Even though Aurangzeb's name has been removed from school textbooks and road signs several times, the story of his prejudice and cruelty lives on. history may be cruel to father-usurping fratricides, and he must have had a major PR issue even in his own day. However, is the popular perception of the Mughals based on historical facts or is it a parody of our own prejudices?
In her new book, Aurangzeb: The Man and the Myth, historian Audrey Truschke of Rutgers university revisits the historical record and context to challenge many assumptions and unveil a nuanced character who is at times merciless and controlled. A political beast with intriguing and unsettling parallels to the powerful, whether from the 17th or 21st centuries.
Among the despised monarchs of india, aurangzeb has a unique and uncoveted position. Aurangzeb is widely viewed as a heartless Islamist tyrant who hated everything about india, particularly Hindus, even by people who do not agree with the bjp and similar Hindu nationalist organizations. Many people in Pakistan, on the other side of the border, also support the idea of a terrible aurangzeb who is even to blame for the current problems in South Asia. As Pakistani dramatist shahid Nadeem recently stated: "When aurangzeb defeated [his brother] Dara Shikoh, seeds of Partition were sown."
If so many people did not agree with such unrealistic recommendations, they would be absurd. The opinions of Jawaharlal Nehru, a founding father of modern india who did not like aurangzeb, are similar to those of the Pakistani dramatist. Nehru criticized aurangzeb as "a bigot and an austere puritan" and detailed his alleged shortcomings in his 1946 book Discovery of India. The sixth Mughal ruler was criticized by him as a dangerous archaic figure who "put back the clock" and ultimately brought down the Mughal empire.
Declaring aurangzeb too Muslim to be a successful indian monarch was arguably Nehru's most damaging blow: "The Mughal Empire began to break up when Aurungzeb began to oppose [the syncretism of earlier Mughal rulers] and suppress it and to function more as a Moslem than an indian ruler." Nehru believed that Aurangzeb's commitment to islam made it impossible for him to govern India. Nehru's criticism of aurangzeb as a terrible ruler who was dangerously devout was hardly unique.
Many of Nehru's colleagues shared these opinions, such as Jadunath Sarkar, the leading historian of aurangzeb in the 20th century. The Mughals had long been criticized by british colonial intellectuals for a variety of reasons, such as being tyrannical, effeminate, and Muslim. In 1772, Alexander Dow said that "the faith of Mahommed is peculiarly calculated for despotism; and it is one of the greatest causes which must fix forever the duration of that species of government in the East" in a study of Mughal rule.
British dominion over india was the obvious answer for the british to such a long-standing issue. Many people accepted the preceding portions of colonial reasoning without question, but indian independence leaders resisted this last step. Textbooks and the media spread these views to the general public, and the colonial belief that aurangzeb was a despot motivated by religious fanaticism has been ingested and repeated by numerous generations. Based on very few evidence, several pundits have propagated the story of the terrible, prejudiced aurangzeb over the ages. The public's perception of aurangzeb is still tainted by several myths, including as the claims that he slaughtered millions of Hindus and demolished hundreds of temples.
Although some academics have tried, typically in ill faith, to offer an apparent basis for such lofty tales, none of these widely held "facts" is substantiated by historical data. However, skewed interpretations of selective instances chosen with the overt intention of bolstering an inevitable censure of aurangzeb have been more prevalent than bald-faced lying. For example, critics claim that aurangzeb demolished several temples, but they fail to mention that he also gave Brahmins land and stipends and issued other directives safeguarding Hindu shrines.
They criticize him for limiting holi celebrations without pointing out that he also stifled Eid and Muharram celebrations. They completely ignored the fact that aurangzeb hired more Hindus for his administration than any previous Mughal emperor and sought advice from Hindu ascetics on health-related issues.
These less well-known but historically significant facets of Aurangzeb's reign cannot be reconciled with the false perception of this monarch as being motivated by hatred against religion. No one would argue that aurangzeb was perfect, of course. It is easy to pinpoint individual aurangzeb behaviors that fall short of contemporary democratic, egalitarian, and human rights norms. Because aurangzeb reigned in a pre-modern world of kingdoms and empires, his beliefs on state power, warfare, and other topics were shaped by the environment and era in which he lived. The goal of studying history is a very other matter.
To explain people's actions and effects, historians try to understand them on their own terms as products of certain eras and locations. We don't have to like the people we study, and we don't have to exonerate them of any wrongdoing. However, we make an effort to postpone judgment long enough for the aurangzeb myth to recede into the background and make way for a more complex and gripping tale to be presented.
Among the most popular governmental measures aurangzeb employed to instill morality in Mughal india were prohibitions and limitations. Alcohol, opium, prostitution, gambling, incendiary theological publications, and public religious festival celebrations were among the vices that aurangzeb attempted to restrict or outlaw at various stages throughout his rule. Moral laws were enforced by censors (muhtasibs), who were chosen by the ulama in each city. One of Aurangzeb's most notable policy failures during his rule was his attempt to curb alcohol usage throughout his kingdom.
In Aurangzeb's india, alcohol use was widespread. Asad Khan (chief vizier from 1676 to 1707) and other government ministers were "fond of nothing more than hot spirits with which they make themselves drunk every day if they can get it," according to William Norris, an english envoy to Aurangzeb's court in the early 18th century. As a result, Norris sent Asad Khan some booze and fancy glasses to drink the "strong waters" in an attempt to sway him.
Although aurangzeb himself abstained from drinking, he was aware that few of his imperial commanders did the same. Aurangzeb allegedly said angrily that only two individuals in all of Hindustan did not drink: himself and his head qazi, Abdul Wahhab, according to Niccoli Manucci, who revealed his penchant for gossip and exaggeration. Manucci, on the other hand, revealed to his readers: "But with respect to Abd-ul-wahhab [Aurangzeb] was in error, for I myself sent him every day a bottle of spirits (vino), which he drank in secret so that the king could not find it out."
Scholars like Katherine Schofield have corrected the widely held belief that aurangzeb outlawed music across his empire, but the public is still unaware of this fact (Aurangzeb only outlawed specific kinds of music within his own court). Even more intriguing is the fact that aurangzeb did not forbid sarcastic poetry, which was a common form at the period.
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