Re: "He desired in his will that not more than 8 rupees was to be expended on it".....Maintaining the austere tradition that he followed during most of his lifetime, he wanted that the cost of his funeral be covered by proceeds from the sale of cloth caps used for Muslim prayers (he himself stitched) and from the copies of the holy Quran that he painstakingly wrote in his own handwriting. It is said that the sale resulted in a sum of 305 Rupees. Also, it was at the request of Lord Curzon, the Hyderabad Nizam constructed a latticed marlel wall around the grave.

What an example to follow for those who build great tombs and leave no space for the poor!!

Surely his life was not an example to follow!..and by the way, since I visited there and I know, the grave is covered with 'Tulsi'...maybe he repented after all..

...'latticed marble wall...'

He also wanted a simple cotton cloth not costing more than a few rupees to be draped on his grave. Surely there is something to be learned from this. The Bibi ka Mukbara, styled on the Taj Mahal and built for his mother?, is a sea of tranquility in the beautiful city that is Aurangabad, gem of the Satara mountains.

When I visited some years ago, there was no large tree, as depicted in the painting, but just a few tulsi shrubs. The people that take care of his grave are extremely poor and receive absolutely no stipends for their efforts in taking care of a historic landmark. The Maharashtra govt. needs to do more to preserve these places of antiquity. Everything is not just about Shivaji, for god's sake!

There wasn't any wooden protection over his grave either. it was left bare to the elements.

https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10151484263323855&set=pb.568958854.-2207520000.1363110736&type=3&theater latest image of the tomb

Khurshid and Vinita, he was war monger extra ordinaire. Warred right into his eightees, left the country bankrupt

Human beings are complex characters - there is good and bad in everyone............and depending on the time and situation and historians' analyses, we think of them as wonderful or evil. Nothing is black or white - there are muted shades of brown and grey.

Aurangzeb was truly a 17th century fanatic.

The broad strokes with which we tend to paint the Alamgir's reign has been largely influenced by Sir Jadunath Sarkar's early twentieth century work on him, characterizing Aurangzeb as a religious bigot, despotic enough to cut out every hint of dissent to his rule or beliefs. Such a view has been now been discredited, and is no longer held as a faithful reflection of the man or his approach to administering his empire. The Jizya, for example, was imposed ostensibly to promote codes of living as dictated by the Shariah. In reality, it was done only in the 22nd year of his reign, despite Aurangzeb being aware of such a religiously sanctioned tax all along, and was revoked (in the Deccan) a couple of years before his death. Such a tax was paid by the infidels for over 300 years prior to his reign without any appreciable dent to the hold of Hindu thought in the subcontinent. Hence, its reintroduction on the basis of gaining converts is untenable. Moreover, the increased revenues were marked for charitable purposes, and not to defray costs of military campaigns. It is said that the Jizya was imposed to rally clerical Muslim opinion in his favor, to help his campaigns against the Deccani kingdoms. Many of Aurangzeb's high-ranking military officers were Rajputs, and in the latter half of his reign, about 30% of administrative posts were held by the Hindus. His policies towards temples were uneven, granting permission to repair existing ones, renewing their land grants and leaving many temples in South India unharmed during his campaigns that reached the Maratha stronghold of Jingi . He did destroy or brick up temples in Gujarat, Vrindavan, Mathura and Kashi in retribution for disloyalty. Appreciation for the nature of Aurangzeb's rule and his personal qualities has been held hostage to historiography that has underestimated the political climate of his times. Please read Satish Chandra's work on him for a contemporary portrait of the great man.

Shashi, you are brilliant - how do you know so much??? I am in awe!

Hello Ms. Ullal. I do not know much. I happen to have a set of books (in print and online) I consult on a topic, the study of which I summarize here. Hence, these aren't impromptu comments, but brief sketches of recent reading. I, thus, hasten to add that I am not deeply initiated in such matters, but only possess interest in them.

Wajid Ali, he was no less or more than other people of his time. Why he has been painted in such awful colors is beyond me.

sorry Vinita - Shashi is in major error. John Keay in his magnum opus and many other historians have painted a totally opposite picture. For the poor, the Jizya could be 25% of their net income. One bad rain- and they would starve. ............over hundreds of years many at the bottom of the socio economic ladder converted to Islam. I know I would have

moreover his numerous wars right upto his death at the age of 86 not only bankrupted the treasury but also brought many famines

finally, it takes a special man to imprison his father, kill all his brothers, some thru DECEIT, and blind his own son

Hello Mr. Misra. The Jizya was about a month's wage for a laborer, and women, the very poor, the young and the indisposed weren't charged. You perhaps refer to the tax levied by the state on produce, which hovered between 1/4th and 1/3rd. Famines during the Mughal period were either caused by total failure of rainfall or its excess, and infrequently by poor rains. Their frequency were far lower than during the times of British Rule (who's settlement system and inadequate famine relief measures lead to losses in the tens of millions of lives in as few as 40 years beginning from the late 19th century). Also, there is no reference in John Keay's book about the Jizya being the cause of large scale distress (though it's collection from the poor was harsh, as mentioned in other texts). He, in fact, claims that the collection of such a tax was itself impractical, compensated somewhat for extractions of other kinds from Muslims and was not aimed at conversions. The imposition of the Jizya was due to political considerations, as Aurangzeb wanted to rally support of the Muslim orthodoxy - which became firmly entrenched in state affairs during Shah Jahan's reign after the comparatively liberal one of Akbar - on his side to wage wars against other Muslim states. That he was unsuccessful in doing so points to the failure of the imposition of the Jizya. He waived the tax during the war and famine years during the last decade of his reign, and regressed the law of compounded interest that had remained unpaid the past several years to a more nominal one. It is true that he his antagonisms with the Rajputs, Golconda, Bijapur and the Marathas won him little territory while draining the treasury. But, there is no uniform evidence in Hindu or Muslim rule to suggest that a fuller treasury would have lead to the benefit of the common laborer. It is, in fact, suggested that the existence of numerous temples in South India was due to the maintenance of its peasantry at subsistence level despite the fertility of the land, while the produce was taken up to finance such projects. And, as far as fratricide is concerned, we need not look further than the major Hindu epics or the behavior of the splinter groups of the Maratha empire for parallel examples, whatever be their justification. The reign of Aurangzeb needs to be looked at in the fresh light that has been shed on it by the works of Satish Chandra, Irfan Habib and Athar Ali, to name only a few.

Re: "... Aurangzeb followed the Prophet Muhammad's doctrine that a grave should be unadorned and open to the sky" This is one among a only a few tombs of Muslim notables in India that aren't covered. Some others are that of Shams-ud-din Iltutmish (situated in the Qutb Complex) and Jahanara, a favorite daughter of Shah Jahan (situated in the Nizamuddin Complex). From Percival Spear's "Delhi", page 57: "...it appears to be a tradition of devout Muslims. "Tombs are sometimes left uncovered, even when inside a mausoleum...the motive was the conviction that a grave not exposed to the rain and the dew was unblessed"".

Shashi Kolar : Not all destruction were 'in retribution for disloyalty'. On 9 Apr 1669 he had issued a General Order of temple destruction which read something like : “The Lord Cherisher of the Faith learnt that in the provinces of Thatta, Multan and especially at Benaras, the Brahmin misbelievers used to teach their false books in their established schools, and their admirers and students, both Hindu and Muslim, used to come from great distances to these misguided men in order to acquire their vile learning. His Majesty, eager to establish Islam, issued orders to the governors of all the provinces to demolish the schools and temples of the infidels, and, with the utmost urgency, put down the teaching and the public practice of the religion of these unbelievers”. But there is no doubt that he was an accomplished emperor as were his predecessors. Just imagine, this dynasty gave this land six back-to-back Arthurians.

Re : ""Tombs are sometimes left uncovered, even when inside a mausoleum"...or it could be a practice started by Aurangzeb. Shah Jahan too was initially consigned to an uncovered grave inside the Taj masoleum. This could go down as,one of the few instances of an unceremonious and hurried burial, marked by stealthiness and tainted by guilt, as that of Shah Jahan, who had been Emperor of India for about thirty years.

Hello Mr. Sen. The following is quoted on page 486 of Sathish Chandra's 'Medieval Indian History', "...Aurangzeb adopted a policy of selective destruction of temples, either was a warning to local rajas, or as a reprisal for rebelliousness. Thus, some of the famous temples at Vrindavan Mathura, Kashi and Thatta, etc., were destroyed as a part of this policy." Earlier on the same page is quoted, "There is no reason to believe that Aurangzeb...ordered a general destruction of temples. No such orders have been found...". Hence, the political context in which his order, quoted by you, needs to be studied to understand its origin.

Iltutmish's tomb dates from the 13th century and hence predates the Mughals. I was not aware that Shah Jahan was initially buried in an open grave, but given Aurangzeb's disposition, is perhaps not surprising.

Shashi Kolar I have a picture copy of the General Order at home. Shall mark it to you on my return from work.

Thanks Mr. Sen. The same could also be found online: http://aurangazeb.wordpress.com/category/akhbarat/

Shashi - the 2 most vile practices in radical Islam are - apostacy and blasphemy. Just like in modern Pakistan and Bdesh, Hindus and others were persecuted excessively using this hate doctrine................his own brother Dara Shikoh who translated the vedas was deemed an apostate by Aurangzeb when they were young- the assassination followed decade later

so lets not whitewash Aurangzeb- a brutal Islamist, warmonger till age 86

Jizya w as never a fixed scale as u suggest. It was a sliding scale- surprisingly Hindu courtiers paid proportionately less. For the peasantry in India, living hand to mouth for centuries, it was a constant coercion to convert to Islam

the most evil thing about Aurangzeb was that he REVERSED the councillatory attitude of Akbar and by imposing sharia and jizya, declared hindu sikhs to be third class citizens, ---so his hypocricy in death- oh, give me a poor mans burial does not make up for his evil in life

shashi, u mean well but pl dont whitewash history. even the benign Jehangir did not just order the Sikh Guru's death- he ordered death by burning and torture

Hello Mr. Misra. Many of the points you make are held in popular belief. But, as mentioned earlier, their veracity and circumstances surrounding them have been called into question. The Jizya was indeed heavier on the poor, but there is no record of it prompting heavy conversions, and neither was it designed to do so (please see references in Sathish Chandra's 'Medieval Indian History' and Irfan Habib's 'Agrarian System in Mughal India'). Muslims too had to pay the Waqf, and were thus not exempt from tax. The liberal policies of Akbar had ruffled the Muslim orthodoxy, with the result that orders for destruction of temples had begun in Shah Jahan's reign under their influence. Aurangzeb granted lands for gurdwaras too, but territorial ambitions of the Sikhs were not suffered by him. I do not claim that Aurangzeb's rule was benign. I merely suggest that his caricature as a ruthless bigot, riding roughshod over his subjects sensibilities as explicated in Sarkar's work, is untrue and the the political climate of his times involving the Rajputs, the Marathas, Golconda, Bijapur and foreign aggression - along with his alleged atrocities - too need to taken into consideration to arrive at an estimate of him.

Shashi Kolar : I have not read Satish Chandra as I bracket him as a marxist historian as R Thapar. His school texts has had the same effect as that of Sir J Sarkar. Re : "There is no reason to believe that Aurangzeb...ordered a general destruction of temples. No such orders have been found...". Why didn't Staish Chandra elaborate on the the General Order, if he were to dispute it?

Hello Mr. Sen. That was done probably because Aurangzeb did not issue a general order with the express intent to destroy temples under a religious decree, but did so when he chose to drive home a point or two to the Hindus. Mr. Chandra has not disputed that such orders were issued; what he disputes is their issue solely for promoting Islam at the cost of other religions. It had not worked for 300 years, a point that could not have escaped Aurangzeb.

Shashi zakat for muslims was never more than 3%, many hindu sikh poor farmers paid upto 25 % as jizya. Enuff said. Jizya was not imposed cos he loved hindus. It was imposed cos he disliked them . No whitewash

Shashi very disingenuous to suggest there was no coercion to convert, that insults our basic intelligence. 'If u convert, jaziya goes, you get super preferential treatment in courts, in govt, you are now the chosen race, the purest of the pure, the muslims. You get to marry into Turkish and Afghan nobility etc

You also avoid murderous attacks by Taimur Lane or Tipu or Butshikan sikandar. Oh boy, conversion was so rosy. I myself would have done it immediately to better provide for my family

to give a modern equivalent- I have visited Bdesh and Pakistan several times- this is what I was openly told there- "If a Hindu or Christian joins the Army- consider yourself lucky if you even reach Capt. Convert- and sky is the limit" This is covered in books by VS Naipaul, Atish Taseer etc

Hello Mr. Mishra. Instead of iterating through the arguments another time, please allow me to quote statements and figures from texts. "The Agrarian System of Mughal India" by Irfan Habib: p 286: "[The Jizya] would have meant a month's wages for an unskilled urban labourer." "...the poor with no more than 200 had to pay 12." Thus, the burden of Jizya on these sections was around 6% to 8% and not 25% as is claimed (which was the tax payable on produce). However, on the same page, it is said that "the Jizya was extremely regressive and bore the hardest on the poorest." "India, a History" by John Keay: p 343: "[The Jizya] applied only to male adults who, had they been Muslims, would have been liable to military service in a jihad; as non-Muslims they were excused this duty but must instead contribute to the protecteion they supposedly enjoyed by paying the Jizya. The rate varied on the taxpayers ability to pay. But the poorest were exempt and it seems unlikely that the tax was collected at all in the remoter regions of the empire." "But the idea that Aurangzeb intentionally set about the persecution and forced conversion of his non-Muslims is absurd...More reasonably he wanted to create a moral climate in which Muslims could live in accordance with the tenets of Islam and in which non-Muslims would be aware of both their subordinate status and of how they might improve it by conversion." "Mughal India" by Athar Ali: p 207: "...Hindus constituted 21.6% of Mughal nobles of the rank of 1000 and above during 1658-79, but 31.6% of such nobles during 1679-1707...where one would have expected the percentage to decline." "The picture that emerges of Aurangzeb from the Akhbarat is also not one of a uniformly religious tyrant. He gratefully acknowledges Rajput valour and loyalty; and, at one place, commends Brahman officers for their courage generally." "...many cases of grants to Hindus by Aurangzeb and his officials." p 250: "These figures show...that all religious and racial sections in the nobility were divided in their loyalties [during the War of Succession]...Indeed, if Aurangzeb had made any statement or committed any action hostile to any community, this would have been disastrous for his cause..." "The absence of any anti-Hindu or anti-Rajput bias in Aurangzeb's effort to gain the throne may surprise those who concentrate only on [his religious bigotry]." "Never since the recall of Man Singh from Bengal in 1606 by Jahangir had an important governor-ship been conferred on a Rajput. Aurangzeb made Jai Singh the nominal, as well as the actual viceroy of the Deccan, perhaps the most important post in the whole Empire, and Jaswant Singh was twice appointed the governor of Gujarat. Never since the death of AKbar had been a Hindu diwan of the Empire." "Essays on Medieval Indian History" by Satish Chandra: p 308: "Though [the Jizya] was a regressive tax, and bore more heavily on the poor than on the rich, there is no proof of any large-scale conversions during his reign on account of this measure. Had any such developments taken place, they would have been recorded with glee by the emperor's eulogists as a triumph of his policy." p 326-327: "...Aurangzeb's decision to reimpose the Jizya 22 years after his accession to the throne was not the outcome of his desire to strictly follow the injunction of the Sharia, but more the outcome of a deepening political crisis which...had been bought about by the 'disloyalty' of the Rajputs and the growing power of the Marathas...". "The re-imposition of the Jizya was an attempt on Aurangzeb's part to rally Muslim public opinion behind him, for such action he might take to meet this threat." Therefore, instead of succumbing to populist opinions of Aurangzeb's rule that have perhaps not been informed of prevailing political or economic conditions, it would do us good to peruse scholarly literature by those who have devoted considerable energies to the study of such rule to arrive at a truer estimate of him.

Shashi- you said this with such a serious face- "non-Muslims would be aware of both their subordinate status and of how they might improve it by conversion." wow- this is evil to me. And you conveniently forgot about the murderous attacks of Taimur Lane and Butshikan, which were perhaps lesser in Aurangzebs reign, but at the level of a local muslim governor or subedar, justice was siftly imparted with the flash of a sword or abduction of a Hindu Sikh girl, which incidentally continues today unabated in Pakistan and Bdesh

you are also silent on - how many kings war monger continually till they are 86 years of age ???? Jeez, this tyrant's blood lust and arrogance had few equals. But we are blinded by his stitching skull caps and saying give me a simple grave

Shashi, it is absurd to praise him that 30% of his courtiers were Hindus. Obviously as the empire expands, you appropriate a section of the natives- give them riches- and help them buttress your rule. Even the Brits did it. ...........to even suggest that it was done as an act of "equal opportunities employer" is laughable

Aurangzebs ideology is reflected in the countries that follow it blindly and today if you go anywhere in the world and ask anyone- name the 5 most dangerous and unstable countries in the world- Pakistan, features on every list

Hello Mr. Mishra. I would rather not have this discussion degenerate into a one-upping contest between Hindus and Muslims. That such a question has not been settled for close to a millenium suggests that partisan approaches to it only widen the divide. If you are looking for examples of sovereigns who turned more pacifist as they aged, such a search would turn up few specimens, I'm afraid. The British did not open up higher ranks in their civil services to natives until the early twentieth century, let alone handing them a third of the positions. And, letting a Hindu (Jai Singh) have one of the most important posts in Aurangzeb's empire to cull another Hindu's (Shivaji) advances cannot be dismissed as happenstance. Pakistan was a part of India not long ago, and to dismiss it as being unstable due to its national religion, without taking global economic and political dynamics into account, is incorrect and unfair. Let me emphasize that I do not wish to arm twist one into applauding the rule of Aurangzeb. There are facts about him that have not received as wide a circulation as his misdeeds have, and encouraging some halting moves to incorporate them into a heightened understanding of him is my (perhaps optimistic) intent.

Footnote (slightly off topic) Re: " The British did not open up higher ranks in their civil services to natives until the early twentieth century, let alone handing them a third of the positions." Quite false. The colonial civil service was originally opened to ' Indian ' participation in 1853 - although, to borrow Mr Misra's rather good line from above - " to even suggest that it was an ' equal opportunities employer' is laughable" ... It was very difficult for an Englishman to get into the I.C.S. - a very elite and exclusive institution - let alone anyone else. The first Indians to join the I.C.S. ' proper' * - the upper management echelon - did so in 1869. But such individuals remained in a tiny minority ( always less than 10% ) until after the 1914 war - when the introduction of a policy of ' Indianization' (along with rapidly declining levels of recruitment in Britain itself) led to the membership of the I.C.S. being roughly 50 - 50 (i.e. half Indian, half British) at the time of Independence. *As opposed to the Statutory Civil Service ( Est.1879 ) that comprised the lower levels of the government's bureaucracy (i.e. administrative assistants - accountants - pen pushers of all types etc &c) which was always largely in Indian hands and without which the ' Raj ' would have ceased to function.

Hello Mr. Craig. There is no doubt that the ICS was opened up to the natives in the decade after the mutiny. People like R C Dutt were its products in the late nineteenth century. I was alluding to the general intent of letting it he natives in more liberally to occupy higher posts, which only happened in the early decades of the twentieth century. However, I will follow the trail of your comment and get back to you. I might stand corrected as a result.

... Hello ... Re: " I will follow the trail of your comment and get back to you." Please do so when the next opportunity presents itself within an appropriate thread. It was not my intention to divert the flow of the ' Aurangzeb debate ' above - but merely to correct your initial, sweeping inexactitude.

Hello Mr. Craig. I agree that it is impertinent to this thread, but I would, however, like to repeat my claim that the "British did not open up higher ranks in their civil services to natives until the early twentieth century, let alone handing them a third of the positions." "India Britannica" by Geoffrey Moorehouse, p. 111-112: "...in 1870 only one Indian...stood among the 916 members of the ICS...joined by three other Bengalis. Almost up to Independence the process of 'Indianization' in the ICS was conceded with great caution by the British...there simply was not enough will on the part of enough Britons to see [reforms] through". By 1915, [Indians constituted] 5 per cent of the service. [By 1930] only 367 Indians occupied ICS posts - not much more than one third." [so a third of positions was indeed occupied by Indians, however belatedly; in this, I stand corrected. However, this was among all positions, and not just the senior ones, as was with Aurangzeb]. "Flaws in the Jewel" by Roderick Matthews, p. 136-137: "For decades, the selection system remained problematic for Indian applicants, and until a series of reforms and policy changes in the twentieth, Indian numbers in the ICS stayed very low." "The British did not particularly want Indians involved in government, nor did they feel they needed them". p 141: "As the nineteenth century drew on, it emerged that service in India was not a popular choice". p 143: "At the time of the Second World War, there were only two Indian majors to be found in the entire Army." [not strictly related to ICS, but retaining it's ethos]. "The Ruling Caste" by David Gilmour, p. 47-50 says much the same things as above. The SCS was thought up assuage native demands for some say in the administration and designed to be filled by Indian aristocracy. It was never successful and met its end in 10 years. This is not an indictment of the ICS, but the dismissal of my statement as "sweeping inexactitude" perhaps needs to be revisited. I would be happy to continue this discussion elsewhere.

Hello Shashi, why are you so worked up for defending Aurangzeb?...Marxist historians seem to have brainwashed you completely!..Please donot quote their texts..they are politically motivated and false..Read Gautiere instead, maybe..

Mr Kolar Re: " so a third of positions was indeed occupied by Indians, however belatedly; in this, I stand corrected. However, this was among all positions, and not just the senior ones " ... You are barking up entirely the wrong tree . The I.C.S *was* the " senior " branch of the Civil Service... Anyway ... as I mentioned above - this is not the appropriate thread for this particular ' conversation ' - but I'm sure that we can revisit this subject in the not too distant future. On another note : Do you ever consult primary sources ? I'm sure that many of us could cull masses of information, and quote reams of text from retrospective books that have been published in the last 25 years or so - but - ' historians ' should really go straight to the horse's mouth. As I'm sure you are aware - there is an enormous amount of primary material available these days , 'electronically', as it were. On another note x 2 : Ah - dear old Geoffrey Moorhouse - a very fine writer (certainly not an academic). He passed away a year or two ago - did you know ? I always enjoyed his books because most of them seem to have been about (a) The Indian subcontinent, or (b) cricket !

Hi Praveen. Yes, I need to read a few other sources. But, I seem to have missed the movement of disregarding works of people who could be branded Marxist. I'm thinking of picking up some of Abraham Eraly's books. Not sure if he too is branded as one, coming from Kerala? : )

Hello Mr. Craig. Finally, some warmth from you. I have waited a while for it. : ) About my comment about the percentage of Indians in the ICS, I assume the numbers quoted include the some of the lower ranks too (Deputy Magistrate, Deputy Collector etc.). Is this incorrect? I have not yet gone over to consulting primary sources. That's a scary, uncharted territory for me. I'm aware that a few English newspapers and documents have been put up online. Not sure if they would suffice over more privileged access. Mike Dash (author of ''Thug") says that documents pertaining from the EIC alone run for 9 miles in the British Library. Also, John Keay writes in his introduction to "The Honourable Company" that he has based his book almost entirely on second hand sources (i.e. books) as there is more material on it than one could consume in a lifetime. But, the point of going to the primary sources is valid. I too enjoy Moorhouse, who hardly wastes words, keeping his prose sharp and pertinent. May he rest in peace.

Shashi, you are a gentleman and I applaud you for it. But the period of 1100-1700 was a period when India got invaded and colonised by various muslim tribes. Conservatives estimates of the number of Hindus and Sikhs killed or enslaved range from 60-70 million. Obviously, Aurangzeb, being a settled invader, was not as ghastly as Taimur Lane, Ghazni, Nadir Shah, Ahmed Abdali etc. If it wasnt for the Marathas, Sikhs and ironically the British, history would have been infinitely more vicious and your name would have been Shamsuddin and I probably Dawood Ibrahim !!

45 min video- and I know it minimises the violence committed by Christians, but still a disturbing video- a bit long- for u Shashi- - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_Qpy0mXg8Y

also Shashi, you made 2 errors- nowhere have I turned it into a who is better- hindu or muslim- argument. Absurd. I have not discussed Hindus qualities at all, good or bad

second mistake Shashi- I did not say that the reason for Pakistan being a failed state was Islam, I said it was Aurangzeb's ideology, which perhaps in modern idiom would translate as Wahabi or Salafi Islam

A link that may interest Shashi and others - http://www.francoisgautier.com/en/aurangzeb-and-dalrymple

so much thought ,time has been given by so many historians, iam really enlightened by so many views.

Praveen, amazing article

Shashi- almost identical to what I said above- the ideology of Auranzeb above- and trust me, I NEVER READ THIS ARTICLE BEFORE- "The shadow of Aurangzeb still floats upon India: in Kashmir, where 400.000 Hindus were made to flee their homeland . Even in Pakistan’s internal killings between Shias and Sunnis. India looks like sometimes it is forsaking its Sufi inheritance and letting Aurangzeb’s spirit take hold of it."

Hello Mr. Misra. If these are indeed facts, there can be no denying the internecine persecution. I just wish he was liberal with his sources and train of thought that led him to those conclusions. Instead, I can only see asseverations all over that article that could have been penned by anyone else. Therefore, until some credibility is established, the so called 'politically motivated' methods of Marxist historians, with their evident rigour, seem to provide a better foundation for forming opinions. By the way, I'm unsure what kind of action he wants the Hindus to take up. Deriding other historians and making provocative arguments will not soothe things, a fundamental lesson one would expect him to know.

shashi did u see the video above

Hello Mr. Misra. I have not yet seen it in its entirety. I will do so and get back to you on Sunday. I hope that would be okay with you.

Thanks. Akbaruddin Owaisi did not just get his sneer and hatred for the Kafir in the 21st century. This ideology is very old now

Hello Mr. Misra. Unfortunately, I could not get through the movie today. Please hand me day more to get baked to you.