Aurangzeb tomb row: Why RSS-BJP loves brother Dara Shikoh, the emperor who never was

Marking Shikoh apart from other Mughal rulers isn’t new for the Sangh Parivar. In 2020, the Union Ministry of Culture set up a panel to locate his grave, which is believed to be located in the Humayun’s tomb complex in Delhi. The purpose of the exercise was to project the Mughal prince, who lost to his brother in a war of succession, in a positive light, just as the narrative paints Aurangzeb as a medieval oppressor.

In 2015, a year after the BJP first formed the government under Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Aurangzeb Road in New Delhi was renamed after former President Dr A P J Abdul Kalam. Similarly, in 2023, Aurangzeb Lane in New Delhi was renamed A P J Abdul Kalam Lane.

While there has been clamour to expunge Aurangzeb’s memory, Shikoh has been repeatedly celebrated. In 2019, speaking at a symposium, “Dara Shikoh, A Hero of Indian Syncretistic Traditions”, RSS leader Krishna Gopal referred to him as a “real Hindustani”, a Muslim who was in love with Indian traditions and who translated the Upanishads into Persian.

Quest for the “Bharatiya Muslim”

For a long time, the RSS has maintained that all those whose ancestors were Hindus remain Hindus, whatever their mode of worship. At a recent annual meeting of its top decision-making body, Hosabale reiterated this stand.

In September 2018, in the first of three public lectures, RSS sarsanghchalak Mohan Bhagwat, in a reply to a question on the Sangh’s position on Muslims, said the minority community should tell the RSS where it found it wrong. He, however, said the Sangh would continue to say Indians had Hindu ancestry as it was “true”. “We say this not to ostracise you, but to emphasise you are one of us,” he added.

In a speech on V D Savarkar in Pune in the 1980s, former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee bemoaned that “dharmantaran (religious conversion)” also became “rashtrantaran (switching national loyalties)” in India. Citing examples of countries such as Indonesia, which, according to him, did not “forget its pre-Islamic past”, Vajpayee said they only changed their form of worship and not their culture, thus tacitly implying that Muslims in India should also look up to ancient symbols for inspiration.

The BJP and the RSS do not see Muslims as a monolith and seek to project those Muslims who show affinity towards Hindu traditions, framed by the Sangh as India’s foundational national traditions, and reject or ignore those historical figures who are seen as puritanically Islamic.

“From Ras Khan and Rahim, who revered Lord Krishna, to Shikoh, there has been a stream of Bharatiya Islam that we celebrate, which is very different from that of Aurangzeb, who imposed jaziya (tax on non-Muslims) on Hindus and demolished temples, or Mahmud Ghazni and Babur, both invaders who caused temple destructions,” said an RSS leader.

Kalam, who was known to play the Veena and read the Bhagavad Gita, is also celebrated by the Sangh and its allied organisations and was made President in 2002 when the BJP under Vajpayee was in power.

Less than a month ago, Modi also extolled the Sufi tradition within Islam at the 25th edition of Jahan-e-Khusrau, saying that Amir Khusrau had a deep love for Hindustan. The BJP Minority Morcha has been attempting a Sufi outreach for the last three years.

Narrative around Dara Shikoh

The Aurangzeb-Dara Shikhoh binary is older than the Sangh’s attempts to spin a narrative around it.

Historian Jadu Nath Sarkar, for instance, wrote in History of Aurangzeb that Shikoh followed in the footsteps of his great-grandfather Akbar and adopted his “pantheistic” vision. “He studied the Talmud and the New Testament, the writings of the Muslim Sufis, and the Hindu Vedanta … With the help of a band of pandits, he made a Persian version of the Upanishads. The title of Majmua-al-Bahrain (The Mingling of Two Oceans) which he gave to another of his works … proves that his aim was to find a meeting point for Hinduism and Islam in those universal truths that form the common basis of all true religions,” Sarkar said, adding that Shikoh keeping the company of Brahmans, yogis, and sanyasis; regarding the Vedas as a divine book; wearing rings inscribed with the word “Prabhu”; and even discarding prayers and the fast during Ramzan made Aurangzeb brand him a heretic.

Even Jawaharlal Nehru, who institutionalised “secularism” as an ideal during his term, wrote in his 1946 book The Discovery of India that Aurangzeb put the clock back and deviated from Akbar’s policy, asserting, “A bigot and an austere puritan, he was no lover of art and literature. He infuriated the majority of his subjects by imposing the old hated jaziya poll-tax on the Hindus and destroying many of their temples.”

In Medieval India, Part 2, historian Satish Chandra wrote, “The character and outlook of Shikoh and Aurangzeb were very dissimilar. Shikoh was constantly associated with liberal Sufi and Bhakti saints, and was deeply interested in the principle of monotheism. He had studied the testaments and the Vedas, and was convinced that the Vedas supplemented the Quran in the understanding of monotheism. On the other hand, Aurangzeb was devoted to the study of the Quran and the hagiological literature, and was strict in the observation of the various religious rituals. Shikoh called Aurangzeb a hypocrite, and Aurangzeb called Dara a heretic…”

Shikoh was the favourite of his father Shah Jahan and his choice to succeed him. But he lost key succession battles to Aurangzeb, his younger brother. After his defeat at the Battle of Deorai near Ajmer, Rajasthan, in March 1659, Shikoh escaped to Afghanistan, only to be captured by an Afghan chieftain, Malik Jiwan, and returned to Aurangzeb, who executed him.

Chandra wrote, “A panel of jurists decreed that Shikoh could not be suffered to live out of necessity to protect the faith and Holy Law, and also for reasons of state, and as a destroyer of public peace.”

However, by Chandra’s time, an alternative reading of Aurangzeb had entered history writing. In line with it, Chandra argued that Shikoh’s execution did not necessarily mean fanaticism but the use of religion by Aurangzeb as “a cloak for his political motives”. Chandra also said that while Aurangzeb was orthodox and did destroy many temples and impose jaziya, it would be wrong to see his religious policy as based on his personal religious beliefs and that, in reality, he had to contend with political, social, and administrative complexities. According to Chandra, Aurangzeb also gave grants to some temples even if he destroyed many others.

Earlier, historian Athar Ali wrote that in the latter part of Aurangzeb’s rule, the number of Hindu nobles increased, becoming almost a third of the nobility. More recently, the argument that Aurangzeb was misrepresented as a bigot has been carried forward and developed by historian Audrey Truschke.

However, with the large mass of material strewn over a century or more that sees Aurangzeb as representing Islamic orthodoxy and Shikoh as more pluralistic — something that Chandra also accepted — Shikoh acquires a special position in RSS circles as a “Bharatiya Muslim”.