New Delhi, India — Datta Shirke has not left his dwelling for the previous two days and fears for the protection of his household. Autos parked within the lane the place he lives have been torched in Hindu-Muslim sectarian clashes.
Barely a mile (about 1.5km) away, Aslam, who requested to be recognized by his first identify solely, is equally terrified. He’s avoiding going again dwelling, the place he lives along with his spouse and mom, as a result of he fears being arrested by the police, who he says are detaining harmless Muslims. “I’ve accomplished nothing. However when police come, their eyes search our blood,” he mentioned.
They’re each residents of Nagpur, a metropolis of three million individuals within the western Indian state of Maharashtra, the place violence erupted on Monday over the way forward for the tomb of the long-dead, Seventeenth-century Mughal ruler Aurangzeb.
The police have imposed a curfew and greater than 50 individuals — principally Muslims — have been arrested in raids prematurely of a deliberate March 30 go to by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Nagpur. The town additionally hosts the headquarters of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, the ideological dad or mum of Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Occasion and its Hindu majoritarian allies.
So why did a metropolis in any other case famed throughout India for its oranges explode into interreligious clashes? Who was Aurangzeb? And why does his legacy nonetheless divide India?
Why did Nagpur erupt in violence?
Final week, a BJP parliamentarian from Maharashtra raised a name for the excavation of the Mughal emperor’s grave.
Almost 100 volunteers related to the far-right group Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) staged a protest in Nagpur on Monday demanding the demolition of the grave of Aurangzeb, who they are saying discriminated towards Hindus and attacked their locations of worship throughout his reign from 1658 to 1707.
“That grave is a black spot in our homeland,” mentioned Amit Bajpai, a spokesperson for the VHP, who was additionally one of many organisers of the protest. “We gathered close to a sq. and burned the effigy of Aurangzeb wrapped in a inexperienced fabric within the presence of the police.”
“It’s our democratic proper to demand for what we really feel proper,” he added.
However different onlookers, together with Muslim shopkeepers, demanded that the police cease the demonstration, particularly throughout the holy month of Ramadan, mentioned Asif Qureshi, a lawyer and former chairman of Maharashtra Bar Council, who lives within the neighbourhood.
Rumours unfold that the inexperienced fabric used to wrap the effigy had Quranic verses written on it, angering Muslims. That night, after breaking their quick and providing Maghrib prayers, teams of Muslims held a counterprotest demanding that the police register a case towards the VHP members.
“Sadly, quickly, issues received out of hand and offended individuals began clashing,” Qureshi advised Al Jazeera.
Since then, a curfew stays in place, with police barricades dotting the a part of the town the place clashes had damaged out. And a police crackdown has adopted. Qureshi mentioned the police should arrest Muslims who participated in clashes, however as a substitute, “have arrested innocents, who have been simply out to supply prayers”.
After the clashes, Bajpai of the VHP mentioned he was fuming. “Now we’ll resist even tougher. Why do they [Muslims] assume that they’ll scare us by rioting? We would like Aurangzeb gone from right here.”
On Tuesday, in the meantime, Maharashtra’s chief minister, Devendra Fadnavis, appeared to counsel {that a} latest Bollywood movie that portrays Aurangzeb as a villain may need performed a job in inflaming Hindu sentiments. Chhaava, the movie, fictionalises the battles between the Mughal ruler and the Marathas, who dominated giant elements of present-day Maharashtra. The movie, Fadnavis mentioned, introduced “the general public anger towards Aurangzeb” to the fore. Fadnavis additionally belongs to PM Modi’s BJP.
Who was Aurangzeb?
Probably the most highly effective rulers to have ruled the Indian subcontinent, Aurangzeb’s grave just isn’t in Nagpur. It’s situated greater than 450km (280 miles) away from Nagpur, in a metropolis that till 2023 was named after the ruler – Aurangabad – and has since been renamed Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar.
The identify was modified beneath strain from Hindu majoritarian teams, who’ve lengthy seen Aurangzeb because the bloodiest villain in India’s fashionable historical past. However historians argue that he had a extra advanced legacy than the portrayals of Aurangzeb that at the moment dominate India.
Aurangzeb inherited a powerful empire, the place he ascended after imprisoning his father and having his elder brother killed. However the power-hungry emperor was additionally unmatched on the battlefield in his time and glorious at constructing alliances, mentioned Audrey Truschke, historian and creator of the e-book Aurangzeb: The Man and the Fantasy.
His insurance policies have been closely influenced by one other Mughal emperor, his great-grandfather Akbar, Truschke mentioned.
“Aurangzeb introduced every kind of teams within the empire – as a prince, he travelled everywhere in the empire and skim; he cast his connections with all teams, from Marathas to Rajputs – and later gave them vital positions in his cupboard,” she mentioned, referring to main Hindu communities in western India.
However Aurangzeb additionally imposed robust Islamic legal guidelines and had a discriminatory tax that Hindu residents wanted to pay in return for cover. “Aurangzeb was a really difficult king, with many sides to him,” mentioned Truschke.
Whereas the Hindu far proper typically portrays Aurangzeb as a spiritual zealot, Truschke mentioned, the Mughal emperor repeatedly confirmed throughout his reign that he was pushed not by religion — however by energy. “At any time when piety and energy conflicted, he selected energy,” she mentioned. “Each single time.”
Why is Aurangzeb so divisive in India?
Many historians have identified that kings, as a rule, weren’t democratic on the time. In some ways, mentioned Truschke, “Aurangzeb was not notably deviant from Indian kings within the pre-modern interval”.
However British colonialists vilified him, she mentioned. The Hindu nationalist motion that the BJP and the RSS belong to “are primarily repeating colonial-era propaganda”, she added.
That anti-Aurangzeb sentiment is more and more taking part in out in aggressive, even violent, methods.
In 2024, 4 individuals have been arrested for elevating posters of Aurangzeb in a procession. In June 2023, an Instagram submit on the ruler landed a 14-year-old Muslim boy in jail. In 2022, the Modi authorities modified center college and highschool historical past textbooks, slicing chunks from chapters in regards to the Mughal Empire, together with eradicating a desk detailing the accomplishments of emperors corresponding to Aurangzeb and his ancestors.
To many supporters of Modi and his politics, Aurangzeb is not only historical past. He’s extensively believed to have championed the demolition of many temples — however can be identified to have offered grants and land to different Hindu shrines.
Now, Hindu nationalists have laid a declare to the Gyanvapi mosque in Varanasi, Modi’s parliamentary constituency within the northern state of Uttar Pradesh. They declare that the mosque was constructed on the ruins of the Vishwanath temple, a grand Sixteenth-century Hindu shrine destroyed in 1669 on Aurangzeb’s orders.
Addressing an occasion in Varanasi in 2022, PM Modi spoke about “Aurangzeb’s atrocities, his terror”, including that “he tried to alter civilisation by the sword. He tried to crush tradition with fanaticism.” Modi has himself since invoked his identify a number of occasions.
A day after the clashes in Nagpur, Fadnavis, the Maharashtra chief minister, mentioned, “It’s unlucky that the federal government has to take accountability for the safety of Aurangzeb’s grave, regardless of his historical past of persecution.”
Aurangzeb’s tomb is safeguarded as a Monument of Nationwide Significance by the Archaeological Survey of India beneath a 1958 regulation, which protects it from unauthorised alterations or demolition.
As tensions proceed to simmer in Nagpur, residents and native activists concern extra violence may be across the nook.
“There is no such thing as a belief or religion in one another,” mentioned Shirke. “I can not belief that my neighbour just isn’t ready to hurt my household the following likelihood they get.” Muslim residents stay in concern of raids, mentioned Qureshi, and hope that the state authorities will cope with the state of affairs with out bias.
For Truschke, although, the Hindu majoritarian obsession with historical past is about that motion’s hatred for Muslims, whether or not prior to now or the current. Figuring out historical past is vital to understanding how communities and nations have been formed, she mentioned. “However litigating for what could have occurred within the Seventeenth century is an insane thought.”
