IN INADEQUATE RESPONSE TO DEBAPRASAD BHATTACHARYA'S QUERY ABOUT THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE RELIGIOUS LIBERALISM OF AKBAR

IN INADEQUATE RESPONSE TO Debaprasad Bhattacharya'S QUERY ABOUT THE AUTHENTICITY OF THE RELIGIOUS LIBERALISM OF AKBAR

Akbar abolished the jaziya, entered into matrimonial alliances with the Rajputs to reduce resistance to his expansionist imperialist cause, allowed his Rajput queen Jodha Bai full religious freedom and built her a temple within the precincts of the palace, made Raja Man Singh, his brother-in-law, the Commander in Chief of his army, appointed Raja Todar Mal his Finance Minister, distributed mansabs to his Rajput vassal kings, gave them honour and position in his royal court, gave out offices to his subjects on the basis of merit irrespective of religion, did not destroy a single Hindu temple as Aurangzeb did and possibly Babur, did not persecute the Sikh Gurus as Jahangir (ref. Guru Arjan Dev) and Aurangzeb (ref. Guru Tegh Bahadur and Guru Gobind Singh) did, did not convert the Hindus to Islam by way of imperial policy, and eventually even attempted founding a new religion, Din-e-Ilahi, by assimilating the best elements of the major religions of the day so as to create harmony among his subjects which he deemed was vital to the sustenance and survival of the Mughal dynasty. However, historians are agreed upon the point that Akbar did what he did from his fundamental aim of the expansion and consolidation of his empire. His was an enlightened despotism, so the chroniclers of history say.

It does seem that this narrative is largely true for, I reckon, there are no contemporary contradictory accounts of it that would prove Akbar to have been otherwise oriented from what has been the projection of his rule as handed down to posterity from the pertinent times. However, just preceding his siege of Chittor, Akbar did order the merciless slaughter of the entire civic population of Chittor to the tune of 35000 heads to deprive Maharana Pratap sufficient manpower and resource to resist the Mughals. If this latter piece of information gathered online proves to be fake on further enquiry, the fault thereof will have been mine and the blame for presentation of such erroneous data without having gleaned sufficient corroborative evidence will lie entirely with me.

Written by Sugata Bose

Photo : Emperor Akbar, the third in the line of the great Mughals who ruled the greater part of the Indian sub-continent between 1526 and 1707, their dynasty dwindling in imperial power thereafter till its abolition by the British in 1858 with the fall of the last Mughal ruler, Bahadur Shah Zafar. Although, Akbar's grandfather Zahir-ud-Din Muhammad Babur was the founder of the Mughal dynasty, it was grandson Jalal-ud-Din Muhammad Akbar who effectively consolidated Mughal reign in India after his father Nasir-ud-Din Muhammad Humayun's defeat at the hands of the Indian Afghans led by Sher Shah Suri. Humayun had to flee Hindustan in 1540 and could return only in 1555 to reclaim his lost kingdom. A year later he died and Akbar ascended the throne to embark upon a long and successful campaign for the expansion and consolidation of the Mughal empire almost from scratch. Historians have, thus, rightly conferred on him the title of having been the real founder of the Mughal empire. His lineage, thereafter, amidst bloody fratricidal struggles, carried on the imperial glory of the Mughals for a century more before fading gradually in the political scenario of emerging new imperial powers that included the colonising countries of Europe.