RELIGIOSITY IS THE DEATH OF RELIGION

 

If lakhs of Naxalites were to block all the roads between Hardwar, Delhi and surrounding areas for nearly a month, virtually shut down Meerut and other nearby towns, torch a few dozen trucks, buses, tractors and petrol pumps and block the bridges in retaliation for the deaths of a few of their colleagues in road accidents, the Government would have responded with alacrity and the army would have acted with an iron hand. But if these vandals were on a mission of religious piety no political party would dare to interfere.

The season of the `Kanwarias’ is upon us again. An estimated 7 Lakh devotees will block most of the roads from Hardwar to their home towns and villages in a 300 KM radius during the lunar month of Shravan. They are called Kanwarias because these saffron clad devotees carry small pots of holy Ganga water on their shoulders on a bamboo pole called a Kanwar. For the most part the short pilgrimages are pious and peaceful but for the advent of a new custom of `Dak Kanwars’ with groups of running Kanwarias who run in relays to quickly get to their destinations. While one devotee runs with the pots on his shoulder, the rest of his team follows on motorcycles, buses, cars or other vehicles and are violently angry if their passage is delayed or stopped. 

So for four weeks from late July, it will be nearly impossible for children to get to school in this area or for mourners to take the ashes of their departed for immersion to Rishikesh or Hardwar. Ambulances will become virtually immobile, fire brigades, police and other emergency vehicles will find it difficult to operate.        

This custom was almost unknown a decade ago and was transplanted here during the period of BJP rule from a similar custom that began many years earlier in Sultanganj near Bhagalpur in Bihar. This annual migration with its raucous religiosity is a very far cry from quiet spirituality of true religion. The custom has no place in any of the Hindu scriptures but has become a popular act of piety in which both the devotees as well as the numerous supporters providing them with food, refreshments and shelter believe that they will gain `punya’ or good Karma for a better next life. Professional priests also encourage many sit-at-home donors to hire Kanwarias to earn punya by proxy for them.

Priests of all religions have for many centuries exploited gullible devotees by persuading them that they would earn many otherworldly rewards in exchange for donations, pilgrimages, fasts, sacrifices or austerities. With surprising speed new religious customs explode. Soon even the less credulous succumb to the comfort of going with the flow rather than face the possible wrath of the heavens, the anger of priests or the public by challenging the authenticity of such customs or by defying the demands of devotees.

Paradoxically such customs were not the command of the sages, prophets or founders of any religion. None of them had asked for temples, mosques or churches let alone the colourful trappings or demonstrations of religion with sacred robes, triumphant flags, loud religious music or colourful processions. But power corrupts and the priests of all faiths are intoxicated by the power that religiosity gives them. Politicians happily support religiosity that can serve their political agendas. With amazing speed, the social and moral ideas of the founders become lost in an ocean of meaningless rituals and superstitions. Outward form becomes more important then inner substance and religiosity masquerades as religion.

But curiously, it is at this stage of the most feverish religiosity that religions have collapsed. History shows that new reformers disgusted with empty rituals, superstitions and the arrogance of the priests have always appeared to break away to become the founders of new faiths. Zoroaster and Buddha, disgusted with the sacrifices of the old Avestan and Vedic priests, founded simple new faiths. Jesus, horrified by the excesses of Jewish priests who had made their house of prayer into a `den of thieves’ founded Christianity. Muhammad, appalled by the sacrifices to 365 idols at Mecca founded Islam. Martin Luther appalled by the ridiculous `indulgences’ of Catholic priests, who offered places in heaven in exchange for donations founded Protestantism. Guru Nanak contemptuous of the empty rituals of Brahmanism founded Sikhism. Dayanand Saraswati disturbed by more recent Brahmin excesses, founded the Arya Samaj to try to bring Hinduism back to the purity of simple Vedic concepts.

But the insidious influence of ritual and superstition is difficult to eradicate. Many millions of insecure or gullible people are easy prey. Rituals, penances, processions and offerings packaged as joyous distractions cost much less than the effort of understanding and practicing the deeper moral, social and philosophical tenets of religion. So populist priests and charlatans thrive and ritual and superstition have crept into all the practiced forms of Buddhism, Christianity, Islam, Hinduism and other faiths.

HAND OF RELIGION

THE GREAT HAND OF RELIGION

Murad Ali Baig

The soothing hand of religion can calm the worst fears of many anxious millions just as the flaming passions of religion can so easily destroy millions of innocent lives. Human beings may have been a creation of God but religions were all the creation of countless human prophets, sages and philosophers. We need to however understand that like the hand of mortal men the great hand of religion has five different fingers.

The smallest finger is the spiritual core of every faith. Human beings in every culture had wanted to know where they had come from and where they were destined to go to after their deaths. This quest to seek the tenuous links between their fragile lives and their conceptions of some greater cosmic source of all energy had been at the core of all faiths. This spiritual quest included concepts like salvation, karma, sin, ethical behavior and the power of love that many believed could lift their spirits or souls to a better world both in this life and after death. These are quite similar in all religions.

The second finger of religion is the finger of customs and traditions. Every religion carries a huge baggage of the customs that are part of constantly evolving societies. These were shaped by the geographic, climatic and economic conditions that were very varied in different cultures. Every society had festivals rejoicing the advent of spring and autumn that later became part of their religious mythology. Winter fests common to cold countries were elevated into the festivals of Lori, in north India or Christmas in Europe. The fasting during Ramzan had been an Arab custom necessary to survive the acute thirst and hunger of the hottest weeks of summer long before it became an Islamic tradition. Human concerns about health or killing may have influenced the habits of food and drink but there was nothing spiritual about these. Pork, beef or alcohol may be abhorrent to many people but they do no injury to the human soul. There was similarly nothing spiritual about a veil, turban or the clothes people wear. They were all social customs that priests later made into religious requirements or acts of piety.

The biggest finger of the hand of religion was political. Every religion evolved out of scattered beliefs and faiths when a ruler promoted it and patronized legions of priests to propagate their faiths. As it was much easier for a ruler to get people to die in the name of God than for a mortal man the priests made people believe that their kings were god’s delegates on earth and it was god’s work to follow his commands. Religious faith kept the masses hardworking, obedient and disciplined so kings rewarded their priests with magnificent places of worship to awe them and many other earthly rewards. People were persuaded to believe that rulers had a divine right to kill or persecute people belonging to other kingdoms or faiths. Priests disciplined the masses mainly through the instrument of fear. They were obsessed about control and their carefully crafted visions of hell’s fire or terrifying incarnations kept worshippers in line. They also understood that hatred of perceived enemies was a powerful cement to unite their followers so they fanned the flames of hate against rival people or beliefs. They also promised miraculous boons as also the power to miraculously curse or defeat their enemies.

The forth vertical of every religion were the chains by which priests bound people to their religion. These are a heady mix of prayers, penances, pilgrimages, fasts, meditation, chanting, songs and sacrifices. These were elevated through religious art and magnificent places of worship that uplifted the minds of believers and made them feel that they were closer to god and could forget their sorrows and be filled with joy. Some ecstatic experiences even stimulated human bodies to heal their own ailments in almost miraculous ways.

The last finger concerned superstition. People believed their priests because they sincerely believed that certain words or actions would result in good or bad fortune for themselves and their communities. Christians touch wood visualizing that it is a part of the sacred wooden cross of Jesus. Many Hindus begin every endeavor or prayer with a entreaty to the elephant god Ganesh begging him to make their ventures or desires successful. Muslims take the name of Allah after every pronouncement about expected events. Jews, Muslims, Sikhs and others cover their heads before going into a place of worship following the old Zoroastrian custom of wearing a skull cap to stop polluting human hair from falling into the sacred fire. Many people believe that feeding the poor will earn eternal merit for the giver even if the practice can reduce healthy people into groveling beggars. Examples from the lives of prophets and sages become acts of piety. Many Muslims enter a room with the right foot first because they believe that the supposed example of Muhammad is an act of piety. People believe superstitions because they believe that they can miraculously change things for better or worse.

All the fingers of this great hand of religion are covered by a dazzling glove of mythology. The ideas of all the old prophets, sages and philosophers were spread by story tellers because written texts were too few and too difficult to make until  Gutenberg’s printing press in 1439 AD. Till then books were too rare and expensive. The art of all storytellers was to exaggerate so that the princesses became more beautiful, the kings more magnificent and beliefs more miraculous with each retelling. Space and time became playthings of bards and raconteurs so the characters of religious personages were constantly embroidered. All the early places of learning were seminaries of religion so a thick cloak of mythology hid the ugly or inconvenient while glorifying all that they wanted to show as beautiful.

The spiritual core is the element that most religions are proudest of and these are quite similar in all faiths. The other elements are essentially material issues that differ widely from religion to religion. The thick encrustations of mythology that surrounds religions makes it difficult for people to see the spiritual core. Instead of marveling at the multifaceted miracle of life itself from the smallest organism to the tallest tree, religions make people quarrel endlessly about the material details of their faiths with the result that the gentle hand of spirituality is quickly covered by a hate filled glove of religion that has caused more death and destruction than any other human endeavor.  

If Islam was the religion of Muhammad how was it hijacked by revisionists?

As in all religions the traditions of Islam were changed frequently over the centuries by a number of passionate clerics who moved the Islamic Sharia from the mostly peaceable words of Muhammad to the angry rhetoric of the Taliban and IS. This continuous shift is clear from main milestones of the religion:

570 AD. Birth of the prophet Muhammad.

610. Muhammad receives the divine revelation from the angel Gabriel.

622. The Hijra. Muhammad migrates from Mecca to Medina to mark the beginning of the Muslim calendar.

632. Death of Muhammad.

661. Assassination of Ali that marks the beginning of Shia faction.

665. The third Khalif Uthman announces the definitive version of the Quran probably written by Zaid Ibn Thabit 33 years after Muhammad’s death.

704. Birth of Ibn Ishaq the first biographer about the life of Muhammad. There is no record of the prophet’s life till 82 years after the hijra. 142 years later Al Tabari elaborated on it.

Two hundred years after the death of Muhammad the second most sacred Islamic book, the Hadis (or Hadith) was compiled by a few pious scholars to guide Muslims to not only follow the words of the Prophet in the Quran but also examples from his life. Scholars like Al Bukhari tried to trace the descendents of the prophet’s family and reconstruct the stories of his life. Bukhari however rejected 99% of the stories that were offered to him. Restrictions on women like the veil only now become a requirement. The Prophet’s smallest actions become acts of piety for many Muslims. 

750 – 1258. Abbasid Caliphate. The Islamic empire containing many diverse races became a complex imperial society that needed new legal authorities like the Qazi (magistrate) concerned with legal matters, functions of the police, taxes and the status of non-Muslim subjects. Islamic law now split into six schools.

In the tenth century the Jewish Torah (Tawraat) was adopted and the Jewish sins of blasphemy, heresy, witchcraft, etc., became Islamic sins. Muslim clerics only now began prescribing the Jewish death sentences by burning, stoning, beheading and strangulation even though the Quran had never prescribed such punishments.

Four categories of punishment in Islamic law were devised much after the Quran. These were Qisas - (retaliation as `an eye for an eye or a tooth for a tooth’ following the Jewish Torah); Diyya -compensation paid to the heirs of a victim in blood money or ransom; Hadud – harsh punishments for severe crimes like murder, adultery, blasphemy, intoxication, idolatry or apostasy and Tazir – punishments given at the discretion of a Qazi.

1256. After the bloody sacking of Baghdad by the Mongols, Ahmad ibn Tamiyya, a Muslim scholar, was driven out of Iraq and declared a new policy to divide the Islamic world. `Dar ul Islam’ (abode of Islam) and `Dar ul Harb’ (abode of disbelievers). He also redefined the word Jihad to mean a Holy War.

1683. The defeat of the Turkish armies outside Vienna marked the end of Islamic expansion and the beginning of European power that was to soon dominate the world and push Muslim countries into increasingly narrow minded orthodoxy.

In the nineteenth century Islam was hijacked by Mohammad Abd Al Wahhab who started the Sunni Wahhabiya movement. It accepted the Quran and Hadis but opposed all innovations, superstitions and deviances with a very narrow interpretation in a puritanical and legalistic form. They considered the veneration of pirs, the intercession of Imams, religious holidays, and other devotional acts as heresies and even desecrated the tomb of Muhammad. With the support of the ibn Saud family they promoted an extreme form of Islam that led to the Taliban, Al Qaida and IS.

1922. The Balfour declaration at the end of the First World War Britain callously divided the former Turkish territories. Israel became an independent country in 1948 and began a series of bitter wars with Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria leading to an unending cycle of conflict ever since.

1991 and 2003. The American `War on Terror’ against Iraq and Afghanistan (2001) outraged many Muslims who considered them morally unjustified. The American CIA support for Saudi Arabia made them virtual allies in the creation of the radical Taliban. Later the Sunni ISIS attacked the Shia majorities in Syria and Iraq who were supported by a Shia Iran backed by Russia.

Like all religions Islam changed frequently over time. As many of the frequently irrational or violent laws of Judaism became sanctified in Islam Muslim clerics found them convenient to regiment their followers with increasingly onerous regulations enforced by draconian punishments.

People forget that the Quran explicitly says that killing in the name of Islam is the opposite of Jihad and had expressly forbidden an attack on anyone who had offered no offence and that it is forbidden to harm or to kill women and children. Many do not know that it is also forbidden to take hostages or to torture or kill prisoners. Even suicide is forbidden. The Prophet had said that anyone who sets another on fire, even an ant, commits the greatest sin and is destined to the fires of hell.

REVIEW IN KASHMIR MONITOR

Of faith and fratricide

SUNDAY, 22 MAY 2016

KASHMIR MONITOR

MUNEEZA SHAMSIE

140 VIEWS

1

OF FAITH AND FRATRICIDE

In recent years, the rise of religious extremism and related violence has led to an increasing literary interest in the historical rivalry between Dara Shikoh the Mughal heir and his younger brother, Aurangzeb. In these writings, the former represents an intolerant religious extremism and the latter a more inclusive, tolerant and multicultural aspect of faith. Now the Indian writer and historian Murad Ali Baig has added to this body of work with his debut novel Ocean Of Cobras which encompasses the sibling rivalry between Shah Jahan’s four sons, but focuses in particular on Dara Shikoh and Aurangzeb and the respective partisanship of their sisters Jahanara and Roshanara.

Baig constructs his plot in the form of a lost manuscript, discovered after 1857, by British officers in the Red Fort, Delhi and translated by British scholars from the original Persian into English: the document proves to be written by the fictitious Mubarak Ali, a eunuch at Shah Jahan’s court. The great strength of his narrative lies in the descriptions of different aspects of 17th century India including the precariousness of court life while serving a fratricidal/patricidal dynasty.

Mubarak Ali, the son of a Persian nobleman and an aristocratic French lady, becomes the victim of family misfortune following his father’s support for Khusrau’s unsuccessful rebellion against Jahangir, his father. Mubarak Ali is subsequently imprisoned and castrated by a vicious enemy. He is then bought in the slave market, to serve in the imperial harem. There his background, breeding and personal courage stand him in good stead. He is not only befriended by Shah Jahan’s eldest, the beautiful Princess Jahanara, but is later placed in charge of young Prince Murad and is educated alongside.

The book uses Mubarak Ali’s role as eunuch to great advantage to portray life among both the men and women at the Mughal court. He rides and hunts with Shah Jahan’s sons. He conjures up a vivid description of the royal shikar and of life in the Mughal camp, “a huge tented city”. As Shah Jahan travels to different districts to receive due tribute from their vassals or intimate rebels, the novel also captures the panoply of power which accompanies the imperial caravan — elephants, camels, cavalry and artillery, women (including the pregnant Mumtaz Mahal) carried in palanquins or riding veiled, on horses. Mubarak Ali goes on describes the death of Mumtaz Mahal in childbirth, Shah Jahan’s grief and the monument — the Taj Mahal — that he builds for her. Mubarak Ali’s sojourn with his shikari friend, deep in the forests among the Bhil tribe, teaches him how live and survive in a world close to nature which stands him in good stead during the exile he shares with Dara Shikoh and his diminishing entourage.

Mubarak Ali’s eyewitness account of the sibling rivalries between Aurangzeb and Dara Shikoh begins when Mubarak Ali is nine and first joins the royal household. He observes Shah Jahan’s harsh treatment of 11-year-old Aurangzeb, while the Mughal heir Dara Shikoh enjoys the undisguised love showered on him by Shah Jahan: he can do no wrong in his father’s eyes. Mubarak Ali writes of Aurangzeb’s courage, his undoubted competence as a military commander — and his successful campaign in Orchha at 15, followed by his appointment as viceroy of the Deccan.

He reveals that the teenaged Aurangzeb was strongly influenced by a Sunni scholar in the Deccan, during his campaign there. He contrasts the puritanical and orthodox Aurangzeb with the intellectual and literary Dara Shikoh, who translated The Upanishads and the Bhagavad Gita into Persian, espoused a mystical, inclusive Islam and was strongly influenced by the Sufis and Mian Mir.

In fact, as the friction between the two brothers grows, the novel continues to describe their rivalry and their power-struggle in the somewhat simplistic terms:

Dara wanted to bring all the people into the loving bosom of a merciful and benevolent Allah but Aurangzeb believed that the Mughals had a moral right to convert all the people of Hindustan into Muslims.

The problem with such a black-and-white reading of Mughal history and indeed Baig’s repeated statement that under the Mughals, India was a Muslim country, is that Baig looks at a pre-modern society through modern concepts of nationalism and statehood. Such interpretations are doubtless common currency in India and Pakistan today, but they do ignore the fact that from the 15th to 19th centuries, the religious wars that raged in Europe (Catholic versus Protestant) defined the nations of modern Europe, whereas in pre-colonial India, although religious conflicts did exist, battles were largely fought for power or territory with Hindu and Muslim rulers, joining forces against a common foe. Aurangzeb’s military allies were frequently Rajputs. As Aurangzeb’s power grew, both Hindu and Muslim princes/warriors joined him, and betrayed his incarcerated father and his defeated brothers.

As a historical novel, Ocean of Cobras does not take advantage of fiction as a creative medium to explore the emotional complexities of Shah Jahan and his fratricidal sons, which did not simply revolve around issues of faith, and whose actions would define the fate of their dynasty — and facilitate a denouement that they could not have imagined: British hegemony. Instead, Dara’s spiritual inclinations and his quest for transcendence, which encompassed many faiths and scriptures, are reduced by the author to a self-conscious post-independence polemic on religious unity. The novel is also peppered with sweeping and sometimes, inaccurate statements on Mughal/Indian history, including a reference to Aurangzeb’s literary daughter Zebunissa, as his granddaughter. 

Nevertheless, this is a very readable book and its insights into Mughal life include particularly interesting details of military battles witnessed by Mubarak Ali. His narrative includes a detailed account of the Battle of Samugarh during which Shah Jahan’s armies led by Dara Shikoh were defeated by Aurangzeb. As a part of Dara Shikoh’s entourage, Mubarak Ali tells of their journey across the subcontinent from Agra to Lahore, where Dara Shikoh regroups his forces and travels through Multan, Thatta and Ahmedabad and encounters Aurangzeb’s armies at the Battle of Deorai. There Dara Shikoh is defeated once more. Mubarak Ali’s account leads up to the brief, shocking and tragic trial of Dara Shikoh for apostasy, instituted by Aurangzeb and his orthodox clerics, culminating in Dara Shikoh’s execution (soon followed by that of his mentor Sarmad) which is all the more chilling for its combination of fratricide, realpolitik and faith.

Ocean of Cobras: The Epic Battle for the Soul of India between Dara Shikoh and Aurangzeb

(HISTORY)

By Murad Ali Baig

Tara Press, India

ISBN 978-8183861281

344pp.

Kashmir Monitor 25/05/2016

EXCELLENT REVIEW IN TRIBUNE CHANDIGARH

Sunday November 29, 2015

Kuldip Singh Dhir

The best thing about history is that it can serve as an early warning system. History revisited in Ocean of Cobras has definitely some lessons to share, for it draws our attention to the gory details of an epic battle for secular India. It views the conflict between Dara and Aurangzeb as not one for the throne but between two ideologies. Dara’s love for all religions and secular thinking are poised against Aurangzeb’s staunch Islamic beliefs. Hindus and Muslims have lived together for centuries with little conflict, until alienated by Aurangzeb’s unyielding orthodox beliefs, resulting in widening antagonism in succeeding years. 

Muslim and Hindu fundamentalists will find Dara’s exploration of their core philosophies hard to deny. Though Aurangzeb managed to eliminate all his rivals to rule the mighty Mughal Empire, yet he failed miserably in stopping its relentless slide into ruin. Although it staggered on for another 150 years, it had shattered in body and spirit by the time he died.

Aurangzeb was otherwise a remarkable ruler, intelligent planner, shrewd guide, and wasn’t attracted towards vice, luxury or sloth. A liberal secular empire assiduously built by Akbar was destroyed by his own grandson who mutilated this character with his inflexible bigotry. Murad Ali Baig has portrayed all this in an unputdownable novel. To add drama to dry historical account and transform it into fiction, the novelist has deftly used some literary devices. Mubarak Ali, a fictional eunuch in the imperial Zenana, known to all the princes and princesses, is the narrator of the story. The tools of astrological predictions, soothsayers and omens which was so common in medieval India, have been used to provide psychological justification for behavioural prejudices. Intimate description of moments of romance and desperate yearning make the reader flip pages.

Except for certain brief flashbacks, the narrative moves almost as a whole in a linear manner from 1630 AD and ends with the execution of Dara in 1659 AD. The epilogue takes it further to make the curious readers aware of the fate of all main historical characters in next 50 years, which reads more like history than a novel. The storyline starts with young prince Aurangzeb slipping a small frog down the back of his sister Roshanara’s dress, earning his father’s wrath. Juxtaposed with it is Dara’s similar prank of smearing honey inside Aurangzeb’s cap, which attracts an army of tiny ants making him leap about in frenzy. Unlike Aurangzeb, Dara is not reprimanded. Ordinary events like these have been presented that sow the seeds of distrust, bitterness, prejudice in the psyche of various members of the royal family. 

Kind and merciful Dara’s lofty ideas about unity of all religions and sly and ambitious Aurangzeb’s inflexible orthodoxy are pitted against each other. These leitmotifs take us deeper and deeper into the mysterious ocean of cobras, which is a metaphor for Aurangzeb and his accomplices. Incidentally, the metaphor and the amazing event related to it have been recorded in Storia do Mogor written by Victorian gunner Nicclao Manucci, who served with Dara and the imperial forces in 17th century.

Training and growth of princes, their military expeditions, Deccan diversion, death of Mumtaz, illness of Shah Jahan and the battles for the throne are the foci around which the narrative revolves. This bloody struggle for empire cost more than two lakh deaths in battles at Dharmat, Bahadurpur, Samugarh, Khajua and Deorai. Young men of an entire generation perished in these futile battles. The ruthless killing of Dara is heart wrenching. The novel takes the reader through royal palace into the harem, to royal hunts and to the kingdoms of rivals and rulers. 

Mubarak Ali, the narrator, fights in the armies of rival princes and describes the bloody battles. His adventures take the reader from the limpid lakes of Kashmir to the deserts of Sindh and the lush forests of Central India. 

This is a highly readable and informative tale of adventures, reckless courage, cunning and tender romance, and heart wrenching tragedy, in which fundamentalism vanquished the secular voice. The victory, however, ultimately spelt ruin not only for the victorious ruler, also for his co-religionists and there lies a lesson for us all.

Betrayal of Mughal Prince turned the history of India:

THE ECONOMIC TIMES       Aug 16 2015

 Murad Ali  Baig

NEW DELHI:  In 1658 the Mughal  Empire  was  at the peak of its opulence,  but the escalating rivalry  between  Emperor  Shah Jahan's  sons  Dara Shikoh  and Aurangzeb   over the past two decades  had split not only the royal family  but also changed  the history  of the nation  says Author  Murad  Ali Baig.

"The book is about  a gap in Indian  history.  A lot has been written  about the great  emperors Akbar,  Jahangir,  Shah Jahan, Aurangzeb   but the battle  of succession   between  the sons of Shah Jahan  was actually  one of the turning  points  in Indian  history."  says  Baig.

Titled "Ocean  of Cobras"  the book is a historical  fiction  and is a recount  by a eunuch Mubarak  Ali. who is intimate  with  all the princes,  princesses  and  personages  of the Mughal court.  He takes  the reader from the magnificent   royal palace  into the harem.  to royal hunts and to the kjngdoms  of rival and vassal  rulers.

"Roughly  25 per cent of the book is work  of fiction  essentially  to fill in the gaps  and the rest is  based on pure historical  facts with  proper  foot notes.  The book is packed  with so much information  of five battles,  evolution  of the religion  history  of the period  and so on," Baig told

PTJ.

Dara, the pampered  prince  was  a poet and philosopher  who  had to turn a soldier  to combat  his bitter  but battle  hardened  brother.  The conflict  between  Dara's  love of all religions  and Aurangzeb's   narrow  Islamic  beliefs  was to make the battle much  more  than simply  one for the throne.  It became  a series  of battles  for the very soul of India.

"How were we to know that this battle for succession  would  also be a battle for the very soul of India; that this would  be a battle  between Dara's  belief in the essential  unity of all religions  and Aurangzeb's   conviction  that the straight  path  of Islam was the only way to human salvation?"  says the author.

Mubarak  Ali, the narrator.  fights  in the armies  of the rival princes  and describes  six exciting  battles.  His adventures  take the reader  from

the limpid  lakes  of Kashmir  to the deserts  of Sind and the lush forests  of every  part of India.  He tells the story  of the forgotten  Prince  of the

Mughal  Empire.

"Dara was  rather condemned   by the court  historians  as soon as he lost the battle of Samugarh  because  of the betrayal  by his own commander.   Because  of that  betrayal  the whole  history  of India turned.  Dara then vanished  from history.  Dara was probably  the most interesting  of all the Mughal  Princes  and therefore  his story  is the story that needed  to be told." says Baig.

SAMUGARH – TURNING POINT OF FUNDAMENTALISM

It was on an exceptionally hot day on May 29 1658 that India’s history changed forever. Two great Mughal armies led by Shah Jahan’s eldest son Dara Shikoh and his third son Aurangzeb clashed on a dusty plain about twenty kilometers south east of Agra. It was not only a battle for the Mughal throne but a battle for the very soul of India pitting Dara an eclectic scholar who respected all religions against Aurangzeb who was an orthodox Sunni Muslim. Dara had first translated of the Bhagavat Gita and the Upanishads from Sanskrit into Persian to make them known to the public for the first time. But he had been a pampered prince facing a smaller battle hardened army that Aurangzeb had marched up from the Deccan.

My forthcoming novel `Ocean of Cobras’ graphically describes the epic battle through the words of a narrator who writes… Aurangzeb moved as fast as his army could to quietly slip behind Dara’s lines before they were aware of his movements. They reached a secret ford across the Chambal at Ater by nonstop double marches over two days. Then there was consternation when Dara realized that Aurangzeb’s armies had come very close to Agra so he was forced to abandon much of his heavy canon and rush eastwards to intercept them.

The two armies met on a flat dusty plain east of a village called Samugarh on an unbelievably hot day at the end of May and the sun was like a furnace in the cloudless sky. There was not enough water to drink so many soldiers and horses simply collapsed with heat and sun stroke. The crash of the opposing mass of horse and men with the thunder guns and the screams of the wounded soldiers and the whinnying of the terrified horses would haunt the sleep of the survivors for the rest of their lives. I began to see that the battle was no longer just a contest between Dara and his rebel brothers but was beginning to be a religious war with the Hindus valiantly supporting Dara and many Muslim mansabdars supporting Aurangzeb.

It was with great difficulty that I was able to reach the side of Dara’s magnificent elephant but was unable to get his attention as my voice was drowned by the deafening sounds of gunfire, clashing swords and the screams of the wounded.  Dara was oblivious to all except the prospect of his immanent victory. His elephant was to soon become a signal of his doom. One of the enemy rockets exploded near it and our commander Khalilullah Khan rushed up and insisted that he must dismount and finish the battle on a horse. I heard him urgently shout… ”Praise be to Allah this victory is your own! But my God! Why you are still mounted on a lofty elephant? Have you not been sufficiently exposed to danger? If one of the numberless musket balls or arrows touch your royal person who can imagine the dreadful situation to which we will all be reduced? In God’s name descend quickly, mount this horse and pursue the miserable fugitives with all vigour.” As Dara descended, a huge shout was sent up by Khalilullah Khan’s squadron that Dara Shikoh had been killed. When the bewildered soldiers saw through the thick swirling clouds of dust and smoke that the howdah of Dara’s elephant was empty they feared the worst and quickly fled towards Agra.

The noise of battle quite quickly subsided and the dust and smoke began to slowly clear to reveal some fifteen thousand corpses lying on the dusty battlefield in hundreds of piles coated in vivid crimson blood. The Rajput corpses in their yellow jamas looked like untidy fields of saffron. For every dead body there were another three who had been wounded and were lying on the ground crying out piteously. But the intense heat quickly parched their throats so the devastating silence that followed the thunder of battle was almost uncanny. A sharp summer wind suddenly blew from the south and all the fallen bodies were quickly shrouded by a huge cloak of choking yellow dust. A few swirls of spiraling dust curling above the scene looked like ghosts rising up from the devastated plain until they too subsided and absolute silence pervaded the scene.

Dara rode in silence to his mansion from where he collected his family and valuables and left for Dilli shortly before dawn. Dara retreated to Lahore and then down the Indus and a year later was able to muster a big army to fight a fierce three day battle against Aurangzeb at Deorai near Ajmer. He then fled towards Kandahar to be betrayed once again and brought to Delhi where the imperial Qazis sentenced him to death for the crime of heresy. He had written a book called the `Mingling of the Oceans’ showing the many similarities between the Quran and the Brahma Shastras of the Hindus. 

Aurangzeb’s greatest weakness was his inflexible religious bigotry that made him lose the support his Shia subjects as well as his many Hindu and Rajputs followers. His intolerance became more acute after twenty years of rule as he became frustrated by endless rebellions. Though he did no more than Jehangir or Shah Jahan by permitting Hindu worship at old temples and forbidding the construction of new ones his reputation as a destroyer of temples became widespread. He was very unforgiving and by persecuting his Rajput followers cut off his own arms and weakened his military power. The Maratha leader Shivaji initially had no anti Muslim sentiment and had been quite willing to become a Mughal Amir. Aurangzeb’s obstinate pride however alienated him and gave him a new weapon to turn a purely political war against the Mughals into a religious war. The rebellion of the Marathas not only encouraged the Sikhs to revolt but spawned many other Hindu rebels. Aurangzeb died a feeble, broken and a deeply disappointed old man and is buried in a plain grave near Aurangabad. His bigotry was to make the Indian sub-continent the hotbed of Islamic extremism for the next four centuries. If Dara had won at Samugarh it is possible that his rule might have promoted harmony between India’s turbulent peoples and a united Mughal empire might have prevented India becoming so easily colonized by European powers. Samugarh was the turning point.