In Nagpur’s Khuldabad (erstwhile Aurangabad), political temperature shot up on 17 March 2025, ahead of Shivaji Jayanti celebrations, over a vehement demand by activists of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and Bajrang Dal for demolition of the tomb of the 17th-century, sixth Mughal emperor Aurangzeb, who died on 3 March 1703, at the age of 88 years, at his army camp in Ahmednagar and was buried in Khuldabad.
However, the question arises: whatever might have been the activities or acts of violence of Aurangzeb, can the protesters wipe out the same from the pages of history? Moreover, during the past three centuries, the mortal remains of Aurangzeb must have mingled in the soil of Khuldabad. Can the protesters separate his mortal remains from Indian soil? Not? then what’s the fuss? It’s widely believed to be a political agenda for spreading polarisation and diverting people’s attention from the non-performance on real issues.
In addition to the above, on one side, Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis is condemning the acts of Aurangzeb, while at the same time, he is speaking in the threatening language that had been the norm of the Aurangzeb era: “Such people will be given the stricter punishment... they will be dug out from their graves.” Does this statement qualify the test of logic, decency and political prudence?
Aurangzeb was the epitome of dictatorial instinct, cruelty, hate and communal feelings — but that was the era of semi-civilised nature. In today’s civilised society, if Aurangzeb is not relevant, his language, style, hate and polarisation should also not be copied. Aurangzeb was a person, but Aurangzebism is an undesired character, philosophy or ideology.
Genuinely, it is a matter of introspection that those who express their anguish against the dead are willingly following his path of hatred, violence and vendetta — which makes no sense.Violence broke out on the evening of 17 March 2025 after the 200-odd activists of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal trespassed the graveyard and staged a protest demanding the removal of Aurangzeb’s tomb at Khuldabad. As such, trespassing on the burial ground is a penal offence under Section 301 of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.
It is true that Aurangzeb was an eccentric, tyrannical and arrogant ruler. He had no sense of human rights or public interests. He was a law unto himself. In such a situation, gullible people had no option but to bow down their heads for fear of death or persecution. Unfortunately, modern society has not fully got rid of such rulers. They do exist today — in some other form, avatar or title, if not as kings or rajas.
Aurangzeb’s persecution was not limited to non-Muslims, Marathas, Sikhs or sons of Guru Gobind Singh. He and his predecessors also persecuted Shia Muslims. Emperor Jahangir had ordered the killing of the great Shia Muslim scholar, Qazi Nurullah Shastri, also known as Shaheed-e-Salis, by extracting his tongue from behind his neck. The Shaheed’s mausoleum exists at Dayal Bagh, Agra.
As a reaction to Hindu activists’ action plan in Nagpur, the Minority Democratic Party leader Fahim Shamim Khan led large-scale protests to oppose the action of VHP and Bajrang Dal activists, which further aggravated the peaceful atmosphere in Maharashtra.It may be remembered that on 6 December 1992, when the five-centuries-old Babri Masjid was demolished by activists of Vishwa Hindu Parishad, intellectuals across the globe, irrespective of caste, creed and religion, condemned the demolition — as did the Supreme Court.
No sane person justified the demolition of Babri Masjid. But strangely, none of the intellectuals or the likes of Fahim Shamim Khan stood up when the thugs of the newly formed Wahhabi/Takfiri sect of pseudo-Muslims, in 1925, demolished the mausoleum of Prophet Mohammad’s daughter Hazrat Fatima Zehra, Prophet’s grandsons, and many more members of the Prophet’s family — who are interred in the ancestral graveyard of Jannat-ul-Baqi, situated at Medina, Saudi Arabia, on the instructions of Saudi rulers — the hidden Zionists.Even the ancestral house — the birthplace of Prophet Mohammad — was demolished by Saudi Wahhabis. Muslims are raising their voices against the defiling of tyrant Aurangzeb’s grave. But the entire Muslim community across the globe is silent on the desecration and demolition of Jannat-ul-Baqi.
The Zionist rulers of Saudi Arabia have also destroyed the most revered sites of Islamic history in Mecca and the rest of the parts of Saudi Arabia.The history of Wahhabism has been written with the blood of innocent people. Earlier, in 1802, the Saudi ruler Abd al-Aziz ibn Saud had attacked Karbala in Iraq, desecrating the holy shrine of Hazrat Imam Husain, the grandson of Prophet Mohammad.
The historian Lieutenant Francis Warden wrote, “They pillaged the whole of it and plundered the tomb of Hazrat Imam Husain, slaying in the course of the day, with circumstances of peculiar cruelty, killing over 5,000 of the inhabitants. A huge amount of booty was seized.” In 1803, the Saudi ruler Abd al-Aziz ibn Saud obtained a visit permit from the Shareef of Mecca on the pretext of performing Haj; whereupon his Wahhabi terrorists laid waste to Islam’s holiest shrine Ka’aba — like the accursed Yazid ibn Muawiya had desecrated it earlier in 682 AD.
According to TE Ravenshaw, author of A Memorandum on the Sect of Wahhabees, “They robbed the splendid tombs of the Mahomedan saints, who were interred there; and their fanatical zeal did not even spare the Prophet’s Mosque (Masjid-e-Nabavi) in Medina, which they robbed of the immense treasures and costly furniture to which each Mahomedan Prince of Europe, Asia and Africa had contributed his share.”
Again, in 2014, a leading Saudi academic had proposed to destroy the tomb of the Prophet Mohammad in Medina, Islam’s second holiest site, and remove the mortal remains of the Holy Prophet to be re-interred secretly in the nearby graveyard. However, the nefarious plan to destroy the mausoleum under the custody of Saudi monarch King Abdullah was exposed by another academic and, hence, couldn’t be executed.Strangely, there has been no hue and cry, no protest from the benumbed Muslim community against these blasphemous acts of Saudi rulers, nor is there a demand for restoration of these revered mausoleums.
Muslims are too ignorant to know that their real enemies are fake Muslims, known as Wahhabis/Takfiris — created by Saudi Arabia. They can be identified below with their attire: chote bhai ka pyjama, bade bhai ka kurta.
To conclude, the recent uproar in Khuldabad over Aurangzeb’s tomb is less about history and more about political posturing. While Aurangzeb’s reign was undeniably tyrannical, attempting to erase him from history is futile and distracts from more pressing governance issues. The language and threats used by leaders today dangerously mirror the very oppression they claim to oppose. Violence and graveyard trespassing are not just legally punishable — but also morally misguided.
True progress lies in rejecting all forms of extremism — be it from the past or present.Instead of channelling energy into symbolic demolition or revenge politics, society must introspect and unite against real threats — intolerance, ignorance, and hate. Only then can we truly move forward from the dark shadows of Aurangzebismand build a future grounded in justice, unity and human dignity.
(The writer is an Islamic scholar and a lawyer. Views are personal)
