History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v5.c86.s3: § 9. Deterioration and inherent weakness of Hindu Society.
History of Aurangzib, Based on Original Sources v5.c86.s3
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§ 9. Deterioration and inherent weakness of Hindu Society.
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The Hindus of mediæval India presented an equally unhappy spectacle. They could not possibly form a nation, or even one compact sect. A social solidarity like that of the Muhammadans was inconceivable among a people divided into countless mutually exclusive castes, with their rancorous disputes about rights to the sacred thread and the Vedic chant, access to public water-supplies, besides touchability, and in Southern India also approachability. And time and prosperity seemed only to aggravate these differences. "Caste grows by fission," and the multiplication of new sub-castes was in active progress through the operation of internal forces during Muhammadan rule, dividing and weakening Hindu society still further. A Hindu revival like the empire of the Peshwas, instead of uniting them only embittered caste bickerings by intensifying orthodoxy, leading to a stricter repression of the lower castes by the forces of the State, and provoking more wide-spread and organised caste feuds, like those between the different subdivisions of the Deccani Brahmans or between the only two literate and well-to-do castes of Maharashtra, *viz.*, the Brahmans and the Prabhus.
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No enlightened or patriotic priesthood arose to save the Hindu peoples. The separatist tendency is as strong in their religion as in their society; and, indeed, an organised priesthood or State Church is opposed to the root principles of the Hindu scheme of salvation. Stray sheep running after stray shepherds fall easy victims to the quack and the voluptuary. Even if we pass over the degrading forms of man-worship that marked the religious practices of the Vallabhacharya, Kartabhaja and other sects of *guru*-adorers, or the licentiousness promoted by temple dancers (*devadasis* or *muralis*) and small prurient esoteric sects, and turn our eyes to the ordinary idol-worship of the millions, we find the priesthood bringing their worshippers down to the lowest intellectual level by holding up to their adoration a god who eats, sleeps, falls ill of fever (as Jagannath does for a week every year), or pursues amorous dalliances which a Nawab of Oudh might envy or a Qutb Shah imitate in his own harem. Reform was possible only outside the regular Hindu Church followed by the masses,—*i.e.*, among the small non-conforming sects, where men were prepared to leave all things and follow truth; but even there only during the first generation or two after their foundation, before they too sank into gross guru-worship.
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§ 10. How Hindus and Muslims lived together in India; occasional union, latent danger of fight.
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In spite of what has been said before, Hindu and Muhammadan societies often touched each other at certain points. The true ideals of both creeds were the same, namely, the worship of one Supreme Being, abstinence from earthly joys, tenderness to all creatures. But bigots and the mass of ordinary people could not rise to such a high plane of thought. The holy men of each sect recognised the general truths underlying all sincere creeds; witness the delighted cry of Shaikh Nizam-ud-din Auliya on looking at a Hindu bathing festival, "Every sect has its own mode of adoration and centre of faith!" Muslim saints, famous for striking acts of self-mortification or miracle-working power, were often adored by Hindu princes and people.
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Similarly, the cult of Sufism brought members of the two sects together in friendly communion. Sufism, however, was not so much a living creed as an emotional-intellectual enjoyment,—a "fashion" of polished society like atheism in the France of Louis XV or Brahmoism in Bengal in the seventies and eighties of the 19th century. It affected the select few, being confined to the educated and official classes of the 17th century.
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The masses could not appreciate such lofty ideas as mystic pantheism and the universal brotherhood of man. Fanatics had greater sway over their hearts than philosophers. The lower classes, after some fighting between Hindus and Muslims or Shias and Sunnis, (the forces of Government being always on the side of the orthodox creed),—at last came to a settlement in every locality, recognising the boundaries rights and limitations of each creed on a basis which acquired the sacredness of custom with the passage of time. Thus they lived amicably within their own narrow limits. But this religious truce held good only so long as the local society was static. With the least change in the relative strength of the two sects or in their temper, with the visit of an active orthodox preacher from outside or the accession of a bigot to the throne, the sleeping volcano of mob-passions would again wake to fury. Examples of it are furnished by the massacre of the Shias at Srinagar in 1685, the destruction and pollution of Hindu temples by Aurangzib, the plucking of the jaziya-collector's beard by Rajputs in Malwa, and retaliation on mosques by some Rathor and Maratha princes of high spirit.* Indian society was, therefore, in a state of unstable equilibrium in every centre of mixed population in Aurangzib's reign.
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∗ E.g., complaint of Abdullah (a merchant of Alamgirpur) against Rajrup and Rustam Bhonslé, great-grandsons of Maloji's brother Vitoji, in the 40th year of Aurangzib. [Dhar papers.]
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§ 11. Indian peoples lack the spirit of progress; hence their decline.
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Finally, the Indian people of the Mughal age, both Hindus and Muslims, were stationary, prone to venerate the wisdom of their ancestors and look down upon the latest age as the worst. Experiment and free thought are hence apt to be condemned as an impious questioning of sacred authority and an insolent setting up of our own puny intellect against that of the sages of yore. The progressive spirit died out of India at the death of Akbar. Then followed a stationary civilisation, and such a civilisation is bound to decay as it finds improvement impossible.
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"The rigidity of Islam has enabled its followers in all lands to succeed up to a certain point. But there they have stopped, while progress is the law of life in the living world. While Europe has been steadily advancing, the stationary East has been relatively falling back, and every year that passes increases the distance between Europe and Asia in knowledge, organization, accumulated resources, and acquired capacity, and makes it increasingly difficult for the Asiatics to compete with the Europeans. The English conquest of the Mughal empire is only a part of the inevitable domination of all Africa and Asia by the European nations,—which is only another way of saying that the progressive races are supplanting the conservative ones, just as enterprising families are constantly replacing sleepy self-satisfied ones in the leadership of our own society." [*Mughal Administration*, 2nd ed., 255.]