Karnad’s Tughlaq: A Critique of Authoritarianism and Power

Abstract

Girish Karnad’s Tughlaq (1964) remains one of the most incisive political plays in modern Indian theatre, examining the transformation of Muhammad bin Tughlaq from an enlightened visionary into a tyrannical ruler. Set in fourteenth-century Delhi yet resonant with post-independence Indian anxieties, the play interrogates the tension between utopian idealism and political pragmatism. Karnad depicts the Sultan’s rational reforms—interfaith governance, administrative restructuring, and currency innovation—as collapsing under social resistance, bureaucratic mismanagement, and internal contradictions. As his authority weakens, Tughlaq resorts increasingly to coercion, punishment, and surveillance, initiating a descent into authoritarian control and psychological fragmentation. The study argues that Tughlaq reveals authoritarianism as emerging not solely from cruelty but from idealism pursued without empathy or awareness of material realities. Through an analysis of power, spectacle, opportunistic politics, and the Sultan’s deepening alienation, this paper demonstrates how Karnad constructs a political tragedy that retains powerful relevance to contemporary governmental dynamics.