William Dalrymple has always been a fan of Aurangzeb, the sixth Mughal emperor (1658-1707). In his last two books, White Mughals and The Last Mughal, he re-enacted British fondness for Mughals by praising the longest reigning emperor after Akbar.
In his forthcoming magnum opus, dedicated to Aurangzeb, Dalrymple promises to go further-“Aurangzeb was fascinating, very self-aware, very Shakespearean.
By the end of his life, he does become a monster of myths, but his final letters are full of regret and awareness of how much he destroyed of what he had inherited.” And he concludes: “What is little spoken about, is that he was a generous donor to various ashrams and maths.” Was the emperor such a pious man? Well, just look at what he did to his own family: Aurangzeb, who was neither the eldest, nor the favorite son of Shah Jahan, killed three brothers to ascend the throne, dispatched his father to jail and then murdered him by sending him poisoned massage oil. He later had his own son imprisoned (in his will, he admonished: “never trust your sons”). He was cruel to Hindus, the majority of his subjects, ordering all temples—Kashi Vishwanath, Somnath (later rebuilt), Vishnu temple (replaced with Alamgir mosque overlooking Benares), or Treta-ke-Thakur in Ayodhya—destroyed. He also made sure deities of Hindu gods and goddesses were buried under mosque steps (like Jama Masjid in Delhi), for future Muslim generations to trample upon them.
Sikhism owes its initial growth to one man’s persecutions: Aurangzeb.
Sadly, today their world is growing closer to Alamgir and drifting away from Hindus, forgetting that the order was created to defend them. His deadly fanatic legacy is still alive in parts of the world. The Sikh community should remember how they suffered at his hands.
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