The first day of
Jaipur Literature festival
witnessed a very interesting and relevant discussion: The use of religion by Mughal emperors and modern-day politicians to woo the masses.
Speakers
Manimugdha Sharma
and
Supriya Gandhi
discussed Mughal rulers
Akbar
and
Dara Shikoh
and their policies in one of the sessions.
Manimugdha, who has written a book on emperor Akbar said, “Akbar praised the chant of Allah-Hu Akbar that indirectly glorified him and pleased the masses. Similarly, when
Narendra Modi was campaigning in Banaras ahead of the 2014 Lok Sabha elections, his supporters chanted ‘Har Har Modi’ similar to ‘Har Har Mahadev’. So, religion and politics in this country can never be looked in isolation.”
William Dalrymple, who was in conversation with the authors, said Akbar out of curiosity or for political gain gave respect to every religion. So, will it be correct to say he was a secular ruler? Manimudgha disagreed to this. “The term secular is an aspect of modern world. We can say he was tolerant, but not secular,” he said.
Supriya Gandhi, while referring to her book, said Dara Shikoh like his predecessors conducted a lot of experiments with religion. He looked at religion objectively and tried to follow the footsteps of former rulers. “He was a philosopher and aspired to become a king, though for other political reasons he could not live his dream,” she said.
When Dalrymple asked that many historians blamed Akbar for using his predominantly Hindu army to capture kingdoms in south India, Manimugdha rightly denied any such strategy was used by the emperor.
He said, “At that time Akbar’s court and army were so intermingled that it wasn’t right to say he played with religion to force his authority. The army chiefs were fighting for their emperor and not for religion. In fact, Amber rulers were the first to accept the allegiance to Akbar and put an inscription at Amber fort praising him. So, they were loyal towards their rulers.”
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