‘Knock down Taj Mahal, Red Fort if everything Mughals did was evil’: Naseeruddin Shah says Mughals needn’t be glorified, but shouldn’t be vilified 

In times of polarisation, comes ZEE5’s original series Taj – Divided by Blood, featuring Shah as King Akbar. The show is billed as a “revelatory tale about the inner workings and the succession drama” that played out in the chambers of the Mughal empire.

When asked how does he look at the country which seems to believe that all things wrong with it dates back to the Mughals, Shah told indianexpress.com, “It amuses me, because it is so utterly ridiculous. I mean, people can’t tell the difference between Akbar and a murderous invader like Nader Shah or Babar’s great grandfather Taimur.

“These were people who came here to loot, the Mughals didn’t come here to loot. They came here to make this their home and that’s what they did. Who can deny their contribution?”

The veteran said the idea that Mughals were the embodiment of all things evil just showcases one’s lack of understanding of the country’s history. Sure, Shah says, may be the history books were too kind to the Mughals to the extent of their glorification at the cost of India’s indigenous culture, but their time in history should not be discarded as catastrophic.

“Sure they are not the only ones. In school unfortunately, history dwelled mainly on the Mughals or the British. We knew about Lord Hardy, Lord Cornwallis and about the Mughal emperors, but we didn’t know about the Gupta dynasty, or the Maurya dynasty, or the Vijayanagara Empire, the history of the Ajanta caves, or about the northeast. We didn’t read any of these things because history was written by the Englishmen or the Anglophiles and I think that’s really unfair.

“So what people are saying is to some extent true, that the Mughals have been glorified at the expense of our own indigenous traditions. Perhaps that’s true, (But) there is no need to villainize them either.”

 

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Naseeruddin Shah said if the Mughal empire was so demonic, then why don’t those who oppose it “knock down” the monuments they have built. “If everything they did was horrible, then knock down the Taj Mahal, knock down the Red Fort, knock down Qutub Minar. Why do we consider the Red Fort sacred, it was built by a Mughal. We need not glorify them, but there is no need to vilify them either.”

When asked if there is a space for an intellectual conversation right now, Shah said, “no, absolutely not,” because the discourse is at an all-time low.

“Tipu Sultan is vilified! A man who gave his life to drive the English away. (And it’s now being said), ‘Do you want Tipu Sultan or the Ram Temple?’ I mean, what kind of logic is this? I don’t think there is room for debate, because they can’t ever see my point of view and I can’t ever see theirs,” he added.

Earlier in January, while addressing a BJP workers’ convention in Bengaluru, Union Home Minister Amit Shah had said that in the Assembly elections in Karnataka, people need to choose between Prime Minister Narendra Modi who built the Ram Temple at Ayodhya and developed Kashi, Kedarnath and Badrinath, and “those who glorify Tipu Sultan.”

 

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Produced by Contiloe Digital, Taj – Divided by Blood will see Dharmendra as Sheikh Salim Christi, encapsulating the reign of King Akbar who is on a quest to find a worthy successor.

The show dramatises the rise and fall of the generations that follow, showcasing the beauty and brutality of this great dynasty, their passion for arts, poetry and architecture, but at the same time their remarkably cold-blooded decisions with regards to their own family, in the quest for power.

The ensemble cast includes Aditi Rao Hydari as Anarkali, Aashim Gulati as Prince Salim, Taha Shah as Prince Murad, Shubham Kumar Mehra as Prince Daniyal, Sandhya Mridul as Queen Jodha Bai, Zareena Wahab as Queen Salima, Sauraseni Maitra as Mehr un Nisa and Rahul Bose as Mirza Hakim.

William Borthwick is the showrunner of Taj with Simon Fantauzzo as the writer and Ronald Scalpello as the director. Taj – Divided by Blood will stream on ZEE5 on March 3.