India is perhaps the only country in the world where even the worst among the tyrants are defended by certain sections of the society. One such tyrant is Aurangzeb. Leftist historians and intellectuals have defended him for decades together and the latest entrant to this elite group appears to be HuffPost India, which has literally defended the tyrant.
The HuffPost article accepts the fact that Aurangzeb indeed imposed the oppressive jizya tax on non-Muslims, but also states that Hindu officials to positions of eminence in his court. In reality, non-Muslims didn’t have any rights in polity or administration. Non-Muslims were called as jimmies and they did not have any rights a Muslim had during the time of Aurangzeb.
Muslims did not have to pay land revenue tax. But non-Muslims had to pay a special land revenue oriented tax. They even had to pay war tax in order to take care of the soldiers in the Mughal army. Only Muslims could become a warrior. Non-Muslims were forbidden from riding a horse. The only position they could obtain in the Mughal army was that of a servant. Non-Muslims had to exhibit humility in both behavior and speech. Non-Muslims were forbidden from wearing fancy clothes. They were not allowed to carry weapons. In the court of law, the evidence provided by a Muslim citizen carried more weight than that provided by a non-Muslim
There were no Hindus in the upper levels of administration in the Mughal Empire. I think that the author has confused the likes of Jai Singh to be officials of the Mughal Empire. Jai Singh was the ruler of Amber and a Rajput king. His empire had been allies with Mughals since the time of Akbar. He was not an official directly in the service of the Mughal Empire. The few Hindu officials that the HuffPost author is speaking about were all similar to Jai Singh. They were independent rulers and allies with Mughals from the time of Akbar, who treated them with respect. They were not directly in the service of the Mughals.
However, Jai Singh too was insulted by Aurangzeb. Jai Singh’s son Ram Singh was held responsible in letting Shivaji Maharaj escape from Aurangzeb’s Agra fort and stripped of all his titles and estates, and banished to Assam. This probably was not known to the HuffPost writer.
Jai Singh himself was then sent to Deccan. Aurangzeb’s Deccan campaign ended in failure and Jai Singh was severely punished. There were a lot of generals responsible for the Deccan campaign but Jai Singh was the one who was punished the most. For the expenses of this campaign, the Rajput ruler had received only 3 million rupees from Aurangzeb, and had spent 10 million rupees from his own treasury and not a single paisa of this money was compensated by his ungrateful Mughal ally. Jai Singh was also removed from the court and Aurangzeb did not appoint a single Rajput to any administrative post afterwards. All the Rajput allies were away on military duty when Aurangzeb enforced a decree in 1669, imploring upon the Mughal governors to destroy the temples and other places of worship of non-Muslims.
The author in the HuffPost article claims that Aurangzeb did destroy temples during his reign, but the number was probably no more than a dozen. Even if what is said is true and even if Aurangzeb did not destroy more than a dozen temples, the point here is not how many temples were destroyed. Rather, the bigger question and the reason why Aurangzeb is a tyrant is WHICH all temples he destroyed?
The holiest place for Hindus is arguably Varanasi or Banaras or Kashi as it is known. The highlight of Kashi is the Kashi Vishwanath temple. In 1669, Aurangzeb issued the firman to destroy the Kashi Vishwanath temple and it was done subtly. Fortunately, the temple priests hid the linga deep inside the ground which was later used to reconstruct the temple in 1742. In the original site of the Kashi Vishwanath temple, now stands the Gyanvapi Masjid. Mathura is one more holy place to Hindus since it is believed to be the place where Lord Krishna was born. Aurangzeb destroyed the temple in 1669 which had been built by Veer Singh Bundela after he had obtained the then Emperor Jahangir’s permission.
The temple in Mathura had been built with the consent of the Mughals and the Bundelas had been allies of the Mughals. Aurangzeb’s act greatly infuriated the Bundelas. Prince Dara Shikoh, Aurangzeb’s eldest brother had gifted a stone to the temple, which was pulled down by Aurangzeb, along with the temple. Another famous temple that was destroyed by Aurangzeb was the Somnath temple in 1665. Somnath is believed to be among the 12 jyotirlingas of Lord Shiva and is a very holy place for Hindus. Not only did Aurangzeb destroy the temple but in 1702 he also declared that if Hindus ever worshiped over there, it would be permanently and completely destroyed.
It is not a question whether Aurangzeb destroyed just a dozen temples as the HuffPost author has claimed. The destruction of temples was not done at random. Any person who sees that the Kashi Vishwanath temple at Varanasi, Mathura temple, and Somnath temple were destroyed can easily guess that these were done strategically. Aurangzeb destroyed those temples which were considered to be the holiest by Hindus and that is the whole point why he is despised so much. Even if these three were the only temples destroyed by him, then also people would see him as a tyrant because these three were not ordinary sites. They were among the most sacred sites for Hindus.
Finally, the author says that Aurangzeb merely acted in line with the hallowed Mughal tradition of in-fighting, where brother didn’t hesitate in killing brother in battles of succession. I agree with the author on this Mughal “tradition” as he has put but again even in killing, there is a manner in which a person can be killed. The assassination of Dara Shikoh was brutal in every sense and the statement that Aurangzeb merely acted in the Mughal traditional way of brother killing brother can’t justify it.
After Dara Shikoh was betrayed and captured by Aurangzeb’s forces, he was brought to Delhi, placed on a filthy elephant and paraded through the streets in chains. He was insulted, mocked, and stoned in every street in Delhi. He was declared as an enemy of Islam and was assassinated by four of Aurangzeb’s henchmen, in front of his son Suleiman, who was frightened to see his father brutally killed in front of his own eyes.
HuffPost has conveniently ignored the brutality in which the Maratha ruler Sambhaji was killed in Delhi. Chhatrapati Sambhaji and his associate Kavi Kailash were captured after the Maratha forces were defeated by the Mughals in the Battle of Wai in 1687. The captured Sambhaji and Kavi Kalash were taken to Bahadurgad, where Aurangzeb humiliated them by parading them wearing clown’s clothes, and they were subjected to insults by the Mughal soldiers.
Aurangzeb ordered Sambhaji and Kavi Kalash to be tortured to death; the process took over a fortnight and included plucking out their eyes and tongue, pulling out their nails, and removing their skin. Sambhaji was finally killed on 11 March 1689, reportedly by tearing him apart from the front and back with wagh nakhe (metal “tiger claws”) and beheading with an axe at Tulapur on the banks of the Bhima River, near Pune. Some accounts say that the remains of Sambhaji were thrown in the river and others say that they were fed to dogs. Either way, that was inhuman.
HuffPost has mentioned Guru Tegh Bahadur’s martyrdom but has not mentioned the manner in which the great Sikh guru was executed. Guru Tegh Bahadur was tortured for many weeks while being asked to convert to Islam; he stood by his convictions and refused, he was then executed. The Sikh accounts state that the associates of the Guru were also tortured for refusing to convert, such as Bhai Mati Das was sawed into pieces and Bhai Dayal Das was thrown into a cauldron of boiling water, while Guru Tegh Bahadur was held inside a cage to watch his colleagues suffer. The Guru himself was beheaded in public on 11 November 1675.
Aurangzeb was not just a tyrant but was actually a tyrant of the highest order. HuffPost like many other liberal outlets is probably unaware of the fact that Aurangzeb was a tyrant of the highest order. There can’t be any justification for his acts and just because he loved music and just because he desired for mangoes on his deathbed don’t absolve him of his crimes. Aurangzeb was a tyrant and nothing can be used to justify his heinous crimes.
For further reading, the following books can be referred.
- Aavarana by SL Bhyrappa
- Maasir-I-Alamgiri by Saqi Mustad Khan. (English translation by Jadunath Sarkar)
- Hindu Temples-What Happened to Them by Sitaram Goel
- History of Aurangzib by Jadunath Sarkar