False History has painted Aurangjeeb in bad colour purposefully. This article is to analyse Aurangjeeb's rule vis-a-vis the present modern rule on the touchstone of truth and reasoning.

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Aurangjeb’s Rule Vs. Present Rule
Dr. Md. Afsar Ali
Asstt. Professor,
A.J.C. Bose College, Kolkata - 700020
E-mail: ali.mdafsar09@gmail.com
History is the root of a nation. A child feels proud when he (she) learns the greatness,
heroism, dedication and even sacrifice of their lives by the ancestors for the cause of the
country and her people. This motivates the child to do something noble for the country.
On the other hand, if the same child is made to learn the reverse thing, like – his (her)
ancestors were coward, deceitful, corrupt, tyrant, inhuman etc. – then the same child will feel
ashamed as theinheritor of such ancestors. As a result the high values, heroism and all noble
aspirations of such child will be vanished; he(she) will show the tendency of withdrawing
from the real life struggle. Nothing good can be expected from such people who are defeated
in advance. They are forced to live a life of an accused person for no crime they (or their
ancestors) had committed.
Almost all Rulers want exactly this condition for their subjects. Because, this makes their rule
unquestionable, undisturbed and long live. Defeated subjects easily bow-down before their
lords (Rulers), hence there is no probability of disturbance.
The history of the second largest Indian community (14.2%) who has ruled this country
for about thousand years is deliberately distorted by the small minority ruling class in order to
serve their interest as stated above. The worst victim of this distortion became those Rulers
who otherwise would have been themost important source of inspiration and pride to the
Muslims. In this list comes Emperor Alamgir or Aurangjeb at the top. Thanks to the history
distortion, so much hate is accumulated against Aurangjeb that we are now in full gear to
erase even the last sign of his reign here. A road in Delhi named after Emperor Aurangjeb has
very recently been changed to rename after the just demised Scientist A. P. J. Abdul Kalam.
More hate is stored against Aurangjeb here than the respect to Kalam. Question remains,
whether Dr. Kalam would have accepted this as honour,if he would have been alive today?
What qualities a person should have in order to be an ideal Ruler? These are – he will rule
for the welfare of his subjects and not for his own pleasure or luxury; he will not discriminate
among his subjects, etc. Let us analyse whether Aurangjeb had these qualities or not?If, he

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possessed these then he was an ideal Ruler, otherwise we are to accept the allegations against
him as true.
The biggest allegation against Aurangjeb is that he had forcefully converted the non-
Muslims into Islam. According to a famous Historian, Babu Nogendranath Banerjee,
“Anybody has forced anyone regarding religious conversion – this allegation is completely
false. If the Muslim Rulers had this intension – then after a long period of Muslim rule in
India, the Hindu population would never been four times than that of the Muslim here. In
Muslim rule, the Hindus and the Muslims lived with much happiness and peace for a
prolonged period in the same village and same locality.On reading the imaginary tales of
thecompletely selfish foreign Historians that the Moslem kings were autocrat, cruel and
religion-blind as well as based on the propaganda of some hate-monger selfish persons,those
noble kings are being denounced even today. …Even the Emperor Aurangjeb, who has been
labelled as anti-Hindu, had appointed a Hindu as his Prime Minister.”[Mortaza, GA. (2007),
Chepe Rakha Itihas, p.104, Kolkata]. From this quotation and from the real Hindu – Muslim
population ratio it is proved beyond doubt that no force was applied for religious
conversioninto Islam.
Another allegation against the Emperor is that he used to hate the Hindus up to the extreme
level. If it was true, then where the Emperor Akbar, who has been widely propagated as the
most Hindu loving King, had appointed only 14 Hindus in the prestigious ‘Manasabdar’ post
in his administration,there how the ‘Hindu hate-monger’(?) Aurangjeb gave appointment to
148 Hindus in the same ‘Manasabdar’ post? [Sri Sharma, Mughal Administration, p.111]. In
addition to this, Aurangjeb’s Prime Ministers were Joy Singh and Yaswant Singh. Needless
to mention that both were non-Muslims. Raja Bhim Singh was appointed in a high ranked
army post. Indra Singh and Achalaji, who were the son-in-laws of Shivaji, both were
appointed as the Commander of five thousands Mughal army. It is known to all that to
Aurangjeb, Shivaji was a traitor. In spite of that Aurangjeb did not hesitate to put faith on his
son-in-law, albeit a non-Muslim. Again Arjuji, a relative of Shivaji was appointed as a
Commander of two thousandsMughal army. [Mortaza, ibid, p.109]. It was not possible to
ananti-Hindus person, to appoint such a large number of Hindus in the most important
department of military where from it was very easy to dethrone the Emperor himself at any
time by military coup. When we compare this situation with our present secular, modern and
liberal Government we find the Sachar Committee Report (2006), a Govt. report before us!
Where it is clearly stated that the State has discriminated against the Muslims.

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Many Hindus were placed in the high positions in the Aurangjeb’s administration. Some of
them are – Raja Rajrup, Kabir Singh, Amarnath Singh, Prem Deb Singh, Dilip Singh, Rasik
Lal Korey etc. Sri Sharma rightly said, “Nobody could label the dirty tag of communalism on
him (Aurangjeb). The destiny of the State was rested on the Hindus. Two non-Muslims were
appointed in the high posts in the revenue department in his administration.” [Sri Sharma,
ibid].
According to Ram Puniyani, a renowned thinker of the day, “It has been engraved in the
common senses of the people of this country that the Muslims and the Christians are ‘Others’
and continuous efforts are on to project them as devil one; a silent social sanction is there for
continuous violent onslaught against them.” [Ram Puniyani, The Milli Gazette, 15(8), New
Delhi, p.6.]. Moreover, he said, “The Muslim Rulers have protected the social structure of
this country. Their administration was of Hindu-Muslim mixed type. As for example, there
were 34 per cent Hindu employeesin the court of Aurangjeb.” [ibid,15(16), p.11.].
What do we find today in the same country? Muslims are only 2.3 per cent in the Govt.
jobs! If Aurangjeb can appoint 34 per cent Hindus in the upper posts and after that he can be
branded as anti-Hindus, fundamentalist Muslim etc., then what should be the suitable
adjective for those who degraded the Muslim presence in Govt. job at mere 2.3 per cent and
of course these microscopic presence are not in important posts?
Another allegation against Aurangjeb is that he has introduced ‘Jijia’ tax. The matter
needs detail discussion. Every Muslim citizen in an Islamic country is bound to perform two
types of basic duties – (1) He (she) has to join the army and even to sacrifice his (her) life for
the sake of the country, any time as the situation demands. (2) ‘Jakat’ or compulsory charity
is one of the five most important pillars in Islam. Every Muslim is duty bound to give 2.5 per
cent of his (her) annual saving above 85 gram of gold or its equivalent market price. The
Islamic Govt. collects this tax (Jakat) on which the Govt. runs and different welfare schemes
are undertaken for the public. But the non-Muslim citizens in the Islamic country are not
required to comply with any of these duties, because they are not obeying the constitution of
the State (The holy Qur’an).
Which ‘liberal’ Govt. even of today’s modern age will accept that any citizen will live in
the country and enjoy the benefits of all Govt. services, welfare schemes etc. but will not pay
the tax or required services to the nation and more importantly such citizen refuse to obey the
constitution of the country! It is sure that any country will convict such disobedient citizen as
anti-national and award him punishment accordingly. But the Islamic Govt. does not do that.
It only asks such citizen to pay a minimum amount of citizenship tax in another name, here

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‘Jijia’, as he refused to pay ‘Zakat’ because it derives from the holy Qur’an which the non-
Muslim citizen does not obey as the constitution of the country. But every non-Muslim had
not to pay ‘Jijia’. It was applicable only to the capable military aged male citizens. Children,
women, priest, handicapped, beggar and mad – were exempted from this tax. Professor
Jadunath Sarkar wrote in his 'Mughal Administration' “Aurangjeb had withdrawn 65 types of
different taxes and for that the State had to lose more than five crore rupees annually at that
time. But it is a matter of lamentation that nobody had thanked him for such a welfare step,
whereas, an all-round hue and cry is there for this one tax only.”
In contrast, in today’s ‘secular’, ‘liberal’ reign we astonishingly find that there is an active
tendency from the part of the Govt. to impose the Ruler’s religion and culture upon others.
Sometimes in the name of ‘Gharwapsi’, sometimes dictating the food menu for others
etc.Even open threats are being issued to eliminate the religious identity of non-Hindus by
declaring that ‘all Indians are Hindu’ or threatening to drive out of the country in case of non-
obeying the dictates of the Hindu forces (e.g., Muslims are now and again being called to go
to Pakistan). There are uncountable evidences of forceful collection of subscription from
others for the religious practices of the ruling class. Institutionalised religion is openly being
practiced in the Govt. offices, educational institutions, police stations etc., although the State
is a ‘secular’ one! We find no record of communal riot in India during the Muslim reign, but
today, on an average 2-3 communal riots per day does not even pinch our sense of humanity.
Aurangjeb’s name is tarnished by another serious allegation that he had demolished many
Hindu temples. Here is a quote, “If Auragjeb had this intension to forcefully demolish Hindu
temples to build masjids there, then probably there would have no sign of any temple in India
today. Doing such things was not even in remote consideration to him, rather Aurangjeb had
made wills of many temples in Benaras, Kashmir and in other parts of the country by his own
handwriting. The relevant deeds of the ‘Debottar’ and ‘Brohmottar’ properties of these
temples and its adjacent areas bear its testimony even today.” [Itihas Porichoi, (1946),
Hindustan Press, Kolkata]. The writing on the historical Balaji temple or Bishnu temple
situated on the northern side of Chitrakut, Ramghat, “Temple built by Emperor Aurangjeb”
bears the testimony of the above fact.
While spreading filth on Aurangjeb they unconsciously have told a truth about him. They
said that the Emperor used to obey the holy Qur’an to its letters. That means, whatever
Aurangjeb did, he did in accordance with the provisions of the holy Qur’an. Let us quote few
relevant verses from the holy Qur’an, “Let there be no compulsion in religion” [2/256].
“Don’t say wrong about those, whom they worship beside Allah”.[6/108]. If Aurangjeb

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followed the holy Qur’an to each of its letter, then he must have followed these versesalso.
And if it is so, how he could forcefully convert a single Hindus into Muslim and destroy the
Hindu temple? Because, the holy Qur’an forbade him to apply force for religious conversion
and also does not sanction to even utter any filthy word against their totems or idols, whom
the non-Muslims worship beside Allah. It is true that Aurangjeb followed every letter of the
holy Qur’an and these are the verses which forbade him to apply force on religious
conversion and guided him to do justice to other religions.
Now, let us look around our present administration. The five hundred year old Babri
Masjid and many other masjids and churches are demolished under the very nose of the
secular Govt.! It is true that Aurangjeb had sanctioned military operation in one or two
temples, but these were for purely political reasons instead of religious one, quite similar to
Indira Gandhi’s army operation in Golden Temple.
Aurangjeb’s India was economically more strong and prosperous compared to the
contemporary world. The reign Aurangjeb received from his father was capable to purchase
55 British pound in lieu of one Indian taka (rupee). Aurangjeb had strengthened that economy
further. Now, our economy became too weak that one British pound can purchase about 100
Indian rupee!
Wine, gambling and sexual shamelessness are the major source of social problems. These
were completely forbidden in Aurangjeb’s reign. Wine consumption rate among the Indian
teenaged has increased almost three times in last few years. Gambling and sexual
shamelessness has crossed all past records! We are living in the age of sexual revolution.We
are so submerged under this culture that sometimes it appearsthat sex is not for life, but life is
for sex!
Even his enemy acknowledge that Emperor Alamgir Aurangjeb led a very ordinary life.He
said goodbye to all types of luxury from his life. He did not take a penny from the Royal
treasury for his personal or family expenditure. The Emperor earned his livelihood by
copying the holy Qur’an and stitching caps. Even the last rite of the Emperor was done with
his personal earning, as per his will. It is an unpardonable crime in our history to scandalize
the noble character of such a rear personality.
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