'Chhaava' vs Aurangzeb: Historian Dr Manu Pillai Separates Facts From Narratives

On Badi Badi Baatein, Dr. Manu S. Pillai separates facts from political narratives amid the Aurangzeb controversy.

Mughals vs Marathas, 'Chaava' vs Aurangzeb: Historian Dr Manu S Pillai Talks Facts & Narratives

(Photo: The Quint)

Video Editor: Nitin Bisht

"We all know that Aurangzeb came to the Deccan in 1681, spent the final quarter of his life fighting battles and wars, living here, and never once returning to his capital in the north. He fought a battle that he technically won. He extinguished many of the local sultanates and some kingdoms that were there. But, actually, it was a war he lost because, with his death, the empire started collapsing. So, in many ways, that simple, unembellished grave is, to me, a symbol of his failure, a symbol of his defeat. It shows that, ultimately, he didn't set out to achieve what he wanted," said Dr. Manu S. Pillai, renowned historian and author.

On 17 March, communal unrest broke out in Maharashtra's Nagpur following claims of the burning of a holy chadar with Quranic inscriptions during protests by Hindutva bodies demanding the removal of Aurangzeb's tomb.

Asked why the Mughal emperor, who died over 300 years ago, is still used to incite sentiments in current-day politics, Dr. Pillai said that Aurangzeb, as the old cliché goes, is seen as the "bad Muslim."

Was the Mughals vs Marathas tussle purely a religious one? Was certain history omitted from school textbooks, as is usually claimed? Are sentiments against Aurangzeb being used to fuel anti-Muslim hate? On Badi Badi Baatein, Dr. Manu S. Pillai separates the facts from the political narratives.

How does it feel to watch historical films in India as a historian, and what films do you watch?

It's not fun at all because they oversimplify; they flatten. See, part of it is the medium, and you have to squeeze a complicated life story into, say, 1 hour, 2 hours or 3 hours. That's not easy. So often, of course, there are good directors who are able to bring out the right kind of nuances and stories and emotions, but I think we try to squeeze too much into those three hours often, at least, and that results in very flattened accounts and very stereotypical. You get the shell of the person rather than the real, you know, flesh and bones of the person. So I think that happens in a lot of Indian historical biopics and historical movies and such. Otherwise, it's over-glamorized; it's over-violent, over-done. But again, that's just, you know what it is. I'm still looking for that good Indian historical film or series, but I don't think there's been one that's really met those standards yet.

You know, we will come back to the cinema part of it: The tomb of Aurangzeb- what we are seeing in Maharashtra is whatever has started after the movie 'Chhaava'; sentiments have been heightened clearly, but there is also a certain amount of raking of those sentiments to villainise a particular community, specifically the Muslims, because when you see a personality as revered as Chhatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj. Historically, those facts apparently are accurate, that he was tortured for days before his death. Aurangzeb was cruel in trying to put this last nail in the coffin of the Maratha Empire, but the problem begins when philosophy goes, or that thought process triggers "ki sab Musalman toh pehle se aise hi hai dekho." Now, the tomb of Aurangzeb- what does it really represent? Is it the tomb of a tyrant that is being revered as it is being claimed? Or it is a tomb of a historical figure who died hundreds of years ago in this country. What is your take on it? 

Sambhaji Maharaj, it's very clear that he was tortured. It's a matter of historical record, so let us not be under any illusions that Aurangzeb was a nice, likeable man. Like any king of that era, kings were generally violent people. Coming to this whole question of the tomb of Aurangzeb- firstly, it's not a grand tomb or anything; it's essentially a grave. He has a very simple grave. Even the marble work that's been put around it was done in the British era, I believe, so it was meant to be a very simple affair.

But to me, really, when this controversy broke out, I was very interested in the contrast that exists between his grave, in a 'Dargah' in Khuldabad and not too far away from there is the monument or the tomb of another historical figure who actually represents the resistance of the Deccan to the conquest of the Mughals of the region, which is the tomb of Malik Ambar. Aurangzeb must have been 8 or 9 years old when Malik Ambar died. Malik Ambar was an African general who, for 25 years or so, stood as a wall between the Mughals and the conquest of the Deccan. So much so that when Chhatrapati Shivaji was crowned king of the Marathas, became Chhatrapati, soon after, he commissioned a Sanskrit poem called 'The Shivbharat', in which this African-Muslim is praised, tributes are paid and Shivaji clearly respected Malik Ambar. 

So, actually, in Khuldabad, you have a monument that represents Maratha and Malik Ambar, who was supported by the Marathas, including Shivaji's grandfather Maloji. You have a monument representing resistance or a monument to a man who represents the resistance of the Deccan to the Mughal conquest, and you have Aurangzeb's rather simple, not-so-ornate grave inside a dargah.

So I was a bit puzzled and amused because, in many ways, we all know that Aurangzeb came to the Deccan, I think around 1681 or so, spent the final quarter century of his life essentially fighting battles and wars and living here and never once coming back to his capital in the north, fighting a battle that technically he won. He extinguished a lot of the local sultanates and kingdoms that were there. But actually, it was a war he lost because, with his death, the empire started collapsing. So, in many ways, that simple, unembellished grave over there is, to me, a symbol of his failure, a symbol of his defeat, a symbol of the fact that, ultimately, he didn't achieve what he set out to achieve. So you have the other monument there representing that resistance, that Maratha sort of power and conquest that they would then have over vast swathes of India. So I think both monuments being there is a beautiful symbol in many ways. You find resistance, but you also find the very humble grave of this final great Mughal emperor, and that perhaps tells a good story itself. 

I don't know why they want to demolish things, and it's very puzzling as to what they want to demolish because there isn't much to demolish there unless they mean literally excavating his body and removing it from there and doing what? Where are you going to send his bones? These are all silly conversations; it's meant for social media angst.

There are some who want to throw it in the Arabian Sea, is what they have said.

In the Arabian Sea; well, I don't think this is how we deal with history.

Growing up in Maharashtra, as both of us have, it is drilled into your head that Aurangzeb was, in fact, somebody who really wronged the Marathas. Was he the worst, though? From all the rulers that India has ever seen, was he the crudest that is usually being cited?

I don't think we should even get into this exercise of ranking people based on how cruel and crude they were. In general, if you had to be a king in the pre-modern period, there were no great institutions through which power was negotiated and navigated; you had to be brutal sometimes. In the Deccan alone, remember, it wasn't just the Hindu Marathas that he oppressed or attacked. In the 1680s, he demolished and destroyed the two final sultanates in the Deccan, which is the 'Qutb Shahis' of Golconda, who were allies of Shivaji Maharaj and the 'Adil Shahis' of Bijapur, who were also served by Shivaji's father and so on.

So, these are Muslim states, and this is a Muslim conqueror. Just as he's fighting the Marathas, who are Hindus, he's also fighting wars with local Shia Muslims, and he's using religion over here to actually discredit them, saying that as Shias, they're heretical Muslims; they're not really good Muslims and he's justifying the conquest using that religious vocabulary, just as he might, say call the Marathas infidels and Shivaji an infidel, etc. So, like most of these kings, I think religion was instrumentalised by him, and he used it to achieve certain political ends. He was not the first to do it; he's not the last to do it. We still have politicians who instrumentalise religion and use that for political gain. 

One of the constant arguments that comes from the Hindu right-wing is the destruction of temples by Mughal rulers of India, specifically Aurangzeb and some of the others, but history is more complex than that. Were the Mughals the only ones who destroyed religious places, or it happened to a certain degree by any dinosaur or any ruler that came here?

It's funny that the Mughals get all the bad press on this because, at least in the way I have read it, it's actually the Delhi Sultans who pre-date the Mughals because they're the first rulers who come in, and it is under them that Islamic power expands through the Indian subcontinent. It's really in that period when a lot more temple demolition takes place. The Mughals also, of course, demolished temples. Aurangzeb did demolish temples. I think the hard numbers are not the millions that people imagine; they are relatively small numbers; two-digit figures are what I've at least seen.

Even if that's an understatement- let's say he's destroyed 100 temples. But the point is, it happened. Temple destruction is a complicated topic because, at one point, you find that Hindu rulers also attacked and plundered temples. In fact, as recently as the early 19th century, if I'm not mistaken, it was that Nathdwara in Rajasthan, where one of the Maratha chiefs, Holkar, I think, I forget his first name, he comes and essentially, you know, the temple is to pay him off, they have to give him treasure, etc. In Kerala, there was a king called Marthanda Varma; when he was conquering local states in Kerala, he didn't hesitate to go and seize the goods and properties of temples, and we have cases where Brahmins in the temple took bronze and fought back his soldiers.

We have local legends, for example, in a place called Paramala, where they see that his troops came to collect the treasure of the temple, and the power of the goddess scared them away. Even in that legend, it's very clear that there was some kind of intrusion into that sacred space. But the difference, I think, is that with Islamic rulers, sometimes because they demolished temples; Hindu rulers often say, would plunder, but they would sometimes seize the gods and take them back and install them in their capitals, both to show off that the king who was supposed to protect this temple couldn't. I am now the guardian of this deity, so it's a way of flexing your muscles and sort of working within a certain logic where complete destruction and destruction of the images do not take place.

With Muslim rulers, the images were also destroyed, so there's a difference there. But I think there again, since you mentioned the Mughals, it's not as if Aurangzeb was the only one who did this. A lot of rulers did this before him, whether it was Jehangir or Akbar. At a certain point, everybody's done this. It was an instrument from their perspective, an instrument of statecraft, and one can understand it because they're seeing this as emperors; they're seeing that the temple is not just about religion. A temple is often patronised by a local Hindu ruler; if that Hindu ruler is a rebel, then destroying the temple is also a way to de-legitimize that Hindu ruler; that is perhaps the logic from which they're seeing it.

Like you said, often, the decisions the rulers made did not come just from the religious perspective. Was the tussle between the Mughals and the Marathas purely a religious one, as is being cited today? Or was there more to it? Because a lot of trade also took place, a lot of strategic deals also took place between various rulers through various periods of time.

I would put it this way. I think religion is 'a factor'; it is not 'the factor'. I often get trolled every time I say this, especially in Maharashtra, but if you look at Chhatrapati Shivaji's life, it is true. If you look at the 'Shivbharat', that Sanskrit poem that was commissioned as he was crowned Chhatrapati, it does present him as Vishnu reborn to destroy the 'Mlecchas' in India. Mlecchas are essentially a reference to Muslim rulers. It is a very Hinduised, Sanskritised definition of kingship, where it is clear that he is articulating kingship and power in a Hindu mould vis-a-vis in a time where sovereignty has for centuries been in the hands of Muslim rulers. So it's very clear that there he's using religion to craft his ideology, to craft a self-image, and there is a religious element there- 'Hindavi Swarajya', etc. but at the same time, Shivaji's father and uncle, Shahaji and Sharifji, as I often point out, was supposedly named after a Muslim Sufi saint called Shah Sharif.

There is a scholar called Pushkar Soni, who has written a book on the monuments of Ahmednagar, and it appears that Shah Sharif's Dargah in that city was actually constructed by Shivaji's grandfather. The story goes that Shivaji's grandparents did not have children for a while, and then eventually, his grandmother, I think her name was Deepa Bai, goes to Shah Sharif, and he blesses her, and she has two sons, and in honour of the saint, calls the older one Shahaji and the younger one Sharifji.

Now, in the Shivbharat, there is a reference to the fact that Shivaji's father and uncle were named after 'a' holy man; it doesn't say who the holy man was, but subsequent Maratha Bakhars like the Chitnis Bakhar, Shedgaonkar Bakhar, there's one 91 Kalami Bakhar; they do mention clearly that it was Shah Sharif and Deepa Bai went to Shah Sharif and was blessed, etc. These Bakhars have their own complexities, but either way, the point is that at least in the 18th and 19th centuries, there was an oral tradition that Chhatrapati's father and uncle were named after a Muslim Sufi.

Again, you can see both things can be true at once. On the ground, it is possible for Hindus and Muslims to get along, have syncretic relationships, and go to each other's shrines. It was completely normal when Shivaji conceptualises his political power and political identity, he does use religion to separate himself from the Muslim rulers because, again, in his historical context, from the 14th century or so, the Deccan and North India have been under Islamic rule. So sovereignty has been conceptualised in Islamic terms, and he's raising a challenge in very Hindu terms. So yes, there is religion, but it is not the only prism through which these things took place. As I mentioned earlier, Shivaji also allied with Qutb Shah of Golconda, the Shia ruler against the Mughals. So, if it was purely religion, he would not have done that right. 

So, it's not as if he saw himself purely through the prism of religion. Religion was there. But I don't think we should overemphasise the role religion played in either of these parties. As I said, Aurangzeb also instrumentalised religion when it was convenient for him. His mother was a Shia, but when he had to conquer Shia kingdoms, he would vilify the Shias. So, he had his religious biases and prejudices clearly, but his use of religion and politics was highly instrumental.

And that brings me to this narrative of today, where it has become very easy to say we have only been taught a certain history, and we have not been taught a certain history, and this argument usually comes from people who have not really pursued history as a subject beyond class 10th. So, how do you look at this argument when it comes to the fact that we were only taught a certain kind of history and not the 'Hindu’ history?

The funny thing is most people who seem to say it doesn't seem to be the type who actually, it's not as if everyone was sitting and focusing on their history lessons when it was actually being taught in school. Let's not deceive ourselves. None of my classmates liked history, I was the only one who took some interest in it. Most people saw it as a mark-losing subject, and they were not interested in history. So today, you know, people are getting very anxious about things. We weren't taught this, and it is as if you were focusing that much on what was actually taught. Nobody was focusing on any of that history at that time. Secondly, I think people focus on the CBSE syllabus or something because, for example, I had my education after a point in a state syllabus school; we studied about the Marathas, we studied about Shivaji. Aurangzeb was always presented as a villain in these textbooks of the Maharashtra SSE board and the upper secondary board, etc. So I don't really understand where this anxiety is coming from because we actually studied a lot of these things, not in great detail, not in rich detail, but the outline was always there. 

Now, all said and done, it is true that I think after independence with the wounds of partition, sectarianism, communal violence, etc., that there was a generation that believed, I think that you must play down some of these historical complexities, especially the violence and the people not getting along, the cruelties of the past because it will again rake up trouble. We've just seen what that kind of trouble can cost; millions of people displaced, women raped, violence, bloodshed. So, perhaps, there was a well-intended, intentional move to try not to focus on this negative aspect of things. That results, I think, at some level, among certain groups of people, assuming there was a conspiracy to hide a lot of negative things in Indian history. To that, the corrective is not to skew it to the other end.

This is my problem with some right-wing writers; for example, they say, "Oh, this has not given us true history, and we are now going to go take it to the other end." They exaggerate to the other end, and the problem is, okay, you're calling this an exaggeration, but you're also creating another exaggeration. The frank truth is you need a more mature, more sober understanding; that is what we should be trying to understand in a mature, reasonable, sober way. But the problem is mature, reasonable, sober stuff doesn't sell either on social media nor does it sell with politics, which is why, again, the exaggerations remain in fashion. 

I clearly remember studying Veer Savarkar's history in the history textbooks of Maharashtra State Board because even I come from Maharashtra State Board. I mean, to put Veer before Savarkar was considered the most natural thing

I grew up saying Veer Savarkar. I did not even know his initials of 'VD' till I was much older because we always grew up hearing Veer Savarkar. I was 12 or 13 when a Marathi film came out, and we were all taken to watch it. And that's why in Maharashtra, even people who do not necessarily subscribe to Hindutva, which Savarkar fathered, in many ways, I think they, still respect Savarkar's revolutionary phase, etc., because people see him in a very different light locally compared to, say how people see him in other states, where they see him purely as the prophet of Hindutva and they do not know the local sort of reverence that he commands in Maharashtra.

What I remember of Savarkar as a schoolchild is that he was a revolutionary, fought against the British, ran a certain movement, he suffered in the Andamans. That is what I remember of him. His push for a Hindu Rashtra, his views on Hindu Rashtra, his views on Muslims, all of these things were kept out of those textbooks. So it's not as if only the negatives of Mughal rulers or Afghan rulers or Muslim rulers were kept out; it is also of Hindu historical figures that were kept out, and in fact, Savarkar is one of the people who did not think very highly of Chhatrapati Sambhaji from his own writing.

I mean, many aspects of his writings, people would be shocked to read.

Yeah. Coming back to your point about social media, how much of whatever is claimed in the popular culture about Aurangzeb is actually true as facts? And how much of it do you think is social media chatter?

I think because we have this good Muslim, bad Muslim bifurcation, Akbar is the good Muslim, although Akbar also did lots of violent things in his early career, and Aurangzeb is the bad Muslim, although Aurangzeb also probably had redeeming qualities if you actually study him in granular detail. I think because of that, he becomes this flag poster on which a lot of other issues can be pitched, and social media thrives on quick, easy answers, right? You need one quick fix; you need one quick something that people can relate to and make sense of the world through that. So because of that, and because he has an unpleasant history fighting the Sikhs, fighting the Jats, fighting the Marathas, you know, brutally torturing and killing historical figures like Chhatrapati Sambhaji. His issues with the Sikhs, the Sikh gurus, etc., he's not likeable for that reason, which makes him, therefore, good fodder on social media because social media works on these extremes and binaries. 

And he, you know, helps perpetuate that a little bit. But again, I'm saying that you know, he wasn't terribly nice as a human being, I imagine, especially for those people who had to suffer the consequences of his power. It doesn't matter what he thought. Sometimes, what you also need to think about is how the people at the receiving end thought of him because they were at the receiving end, so it is what it is.

So when you talk about history, which is usually so complex, being told in 30-second reels, does it bother you as a historian?

See, it doesn't bother me in the sense that we are living in the age of social media; you can't wish it away. My answer always has been that the people who are actually doing work on, say, subjects like Aurangzeb, looking at the nuances and complexity, need to come out and participate. They need to put their voice forward, podcasts or interviews or reels or whatever, to the best of their capabilities. Because you can't wish this technology away. What you can do is prevent it from being colonised by one set of people who have, let's say, got a simplistic version of history or have very simplistic ideas of history, so it doesn't annoy me as such. Of course, there's a lot of garbage that goes around. Sometimes, you roll your eyes, but I've also realised that people who are genuinely interested in history don't limit their interest to reels and social media. They do read books, they do go to lectures, they do go to book events, and they try to understand things in a more layered way.

Now, coming back to the past few weeks. Now, if you go to any of the posts or stories, especially the post about the riots, you go to the comment section and see Vicky Kaushal being tagged. You know, Vicky Kaushal, how are you feeling, how's the josh, etc.? To what extent do actors hold the responsibility of portraying a particular character? Do actors have that responsibility, or it is too much to expect from them because they are not historically aware?

Actors, filmmakers, directors- they're creative people; they're not necessarily trained historians. They're not necessarily people who read books. I mean, I do not want to generalise. I'm sure some of them probably do read non-fiction and books like this on history, but in general, that's not their trade; they are not scholars; they are not academicians; they are not people who sit and devour books in order to tell a story. So it's a different thing. But of course, they can consult people. There are ways in which they can show that this is a far more complex affair; I'm not saying you should not show the torture. For example, it's a fact that he was brutally killed. There's no getting away from that. So, if you are making a film on Sambhaji Maharaj, it's going to show violence and torture, and his end was terrible. There's no getting away from that, but it's not as if these things are happening in isolation, right? They're happening in a climate where it appears that some people have calculated that you can profit from raking up a kind of angst in the public; you can profit from doing a certain kind of film.

I'm sure it's happened in the past. There have been films, say, in the Indira Gandhi era, which were essentially government propaganda and so on, and it's always going to keep happening. So I think we can't expect actors necessarily and sort of pinpoint that because they're the face of the movie, that doesn't necessarily mean, you know, they're doing much beyond reading their dialogues. I understand people emotionally; people who suffered in the riots will probably blame Vicky Kaushal for being the face of the movie.

But when you have a following like that, and when you are an actor, especially in a country like India, there does come a certain social responsibility. So, do you think actors at least need to be more mindful of who they are portraying? Or the way in which that particular character is being portrayed?

I think one thing I'll say is actors doing historical films should do some homework and do some studying on what they are actually, or who these people they're portraying are, as opposed to merely acting out of a script or doing some superficial level reading and googling and that kind of thing. So there is some work that actors perhaps need to do, especially because, as you said, it is their face that's going out there, and their faces are ultimately the most recognisable thing about the story that's being put out. So, in that sense, they have a responsibility. But not to be rude, but I don't know if we can expect that much from our actors at the moment.

Yeah, neither from the people because I don't see anybody tagging Mr Utekar, who's the director of the film. They're only tagging Mr Vicky Kaushal. So that tells you how narratives go and how it is important to, you know, be very careful and responsible while choosing scripts, especially when it comes to historical figures. That said, Mr Manu Pillai, thank you so much for joining me on 'Badi Badi Baatein' and thank you so much for debunking so many ‘badi badi’ narratives that are getting propagated.

Thank you for having me. We are both products of Maharashtra, and I think it's painful to see what's happening there. It's completely avoidable and completely unnecessary. But again, life is never easy. There are challenges like this; what we do to address those challenges is ultimately what matter