A Jaipur letter dated 14 February, 1690, reported that in Kanwar in Jaipur, where the temples had perhaps already been demolished, a religious fair w… - Sri Ram Sharma

A letter written by the President and the Council of Surat on 22 January, 1668, suggests a rather ingenious method of making converts. The factors state that trade had been largely obstructed by the fierce bigotry of Aurangzeb and his persecution of the Hindus. If a Muhammadan had no desire to discharge his debt to the bania and if the bania demanded the payment of the same, the Muhammadan would lodge a complaint to the Kazi that he had called the prophet names or spoken contumaciously of their religion, produce a false witness or two, and the poor man was forced to circumcision and made to embrace Islam. Several persons had been thus served to the great terror of all. This king not at all minding anything of his kingdom gives himself wholly upon the converting or rather perverting the banias.’ Forcible conversion of the Hindus at Surat, at last drove them to plans of migrating from Surat to Bombay. The English, however, turned down their request. The Hindus then closed their shops at Surat and eight thousand of them marched on to Broach to the emperor who was supposed to be there. What became of their appeal we do not know.

Jahangir continued, with some exceptions, his father’s practice of allowing non-Muslims to build public places of worship. His friend, Bir Singh Bundela, built a magnificent temple at Mathura, which was now once again rising into prominence as the sacred city of the Vaishnavas. He raised another magnificent place of public worship in his own State as well. More than seventy new temples were built in Banaras alone towards the end of his reign. They were, however, not yet complete when Jahangir died. He allowed the Christian Fathers to open a church at Ahrnedabad in 1620 and another at Hugh. At Lahore and Agra public cemeteries for the Christians were allowed to be set up. But when he made war on the Hindus and the Christians these ; considerations were sometimes given up. When Mewar was invaded, many temples were demolished by the invading Mughal army...
Sometimes his fury would break out even without the aggravating cause of war. When he visited Ajmer in the eighth year, the temple of the Boar god, Varsha, was destroyed and the idols were broken. Probably these instances made a contemporary poet of his court sing his praises as the great Muslim emperor who converted temples into mosques. These exceptions apart, Jahangir usually followed the path shown by his father. It is interesting to note that some of the Hindu shrines of Kangra and Mathura continued to attract a large number of Muslim pilgrims besides their Hindu votaries.

This was not an isolated instance of popular feelings. The spirit of the age sanctioned such and even worse practices. Mubarak, a scholar of no mean repute, was persecuted even though he was a Muslim, for holding rather unorthodox views. Mir Habshi was executed for the offence of being a Shi'a. Khizar Khan met his death on a charge of blasphemy there were others as well who shared a similar fate. As BadayunI tells us, it was customary 'to search out and kill heretics’, let alone non-Muslims.’ The popular attitude towards heretics and non-Muslims can be well understood by several incidents of Akbar’s reign itself. In 1569-70 (977 a.h.) Mirza Muqlm and Mir Ya'qub were executed for their religious opinions. Hemu’s father, when captured, was offered his life if he turned Muslim, Even in 1588 when the murderer of a Shi'a was executed, the people of Lahore showed their religious sentiments by desecrating the tomb of his victim. Feelings towards the Hindus could not be restrained — ‘Abdun Nabi executed a Brahman for blasphemy on the complaint of a Qazl. Husain Khan, the governor of Lahore who died in 1575-76 (983 a.h.), made his government famous by ordering that the Hindus should stick patches of different colours on their shoulders, or at the edge of their sleeves, so that no Muslim might be put to the indignity of showing them honour by mistake. Nor did he allow Hindus to saddle their horses but insisted that they use packsaddles when riding. The Akbar Nama, the An-i-Akbarl and Badayuni are all agreed that prior to 1593, some Hindus had been converted to Islam forcibly. When Todar Mai was appointed Finance Minister, Akbar had to defend this appointment of a Hindu to such a high office by reminding his Muslim critics that they were all utilizing the services of Hindu accountants in their own households.