Author: T R Jawahar
Publication: News Today
Date: March 15, 2008
URL: http://www.newstodaynet.com/printer.php?id=5876
It is not often that you have ghosts of past
Mughal emperors calling on you in succession. After Babar, who has been hanging
around for quite some time now, sternly refusing to be exorcised, Akbar and
Aurangazeb are currently in our midst, bestowing their munificence even posthumously.
And we the subjects are asked to be not just grateful for our past masters'
grace but also grovel before their glories and greatness. This is the latest
version of secularism on parade, duly upheld by a secular State.
Bharat's hoary history actually belonged to
the distant past and virtually ended with the Islamic incursions of the 9th
century. Since then, for over thousand years, it has been one long unbroken
story of ignominy and ignorance for an entire people and of enslavement and
emasculation of an ancient civilisation by the worst form of aggressions.Of
course, this could not have happened without certain inherent weaknesses within
and again, even this period was not without its highpoints too. And of all
the aggressors, the Mughals were a class apart in terms of intolerance and
sheer barbarism. And Aurangazeb's monstrosities marked the zenith.
But we will go by protocol and hierarchy:
So, to Akbar first. Romanticising Moghal rulers and scouting for virtues in
them is not just a Bollywood pastime but an infectious infirmity deeply ingrained
in the Indian masses too. And no one has benefitted from this see-no-evil
attitude of Indians than Akbar. So Jodha's Akbar was a 'doting' husband, we
are told; sure, but he was so for scores for other women too. A New York Times
review wants to know whatever happened to the other 199 wives! And we can
bet even that is a very conservative estimate; Mughal records proudly claim
that, 'households' apart, Akbar had a harem of 5000! It included those abducted
and those offered as ransom. Is there anything even remotely romantic about
the scenario? But we have an entire nation drooling over it. If indeed Hindu-Muslim
unity had to be captured in a historic setting on celluloid, why not a story-line
of a love affair between a soldier in Akbar's army and a maid in Jodha's palace?
Rahman's music would have still scored, H-M unity soared and secularism too
been served! Why trouble history and distort Akbar's 'image' as well?
Again filmy fantasy and history textbooks
portray Akbar as a benign, compassionate and tolerant monarch who yearned
for peace. Listen to Akbar's boast, that I am poaching in public interest,
from something I read somewhere: '...with the help of our blood thirsty sword
we have erased the signs of infidelity from their minds and have destroyed
temples in those places and also all over Hindustan'. Peace? Of the graveyard,
indeed. If one counts Jallaludddin Akbar's mass massacres, it is a wonder
that India has a population at all. This is not a Birbal joke but a brutal
reality.
Of Shahjahan, the ultimate romantic for all
seasons, less said the better. But we can say this: If all his Mumtaz Mahals
were to be entitled to a Taj Mahal apiece, the planet would have run out marbles
in the seventeenth century itself. Nothing wrong, per se, for polygamy and
promiscuity are signs of all times, more so for the Mughals who had an extra
passion for amassing not just wealth but wives too. But should we be so enamoured
as to adore all those amorous Alampanahs as sterling symbols of such finer
things as love and peace? We never thought secularism had a sensuous side
to it.
But as we said, Aurangazeb's reign tops the
charts when the Mughals were at their marauding best. The recent exhibition
in Chennai by a French journalist had sought to showcase this super Shahenshah
'as he was'. The pictures displayed were authentic, drawn from genuine Mughal
records. The exhibition faced no problems elsewhere in India. But in rational
TN some 'secular' Muslims found it wholly unfair on A' Zeb and raised a stink.
The secular than thou State promptly descended on site with all its might
and lo, the 'offending' exhibits and the exhibition itself, vanished in a
jiffy! And not just the works of art, but the usually conspicuous and vocal
apostles of artistic freedom too had disappeared. For, this was no secular
art, to be defended zealously in prime time and print. Neither were the artists
MF Husseins; the paintings themselves were not of disrobed Hindu deities that
are covered under artistic license but naked truths about a tyrant that simply
cannot be exposed to public scrutiny. What hypocrisy!
But even more apalling were the arguments put forth by the modern apologists
of medieval A'zeb. What of the good deeds of A'zeb? Particularly his 'munificent
contributions of lands and grants to Hindu temples'. Even if A'zeb had indeed
done that, whose land were those in the first place? But really tales of such
charity are long lasting lies, next only to Akbar's fidelity. On the contrary,
A'zeb was the most prolific destroyer of temples and Hindu idols among the
whole horde. The Mughal literature is littered with brick-by-brick accounts
of the looting and dismantling of hundreds of temples, carried out under his
direct decrees. And in their place, rose Masjids. Again, A'zeb's s advocates
claim that he had to destroy temples to flush out rebels a la Op Blue Star?
Then why desecrate idols and worse, bury them under footsteps in Mosques,
to be trampled upon for eternity? Now these are not communal concoctions but
confessions of A' zeb and his contemporary cohorts themselves.
Should A'zeb be exhumed and exhibited now?
A'zeb represents an ideology that is inimical to India. How many know that
this foremost villain of our history is a hero in Pakistan? Or that he is
the most favoured mascot of jihadis world over? Or that it is his glory days
and his brand of 'compassion' that they all want to reinstate in infidel India?
Well, that goal may be a bit over the top, but can we take chances, now that
we have been formally introduced to A'zeb's fan club? Is it not a bit unnerving
to see that the Aurangazeb aura still hangs and his legacy quite active right
in our midst? Does forgiving and forgetting mean we must also forfeit our
core sensitivities?
Digesting Aurangazeb is not as easy as swallowing
a Lucknowi kebab. India can never be proud of its Mughal past. It cannot also
approve of those who praise it. Never the twain shall meet!
