by SHOAIB DANIYAL
Probably not. And here are five reasons why.
As has been happening ever so often since Narendra Modi took power, history has burst out into modern-day politics. The New Delhi Municipal Corporation has proposed renaming “Aurangzeb Road” in Lutyen’s Delhi to “APJ Abdul Kalam Road”. The move had wide support and both the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Aam Admi Party seem to have pitched for it, even as the Congress has maintained a studied silence. This also revived the long-standing Shiv Sena demand to rechristen Aurangabad in Maharashtra. Once the Mughal capital in the Deccan and founded by the Prime Minister (Peshwa) of the Ahmadnagar Sultanate, Malik Ambar, the city could be renamed Sambhaji Nagar, after Shivaji’s son, if Hindutva activists have their way.
Many people assume that history is an impersonal record of past events; a dull roll call of facts, events and figures. While raw data is certainly a component in the writing of history, there’s more to it in the way of how the historian interprets that data. In the words of EH Carr:
“History consists of a corpus of ascertained facts. The facts are available to the historian in documents, inscriptions and so on, like fish on the fishmonger’s slab. The historian collects them, takes them home, and cooks and serves them in whatever style appeals to him.”
The final meal, then, depends not only on the fish available with the fishmonger, but also what the chef selects to cook and how he wants to cook it.
Most Indian state-written histories, for example, choose to elide the devastating invasion of the Marathas into western Bengal in the 1740s. A majority of Indian narratives look at the Marathas as a “national” force and ignore the fact that (like any medieval army) they had no concept of nationalism and were mostly interested in loot. In a mirror image, Pakistan has named its missiles after Afghan king Mahmud of Ghazni, deliberately choosing to forget that the man made his fortune by mostly plundering what is current-day Pakistan.
This is not to say that a history of Bengal that does not include the Maratha invasion is per se false. After all, any history of Bengal has to leave out something or the other in order to tell a cogent story. This example is just to introduce the concept of a narrative and its power in shaping our concept of history.
With Aurangzeb, therefore, at least in the popular realm, a narrative has taken root which paints him as a Mughal Voldemort, so dreadful and tyrannical that even his name on a single road in the entire country could endanger the republic.
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1. Aurangzeb built more temples than he destroyed
The issue of temple destruction has taken on a particular hysteria after the violent mass movement in the 1980s and 1990s led by the Bharatiya Janata Party to destroy the Babri Masjid, based on the belief that the spot once housed a temple to the god Ram.
Ironically, there are almost no complaints of temple destruction by Mughal Hindu citizens in the medieval period itself, when these acts were actually supposed to have been carried out. Or even after Mughal power had waned in the 18th century (in case one would want to argue some sort of Mughal censorship). As the historian Richard Eaton has shown, destruction of temples by Muslim rulers in India was exceedingly rare and even when it did happen, it was a political act meant to chasten recalcitrant rulers and not a theological move.
In spite of his terrible reputation, Aurangzeb sticks to this template. Temples are rarely destroyed (Eaton puts the number of instances at 15 for Aurangzeb) and, if they are, the reason is political. For example, Aurangzeb almost never targetted temples in the Deccan, although that is where his massive army was camped for most of his reign. In the north, he did attack temples, for example the Keshava Rai Temple in Mathura. But the reason was political: the Jats of the Mathura region had revolted against the empire.
For these same reasons of statecraft, Aurangzeb also patronised temples, since Hindus who remained loyal to the state were rewarded. In fact, as Katherine Butler Schofield from King’s College London points out, “Aurangzeb built far more temples than he destroyed.” Scholars such as Catherine Asher, M Ather Ali and Jalaluddinhave pointed to numerous tax-free grants bestowed on Hindu temples, notably those of the Jangam Bari Math at Benares, Balaji’s temple at Chitrakoot, the Someshwar Nath Mahadev temple at Allahabad, the Umanand temple at Gauhati, and numerous others.
Also, temple destruction was a common part of Indian politics at the time and was not restricted to Muslims. In 1791, for example, the Maratha army raided and damaged the Shankaracharya’s temple in Sringeri because it was being patronised by Tipu Sultan, their enemy. Later on, Tipu renovated the temple and had the idol reinstalled.
2. Music flourished in India during Aurangzeb’s reign
A crucial part of the entire narrative of Aurangzeb as a tyrant is the parable that he banned music. It is a powerful tale and one that could really clinch the case. The only problem? It’s not true.
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(Thanks to Mukul Dube)