Aurangzeb's tomb: ‘Correcting’ historical wrongs is a slippery slope

In 1654, the future Mughal emperor Aurangzeb issued a set of strict instructions to one of his sons. The prince was to wake up 72 minutes before sunrise, commanded the father. He had 48 minutes thereafter for his toilet and bodily business, followed by prayer and breakfast. If he were on the road, he was to mount his horse 48 minutes after sunrise, and make sure he crossed every assigned post on his route punctually. Time was also allocated for correspondence, reading poetry, “improving your handwriting”, and holding an audience with leading officials and courtiers. At the end of the day another round of prayer was to follow, until at 9pm, as per Aurangzeb’s wishes, the prince was to tuck himself into bed. This way the young man would not only form solid habits, but also project a fitting picture of royal character.

Nobody could accuse Aurangzeb of being a disordered individual. What he is often accused of being, however, is the worst of the Mughals: a bigot, a cruel tyrant, a usurper, and a textbook villain. Some of these charges ring true—Aurangzeb himself was sensitive to the fact that he had seized his father’s throne, on account of which rival powers such as the Persians lampooned him. A good part of his pronounced piety may even have been designed to rebrand this tainted kingly image. But what rouses heated debate and emotional aggravation in India, centuries after his death, is his religious policy and the violence people associate with his reign. At the moment, for instance, some politicians in Maharashtra wish to flatten his grave and cast his bones into the sea—just the kind of original thinking one desires in politicians, apparently.

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Making sense of Aurangzeb is a complicated affair. He was not a terribly likeable man, but then again, most men of power in the premodern period were not very likeable. What, however, sets him apart for especial hatred from, say, Akbar who also occasionally presided over massacres, or Jahangir who also demolished temples? One answer perhaps lies in the fact that Aurangzeb alienated elements—the Marathas, the Sikhs—who later became powerful forces, redrawing India’s political map and shredding Mughal might. And their self-image and narratives, which acquired vigour as Mughal authority wilted, are often built on memories of persecution under Aurangzeb. In other words, narratives of resistance were seeded into the cultural consciousness of these ascendant groups, and Aurangzeb became the emblematic villain of the piece.

Different views of history

To be clear, these narratives do hold substance. For Aurangzeb, it is true, the Marathas and the Sikhs were mere rebels. After all, he was the emperor, and even in the 19th century, when the Mughals were reduced to figureheads, their status as India’s sovereigns was widely acknowledged. So, in his view, acting against these forces was a matter of state—a legitimate ruler swatting down pesky irritants. All the same, it is equally true that to the Marathas, this was a case of resistance against a conqueror not “rebellion”; it was a quest for a new vision of things. Where the Mughals saw a “mountain rat” in Shivaji, the Marathas celebrated a Chhatrapati (sovereign). Where to Aurangzeb the execution of Shivaji’s son Sambhaji was the liquidation of an upstart, to the Marathas it was the murder of their king. And depending on where you view the question from, both perspectives hold logic.

While historians can take a step back and analyse the many ways in which historical events are remembered, societies engage with history more emotionally—especially when politicians revel in weaponising emotion. At a certain level one can, for example, comprehend why many in Maharashtra were offended that the town of Aurangabad commemorated Aurangzeb. To them, he was an outsider who subjugated the Deccan; “Aurangabad” was an advertisement of his (contested) authority. Renaming it after Sambhaji, in local imagination, is a welcome act of reclamation. Yet seeking to “correct” historical wrongs in the present is a slippery slope.

The Marathas themselves, as they fanned out across India, were viewed as raiders—if Aurangzeb’s grave in Maharashtra is unpopular now, Maratha monuments in the north too could someday come under siege, if this set of historical memories receives mischievous political stimulus.

Aurangzeb’s religious policy is also controversial. How far this stemmed from personal belief and how much was a shrewd political instrumentalisation of identity can be debated. After all, while we recall his acts of temple destruction, Aurangzeb also used Sunni sectarianism to target Shia sultanates and Ismaili Muslims. Here again, his strategic intentions are only half the picture. Yes, to him as emperor this was maybe just politics. But the loss and tragedy borne by those at the receiving end are real: a temple might embody a Hindu king’s power, and in that sense be a fair target for an emperor. But that same temple would also have been the nucleus of whole communities and local economies; its collapse would have rippled through society more widely. A ruler’s attempt to make a political statement, in other words, could also spark loss and crisis—indeed resentment—among non-political peoples.

A historical personage

Yet we must be wary of simplistic explanations and propositions. While Shivaji conceptualised sovereignty in a new manner and did stand up to the Mughals, there were also Marathas who preferred Aurangzeb. As a young man, barely out of his teens, he courted Maratha lords in the Deccan, and they supplied troops and support for his expansionism in the period. Later during the war of succession in which Aurangzeb prevailed over his father’s favourite son and preferred heir, Dara Shikoh, Maratha grandees participated in some of the most significant battles, at Dharmat and Samugarh, for example. Even Shivaji’s own kin at one time had served the Mughal state, and his son Sambhaji briefly fell out with him and defected to Aurangzeb. While we may view things in black and white, for the actual figures of that period, these dynamics clearly defied easy categorisation.

Either way, at the end of the day, one need not “like” Aurangzeb. He is a historical personage and as such is unlikely to appeal to our sensibilities. Even compared to some of his own predecessors, he often seems rather unpleasant. But where his grave is concerned, it would perhaps be wisest to let it be.

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After all, Khuldabad, where the emperor rests, also houses, barely 10 minutes away, the tomb of Malik Ambar. If Aurangzeb’s grave represents an unhappy memory of conquest, Ambar in an earlier generation stoutly battled the Mughals, aided by the Marathas, and symbolises resistance. Shivaji himself, in court poetry, paid tributes to this African Muslim. Ambar’s is also the grander monument—Aurangzeb’s is a plain affair inside a dargah. Indeed, the presence of both structures in the same town in Maharashtra represents a fuller picture of history. But then again, when it comes to politics, how many are actually invested in making sense of history?

Manu S. Pillai is a historian and author, most recently, of Gods, Guns and Missionaries.