The broken sculptures inside the Qutub Minar complex at Mehrauli are not decorative remnants — they are what remains of a Rajput capital systematically destroyed. Sabya Sachi Ghosh begins here, with the original Tomar city and the violence that ended it, and reconstructs Delhi's history as a continuously inhabited place through sources — historical, epigraphic, and architectural — that complicate the dominant narratives.
The medieval period under the Sultanate is presented not as an era of civilisational contribution but as the darkest chapter in Delhi's long existence. The book dismantles, claim by claim, the framing that has allowed mass violence against the city's non-Muslim population to be minimised or absorbed into a broader story of cultural progress. Monuments become witnesses: the author reads each one as evidence of the epoch it represents, tracing the city from Sultanate to Mughal ascent, from Mughal decline and Maratha conquest to British capture, and finally to the arrest of Bahadur Shah II at Humayun's tomb.
This is a revisionist history in the precise sense — a systematic challenge to an established account, argued from sources rather than sentiment.
-:ABOUT THE BOOK:- It is not for nothing that the history of Delhi demands a rewriting. Few places have endured such sustained hardship over so many centuries as this city. The depredations suffered by the original inhabitants of the Tomar city were unprecedented, leaving behind only broken sculptures of a once-thriving Rajput capital, today scattered within the Qutub Minar complex at Mehrauli. Ironically, the Delhi Sultanate is often portrayed as having contributed to the betterment of Indian society in the 13 th -14 th centuries, with little or no acknowledgment of the lakhs of non- Muslims who were culled to lay the foundations and consolidate Islamist rule over a conquered land. This book dismantles a false narrative by reassessing the calamitous role of Islamic invaders and the devastation inflicted upon the hapless natives of Delhi and its surrounding region. The story of Delhi as a continuously inhabited city is reconstructed through historical and epigraphic sources. Its medieval phase, marked by the establishment of the Sultanate, is presented as the darkest chapter not only in the city's annals but in those of the subcontinent. This narrative is anchored in its monuments, which serve as witnesses to the epochs they represent. It also traces the Sultanate's decline, the rise of the Mughals, their comatose phase, the Maratha conquest, the British capture of the city, and finally the total annihilation of the Mughal dynasty following the arrest of Bahadur Shah II at Humayun's tomb
