In the Ain-i-Akbari, Mughal court historian Abu’l Fazl notes the two main sources on which he had relied: his own “perfect knowledge of the undercurrents and secret intrigues” and various enquiries made of “the principal officers of the State.” But the counsellor to Akbar was admittedly wary of his own prejudices, his flawed memory, and the “manifold discrepancies” of even eyewitness accounts. So, he says: “[F]or each event I took the written testimony of more than twenty intelligent and cautious persons … [to present] facts on a footing of discriminate investigation of exact and cautious statements.”
Some argue Abu’l Fazl may have exaggerated the extent of his efforts. Even so, his commitment to rigour and circumspection has apparently not endured in contemporary Indian historiography, which appears mainly concerned with leveraging historical fragments as counterpoints in public debates over our understandings of the past. Take, for instance, the vexed question of Aurangzeb’s character—and the curious case of an obscure historian who, in the years just after Independence, tried to redeem Aurangzeb from his reputation as an ‘antagonist and iconoclast.’
Between October 1957 and April 1959, this author published no less than seven articles in the Journal of the Pakistan Historical Society. With apparently no formal training in history, no known knowledge of Persian, no institutional affiliation, almost no biographical details publicly available, and indeed only two other publications (one on the Magadha king Bimbisara, another on spittoons), he introduced a series of “documents that were never seen by the historians who have worked on the subject.”
His intent was to show that “in his real life Aurangzib is different from what he is supposed to be.” His language is poor, his articles are dotted with typographical and grammatical errors, and his frustration with what he sees as the unfair treatment of Aurangzeb in prior historical writings is palpable. He wrote presumably at the behest of the journal’s editor, Syed Moinul Haq, who was himself an ideologue and Muslim League supporter with a particular fondness for Aurangzeb and a penchant for cherry-picking facts to suit his views, as Pakistani historian Rafia Riaz has recently observed. So saying his piece, our author vanished as instantly as he had appeared from the scholarly firmament.
But the motley bundle of documentary and literary evidence he published did not disappear with the man. It would come to count among the most important source-sets supporting the view of Aurangzeb as a tolerant, benevolent ruler, who extended munificence to Hindu priests and even patronised their temples. These seven “celebrated articles,” as historian Harbans Mukhia described them, are quoted in academic monographs, prestigious journals, doctoral theses, and edited collections authored by several prominent medieval historians. Bishambhar Nath Pande, the Gandhian parliamentarian and former Governor of Odisha, reproduced their substance first in a Rajya Sabha speech on 29 July 1977, and then in toto in his own book Islam and Indian Culture (1986). The articles now even find mention in the Brill Encyclopaedia of Islam. These seven obscure essays have thus fused into a cornerstone of revisionist historiography: foundations for an empire of citations.
Had our author’s voluminous historical documentation been checked, verified, and re-validated, this might have been a tale of triumph for amateur historiography. But his sources and his conclusions were no more examined than the man himself. Scholars who cite him and to whom we reached out could tell us nothing additional of him or of his professional credibility. And yet the considerable weight of claims about Aurangzeb’s religious tolerance and even-handedness rest heavily on his writings.
We know him merely as “Jnan Chandra, Bombay.”
Also read: A whole ‘Aurangzeb Industry’ is taking shape. Let’s discuss it on four counts
Aurangzeb’s ‘patronage of Hindu temples’?
Chandra’s standard approach was to recast routine administrative actions as proof of Aurangzeb’s generosity toward the Hindus. Some of these are reaffirmations or continuations of imperial decrees (farmans) issued under earlier Mughal rulers. Others are legal injunctions protecting certain individuals against property-related harassment, issued or administered by lower-level officers (parwanas).
Take, for instance, Chandra’s 6 July 1958 article “Ālamgīr’s Patronage of Hindu Temples”. Strangely, it makes no mention of temples. Here, Chandra presents two unpublished parwanas in which a property illegally confiscated and rent forcibly taken from the Jangambari math (monastery) in Varanasi are returned by order of the local qadis (judges). This routine legal injunction, common in Mughal governance, is held up as evidence of Aurangzeb’s patronage.
Similarly, in his 6 January 1958 article “Ālamgīr Grants to Hindu Pujaris”, Chandra refers to a minuscule cash grant given to a Brahmin family in Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh. The farman makes no mention of either temple or priests. Since the document was in the possession of the family of priests serving the Mahakaleshwar temple, Chandra presumes that the original grant must have been issued to their ancestors serving in the same capacity. What he presents as a proven conclusion is, in fact, an unsubstantiated assumption.
In another 7 April 1959 article “Ālamgīr Grants to a Brahmin”, Chandra cites a reference in a Lahore-based magazine Lajawab (“Delightful”) to claim that a small parcel of barren but cultivable land was granted to a Brahmin in Eastern Khandesh (present-day Maharashtra) of Aurangzeb’s empire. This instance of a routine grant to an individual is framed as evidence of largesse to Brahmins.
Another often-quoted paper is Chandra’s lengthiest “Aurangzib and Hindu Temples” (5 October 1957), which, once again, elevates an assortment of routine legal injunctions into evidence of Aurangzeb’s supposed generosity. In it, he cites three farmans, where illegally confiscated properties of the Jangambari math in Varanasi were ordered to be returned, with instructions that ascetics should not be harassed. Historian RA Alavi tells us that grants issued during Akbar’s reign had, by Aurangzeb’s time, largely been converted into grants held by individuals; disputes between claimants were thus common and routinely brought to the administration for settlement. But to this reality, Chandra applies a logical fallacy: Mughal officials (or others) seize properties belonging to Hindu ascetics, but in cases when the imperial court corrects the injustice, the act becomes evidence of Aurangzeb’s grand magnanimity.
More bizarrely, we are told in “Aurangzib and Hindu Temples” that Aurangzeb ‘honoured the ancient traditions’ of the Mahakaleshwar temple in Ujjain. This claim is based not on orders from Aurangzeb, but on earlier directives from Murad Baksh (his brother) that were merely copied during Aurangzeb’s reign—authorising modest quantities of ghee to be offered to the temple’s nandadeep (“Aurangzib and Hindu Temples”).
The pattern that emerges from examples such as these is clear. Out of the thousands of grants issued under Aurangzeb, Chandra isolates a few scattered cases — some of uncertain provenance others issued only by local officials — and stretches them into a narrative of Aurangzeb’s tolerance. Such exaggerations may be common in daily interactions in which minor official assistance can appear as great kindness, but as a scholarly method, it is entirely misleading. The bar for what counts as “patronage” is set so low that routine administrative corrections become grand gestures in the historical narrative.
Even more tellingly, the materials attributed to Aurangzeb in Chandra’s corpus contain not a single verifiable instance of a new grant issued by him for the construction or maintenance of a Hindu temple. The only clear references to Hindu religious institutions appear in farmans that reaffirm or continue earlier land grants made to certain ascetics and maths—typically by Aurangzeb’s forebears, Akbar, Jahangir, or Shah Jahan. None of these entail new (or large) financial outflows from the Mughal treasury. Several, as we have seen, are merely protective injunctions instructing local officials not to harass designated religious communities or deny their pre-existing rights.
It bears noting that some of the farmans Chandra describes—the famous Benares farman of 1659 (Rajani Ranjan Sen, trans. DC Phillott in 1911), the 1660 farman to the well-known Jain jeweller-financier Shantidas Jawahari from Ahmedabad (MS Commissariat in 1934), and the Gauhati farman of 1667 (SC Goswami in 1942)—had already been published elsewhere. Chandra reproduces the conclusions of these authors to suit his purpose, or reduces them to his views. This is most obviously the case with the Shantidas farman, discussed extensively by Commissariat as early as 1934. Shantidas had a long and enviable influence at court from Jahangir’s time to that of Aurangzeb’s accession. The 1660 farman was only the penultimate in a long series of grants (and decrees) issued to him, beginning early in Shah Jahan’s reign. The specific addition of new territories to Shantidas’ prior land grants was presumably in acknowledgement of his invaluable assistance to Mughal armies during Aurangzeb’s war of succession: a not-atypical quid pro quo. It cannot be isolated from the Jain merchant’s long relationship with the Mughals as plain evidence of Aurangzeb’s religious accommodations.
Chandra seems unconcerned with a proper historical analysis of his source data, and preoccupied only with establishing the single conclusion that Aurangzeb “did nothing which could bring any blame on his personality, in regard to the treatment of the various sections of his people” (“Alamgir’s Patronage of Hindu Temples”).
Also read: What you don’t know about Aurangzeb’s tomb. Shahuji’s visit, Sufi love for Ellora Temples
The emperor’s new pragmatism
Jnan Chandra was the first, states Islamic studies scholar Tillman Kulke, to focus on Aurangzeb’s “pragmatism,” as opposed to his iconoclasm. But with this new focus came many new tendencies to mythologise.
For instance, Pande’s 1977 Rajya Sabha speech lists Chandra’s examples alongside several additional stories, including one of a land grant given by Aurangzeb to the Someshwar Temple in Allahabad. Despite the complete absence of documentary evidence for this grant, Pande’s speech continues to be referenced and cited in scholarly and popular writings. His purpose? To “reorient” medieval Indian history for the sake of “promoting cultural and emotional integration of the Indian people” by demonstrating not Aurangzeb’s pragmatism, but his “benevolent treatment of non-Muslims”—a project in many ways ongoing since India’s pre-Independence years.
Another heavily mythologised instance of Aurangzeb’s generosity is the extraordinary 1691 Chitrakoot farman, which apparently grants the revenues of no less than eight villages and 330 bighas of land to the mahant of the Balaji temple, “for the purpose of meeting the expenses of puja and bhog of Thakur Balaji.” Not only is the verbiage peculiarly similar to that of the anecdotal Someshwara farman, journalist Pankaj Pachauri reported inconsistencies in the farman, which were apparently dismissed by historian Irfan Habib, though there remains no available credible explanation for this atypically large grant.
Meanwhile, the rather incredible stories about the emperor and his army falling sick at an encampment, being cured by a local healer, and building the Balaji temple have become part of local lore. Their importance could be a sign of how communities sought legitimacy, status, or even security via imperial imprimatur, as was often the case in those times. Invoking Mughal connection remains a way to counter the forces occupying lands around the temple, as a 2016 Milli Gazette article inadvertently suggests. In other words: Mughal documents have functioned as “a form of political currency”—a fact that should alert us to the very real possibilities of their duplication and forgery.
Every decade seems to resurrect the myth of Aurangzeb’s tolerance in new ways. For example, referring to the 1672 order rescinding all Hindu land grants, some scholars note that this was not universally enforced—and, without any systematic surveys of which grants were continued and which were ceased, and for what reasons, take that to mean that Aurangzeb’s bark was merely worse than his bite.
A few Western scholars have then claimed that “Aurangzeb built [or “protected”] more temples than he destroyed,” because he was, after all, a politician and a pragmatist. Not only does this position once again call up Jnan Chandra’s articles and other sundry claims, it easily morphs into stories of Aurangzeb’s benevolence that circulate loosely on social media. Some scholars cite such claims uncritically, either to avoid engaging with difficult questions or to perpetuate a version of history that serves a broader ideological purpose. Whatever the intent, cascades of citations manufacture credibility and repetition begins to substitute for evidence.
Also read: Little-known fact: Aurangzeb had more Rajput administrators than Akbar
The historian’s gambit
In the meantime, historians continue to downplay Aurangzeb’s iconoclasm through a series of increasingly predictable rhetorical strategies. One common move is normalisation: “Others did it too”; “some Hindu kings also destroyed temples.” Another is instrumental justification: “He destroyed the holiest sites of Hinduism only to suppress rebellion”; “the temple had to be destroyed because it had political significance.” Then comes moral balancing: “He also gave grants to Hindu temples.” If nothing sticks, out comes the apologia: “Look, he didn’t destroy all Hindu temples, only the most significant ones”; “the ones he destroyed were mostly in the North, not in the Deccan.” In almost every academic text, these four moves—normalisation, justification, moral balancing, apologia—have become the standard means by which Aurangzeb’s temple destruction may be explained away. Acts of civilisational violence are thus recast as routine statecraft: mere realpolitik.
Such rhetorical strategies erase the sheer enormity of what was done, the effects of which continue to reverberate in the political and religious life of present-day India. Consider just the example of Varanasi. The scholar Diana Eck notes that “[t]here is no major religious sanctuary in all Banaras that pre-dates the time of Aurangzeb in the seventeenth century.” The city’s most important temples—Kashi Vishwanath and Bindu Madhava—were not only razed during Aurangzeb’s rule, their sites were barred to Hindus by the construction of mosques on their ruins. Several historical sources, including a parwana presented in one of Jnan Chandra’s own articles (“Alamgir’s Patronage of Hindu Temples”), record Aurangzeb’s renaming of Kashi as Muhammadabad, though the name faded as the Mughal empire collapsed after his reign.
Given all this, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the full weight of the academy, whether Indian or Western, has been mobilised to neutralise the outrage of many contemporary Hindus at Aurangzeb’s iconoclasm. Aurangzeb’s reign is sanitised, not because the evidence supports it, but because acknowledging the scale of his iconoclasm is seen as politically dangerous. Placing blame on Aurangzeb also threatens to unsettle one of the founding myths of the Indian republic: that Hindu-Muslim animosity was a colonial invention, ignited and fanned by British policies. We have seen this pattern before—in the Babri Masjid case, where the academic consensus, endlessly repeated in books and journals, collapsed under legal scrutiny during the Allahabad High Court trial.
Has Aurangzeb been unduly denigrated in both scholarly and popular reckonings, as historians would have us believe? If this is so, a truer picture cannot be established by inflating theories of Aurangzeb’s benevolence with spurious analysis of the sort that Jnan Chandra’s articles represent. Nor can it be produced by teasing out Aurangzeb’s pragmatism or political strategising and giving that primacy over his evident Islamic orthodoxy—as though these dimensions are wholly separable in any person. Whether it is to exert ideological influence or to rush towards “communal integration,” such historical writings diminish and paper over the depredations of Aurangzeb’s reign. In the process, they not only produce partial, historically lopsided accounts; they do the far greater damage of blocking the possibilities of any meaningful reckoning with these difficult dimensions of Indian pasts. Working through our present impasses means taking off the blinkers, not creating new ones. Only then can the work of reconciling ourselves with the legacy of Mughal India’s ‘most hated Emperor’ truly, collectively begin.
Note: The case of Jnan Chandra and his articles was first brought to notice in an article by Keshav Pingali published on the platform Pragyata. No part of that work has been reproduced here.
Deepa S Reddy is a professor of anthropology at the University of Houston-Clear Lake. She tweets @Paticheri.
Manish Maheshwari is the founder of Tattva Heritage Foundation.
Keshav K Pingali is a professor of computer science at the University of Texas-Austin.
Views are personal.
(Edited by Prashant)
There’s Dr Ruchika Sharma, teacher and historian based in Delhi, who is of the opinion that Emperor Aurangzeb took action to quell rebellion against the country, and carried out the needful, even demolishing temple if warranted. He has issued several farmans – royal orders – granting lands and money for the building and maintenance of temples, and those farmans are well-preserved in those temples as well as museums. Islamophobic historians cannot tear down history with their venomous rant – it only goes to prove that these people are not historians.