Victor Ovies Arenas\/Moment RF\/Getty Images<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Born in 1618 to Shah Jahan (of Taj Mahal fame) and his wife Mumtaz Mahal (for whom it was built), historians describe the young prince as a devout, solemn figure, who showed early signs of leadership. <\/p>\n
He held several appointments from the age of 18, in all of which he established himself as a capable commander. The glory of the Mughal empire reached its zenith under his father, and Aurangzeb\u2019s scrambled for control of what was then the richest throne in the world <\/p>\n
So when Shah Jahan fell ill in 1657, the stage was set for a bitter war of succession between Aurangzeb and his three siblings in which he would eventually come face-to-face with his eldest brother, Dara Shikoh, a champion of a syncretic Hindu-Muslim culture. <\/p>\n
Aurangzeb imprisoned his ailing father in 1658 and defeated his brother the year after, before forcibly parading him in chains on a filthy elephant on the streets of Delhi. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe favorite and pampered son of the most magnificent of the Great Mughals was now clad in a travel-tainted dress of the coarsest cloth,\u201d wrote Jadunath Sarkar in \u201cA Short History of Aurangzib.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cWith a dark dingy-colored turban, such as only the poorest wear, on his head. No necklace or jewel adorning his person.\u201d <\/p>\n
Dara Shikoh was later murdered. <\/p>\n
By now, Aurangzeb\u2019s authority had reached extraordinary heights, and under his leadership the Mughal empire reached its greatest geographical extent. <\/p>\n
He commanded a degree of respect and for the first half of his reign, ruled with an iron fist, albeit with relative tolerance for the majority Hindu faith. <\/p>\n
Until about 1679, there were no reports of temples being broken, nor any imposition of \u201cjizya\u201d or tax on non-Muslim subjects, according to Nadeem Rezavi, a professor of History at India\u2019s Aligarh University. Aurangzeb behaved, \u201cjust like his forefathers,\u201d Rezavi said, explaining how some Hindus even held high rank within his government. <\/p>\n
In 1680 however, that all changed, as he embraced a form of religious intolerance that reverberates to this day. <\/p>\n
The zealot ruler demoted his Hindu statesmen, turning friends into foes and launching a long and unpopular war in the Deccan, which included the violent suppression of the Marathas, a Hindu kingdom revered to this day by India\u2019s right-wing politicians \u2013 including Prime Minister Narendra Modi. <\/p>\n
Members of Modi\u2019s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have been quick to point out the cruelties inflicted on Hindus by Aurangzeb \u2013 forcing conversions, reinstating the jizya, and murdering non-Muslims. <\/p>\n
He also waged war on the Sikhs, executing the religion\u2019s ninth Guru Tegh Bahadur, an act makes Aurangzeb a figure of loathing among many Sikhs to this day. <\/p>\n
This brutality was on display in the recently released film \u201cChhaava,\u201d which depicts Aurangzeb as a barbaric Islamist who killed Sambhaji, the son of the most famous Maratha king, Chhatrapati Shivaji. <\/p>\n
\u201cChhaava has ignited people\u2019s anger against Aurangzeb,\u201d said Devendra Fadnavis, the chief minister of Maharashtra, where Nagpur is located. <\/p>\n
Muslims alleged members of the right-wing Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) burned a sheet bearing verses from their holy Quran. <\/p>\n
Yajendra Thakur, a member of the VHP group, denied the allegations but restated his desire to have Aurangzeb\u2019s tomb removed. <\/p>\n
Modi\u2019s invocation of the man who led India before him is no surprise. <\/p>\n
The prime minister, who wears his religion on his sleeve, has been a long-time member of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, a right-wing paramilitary organization that advocates the establishment of Hindu hegemony within India. It argues the country\u2019s Hindus have been historically oppressed \u2013 first by the Mughals, then by the British colonizers who followed. <\/p>\n
And many of them want every trace of this history gone. <\/p>\n
The Maharashtra district where he is buried, once known as Aurangabad, was renamed after Shivaji\u2019s son in 2023. The triumphs of his forefathers, the great king Akbar and Shah Jahan, have been written out of history textbooks, Rezavi said, or not taught in schools. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey are trying to revert history and replace it with myth, something of their own imagination,\u201d Rezavi said. \u201cAurangzeb is being used to demonize a community.\u201d <\/p>\n
Modi\u2019s BJP denies using the Mughal emperor\u2019s name to defame India\u2019s Muslims. But his invocation of India\u2019s former rulers is causing fear and anxiety among the religious minority today. <\/p>\n
While historians agree that he was a dark, complex figure, and don\u2019t contest his atrocities, Rezavi said it is necessary to recognize that he existed at a time when \u201cIndia as a concept\u201d didn\u2019t exist. <\/p>\n
\u201cWe are talking about a time when there was no constitution, there was no parliament, there was no democracy,\u201d Rezavi said. <\/p>\n
Kaicker seemingly agrees. Such historical figures \u201cdeserve neither praise nor blame,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n
\u201cThey have to be understood in the context of their own time, which is quite distant from our own.\u201d <\/p>\n
Back in Nagpur, demands for the tomb\u2019s removal have gone unanswered, with some members of the Hindu far right even dismissing the calls for demolition. <\/p>\n
Local Muslim resident Asif Qureshi said his hometown has never seen violence like that which unfolded last month, condemning the clashes that convulsed the historically peaceful city. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis is a stain on our city\u2019s history,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n
This post appeared first on cnn.com<\/div>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Despite being dead for more than 300 years, this Indian ruler is still making waves in the nation\u2019s politics. Aurangzeb Alamgir has become so central to India\u2019s fraught political moment, his memory is leading to sectarian violence across the country. The sixth emperor of the famed Mughal dynasty, he is considered by many detractors to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5637,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5636\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/republicanstradetoday.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}