CHAPTER 1

The Mughal Throne – Abraham Eraly

Mughal World is the companion volume to The Mughal Throne by Abraham Eraly. Meticulously researched, the book is a detailed analysis of what it was like to live in the era of the great Mughals. In addition to going into the pomp and splendor of that period, Eraly also elaborates on the life of the common man, including the poverty and squalor. He even analyses kitchri, the gruel which remains their diet even to date. In his earlier books, Eraly had looked at the Hindu kingdoms, the Buddhist rulers and the Delhi sultanate, before writing a tour de force of the Mughal empire in India.

In an era when history is being painted deep saffron, writers like Abraham Eraly are doing yeoman service to society by presenting a balanced account of our past. Further, by sweetening it with simple language and literary flourishes, he satisfies the layman’s palate. A concise introduction reviews the lives of the first six Mughal emperors (Babur, Humayun, Akbar, Jahangir, Shah Jahan, and Aurangzeb.) After having dwelt on ancient Hindu civilization in The Early Spring and the Mughal Period in Late Spring, he deals with the subject utilizing the objectivity of the scholar and the raciness of a storyteller. In an age where Aurangazeb Road has been renamed and zealots are planning to rename Deoband as Devrabad and Hyderabad as Bagyanagar, a true reading of history is imperative so as to clear the clouds of distortion and falsification being spread by the Hindutva brigade. The subtitle of the Mughal World: Life in India’s Last Golden Age, points to his truthful approach. Here, he emphasizes that it was a golden period, unlike the bigoted view of it being a dark age. Eraly goes through the reign of all the major Mughal emperors. For him, Babar is beyond the man who destroyed the Ram temple, Jehangir is not a pleasure-seeking wastrel who executed the Sikh Guru Arjun Dev and Aurangazeb is not just the bigot who built the Gyanvapi on the ruins of the Kashi Vishwanatha temple. They are presented as patrons of art and literature, as many of them were bards and writers themselves, like Dara Shikoh, who ordered the translation of Upanishads into Sanskrit and Bahadur Shah Zafar, a poet of no mean stature. His poetry, Na Kisi Ka Aankh Ka Noor, rendered by Mohamed Rafi is cherished to date.

The Mughal period is filled with nuggets of knowledge. Babar conquered India with just ten thousand soldiers. Shivaji was not a Maratha but a Sudra, who was converted to Kshatriya status by the Brahmin Ganga Bhat. All the Mughal emperors had huge personal libraries. The fact that the Hindi language flourished under the Mughals may not be acceptable but he harks about the hymns of Mirabhai, Tulsidas, etc, to drive home his observations. He also comes up with the proposition that Vaishnavism originated in South India against conventional knowledge of its north Indian roots The jewel in the crown in Eraly’s book is the chapter Ocean Of Nectar which ruminates about the Hindus under Mughal rule. He starts off in a somber mood.

The already dark Hindu world was darkened further under Mughal rule but brightens up as the chapter progresses. The only vital element in Hinduism at that time was the Bakthi movement which had used the egalitarianism of Islam minus its dogma and presented a form of indigenous religion suited for the rural masses who could not digest the abstract nature of the Brahmin religion.

Eraly courts controversy by stating, “The establishment of British rule saved India from terminal chaos.” This may be factually correct, but emotionally it was wrong. Chandragupta Maurya, Ashoka, Akbar and the British did not conquer the hearts of India but only its soils. Even after Independence, the heart is not warm in the Muslim slum of Juhupura or the Harijanwadis of Muzaffarpur. The reply to this statement can probably be found in Shashi Tharoor’s An Era of Darkness.

Eraly is not being truthful to history by skipping such events which create turbulence in society centuries later, hence appearing to be hyper secular. Bigots are bigots whichever religion they belong to and a whitewash is unnecessary. Eraly sometimes goes overboard in this aspect. He attributes Guru Arjun’s execution by Jehangir to his having supported Khusro’s rebellion against the emperor but notes that Arjun Dev built the Golden Temple on land gifted by Akbar. Guru Tegh Bahadur initially served in Aurangazeb’s army sent to Assam, but later fell out with him and was executed. After the death of Aurangazeb, Guru Gobind Singh joins Aurangazeb’s successor Shah Alam’s army to the Deccan. Thus, Eraly sets the record straight by arguing that the Sikh religion was not founded as a Hindu sword arm to fight the Mughals, but they had an uneven love-hate relationship. He emphasizes the point that Shivaji also initially collaborated with the Muslim chieftains. And his description of the personal traits of Mughal kings is totally at variance with present-day thought. Instead of being ferocious warriors, he notes that they were men of letters, poets, historians, philosophers and even experts in comparative religion. Quoting Eraly, Bandar was an author, calligrapher and composer, Humayun was a mathematician, astronomer and astrologer, Akbar a philosopher, Jehangir a naturalist and Shah Jahan a painter. The buck stops here with Aurangazeb having no such qualifications.

And what about Aurangazeb, the man in the eye of the Mughal storm. He is neither condemned nor condoned in the book. The author comments that none of the Mughals, not even Aurangazeb, was a religious fanatic. Regarding Jaziya, Akbar abolished it and Aurangazeb reintroduced it, while Mohamed Shah, Aurangazeb’s grandson, abolished it again. In lieu of Jaziya, Muslim subjects had to pay zakat to the state and the amount individually worked out to the same. The Rajputs may be incensed by reading this book. Instead of the valorous patriots they deem themselves to be, they are portrayed as Mogul allies and corroborators. Raja Mann Singh led the Mughal army in the battle of Haldighati against the great Rajput icon Rana Pratap. Jaswant Singh Rathore led Aurangazeb’s army against Shivaji and Raja Jai Singh gave Shah Jahan the land to build the Taj Mahal. This disproves many a myth like Shivaji killing Afzal Khan with a tiger’s claw, which is presented as the prototype Hindu-Muslim encounter.

Finally, the chapter on Islam in the Mughal era, The Oceans Nectar, is worth a second cup. Islam and Hinduism were in every aspect radically opposite religions but there were hardly any communal clashes in Mughal India. Mystics and philosophers found several affinities between them. Shivaji and his father Shahji were devotees of Muslim sages. And for Akbar baiters amongst Muslims, here is news. In 1575, he ordered that anyone going for Hajj could do so at state expense. Guru Nanak was introduced to Islam by his follower and constant companion, the Muslim Mardana. Guru Gobind Singh included the versus of Mian Mir and Baba Farid in the Sikh holy book Guru Granth Sahib. The land for the Golden Temple was donated by Akbar to Guru Arjun Dev and it was inaugurated by the Sufi mystic Mian Mir. This book is a treasure trove of knowledge subtly hitting your senses, with no hyperbole, prejudice or partiality. At a time when Muslim rule in India is being likened to the dark ages, Abraham Eraly steps out bravely to defend it as the last golden age. One would doff his hat in agreement and respect.

Abraham Eraly was an Indian writer of history, a teacher, and the founder of the Chennai-based magazine Aside. His sphere of specialization was the Muslim rule in India. His works are The First Spring: The Golden Age of India, The Last Spring: The Lives and Times of Great Mughals, The Age of Wrath: A History of the Delhi Sultanate, The Mughal Throne: The Saga of India’s Great Emperors and Gem In The Lotus: The Seeding Of Indian Civilisation.

CHAPTER 2

Aurangzeb – Audrey Truschke

In the Supreme Court of history, Aurangazeb stands indicted of many grave charges. Generations in India have been brought up with the good secular Muslim personified by Akbar the Great, pitted against the bad communal Muslim embodied by Aurangazeb. The first charge being that he strode up to the Mughal throne wading through the blood of his brothers. Then, he was a bigoted, orthodox Muslim who destroyed the syncretic Sufi Islam in India. Further, he also damaged the syncretic art and culture environment nourished by his predecessors. He destroyed hundreds of temples, including the Kashi Vishwanatha temple. He encouraged forcible conversions. The Rajput-Mughal alliance, a great phalanx of Hindu-Muslim amity conceived by Akbar, was dismantled by him. Thus, goes the litany of complaints. However, for the orthodox Muslim, he remains a paragon of Islamic virtues, who undid the blasphemous Din Illahi type of mixed culture which permeated the Mughal rule, during the times of Akbar, Jehangir and Shah Jahan. Thus, in Pakistan, it is Aurangazeb and not Akbar who is perceived as the Jewel of the Mughals. In just eight small, easily readable chapters, the author tries to go through these preconceived notions and presents the reality as such.

In an era of communal turbulence, when cities and roads with Muslim names are being renamed and when even Akbar the Great is being maligned, a neutral assessment of the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb is most welcome. Audrey Truscke, a scholar in South Asian history, undertakes that chore with aplomb in her book Aurangzeb: The Man and the Myth. The inside cover states that Aurangzeb is widely reviled in India today. Hindu hater, murderer and religious zealot are just a handful of the abuses thrown at this maligned ruler. In nearly a hundred and fifty pages, Truschke treks through history in search of the truth.

Regarding the first allegation of fratricide, she produces the old Moghul mantra Ya takht ya Tabit. Either the throne or the grave was the fate of contenders to the throne. This is because no definite heir was indicated when a king died and all blood relatives could aspire for the throne, leading to a blood bath for succession. Hence, Aurangazeb had to brew poison and hang opponents on the way to the throne. This was Moghul natural justice, horrific as it sounds today. Dara was conspiring, Murad had declared himself Emperor in Gujarat and Shah Shujah was in open rebellion in Bengal. An Aurangzeb isolated in Deccan had to do what he had to do. The rest is history with a bias towards the secular Dara Shikoh. This bias is evident even in Supriya Gandhi’s recent scholarly work on Dara Shikoh.

Regarding the destruction of temples, the author pens that it was a natural process in all battles in India. The temples were the center of the Kshatriya Brahmin nexus and had enormous wealth and hence were eyed with lustful eyes whether Rajput, Sikh or Mughal. There is an agreement that Aurangzeb did order the destruction of Keshav Dev temple in Mathura. Trushke takes bail for this crime, saying that temples were the nerve center for political cum religious activity and hence were targeted by all during war. Further, thousands of Buddhist Viharas were taken over by protagonists of a rejuvenated Hinduism, when The Budha’s religion went into decline.

Quoting the authors, Aurangzeb felt morality fell within the state authority and it was within the broader duty of a king to safeguard the welfare of those he ruled. Hence, he banned alcohol, opium, gambling and public celebration of religious festivals. He banned bawdy and boisterous celebrations of not only Holi and Diwali but also that of Moharram. Moharram festivities used to lead to Shia-Sunni clashes with scores of casualties and for the devout Sunni, that he was Shia would be anathema. Equally, for the fun-loving and the devout, this was an intrusion into their religion by a fanatic puritan. In spite of these measures, such policies were a failure and a frustrated Aurangzeb is said to have remarked that in all of Hindustan, only two persons did not drink, himself and his head Qazi Abdul Wahab.

The chapter on Shivaji and Aurangazeb questions the myth that projects it as a Hindu-Muslim encounter. It is a fact that Shivaji persistently fought against the Mughals and carved out a kingdom in Maharashtra. Wherever Shivaji came to power, he changed the court language and administrative terms from Indo-Persian to a Sanskrit backed vernacular. But the Mughal army against him was led by a Rajput king, Raja Jai Singh. Jai Singh, after a long siege, defeated him and forced him to be a vassal. But soon, he raised the banner of revolt and was a thorn in the Moghul side. Shivaji’s father himself was a noble in the Adil Shahi court in Bijapur. His army consisted of many Muslim nobles and he had many Muslim qazis on his payroll. His Muslim subjects were fully integrated into the social mainstream. Besides, he allied with numerous Islamic kingdoms like Bijapur and Golkonda. The crux of the author’s argument is that the Mughal Maratha power struggle being presented as a Hindu-Muslim conflict is contrary to facts. It is also transposed into the present times as a symbol of Hindu aggressiveness, especially by organizations like the Shiv Sena. Jingoistic movies are crowding the theatres nowadays. The Maratha or Rajput valor versus bloody Muslim invaders is the flavor of the day. The movie Bajirao Masthani showed the protagonist as a Hindu warrior trying to free India from Islamic rule at a time when there was no concept of a politically unified India. The movies Panipat and Tanhaji are also anchored on this background.

The allegation is, his regime was cleansed of Hindu ideas, texts and culture that had infiltrated the Mughal court. But we see the poet Chandrika dedicated his Nargistan, a poetic rendering of the Ramayana to him. So did Amar Singh. His Amar Prakash is the Persian version of the same epic.

However, Truschke agrees that Aurangazeb put to an end the cross-cultural activities of Dara’s court, like the translation of the Upanishads into Persian and promotion of Dara’s book The confluence of Two Oceans, a Persian treatise contending that Hinduism and Islam lead to the same goal. Thus, he ruptured the cultural link-up between the Sanskritic and Mughal worlds. This probably led to more damage to India’s soul, than a hundred battlegrounds and thousands of manslaughters.

But a blot which cannot be wiped away by a hundred Audreys is Aurangazeb’s treatment of his father, who was locked away in the Red Fort for seven years. Even by the cruel Moghul traditions, it was abhorrent. Because of this, the chief Qazi of the empire refused to swear him in as emperor and the Sharif of Mecca declined to recognize him as the Badshah of Hindustan. By dismantling the secular nature of the Moghul court, dissolving the Rajput-Mughal axis and creating an eternal schism with the Sikhs by executing Guru Tegh Bahadur and Gobind Singh’s sons, and by executing Shivaji’s son Sambhaji, he alienated the Marathas. Thus, by antagonizing the Rajputs, Marathas, Sikhs and the secular Muslims, he did preside over the liquidation of the Mughal empire.

Regarding the forceable conversion issue, the author negates this canard with the statement that Aurangzeb’s Government never spearheaded a program of proselytization or conversion. However, Jaziya was collected from non-Muslims instead of Zakath from Muslims. Both these are contended by both Hindutva adherents and secularists alike. Truschke argues that he did not ban music as widely propagated. He only limited the amorous type in his court. Neither did he ban satirical poetry even if it made fun of himself. He lived a simple life, stitched his own clothes for a living and learned the Quran by heart. Religiosity cannot be equated with bigotry is her refrain. Muhammed Iqbal, considered the spiritual founder of Pakistan, compared him favorably to the Prophet Abraham for his warfare against Akbar’s Din-i Ilahi, while Iqbal Singh Sevea, in his book on the political philosophy of the thinker, says that, “Iqbal considered that the life and activities of Aurangzeb constituted the starting point of Muslim nationality in India,” which is a far fetched theory.

It would be interesting to know how our historians, from Jadunath Sarkar and RC Majumdar from the right, and leftists like Romilla Thapar and Irfan Habib would have viewed Audrey Truschke’s work. Unlike the Sermon On The Mount, I feel this would fetch no disciples and hers would be the way of the cross. In communally polarized India, Aurangazeb will remain what he was – a pious Muslim to his community and a blood-thirsty hawk in Hindutva eyes. The truth probably lies in between, lost by logic and reason to history. The above would be the gist of historian R C Majumdar’s critique of him.

The Leftist Romilla Thapar appealed for a consensus amongst historians on this subject.

“He is not everyone’s cup of tea, definitely not mine,” quipped Irfan Habeeb, another Marxist historian.

Sarkar, in his voluminous biography of Aurangzeb, opined that Akbar had converted a military monarchy into a secular state and Aurangazeb terminated it. Finally, Truschke says, Nehru claimed that due to his reversal of the cultural and religious syncretism of the previous Mughal emperors, Aurangzeb acted “more as a Moslem than an Indian ruler.”

Thus the divide on the Alamgir runs deep in society, amongst communities and between historians. Audrey Truschke adds one more shade to an already grey canvas.

Audrey Truschke is an assistant professor of South Asian history at Rutgers University, Newark and a Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Religious Studies at Stanford University. She writes about cultural and intellectual history, the relationship between empire and literature, and cross-cultural interactions in early modern South Asia. Her Culture of Encounters documents the fascinating exchange between the Persian-speaking Islamic elite of the Mughal Empire and traditional Sanskrit scholars, which engendered a dynamic idea of Mughal rule, essential to the empire’s survival. Here, in Aurangazeb, she attempts to undertake an impartial study of the much-maligned Mughal.

CHAPTER 3

Bengal Divided – Nitish Sengupta

Nitish Sengupta, in his latest book, Bengal: The Unmaking of a Nation, makes an unprejudiced appraisal of the three partitions of Bengal. The British-manipulated division of 1905, the Partition of India and the birth of Bangladesh. His secular credentials are cemented in the first chapter itself when he thinks aloud why the Delhi-Agra region, the epicenter of Mughal rule, did not have a Muslim majority while distant Bengal had. He ascribes this to the oppressive caste system, Brahminical tyranny and vulgar ritualism as opposed to the brotherhood and material benefits offered by Islamic rule in Bengal. He states that a large number of Buddhists turned to Islam. Thus, he debunks the sword or Islam theory of conversion propagated by right-wing Hindutva practitioners. Sengupta serves up the revelation that the Muslim leadership of North India, the Urdu speaking North Indian Muslims, did not protest the reunification of British-partitioned Bengal, which was detested by the Bengali Muslims who had gained a lot by this. This was the seed that sprouted in Bangladesh, after having germinated for long on Pakistani soil. He also notes that by opposing grants to Dacca University, even intellectuals like Ashutosh Mukerji stirred the cauldron of mistrust between the two Bengali communities. (Note: Ashutosh Mukerji is the father of Shyama Prasad Mukerji, the icon of Hindutva.)

The secular credentials of C R Das, who did his utmost starting with the Bengal pact for Hindu-Muslim unity, is stressed. Nitish’s book has his version of heroes. The tallest of Bengalis, CR Das, was trusted and loved by both Bengali Muslims and Hindus. The great Sher e Bengal Fazlul Haq was occasionally seen compromising with communalism but rapidly reverting to staunch secularism. Subhash Babu committed himself to armed rebellion, gaining a pan-India appeal. Even Shyama Prasad Mukerji, bete noire of the secularists, passes muster on the basis of the Shyama Haq coalition, which according to Sengupta was popular with the masses.

And the villain of the piece – the temperamental, egoistic and power-hungry Jawaharlal Nehru, whose unilateral repudiation of the Cabinet mission plan accepted by Congress and League, finally led to the Partition of India. Quoting Sengupta, replacing the mild amiable Azad with Nehru as Congress President was a blunder as final negotiations to resolve the problem were on. He also notes that Nehru was imposed on Congress by Gandhi while the majority favored Patel, a matter of contention, yet widely believed today. A controversial piece is about Hassan Shaheed Suhrawadhy who was the Muslim League Premier of Bengal on Direct Action Day, which precipitated communal riots all over India. Actually, Suhrawadhy emerges as the hero of this great tragedy. Many in India hold him responsible for the great Calcutta killing, which made Partition inevitable. But Sengupta brings historical points in favor of his stand: His friendship with CR Das, his offer of a coalition with Congress, his joint call with Sharat Bose for a united Bengal, his association with Gandhi and his protective attitude to the Hindu minority in Pakistan. Most poignant is his remaining in Calcutta after the Partition and driving Gandhi around the city, trying to douse the fires of hatred. We should also note that he opposed a post-Independence Muslim League in India as he felt that after the formation of Pakistan, the League’s political role was over.

The best chapter of the book is Bengal Decides on Partition. The dilemma of Radcliffe, Nirad Chaudhari’s nostalgia about Bengal’s lost rivers, and novelist Kayis Ahamed’s observation that Partition was the key to being a refugee in one’s own land. Sengupta rightly notes that the decision to give Muslim majority Malda and Murshidabad to India and Chittagong Hill tracts and Khulna to Pakisthan was correct, taking into consideration the geographical continuity of these areas. Nehru is blamed for not asking for a referendum in North West Frontier province, ruled by the Congress Chief Minister Khan Saheb, brother of Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, which eventually went to Pakistan.