Aurangzeb, Akbar, and the Communalization of History
In Indian history, the syncretistic and
communalist viewpoints have conventionally been represented, to take one case
in point, by offering a contrast between the lives of the two emperors under
whom the Mughal Empire was at its zenith, Akbar (reigned 1556-1605) and
Aurangzeb (reigned 1658-1707). Akbar is often adduced as an example of the
tolerant ruler, whose policies demonstrate that though he himself was a Muslim,
the state was not Islamic. Some have even pointed to him as a 'secular' ruler,
when scarcely any monarch in Europe was such,
and his advocacy of a new faith, the Din-i-ilahi, which combined elements from
various religions, exemplifies the ecumenism with which he is associated.
"He looked upon all religions alike", writes Tara Chand, "and
regarded it his duty to make no difference between his subjects on the basis of
religion. He threw upon the highest appointments to non-Muslims." [1]
Though it is admitted that he may have forged political and military alliances
with Hindu rulers from considerations of expediency, other historians allude to
more enduring signs of his real commitment to religious harmony and interest in
different faiths, such as his marriage to Rajput women, his scholarly interest
in epics such as the Ramayana, and his zeal in promoting Hindu learning.
Historians point to Akbar's elimination of the jizya (poll-tax) usually levied
on non-Muslims and his assumption of final authority on religious questions on
which there might have been conflict of opinion among Muslim theologians,
thereby undermining the authority of the ulama (Muslim clergy). Describing
Akbar's success as "astonishing", Jawaharlal Nehru gave it as his
opinion, in a work that places him among the ranks of historians, that Akbar
"created a sense of oneness among the diverse elements of north and
central India
The commonplace view of Aurangzeb, on the
other hand, is that he repudiated Akbar's policies of religious toleration, and
by alienating Hindus he undermined the very empire whose tremendous expansion
he masterminded. Nehru maintained that Aurangzeb had "put the clock
back", undoing what his predecessors had achieved by working against the
"genius of the nation" and ignoring the common culture that had been
forged among the different elements of the Indian population. "When
Aurangzeb began to oppose this movement [of synthesis] and suppress it and to
function more as a Moslem than an Indian ruler," Nehru argued, "the
Mughal Empire began to break up." But where Nehru saw Aurangzeb as a
"bigot and an austere puritan" whose policies were instrumental in
creating unease and dissent, and Tara Chand deplored his "misdirected
efforts" which caused "irreparable damage" to the "great
edifice of the empire", [3] many Indian historians have been inclined to
take a much harsher view of Aurangzeb's conduct. In this they were to follow
the lead supplied by Jadunath Sarkar, whose 1928 biography of Aurangzeb in four
volumes bequeathed the view of Aurangzeb that still predominates in the popular
imagination. Sarkar suggested that Aurangzeb intended nothing less than to
establish an Islamic state in India, an objective that could not be fulfilled
without "the conversion of the entire population to Islam and the extinction
of every form of dissent"; and to render this scenario more complete, he
proposed that the jizya (poll-tax) on non-Muslims, which Aurangzeb had
re-instituted in 1679, was aimed at forcibly converting Hindus to Islam, though
he was unable to marshal evidence to substantiate this view. [4]
If Aurangzeb was so ferocious a
communalist, why is it, some historians have asked, that the number of Hindus
employed in positions of eminence under Aurangzeb's reign rose from 24.5% in
the time of his father Shah Jahan to 33% in the fourth decade of his own rule?
They suggest, moreover, that Aurangzeb did not indiscriminately destroy Hindu
temples, as he is commonly believed to have done so, and that he directed the
destruction of temples only when faced with insurgency. This was almost
certainly the case with the Keshava Rai temple in the Mathura Deccan were seldom
destroyed. The image of Aurangzeb as an idol-breaker may not withstand
scrutiny, since there is evidence to show that, like his predecessors, he
continued to confer land grants (jagirs) upon Hindu temples, such as the
Someshwar Nath Mahadev temple in Allahabad, Jangum Badi Shiva temple in Banaras,
Umanand temple in Gauhati, and numerous others. [5] On the other hand, one
might argue, if Akbar was so dedicated to the principle of religious harmony,
why is it that none of the Mughal princesses were ever allowed to marry into
Rajput households? And while he may have propagated a new syncretistic faith,
how was it received by ordinary Muslims? Moreover, do not both the supporters
of Akbar and critics of Aurangzeb presume that relations between Hindus and
Muslims are to be inferred by studying the lives of rulers, or at best members
of the ruling class? What, in any case, is really conceded when it is admitted
that Akbar was tolerant towards other faiths to the same extent that Aurangzeb
was only solicitous of the welfare of his Muslim subjects? As the historian
Harbans Mukhia has argued, "Once one accepts that the liberal religious
policy of Akbar was only the reflection of his own liberal outlook, the
conclusion becomes inescapable, for instance, that the fanatic religious policy
of Aurangzeb flowed from his fanatic disposition." [6] If Aurangzeb sought
to convert members of important Hindu families to Islam, all the more to ensure
the preservation of his empire, why should that serve as a basis for the
presumption that a wholesale conversion of Hindus was a matter of state policy?
By what method of transference is it possible to construe that conflicts among
the ruling elite are conflicts at the broader social level? In the debate over
the nature of the Indian past, then, particularly with respect to Hindu-Muslim
relations, Akbar and Aurangzeb were to become, as they still are, iconic
figures.
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