City of lakes and the worst industrial disaster in history — a Nawabi food culture built on keema and biryani, Bhimbetka's 30,000-year-old cave art, and the Sanchi Stupa that Ashoka built after his conversion
Bhopal (pop. 1.9 million), the capital of Madhya Pradesh, is a city of two contradictory identities: one of India's most liveable mid-sized cities (consistently in national liveability rankings) with a genuine lake culture (the Upper Lake/Bhopal Tal is one of India's largest artificial lakes, built in the 11th century) and a history of Nawabi refinement under the Bhopal State Nawabs (1723–1949), and simultaneously the site of the Bhopal Gas Tragedy of December 2–3, 1984 — the worst industrial accident in history, in which methyl isocyanate leaked from the Union Carbide India Limited pesticide…
Bhopal was founded in 1707 by Dost Mohammed Khan, an Afghan soldier who came to India with Aurangzeb's army and carved out a principality in the power vacuum following the Mughal collapse. The Bhopal Nawabs maintained a distinctive hybrid culture — the Nawabs were Sunni Muslim rulers over a predominantly Hindu population, and the integration of Hindu and Muslim art, architecture, and food that characterizes Bhopal's culture today reflects this hybrid history. The four consecutive Begums (female rulers) of Bhopal who ruled between 1819 and 1901 — Qudsia Begum, Sikandar Begum, Shah Jahan Begum,…