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Rise to Power
The last of the great Mughal emperors of India, ascended the throne
of Delhi on 21 July 1658 after he had gained a decisive victory
in the war of succession at Simugarh, near in-the on 29 May 1658.
Aurangzeb's appointment in 1636 as viceroy of the Mughal
provinces in the Deccan had first brought him into prominence. In
1645, he was transferred to Gujarat. Between 1648 and 1652, he served
as governor of Sindh and Multan. He was next entrusted with the
task of recovering Qandahir, taken by the Persians in 1649. In 1653
he was appointed viceroy of the Deccan for the second time and for
the next five years he was engaged in constant warfare with the
independent states of Bijipur and Golcondi.
The first half of Aurangzeb's long reign was devoted to consolidating
his power in northern India while the second half was spent in the
fruitless attempt to conquer the Deccan. A pious man in his personal
life, Aurangzeb was an orthodox Muslim. He had waded through a river
of blood to reach the throne and had. imprisoned his father and
killed his own brothers. By his fanatical religious policy he wished
to please the Muslim orthodoxy and win reprieve for the crimes he
had committed to gain the crown.
Intolerance of Non-Muslims
The first half of Aurangzeb's long reign was devoted to consolidating
his power in northern India while the second half was spent in the
fruitless attempt to conquer the Deccan. A pious man in his personal
life, Aurangzeb was an orthodox Muslim. He had waded through a river
of blood to reach the throne and had. imprisoned his father and
killed his own brothers. By his fanatical religious policy he wished
to please the Muslim
orthodoxy and win reprieve for the crimes he had committed to gain
the crown. For the first ten years of his reign, he did not feel
strong enough to take any drastic steps, but in 1669 he issued a
prescript to all provincial governors "to destroy with a willing
hand the schools and temples of the infidels and put an entire stop
to their religious practices and teaching." Among the many
repressive edicts issued against the non-Muslims was one prohibiting
all Hindus with the exception of Rajputs from riding palkis, elephants
or thorough-bred horses and from carrying arms. Most stringent was
the imposition, in 1679, of jizyah, a tax the non-Muslims had to
pay for permission to live in an Islamic State.
Contact with Sikhs
The growing Sikh order had also to bear the brunt of Aurangzeb's
policy of intolerance and religious persecution. The seventh Sikh
Guru Har Rai, was at Goindval when Dara Shukoh, heir apparent to
the Mughal throne, entered the Punjab fleeing in front of the army
of his brother, Aurangzeb, after his defeat in the battle of Simugarh.
At Goindval, where he arrived in the last week of June 1658, he
called on Guru Har Rai, who, as the tradition goes, had once cured
him of a serious illness with some rare herbs. Highly coloured stories
about Dari Shukoh's meeting with Guru Har Rai were carried to Aurangzeb
by his officials who reported to him that Guru Har Rai was a rebel
and that he had helped the fugitive prince and further that the
Sikh Scripture contained verses derogatory to Islam.
Aurangzeb summoned the Guru to Delhi. As recorded in Santokh Singh,
Sri Gur Pratap Suraj Granth, Guru Har Rai wondered why he had been
called to Delhi: "I rule over no
territory. I owe the king no taxes, nor do I want anything from
him. There is no connection of teacher and disciple between us,
either. Of what avail will this meeting be?" Guru Har
Rai sent his elder son, Ram Rai, to meet the emperor. Rim Rai succeeded
in winning the confidence of the Emperor, but overreached himself
when, to please him, he deliberately misread one of the verses from
the Guru Granth Sahib.
Aurangzeb decided to keep Ram Rai in Delhi in the belief that, with
the future incumbent of the Guruship in his power, he would become
the arbiter of the destiny of the Sikh people. For garbling the
sacred text, Guru Har Rai anathematised Ram Rai and chose his second
son, Har Krishan, as his successor. The investiture of Har Krishan
did not please Aurangzeb who summoned the infant Guru to Delhi,
with the intention of arbitrating between his claims and those of
his elder brother, Ram Rai. Guru Har Krishan arrived in Delhi and
was put up at the house of Mirza Raja jai Singh of Amber.
According to the Guru kian Sakhian, Guru Har Krishan visited the
Emperor's court on 25 March 1664, but owing to Aurangzeb's insistence
that he show a miracle to prove his holiness he resolved never to
see his face again. A few days later, Guru Har Krishan was stricken
with smallpox and he died on 30 March 1664.
Martyrdom of Guru Tegh Bahadur
The responsibility of instructing the Sikh community and
guiding its affairs now fell on Guru Tegh Bahadur, Nanak IX. As
recorded in Bhatt Vahi Talauda, a group of Kashmiri pandits waited
on him at Anandpur on 25 May 1675 and complained how Iftikhar Khan,
Aurangzeb's satrap in Kashmir, had been making forcible conversions.
Guru Tegh Bahadur is said to have advised his visitors to go and
tell the authority in Delhi that if he (Guru Tegh Bahadur) was converted,
they would all voluntarily accept Islam. Resolved to lay down his
life to redeem freedom of belief, Guru Tegh Bahadur set out for
Delhi. Under the orders of the Emperor, he was taken into custody
on 12 July 1675 at Malikpur Ranghran, near Sirhind, and despatched
to Delhi. He was put in chains and on his refusal to renounce his
faith was beheaded in public in the Chandni Chowk of Delhi on 11
November 1675, after three of his devoted disciples -
Bhai Dayal Das, Bhai Mati Das and Bhai Sati Das - had been tortured
to death before his eyes.
Guru Gobind Singh Ji
His son, Gobind Rai (later Gobind Singh), now succeeded to the spiritual
throne of Guru Nanak. Aurangzeb was occupied with his campaigns
in the South, but his feudal vassals, the hill chieftains, resented
the Guru's presence in their midst. They were especially averse
to the way the four castes mingled in the Sikh order.
They plotted in collusion with the local Mughal officers and led
out armies against Guru Gobind Singh. After the battle of Nadaun,
fought on 20 March 1691, in which the Mughal commander, Alif Khan
was defeated, Aurangzeb ordered his faujdars in the Punjab to restrain
Guru Gobind Singh from holding assemblies of Sikhs and to demolish
his hearth and home and banish him from the country if he departed
ever so little from the ways of a faqir and did not cease to have
himself addressed as Sachcha Padshah, the True King.
On 13 July 1696, he sent his eldest son, Mu'azzam, who later succeeded
to the throne of Delhi as Emperor Bahadur Shah, to settle affairs
in the Punjab. Anandpur had been subject to constant raid and encroachment
since 1700 but the fiercest onslaught made was in 1705 when the
hill chiefs, aided by Mughal troops from Lahore and Sirhind, invested
Guru Gobind Singh's citadel, eventually forcing him to evacuate
it on 5-6 December 1705.
Reaching Dina, a village in present day Faridkot district of the
Punjab, Guru Gobind Singh wrote to Aurangzeb a letter in Persian
verse called Zafarnamah, Epistle of Victory. It was a severe indictment
of Aurangzeb, who was repeatedly upbraided for breach of faith in
the attack made by his troops on the Sikhs after they had vacated
Anandpur on solemn assurance of safe passage given them by him and
his officers.
The letter emphatically reiterated the sovereignty of morality in
the affairs of State as much as in the conduct of individual human
beings and regarded the means as important as the end. Absolute
truthfulness was as much the duty of a sovereign as of any one of
the ordinary citizens.
Two of the Guru's Sikhs, Daya Singh and Dharam Singh, were sent
to deliver the Zafarnamah to Aurangzeb, who was then camping in
Ahmadnagar. According to Ahkam-i-'Alamgiri, the Emperor immediately
sent through Muhammad Beg, a gurzbardar or mace-bearer, and Shaikh
Yar Muhammad, a mansabdar, a farman to Mun'im Khan, deputy governor
of Lahore, asking him to make peace with Guru Gobind Singh. He also
invited the Guru for a personal meeting. The Guru kian Sakhia confirms
the invitation sent by Aurangzeb and mentions two gurzbardars accompanying
Bhai Daya Singh and Bhai Dharam Singh back to the Punjab. But before
the Guru could see the Emperor, the latter died on 20 February 1707.
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