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 st… - Sri Ram Sharma

Now Man Singh’s prophecy seems to have been reported to Jahangir. He could, however, take no action against him as Rai Singh had been pardoned and Man Singh was living under his protection at Bikaner. In the twelfth year, however, when Jahangir visited Gujarat where there were many Jains, he decided to embark upon their persecution. They were accused of having built temples and other buildings which were reported to be centres of disturbance, Their religious leaders were accused of immoral practices (probably of going about naked). They were generally believed to be a troublesome class of Hindus. Jahangir first of all summoned Man Singh to the court. Afraid of meeting a mere ignominious fate he took poison on his way from Bikaner to the Emperor. Jahangir issued orders thereupon for the expulsion of the Jains from the imperial territories. These orders do not seem to have applied to the territory of the Rajput Rajas where the Jains were driven to seek protection. Jahangir here seems to have been prompted by religious rather than political motives. Unlike Guru Arjun, Man Singh had been left alone for several years after his alleged act of treason. All Jains were punished irrespective of their political proclivities. Still further there was a section of the Jains which did not even acknowledge Man Singh as their leader. They were also included in the order of expulsion. Dr Beni Prasad is wrong in stating that the order of expulsion was confined to one sect alone.

Shah Jahan changed the spirit of religious toleration that had characterised the Mughal government so far in several other ways as well . To begin with, the emperor forbade the completion of certain temples that had been started during his predecessor’s reign. Repairs to old temples were prohibited and the building of new temples was forbidden. Complaints against the Hindus on the frontiers of the Punjab had been received. It was alleged they had rebuilt seventy temples using the material of the mosques ; which had been in their turn built utilizing the material of the temples which had originally stood there. All these temples were ordered to be destroyed and mosques built in their place. Shah Jahan now embarked on a campaign of complete destruction of the new temples of the Hindus. Three temples were destroyed in Gujarat, seventy-two temples in Banaras and its neighbourhood, and probably four temples elsewhere in the province of Allahabad, Some temples in Kashmir were also sacrificed to the religious fury of the emperor. The Hindu temple of Ichchhabal was destroyed and converted into a mosque. This betokened a rather serious fit of religious frenzy which Akbar’s reign seemed to have made impossible. The materials of some of the Hindu temples were used for building mosques.

About this time, on 14 April, 1692, orders were issued to the provincial governor and the district fojdar to demolish the temples at Rasulpur. In 1693, the Haitheswar temple at Bar Nagar in Gujarat was demolished.