Dr. Audrey Truschke, Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow

“Alleged Mughal oppression of Hindus is easily one of the most misunderstood points of medieval Indian history”

DR. AUDREY TRUSCHKE, Mellon Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of Religious Studies, Stanford University, brings to light evidence of incredible religious harmony, cultural exchange and union between Muslim and Hindu intellectuals in early Sanskrit texts. Her research might throw a new light and help build stronger Hindu-Muslim relations. Excerpts from her interview.

India Parent Magazine (IPM): What exactly was the concern regarding PM Modi visiting Silicon Valley's tech Companies? Why were so many academicians worried?
Audrey Truschke (AT): Academics have raised several concerns about the BJP and Modi. First, Modi's visit to Silicon Valley is connected to the "Digital India" initiative, a project that raises important questions about internet privacy and government surveillance. Second, the long term and recent track record of the BJP on religious tolerance is a serious concern. Modi himself has long been accused of being involved in the 2002 riots in Gujarat that resulted in the murder of 1,000 Muslims, and he was accordingly denied a visa to visit the United States until 2014. The degree of Modi’s involvement in the tragic events of 2002 in Gujarat is a matter still active in Indian courts, although it is not an event especially widely known among the American public. Third, the letter raises concerns about Modi’s record in his first year as Prime Minister, including censorship of his critics and targeting of NGOs. I concur with my colleagues on the importance of these issues and the value of raising public awareness about them. By drawing attention to such uncomfortable matters when others might prefer to forget or gloss over them, I believe that academics can contribute to a healthy and productive debate about the agendas and initiatives of the BJP and Modi.

IPM: Your study in relation to Sanskrit vis a vis Mughal rule is extremely interesting. But the Modi government might not agree. Why do you think they oppose this view?
AT: The BJP advances a vision of Indian history that features a glorious Hindu past that was supposedly disrupted by foreign Islamic rule and ought to be reinstated. My research upsets a key component of this storyline by showing that the Mughals, an Islamic dynasty, supported Sanskrit literary production like so many Hindu kings before them. This is a history of cooperation and conversation between religious groups, rather than communal conflict. This is a highly inconvenient aspect of history from a Hindu nationalist perspective.

IPM: Many Hindutva proponents such as the RSS in general believe that Moguls especially Aurangzeb are not part of India and have always subdued Hindus. Do you agree? If not why?
AT: Hindu nationalists often want to brand the Mughals as non-Indian, a viewpoint that stems from and leads back to troublesome implications for the place of Muslims in modern India. The historical basis for such views, however, is flimsy. Babur, the first Mughal king, came from Central Asia and traced his ancestry back to both Timurid and Mongol heritages. But I would argue that, in subsequent generations, the Mughals became Indian by many standards. Beginning with Akbar they followed many key practices of Indian kings, including patronizing Sanskrit and Indian vernacular languages such as Hindi. They intermarried with Indians (as a result, the fifth Mughal ruler, Shah Jahan, was 3/4 Indian in modern ethnic terms). The Mughal administration included many Hindus, and in fact Hindu participation in the imperial administration reached its height under Aurangzeb. The Mughals also did not maintain a home outside the subcontinent and never left India. In this sense they are distinct from the British, their imperial successors, who overall treated India as a colony rather than a new permanent home.

Alleged Mughal oppression of Hindus is easily one of the most misunderstood points of medieval Indian history. It is true that the Mughal rulers regularly used violence to expand and maintain control of their empire, and accordingly they were responsible for the deaths of many Indians, Hindus and Muslims alike. But a key point to understand is that the Mughals rarely if ever targeted Hindus because of their religion. Like everybody else, Hindus in Mughal India held a variety of identities in addition to their religious affiliation. For example, some Hindus were members of the Mughal administration, and others were rebels against the Mughal state. When Hindus became victims of Mughal violence, it was generally for reasons tied to one of their other, non-religious identities.