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Aurangzeb: 400 yrs on, relook at a cruel bigot F S Aijazuddin Updated : Mar 8, 2018, 10:42 pm IST Aurangzeb was one of 14 children Shah Jahan sired from his beloved Mumtaz Mahal. The latest installation in the dark pantheon of Hindutvas anti-heroes is the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb. Had he lived, he would have been exactly 400 years old this year. Dead, he has become the target of barbs poisoned with prejudice. Generations since Aurangzebs death in 1707 have been force-fed the stale gruel that Aurangzeb, the monarch was a narrow-minded, Hindu-hating bigot who wasted his Mughal inheritance in a foolhardy obsession with conquering the Deccan. Some go so far as to assert that he single-handedly rang the death knell of the Mughal Empire. A few even argue that had Dara Shukoh (Aurangzebs eldest brother and rival) not lost the battle for their fathers throne, a post-1947 India would have been one contiguous, homogenous political realm, in which Muslim rulers and their multi-religious subjects would have lived in communal harmony. Four hundred years is too long a time to sustain such wisps of conjecture. The fact is that Dara Shukoh lost and Aurangzeb won. History can be an impatient judge, often passing a hasty verdict disproportionate to the crime. That is why any biography of Aurangzeb, especially one as unbiased as Audrey Truschkes Aurangzeb: the Man and The Myth (2017) is a necessary, albeit overdue, corrective. Aurangzeb was one of 14 children Shah Jahan sired from his beloved Mumtaz Mahal. He and his eldest brother Dara Shukoh could not have been more dissimilar. Dara inherited the aesthetic sense of his forebears, Aurangzeb their martial prowess. Dara Shukoh was a man of letters, a Sufi, an ornamented prince with dreams; Aurangzeb a man of action, a soldier, a ruthless tactician. Had Aurangzeb possessed the literary flair of his ancestors, he might have left a fuller chronicle of his own reign, as detailed as the Baburnama, the Humayun-nama, the Akbarnama, the Tuzk-e-Jahangiri, or the equivalent of Shah Jahans Padshahnama. Instead, Aurangzebs personal reticence, like Cordelias, proved to be his undoing. The perfunctory Maasir-i-Alamgiri has been overtaken by less kindly legends. Aurangzebs 88-year-long life falls into four parts. Up to the age of 17, he was brought up in his fathers court and groomed in all the skills Mughal princes needed to govern.

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