Aurangzeb and Appeasement Politices

Honoring Aurangzeb, Appeasement Politics and Veer Damodar Savarkar 

 

Finding the correct address in posh Lutyene zone of Delhi has never been easy. I am no exception. The area houses Bureaucrats, Ministers and the wealthy of page three circuit of Delhi. The arrows depicting names like Rafi Marg, BahadurShah Zafar Road, Ashoka Road, Tuglak Lane, Kautalya Marg etc. reminds us of great people of India. But one name caught my attention. The road named ‘Aurangzeb Road’ caught my attention. I have no intention to create any controversy on the road named on Aurangzeb but I sincerely wish that Maharashtra gallant revolutionary like Veer Damodar Savarkar’s name should be there among all greats and he should get his due as he has been ignored for long. The sufi saint Sai Bulley Shah name could have been there instead of Aurangzeb.

Let me discuss Aurangzeb in brief. The Mughal Empire expanded and also ended with Aurangzeb. He was a devoted Muslim but his policies abandoned the legacy of Akbar’s secularism which remained a controversial aspect of his reign. He suppressed Hinduism and his orders for execution of Sugi mystic Sarmad and Sikh Guru Tegh Bahadur bear testimony to Aurangzeb’s religious intolerance. Richard Eaton recorded that he ordered destruction of large number of places of worship.

On the other hand, Veer Damodar Savarkar was a poet, writer, philosopher, historian, supporter of Hindutva, fought against caste system and a great freedom fighter. He remains the only political prisoner in the world who was awarded two life sentences and was denied pen and paper in prison of Andaman and Nicobar Islands. Therefore, he wrote thousand poems on the wall of prison by his nails.  He founded the society called Abhinav Bharat and wrote the true story of Gadar, the revolution of 1857 which was banned. On one occasion, Sikh Guru Guru Gobind Singh addresses Aurangzeb as tyrannical, cunning and intolerant ruler in his popular ‘Zafarnama’ or ‘Letter of Victory’ to Aurangzeb. Aurangzeb replied to ‘Zafarnama’ stating, “I do not know who I am. What will happen to me? Allah was inside me. But I did horrible deeds.” Therefore, naming road on Aurangzeb looks more like an appeasement politics. The men like Veer Savarkar were ignored by our government to the extent that masses are still unaware about him. The men like Madan Lal Dhingra, Fakhrudin Ali Ahmad, Khudiram Bose, Ram Prasad Bismil, Kartar Singh Sarabha, Ashfaqulla Khan never got the recognition which they deserved. The focus of Congress government shifted to only few of their party men who participated in India’s freedom struggle. Later when I discussed this with young students, they revealed that they are not aware of these great revolutionaries and only of Gandhi’s or Nehru’s dynasty who gave them freedom. Most of them also talked about Shaheed Bhagat Singh and Subhas Chandra Bose which was a pleasant surprise. But on the whole they remained ignorant of names which I discussed earlier.