Not The Tomb, It's The Man Aurangzeb Who Needs Demolition

The communal riots in Nagpur over Aurangzeb should force Hindus to ask what they really want from this controversy. Raze his tomb, which achieves nothing of value, or seek recognition of his bigotry?

The secularists will evade the issue. They will confuse the issue by asking why one should quarrel today over a bigoted ruler who died more than three centuries ago.

At a TV panel discussion yesterday (18 March), one secular panelist (Ashutosh, ex-journo, ex-Aam Aadmi Party politician) brought in a red herring. While agreeing that Aurangzeb was indeed a bigot, he added that his key vassal and general, Raja Jai Singh, should also be called a bigot. 

This is a bit rich, for this is like saying that Gen Reginald Dyer, the British military officer who was singularly responsible for the Jallianwala Bagh massacre, cannot be condemned too much as the people who actually did the firing were Indians under his command.

The fact is many people, for reasons of personal advancement or due to the need to earn a living, may work for bigots and rogues. They may be partners in crime, but this should not prevent us from pointing a finger at the prime mover of the crime.

Razing Aurangzeb’s tomb will make Aurangzeb look like a victim of Hindu malevolence, and hence counter-productive. Just as the assassination of the Mahatma made him more of a Mahatma, razing the tomb achieves no political purpose.

As a protected archaeological monument, it should not be disturbed. What can be done is to restrict access to the tomb only to historians and researchers, so that it does not become a place for a new idolisation of an idol-breaking fanatic.

Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis highlighted the Maharashtra government’s precarious position where it had to protect the tomb of the most despised ruler in pre-British India, but he had no other alternative.

The real goal of Hindus should be to ensure that Aurangzeb is mentioned in public parlance and history books in the same way as Hitler is. It is not as if Hitler did not have his human side.

There is a volumnous book by Harald Sandner, Hitler - The Itinerary: Whereabouts and Journeys from 1889 to 1945, which sees the dictator as a normal guy for large parts of his life. But Sandner is quoted by the National Post as saying, “Hitler was extremely evil, but he was also a human being, someone who could be quite charming when interacting with other people.”

It would be the same with Aurangzeb. Any history can mention his redeeming features, but not without emphasising his evil and bigoted nature. The latter side must predominate, and any attempt to make the “good” side the dominant part of the narrative around Aurangzeb must be emphatically rejected.

Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Eknath Shinde said that any glorification of Aurangzeb should be treated as an act of “treason”. He overstated his case, but clearly nobody should mention Aurangzeb without emphasising his evil side. Historians can do their detailed studies to give us a balanced view of Aurangzeb the man, but politicians should not be part of any glorification.

There is a strong case for censuring Abu Azmi, the Samajwadi Party MLA who said that Aurangzeb should not be painted as a cruel ruler. But that is precisely what he was, and Azmi is guilty of trying to sanitise the most hated ruler in Hindu India. He needs to be put in his place. Aurangzeb’s place is the dustbin of history.