Later Mughals v2.c17.s2: Sec. 98.—Alienation of the Hindus and Shias.
Later Mughals v2.c17.s2
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Sec. 98.—Alienation of the Hindus and Shias.
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Akbar had guarded against this danger by making the first beginnings of the conversion of a military monarchy into a national State,—in effect, though not in constitutional form. He tried to range the Hindu warrior tribes behind his hired foreign troops, as the second and more reliable line of defence for his throne. Under him and his successors, Hindu Rajput soldiers had carried the Mughal banners to the banks of the Oxus and the Helmand in the west and those of the Brahmaputra and the Karnafuli in the east. They had garrisoned the Khaibar Pass, defended Garhgaon against the Ahoms and stormed Chatgaon from the Burmese. But Aurangzeb's attempt to annex Jodhpur on the death of his old servant Jaswant Singh, his invasion of Mewar, his incessant destruction of Hindu temples and his rigorous imposition of the hated poll-tax (jaziya), not only alienated the Rajput clans, but convinced all other Hindu races of India that they had no lot or part in the Mughal State and that for the preservation of their honour and liberty of conscience they must look elsewhere. This was the opportunity of the Mahrattas. This belief, rooted deep in the minds of the Hindu officers and vassals of Aurangzeb, made them indifferent or secretly hostile to their master's cause during his wars with Shivaji and his successors. To the Rajputs and Bundelas, who had so long been the staunchest supports of the Mughal cause, the Mahratta hero appeared as their heaven-sent deliverer,—a Rama slaying Ravana or a Krishna slaying Kansa. This feeling breathes in every line of the Hindi poet Bhushan's numberless odes on Shivaji. He really voices in smooth and vigorous numbers the unspoken thoughts of the millions of Hindus all over India. At the end of the 17th century they had come to regard the Mughal Government as Satanic and refused to co-operate with it.
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By appealing to this feeling, Baji Rao I. easily entered Malwa and then made his hold upon that province good. He united the local Hindu chieftains as well as the neighbouring Rajputs of Jaipur and Mewar with the Mahrattas in an alliance against the oppressors of their common religion (dharma).
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This point comes out very clearly in Sawai Jai Singh's letter to Nandalal Mandaloi (the chaudhuri of Indor), after the latter had treacherously caused an immense slaughter of his master's troops by his collusion with the Mahrattas (October 1731): "A thousand praises to you, because you, in sole reliance upon my word and with a view to benefit your dharma, have destroyed the Muslims in Malwa and firmly established dharma there. You have fulfilled my heart's wishes." [Sardesai, ii. 369.]
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In the brief space of thirty-one years after Aurangzeb's death, his successors had to wage war, and more than once, with the Sikhs, Jats, Bundelas, Rathors Kachhwahas, and Sisodias. Thus, no Hindu tribe of military value was left on the side of the Emperor. In addition to this, the Mahrattas were an open sore which drained the life-blood of the Empire and steadily reduced its size. The Hindus not only ceased to be loyal vassals of the Later Mughals, but became open enemies against whom large forces had to be diverted by the Emperor in his day of danger from foreign invasion.
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The Persians are the cleverest race among the children of Islam. But they stand aloof from the rest of the Muslim world by reason of their belief in the hereditary right of the Prophet's son-in-law to his succession (khilafat). Their faith of Shia-ism is a heresy in the eyes of the immense majority of Musalmans, including those of Northern India, who are Sunnis. The liberal Akbar, the self-indulgent Jahangir, and the cultured Shah Jahan had welcomed Shias in their camps and Courts and given them the highest offices, especially in the secretariat and revenue administration, in which their genius naturally shone most. But the orthodox Aurangzeb had barely tolerated them as a necessary evil. In his reign the Shias felt that they were not wanted by him. Many striking examples of his anti-Shia bias are found in his letters and the anecdotes* about him compiled by his favourite Hamid-ud-din Khan. The populace were still more hostile to these heretics. The proposal of Bahadur Shah to read the khutba with a single Shia epithet, led to a riot at Lahor in 1712. Some years later, at Hasanabad near the capital of Kashmir, 2500 Shias were massacred by the Sunnis. [K. K. ii. 870.] Thus, to the ambitious and gifted Shia adventurers of Persia, India ceased to be a welcome home, or a field where the highest career was open to their talent.
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∗ Ahkam-i-Alamgiri, ed. and tr. by J. Sarkar, sec. iv.