Sri Ram Sharma Quotes

Aurangzeb urged the appointment of an officer on special duty in order to destroy the Hindu temples in Maharashtra. He discovered that it was not possible for the labourers accompanying the royal army on the march to destroy all the temples during the short time at their disposal with the limited number of men available to them..

Ghulam Muhammed, a news-writer, accompanying the expedition against the Jats reported on 28 May, 1690, to the emperor that Mohan Singh, one of the Rajput chiefs accompanying Bishan Singh, had set up a temple in the house of Sardul Singh. In December, 1690, a complaint was made to the emperor that the temples in Marwar that had once been converted into places of residence by the Muslim Jagirdar had again been opened for public worship.

Whatever Jahangir’s personal shortcomings might have been, he was, to a majority of his subjects, a good Muslim. Only a Muslim could have desecrated the temple at Kangra, destroyed idols and temples at Pushkar and in Mewar, upheld the true law by preventing the conversion of Qutub and his companion to Hinduism, stopped the conversion of Muslim girls by marriage to Hindus in Rajauri, ordered a simple translation of the Qur'an and supported the whole structure of a Muslim state.

The Jum’a Masjid at Irach (in Bundelkhand) is assigned to Aurangzeb’s reign. It is said to be built of materials taken from a Hindu temple. While passing through Udaipur in Bundelkhand (about 1681) Aurangzeb is said to have ordered the Saiva temple there to be demolished. The orders were however modified and the temple was converted into a mosque. The temples at Gayaspur near Bhilsa and the temple of Khaundai Rao in Gujarat were also destroyed.

When his reign began, it gave no signs of the opening of a new era in the religious policy of the Mughal emperors. Almost his first act of state was to earn religious merit and the title of Ghazi (slayer of infidels) by striking at the disarmed and captive Hemu after his defeat at the second battle of Panipat. Akbar was not asked to whet his sword on Hemu because he was a rebel, but because he was a Hindu. He was to perform not the task of the official executioner, but that of a victorious soldier of Islam. Abu’l Fazl would have us believe that the boy Akbar was wiser than his years and refused to strike a defenceless enemy. But most other writers are agreed that he struck at Hemu and earned the title of the Ghazi thereby.

So far as the Public Services were concerned Shah Jahan started by issuing rather a tall order. It was decreed that only Muslims were to be recruited to the public services. But this order does not seem to have been enforced.

Sankar, a messenger, was sent to demolish a temple near Sheogaon. He came back after pulling it down on 20 November, 1693. In. April, 1694, it was reported to the emperor that the imperial censor had tried to prevent public idol worship in Jaisinghpura near Aurangabad. The Vairagi priests of the temple were arrested but were soon rescued by the Rajputs.

Then came the turn of the temple of Keshav Rai at Mathura built at a cost of Rs. 33,00,000 by Rao Bir Singh Bundela in the reign of Jahangir. It had excited the envy of many Muslims, before Aurangzeb, who however had not Aurangzeb ’s opportunities and power. It had been built after the style of the famous temple at Bindraban which Man Singh had built at a cost of Rs, 5,00,000. But Bir Singh had improved upon his model and spent more than six times as much as Man Singh had lavished on his shrine at Bindraban. It had become a centre of pilgrimage for the whole of India. The idols, studded with precious stones and adorned with gold work, were all taken to Agra and there buried under the steps of Jahanara’s mosque. The temple was levelled to the ground and a mosque was ordered to be built on the site to mark the acquisition of religious merit by the emperor.

Popular Hindu and Sikh tradition ascribes mass conversions by force to Aurangzeb’s reign. Of course it has heightened the colours in the picture. But the examples quoted above prove that the emperor made it a part of his imperial duty to encourage conversions, personally admit converts to Islam and grant favours to the initiated. Of the converts it must be said that very few, if any, seem to have changed their faith for religious reasons. Desire to escape civic disabilities or worse, and to acquire material benefits formed the motive force in most cases. It may be argued that the religion which these converts shook off so easily must have been sitting very lightly on them. But the history of the world contains a few martyrs and a host of trimmers. Hindu India of Aurangzeb’s reign was no exception. The wonder is not that so many were converted but that the vast majority of the Hindus kept their faith amidst so many temptations and such persecution.

It is safe to hold, however, that Hindus were usually excluded from all high offices and were employed otherwise only when their employment was unavoidable.

But under Shah Jahan, apostasy from Islam had again become a capital crime. His order made conversions from among the Hindus easier and gave the state full power for keeping Muslims true to their faith. It is no wonder that this led to forcible conversion in times of war. When Shuja was appointed governor of Kabul, his assumption of office was accompanied by a ruthless war in the Hindu territory beyond the Indus. Shankar was the ruler of these tribes. During the war, sixteen sons and dependants of Hath were converted by force. The sword of Islam further yielded a crop of 5,000 new converts. Hindu temples were converted into mosques. Anyone showing signs of reverting to the faith of his forefathers was executed. The rebellion of JuJuhSr Singh yielded a rich crop of Muslim converts, mostly minors. His young son Durga and his grandson Durjan Sal were both converted to become Imam Qpli and ‘Ali Quli. Udai Bhan, his eldest son, when captured preferred death to Islam. Another son who was a minor was however converted. Most of the women had burnt themselves to death but such as were captured — probably slave girls or maids — were converted and distributed among Muslim mansabdars. When Pratap Ujjainya rebelled in the tenth year, one of his women was captured, converted to Islam and married to a grandson of Firoz Jang. The conquest of Beglana was followed by the conversion of Naharji’s son and successor who now became Daulatmand. Nasrat Jang converted a Brahman boy to Islam who, however, seemed to have resented it and killed his ‘benefactor’ while he lay asleep.

When Man Singh was appointed the leader of the expedition against Maharana Pratap, the appointment caused some resentment in the Muslim military circles. Badayuni accompanied Man Singh in this expedition. On the battle-field he failed to distinguish between the Imperial Rajputs and those led by Maharana Pratap. He consulted a Muslim friend nearby who told him that he need not worry. He should shoot indiscriminately ; whosoever would be killed would mean one Rajput less and hence Islam would gain.

He stopped public worship at the Hindu temple of Dwarka.

He valiantly tried to replace Hindu public servants by Muslims wherever he could. [Newsletter dated July 27, 1703 records] “Twenty Hindu musketeers of the royal guards were dismissed to give place to Muslims on…“

Besides the measures Aurangzeb took for the purpose of reducing the number of the Hindus in the public services, many other restrictions were imposed on them. The pilgrimage tax was reimposed. Bernier tells us that at the time of an eclipse of the Sun three lakhs of rupees were paid to the state. Rupa Brahman offered to pay to the state Rs. 1 ,000 in a lump sum on behalf of the pilgrims visiting Pushkar (near Ajmer) in order to save them the indignity inflicted on them during the collection. This was accepted. The celebration of some religious festivals was stopped. The Holi ceased to be celebrated by imperial orders issued on 20 November, 1665. It was not a police order alone, promulgated for the purpose of keeping peace and order during the Holi days as Sir Jadu Nath Sarkar has suggested. Raja Bhim of Banera and Kishen Singh while serving in South India in 1692, made arrangements for the celebration of Holi. The censor tried to stop the celebration, but as Bhim and Kishen Singh were officers of high status, the censor’s attempts were of no use. He reported the matter to the emperor by whose order the celebrations were stopped. In 1704, 200 soldiers were placed at the disposal of the censor for the purpose of preventing the celebration of the Holi. Of course the emperor was not always able to stop the celebrations. In 1693 there was a riot in Agra during the celebrations and many persons were wounded. The celebration of Dipavali also was prohibited in 1665. In 1703 Hindus were not allowed to burn their dead on the banks of the river Sabarmati in Ahmedabad. An earlier order issued in 1696 had imposed similar restrictions with regard to the Jamuna in Delhi.