Author: KR Phanda
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: March 16, 2008
Brouhaha over Aurangzeb
The forcible stoppage of an exhibition on
Aurangzeb by Chennai Police at the behest of Islamists proves that Muslims
are not prepared to apologise for the crimes committed on Hindus by Muslim
invaders. At another level, it showcases the hypocrisy of the Hindu leadership:
It does not want the people to know the humiliation that Hindus had suffered
at the hands of Muslim invaders.
Islam divides humanity into momins and kafirs.
In an Islamic state, kafirs are given the option to embrace Islam or face
death. However, because of economic considerations, Hindus were also given
the choice to pay jizya, which was first imposed on them by Muhammad bin Qasim
when he invaded Sindh in 712 AD.
The Muslim rule in India was formally established
in 1206 when Qutub-ud-din Aibek became the first Sultan of Delhi. The Sultanate
was based on the distinction between Hindus and Muslims. The foremost among
those distinctions was the imposition of jizya on Hindus. Most Muslim rulers
also collected pilgrim tax from Hindus at places of religious fairs. Government
posts at the higher levels were always reserved for Muslims, while Hindus
were mostly employed to do menial works. Hindus were also not allowed to look
like Muslims.
Alauddin Khilji had forbidden Hindus to wear
rich clothes and use carriages. Tughlaqs, who followed the Khiljis, continued
with this discrimination and had ordered Hindus to carry distinguishing yellow
marks on their dresses. hen there were blasphemy laws. Sikander Lodhi is reported
to have beheaded a Brahmin when he said that both Hinduism and Islam were
true faiths.
With the coming of Mughals, particularly Akbar,
these restrictions were relaxed and jizya was abolished. This period of harmonious
relations, however, did not last long. The accession of Aurangzeb in 1658
saw the triumph of Muslim fanaticism. He took a number of measures which reduced
Hindus to the position of slaves - dhimmis to be precise. Jizya was re-imposed
and orders were issued to destroy Hindu temples.
On April 9, 1669, provincial Governors were
ordered to destroy schools and temples of the infidels and put an end to their
educational and religious activities. Prof Shri Ram Sharma has corroborated
this point in his book, The Religious Policy of the Mughal Emperors, first
published in 1940. Soon after the order was issued, reports of the destruction
of temples in different parts of the country started pouring in.
In August 1669, Kashi Viswanath temple in
Benaras was destroyed. The turn of Keshav Dev temple in Mathura came next.
This temple had then been built at an estimated cost of Rs 33 lakh by Rao
Bir Singh of Bundela during the reign of Jahangir. It was razed to the ground.
"The richly jewelled idols taken from the pagan temples were transferred
to Agra and there placed beneath the steps leading the Nawab Begum Sahib's
mosques in order that they might ever be pressed under the foot by the true
believers. The city's name was changed to Islamabad," writes Vincent
A Smith.
FS Growse, who was the District Collector
of Mathura in the mid-19th century, was so overwhelmed by the vandalism carried
out by Muslims that he visited the area repeatedly. In Mathura: A District
Memoir, he writes, "Thanks to Muhammadan intolerance, there is not a
single building of any antiquity either in the city or its environs. Its most
famous temple, Keshav Dev, was destroyed in 1669, the 11th year of the reign
of the iconoclast Aurangzeb. The mosque (idgah) was erected on its ruins."
A number of other measures were introduced
by Aurangzeb "with the object of spreading Islam and throwing out infidel
practices". For example, in April 1665, a custom duty of 2.5 per cent
ad valorem tax on commodities for sale by Muslim merchants was fixed and a
duty of five per cent was levied on Hindu merchants. In 1668, all Hindu religious
fairs were banned and Hindus were forbidden to use palkis. All these measures
led to the rise of Marathas and Sikhs and ultimately the disappearance of
the Mughal rule.
Despite such track record, it's blasphemy
to criticise Aurangzeb in the increasingly 'secular' India.
