The Mughal Emperor Aurangzeb (born 1618, reigned 1658-1707) 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 'fundamentalist' too! As chairman of the Allahabad Municipality (1948-53), Dr Pande had to deal with a land dispute between two temple priests. One of them had filed in evidence some farmans (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's fanatically anti-Hindu 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 farmans issued by Aurangzeb.
