'Historians seek to comprehend people on their own terms, as products of particular times and places, and explain their actions and impacts. We need not absolve those we study of guilt, and we certainly do not need to like them. But we strive to hold back judgement long enough so that the myth of Aurangzeb can fade into the background and allow room for a more nuanced and compelling story to be told.'
- Audrey Truschke in 'Aurangzeb The Man and the Myth'
I am always fascinated by the subject of History although I am not a student of it. One recurring theme which somehow captures my imagination is that of 'Zindapir' Alamgir Aurangzeb, the last of the Great Mughals. His policies are perceived to be the single major factor responsible for the fall of the Mughal Empire. Under his reign, the empire stretched to it's geographical limits but the saying goes - 'Deccan ulcer ruined Aurangzeb'. He was personally a man of many contradictions, perhaps a prisoner of his times. Yet, his legacy is sealed owing to his purported 'bigotry' and 'tyranny'. Right from the beginning - seizing power after a bloody civil war to the end - death after sheer dejection, he was a text book case of a classic villain, and is held in contempt for that. In the ever growing eager perversion of bracketing historical personalities as either completely good or disastrously evil without studying history as it is in a nuanced manner, Aurangzeb's legacy got entangled.
I've read this work by Audrey Truschke merely for the sheer pleasure of it. It's indeed a sheer, bold perspective and a welcome step in understanding about the life and times of the last Great Mughal in a much more objective way. It is very unfortunate that she was the subject of some brutal trolling and vicious hate mail, for which there is absolutely no justification. Hope I'd read more of her works and may her future projects on South Asian History be more fruitful than Aurangzeb's Deccan Campaign.
Book - Aurangzeb The Man and the Myth
Author - Audrey Truschke
