LODH Sayan (Presidency University, Kolkata, India. )
slodh87@gmail.com
Received: 20/11/2019, Accepted: 30/12/2019, Published: 31/12/2019
ABSTRACT:
Aurangzeb has been held responsible by many historians for hastening the decline of the Mughal Empire. The paper titled ‘Aurangzeb and the Decline of the Mughals’ is aimed at examining the role of Aurangzeb in the downfall of the Empire. The passage of Aurangzeb from being a prince to becoming Emperor Alamgir has been discussed. The character of Aurangzeb has been discussed with a mention of his letters. The alternate explanation about Aurangzeb being a just, impartial ruler has also been provided. It concludes with a little bit of discussion about the other causes and the aftermath of the decline.
KEYWORDS:
Aurangzeb, India, the Mughal Empire
Introduction
The
Mughal Empire was established by Zahiruddin Babur in 1526, following his victory at the First Battle of
Panipat. The word Mughal is derived from
Mongol.
The
Mughals rose under their third emperor, Jallaluddin Akbar (1556– 1605), who was
the main force behind the consolidation of the Empire. Akbar also succeeded at expanding the Empire
to the Hindukush mountains, and checked
the expansionist designs of Uzbeks of Turan
(Central Asia) and Safavids of Iran. The Empire reached its zenith
under the rule of the fifth Emperor,
Shah Jahan (1628–58). Shah Jahan expanded
the Empire in the Deccan. Shah Jahan is fondly remembered for his construction works like the Taj Mahal, Red Fort
in Delhi, etc. each of which were an
architectural marvel.
The
Empire attained its greatest territorial extent under Shah Jahan’s successor, Aurangzeb. The seeds of the
decline of the empire were sowed during
Aurangzeb’s long reign of about 50 years, which later bore fruit. The Empire started to weaken and gradually
decline with Aurangzeb’s death in 1707.
Unlike his predecessors Aurangzeb took many policy decisions which hastened the decline of the
Empire, the most prominent among them
being alienation of the Rajput’s, Afghans, Marathas, Sikhs and his ill will towards the Hindus, Shia
Muslims and other minority groups. The
Empire that at one time stretched from the Hindukush to the Deccan and from Gujarat to Bengal, became
restricted to Delhi and surrounding
areas as regional powers acquired greater autonomy. Yet the aura of the Empire continued to exist, though
only symbolically till 1857, when the
last ruler of the dynasty Bahadur Shah Zafar II was overthrown and exiled to Rangoon by the British.
Alamgir–The
Birth of an Emperor
Aurangzeb
(Figure 2) was born in 1618 at Dohad near Ujjain to Shah Jahan and Mumtaz Mahal. He was the third son of
Shah Jahan after Dara Shikoh and Shuja.
One event from the early life of Aurangzeb is pretty interesting. Aurangzeb was charged by an infuriated
elephant outside the Agra Fort on the
bank of the river Yamuna. Instead of fleeing, Aurangzeb courageously faced the beast and attacked it with a spear.
Aurangzeb was thrown off his horse by
the raging elephant. But Aurangzeb was saved as aid arrived just then and the elephant was tamed. Shah Jahan
rewarded the young prince for his
heroism with his weight in gold. This occasion gave a foresight into the events of greatness that lay in the
future for Aurangzeb. However, Aurangzeb
remarked, “If the fight had ended fatally for me it would not have been a matter of shame. Death drops
curtain even on emperors; it is no
dishonour; the shame lay it what my brothers did.” 1
In
1647, Aurangzeb was sent by Shah Jahan to Central Asia to recover Balkh and Badakshsan. The campaign was a
failure leading to the wastage of crores
of rupees of Imperial revenue for no gain. But during this campaign Aurangzeb did an act that spread his
fame across the Islamic world. One day
while the fight was going on in the battlefield, the time for evening prayer (zuhr) arrived. Aurangzeb got
down from his elephant, knelt down on
the ground and peacefully recited his evening prayers in full view of both the armies. On seeing this,
Abdul Aziz, king of Bukhara suspended
the battle. 
Mughal Empire under Aurangzeb
Aurangzeb
was then made the Viceroy of Deccan in 1652. Many Letters preserved in Adab-i Alamgiri, give us an
information about the next six years of
Aurangzeb’s life. Jadunath Sarkar remarks, “What Gaul was to Julius Caesar as a training ground for the
coming contest for empire, the Deccan
was to Aurangzib.”2 During his viceroyalty Aurangzeb invaded both Golkonda and Bijapur. While in case of
Golkonda, Aurangzeb could successfully
capture it by bringing the wazir of Golkonda, Mir Jumla to his side. In Bijapur, Aurangzeb’s campaign
was halted midway when Emperor Shah
Jahan ordered him to stop the invasion and forced Aurangzeb to come to terms of peace with
Bijapur in exchange of a sizeable
territory. This decision of Emperor Shah Jahan, made Aurangzeb angry with his father.
In
1657, Emperor Shah Jahan became seriously ill and the war of succession started among his four sons. Dara
Shikoh stayed back at Agra and looked
after the frail Emperor, and prevented his brothers from getting any news about the Emperor’s health. Murad
and Shuja crowned themselves as rulers
in their respective provinces, Gujarat and Bengal respectively. Aurangzeb joined in alliance
with Murad, in order to free Shah Jahan
from Dara’s domination, whom he declared as an apostate of Islam. Dara gathered two armies to fight his
three brothers. The first army
successfully routed Shuja and forced him to flee to Bengal. The
second army however was defeated by
Aurangzeb and Murad. The victorious
brothers marched onto Agra, forcing Dara to flee to Delhi and then
Punjab. Aurangzeb then forced Shah Jahan
to abdicate the throne by cutting off the
supply of water to Agra Fort from the river Yamuna. Then he imprisoned his father, who was restricted to the prison
till his death in 1666. Then Aurangzeb
got Murad beheaded in Gwalior. Dara was caught near Bolan pass, while trying to flee India. Dara was
brought to Delhi and murdered by some
slaves of Aurangzeb. Dara’s son Suleiman was also killed by Aurangzeb in Delhi. Meanwhile Shuja gathered
an army in a bid for capturing the
throne. But Shuja was defeated at Khwaja and forced to flee to Bengal, and later Arrakan. In Arrakan he
was massacred with his whole family for
taking part in a plot to murder the king of Arrakan.
Thus,
with all his rivals removed, Aurangzeb became the undisputed ruler of India. Aurangzeb crowned himself Emperor
at Delhi on 21 July 1658. He took the
title Alamgir or the Conqueror of the World.
The
Indian Puritan - Alamgir
Aurangzeb
was a pious Muslim. He took some bigoted measures, that alienated a large part of his subjects –
Hindus, Sikhs, even Shia Muslims, which
led to large scale discontent in the Empire. Aurangzeb banned sijda or prostration
before the Emperor, which the clerics maintained was reserved for Gods. He forbade the kalma being
inscribed on the coins - since coins
could be defiled while passing hand to hand. He also banned the Zoroastrian festival of Nauroz,
celebrated by the Shias. Public display
of Holi and Muharram processions were also stopped.
In
1699, the eleventh year of his reign, Aurangzeb banned singing and drinking in the court. However, singing
continued to be patronized by ladies in
the Mughal harem and the nobles. Aurangzeb also discontinued the practice of weighing the emperor against
gold on his birthdays. He also banned
jharoka darshan or showing himself to the public from the balcony, which he considered superstitious.
In simple words, Aurangzeb banned all
the practices that he considered superstitious or against the laws of Islam, i.e. un-Islamic.
In
1679, Aurangzeb revived the jizya or poll tax on non-Muslims. He also dismissed many non- Muslim clerks. All Hindus
except the Rajput, were forbidden to
carry weapons. Aurangzeb also ordered the demolition many temples both big and small. The Vishwanath
Temple at Benaras was pulled down in
1669. Many temples in Benaras, were disguised as houses in order to protect them from Aurangzeb’s wrath. The
Krishna Janmabhoomi temple at Mathura
was replaced by a mosque and the idols were brought to Agra and buried under the steps of
Jahanara’s mosque, to be trampled by
people going into the mosque. During the Rajput War of 1679-80 about 240 temples were destroyed in Mewar,
including the famous Someshwar Temple
and three grand temples at Udaipur. In Jaipur, sixty-seven temples were demolished on Aurangzeb’s order.
Aurangzeb
also tortured and executed the ninth Sikh guru (leader of the Sikhs), Guru Tegh Bahadur. This led to large
scale revolt by the Sikhs, who organized
under Guru Gobind Singh. He also antagonized the Rajputs by depriving Maharaja Jaswant Singh’s (King
of Jodhpur) minor son Ajit Singh the throne of Jodhpur in 1679. Ultimately a
truce was reached in 1681. Henceforth,
the Rajputs ceased to the supporters of the Mughal Empire.
Aurangzeb
embroiled himself in a war with the Marathas, which ruined his health. This war destroyed the morale of
the army and the finances of the state.
The conflict led to the decline of the Empire in the long run. Aurangzeb’s fierce hatred towards the Hindus
was only matched by his aversion towards
the Shias. He considered the Shias as heretics (rafizi). 
Emperor Alamgir Aurangzeb
Stanley
Lane-Poole states, “Aurangzib was, first and last, a stern Puritan. Nothing in life- neither throne, nor love,
nor ease- weighed for an instant in his
mind against his fealty to the principles of Islam.” 3
Character
of Alamgir Aurangzeb
Aurangzeb
was both a ‘master of pen’ and a ‘master of sword’. The character of Aurangzeb is a complex one.
There are two extreme views regarding
his character. On one side, there are historians who consider Aurangzeb to be extremely intolerant, bigoted
in his outlook, and wanted to establish
an Islamic Empire in India. The other side consists of historians who consider Aurangzeb’s policies
and measures were influenced by the
situation and circumstances prevailing at that time.
Aurangzeb’s
passion for doing everything himself and centralizing all the powers in his own hands led to incompetence
of the generals and governors in the
long run. They failed to act efficiently when faced with an emergency. Aurangzeb had overthrown and
imprisoned his father Shah Jahan in his
old age. Aurangzeb feared a similar fate from his sons during his old age. Hence, Aurangzeb became
suspicious of his sons. He forced his
son Akbar to flee to Persia when he tried to organize a rebellion against his rule. He also imprisoned his sons Bahadur
Shah I and Azam Shah. He was only
lenient towards his youngest and favourite son Kam Baksh. These kinds of steps crushed the latent
ability of his sons. As a consequence,
at the time of Aurangzeb’s death all his sons were no better than children in spite of being about fifty
years of age.
During
the reign of Aurangzeb, the Mughal state suffered many crises like the Jagirdari crisis, followed by agrarian
crisis and many revolts in various parts
of the empire. Instead of identifying and eliminating, the root cause of these rebellions, Aurangzeb crushed the
rebellions with brute force, which only
solved the problems partially. But the seeds for future discontent against Mughal authority were
sown.
Aurangzeb
lacked the warmth of the heart and chivalry to fallen foes that made his great grandfather Emperor
Jallaluddin Akbar win the love of
subjects, friends and foes alike. Aurangzeb also devoid of
sympathy, imagination, long term vision
and elasticity in his decisions. These
limitations of his character undermined the Mughal Empire, so on his
death the Empire fell into a ruinous
decline, never to rise up again.
Letters
of Aurangzeb
Letters
give us a glimpse into the true self of a person. Hence, they act as an important source of history. Most of the
Letters written by Aurangzeb have
perished. The remaining letters of Aurangzeb have been arranged in five volumes that vary in their contents and
often overlap. These are Adab
i
Alamgiri, Kalimat-i Tayyibat, Akham-i Alamgiri, Raqaim-i Karaim and Akham-i
Alamgiri. These sources only illuminate the beginning and the end of Alamgir’s reign, leaving the remaining
years from 1660 to 1702 in darkness.
Besides these five, the letters written by Aurangzeb to his brother Murad, his rebel son Muhammad Akbar and the
imperial firmans and sanads are also
important sources.
Adab-i
Alamgiri was composed by Aurangzeb’s secretary Abul Fath, who was given the title Qabil Khan. There are 628
letters in this volume mostly written
under the name of Aurangzeb to his father Shah Jahan and other persons during the early years of his reign
between 1649 and 1659. The main
characteristic of these letters is that they directly convey the meaning using simple words, instead of using ornate
language and taking the help of
rhetoric.
Kalimat-i
Tayyibat and Akham-i Alamgiri are attributed to a favourite disciple of Aurangzeb, Inayetullah Khan
Kashmiri. These collections provide an
insight into the ending years of Aurangzeb’s reign. Inayutullah idolized
Aurangzeb and considered his administrative, fiscal and religious policies necessary for restoring the glory of
the Mughal Empire. Kalimat i Tayyibat contains short notes for 676 letters, and
Akham-i Alamgiri contains 609 pages of
15 lines each with about one and a half letters on each page. These letters mainly idolize
Aurangzeb as a ‘just sovereign.’
The
letters written to Aurangzeb by different persons, act as a complement to the letters written by Aurangzeb as these
help us in understanding the larger
context in which the letters were composed.
Mughal
Decline - Was Aurangzeb Responsible?
Following
Aurangzeb’s death in 1707, the Empire started to fall apart. Aurangzeb ruled for about fifty years. His
successor Bahadur Shah I ascended the
throne at the old age of sixty-five, lacked the vigour of an energetic leader and hence could not rule
efficiently. This trend more or less
continued with old princes ascending the throne till Bahadur Shah II, the last Emperor. The excessive
centralization of power done by
Aurangzeb led to the downfall of the provincial administration.
The
war with the Marathas, led to an unnecessary drain on the resources of the Empire. Aurangzeb’s religious policies
led to the alienation of the majority of
his subjects. Under Aurangzeb, the Mughal army and administration started to deteriorate. The
soldiers got more interested in the
pleasantries of life rather than keeping themselves well trained. Hence when faced with the guerrilla tactics of
Marathas, the army failed to cope. The
Rajput princes also refused to provide any further help to the cause of the Mughals.
Aurangzeb
expanded the empire, beyond a sustainable limit. It was not possible to successfully rule such a vast
territory from one place. This problem
was aggravated by the lack of fast, modern communication methods.
In
the Mughal Empire, the death of an Emperor was always followed by a war of succession among the princes. Salim
(later Emperor Jahangir) revolted
against his father Emperor Akbar but was pardoned. Similarly, Khurram (later Emperor Shah Jahan) also tried
to seize the throne from his father
Emperor Jahangir, but failed. But Aurangzeb was perhaps the first person to dethrone his father Shah Jahan and
imprison him. Fearing a similar fate for
himself, Aurangzeb sent all his sons away, while he lay all alone on his deathbed. He also asked his sons
to divide the Empire amongst themselves
peacefully and respect each other’s territorial sovereignty.
The
fact that Aurangzeb was averse to music can be counter argued that He was himself an accomplished veena player.
Moreover, many texts on Indian music
were composed during his time.
Many
evidences have been provided against the religious bigotry of Aurangzeb which provide him as a liberal
ruler. Rekha Joshi has collected a few
remarks of Aurangzeb, “Government post ought to be filled up according to ability and no other
considerations. What connection have
earthly affairs with religion? And what right have administrative works
to meddle with bigotry? For you is your
religion for me is mine.” 4
These
remarks clearly establish Aurangzeb as an impartial person. Aurangzeb’s policies were influenced by the
conditions prevailing at that time, with
the hostile spirit of defiance brewing among Sikhs, Marathas, Rajputs, he had to turn to his own
co-religionists for support. Hence in
order to appease the orthodox Muslims he had to take such drastic
steps. Aurangzeb became the protector of
the Jangambadi Math of the Lingayats (Shaivites) in Benaras and granted the
Math (similar to monastery) tax free
lands. Aurangzeb also granted money to Jogi (ascetic) Anand Nath, for
the worship of Shiva.
Finally,
it can be said that Aurangzeb was indeed responsible for the fall of the Mughal Empire, but only partially, as
he tried to expand the Empire without
firmly consolidating the conquered areas. Aurangzeb cannot be blamed for the incompetence of the successors
of his son Bahadur Shah I, who failed to
hold on to the territories. Moreover, Aurangzeb was not so intolerant as shown by various historians, as
under Aurangzeb maximum number of
non-Muslim, mainly Hindus were inducted in the various positions of Mughal court, administration and
the army.
Conclusion
No
Empire lasts forever. The same became true for the Mughal Empire also. The grand empire consolidated by Akbar
and extended by his successors Jahangir,
Shah Jahan and Aurangzeb, started to disintegrate from 1707. In 1757, after the Battle of
Plassey, the English East India Company
virtually became the rulers of India. The Mughal Emperor at Delhi was reduced to a mere figurehead. Most
of the Emperors who succeeded Aurangzeb
were old and frail ones who lacked the energy and charisma of a young ruler. Although the
Empire continued to exist in name till
1857, it was restricted to areas around Delhi. But the aura of the
Emperor
as a father figure continued. Thus, during the revolt of 1857, the rebel leaders elected the Mughal Emperor
Bahadur Shah II or Bahadur Shah Zafar to
be the titular figurehead of the rebels. After the rebellion was crushed, Bahadur Shah II surrendered to the
British forces at Humayun’s Tomb in
Delhi. His sons were killed. He was banished to Rangoon, where he died in 1862.
In
1876, British monarch Queen Victoria, declared herself the ‘Empress of India’, the same being proclaimed at the
Delhi durbar of 1877. Thus, the Empire
established by Babur in 1626 ended in 1857. The Empire gave a new fabric to the syncretic society and
culture of India. Many factors were
responsible for the Empire’s downfall, and blaming Aurangzeb’s
policies primarily would be an
exaggeration. But it is sure, that the forces which gradually led to the decline of the Empire,
were let lose during the reign of
Alamgir Aurangzeb- the Last of the Great Mughals.
Notes
1. Jadunath Sarkar, A History of Aurangzib-Volume 1, (Calcutta:
Kuntaline Press,1912), Pgs. 11-12
2. Jadunath Sarkar, Studies in Aurangzib’s Reign, (Calcutta:
Orient Longman ,1989),Pg.3
3. Stanley Lane-Poole, Aurangzib and the Decay of the Mughal
Empire, (Delhi: S. Chand and Co., 1964), Pg.- 64 & 65
4. Rekha Joshi, Aurangzeb- Attitudes and Inclinations, (Delhi,
Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers, 1979), Pg. – 23
Bibliography
1. Sarkar, Jadunath. ‘A History of
Aurangzib-Volume 1’, Calcutta, Kuntaline
Press, 1912
2. Sarkar, Jadunath. ‘Studies in Aurangzib’s
Reign’, Calcutta, Orient Longman,
1989
3. Lane-Poole, Stanley. ‘Aurangzib and the
Decay of the Mughal Empire’, Delhi, S. Chand and Co., 1964
4. Joshi, Rekha. “Aurangzeb- Attitudes and
Inclinations’, Delhi, Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers, 1979
5. Chandra, Satish. ‘Medieval India- From
Sultanate to the Mughals Part Two’, New Delhi, Har-Anand Publications, 2018
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