Why do we have an Aurangzeb Road in Delhi?
My wife asked this question yesterday while we were discussing history.
I pondered for a moment but could not come up with a good answer. I also realised that I was not aware of the background to the naming of streets/roads in Lutyens Delhi.
I know at least one fellow blogger (perhaps two) who may have a view and/or some information on this.
In the meantime, I would be interested in your views and also if any of you has any additional information to share.
Based on my (limited) understanding of history, Aurangzeb was a tyrant and a despot who persecuted the majority faith of this land and did not do anything worthy enough to be commemorated.
So why do we have Aurangzeb Road in the heart of India?
Comments/thoughts welcome.
Related Post: On Aurangzeb, Kashi Vishwanath, Lies and Half-Truths
Unexpected find: Fitzgerald: Aurangzeb Road.
From the Wikipedia entry on Aurangzeb:
Also:
The problem with our entire approach to history is that as a people we don’t seem to want the truth, whatever it may be; and by denying what really happened, we hope it will all go away. So by denying the brutality of
Aurangzeb’s rule and naming a few streets after him, we can somehow deal with the truth of his barbarism.
We do the same thing in dealing with terrorists. So terrorists given the death sentence are suddenly declared innocent by denying their complicity in terrorist acts etc. We worry about their human rights etc. and a very large section of people in power, both in academia and media suffer from a mental condition called liberalism where everyone’s actions have moral equivalence. So the terrorists actions are considered on par with those who fight terrorism–this is the thinking that allows them to hold the army accountable for human rights violations but not the militants.
This moral equivalance argument is the one we use to study history also. Thus Aurangzeb’s brutality is considered the same as the various Hindu kings who fought to save their lands. We are told that it is not for the sake of Islam that these marauderers attacked Hindus, although their own court historians say otherwise.
We are told that temples were attacked for wealth when in fact they were attacked on the basis of belief. By denying the primary motivation was a religious one rather than an economic one, we fail to understand history and are unable to apply its lessons to the present day.
Point is, the 60 years of secular rule has readied the nation for a second partition. How soon this demand will be put forth ? Evidence is already there. Voices are heard about need for reservation in Parliament seat, not to talk of government jobs. With those in authority saying minority has the first right to nation’s resources, the time is not far when the resources are asked to be partitioned.
Those claiming to be standing for majority, did nothing to change the situation. The leader was trying to project himself as moderate.
Strong nations require strong leaders. Perhaps one should say the after Tilak, Aurobindo, Laj Pat Rai, those who took over the freedom movement were crass apologists with no pride in the nationhood. And post 1947, the apologists became more and more apologetic and the present mess is directly related to those policies.
So that the cows and dogs of Delhi can show him their “respect”??
Simple. Aurangazeb was secular. Infact all the moghuls were secular, you know.
>>Based on my (limited) understanding of history, Aurangzeb >>was a tyrant and a despot who persecuted the majority faith >>of this land and did not do anything worthy enough to be >>commemorated
Those are the exact qualifications needed to get commemorated in Delhi – (1) Despotism, autocracy, tyranny (2) Go against the majority of the land (3) Not do anything significant.
Some of the other roads/memorials in Delhi and elsewhere in India would serve as proof.
Further, Aurangzeb also came from the “dynasty”. That is a major qualification nowadays 🙂
Regards, Hari
kya tumhein pata hai ke bharat ek secular desh hai… 🙂
Well, just for some minority votes.. heck, they even have some mohamed ali jinnah trust in Mumbai !!
Jis prakar Bombay VT bana CST,
CP bana RGC (Rajeev Gandhi Chowk),
Kabhie Aurangzeb ka number bhee aa aayega!
Waise bhee naam mein kya rakha hai!!!
Bas ek chhote se aandolan/morche ke deri hai…:-)
Aurangzeb ne mandir tudwaye to kya, usne praja ke liye kuyen to awashya khudwaye honge.
Works of Atheist Nehru and Communists in India have done enough damage to our pride. This could be one of those steps taken by them to portray Indian history differently.
I wonder we might have a Afzal Street to house Home Minister and Kazab street to house Rashtrapathi in future.
Agree and Disagree.
Agree that he was one of the more fanatic religious despots or wotever other such full of adjectives name you want to call him.
Disagree because Aurangzeb is also considered to be one of the best administrators of his era, in terms of city planning, administrative design, power delegation, bureaucratic structures, and those who do not want to bar knowledge just because they dont like the source, can read up on that. Difficult to get into as much detail in a comment.
However, to your point about naming roads, well – we have a whole bunch of roads named after britishers too, right? and Nasser and Tito roads? good names, but their contribution to India? I just think that the road naming is done as much on “a name that people remember off the top of their head” as it is about popularity! I am still waiting for a Mayawati road by the way… 🙂
Is it the same road on which Aurangzeb made his oldest brother and heir apparent Dara Shikoh walk like a common criminal and had him killed for studying and translating Upanishads in Persian? In that case, it is a fitting memorial.
A secular emporer like Aurangzeb has to be recognized by the current secular rulers. I would not be surprised if the present government set up Aurangzeb Awards and gave them to the seculars who declared “first right on national resources to Muslims”and people like Arjun Singh, Antulay etc..
Glorifying any Mughal is like glorifying Nazis by Germans. In Germany it is a serious crime with sizable jail time.
But in India the minority have been so appeased and are so arrogant that they glorify a culture of death, destruction, rape and pillaging. And that is their definition of Secularism but I call it Dhimmitude.
That arrogance is the root of communal disharmony in this country. Compare this to Pakistan, Saudi and most Muslim counties which don’t allow minorities the right of worship, constructing places of worship, and some even are taking Jaziya like in Pakistan, and Egypt.
Funny you have too many “communal trolls” with fake names on this group justifying Aurangzeb because he is good administrator ! Hey so was Hitler. Don’t see a road named called Hitler Strasse. But then Grand Mufti of Jeruslem had a long alliance with Nazi during WWII so we all know the Jihadist mindset.
hey i had this question.
but now the rich people live there…they will be t supersticious to change the name..
–Aurangzeb was a tyrant and a despot who persecuted the majority faith of this land and did not do anything worthy enough to be commemorated.—–
now replace Aurangzeb with Nehru,Rajiv and Sanjay gandhi.
The question is still so relevant, but answers are obvious.
The History writing in India has mostly occurred under the rule or Congress and guidance of Marxists. They are of view that Shivaji and Aurengzeb are no different. They you their contrived logic to put forth this theory. Hence naming is not just acceptable but very much necessary to establish that symmetry.
I have been thinking of the same for a long time. In Aurangzeb’time, Hindus wre not allowed to ride on horses. Thay had to walk miles to pay the ziziya tax. They were not allowed to si down while waiting to pay the tax.Many poor Hindus only escape was to become Muslims.
You won’t find roads named after Hitler.
Tipu Sultan, St. Xavier are other names honoured in Hindu-majority India. Recent name include so-called Mother Teressa.
All: Thanks for your comments…Does anyone know if there was any attempt at name-change.
Also was this name “inherited” from colonial times?
Thanks.
P.S. I will be emailing a few historians/experts tomorrow to see if they can shed any light on this.
Aurangzeb was a secular ruler like Tipu Sultan. Tipu Sultan did his best to convert all non-believers (in what he believed) into “the religion of peace and equality” (trademark). He only destroyed Hindu temples and raised as many mosques as possible. Hence, Tipu is secular.
In fact, In Karnataka we have many monuments, roads and institutions named after Tipu Sultan. He is also referred to as a freedom fighter in our history text books. Aurangzeb has not been lucky enough to get the title of ‘freedom fighter’.
Anyway we are going to have kaangress rule for the next 5 years as well. So dont be surprised to see statues of aurangzeb and tipu sultan (the (maneater)tiger of mysore) inaugurated in the parliament complex. They will also be standing shoulder to shoulder with Gandhi ji, Netaji, Shivaji etc.
It’s a reflection of our love for sickularism.
Unfortunate Indians are ruled by anti Hindus due to poor and influenced Indians for last sixty years. Such unnatural things like Aurangzeb Road and declaration of Shivaji, Bhagat Singh, Subhash Bose as villains in history books is bound to happen.
About Tipu Sultan. I have still my ancestral home,where he destroyed the entire temple complex and used it for constructing a road so that he could continue his invasion thru the entire malabar in Kerala. As a result of his forced conversion, you can see the stretch of north kerala,the route hepassed through, with dominant muslim population. Now, after 200+ years we are in the process of re-building temples in this area. Aurangazeb did the same and more in the north India
We Hindus are Sharm-less indeed. We respect the tormentor and tyrants and name roads and monuments after them. We negotiate with terrorist states and feel dialogue is the only way to bring peace. Indeed.
@ Ram: I was not aware of this. Can you/anyone else please share some more details re. Tipu Sultan’s campaign through (present day) Kerala?
Thanks
@Kaushik,
You can make that statement about the converted people as well. They have forgotten their heritage as well.
The answer to this is simple, India had not decolonized it national ethos sucesfully. The Indian mindset and nationhood is still colonized!
Hi Shantanu,
You will find more details in this online book
“Tipu Sultan – Villain Or Hero”:
http://www.voiceofdharma.com/books/tipu/
Thanks alot BengalVoice
This question sounds like a good fit for an RTI application.
Aurangzeb, as he was according to Mughal Records
http://www.aurangzeb.info/
Hey Aslam D
Nice website and I liked the below quote from that website
“No nation can move forward, unless it squarely faces its past. The courage to remember helps us not to repeat the same mistakes and to build a better future for our children” says H.H. Sri Sri Ravi Shankar, founder of the Art of Living
Comment # 12 @ Arjan
I liked your comment. Very well said.
HI ALL
EVERY ONE AGREE THAT ALL THOSE NAMES OF PERPATRATORS AND ENEMIES OF HINDHU NATION AND DEMONS OF OUR NATION SHOULD BE ONCE AND FOR ALL ERASED FROM THE HISTORY AND OUR MIND.
IT IS A NATIONAL SHAME TO NAME OUR ROADS WITH THE BARBARIC AND INHUMANE BUCHERS LIKE AURANGZEB.
TO REGAIN OUR NATIONAL PRIDE AND MAKE THE WRONG THINGS RIGHT – WE NEED TO ACT ACT ACT- NOT JUST TALK.
OK LET US START A SIGN CAMPAIGN TO REMOVE ALL THOSE NAMES FROM THE PUBLIC MEMORY.
ALSO ALL THOSE STRUCTURES STANDING TALL ( EG: KUTUB MINAR) HUMILIATING OUR CONSCIENCE EVERY DAY SHOULD BE ERASED TO GROUND, TO SOLVAGE OUR LOST PRIDE AND NATIONAL HONOUR.
LAT US START LISTING THOSE HITLIST AND START WORKING.
S
Excerpts from The uncalled for fascination with Aurangzeb by Francois Gautier (emphasis added):
Speaking about the richest Mughal emperor who also had the second-longest reign after Akbar, Dalrymple says: “By the end of it, he does becomes a monster of myths, but his final letters are full of regret and awareness about how much he destroyed of what he had inherited.â€
And he adds: “What is little spoken is that he was an extremely generous donor of various ashrams and maths. Just the sheer data that can be gathered about his donations to Hindu monasteries is extraordinary…â€
Now is that true? Aurangzeb (1658-1707) was neither the eldest, nor the favourite son of his father Shah Jahan. To ascend the throne, he killed his two brothers, dispatched his father to jail, and subsequently murdered him by sending him poisoned massage oil. He later imprisoned his son (in his will, he admonished: “Never trust your sonsâ€). He was also very cruel to the Hindus, ordering temples destroyed and making sure that the idols of Hindu gods and goddesses were buried under the steps of the mosques (like the Jama Masjid in Delhi) so that future generations of Muslims will trample upon them.
Aurangzeb built a number of mosques on destroyed temples, including Kashi Vishwanath, one of the most sacred places for Hindus. Other Hindu sacred places within his reach too suffered destruction with mosques built on them. A few examples: Krishna’s birth temple in Mathura, the rebuilt Somnath temple on the coast of Gujarat, the Vishnu temple replaced with the Alamgir mosque now overlooking Benares, and the Treta-ke-Thakur temple in Ayodhya. The number of temples destroyed by Aurangzeb is counted in four, if not five, figures. Aurangzeb did not stop at destroying temples; their users were also wiped out.
Muslims suffered as much as Hindus: 90% of today’s Indian Muslims should know that their forefathers were converted by force under Aurangzeb. Even his own brother, Dara Shukoh, was executed for taking an interest in Hindu religion.
…Yet, one has just to go through Aurangzeb’s own firmans (edicts), which are still preserved in the Bikaner archives, to know what kind of man he was.
One is also surprised that the Sikh community, particularly the Shiromani Gurdwara Parbandhak Committee, has kept quiet. Have they forgotten what Aurangzeb did to them?
Guru Tegh Bahadur was beheaded because he objected to Aurangzeb’s forced conversions. Aurangzeb, who had never forgiven the Sikhs for having supported his brother Dara, persecuted the Sikhs viciously. In response, Guru Gobind Singh transformed the Sikh community into a military community. Many perceive Guru Gobind Singh as no a warlord with no religious credentials; yet, he was a powerful military general who transformed the Sikhs into a militaristic society.
The Sikh community should debate whether they want to make Aurangzeb a hero or remain close to the Hindus? Why do not the Sikhs in Delhi lobby so that Aurangzeb Road in New Delhi is renamed after one of their gurus?
Indian Muslims too have to make a crucial choice: do they want Aurangzeb’s inheritance to prevail upon Islam in India, or will they invoke Dara Shukoh’s spirit and bring the greatness of Sufism back into India?
When we can tolerate Akbar, Tipu and scores of others, why not Aurangazeb too? It would be blasphemy to talk ill of all the slaughterers, pilferers, looters, lechers and destroyers of our culture and our roots. And this includes the Englishmen too who are first among equals. Try talking truth in public forums, public media or try to initiate a debate. you would be called an RSS man (as if RSS is a filthy, foul and treacherous organisation) and sent to an asylum. Whether you belong to that organisation, subscribe to its view points or not is a different matter altogether. May we continue to cheat ourselves and live in a false jannath, that is India.
Just stumbled on this concluding paragraph from a recent piece by Shekhar Gupta in which he takes on Krishna Menon..I wonder if he will ever say something similar about Aurangzeb..Read on:
..Postscript: Do I have a personal wish on this sad anniversary? Yes. It is to be given a sand-blaster, a spray-paint can and an hour of amnesty. All I want to do is change the name of the avenue in central New Delhi named after Krishna Menon, the man primarily responsible for not just the humiliation of 1962 but also the loss of so many lives. A political system that still names avenues after an obstinate, autocratic disaster like him (whatever his filibustering brilliance), and that too, the avenue leading to its military headquarters, needs to introspect and correct its view of history. Or somebody pick up that sand-blaster and spray paint and rename it after Major Shaitan Singh or 13 Kumaon.[source]
We have been conditioned by bad Britshers and later rulars of so called modern india to be reminded everyday that we were slaves for several centuries.
There is a design taht our children should not become patriotic with pride about thier past.
Why we are not tought in more details our positive things e.g.
Maharaja ranjit singh’s empire expanded to include kabul kandhar nepal.
Shivai gave them tough fights everywhere.
Punjab was mostly free and could never be convereted by islam and conqured by Brits except brief period. they would fear to cross north of satluj.
We need to through the tyrents into dustbin of hustory cand claim the positive things in our past to inject pride in our children.
Aurengjeb road is physically there chllenging our Gairat ( or lack of it!) What about such so called “love” for these tyrents rapists and tormnetors. Read the history books being tought in schools which are glorifying them still while forgetting details of our martyrs and patriots .
The reason is that these books have been written by selected Secular scholars of “modern” india.
Without “GAIRAT” , no wonder we are notlacking nationsit feelings and our next gerneration is being brough up as rootless and are happy belittling everything Indian.
Manjit
I think, its time to rename this road. We should be proud that we already renamed i.e. restored original name of so many cities/states like Mumbai, Chennai, Kolkata, Odisha‎, Bengaluru.
Are we all Indians scared to rename roads?
We can see myriad statues of worthless leaders in India. We have their names to roads , schools , hospitals etc. Unfortunately, All schemes of congress carry names of gandhi tailed.
Unity in diversity is one such a thing i hate most. There is no unity in India. It is only as fake as a politician’s promise.Hindus don’t like muslims and viceversa. Rich are egoistic and poor naturally egoless and inconfident. There is a sense of difference between south indians and north indians as tamilians call themselves as dravidians and maintain parochial superiority and feign linguistic superiority. We are discussing names of roads and corruption in politics, But i see moral corruption in every human being that was the fallout of having no faith in indian culture. Now , most govt officials are corrupted , politicans corrupted. Most aspirants after govt jobs are entertaining the idea of corruption from the very beginning of preperation to exams.Is it possible to redeem this society with out religious revolution. I strongely feel this moral corruption has cursed our nation due to lose of faith. With no faith, there is no courage and with no courage , there is no morality. I guess religious revolution is almost impossible in a fake secular country like India and hence no hope for India. I call india’s secularism as fake just becoz it exist only in law books. ppl don’t love each other and only fools like our leaders call it as secular as they made laws so.
Excerpts from WHY DOES WILLIAM DALRYMPLE ADORE AURANGZEB SO MUCH??? by François Gautier, November 9, 2014:
…Was the emperor such a pious man? Well, just look to what he did to his own family: Aurangzeb, who was neither the eldest, nor the favorite son of his father Shah Jahan, killed his two brothers to ascend the throne, dispatched his father to jail and subsequently murdered him by sending him poisoned massage oil. He later had his own son imprisoned (in his will, he admonished: “never trust your sonsâ€). He was also very cruel to the majority of his subjects, the Hindus, ordering all temples destroyed, such as the Kashi Vishwanath, the rebuilt Somnath temple, the Vishnu temple (replaced with the Alamgir mosque now overlooking Benares), or the Treta-ke-Thakur temple in Ayodhya. He also made sure that deities of Hindu Gods and Goddesses were buried under the steps of the mosques (like the Jama Masjid in Delhi) so that future generations of Muslims would trample upon them.
Sikhism, the youngest religion in the world, owes its initial phenomenal growth to the persecutions of one man: Aurangzeb Alamgir. The Mughal emperor not only had the Sikh Guru Tegh Bahadur beheaded, because he objected to his forced conversions, but he also viciously persecuted the followers of Guru Gobind Singh, whom he had never forgiven for having supported his brother Dara.
The sad thing is that today the Sikh world seems to be growing closer to Aurangzeb and drifting away from its Hindu brothers and sisters, forgetting that their order was originally created to defend them. Indeed, the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC), Amritsar, has not uttered a word against Dalrymple’s forthcoming book…
Finally: Delhi’s Aurangzeb Road to be renamed Abdul Kalam Road