Mughal-E-Azam in color!!!

"You know what? They have re-done Mughal-E-Azam in color!" my friend exclaimed. I groaned to myself. I have been accosted thus by a group of well-meaning people who seemed to think that this is an event everybody should be thrilled about. Apparently it's the best movie ever to be made with a great ensemble of actors, chart busters like pyaar kiya tho darnaa kyaa, and history brought to the big screen so everybody can know what a great set of Mughal kings we had.

I agree with the first two assumptions. I whole-heartedly disagree with the third. Had this been a figment of imagination like any other commercial Hindi movie, I wouldn't have had a problem. But this is a historical movie. And historical movies make deep impact on the psyche of the common audience. Since a lot of them never bother to go and check the facts, what they see stays with them. In this case, what stays is that Mughals were secular, they respected other religions largely, and their rule was good for India, all of which is, excuse my French, full of the stuff that comes from the rear of a bull.

Of course, it's politically correct. Anything that suppresses "communally disturbing" facts goes down well with our elite. If somebody raises a ruckus, the "secularists" are all set to shout them down with a collective "Booh! You are a Fascist." In short, talking about fascism is fascism because our "progressive seculars" assume it does more harm than good. "Even if you are right, why rake old extinguished fires?" seems to be their repose. Their mantra is, "It creates new hatred." Awesome.

Where does this principle go when they keep harping about the Hindu caste system, other evils like Sati and untouchability, resurgence of Hindu organizations like RSS, and raking up every communal riot wherever it's suspected Hindus had a major role to play in it? Then, I guess, it's okay. And, in a sense, they are right. All this breast-beating hasn't caused different castes to go fight it out in the streets to the last person. Similarly, exposing past history's wrongs is not going to cause a civil war either. Germans are reminded of Holocaust everyday. It has done them and the world, a lot of good. As I said in my earlier article, "The English Media bites the dust," it's better to tell it the way it is. Always.

So, let's examine the kind of kings Mughals have been and their reign of "glory." Most people think Aurangazeb is the only bad egg among the Mughals while Akbar is a personification of all that's laudable in a king. Hell, he's even called, "Akbar, the great," right? The sad truth is while Aurangazeb might have been the most vicious of all Mughal kings we had, the others didn't exactly cover themselves in glory.

Let's take them apart one by one. Using their own recordings of history. (Babur, for example had something akin to a diary called Baburnama.) Babur was a vicious killer. Read his own account in Baburnama:

For the sake of Islam I became a wanderer,
I battled infidels and Hindus,
I determined to become a martyr
Thank God I became a Killer of Non-Muslims!


(elsewhere)


I attacked Chanderi and by the grace of Allah 
captured it in a few hours. We got the infidels 
slaughtered and the place which had be Daru'l-Harb 
(nation of non-muslim) for years was made into a 
Daru'l-Islam (muslim nation).

Guru Nanak writes about Babur's tyrannical rule in Raag Aasaa:

Those heads adorned with braided hair, with their parts painted with vermilion - those heads were shaved with scissors, and their throats were choked with dust.They lived in palatial mansions, but now, they cannot even sit near the palaces.... ropes were put around their necks, and their strings of pearls were broken. Their wealth and youthful beauty, which gave them so much pleasure, have now become their enemies. The order was given to the soldiers, who dishonored them, and carried them away. If it is pleasing to God's Will, He bestows greatness; if it pleases His Will, He bestows punishment.

Humayun, luckily, didn't rule India long enough to inflict greater damage. He was an addict to opium, and by far, more degenerate and cruel than his father. Want to know what he did to his own brother Kamran? Humayun's servant Jauhar writes in his account:

Humayun had little concerns for his brother's sufferings .. One of the men was sitting on Kamran's knees. He was pulled out of the tent and a lancet was thrust into his eyes .. Some lemon juice and salt was put into his eyes .. After sometime he was put on horseback.

If this is how he treated his brother, imagine what he did to the rest!

Akbar, like his father and grandfather, was highly promiscuous and an alcoholic. Abul Fazal in Ain-i-Akbari writes:

His majesty has established a wine shop near the palace ... The prostitutes of the realm collected at the shop could scarcely be counted so large was their number .. The dancing girls used to be taken home by the courtiers. If any well known courtier wanted to have a virgin they should first have His Majesty's [Akbar's] permission. In the same way, boys prostituted themselves, and drunkenness and ignorance soon lead to bloodshed ... His Majesty [Akbar] himself called some of the prostitutes and asked them who had deprived them of their virginity?

Editor of Father Monserrate's Commentarius in his introduction states:

In the long line of Indian sovereigns, the towering personalities of Ashoka and Akbar (because of his dread) stand high above the rest... Akbar's greed for conquest and glory and his lack of sincerity form a marked contrast to Ashoka's paternal rule, genuine self-control and spiritual ambition. Akbar's wars were those of a true descendent of Timur, and had all the gruesome associations which this fact implies.

The old notion that Akbar's was a near approximation to Plato's philosopher king has been dissipated by modern research. His character with its mixture of ambition and cunning has now been laid bare. He has been rightly compared to a pike in a pond preying upon his weaker neighbors .. Akbar was unable to give up his polygamous habits, for no importance needs to be attached to the bazaar gossip of the time that he once intended to distribute his wives among his grandees.

Here are some of the delightful things, his son, Jahangir did. Again, we don't have to go far. Jahangir's own diary, Tuzuk-I-Jahangiri, bears ample testimony.

• He cut off the tongue of King Bikramjit's son for committing the great sin of marrying a Muslim woman and still staying Hindu.
• He revoked Akbar's orders that those who have been forcibly converted from Islam could return to Hinduism.
• He tortured Guru Arjun Dev by having boiled water poured on his naked body at regular intervals. (The Guru eventually was executed.)

And Shah Jahan, that ever green romantic who had built the Taj Mahal! No way he can be cruel, right? Read what Abdul Hamid Lahori has to record in his Bãdshãhnãma:

It had been brought to the notice of His Majesty that during the late reign many idol temples had been begun, but remained unfinished at Benares, the great stronghold of infidelism. The infidels were now desirous of completing them. His Majesty, the defender of the faith, gave orders that at Benares, and throughout all his dominions in every place, all temples that had been begun should be cast down. It was now reported from the province of Allahabad that 76 temples had been destroyed in the district of Benares.

(elsewhere)

Udaybhan and Shyam Dawa, who escaped from Orchcha, the capital of Bundelas, to Golconda were eventually captured. They, who were of full age, were offered the alternative of Islam or death. They chose the latter and were sent to hell.

Ah! Now comes Aurangazeb, the last powerful Mughal emperor. What can I say about Aurangazeb? His atrocities, if properly accounted for, would run into thousands of pages. But, the following examples should suffice.

Excerpts from Maasir-i-Ãlamgîrî :

On the 17th of Zil Kada 1079 (9th April 1669) it reached the ears of His Majesty, the protector of the faith, that in the province of Thatta, Multan, and Benares, but especially in the latter, foolish Brahmans were in the habit of expounding frivolous books in their schools, and that students and learners, Muslims as well as Hindus, went there, even from long distances, led by a desire to become acquainted with the wicked sciences they taught. The Director of the Faith, consequently, issued orders to all governors of provinces to destroy with a willing hand the schools and temples of the infidels and they were strictly enjoined to put an entire stop to the teaching and practicing of idolatrous forms of worship. On the 15th Rabiul-akhir (end September) it was reported to his religious Majesty, leader of the unitarians, that in obedience to order, the government officers had destroyed the temple of Bishnath at Benares.

In the month of Ramzan 980 H. (January 1670) this justice-loving monarch, the constant enemy of tyrants, commanded the destruction of the Hindu temple of Mathura known by the name of Dehra Keshav Rai, and soon that stronghold of falsehood was leveled with the ground. On the same spot was laid, with great expense, the foundation of a vast mosques… Glory be to Allah who has given us the faith of Islam that in this reign of the destroyer of false gods, an undertaking so difficult of attainment has been brought to a successful culmination. The richly jeweled idols taken from the infidel temples were transferred to Agra and there placed beneath the steps leading to the Nawab Begum Sahib’s (Jahanara’s) mosque in order that they might be pressed under foot by the true believers. Mathura changed its name into Islamabad and was thus called in all official documents.

So there you have it, the wondrous reign of our beloved Mughal kings. India, was a ripe hunting ground for the Mughals, and by the time Aurangazeb was installed as the ruler, they had effectively turned the country into a vast brothel.

Unfortunately, our nation is still in a state of denial. We still don't want to acknowledge what really happened in the past despite mounting evidence to the contrary. We have become so dense we can see entertainment in a historical movie via the songs and the dialogues, accuracy of the content be damned. I refuse to be a part of this collective shame. As far as I am concerned, both the b/w and color prints of Mughal-E-Azam can be banished to hell.

Bibliography:

1. The Baburnama : Memoirs of Babur, Prince and Emperor - W.M. Jr Thackston.
2. Raag Aasaa (from Sri Guru Granth Sahib) - Guru Nanak
3. The Tezkereh al vakiat or Private memoirs of the Monghul Emperor Humyayun - Aftalyi Jauhar
4. Ain-I-Akbari - Abu-I-Fazl Allami
5. Tuzuk-I-Jahangiri or Memoirs of Jahangir - translated by Henry Beveridge
6. The Shah Jahan Nama of 'Inayat Khan : An Abridged History of the Mughal Emporer Shah Jahan - translated by W.E. Begley, Z.A. Desai
7. Maasir-i-Alamgiri: A history of the emperor Aurangzib - Muhammad Saqi