As communal hate is on the rise through the use of history on political battle grounds, new dimensions are being added up during the past few years. Apart from the propaganda and indoctrination through RSS (Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh) shakhas (drills), social media, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) IT cell, the mainstream media, particularly TV channels, many films have added to the prevailing misconceptions in the society.
In the recent past, films, such as The Kerala Story, Kashmir Files, spread a mania of hate. There have been other not so successful films, such as Swatantraveer Savarkar, 72 Hurain, Samrat Prithviraj, to name a few. Now, Maharashtra in particular and the country as a whole, has a film called Chhava running to packed houses, taking hate a few notches up. This film is not a historical film. It is based on the novel, Chhava, by Shivaji Samant. Already, the filmmakers have had to apologise for inaccuracies in film.
The film selectively picks up a few incidents from Chhatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj’s life and projects the “cruel and anti-Hindu” nature of Aurangzeb. In the 126-minute film, a good 40 minutes are devoted to the torture of Sambahji Maharaj. This part is where the filmmaker may have taken a lot of liberties of a fiction writer. The whole narrative is set in the presentation of medieval history as ‘noble’ Hindu kings versus ‘evil’ Muslim kings.
Sambhaji Maharaj was the eldest son of Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj. As Shivaji set up his kingdom, he had officers, which included Muslims. Maulana Haider Ali was his confidential secretary and there were 12 generals in his army who were Muslims– Siddi Sambal, Ibrahim Gardi, and Daulat Khan, to name the few.
From Aurangzeb’s side, Raja Jaisingh led the army to attack Shivaji. Shivaji was made to appear in Aurangzeb’s court and later imprisoned. The person who helped him escape was a Muslim prince, Madari Mehtar.
The Hindutva progenitors, VD Savarkar and MS Golwalkar, raise questions about Sambhaji’s character, wine and women. For this, he was imprisoned by Shivaji in Panhala Fort. Later Sambhaji did ally with Aurangzeb in his battle against Shivaji. Sambhaji also allied with Aurangzeb in his battle against Adilshah of Bijapur.
In the battle of succession after Shivaji, Sambhaji’s half-brother Rajaram (son of Shivaji’s another wife Soyrabai) tried to poison him. As the conspiracy was unearthed, Sambhaji got many Hindu officers killed. In the battle against Sambhaji, Aurangzeb had sent his general Rathod to fight against him. Once Sambhaji was captured, he was humiliated and subjected to torture, which has been presented in a blown-up fashion in the film.
On the pretext of this film, many perceptions against Aurangzeb have been projected. He is shown to be very cruel in dealing with his opponents. This is not a question of whataboutery but an attempt to understand the pattern of kingdoms. Many kings inflicted cruelties on their enemies.
Historian Ruchika Sharma tells us that when the Chola kings defeated Chalukyas army, they beheaded Chalukyas‘ general Samudra Raj and cut the nose of his beautiful daughter. Ashok’s Kalinga battle is known for the worst brutalities. The ways of kings against their enemies was atrocious and cannot be judged by today’s standards. As such what will we say when bulldozers raze to ground the houses of those who happen to be Muslims for the crimes not tried in court of law?
What will we say that one Hindu king had a fort on the top of a hill, where those conspiring against him were thrown deep down in the deep valley with feet and hands tied? Bal Samant in his book describes the atrocities done by Shivaji’s army while plundering Surat. Army and atrocities were closely associated; cruelty against enemies is condemnable, but was not unusual.
When Sambhaji’s Marathas attacked Goa, a Portuguese account (cited by historian Jadunath Sarkar) says, “up to now nowhere else in India has such barbarity been seen…” While such atrocity narratives have to be treated carefully, what it shows is that violence was pervasive, even if its degrees varied.
Was Aurangzeb anti-Hindu? One can say that Aurangzeb was neither Akbar nor Dara Shikoh. He was orthodox and did not welcome Hindus and non-Sunni sects of Islam at one level. At another level, he was master of alliances, as he had a number Hindu officers in his administration. As Prof Athar Ali points out, Aurangzeb had the highest number of officers in his administration (33%).
He did destroy some temples to be sure, but he also gave donations to many temples, like Kamakhya Devi (Guwahati) Mahakaleshar (Ujjain) Chitrkut Balaji and Lord Krishna in Vrindavan. Even Shivaji used to give donations to a Sufi dargah of Hazrat Baba Bahut Thorwale.
To humiliate the enemy king, the victor king used to destroy the particular place of worship associated with that king. Richard Eaton (Frontline December- January 1996). Now, communal historians are making merry by selectively picking up temple destruction by Muslim kings and hiding the donations to Hindu temples by Muslim kings.
Aurangzeb did impose Jazia after 22 years of his rule; it was exempted for Brahmins, disabled and women. It was not a means of conversion, as it was a kind of property tax at 1.25% while Zakat, which was paid by Muslims, was 2.5%.
As far as the torture of Sikh Gurus is concerned, it was wrong, but the underlying reason was the power struggle between Sikh Gurus and the Mughal Administration.
The communal historians are working overtime to dig sources and pick up incidents without referring to the overall context of the period and nature of kingdoms. In the account of the kings, they did use religion to inspire their armies to fight the enemy. Hindu kings used Dharmayuddh and Muslim kings used Jihad. Right-wing historians’ selective sources may be apt, but their framework is restricted by the communal narrative, which sees kings in the light of their religion and not as rulers fighting for power and wealth. Religion was incidental, if at all, in their goal of expansion of their kingdoms/empires. Such films are giving a good booster to divisive politics, and pose a major threat to the Indian Constitution.
This article was also published in NewsClick and can be read here.
