Past Imperfect

Thirteen individuals, including five minors, now find themselves on the wrong side of the law in Maharashtra. Their crime? Posting social media messages glorifying Mughal emperor Aurangzeb. The Solapur police booked them under various sections of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, citing not only the celebration of Aurangzeb but also derogatory remarks about Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj and Chhatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj.

Every few months, a new provocation in form of social media posts or calls to remove Aurangzeb’s tomb resurrects the historical battle lines between Marathas and Mughals. But the persistence of Aurangzeb’s glorification in some quarters, despite his widely reviled legacy, raises an uncomfortable question: Why, three centuries after his death, do some still seek to celebrate him?

The simple answer is they shouldn’t. Aurangzeb, by any rational historical measure, is unworthy of reverence. He was a ruler whose religious bigotry and ceaseless warfare bled the Mughal Empire dry. His reimposition of the jizya tax, his destruction of temples, and his brutal execution of Guru Tegh Bahadur and Sambhaji Maharaj were not acts of benevolence but of intolerance and tyranny. Even within his own family, he was ruthless - imprisoning his father, executing his brothers and ruling through sheer force.

Yet, despite this record, some sections of the Muslim community in Maharashtra still treat him as a historical icon. This is not only misguided but politically self-defeating. If Indian Muslims must look for historical figures to admire, why Aurangzeb? Why not his great-grandfather, Akbar, whose policies of religious pluralism made the Mughal Empire strong? Why not Sir Syed Ahmad Khan, whose emphasis on education and reform helped modernize Muslim society? Why not Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, a man of science, vision, and nation-building?

The glorification of Aurangzeb, like the glorification of Nathuram Godse by certain elements of the Hindu right, represents the worst impulses of historical revisionism. Both figures, though representing vastly different ideologies, share one thing in common: their legacies are defined by division and destruction. To celebrate them is to celebrate an India where sectarian hatred triumphs over unity. If those eulogizing Aurangzeb in Solapur deserve legal scrutiny, so too do those garlanding Godse’s statues.

This fixation on Aurangzeb, however, serves neither Hindus nor Muslims. Maharashtra, a state with a formidable economic and industrial base, has far more pressing concerns - agrarian distress, unemployment, infrastructure bottlenecks. Yet, political discourse is increasingly being dominated by symbolic battles over a long-dead emperor.

More dangerously, this historical obsession fuels communal tensions. The individuals in Solapur who chose to venerate Aurangzeb likely did so not out of deep historical conviction but as an act of defiance in an increasingly polarized landscape. The more Aurangzeb is vilified by one side, the more he becomes a countercultural symbol for the other - an unhealthy cycle that serves no one but politicians eager to keep the flames of identity politics burning.

Maharashtra, and India at large, would do well to move beyond Aurangzeb. There is no pride to be found in eulogizing a ruler whose policies were regressive and destructive. Nor is there wisdom in continually reviving his spectre to stoke modern-day conflicts.