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.
For Dr Pande this was a 'new image of Aurangzeb'; so he wrote to the chief priests of the various important temples, all over the country, requesting photocopies of any farman issued by Aurangzeb that they may have in their possession.
The response was overwhelming; he got farmans from several principal Hindu and jain temples, even from Sikh Gurudwaras in northern India. These farmans, issued between 1659 and 1685, related to grant of jagir (large parcel of agricultural lands) to support regular maintenance of these places of worship.
Dr Pande's research showed that Aurangzeb was as solicitous of the rights and welfare of his non-Muslim subjects as he was of his Muslim subjects. Hindu plaintiffs received full justice against their Muslims respondents and, if guilty, Muslims were given punishment as necessary.
