It is difficult to untangle this historical mess without scrutinizing the accusations against Aurangzeb rationally. Fortunately, in recent years quite a few Hindu historians have come out in the open disputing those allegations. For example, historian Babu Nagendranath Banerjee2 rejected the accusation of forced conversion of Hindus by Muslim rulers by stating that if that was their intention then in India today there would not be nearly four times as many Hindus compared to Muslims, despite the fact that Muslims had ruled for nearly a thousand years. Banerjee challenged the Hindu hypothesis that Aurangzeb was anti-Hindu by reasoning that if the latter were truly guilty of such bigotry, how could he appoint a Hindu as his military commander-in-chief? Surely, he could have afforded to appoint a competent Muslim general in that position. Banerjee further stated: "No one should accuse Aurangzeb of being communal minded. In his administration, the state policy was formulated by Hindus. Two Hindus held the highest position in the State Treasury. Some prejudiced Muslims even questioned the merit of his decision to appoint non-Muslims to such high offices. The Emperor refuted that by stating that he had been following the dictates of the Shariah (Islamic Law) which demands appointing right persons in right positions." During Aurangzeb%u2019s long reign of 50 years, many Hindus, notably Jaswant Singh, Raja Rajrup, Kabir Singh, Arghanath Singh, Prem Dev Singh, Dilip Roy, and Rasik Lal Cror
RE:THE GREAT MOGHUL EMPEROR - AURANGZEB
by jatin on Jun 07, 2007 11:04 AM Permalink
Francoise Gautiere have been spamming the site with cut-paste articles which sing praises of auranzeb, most of these have been written by pro-muslim western or pseudo-secular/marxist indian historians, most of whom did not live in the days of aurangzeb,these historians have no idea of the tyranny and misery under which hindus , sikh , buddhist and jains had to live in those days. we also can cut-paste articles from western articles who portray aurangzeb as evil,but obviously muslims will not believe in them, they refer to western historians only when it suits them.
2.While its true that aurangzeb had many hindu generals, that was because he was cunning and one of the earliest proponents of 'Divide and rule' policy.he hired them purely for political goals and not because he loved hindus.besides many of these hindu generals were hereditory servants of mughals,their grandfathers having served akbar and shahjahan. aurangzeb had very little trust on his hindu generals, he poisoned to death his commander-in-chief Mirza Raje Jaisingh and when Jaswant singh died,he invaded his kingdom and destroyed all the temples there. Many smaller hindu kings served him purely out of fear of being invaded. Many others served him to settle scores against rival hindu kings. many others served him to get mansabdari. this switchover of loyaly was very common in those days's especially among some rajputs and maratha's for example when Sambhaji Maharaj insulted his br
RE:RE:THE GREAT MOGHUL EMPEROR - AURANGZEB
by jatin on Jun 07, 2007 11:05 AM Permalink
insulted his brother in law Ganoji Shirke, the latter immediately joined hands with aurangzeb and helped him in capturing Sambhaji. the king of jaipur joined akbar because of his rivalry with Rana Pratap. So there were multiple reasons why hindu generals were working for aurangzeb and he tolerated them because he could use their armies against one another.
3. He did donate some land / grants for some temples, most of these were in kingdoms of his hindu generals and this may have been done to please them and portray himself as secular.
4. having hindu generals and giving grants to temples in no way negates the evil acts he performed. even the nazis employed jewish security guards in jewish labour camps and ghettoes,not because they liked jews, but they wanted to make use of the jewish manpower.
5.He also had to employ hindus in his empires backoffice, because only hindus possesed the skills like calculating taxes, revenue,income,expenditure, accounting,loans,salaries etc. hindus had long experience and skills since thousands of years in managing empires something the illiterate arabs and turks lacked. muslims excelled only in warfare and were not educated,hindus on the otherhand were skilled in mathematics , accounting , business and trade etc so he was forced to rely on them.but that does not mean he liked them. Even today in gulf the rich but illiterate arabs employ hindus to do these tasks,but they hate hindu religion.
