The Greatest Mughal

We, in India, prefer to look at our history from religious glasses. Perhaps another lasting legacy of the Raj era. Infact, our understanding of our own history is largely guided by what the British wanted us to see. James Mill's communal compartmentalisation of Indian history into Hindu, Muslim and British India has continued even today, just that we are prudent enough to name them more secularly as Ancient, Medieval and Modern. Today, Akbar stands as one of the greatest kings who ever ruled in India, because of his religious tolerance. And, on same table, Aurangzeb is demonic, for obvious reasons. Is tolerance the factor for deciding a ruler's place in history or should merely be one of the factors ? If we dare to look beyond religious angle, understand and appreciate the socio-political scenario of the period, Aurangzeb stands taller than all other muslim rulers in India.

Aurangzeb. This name evokes more hatred today than any other name from history- largely due of desecration and destruction of temples, prominently Vishwanath Temple in Varanasi and Keshav Rai at Mathura. Historians as Romila Thapar, M.N. Roy etc., the so called Marxist historians, have given an equally plausible political reasoning for these temple destrcutions. Without getting into details and reasons for these destructions (also, no reason can be justifiable enough !!), it would be more enlightening to ponder whether Aurangzeb was a religious bigot and anti-Hindu.

Undoubtedly, he was a staunch sunni and tried to enforce shariat (as any staunch sunni ruler before him had done, be it Firuz Shah Tughluq, Sikander Lodi,etc). But was he intolerant? Evidence point to his being more 'tolerant' than his great grandfather, Akbar who would not allow non-sunnis into his Ibadat Khana at Fatehpur Sikri for the first few years and who drowned several ulemas for opposing his religious aspirations of becoming supreme in judicial matters. The benevolence of Akbar be viewed not in the sense of a muslim ruler's towards his non-muslim subject, but by an aspirant for Prophethood who sought following for his Din-i-Ilahi. As a military conquerer, Gondwana and Ahmadnagar conquests register him as a less than honourable foe. Contrast this with Aurangzeb who would not mince words.

Coming to the biggest blemish on Aurangzeb, I am not justifying his temple destructions but alternate reasons is worth looking into. Temples those days were points of assemblage, particularly famous ones as those at Varanasi and Mathura. Keshava Rai temple of Mathura was centre of jats in the region and destruction was preceeded by a peasant revolt in the region. For Vishwanath temple, B.N. Pande (former chairman of the Gandhi Darshan Samiti and former Governor of Orissa) as well as historian Gargi Chakravarty have narrated the Maharani of Kutch - episode that irked the emperor. But, as said, there is no justification for destroying a temple. But equally true is the fact that Aurangzeb was not anti-Hindu. The number of Hindu mansabdars actually went up in Aurangzeb's time to 33% in the fourth decade of his rule, from 24.5% under his father Shah Jahan. Two of the highest ranked generals in Aurangzeb's army, Raja Jaswant Singh and Raja Jai Singh, were Hindus. Other notable Hindu generals with mansab of two to five thousand soldiers were Raja Bhim Singh of Udaipur and Indra Singh. One wonders if Aurangzeb was hostile to Hindus, why would he position all these Hindus to high positions of authority, especially in the military, who could have mutinied against him. It is true that Aurangzeb promoted Sunni sect and gave incentives to converts, but this only reflects that he tried to lure people into conversion rather than force them. Infact, there were hardly any forced conversion (to the extent mentioned by many). Sword is powerful enough to wipe out civilisations, as was in the case of Egypt where mass conversion to Islam by force of sword ceased to evoke pride in Pyramids. And during his reign, Aurangzeb's power was unchallenged. And if some one feels, Hindus were ill-treated in war, please look at what Aurangzeb did to Shia states of Golconda and Bijapur. The truth remains that he couldn't enforce mass conversion because of the same reason that would have tempted him - he was staunch Sunni. The Quran prohibits any Muslim to impose his will on a non-Muslim by stating that "There is no compulsion in religion." (surah al-Baqarah 2:256). Aurangzeb spent nearly 27 years, from 1680 to 1707, in Deccan and interestingly, no prominent south Indian temple was broken.

Apart from temple destruction, another blemish on Aurangzeb is imposition of Jaziya, the religious tax on non-muslims. This must be seen in back drop of Hanaffiya jurisprudence of Abu Hanifa which permits non-muslims to reside in a muslim state upon payment of Jaziya. All others prescribe 'Islam or death'. Besides, Shariat is not so lop sided on non-muslims when it comes to taxation. It prescribes zakat (2.5% of savings) and ushr (10% of agricultural products) from all Muslims, who owned some wealth (beyond a certain minimum, called nisab) besides sadaqah, fitrah, and khums. None of these were collected from any non-Muslim. In his book Mughal Administration, Sir Jadunath Sarkar, foremost historian on the Mughal dynasty, mentions that during Aurangzeb's reign, nearly sixty-five types of taxes were abolished as they were not prescribed by Shariat, which resulted in a yearly revenue loss of fifty million rupees from the state treasury. The truth remains, an average Hindu paid less tax during Aurangzeb's reign than during Akbar's reign.

Aurangzeb's simplicity and piety is undoubted. Unlike his alcohol-and women-absorbed predecessors, he led an extremely simple life and followed Muslim precepts with his typical determination. He knitted haj caps and copied out the Quran throughout his life and sold these anonymously. He used the proceeds, and only these, to fund his modest resting place. He didn't draw any salary from royal treasury.

Only if he had no father to kill and no temples to destroy, Alamgir Aurangzeb would have gone down as perhaps the greatest ruler in the history of the world.