Many modern historians have taken up the task to write on this aspect. From Sir Jadunath Sarkar and SR Sharma to M Athar Ali to ML Bhatia to Audrey Truchke many scholars have chosen to take up this topic. Some like Shibli Nomani, Sharma and Sarkar represented Aurangzeb as a bigot, while others, like Athar Ali, Bhatia and Truchke have put up a more nuanced picture of his before us.
Aurangzeb was never perceived as a hardcore religious zealot in his own time by his contemporary historians, including several Hindus amongst them, such as Bhimsen (Nuskha i Dilkusha) and Isardas Nagar (Futuhat i Alamgiri). This image began to grow in the late 18th century and after, finding a firm footing in the Colonial & Nationalist historiography of the 20th century.
As we have discussed earlier, the War of Succession was not fought either on communal considerations or on the basis of the ideological clash between the tolerant policies of Dara Shukoh and the so called anti-Hindu policy of Aurangzeb.
Aurangzeb never made a claim that he was going to defend Islam and at no stage he felt that Islam was being threatened either by Shahjahan or by Dara Shukoh. So just after the accession, we find that there was no discrimination either against the Hindus or against the Rajputs. As we have already discussed, Aurangzeb appointed Raja Raghunath Singh, a Khatri, as the diwan of the Empire. And one will recall that after the death of Raja Todarmal, no non-Muslim had been appointed as the diwan of the Empire. And after the re-call of Man Singh in 1606 by Jahangir, no non-Muslim had been appointed as the subahdar of any important province of the Empire either during the reign of Jahangir or during the reign of Shahjahan. Now Aurangzeb appointed two non-Muslims: Maharaja Jaswant Singh and Mirza Raja Jai Singh.
Jaswant Singh was appointed subahdar of Gujarat in spite of his opposition to Aurangzeb at the Battle of Dharmat and his treachery to Aurangzeb at the Battle of Khajua. Gujarat was the nerve centre of the Mughal economy.
Mirza Raja Jai Singh was appointed as the viceroy of the Deccan – the office to which only princes of Royal blood were entrusted. So if the term ‘discrimination’ is so indispensable to be used, it was used in favour of the Rajputs and not against them during the early years of Aurangzeb’s reign.
In the early years of the reign, Rajputs were given promotions which were not less than the promotions given to any other section of the nobility.
There was another check on the authority in the early years of Aurangzeb’s reign: that was that so long as Shahjahan was alive, Aurangzeb could not afford to incur the displeasure of any powerful section of the nobility. Why? Because an alternate candidate was available to the nobility to shift their allegiance to! So Aurangzeb proceeded very cautiously. He knew that by his own actions during the war of succession, he had weakened the very institution of monarchy. Now every successful rebel prince was justified in revolting against the sovereign and if possible, ascending the throne after imprisoning the emperor. Aurangzeb was conscious of the fact that the institution of monarchy had been compromised and had to be compensated. So he proceeded very cautiously vis-à-vis the nobility so long as Shahjahan was alive. He was also conscious of the fact that the promises made during the war of succession by him had to be translated into action and fulfilled.
The assertion of Aurangzeb that Shahjahan had ceased to be an effective ruler and as such he had no right to rule and that a vigorous policy had to be followed in all the directions for the expansion of the Empire was to be fulfilled as the fortunes of the nobility were closely connected with the expansion of the empire. That explains why just after the accession, he sent an expedition practically in all the directions. As we have discussed earlier, these military expeditions failed: Mir Jumla died fighting in Assam; Shaista Khan was attacked in his bed chamber in the Deccan by Shivaji; Mirza Raja Jai Singh succeeded in the treaty of Purandhar in 1665 but the fruits of the treaty were taken away when Shivaji fled from Agra.
And when the military expeditions failed, a chain reaction set in. Jat rebellion of 1669; the Satnami uprising of 1672; the Yusufzai revolt in 1667 and the Afridi revolt in 1674. In the meantime, Shivaji crowned himself as the king in 1675. So on the political front, to say the least, Aurangzeb was not a success.
He was convinced that the position of the institution of the monarchy had been compromised by his actions. Strength had to be provided from some other quarter when there was a failure on the political front. So just to compensate for the weakening, and just to provide against his political failure, Aurangzeb emphasized the Shariat law. But he did it so well and so excellently that not only the contemporaries were deceived, even the modern scholars were confused. He did it in such a finis and subtle manner that he branded together the Muslim elite. The fiasco of Prince Akbar’s rebellion is a proof for the consolidation of Muslim aristocracy behind the Mughal throne. It is in this background that Aurangzeb’s religious policy is to be seen.
Debating Aurangzeb’s leanings—religious orthodoxy or political pragmatism—one needs to ask: Did Aurangzeb really intend, as Jadunath Sarkar suggested, the establishment of dar-ul-Islam or a truly Islamic State in India, the conversion of the entire population to Islam, and the annihilation of dissenters? Or, as Ishtiyaq Husain Qureshi argued, was it the rigid adherence to the shari’a and undoing the damage caused by Akbar; or the triumph of Muslim theology, as Shri Ram Sharma asserted? If this was really the case, then the emperor’s personal valour, military skills, and single-minded commitment to achieving territorial expansion and consolidation would stand negated. The biased ideological portrayal of the emperor, regardless of historical accuracy, makes it difficult to explain the increase in the number of Rajput mansabdars in Aurangzeb’s administration as compared to Akbar’s period, and their rise from 24 per cent under Shahjahan to 33 per cent in 1689. Nor can Raghunath Ray Kayastha’s dominance as diwan-i kul be understood rationally. Raghunath Ray not only supported Aurangzeb but also participated in several expeditions of the period. Aurangzeb honoured him with the title of Raja and when Raghunath Ray died in 1664, the emperor, in his obituary written in Ruqa’at-i Alamgiri, remembered him as the greatest administrator he had ever known.
Relations with Ulema:
During his reign, Aurangzeb did increase the role of the ʿulamāʾ and promulgated laws that overtly conformed to the dictates of the sharīʿah. The Mughal historian Khāfi Khān notes, “the Emperor gave such extensive powers to the Qāḍis in the civil administration and general and detailed affairs of the state that it became a cause of jealousy and envy of the leading nobles of the Empire.” Prohibitions of the use of intoxicants, of extravagant pilgrimages to Hindu places of worship, and of music and dancing were decreed. The state systems of taxation were brought in line with the sharīʿah, and patronage of court astrologers ceased. As a result, subsequent generations of ʿulamāʾ as well as a number of modern scholars have declared Aurangzeb as a champion of orthodox Islam, arguing the triumph of the reforms of Sirhindī. Others have challenged that view, suggesting that the records indicate that Aurangzeb’s practice was more eclectic, especially later in his reign, and have argued that political considerations outweighed any commitment to religion.
While scholars continue to debate his motivations and how the legacy of Aurangzeb is to be portrayed, what is evident is that the ʿulamāʾ perceived his reign to enhance their influence in the imperial court.of court ulama under Aurangzeb.
From the time of his accession to the time when Shahjahan expired, Aurangzeb’s tenuous position as king was augmented by Qazi Abdul Wahhab. He provided the legal sanction to his disputed accession in 1658. Starting from the Shaikh ul-Islam and the chief imperial qazi in Delhi, this carried all the way down to the local level, including the vast chain of muhtasibs or censors of public morals. These ulema were, in effect, government employees, paid in cash as well as in the form of tax-free lands by the state. They manned the courts, acted as conduits for information to the Emperor and also served as an important source of legitimacy for the regime.
But was this elaborate hierarchy of religious specialists, trained in the shari’ah, truly able to function in the manner that is made out by pro-Aurangzeb propagandists? On the one hand we have the evidence that this apparent ascendancy of the theologians was resented by the general nobility. At a time when Shivaji had attacked the Mughal subahdar, Shaista Khan, who met with a humiliating defeat and was recalled, Aurangzeb tried to give the command to another noble, but the man retorted, “why appoint me or anyone else, ask the lashkar i dua to raise their hands in prayers!”
We also know that the system was riddled with corruption and inefficiency. Many qazis were indeed upright but many others were not, and some used their position to extort money from the public. One Qazi was caught drunk, another found in indulging in unethical acts. The muhtasibs were charged with enforcing Islamic laws and morality, but were often unable to do so, particularly when it came to local Muslim elites, many of who were given to a life of wanton luxury, including usury, drinking and music, which the “orthodox” Sunni ulema condemned. We have evidence that numerous Sufis protested against the harshness of the muhtasibs, particularly on the issue of banning music. Despite the ulemas’ insistence on the strict following of Islamic jurisprudence in matters related to revenue collection, the traditional revenue system remained intact. Likewise, local caste panchayats, even among local Muslim convert groups, continued to be allowed to function and decided disputes on lines that sometimes contravened the shari’ah as the court ulema understood it. Despite stern opposition from the “orthodox” ulema, partly for what these ulema saw as some of their unwarranted beliefs and practices but also because of jealousy owing to their mass support, popular Sufis, including those who preached the doctrine of wahdat al-wujud or the “unity of existence” and sought to stress the oneness of Hindus, Muslims and others, continued to flourish. Furthermore, the “orthodox” ulema, were unable to present a united front, were often at odds with each other and riddled with internal jealousies and rivalries.
Far from causing a radical break with the Mughal precedent, Aurangzeb’s religious policies, in particular his attitude towards the orthodox Sunni ulema, represent, in many senses, a continuation of it. As before, under Aurangzeb, sections of the ulema received generous royal support, and they, in turn, proved to be a major ideological pillar for the regime. Although Aurangzeb was certainly more generous with his patronage of the ulema than several of his predecessors, he did not allow them to dictate state policies. Though they were given prestige, the ulema remained, in the final analysis, subservient to the state and lacked an effective independent voice to enforce their views. While Aurangzeb sometimes sought their advice on matters of the shari’ah, he often dispensed with their views altogether, preferring his own opinions to theirs. As before, the shari’ah, in the sense of fiqh or historical Muslim jurisprudence, remained only one, although in some spheres major, source of law under Aurangzeb, and it was often supplemented, even supplanted, by imperial edicts and customary laws, some of which were directly in contravention of the shari’ah as the “orthodox” Sunni ulema viewed it.
Our sources provide many instances to substantiate this argument. Aurangzeb’s imprisonment of his own father and murder of his brothers, which brought him to power, were, of course, just two of these instances, but there were others as well. When the imperial qazi refused to read the khutba in his name, Aurangzeb had him summarily dis- missed, and, later, when the Shaikh ul-Islam refused to supply him with a fatwa legitimising his plans to invade the Muslim kingdoms of the Deccan, he caused him to meet with the same fate.
Aurangzeb did take certain other steps that were calculated to win the approval of the “orthodox” ulema. One of his major achievements in this regard was to commission the compilation of a code of Hanafi law, named after him as the Fatawa-e Alamgiri, the collective work of several ulema. Bhatia opines that in itself this did not represent a major development in Islamic law as it was simply a digest of secondary sources by earlier ulema for the guidance of the qazis or judges, and, despite it, the qazis continued to hand out judgments according to their own understanding and interpretations of the shari’ah.
Aurangzeb’s religious policies, in particular his attitude towards the orthodox Sunni ulema, represent, in many senses, a continuation of it. As before, under Aurangzeb, sections of the ulema received generous royal support, and they, in turn, proved to be a major ideological pillar for the regime. Although Aurangzeb was certainly more generous with his patronage of the ulema than several of his predecessors, he did not allow them to dictate state policies. Though they were given prestige, the ulema remained, in the final analysis, subservient to the state and lacked an effective independent voice to enforce their views. While Aurangzeb sometimes sought their advice on matters of the shari’ah, he often dispensed with their views altogether, preferring his own opinions to theirs.
Early Measures of Aurangzeb
There were a number of early measures initiated by Aurangzeb which have been interpreted as ‘religious measures’. Were they taken in order to pamper the Turani Hanafi Sunni Muslim orthodox elements? For example such practices as tuladan (weighing against gold & silver) as well as jharokha darshan were stopped. Khafi Khan informs that Aurangzeb ‘gave up sitting at the jharokha and ordered people not to assemble for the ceremony’. Prohibition was imposed on the consumption of wine. The usual way of saluting (the chahar taslim) was also discouraged. The science of astrology was also banned and the patronage to the astrologers was withdrawn: no almanacs were to be made heretofore.
Then in 1664, Surat was sacked by Shivaji. Around the same time, Aurangzeb ordered that the custom duties on goods imported by the Muslims should be half as compared to the duty levied on the goods imported by the non-Muslims. This enhancement of duty by100% on goods imported by non-Muslims as compared to their Muslim counter-parts was apparently a discriminatory action of Aurangzeb. But some historians have tried to give and extended interpretation to this obviously discriminatory measure: a compensation for the lack of Muslim commerce!
After this measure, the Muslims started importing goods belonging to the Hindu merchants in their own name and divided the surplus customs duty. This resulted in a loss to exchequer. Ultimately Aurangzeb withdrew the customs duty from the Muslims altogether.
Just after the accession, Aurangzeb ordered that the nobles should not wear the coloured garments: colours which were prohibited in Islam. Then he banned music which was considered un-Islamic. Musicians protested against this, and when Aurangzeb was going to offer prayers riding an elephant, musicians carried a fake funeral, all the time weeping. When asked, Aurangzeb was told that music had died and they were carrying its bier. Aurangzeb retorted bury it so deep that it never comes out again!
Sir Jadunath is of the opinion that it was banned because of religious considerations. But RP Tripathi is of the opinion, that in the same year in which the music was banned, the allowances of the princes and princesses were also curtailed. As we have already discussed that the early years of Aurangzeb were marked with a financial crisis. Thus to Tripathi, ban on music was an economic device curtailing unproductive matters.
But one of the most important and relevant action taken by Aurangzeb in this connection was the liberal attitude towards the madad-i ma’ash holders (revenue free grantees). Madad-i ma’ash was maintenance grant to ulema and mashaikh so that they may pray for the long life of the emperor and the prosperity of the empire without concern for their maintenance. 90% of the recipients of such grants were Muslims. Sole justification for this was only that they should concentrate undisturbed in their academic pursuits. This grant was only in the form of land; rozina or daily cash allowance was very rare. In 1670’s and 80’s, Aurangzeb was having political problems with the zamindars: as has been argued, the Jat rebellion, the Rathore rebellion, etc were all zamindar uprisings. Ninety percent of the zamindars were Hindus; and by and large (i.e., around 70%) of the Jagirdars were Muslims. That is why Sir Jadunath Sarkar defined it as a ‘Hindu Reaction’. Secondly, the zamindars were concentrated in the villages. What Aurangzeb did was that to counteract the growing influence of the zamindars in the rural areas, he (a) created Muslim zamindars at the village levels to counteract the growing influence of the Hindu zamindars; and (b) He made madad-i ma’ash holders permanent and in some places, hereditary – just at par with the zamindari rights.
We have the evidence from Tarikh-i Aurangzeb of Abul Fazl Mamuri. Mamuri says that before his departure from Deccan (before 1681), Aurangzeb was faced with a Jagirdari crisis. Mamuri used the phrase: hama ālam bējāgīr mand.
Before his departure for the Deccan, Mamuri says, Aurangzeb exercised care and caution in granting promotions or fresh appointments to the Rajputs. And the jagirs so saved, by placing restrictions on promotions and appointments to Rajputs, became loaves and fishes which Aurangzeb gave to the Muslims to consolidate them behind the throne. It appears that Aurangzeb succeeded in his plans.
Jizya and Destruction of Temples
We have seen that the institution of the monarchy had been weakened by the way Aurangzeb ascended the throne. A new prestige had to be added to the institution of the monarchy if the same process was to be avoided: and that is why Aurangzeb made a deliberate attempt to attach religious sanctity to the institution of the monarchy. That is why Aurangzeb chose to be known as Alamgir and zindapir. He made a determined and deliberate attempt to prove his vigour and to emerge as a vigorous king by sanctioning military expeditions. He failed as natural geographical barriers had been reached during the reign of Shahjahan. And when he failed on the political front and a chain reaction started, he tried to conceal his failures behind the shield of emphasising on Shariat. Ultimately, the die was cast and the day of all precautionary measures dawned when in 1679, his youngest son Prince Akbar revolted and wrote a very nasty letter to his father in which he pointed out that ‘you are responsible for the death of Shah Shuja, Dara and so forth, and now it is you who are teaching morality…’. But the fiasco, with which the rebellion of Akbar ended with his flight to Persia, is the conclusive evidence that Aurangzeb had succeeded in binding the Muslim aristocracy behind the Mughal throne by emphasising the Shariat laws. It was in the same year that Jizya was imposed. Why did Aurangzeb not impose the jizya from 1658 to 1679? What was the sudden need now?
Bhatia points out, it was only 22 years after his ascent to the throne that Aurangzeb decided to impose the jizya on the Hindus, and this may have actually been a response to the outbreak of rebellions of the Marathas, Sikhs, Jats and others. Certain classes of Hindus, including government officials, were exempted from the jizya, while, at the same time, Aurangzeb made arrangements for the zakat to be collected from Muslims. Bhatia writes that “It is also stated that long before jizya was imposed, Aurangzeb had ordered the abolition of a number of unauthorized taxes which placed heavy burden on the Hindus” (p. 52). He admits that one of the aims of imposing the jizya, as the court ulema saw it, was to degrade the Hindus, and this naturally caused considerable ill-will and resentment among them. That the financial aspect of the jizya was not seen by the ulema as equally important as its symbolism is reflected in the fact that the total collection from the jizya was only slightly more than the money spent on collect- ing it, with much of the money collected going into the pockets of corrupt officials. And as for the resumption of tax-free land grants to Hindu priests and yogis, this was only a temporary measure in the wake of Hindu-led rebellions and that when these subsided the edict was allowed, for all practical purposes, to lapse.
Jizya was a discriminatory tax, alright. And of course it was humiliative, but then the Rajputs were exempted, the Brahmins were exempted and all those who were in the Mughal service were exempted! In terms of collection, the jizya was graded: the richest man was to pay Rs.12/= per annum, while the less prosperous was supposed to pay Rs.8/= per annum. According to Jadunath Sarkar, it was ` 3 ¼ , 6 2/3 and 3 1/3 per annum for the three classes.
The most pinching aspect of the Jizya was that it was a tax on the poor, who had to pay an average of one month’s salary as tax.
As early as 1669 orders were issued (says JN Sarkar) to demolish all the schools and temples of the ‘infidels’. Thus for example, the Maasir-i Alamgiri notes, the Temple of Malarna in Jaipur was demolished.
It was, again in 1679, that the orders for the destruction of temples were given. Probably these orders were partly in retaliation of the Rathore rebellion, for a number of temples were demolished in Jodhpur. Some of the most famous shrines demolished were the Somnath (Gujarat), the Vashvanath (Varanasi) and the Keshava Rai (Mathura). In January 1680 Aurangzeb ordered the demolition of three temples standing on the edge of Udai Sagar. If we believe SR Sharma, at Udaipur 172 temples were broken. In Chitor the number stood at 63.
There are well-documented evidences of Aurangzeb’s patronage of various Hindu religious institutions, namely temples, maths, grants to Brahmins and pujaris:
Land grants were renewed to the temples at Mathura, Banaras, Gaya, Gauhati, and others, while the emperor is known to have donated ghee for the navadeep in a few temples, including the Mahabateshwar temple at Agra;
Gifts were offered to the Sikh gurudwara at Dehradun;
Madad-i ma’ash grants, as listed in the Rajasthan documents, were continued to a math of Nathpanthi yogis in parganaDidwana, sarkar Nagor;
Grants were also made to Ganesh Bharti faqir and his successors in pargana Siwana with the instructions that the faqir should not be disturbed so he could ‘pray for this sultanat’.
The Vrindavan document of 1704 referred to a parwana which sanctioned the rights of Chaitanya gosains who had founded Vrindavan and established pilgrimages in Braj Bhumi, and recognised the right of Brajanand Gosain to receive a fee from the followers of the sect on account of kharj sadir o warid, that is, expenses on guests and travellers from each village. In effect, it was a government levy for the benefit of Brajanand Gosain and his Vaishnavite followers.
From the above description, Aurangzeb’s patronage to temples appears without doubt. And yet some temples were attacked, while others were spared. This aberration in the emperor’s attitude can be explained by only one rationale: it was not iconoclasm, but reprisal for rebellion or political misconduct or disloyalty to the emperor. This exposition can be applied to understand the attack on the Vishwanath temple at Kashi, the Keshav Dev temple at Mathura, and several prominent temples in Rajasthan. In 1669, during a zamindar revolt in Banaras, it was suspected that some of them had assisted Shivaji in his escape from imperial detention. It was also believed that Shivaji’s escape was initially facilitated by Jai Singh, the great-grandson of Raja Man Singh, who had built the Vishwanath temple. It was against this background that Aurangzeb ordered the destruction of that temple in September 1669.
Around the same time, in a Jat rebellion that had erupted in the neighbouring regions of Mathura, a patron of the local congregational mosque was killed, leading to Aurangzeb’s order in 1670 to attack the Keshav Dev temple at Mathura. Temples in Marwar and Mewar were also attacked following the death of Maharaja Jaswant Singh to reprimand and crush the Rathor rebellion and the development of a Sisodia– Rathor alliance. These included temples in Khandela patronised by rebel chieftains; temples in Jodhpur maintained by a former supporter of Dara Shukoh; and the royal temples in Udaipur and Chittor patronised by Rana Raj Singh after the Rana entered into an alliance with the Rathors that signalled the withdrawal of loyalty to the Mughal State. It may be observed that the Rathor rebellion was not a reaction or a protest against the re-imposition of jizya. Instead, this re-imposition, as Abu’l Fazl Ma’muri observed in the context of the suppression of the Satnami revolt and prior to the emperor’s expedition to Ajmer, was meant for ‘the affliction of the rebellious unbelievers’.
Jizya and temple destruction were both discriminatory policies. But then we have evidence of grants to the temples as well. A number of documents published in the Journal of the Bombay Historical Society as well as the Pakistan Historical Society mention a number of such grants to hindu temples by Aurangzeb. These documents testify to a number of villages being sanctioned for the upkeep of the temples.[eg. The Vrindavan temples and the ‘Nonidhara Temple at Bahraich].
So was there a contradiction in the personality of Aurangzeb? It was not. There was a contradiction in the situation which reflected in the policies of Aurangzeb. Nothing can stay static and yet survive. Aurangzeb knew that change was called for. However, he committed the mistake that he forgot that the religious revival was not the solution for the Mughal problems.
Let us take contemporary evidence. Bhimsen is the author of Nuskha-i Dilkusha. His is an eye-witness account of the military expedition in the Deccan. He was the peshkar of Dalpat Rao Bundela, an outstanding officer of Aurangzeb and is extremely critical of Aurangzeb’s Deccan policy. According to him Aurangzeb followed a policy of qila’ giri while the Marathas controlled the lands. Because of this policy, the area from where formerly gold coins were realized, now not even copper was forthcoming. Thus Bhimsen was quite critical of Aurangzeb, but then what is important to mark is that never does he criticize Aurangzeb on religious ground. He mentions the imposition of jizya but without any rancour.
No Hindu writer of Aurangzeb’s period, whether it is Bhimsen, or Isardas Nagar, the author of Futuhat-i Alamgiri or Sujan Rai Bhandari are critical of Aurangzeb on the grounds of the re-imposition of jizya or the destruction of the temples. These contemporary historians are infact silent on the religious policy of Aurangzeb and from their rading it appears that neither the line taken by Hindu communal historians, headed by Sir Jadunath Sarkar, and followed by S.R.Sarma, and Ashirbadilal Srivastava, nor the line taken by Muslim communal historians headed by Shibli and followed by I.H.Qureshi and others satisfactorily explains the religious policy of Aurangzeb and the stresses and strains to which the Indian Society was subjected to during the second half of the 17th Century.
In fact both the set of arguments are not supported by the contemporary accounts of Bhimsen or the others. Prof. M. Athar Ali deals with this problem in his book as well as in one of his papers.
According to his general assessment, in order to assess the results of Aurangzeb’s religious policy, one should imagine, not the India of the 19th Century with a new national as well as religious consciousness, motivating the various sections of the people, but of a period when vital loyalties to one’s caste or master superseded to a considerable degree other claims upon one’s conscience. In so far as Aurangzeb was careful to respect some privileges, e.g., exemption of the Rajputs from jizya or to exempt temples commanding great devotion (e.g., Puri or Thanjavur Temples) or temples built by loyal officials, he on his own part, recognized that there was a limit beyond which it was impolitic to go.
But above all, according to Athar Ali, one should remember that Aurangzeb’s policy could not be implemented as rigorously as it could be prescribed on paper. This was particularly true in relation to the temple destruction. A few prominent temples could not be saved; but local shrines were often a matter of adjustment with local officials, as the official news-reports from Ajmer testify.
On the whole, while one might deplore the long term effects of Aurangzeb’s Religious policy, specially the way it echoes poison and embitter modern minds. Its short term effects were probably not very significant. To a writer like Bhimsen, who though loyal to the Mughal cause, is also capable of being a friendly critic, the real problem with Aurangzeb was the increasing economic pressure on the peasantry, in which connection he lists the jizya, and the way Aurangzeb was concentrating on taking forts while leaving the country to the Marathas. He does not seem to think that Aurangzeb’s religious measures by themselves had any role in his difficulties. So also Manucci, whose long discourse on the ills of the Mughal Empire in the last years of Aurangzeb’s reign, does not even once brings in the question of any popular hostility aroused against Aurangzeb on account of his religious policy.
One may, on the whole, say that given Aurangzeb’s personal inclination, his religious policy was framed to win some sectional support in a period of political difficulty. The support he won on this basis was probably limited; the support he lost was perhaps even more limited. But the ills of the Mughal Empire were far more deep rooted than to be cured by such measures, or for that matter, be made much worse.
• Syed Ali Nadeem Rezavi
ASHA: Blast From The Past 