This past weekend my 7th grader kid walked up to me and sought a suggestion to write an article on any Mugal emperor as part of his history class assignment. He further said, the assignment is to write an article that shows both the good and bad side of the emperor. I suggested writing on Aurangzeb however also mentioned that there was nothing really ‘good’ about him that you would be able to find! So he went off and did his online reading and came back and said all the articles he came across only eulogized Aurangzeb for being a very capable administrator and military general and cannot find any details on his vices. I was surprised with this summary and started digging in what Google was showing. Started with a simple Google search “Who was Aurangzeb '' and it was eye-opening to see that top results are articles/posts from Western author (as opposed to Indic authors) Audrey Truschke who has avowed to whitewash the crimes of Aurangzeb against Hindus. She goes to the extent of saying that “Aurangzeb protected more Hindu temples than he destroyed. He employed more Hindus in his imperial administration than any prior Mughal ruler by a fair margin,”
Among avid readers of Indian history, there would be hardly anyone who has not come across
the works of Sir Jadunath Sarkar, a historian par excellence. Jadunath Sarkar was a Columbus for discovering past history from undiscovered documents. For long sixty years of his active life he produced many works of merit which entitle him the father figure of Indian history writing. His prolific pen produced at least fifty monumental works - all having the touch of a Ranke's technique delving deep into the original documents letters, diaries and other records. He learnt Persian, Rajasthani, Hindi, French, German, Portuguese and made a vast collection of original source materials at great pains and costs. Not content with the original sources, he visited those places and people connected with his work in order to understand the events more intimately. Educated in English literature at Presidency College, Calcutta, Sarkar at first taught English and later shifted to history during his tenure (1902–17) at Patna College. He chose Aurangzeb, the last major Mughal emperor, as the object of his life’s work. His first book, India of Aurangzib, was published in 1901. His five-volume History of Aurangzib took 25 years to complete and was published in 1924. Sarkar devoted another 25 years to his four-volume Fall of the Mughal Empire, completed in 1950. Two of Sarkar’s single-volume works are Chaitanya: His Pilgrimages and Teachings (1913) and Shivaji and His Times (1919). All his works demonstrate his vast knowledge of Persian-language sources and are skillfully written in English. Sarkar served as vice chancellor of the University of Calcutta (1926–28) and on the Bengal legislative council (1929–32). He was knighted in 1929.
Below content is from the 8th chapter of Sarkar’s book called, ‘A short history of Aurangzib (1618-1707)’. This chapter is labeled, “ Aurangzeb’s religious policy and Hindu reaction to it.” The chapter is broken down into 11 sub-sections in below order. If interested you can read all the sections or jump to the highlighted sections for Aurangzeb’s treatment of Hindus and curtailing their religious rights under his reign.
- The Muslim State, its theory and character.
- Political disabilities of non-Muslims.
- Influence of the Quaranic political ideals on the Muslim population and the subject creeds.
- Toleration under Islam exceptional and contrary to Quarnic law.
- Aurangzib’s bigotry and temple destruction.
- Jaziya or poll-tax on non-Muslims.
- Repressive measures against the Hindus.
- Hindus of Mathura district oppressed : peasant risings.
- The Satnami sect : their rising, 1672.
- The course of Sikh religion; change in the character and aims of it’s head.
- Guru Govind, his ideal and career.
1. The Muslim State, its theory and character.
By the theory of its origin the Muslim State is a theocracy. Its true king is God, and earthly rulers are merely His agents bound to enforce His law on all. The civil authorities exist solely to spread and enforce the true faith. In such a State infidelity is logically equivalent to treason, because the infidel repudiates the authority of the true king and pays homage to his rivals, the false gods and goddesses. Therefore, the toleration of any sect outside the fold of orthodox Islam no better than compounding with sin. And the worst form of sin is polytheism, the belief that the one true God has partners in the form of other deities. Islamic theology, therefore, tells the true believer that his highest duty is to make "exertion (jihad) in the path of God,"* by waging war against infidel lands (dar-ul-harb) till they become a part of the realm of Islam (dar-ul-Islam) and their populations are converted into true believers. After conquest the entire infidel population becomes theoretically reduced to the status of slaves of the conquering army. The conversion of the entire population to Islam and the extinction of every form of dissent, is the ideal of the Muslim State. If any infidel is suffered to exist in the community, it is as a necessary evil, and for a transitional period only. Political and social disabilities must be imposed on him, and bribes offered to him from the public funds, to hasten the day of his spiritual enlightenment and the addition of his name to the roll of true believers."
*Jihad fi sabil ullafi (Quran, ix. 29). Por jihad see Hughes, 243-948, 710 Encyclopedia of Islam, i. 1041. "And when the sacred months are passed, kill those who join other deities with God, wherever ye shall find them...But if they shall convert....then let them go their way." (Quran, ix. 5, 6.) "Say to the Infidels, if they desist from their unbelief, what is now past shall be forgiven them. But if they return to it.....fight then against them till strife be at an end, and religion be all of it God's" (vili. 39-49).
2.Political disabilities of non-Muslims.
A non-Muslim, therefore, cannot be a citizen of the State; he is a member of a depressed class; his status is a modified form of slavery. He lives under a contract(zimma) with the State: for the life and property that are grudgingly spared to him by the Commander of the Faithful he must undergo political and social disabilities, and pay a commutation-money (jaziya).
He must pay a tax for his land (kharaj), from which the early Muslims were exempt; he must pay other exactions for the maintenance of the army, in which he cannot enlist even if he offers to render personal service instead of paying the poll-tax; and he must show by humility of dress and behaviour that he belongs to a subject class. No non-Muslim (zimmi) can wear fine dresses, ride on horseback or carry arms; he must behave respectfully and submissively to every member of the dominant sect.
As the learned Qazi Mughis-ud-din declared to Ala-ud-din Khalji, in accordance with the teaching of the books on Canon Law: "By these acts of degradation are shown the extreme obedience of the zimmi, the glorification of the true faith of Islam, and the abasement of false faiths. The Prophet has commanded us to slay them, plunder them, and make them captive.. No other religious authority except the great Imam [Hanifa] whose faith we follow, has sanctioned the imposition of the jaziya on Hindus. According to all other theologians, the rule for Hindus is 'Either death or Islam."
The zimmi is under certain legal disabilities with regard to testimony in lawcourts, protection under criminal law, and marriage. The State, as the other party in the contract (zimma), guarantees to him security of life and property and a modified protection in the exercise of his religion, he cannot erect new temples, and has to avoid any offensive publicity in the exercise of his faith.
The early Arab conquerors, notably in Sindh, followed the wise and profitable policy of leaving the shrines and religious practices of the non-Muslim population practically undisturbed. There was at first no wanton or systematic iconoclasm. With the growth of the Muslim population, however, the long enjoyment of unchallenged power bred in them a spirit of intolerance and a love of persecution. Every device short of massacre in cold blood was resorted to in order to convert heathen subjects. In addition to the poll-tax and public degradation in dress and demeanour imposed on them, the non-Muslims were subjected to various hopes and fears. Rewards in the form of money and public employment were offered to apostates from Hinduism. The leaders of Hindu religion and society were systematically repressed, to deprive the sect of spiritual instruction, and their religious gatherings and processions were forbidden in order to prevent the growth of solidarity and a sense of communal strength among them. No new temple was allowed to be built nor any old one to be repaired, so that the total disappearance of all places of Hindu worship was to be merely a question of time. But many of the more fiery spirits of Islam tried to anticipate the destructive hand of Time and forcibly pulled down temples. In this later age, particularly among the Turks, the old Arab toleration of false faiths appeared sinful. Outside their own realms, the destruction of temples and the slaughter of Hindus sanctified every war of aggression. Thus a frame of mind was produced in the Muslim community which habitually regarded plunder and homicide as the purest of human acts, as "exertion (jihad) in the path of God." The murder of infidels (kafir-kushi) is counted a merit in a Muslim. It is not necessary that he should tame his own passions or mortify his flesh; it is not necessary for him to grow a rich growth of spirituality. He has only to slay a certain class of his fellow- beings or plunder their lands and wealth, and this act in itself would raise his soul to heaven.
A creed whose followers are taught to regard robbery and murder as a religious duty, is incompatible with the progress of mankind or with the peace of the world.
Nor has it been conducive to the true interests of its followers. Muslim polity formed "the faithful" into a body with no other profession than war. As long as there were any fresh lands to conquer and any rich kafirs to plunder, all went well with the State. The dominant body prospered and multiplied rapidly; even arts and industries, literature and painting of a certain type were fostered. But when the tide of Muslim expansion reached its farthest limit and broke in vain on the hills of Assam and Chatgaon, or the arid rocks of Maharashtra, there was nothing to avert a rapid downfall. The State had no economic basis, and was not able to stand a time of peace.
For, the cruel kindness of the Government had unfitted the dominant people for avocations of peace and the silent but deadly struggle for existence. War is the only trade they have a natural aptitude for, and peace means to them "unemployment," vice and downfall.
The settled principle of Islam ended by making the Muslims a privileged class, nourished on State bounties, naturally prone to indolence in peace times and unable to stand on their own legs in the arena of life. Public office came to be regarded as the birthright of the faithful, and so every inducement to display superior ability or exertion was taken away from them. The vast sums spent by the State in maintaining pauper houses, and in scattering alms during Ramzan and other holy days and joyous ceremonies, were a direct premium on laziness. Thus a lazy and pampered class was created in the empire, who sapped its strength and was the first to suffer when its prosperity was arrested. Wealth bred indolence and love of ease; these soon led to vice; and vice finally brought about poverty and ruin. At the same time, the treatment of the subject people prevented the full development of the resources of the State by them. When a class of men is publicly depressed and harassed by law and executive caprice alike, it merely contents itself with dragging on an animal existence. The Hindus could not be expected to produce the utmost of which they were capable; their lot was to be hewers of wood and drawers of water to their masters, to bring grist to the fiscal mill, to develop a low cunning and flattery as the only means of saving what they could out of the fruits of their own labour. Amidst such social conditions, the human hand and the human mind cannot achieve their best; the human soul cannot soar to its highest pitch. The barrenness of the Hindu intellect and the meanness of spirit of the Hindu upper classes are the greatest condemnation of Muhammadan rule in India. The Islamic political tree, judged by its fruit, was an utter failure.
As a widely travelled and profound modern philosopher writes, "Islam is a religion of absolute surrender and submissive- ness to God but to a God of a certain character-a War-Lord... The ritual of this belief embodies the idea of discipline...This military basis of Islam explains all the essential virtues of the Musalman. It also explains his fundamental defects- his unprogressiveness, his incapacity to adapt himself, his lack of initiative and invention. The soldier has simply to obey orders. All the rest is the affair of Allah." (H. Kevserling).
When public offices are distributed in consideration of race or creed and not of merit, the non-Muslim populations are thereby driven to conclude that they have no lot or part in such a State. The Islamic theocracy when set up over a composite population has the worst vices of oligarchy and of alien rule combined.
In Mughal India it was, in addition, the dominion of a small minority. And this minority differed from the politically depressed majority not in racial qualities, physical or mental. but in creed only. It was rightly felt by all persons outside the fold of the dominant creed that the power and resources of the community, entrusted to the Government for the public good, were being misused by being applied to the propaganda of a Church which aimed at their extinction. Such a State had no right to be called national; it did not rest on the love and devotion of the people.
4.Toleration under Islam exceptional and contrary to Quarnic law.
Such was the ideal of the State as conceived by orthodox Islam. No doubt, common sense often triumphed over logic and statesmanship over theology; or the weakness of human nature made it impossible for every king and every officer to enforce the intolerant system everywhere or in its entirety. Thus it happened that under Muslim rule there were periods when the Hindus enjoyed toleration and security of property, or when an enlightened and liberal king encouraged them to make progress in literature and art, wealth and public service, and his State grew in strength and material resources.
But such indulgence of infidelity was by its very nature precarious and exceptional. The Muslim world regarded it as a deplorable falling off from the orthodox ideal, and a wicked neglect of royal duty. The Muslim soldiery on whose sword depends the king's power, would regard the liberal Sultan as an apostate, unworthy to rule over them. Therefore, the growth and progress of non-Muslims, even their continued existence, is incompatible with the basic principles of a Muslim State. The political community is in a condition of unstable equilibrium, till either the dissenters are wiped out or the sceptre passes out of Muslim hands. Thus a chronic antagonism between the rulers and the ruled is set up, which has in the end broken up every Islamic State with a composite population. And the reign of Aurangzib was to illustrate
this truth.
5.Aurangzib's bigotry and temple destruction.
Aurangzib began his attack on Hinduism in an insidious way. In the first year of his reign, in a charter granted to a priest of Benares(Banaras), he avowed that his religion forbade him to allow the building of new temples, but did not enjoin the destruction of old ones. During his viceroyalty of Gujrat 1644, he had desecrated the recently built Hindu temple of Chintaman in Ahmadabad by killing a cow in it and then turned the building into a mosque. He had at that time also demolished many other Hindu temples in the province. An order was issued early in his reign in which the local officers in every town and village of Orissa from Katak to Medinipur were called upon to pull down all temples including even clay huts, built during the last 10 or 12 years and to allow no old temple to be repaired.
Next, on 9th April, 1669, he issued a general order "to demolish all the schools and temples* of the infidels and to put down their religious teaching and practices." His destroying hand now fell on the great shrines that commanded the veneration of the Hindus all over India such as the second temple of Somnath, the Vishwanath temple of Benares, and the Keshav Rai temple of Mathura.
The holy city of Mathura has always been the special victim of Muslim bigotry. It stood on the king's highway between Agra and Delhi. Aurangzib appointed a "religious man," Abdun Nabi, as faujdar of Mathura to repress the Hindus.
On 14th October, 1666, learning that there was a stone railing in the temple of Keshav Rai, which Dara Shukoh had presented to it, Aurangzib ordered it to be removed. And finally in January 1670, he sent forth commands to destroy this temple altogether and to change the name of the city to Islamabad. The destruction of Hindu places of worship was one of the chief duties of the Muhtasibs or Censors of Morals who were appointed in all the sub-divisions and cities of the empire. In June 1680, the temples of Amber, the capital of the loyal State of Jaipur, were broken down. In 1674 he confiscated all the lands held by Hindus religious grants (wazifa) in Gujarat.
*For a list of temples destroyed by him with quotations from authorities see Vol III (Appendix V)6. Jaziya or poll-tax on non-Muslims.
For permission to live in an Islamic State the unbeliever has to pay a tax called JAZIYA, which means substitute money. ie, the price of indulgence. It was first imposed by Muhammad, who made his followers "fight those who do not profess the true faith, till they pay jaziya with the hand in humility." (Quran, ix. 29). The last two words of this command have been taken by the Muslim commentators to mean that the tax should be levied in a manner humiliating to the taxpayers: the taxed person must come on foot and make the payment standing, while the receiver should be seated. Women, children below fourteen, and slaves were exempted from the tax; blind men, cripples and lunatics paid only when they were wealthy; monks were untaxed if they were poor, but if they belonged to rich monasteries the heads of these religious houses had to pay. The impost was not proportioned to a man's actual income, but the assessees were roughly divided into three classes according as their property was estimated at not more than 200 dirhams ("the poor"), between 200 and ten thousand dirhams (the middle class'), and above ten thousand ("the rich”). Money-changers, cloth-dealers, landowners, merchants, and physicians were placed in the highest class, while artisans, such as tailors, dyers, cobblers, and shoe-makers were counted as "poor." This last class paid only when their professional income left a margin above the cost of maintaining themselves and their families. Beggars and paupers naturally escaped the tax.
The rates of taxation were fixed at 12, 24 and 48 dirhams a year for the three classes respectively, or Rs. 3 ⅓, Rs. 6 ⅔ and Rs. 13 ⅓. On the poor, therefore, the incidence of the tax was at least 6 per cent of their gross income; on the middle class it ranged from 6 to ¼ p. c., and on the rich it was always lighter even than 2 ½ per thousand. In violation of modern canons of taxation, the jaziya hit the poorest portion of the population hardest, and annually took away from the poor man the full value of one year's food as the price of religious indulgence. Akbar had abolished the tax and removed an invidious badge of degradation from the majority of his subjects (1564). Aurangzib reversed this policy.
By imperial orders the jaziya was reimposed on the "unbelievers" in all parts of the empire from 2nd April, 1679, in order, as the official historian records, to "spread Islam and put down the practice of tnfidelity." The Hindus of Delhi and its environs gathered together and pileously cried for the withdrawal of the impost. But the Emperor turned a deaf ear to them. Next Friday, the whole road from the gate of the Fort to the lama mosque was blocked by a crowd of Hindu suppliants. They did not disperse in spite of warning: and the Emperor after waiting vainly for an hour to go to the public prayer, ordered elephants to be driven through the mass of men, trampling them down and clearing a way for him. A temperate and reasoned letter from Shivaji urging the impolicy of the new impost and appealing to Aurangzib to think of the common Father of mankind and the equality of all sincere beliefs in God's eyes, met with no better. success. (Vide Appendix VI of Vol. III, or Shivaji, ch. 13).
The tax yielded a very large sum. In the province of Gujrat, for instance, it was 5 lakhs of Rupees a year; and we shall not be far wrong in holding that the jaziya meant for the Hindus an addition of fully one-third to every subject's direct contribution to the State. To be a Muslim was to be free from this extra taxation.
The officially avowed policy in reimposing the jaziva was to increase the number of Muslims by putting pressure on the Hindus. As the contemporary observer Manucci noticed, "Many Hindus who were unable to pay turned Muhammadan, to obtain relief from the insults of the collectors...... Aurangzib rejoices."
By an ordinance issued on 10th April, 1665, the mahsul or custom duty on all commodities brought in for sale was fixed at 2 ½ p. c. of the value in the case of Muslims and 5 p. c. in that of Hindu vendors.
On 9th May, 1667, the Emperor abolished the custom duty altogether in the case of Muslim traders, while that on the Hindus was retained at the old level. The real loss to the State was likely to be still greater as the Hindu traders had now a strong temptation to pass their goods off as the property of Muslims, in collusion with the latter.
A third instrument of the policy of putting economic pressure on unbelievers, was the granting of rewards to converts and the offering of posts in the public service, liberation from prison, or succession to disputed property, on condition of turning Muslim.
In 1671 an ordinance was issued that the rent collectors of the Crown lands must be Muslims and all viceroys and taluqdars were ordered to dismiss their Hindu head clerks (peshkars) & accountants (Diwanian) and replace them by Muslims. It was found impossible to run the administration after dismissing the Hindu peshkars of the provincial governors, but in some places Muslims replaced Hindu kroris (district rent-collectors), Later on, the Emperor yielded so far to necessity as to allow half the peshkars of the revenue minister and paymaster's departments to be Hindus and the other half Muhammadans. Under Aurangzib, "qanungo*-ship on condition of turning Muslim" became a proverbial expression; and several families in the Panjab still preserve his letters patent in which this condition of office is unblushingly laid down.
Such open attacks on Hinduism by all the forces of Government naturally produced great discontent among the persecuted sect. Some frantic attempts were made on the Emperor's life, but they were childish and ended in failure. Early in 1669 a most formidable popular rising took place in the Mathura district.
Abdun Nabi Khan, who was faujdar of Mathura from August 1660 to May 1669, entered heartily into his master's policy of rooting out idolatry." Soon after joining his post he built a Jama Masjid in the heart of the city of Mathura (1661-1662) on the ruins of a Hindu temple. Later, in 1666, he forcibly removed the carved stone railing presented by Dara Shukoh to Keshav Rai's temple. When in 1669 the Jat peasantry rose under the leadership of Gokla, the zamindar of Tilpat, Abdun Nabi marched out to attack them in the village of Bashara, but was shot dead during the encounter (about 10th May). Gokla, flushed with victory, looted the pargana of Sadabad, and the disorder spread to the adjacent Agra district. At this Aurangzib sent strong forces under high officers to quell the rebellion. Throughout the year 1669 lawlessness reigned in the Mathura district. On 4th December Hasan Ali Khan attacked some rebel villagers. They fought till noon, when being unable to resist any longer, many of them slaughtered their women and rushed upon the swords of the Mughals, fighting with the recklessness of despair.
Next month Hasan Ali Khan defeated Gokla. The rebels, who mustered 20,000 strong, mostly Jat and other stalwart peasants, encountered the imperial forces at a place 20 miles from Tilpat. But after a very long and bloody contest they gave way before the superior discipline and artillery of the Mughals, and fled to Tilpat, which was besieged for three days and at last stormed at the point of the sword. The havoc was terrible. On the victors' side 4,000 men fell and on the rebels' 5,000, while 7,000 persons, including Gokla and his family, were taken prisoner. The Jat leader's limbs were hacked off one by one on the platform of the police office of Agra, and his family was forcibly converted to Islam.
Hasan Ali's strong measures had the desired effect, and peace was soon restored to the district, but for a time only. In 1686 the second Jat rising began, under the leadership of Rajaram, which will be described later.
IF you have reached this far in the article, you deserve kudos for being a patient reader and have a deep interest in the subject. At this point you can clearly see how Western historians such as Audrey are willfully indulging in whitewashing crimes of one of the most barbaric rulers of medieval/Mughal India. Thankfully we ordinary Hindus are now more alert than ever of these attempts and will tear apart such motivated narrative building campaigns.
Lastly, was curious how ChatGPT fares against Audrey in terms of fairness and research on the subject hence I asked this below. Enjoy the AI response!
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