AS is well-known, in 1658 Aurangzeb deposed his father, the Mughal Emperor Shah Jehan who was confined to Agra fort where he lived for nine years. What is not generally known is the very bitter correspondence that passed between the two, the former deeply wounded at the behaviour of a son and the latter sanctimonious and self-righteous. In his letters Aurangzeb posed as the champion of Islam and good government, and as a humble instrument of God. He condemned his father’s “incompetent and unjust rule”, and defended his own conduct with a mixture of self-confidence and humility.
Aurangzeb had been a good son, but somehow his religiosity never appealed to Shah Jehan who doted on his eldest son, Dara Shikoh, the Sufi and adherent of wahdatul wajood. He was very learned, and in this age would have been a respected intellectual. He also had a fascinating personality, and was Shah Jehan’s choice as his successor. After Dara the emperor gave affectionate preference to his other sons. This was galling for Aurangzeb who could not understand how his father could be indifferent to a son who was a pious Muslim and never deviated from the path of rectitude.
Historians have always wondered how Aurangzeb reconciled his treatment of his imprisoned father with his passion for the Islamic belief in service to one’s parents. The correspondence between father and son throws light on how his mind worked and how he had convinced himself that his father’s dethronement was in keeping with Islamic principles.
To the charge of being an unnatural son, Aurangzeb gave this justification: “So long as you held the reins of government I never did anything without your permission, nor did I ever step beyond my jurisdiction. The searcher of hearts be my witness. During your illness Dara usurped all power, girded up his loins to promote Hinduism and destroy Islam, and acted as king, totally setting you aside, The government fell into disorder. None of your servants dared to inform you of the true state of the realm. If God forbid, the aim of the infidel had succeeded and the world had been obscured with the darkness of heresy, and Islam had lost its lustre, it would have been hard (for us) to answer of its on the Last Day.”
On his part Shah Jehan accused Aurangzeb of rebelling against the recognized emperor of Hindustan and his own father, and marching against him on Agra. To this Aurangzeb’s reply was to describe his action as the only right one. He said: “My march on Agra was not due to a rebellious spirit, but to a desire to put an end to Dara’s usurpation, his lapse from Islam and his exaltation of idolatry throughout the empire. I was compelled, out of regard for the next world, to have undertaken the task of looking after the interest of the populace.”
As for the fratricidal war, he ascribed its origin not to his own ambition, but to Shah Jehan’s partiality for his eldest son and the mortal enmity of his brothers to himself. He said: “Although I heard that the creating of disturbances and the throwing of (my) affairs into confusion were due to your instigation, I was not moved by the news and remained loyal to you, till I knew for certain that you did not love me and were trying to place some other son in power.”
Aurangzeb was convinced that there could be no peace in the realm until his brothers Dara and Shuja were driven out of India or sent to share Murad’s captivity. He had to, therefore, exercise some of the prerogatives of the crown, such as enlisting officers and granting titles and posts, for, without such means, “the work of God and the people” would have failed. He said: “I had to take up the perilous load of the crown, out of sheer necessity, not from free choice, for restoring peace and the rules of Islam, so as to be able to answer on the Day of reckoning, and for saving my ancestral kingdom for confusion.”
His own idea of the king’s position and duty was lofty. It was unheard of in those times, and was akin to the dials of good government of today. He said: “Kingship means protection of the realm and guardianship of the people, and not the enjoyment of bodily repose or the lusts of the flesh.” However, in utter scorn for his alleged hypocrisy Shah Jehan taunted his son with being a robber of other’s property while professing to be a true Muslim, and Aurangzeb defended his conduct in a high tone of idealism, saying, “Know that the royal treasures exist for the good of the people. A kingdom is not a hereditary private property, The king is merely God’s elected custodian and trustee of His money for the good of the subjects.”
When Shah Jehan warned his rebel son that his sons too might treat him as he treated his own father, Aurangzeb replied, “Nothing happens without God’s will. The fate that you mention overtook my elders too. How can I escape from the dispensation of providence. Everyone gets from God a return according to his own intentions, and as my intentions are good I shall not get anything but good (from my sons).”
But Shah Jehan was right. Aurangzeb’s turn came in the person of his fourth son, Muhammad Akbar. When that prince rebelled in 1681 he addressed a bitter and taunting letter to his father which bears striking resemblance to Aurangzeb’s letter to Shah Jehan. Among other things, he asked with what propriety he could tax Akbar with being an unnatural son when he himself had rebelled against his own father?
The correspondence between Shah Jehan and Aurangzeb at last became intolerably bitter and the latter gave up writing to the emperor-in-custody, at first in his own had and then through his secretaries, in order, as he said, “to close the path of saying and hearing taunts,” thus in conflict with the pen, Shah Jehan proved no more successful than with the sword. At last he bowed to the inevitable, and like the child that cries himself to sleep, he ceased to complain.
