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Ira Mukhoty’s The Lion and the Lily: The Rise and Fall of Awadh, published by Aleph Book Company, is a narrative history of eighteenth-century Awadh that treats the begums of the Faizabad court as political actors rather than background figures. It places the region within shifting Mughal power, East India Company expansion and European rivalry, and it draws on Persian, English and French materials. Its most distinctive move is to rebuild the court through French archival and literary sources that have received less attention in accounts of the region.
What the book covers
The book’s subject is Awadh during the imperial transition of the eighteenth century and the colonial expansion that followed. Rana Safvi’s review in Scroll describes the book as a reconstruction of the court of Faizabad under Shuja-ud-Daulah, in which the political weight of the women around the nawab is given real attention. The review credits Mukhoty with presenting that court through what it calls “hitherto unstudied French sources,” set alongside Persian and English records.
Because the argument rests on a particular set of documents, it helps to separate three things: the book’s own argument, the reviewer’s reading of that argument, and the historical events that can be checked independently. The sections below keep those layers apart.
The women at the centre of the story
The book’s headline figures are the two begums named in its title and promotion. The table below lists the main people the sources place in the account, with the role each is described as having.
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| Figure | Role as described in the sources | Source for the description |
|---|---|---|
| Shuja-ud-Daulah | Nawab of Awadh; central figure in the account of the Faizabad court and regional power | Safvi review; French Institute profile |
| Nawab Begum | Wife of Safdar Jung and mother-in-law to Bahu Begum; politically consequential at the court | Safvi review |
| Bahu Begum (Ummat-ul-Zohra) | Prominent political actor; described as a force in Awadh politics and in conflict with British officials | Safvi review |
| Robert Clive, Warren Hastings, Richard Wellesley | East India Company figures listed in the book’s cast | French Institute profile (role in the narrative not stated there) |
| René Madec, Jean-Baptiste Gentil, Claude Martin, Antoine Polier | French adventurers and officials listed in the book’s cast | French Institute profile |
Nawab Begum
The review presents Nawab Begum as a woman whose standing at court made her politically consequential, and it places her as the wife of Safdar Jung and the mother-in-law of Bahu Begum. Kinship links of this kind shape who held authority in the court, so they are worth confirming against the book’s own genealogy before you rely on them in a citation.
Bahu Begum
Bahu Begum, also known as Ummat-ul-Zohra, is the review’s most detailed figure. The review describes her as a force in Awadh politics and discusses her conflict with British officials. Specific dates, the sequence of political events, and how her actions are read against British records are the points most in need of checking against the book or specialist scholarship. Treat any single biographical detail as provisional until you have seen it in the text.
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Why French sources change the picture
Most English-language accounts of late eighteenth-century northern India lean on British records: Company correspondence, military reports and the memoirs of officials. Mukhoty’s use of French materials offers a different documentary base. According to the review, the book draws on:
- the de Boigne family archives;
- the writings and atlas of Jean-Baptiste Gentil;
- Persian letters associated with Claude Martin, held in the British Library;
- period artwork.
Each source type reveals something different. French memoirs and correspondence show how Europeans with their own commercial and political interests in the region understood the courts they dealt with. Persian letters can show how the courts described themselves. English records show the Company’s own reading of events. None of these, on its own, settles a contested event, and the book’s strength lies in setting them against one another. A reader should ask, for any claim, which of these vantage points produced it.
Rank #3
Mukhoty’s argument about inevitability
In a 2026 interview with Indian Printer & Publisher, Mukhoty said: “My book is an attempt to unravel some of those myths – about the way the British takeover of India was somehow inevitable.” That is the author’s stated position. It is an argument about historiography: the book challenges the idea that British expansion was preordained, and it treats Awadh as a sovereign regional power with its own trajectory rather than a prelude to annexation.
The same interview gives her reason for focusing on women: “I have always been very interested in writing about Indian women, especially finding them their rightful place.” Readers should take both statements as the author describing her own project. Whether the book persuades on each point depends on the evidence it marshals, which is the part to test as you read.
Rank #4
Where the evidence is still open
Several claims around the book are not established enough to repeat as fact:
- Biographical details of Bahu Begum and Nawab Begum. Dates, kinship and political sequences come from the review’s account and should be checked in the book’s notes or in specialist scholarship.
- Interpretations of British records. How Company documents describe the begums is itself a historical reading, and it should be weighed against the French and Persian materials.
- Courtesans’ tax contributions. A 2024 festival report attributes a remark about the tax contributions of courtesans to a speaker and cites an essay by Veena Talwar Oldenburg. The remark is not verified here, and it should not be treated as a comparative statistic until the cited essay and archival records have been consulted.
No sales figures, readership data or present-day market statistics were found for the book, so this article makes no claims about its reach.
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- Awadh under the nawabs: Politics, culture, and communal relations, 1722-1856
- Product type: ABIS BOOK
- Brand: Manohar Publishers Distributors
Reading and buying the book
The publisher’s listing confirms Mukhoty as the author and Aleph Book Company as the publisher. It does not establish a particular edition, ISBN or current retail stock. Check the Aleph Book Company listing for those details before buying, and check the book’s notes when you need to verify a specific event, date or relationship.
For readers who want to follow up the French side of the story, the most productive starting point is the book’s own bibliography, since that is where the archives and works named in the review can be traced.
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