5 min readApr 1, 2025 08:49 PM IST
First published on: Apr 1, 2025 at 07:06 AM IST
It was impossible not to be amused with Balbir Punj’s impassioned take-down of Aurangzeb (‘The Aurangzeb we know’, IE, March 27) and the Mughals (read Muslims) and one should offer thanks that he is not and probably never has been a teacher or a student of history! If he were, he would know that Islam did not appear in India with the Mughals but centuries before them on the Malabar coast, and there’s definitely no record of temples being destroyed or the citizenry being compelled to embrace the new religion at that time. And if he delves into his own lineage, I think the odds would be stacked against him: He would discover that he too is a sixth-generation Hindustani, born and brought up here just as Aurangzeb was. Does that make him an invader too?
In a series of staggering generalisations, Punj blames the disappearance of non-Muslim communities from neighbouring countries on the “invaders” who left those countries and came to India. The Mughals, according to him, brutalised our country by succeeding “to an extent in their objective of obliterating the symbols of local inclusive plural culture and decimating the followers of indigenous faiths”. He doesn’t stop there, he attributes the death of pluralism, secularism and co-existence in foreign lands like Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Pakistan (overlooking India, that is Bharat, of course) to the disappearance of Hindu-Buddhist-Sikh communities in those countries. One cannot help but wonder if he is really serious in making these assertions, because we all know what the cause of the soon-to-be total disappearance of pluralism, secularism and co-existence in our own country today is.
He resents Aurangzeb being praised and set up as a “role model” for Muslims in India, which he most assuredly is not. I very much doubt if there is a single Muslim in India who hero-worships or identifies with him, whereas valiant Babur yes, Humayun no because he ran away, Akbar is respected (thanks largely to Prithviraj Kapoor), Junkie Jahangir possibly, and the lover of beauty Shah Jahan most definitely, but not Aurangzeb. I expect that as a teacher of Mass Communication, Punj should know the difference between celebrating a person and speaking objectively of him.
Making light of the glorification of Nathuram Godse, not even mentioning V D Savarkar whose portrait now adorns Parliament house, next to Gandhi ji’s, and being magnanimously forgiving about the British despite their ruthless loot-maar, and nurturing the saplings of division and hatred among Hindus and Muslims, illustrate the deep-seated biases Punj suffers from, and reveals his agenda. The glorification of Sambhaji is for him totally justified but I wonder if he knows what Guru Golwalkar and Savarkar himself had to say about that historical personage. The celebration of some people clearly passes muster while the objective analysis of others gets him in an uproar. It doesn’t do for an academic to be so blinkered.
Considering that demolishing temples seemed to be the favorite pastime of the Mughals, doesn’t Punj realise he’s contradicting himself by asking “how millions of Hindus and thousands of temples survived if Islamic invaders were so intolerant?” And he doesn’t bother to explain how the “abysmally small” number of invaders managed to influence and rule over more than half the Subcontinent and continue to rule for centuries when their administrative abilities were so poor.
But the real conundrum here is why only the Mughals, who came to settle and not to plunder, have become the target of unceasing opprobrium by our so-called patriots. No doubt temples were destroyed in their time, just as cathedrals and mosques were destroyed in the USSR and a mosque in China today has actually been turned into a urinal. The truth is that temples were also built or patronised by Mughal rulers and, except for Aurangzeb who was undoubtedly a bigot and a rabid fundamentalist but also an ascetic (which incidentally does not detract from his administrative abilities), the other Mughals are recorded as being pretty much secular.
The Mughals, instead of looting and scooting, stayed on and left behind treasures of architecture, literature, painting, music and poetry. That they are confused with marauders like Timur, Nadir Shah and Mahmud Ghaznavi who only came to plunder is not surprising, considering the Islamophobia prevalent the world over today, nor is the fact that only the Mughal dynasty is the target of venomous hatred by our jingoists. The Mamluks, the Slave Dynasty, the Khiljis, the Tughlaqs, the Lodis are not mentioned because the world is unaware of their doings. The world knows only the Mughals so they must be run down. And the Mughals were Muslim, ergo all Muslims are invaders.
And incidentally, if DNA testing were around in Aurangzeb’s time, it would probably have revealed that he had less Mongol, more Rajput blood in him.
The writer is an actor and author
If DNA testing were around in Aurangzeb’s time, it would probably have revealed that he had less Mongol, more Rajput blood in him. 
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