Mumbai: In the past four months, Maharashtra has seen multipled communal conflicts centered around Mughal emperor Aurangzeb. All the cases related to alleged sharing of social media posts glorifying Aurangzeb, and have led to five arrests from across the state.
Aurangabad — the city Mughal emperor Aurangzeb made his headquarters during his Deccan viceroyalty, from where he sieged war against first Shivaji and then his son, Sambhaji, in a futile attempt to overpower the Marathas and bring the whole of the Deccan under Mughal rule, and near where he was laid to rest after his death in 1707 — was renamed Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar by the Shiv Sena-BJP government in Maharashtra in February this year.
Still, the controversy over the town’s historical Mughal association refuses to die down.
Earlier this month, Deputy Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis said glorification of Aurangzeb wouldn’t be tolerated in the state and blamed “youths of a particular community” of displaying “pictures of Aurangzeb”, referring to them as “Aurangzeb ki auladein [descendants of Aurangzeb]”.
महाराष्ट्र में अचानक कुछ जिलों में औरंगजेब की औलादे पैदा हो गई है। जो औरंगजेब का फोटो दिखाते हैं, औरंगजेब का स्टेटस रखते हैं। इसके कारण समाज में एक दुर्भावना पैदा हो रही, तनाव भी निर्माण हो रहा है। सवाल यह उठता है कि अचानक औरंगजेब की इतनी औलादे कहां से पैदा हो गई? इसके पीछे कौन… pic.twitter.com/9J9ELXEu9W
— Devendra Fadnavis (@Dev_Fadnavis) June 7, 2023
Fadnavis was referring to a group of youth displaying images of the 17th-century Mughal emperor during a procession in Ahmednagar and tensions in Kolhapur over the alleged use of Tipu Sultan’s image and an audio message as social media “status” by some local people.
Opposition parties like the Congress and the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) have condemned the state government for not maintaining peace and harmony in the state, but chosen to not delve deeper into the issue.
While the demand to change Aurangabad’s name had been a long-standing one, raised by successive governments in the state — to “undo historical wrongs” of having a town named after the ruler who had ordered Sambhaji’s killing — and the process was initiated by the erstwhile Uddhav Thackeray-led Maha Vikas Aghadi (MVA) government before its downfall last year, political analysts in the state told ThePrint that the Mughal emperor’s name was being used by political parties to polarise voters ahead of next year’s Lok Sabha and state assembly elections.
“Such polarisation has not happened in Maharashtra [before], except in some pockets such as Malegaon and Bhiwandi,” claimed political analyst Hemant Desai. “But now it is happening across (the state) and there is no doubt it is being engineered by extreme right-wing organisations,” he added.
In her book Aurangzeb: The Life and Legacy of India’s Most Controversial King, Audrey Truschke, associate professor of South-Asian history at America’s Rutgers University, writes, “The true purpose of historically condemning Aurangzeb is to galvanise anti-Muslim sentiments”.
Shraddha Kumbhojkar, professor of history, Savitribai Phule University, Pune, echoed her while talking to ThePrint. “This is a political agenda to keep away from real-world problems. The fact that we are talking about someone who died years ago itself says that someone wants this to keep boiling,” said Kumbhojkar.
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Aurangzeb’s historical connect with Maharashtra
The sixth emperor of the Mughal dynasty, Aurangzeb ruled India for nearly 50 years — between 1658 and 1707.
He relentlessly pursued Shivaji for control over the Maratha empire. After Shivaji escaped from Aurangzeb’s court in the mid-1660s, the Mughal king could never capture him again.
However, in the 1680s, after Shivaji’s death, Aurangzeb launched yet another campaign to bring the entire Deccan under his sway. He moved his court to Aurangabad against the advice of his generals and began a series of invasions. While the Bijapur and Golconda states succumbed to the onslaught, the Marathas held out.
Many historians believe it was his Deccan campaign, referred to by some as the “Deccan ulcer”, which led to the weakening of the Mughal empire.
“Because of how he treated Chhatrapati Sambhaji, he perennially remained the villain for Maharashtra,” said Kumbhojkar. It is said the Maratha king faced extreme torture after being captured by Aurangzeb. His eyes were gauged, and he is believed to have been beheaded and torn to death, before his body was cut into pieces and thrown into a river.
Aurangzeb too died with his dream unfulfilled and was buried at Khuldabad, near Aurangabad.
Late Shiv Sena supremo Bal Thackeray reportedly made him a talking point in the late 1980s, when he started churning sentiments against the Mughal ruler to gain popular support in the state.
In 1988, the Sena contested Aurangabad’s first-ever municipal corporation election. This was also the year Thackeray is said to have raised the issue of renaming Aurangabad as ‘Sambhajinagar’. He would often throw the phrase ‘Khan ya Baan’ (Khan or Sena’s election symbol of bow & arrow) at voters, pitting the Sena against the alleged ‘Muslim-appeasing Congress’.
News reports from 1988 record riots in Aurangabad centred around the municipal polls.
In 1995, the Sena attempted to change the name of Aurangabad to Sambhajinagar, but it was stalled by the Supreme Court in 1996 after the Congress objected to the move.
Over the years the mention of the Mughal ruler’s name has remained a communally sensitive issue.
“Aurangzeb’s name is a dog whistle to signal that it is acceptable to hate and use violence against present-day Muslims,” wrote Truschke in a series of tweets last year.
Sure. In brief, Aurangzeb's name is a dog whistle to signal that it is acceptable to hate and use violence against present-day Muslims.
Here's a bit more on how it works —
— Dr. Audrey Truschke (@AudreyTruschke) April 21, 2022
Talking to ThePrint, Feroze Mithiborwala, co-convenor, of the Mumbai-based Indian Muslims for Secular Democracy, said, “Muslims are not in favour of Aurangzeb. We are not in favour of Aurangzeb posters. But after these incidents, we (Muslim organisations) have held meetings to denounce it (any association with Aurangzeb).”
Hilal Ahmed, a scholar of political Islam and associate professor at the Delhi-based Centre for the Study of Developing Societies (CSDS) wrote for ThePrint last year that Aurangzeb had two conflicting images, an Islamic tyrant who demolished Hindu places of worship and a devout, lenient Muslim who donated land for Hindu temples.
“But nothing ever made Aurangzeb a Muslim hero. Muslims found it difficult to embrace him as an Islamic icon,” he wrote.
Yet, in recent months, alleged posts and posters glorifying Aurangzeb have led to protests, calls for bandhs and arrests.
In 2022, All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) leader Akbaruddin Owaisi’s visit to Aurangzeb’s tomb in Khuldabad area was questioned by leaders of the Shiv Sena and the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS). The Archeological Survey of India had closed access to the tomb for five days as a precautionary measure, after a tweet by MNS spokesperson Gajanan Kale questioning the need for the monument’s existence in Maharashtra and reportedly saying it should be destroyed, led to a mosque committee attempting to lock the monument.
Since March, at least five men have been arrested from across the state for allegedly glorifying the controversial Mughal emperor on social media.
In June, a poster of Aurangzeb was reportedly displayed in Sangamner taluka of Ahmednagar, leading to stone pelting and eventually, a bandh call. Last month, Chief Minister Eknath Shinde had announced that Ahmednagara, named after the 15th-century ruler Ahmad Nizam Shah I, will be renamed Ahilya Nagar after Ahilyabai, the 18th-century Holkar queen of Malwa.
The incident in Ahmednagar was followed by reports of similar incidents from Kolhapur, Beed, Chhatrapati Sambhaji Nagar, Navi Mumbai and Sangli.
“There are people who are building temples of Godse in the land of Gandhi… Posters of Aurangzeb are not allowed but no action is taken against those who are hailing Godse. What are we talking about? What kind of discourse do we want?” Mithiborwala said, questioning the discourse around the Mughal ruler.
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Opposition view
Earlier this month, NCP chief Sharad Pawar said violence in Kolhapur and some other places over posters and social media posts allegedly glorifying Aurangzeb and Mysore ruler Tipu Sultan was not in line with the culture of Maharashtra.
“The ruling parties are encouraging such things. If the ruling parties and their people come out on roads over it and create a rift between two religions, then it is not a good sign,” he said.
NCP MLA from Kagal in Kolhapur, Hasan Mushrif, stressed that Chhatrapati Shivaji was a protector of Muslims and they enlisted in his army to take on the Mughals. Media reports quoted him as saying, “Aurangzeb can never be our hero” and cautioning Muslims against “falling prey to divisive agendas”.
Accusing the Bharatiya Janata Party of polarising the situation in the state, senior Congress leader Prithviraj Chavan told ThePrint, “This is deliberately done by the BJP. They are grabbing any issue to polarise the situation. And they will do it in pockets of the state. The classic pattern of the Miraj riots (of 2010) which helped the BJP electorally is being adopted. But we have decided to not fall into this trap… our strategy is to talk about people’s issues such as unemployment, inflation, etc.”
The riots had reportedly started over a controversy around the construction of an arc depicting Shivaji killing Adilshahi commander Afzal Khan. The riot had spread to areas like Sangli and Kolhapur, leading to loss of life and property.
MVA ally Shiv Sena (Uddhav Balasaheb Thackeray) MP Sanjay Raut alleged the violence being reported from parts of the state pointed towards failure of the Shinde-Fadnavis government.
“(Mughal Emperor) Aurangzeb’s tomb is in Maharashtra. Aurangzeb has been buried here…Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj’s Maharashtra buried him, then why is he being brought to life again in Kolhapur, Sangamner or somewhere else?” Raut asked.
Meanwhile, Prakash Ambedkar of Vanchit Bahujan Aghadi, which entered into an alliance with Shiv Sena (UBT) last week, visited Aurangzeb’s tomb. AIMIM MP from the erstwhile Aurangabad, Imtiaz Jaleel supported Ambedkar.
“People who oppose it [visit to Aurangzeb’s tomb] don’t know why Chhatrapati Shivaji was great. Tell me one incident in [past] 75 years when his [Aurangzeb’s] birth anniversary was celebrated or photos displayed by the Muslim community. The BJP came to power and suddenly the name ‘Aurangzeb… Aurangzeb’ comes,” Jaleel alleged.
Talking about the pitched and polarised discourse surrounding the Mughal ruler, Kumbhojkar said, “The social fabric is dynamic. If it can get distorted, it can even be healed. What we had [earlier] does not exist, but it can be built. We have to be careful. I am hopeful.”
(Edited by Smriti Sinha)
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