It transpired that Shastri had lifted this story from Colonel Miles%u2019 History of Mysore which Miles claimed he had taken from a Persian manuscript in the personal library of Queen Victoria. When Dr. Pande checked further, he found that no such manuscript existed in Queen Victoria%u2019s library. Yet Dr. Shastri%u2019s book was being used as a high school history text%u2013book in seven Indian states, Assam, Bengal, Bihar, Orissa, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. So he sent his entire correspondence about the book to the vice%u2013chancellor of Calcutta University, Sir Ashutosh Chaudhary. Sir Ashutosh promptly ordered Shashtri%u2019s book out of the course. Yet years later, in 1972, Dr. Pande was surprised to discover the same suicide story was still being taught as %u2018history%u2019 in junior high schools in Uttar Pradesh. The lie had found currency as a fact of history.
The Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb (born 1618, reigned 1658%u20131707) is the most reviled of all Muslim rulers in India. He was supposed to be a great destroyer of temples and oppressor of Hindus, and a %u2018fundamentalist%u2019 too! As chairman of the Allahabad Municipality (1948%u2013%u201953), Dr. Pande had to deal with a land dispute between two temple priests. One of them had filed in evidence some firmans (royal orders) to prove that Aurangzeb had, besides cash, gifted the land in question for the maintenance of his temple. Might they not be fake, Dr. Pande thought, in view of Aurangzeb%u2019s fanatically anti%u2013Hindu image? He showed them to his friend, Sir Tej Bahadur Sapru, a distinguished lawyer as well a great scholar of Arabic and Persian. He was also a Brahmin. Sapru examined the documents and declared they were genuine firmans issued by Aurangzeb.
