was to this revered tradition of carrying forward the family lineage that Maham Begum was alluding to and expecting Meywa Jan to fulfill.This tradition was especially significant in the times of Babur and Humayun when the risk of disappearance of the family was a real risk. Babur faced constant threats from the Uzbeks in Central Asia and Humayun from the Afghans in Hindustan. Hence, multiple marriages and the birth of many children was crucial in those times. (The situation calmed down during Akbar's times, but the tradition of polygamy continued.)

It was in this context that Maham Begum wanted heirs for Humayun and, for that, she was constantly match making for him.

Now consider how Ms. Beveridge views the role of Maham Begum in this episode. She wrote another article on the life and writings of Gulbadan Begum in the introduction to her translation, in which she described Maham Begum as:

"Maham Begum was a clever woman, and both as wife and as widow, made herself felt in her home. Lady Rosebody [Gulbadan Begum] lifts the parda and shows us the Empress-mother busied in duties not often thus disclosed to the outside eye. In telling the story, which for the sake of its many special points we quote in full, she has no air of being indiscreet, and is, as may be seen, quite matter-of-fact."

Ms. Beveridge sees Maham Begum as only a "clever" (read shrewd) Empress-mother, who is trying her best to hook up her son with a woman who can produce the much-wanted heir. 

Note: Those who have seen the Jodha Akbar show on TV can understand the pressure that was on Akbar to produce an heir and his own desperation in this regard, because his life was constantly in danger from his relatives and enemies.

Maham Begum may very well be the archetypal mother from Pride and Prejudice who will go to any lengths to get her daughters married, according to Ms. Beveridge. But we, who come from the Indian subcontinent, (or even other parts of Middle East and South-East Asia) are well aware of older, wiser women who advise and guide the younger women in the (extended) family to preserve the family lineage and traditions. Gulbadan Begum most probably wished to project Maham Begum as an elder of the family with the wisdom of experience, status and authority to guide the younger women in upholding traditions. Maham Begum wasn't one of a kind, as described by Ms. Beveridge in this regard. She was simply one of many women who used their influence across intimate, personal circles as well as formal, authoritative circles to maintain and continue family customs.  

All women had a specific role to play. While younger women were expected to produce heirs, older women arranged marital alliances that would help establish links with other powerful dynasties and ensure support and protection for the the family in times of need. In this way, women were both inheritors and transmitters of traditions and played a vital role in preserving the Timurid-Mughal family over several centuries.

Another indication of a pro-Victorian tilt in Ms. Beveridge's work is her translation of Persian words that have no equivalent meanings in English. For instance, Ms. Beveridge uses the phrase "My Lady" for the Persian word "akam". Now, Ms. Beveridge understands that "aka" is a term of respect from a junior to a senior and that it also means "an elder brother". She doesn't seem to understand how to apply this word to a woman. So she translates it to "My Lady". Probably this translation sounded very romantic to her and suggested that the lady was of high status. But, Gulbadan Begum used the word "akam" with not only respect but also a lot of affection. Akam is very close to the usage of khanum or Begum. All these words indicate privilege, reverence and deference (esp with age). In other words, Gulbadan Begum was talking very affectionately and deferentially about Maham Begum as a close, elderly woman of the family rather than just respectfully about an Empress-mother.
{Taken from Humayun-Nama in English, by Beveridge, Pg-89/90}
 

Persian Text from Humayun-Nama depicting the incident:

This has been sourced from the Persian account of Humayun-Nama few lines before section-22a, and then between 22a and 22b. {Link}

 

The Crux of the Matter

Now I come to a moot point in the entire episode. 

In the previous blog post, readers raised the point that Meywa Jan had fooled the emperor and his mother for a year just so that she could enjoy attention and were aghast that she had not been punished. Now Ms. Beveridge has used the word "fraud" for the Persian word "havasak". Havasak is from havas and means desire or caprice. Ms. Beveridge seems to have viewed the word havasak "negatively", believing perhaps that the word was used to condemn Meywa Jan's act.

However, given the obsession with marriage and childbirth in the Timurid-Mughal family, as mentioned above, it is hardly surprising that Meywa Jan desperately wanted to believe in her own pregnancy. She wanted to be accepted as someone of consequence and not be relegated to the dusty corners of the harem. Gulbadan Begum didn't intend to project her act as deliberately fraudulent but as one that was marked by her dilemma and tension in preserving her position vis a vis fooling her husband, the emperor, and his family.


Conclusion

Today, there is a scientific term for this condition - hysterical pregnancy or pseudocyesis. In this condition, a woman genuinely believes she is pregnant and exhibits all the symptoms of pregnancy except that there is no fetus. This may be due to psychological factors. The symptoms may persist for years. When such a woman learns that she is not actually pregnant, she can go into severe depression and may need psychological support/therapy to recover.      

I don't claim that Meywa Jan was a victim of hysterical pregnancy. But I am willing to give her the benefit of doubt, especially because she was not likely punished, as mentioned in the comments in the previous post.{Link-1 Link-2} So people at that time may have realized that she had not meant to deceive but was in need of mental or emotional support.

Most of us rely on "English" translations of Persian Mughal chronicles. In such readings, we have to, however, remember that the cultural nuances of a great Indian /Asian empire may well be lost in translation due to lack of understanding or appreciation for the same by the translator.




This article has been posted under the Mughals(Akbar) and Jodha-Akbar section of this history BLOG.