"Aurangzeb: The Man and the Myth" by Audrey Truschke

Aurangzeb: The Man and the Myth by Audrey Truschke

My rating: 1 of 5 stars


In this book Audrey Truschke takes up the challenge of addressing one of the most controversial figures of Indian history. The book should be read in the spirit it was written- as a "preliminary" engagement/exploration of alternative understandings about Aurangzeb. A historian’s task to this extent is doubly challenging: identifying the source material and putting aside one’s predispositions and prejudices in the task of interpreting the sources. Truschke claims she has stepped forward from earlier research (read Jadunath Sarkar’s) on Aurangzeb in this regard.

The author attempts to understand Aurangzeb’s core values and how they informed his rule as an emperor. She claims that Aurangzeb wanted “to be a just king, a good Muslim and a sustainer of Mughal culture.” She condones Aurangzeb’s use of violent tactics to continue his plans of an expansionist state. In her words: “But the question before us is not whether Aurangzeb was a just king. Rather I want to know what Aurangzeb thought it meant to be a just Mughal king, and how that shaped is world views and actions as emperor of Hindustan” (P.13).

However, at a few points in the book, it is hard to reconcile the author’s benign reading of Aurangzeb with her own evidence. The narrative construct seems repetitive and thin. The reader is left unconvinced. For instance, the author claims Aurangzeb extended state security to Hindu and Jain temples more often than he demolished them. Aurangzeb authorized targeted temple destructions and desecrations throughout his rule (PP 100-101). Though, Aurangzeb issued an order in 1672 recalling all endowed land grants given to Hindus and reserved all such land grants for Muslims it was not strictly enforced, hence a second order was issued.

Truschke contends that: “If strictly enforced, this move would have been a significant blow to Hindu and Jain religious communities, but historical evidence suggests otherwise” (P.105). I feel the author widely misses the point that policy stance sets the tone for public culture. Policy initiatives especially in those times cannot be taken lightly. The empire existed to please the emperor. In the absence of appropriate checks and balances in that time and day the emperor’s inclinations would have directed and shaped political culture of the public.

The idea that Aurangzeb’s religious ideas were puritanical and that he was “pious” than his predecessors is contested in the book. I wish the author would have delved deeper into the tenuous relation between religion and politics. That the Mughal emperors and even the kings of the Delhi Sultanate in the earlier centuries strived to win over the religious leaders to legitimize their authority has been explored elsewhere. It is this nuance that might have been explored in the book. For all his ‘piety’ and stance on morality I feel Aurangzeb was not far from his predecessors in craving approval from the Ulema and privileging the role of religion in real politick. Rulers of the Delhi Sultanate and early Mughal emperors were aware that they might have won over the land but the popular will and sympathies lied with the Sufi masters who were the real Kings ruling the hearts of the people.

I would have liked to read more about Aurangzeb’s contentious relation with the Sufis of Delhi and the Deccan. The author does have a good point that Aurangzeb’s piety might have been a performance for himself (to redeem himself from guilt for his past actions) and for others (to gain credibility). The conflicting personalities of Aurangzeb are laid out in Chapters 4 and 5.
I wish the author would have engaged more on Aurangzeb’s lack of an enduring legacy. Had he consolidated his victories and built a bureaucratic apparatus to implement his idea of justice, history would have remembered him as fair and impartial and not as a vindictive, impulsive emperor meting out retributive justice.

We need more scholars like Truschke to challenge received understanding but we also need rigorous scholarship that moves beyond conjecture and thin evidence.







View all my reviews