Book Review: Decoding Aurangzeb, a Mughal who divided opinion

Book: Aurangzeb - The Man and the Myth
Author: Audrey Truschke
Publisher: Penguin Random House
Price: Rs 399

Few historical figures inflame passions — Hindu passions specifically — as much as Aurangzeb. As the comments made when Aurangzeb Road was renamed last year showed, the last of the Great Mughals remains a deeply polarising figure even today. With reason, it would seem. There was his naked hunger for power — he killed two brothers and imprisoned his father, a crime considered so abhorrent that it was condemned the world over, even in his beloved Mecca — and his introduction of a more puritanical form of Islam. Those who cite his intolerance are only too delighted to refer to his mass destruction of Hindu temples.

This is an allegation that the author of this book, American academic Audrey Truschke, is anxious to rebut — instead of hundreds, the number of temples destroyed may have been ‘just over a dozen’, she insists, and even then the reasons were political, not religious.

Then there’s his graphic torture of Shambhaji, Shivaji’s son, and his duplicity — Aurangzeb was undoubtedly a pious Muslim but he was also all too happy to shed Islamic ideals when it suited him. Truschke recounts this incident to illustrate this facet of Aurangzeb. 

In 1700, the Mughals had captured nine Hindus and four Muslims during the siege of Satara fort. Under the provisions of Fatawa-i-Alamgiri, a legal book which Aurangzeb himself had sponsored, the Mughal judge offered the Muslims three years in prison and Hindus full pardon if they converted to Islam. Ignoring this, Aurangzeb ordered them all killed so that the ‘kingdom may not be lost’.

What are we to make of such behaviour? Was Aurangzeb the demon that many have painted him to be? Was he anti-Hindu? Or was he just power hungry, desirous of conquering the whole of Hindustan? The last, perhaps, is the best explanation for his actions. Continuously seeking to expand his empire, Aurangzeb was not, and would never be, ‘tolerant’. Poetry and philosophy, so admired by his father and forefathers, was not something that he allowed to govern his life. He would rather be seen as a just but feared king, and in that he succeeded.

As Truschke notes, there were relatively few conversions during his reign; his razing of temples — as even his fiercest critics would concede — done to punish political enemies rather than to push the Islamic agenda, and there is also no evidence to suggest that Hindu nobles suffered during his reign. Indeed, three of them — Raja Raghunatha, Chandar Bhan Brahman and Bhimsen Saxena — flourished and were invaluable to him in matters of state. Yes, he did have problems with what he called that ‘mountain rat’ Shivaji, but to paint that in a religious light is ridiculous.

Shivaji was an irritant that Aurangzeb sought hard to destroy. But he would have done the same had Shivaji been a Muslim, is Tuschke’s contention. More importantly, Aurangzeb ordered Mirza Raj Jai Singh, a Kachhwaha Rajput, to fight Shivaji showing that Hindus, especially Rajputs, were divided in their loyalties. There was simply no unified ‘Hindu’ opposition to the Emperor, as is being increasingly asserted today, at the time.

Having said this, one must also acknowledge that Aurangzeb did his best to impose Islamic ideals, some of which affected people of other faiths. He re-imposed jiziya, a tax paid by non-believers, a hundred years after his forefathers had removed it, curtailed the celebration of Hindu festivals such as Holi and Diwali (though it must be said that he curtailed Muslim festivals such as Eid and Muharram too), and banned ‘vices’ such as gambling, heretical writings and alcohol – the last was a spectacular failure – setting out a moral code that many viewed as Islamic. That converting to Islam helped Hindus climb faster up the Mughal hierarchy was also a fact, though it is not known how many did.

It wasn’t just Hindus, Aurangzeb’s targeted Sufis and Ismaili Boras, showing Sunni Islam was his ideal - never mind that he broke or twisted Islamic rules repeatedly for personal gain.

Given these contradictions, one is not quite sure what to make of this fascinating and complex character. Sadly, much of this complexity gets lost because of our propensity to see him in just one light — that of a religious bigot. But as EH Carr pointedly said in his book, 'What is History?', “Study the historian before you begin to study the facts”, that tells us more about ourselves and our times than it does about Aurangzeb.