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Kashi Vishwanatha Temple |
Audrey Truschke’s Aurangzeb: The Man and the Myth stands out—though not for the reasons the author might have hoped. If there is one redeeming feature, it is its brevity; the book can be read in under five hours. But the content, rather than illuminating history, offers a tendentious narrative that substitutes ideology for rigor.
Truschke sets the tone in Chapter 1, “Introducing Aurangzeb,” by targeting her ideological adversaries: the Hindutva movement. She describes the BJP as a “Hindu nationalist party” and sharply criticizes its leaders for renaming Delhi’s Aurangzeb Road—an act she interprets as emblematic of their alleged historical revisionism. After this ritual denunciation, she declares: “We need a fresh narrative about Aurangzeb. Here I offer one such story.”
That she refers to her work as a “story” is telling. Indeed, the book is more narrative fiction than history. Truschke constructs a sanitized version of Aurangzeb—one that bears little resemblance to the figure extensively documented by historians such as Jadunath Sarkar.
Her Aurangzeb is portrayed as a pious, wise, and misunderstood ruler, far removed from the emperor who, in his ruthless quest for power, executed his brothers, imprisoned his father, and waged a series of brutal campaigns that led to the widespread destruction of temples and a sharp demographic decline in India, as noted by Sarkar.
One of the most controversial aspects of Truschke’s book is her insistence that Aurangzeb did not destroy Hindu temples en masse or commit anything resembling a genocide. She writes, “Aurangzeb did not destroy thousands of Hindu temples (a few dozen is a more likely number)... He protected the interests of the Hindu religious groups, even ordering fellow Muslims to cease harassing the Brahmins.”
These claims not only fly in the face of contemporary sources and detailed historical scholarship but also reframe a period of deep civilizational trauma as a tale of interfaith harmony. Truschke even goes so far as to blame Hindu rulers for much of the period’s violence. She casts the conflict between Shivaji and Aurangzeb as Shivaji’s fault and suggests that temples were only demolished when they were involved in rebellion.
For instance, in Chapter 6, she argues that the Vishvanatha Temple in Benares was destroyed not due to religious intolerance but because local landlords were allegedly involved in Shivaji’s escape from Agra in 1666. Likewise, she claims that the destruction of the Keshava Deva Temple in Mathura was politically motivated—its Brahmin patrons had links to Shivaji and Dara Shukoh, Aurangzeb’s rival for the Mughal throne.
This line of argument—temples as political casualties—leads her to a broader and more troubling assertion: that Brahmins were to blame. She writes that Akbar and Aurangzeb were concerned about Brahmins “misrepresenting Hindu texts” and “deceiving common Hindus.” In a bizarre passage, she even claims Akbar was more committed to preserving Sanskrit texts than the Brahmins themselves.
Such assertions border on racial essentialism. By depicting Brahmins as corrupt and manipulative, and Hindus as complicit in their own victimhood, Truschke inverts the moral order of Mughal-era history. She seems to argue that had Hindus submitted to Aurangzeb’s rule, much suffering could have been avoided.
In Chapter 4, “Administrator of Hindustan,” Truschke praises Aurangzeb’s piety and sophistication while deriding Shivaji as an “uncouth upstart” unfamiliar with Persianate court culture. This perspective overlooks the fact that Shivaji was not a Mughal courtier but an independent Maratha ruler, deeply rooted in Indian traditions and values. That he did not conform to Persian norms is not a shortcoming—it is a declaration of sovereignty.
Truschke’s framing culminates in the final chapter, “Aurangzeb’s Legacy,” where she presents him as a proto-secular figure, stating: “He was not interested in fomenting Hindu-Muslim conflict—a modern obsession with modern stakes—but he was fixated on dispensing his brand of justice, upholding Mughal traditions, and expanding his grip across the subcontinent.”
Yet this very expansionist zeal led to prolonged warfare, temple desecrations, and suppression of non-Islamic cultures—facts Truschke consistently downplays or reinterprets through a political lens.
In her efforts to rehabilitate Aurangzeb, Truschke frequently attacks the legacy of Jadunath Sarkar, whose scholarship remains the most detailed and authoritative on the subject. However, where Sarkar provides painstakingly documented analysis, Truschke offers ideological projection dressed up as academic novelty.
Her book ultimately reads less like history and more like an attempt to whitewash one of the most divisive rulers in Indian history. It romanticizes Aurangzeb, vilifies his adversaries, and patronizes the victims of his campaigns. The work lacks depth, seriousness, and objectivity, and it does a disservice to historical inquiry.
P.S. The image accompanying this article is a 1915 photograph of the Kashi Vishwanath Temple, destroyed on Aurangzeb’s orders in 1669. The temple was rebuilt in 1780 by Queen Ahilyabai Holkar of Indore, and has recently undergone a major renovation.
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