Aurangzeb: The most hated man in India

Book Review

Boon Name: Aurangzeb: The Man and the Myth

Author: Audrey Truschke

Hardcover: 216 pages

Publisher: Penguin Random House India (10 February 2017)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0670089818

ISBN-13: 978-0670089819

Package Dimensions: 20.2 x 12.8 x 2.6 cm

By Daanish Bin Nabi

daanishnabi@gmail.com

The two Muslim kings of subcontinent - Sultan Alauddin Khalji and Emperor Aurangzeb - have remained shred in controversy since last few decades. The controversy is about whether they were bigots or pious rulers. Dissecting this myth between bigotry and piousness, comes the lucid account “Aurangzeb: The Man and the Myth” by scholar and assistant professor of South Asian history Audrey Truschke.

The book unmasks many aspect of Aurangzeb Alamgir who ruled for 49 years over 150 million people. The author tells us since Aurangzeb was a prince, his life was nothing short of a tumult storm. When Shah Jahan took ill, a brutal war ensued between the four sons of Shah Jahan for Delhi’s throne. It was Aurangzeb who emerged victorious by killing two of his brothers while third one was exiled. He also imprisoned his aged father Shah Jahan, who spent his last seven and half years at Delhi’s majestic Red Fort under house arrest. 

“Aurangzeb: The Man and the Myth” has talked in detail about the accession to Mughal throne soon after the Shah Jahan. The wars between Dara Shukoh, Shah Shuja, Murad and Aurangzeb (four sons of Shah Jahan) led to thousands of death in two years before Aurangzeb’s coronation took place. 

Truschke writes that these personal brutal experiences - which Aurungzeb faced during his early life as emperor - made him realise the importance of justice (adl); which he tried to peruse throughout his rule of 49 years. However, he was brutal in his conduct whenever he felt threat from anyone to the mighty Mughal Empire. He even did not leave his relatives in the pursuit of saving the Empire.

Alamgir: The bigot

The author writes that the current versions of Aurangzeb are more fiction than reality. She argues that over the centuries many commentators have spread the myth of the evil and bigoted Aurangzeb on the basis of shockingly thin evidences. Through her scholarly work, Truschke proves that ideas like the last Mughal Emperor destroyed thousands of temples and massacred millions of Hindus are nothing but myth as none of these facts is supported by historical evidences.

Alamgir and Hindus

Writing about the Emperor’s Hindu penchants, she writes, that he always consulted a Hindu ascetics on health issues. She argues that Aurangzeb had more Hindus in his administration than his Mughal predecessors.

Quoting figures, Truschke writes that under the great Akbar, Hindu constituted 22.5 percent of all Mughal nobles. This percentage hardly saw spikes during the reign of either Emperor Jehangir or Emperor Shah Jahan.

However, writes the author, under Aurangzeb, Hindu participation increased at all levels. There was an increase of 50 percent. The Hindus rose to 31.6 percent of the Mughal nobility in the Mughal state during the reign of Aurangzeb. Thus breaking the myth that Aurangzeb was a Muslim zealot and slaughtered Hindus on a large scale.

“Aurangzeb: The Man and the Myth” talks about a Hindu astrologer Ishvardasa’s views about the Alamgir. In 1663, Ishvardasa wrote in Sanskrit that Aurangzeb is righteous (dharmya) and that the tax policies were lawful (vidhvivat).

Alamgir and temples

The book has chronicled in detail about the myth that thousands of temples were destroyed by Aurangzeb. Truschke writes that Hindu and Jain temples dotted the landscape of Mughal Empire and these places were entitled to Mughal state protection. She argues that there are numerous gaping holes in the proposition that Aurangzeb razed temples because he hated Hindus. The last emperor of undivided India, had thousands of Hindu temples within his domains.

Quoting Richard Eaton, the leading authority on the subject (destruction of temples in India), Truschke writes that the number of confirmed temple destructions during Aurangzeb’s rule were just over a dozen, with fewer tied to Alamgir’s direct command. She argues the other few temples that were brought down by the Aurangzeb were sought to punish political missteps by temple associates. Aurangzeb’s point that: ‘Kings represent God on earth and are thus obliged to ensure peace among religious communities.’

An interesting story about Alamgir’s early acts as an emperor has been detailed in “Aurangzeb: The Man and the Myth”. The story goes like this: During the early days Alamgir issued an imperial order (farman) to local Mughal officials at Benares (present day Banaras). Truschke writes that it directed them to halt any interference in the affairs of local temples. This farman is in backdrop of when Alamgir had learned that some Hindu residents of Benares have been harassed including a group of Brahimns who were in charge of ancient temples there.

Truschke writes that the Emperor then ordered his officials that: “You must see that nobody unlawfully disturbs the Brahmins or other Hindus so that they might remain in their traditional place and pray for the continuance of the Empire.”

She argues that the ending of the 1659 Benares farman became a common refrain in the many imperial commands penned by Aurangzeb that protected the temples and their caretakers.

Truschke has meticulously penned down about how many acres of land were distributed by the Emperor for temple building and how Aurangzeb encouraged stipends to Hindu scholars and other Hindu priests for their research and scholar work to be carried out in preaching Hinduism.

Alamgir: The administrator

Audrey Truschke argues that Aurangzeb was an astute administrator when it came to administer his vast Empire. The book sheds light on how Aurangzeb made lasting contribution to the interpretation and exercise of legal codes and was renowned by people of all religious groups for his justice.

To oversee his vast empire which required a vast bureaucratic apparatus, Aurangzeb kept apprised of happenings with the aid of prolific news bulletins (akhbarat) that arrived daily and reported on princely courts.

An able writer, Alamgir used to write letters to his sons, grandsons, noble, and other government officials about various aspects of his kingdom. Truschke writes that he regularly wrote to important nobles about ensuring the safety of the roads and chided them from failing to prevent theft and other cries against ordinary subjects.

Truschke has also discusses about the diwani (chief finance minister) Raja Raghunatha of the Emperor. Raja Raghunatha stabilized the vast economy of the Empire. Truschke quotes a letter of Aurangzeb written during his final day to other administrators. In this letter, the ageing Emperor, has cited Raghunatha’s advice about running an efficient government.

The author writes that for Aurangzeb, Raghunatha’s religious identity was irrelevant to his memorialised status as a great officer to the Mughal Empire.  

In one of his letter to an administrator, Alamgir wrote, “So long as a single breath of this mortal life remains, there is no release from labour and work.”

Shivaji: The foe

The Maratha warrior Shivaji was the most formidable foe of the Mughal Emperor. Author writes that to pursue Shivaji, Aurangzeb assigned job to Mirza Jai Singh. After being besieged by Jai Singh in Purandar hill, Shivaji surrendered.

Truschke writes that Shivaji visited the imperial court at Agra in the year 1666. This was the only time Aurangzeb and Shivaji met face-to-face.

Quoting different researches, the author quotes different stories about what transcribed between the two leaders at the Imperial court. It was from this moment onwards that Shivaji became a permanent foe of Aurangzeb and the Mughal Empire.

The other foe that Aurangzeb faced was the Sikh Guru Tegh Bahadur (whom “he” executed in 1675). However, like the story of Shivaji, Audrey Truschke has not elaborated on this subject.

Alamgir’s Deccan expedition

The author writes that throughout Aurangzeb’s reign, he crushed rebellions and waged wars of expansion and oversaw sieges, especially in Deccan during his later years. She writes that he would often use diplomacy to extend and solidify Mughal power.

“Aurangzeb: The Man and the Myth” says that the Alamgir spent his second half (1681-1707) in south annexing many small kingdoms into the imperial fold of Mughal as far as Tamil Nadu. These wars came to known as the Deccan wars or Mughal-Maratha Wars. A detailed account of Aurangzeb’s long halt in Deccan is also provided in the book. The author says that these long halts demoralised the Mughal forces. Audrey Truschke writes that even when Aurangzeb was in his eighties he still perused with these Deccan wars.

The book also talks in details about the rebellion clan of Rajput, which Aurangzeb had to deal with.

Alamgir as Muslim

 “Aurangzeb: The Man and the Myth” also provides an insight about how practising Muslim the Emperor was. The author says that he had memorised the Holy Quran in 1660s and during his later years he sewed prayers caps and also wrote the Quran by hand.

Quoting Bhimsen Saxena, a Hindu soldier in Aurangzeb’s employ, Truschke writes that Alamgir once threw a written prayer into flooded waters and it caused the flood water to subside. Among many letters that have been quoted in the book, the Emperor in one of his letters, he wrote to his grandson Azimusshan, writes that ‘you should consider the protection of the subjects as the sources of happiness in this world and the next.’

Truschke further writes that the Emperor ran into repeated problems regarding his public relationship with Islam. When the two conflicted, Aurangzeb generally sacrificed religious obligations on the altar of state interests although such decisions weighed heavily on his heart.

In another example of his Muslim leanings, the author, citing an unknown historian, writes that Aurangzeb dismounted during a military clash in order to pray as an expression of devotion that also buoyed his troops with the confidence that Allah was on their side. She says that for Aurangzeb, a preoccupation with dispensing justice (adl), existed alongside his thirst for earthly power.

Alamgir’s death

Aurangzeb was born on November 3, 1618 in Dohad, Gujarat. He died a peaceful and natural death in 1707, as suggested by the book.

The author writes that at the time of his death, the population of the Mughal kingdom was double that of contemporary Europe, and Mughal landholdings reached an all-time high.

He is buried at Khuldabad, Maharashtra in a simple manner. He is not buried like imposing tombs of his predecessors like Humayun and Shah Jahan, writes Truschke.

She writes that he was buried in accordance with his wishes, the tomb was plain and unmarked. Unlike other Mughal Emperors who have attracted significant attention from historians, Aurangzeb has been neglected over the past several decades.