The National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) Peer Team visited Maulana Azad National Urdu University (MANUU), Hyderabad, recently. Along with the “new noticeboards, signboards, fresh coats of paint and LED lights on the university buildings, and green, leafy plants,” a drama based on the life of Mughal emperor Dara Shikoh was also presented before them by the University Drama Club members.
The same drama was shown a few months back on the concluding day of a two-day international conference on the theme “Majma-ul-Bahrain of Dara Shikoh: Harbinger of a Pluralistic Approach towards Religion and Spirituality,” organised by the Persian and Central Asian Studies department of the University. Along with the other delegates, former Union Minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi, senior RSS functionary Dr. Krishna Gopal, and vice chancellors of Aligarh Muslim University (AMU) and Jamia Millia Islamia (JMI) were invited.
It was indeed an excellent drama in terms of acting and performance by the students, yet I have some reservations about it. Acknowledging the efforts of my fellow friends of the University Drama Club, I would like to put my observations here. The distortion of history has been the favourite project of the Sangh. Since the BJP-led Hindutva government came to power, we have been witnessing numerous attempts made by the government to change the school textbooks to transmit its own version of history to children. Be it the exclusion of the poem of Faiz Ahmed “Faiz” or the lauding of Savarkar and other Hindutva icons, what remains constant is the “saffronization” of education.
The BJP’s love for Mughal Prince Dara Shikoh cannot be seen in a vacuum. It is part of the same history distortion project, and more than that, it is a political tool to strengthen the binary of “Good Muslims” and “Bad Muslims.” The government is running many projects in the name of Dara Shikoh. Centres, departments, forums, and literature corners in libraries have been established in many universities. The National Council for Promotion of Urdu Language (NCPUL), AMU, JMI, MANUU, and the India Islamic Cultural Centre have been working on outreach programmes in order to engage Muslim intellectuals.
What we can see is that the government is attempting to construct a narrative in academic circles and as well as in public that Dara Shikoh was killed by the Mughal Emperor and his elder brother Aurangzeb because he was a “rebel,” “vocal,” and a champion of what we call today ‘Ganga-Jamuni Tehzeeb.” This is nothing but an oversimplification and a misreading of history.
The MANUU conference and the previously mentioned drama are continuations of the same project. There, Aurangzeb was presented as the cruellest and most barbaric man in history. He was a “Bad Muslim” who demolished many temples and killed many Hindus, even his own brother, Dara Shikoh, just because he was a “Kaafir” and “Mushrik.” Again, it is nothing but misreading history. In her book “Aurangzeb: The Man and the Myth,” Audrey Truschke, a famous historian, presents an entirely different picture of Aurangzeb.
According to Truschke, “Aurangzeb is controversial not so much because of India’s past but rather because of India’s present.” She says, “Mughal sources frequently present what we might now term “alternative facts.” For example, some Mughal texts brag about temple destructions, including temple destructions that were not carried out. Aurangzeb’s modern detractors cite such sources at face value because these narratives feed into their image of a bigoted, Islamist fanatic; they ignore sources—sometimes the same sources—that talk about Aurangzeb’s patronage of Hindu and Jain temples.
Similarly, Dara Shikoh was portrayed as a deeply religious person, a scholar who translated Hindu writings into Persian, a “Muslim” who participated in interfaith discussions and Hindu festivals, and an opponent of “Islamic fundamentalists.” This is how the RSS interprets Dara Shikoh since it fits their political philosophy. RSS employs the same old tactic of dividing and categorising Muslims based on the “Good Muslim” and “Bad Muslim” dichotomy. Those who fit into their politics are obviously Good Muslims, be it Dara Shikoh or APJ Abdul Kalam.
But what hits the most is the question of the idea of a university. Is it what the universities are meant for? We have seen a pattern in Bollywood cinema portraying Muslim rulers as cruel, barbaric, and anti-Hindu in many films. Many efforts have been made in Bollywood to shape public opinion against Muslim rulers and to strengthen the divide between “us” and “them.” However, universities are not intended for the same purpose. Be it the “Indianization” of Dara Shikoh or the “Islamization” of Aurangzeb, university spaces should not be misused for the propagation of political propaganda. History should be seen and evaluated in a certain “context,” and it should be taught and discussed within an academic framework.
It was pathetic to witness the sloganeering in favour of Dara Shikoh and against Aurangzeb in a central university. Reducing the history into “Zindabad” and “Murdabad” in university spaces is a crime, and whoever is committing and promoting this crime must be held responsible.
