Manu S Pillai's 'Rebel Sultans' review: The Deccan from Khilji to Shivaji

A fine history shifts the reader's attention from the Shivaji/Aurangzeb template towards the other interesting and just as important men who helped define that region, says Aakar Patel

The Deccan is a sort of liminal space on the subcontinent. It is neither north nor fully south, though its name of course is derived from the Sanskrit word for south, dakshina. What was called Dakhan or Deccan was the area that began where Hindustan ended. And Hindustan ended at the border of the Narmada. The river cuts almost a horizontal line from the eastern edge of Madhya Pradesh through to Bharuch in southern Gujarat.

To the east of the Narmada is the tribal belt, which is hilly and was, then as it is now, peopled with communities that have