No matter how hard the leftist historians try to deny it, atrocities against Hindus in India during Islamic rule are no secret. Like all his predecessors, the tyrannical Mughal ruler Aurangzeb, who is highly revered by Left-liberal ‘historians’ and intellectuals, killed countless Hindus and non-Muslims and plundered and destroyed numerous Hindu temples including the revered Kashi Vishwanath temple in Varanasi, the Kalka Temple in Delhi and the Ram Temple in Ayodhya, to name a few.
The Hindus, who had somehow accustomed themselves to living with the Mughals during their early rule, were in for a rude shock when the dominion passed to Aurangzeb, a fanatic of Islam.
He, in his quest to persecute and oppress the Hindus, reimposed the ‘jizya tax’, a special kind of tax imposed on non-Muslims, significantly Hindus, with high rates. This cruel Islamic tax was a kind of reminder to the ‘kafirs’ that they are living in a Muslim land, governed by Sharia. Notably, this tax was abolished under the rule of the third Mughal ruler Akbar. But it was restarted during Aurangzeb’s reign. As a result, the already downtrodden and poor Hindus continued to become further oppressed and impoverished.
Historians confirm that Hindus were obliged to pay taxes on everything during the Mughal era. Be it animals, trees or daily essentials, nothing came readily to the persecuted Hindus. Under the Mughal dynasty, Hindus were even forced to pay the discriminatory jizya tax in order to marry off their children. Muslims, on the other hand, were exempt from the Jizya tax.
In fact, to impose the Jizya tax on Hindus, Aurangzeb, a religious fanatic who tried to propagate Islam and suppress Hinduism and other religions, in the year 1679 ordered the division of Hindus into categories based on their economic status. Hindus were thus divided into rich, middle and poor classes. The Hindus with annual income exceeding Rs 2500 used to be categorised as rich. They were required to pay a tax of 48 dirhams, which summed up to Rs 13 then. Similarly, Hindus with an annual income of Rs 250 were classified under the middle-class category and they were expected to pay a Jizya tax of 24 dirhams or Rs 6.50.
The worst hit by this cruel tax system were those Hindus who fell under the third bracket which is the poor category. The people with an annual income of 52 rupees or less were classified as poor. They were required to pay a tax of 12 dirhams or Rs 3.25. According to these data, the wealthiest had to pay 0.52%, the middle-class Hindus 2.6%, and the destitute Hindus 6.25% as tax to the Mughal Empire. They had to face severe repercussions if they did not pay.
After collecting the exorbitant jizya tax from the poor and oppressed Hindus, Aurangzeb spent this entire money waging wars against Hindu states. Imagine, this hard-earned money, which Hindus earned while enduring atrocities and torture induced on them by the Mughals, went into the upkeeping of the army which in turn slaughtered innumerable Hindus and non-Muslims, raped Hindu women and children and plundered and destroyed Hindu places of worship. To be more precise, Hindus, during Aurangzeb’s regime, were being forced to fund their own genocide.
This was the reason why many Hindus converted to Islam. They were, in fact, forced to convert in order to protect their families. Immumarable Hindus switched to Islam to avoid having to pay Jizya. The Hindus, because of whom India was named the ‘golden bird’ kept becoming poorer and poorer under Aurangzeb’s regime. Despite this, several leftist historians claim that by the end of Aurangzeb’s reign, there was no money left in the coffers of the Mughals.
The Jizya tax was intended not only to offend Hindus but also to appease Mullahs and Clerics. Because the Rajputs and Marathas were a source of contention for Aurangzeb, he employed this strategy to rally the Muslim populace behind him. Under the cover of Jizya, Mullahs and clerics tortured poor Hindus. Jizya was collected from the locals with the help of the army personnel. Those in charge of this task were given full authority to torture non-Muslims.
The Mullah-Maulvi elite now had a new source of revenue. Nonetheless, three years before his death, Aurangzeb was compelled to remove the Jaziya tax in South India in order to avoid turmoil. He hoped to persuade the Marathas to reach an accord with him by doing so. But how could someone who rose to power by imprisoning his own father, killing his own brother, and serving him on a platter in front of his father become a beneficent monarch?
In actuality, the Mughals’ objective in enforcing Jizya was to spread Islamic law in their domains and to depict Muslims as superior to everyone else. For a long time, leftist historians justified the Jizya tax by citing the ‘political motives’ for its imposition. They completely overlooked the reality that it was governed by Sharia and that religious intolerance was the primary motive for its implementation. In reality, Jaziya was created in order to publicly humiliate and degrade Hindus.
In fact, historian Marc Jason Gilbert in his book ‘South Asia in World History’ has mentioned how Aurangzeb, to suppress and humiliate Hindus, ordered the Jizya fees to be paid in person, in front of a tax collector. While paying the tax, the Hindus were compelled to recite a verse from the Quran which referred to non-Muslims as inferiors.
Here is a an account of the secular Aurangzeb by RC Majumdar. Jizya was reimposed ‘with the object of spreading Islam and overthrowing infidel practices’. From Masir-I-Alamgiri by MSM Khan, but Ganga Jamuni types prefer @AudreyTruschke pic.twitter.com/kif0jJDItZ
— Sanjay Dixit ಸಂಜಯ್ ದೀಕ್ಷಿತ್ संजय दीक्षित (@Sanjay_Dixit) November 24, 2018
Besides oppressing Hindus by making them pay higher taxes in the form of Jizya, Aurangzeb did whatever it took to not humiliate and subjugate the non-Muslims. During his reign, no non-Muslims were given any significant rank in his court. All the important ranks were held only by Muslims.
Aurangzeb appointed several Muslims to the revenue department to collect Jizya. In 1687, he created an Inspector General to make rules more stringent. The Qazis ruled during Aurangzeb’s reign, which is why even music was banned.
Aurangzeb also decreed that women had no right to wear ‘tight attire,’ and that their clothing should be loosely draped over their bodies. At the same time, he defined the length of the beard and instructed Muslims not to grow beards longer than four fingers. Along with this, a law was enacted to remove the moustache, since he believed that if the moustache covered the lips, the sound of Allah’s name would not reach heaven.
Hindu religious fairs were forbidden, as were public celebrations of their festivals. Under these conditions, opposition to Islamic bigotry manifested itself in violent rebellions against the Mughal ruler. This open hostility of Aurangzeb against non-Muslims inadvertently resurrected Hindu nationalism. Rebellions and imperial suppression started becoming palpable across the country.
Aurangzeb was opposed not only by the Marathas and Marwad but also by Chhatrasal in Bundelkhand, who had by then created his own separate kingdom. In the same circumstances rose the Jat rebellion of 1669. The Ahoms of Assam were also at war with Aurangzeb’s army. Aurangzeb’s socio-economic policies driven by his bigotry and religious fanatism gave rise to widespread rebellions and resistance to Mughal rule and eventually contributed to the empire’s downfall.
