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Jodhaa Akbar, Jihadi Akbar!
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Kalavai Venkat on 25/03/2008 07:55:00
 
The slighted Akbar declares, “Islam gives women equal rights to annul the
marriage should you thus desire Jodhaa.” Jodhaa condescendingly retorts,
“That is your religion, not mine. My Hinduism says that marriage is a sacred
bond that unites the couple for seven births.” Turn of the events brings the
couple together in love but the mullahs resent it. Akbar rebuffs the mullahs and
allows Jodhaa consecrate the deity of Sri Krishna in her quarter in the Agra
palace and also prays in the Hindu style. As the movie draws to a conclusion,
Akbar abolishes the unjust taxes levied on the Hindus and sends the divisive
mullahs on Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca as a punishment for treachery after
lecturing them that “religion is not to be used to divide people.”
If the movie portrays Hinduism and Hindus as magnanimous, it portrays Islam and
Muslims as rapine, divisive, vengeful, scheming, and inhuman. It caricatures the
Hajj, the pilgrimage Muslims consider the holiest, as a punishment for treason!
It is surprising that Hindus are the ones protesting against the movie! Of
course, the movie remains historically accurate only insofar as it portrays the
Islamic rapine and Hindu laissez faire, and weaves a web of fantasy beyond that.
The movie attempts to distinguish the Mughals from the previous Islamic invaders
as those that desired to make India their home. The message is that the Mughals
attempted to build what the earlier Muslim invaders had attempted to destroy.
Someone should tell the filmmaker that the Lodhis and the Khiljis, who had ruled
before the Mughals, too had made India their home. Did it make a difference to
their Hindu subjects? Sure, it did, in an ironic way. While the plundering
incursions of a Mahmud Ghaznavi gave Hindus a chance to rebuild their society
after the raider retreated, the settling down of the Khiljis and Mughals ensured
that Hindus lived under debilitating conditions permanently without respite.
Strangely, the moviemaker thinks that is something the subjugated Hindus would
have welcome!
There is a good reason why the Mughals made India their home instead of
retreating to Turkmenistan or Persia with the loot. They had no place to return
to. While earlier raiders like Mahmud Ghaznavi had a kingdom intact in Ghazni,
Babur, the first Mughal, lost his kingdom in Ferghana. So, he had no other
option than to build a kingdom for himself in India. Nevertheless, Babur willed
that he be buried in Kabul upon his death leaving no doubt as to where his
loyalties lay. Akbar himself imposed the learning of Persian language on Indian
schools. I guess in the moviemaker’s fantasy that makes Akbar very Indian!
According to the movie, Akbar was a magnanimous king that attempted to avoid
bloodshed. Akbar’s own letters belie this fanciful portrayal. Akbar attempted
to build an empire upon the shaky foundations that Humayun had left. He cleverly
realized that the caveat of war and destruction was more effective than actual
war. He struck matrimonial relationships with some Rajputs, exploiting the
internal rivalries among the Rajput kings, as a political mechanism to build and
consolidate an empire where the Rajputs as vassal kings brought in assured
revenue to Akbar’s coffers. Akbar also knew how untrustworthy the Turk,
Afghani, or Persian Muslim noblemen were and realized the value of
counterbalancing them in his court with the honorable, courageous, and
scrupulous Rajput noblemen. These factors prompted him to strike alliances with
the Rajputs. Yet, on those occasions when the Rajputs courageously defied
Akbar’s diktats, Akbar was cruel, vengeful, and vindictive as illustrated by
his conquest of Chitor.
Akbar besieged Chitor in March 1568. The Rajputs put up a terrific fight but
eventually lost. Akbar issued Fathnama-i-Chitor (Letter of victory from Chitor)
upon his victory. He begins his letter with a praise of Allah, and quotes the
verses of the Quran repeatedly leaving no doubt that he derived his inspiration
from the Quran and that he viewed himself as a jihadi annihilating the infidel
Rajputs. He declares that “in conformity with the happy injunction of the
Quran (27:40)” he was “busy in subjugating the localities, habitations,
forts and towns which are under the possession of the infidels…may God forsake
and annihilate all of them, and thus raising the standard of Islam everywhere
and removing the darkness of polytheism and violent sins by the use of sword. We
destroy the places of worship of idols in those places and other parts of India.
The praise be to Allah, who hath guided us to this, and we would not have found
the way had it not been that Allah had guided us.”
Akbar committed the greatest travesty upon defeating the Rajputs of Chitor. In
his own words, “In accordance with the imperative Command - And kill the
idolaters all together (Quran 9:36), those defiant ones who were still offering
resistance having formed themselves into knots of two to three hundred persons,
were put to death and their women and children taken prisoners.” According to
the various contemporary accounts of Abul Fazl, Badauni, etc, there were between
30,000 and 48,000 inhabitants inside the fort as Akbar’s victorious army
entered it. Of those, 8,000 were Rajput warriors. The rest were women, children,
and the aged. Akbar, according to his own fathnama, butchered the defenseless
women and children. These accounts also confirm that many women, attempting to
avoid rape by the Muslim marauders, committed jauhar. Akbar confirms what he did
with those women and children that did not attempt jauhar: “According to the
promise - Allah promised you many acquisitions which you will take (Quran
48:20), immense booty and spoils in cash and kind were acquired.”
Akbar never built a temple for Sri Krishna or any Hindu God or Goddess in any of
his palaces or forts nor is there any evidence that he allowed the consecration
of Hindu deities in his palaces. Jodhaa is buried with Akbar at Sikandra. Had
she been really allowed to retain her Hindu identity one would have expected her
to have been cremated and not buried according to Islamic practices. This merely
demonstrates that Jodhaa had no choice even when it came to her funerary rites.
Akbar never married any Rajput princess according to Hindu rites. Every time he
married a Rajput princess, it was a political marriage, and the princess was
first converted to Islam. Not on a single occasion was a Mughal princess from
Akbar’s household married off to a Rajput prince thereby demonstrating which
way the balance of power tilted.
Despite these facts if Akbar still looks benign it is only because his
predecessors and successors were thorough monsters that inflicted relentless
suffering upon the Hindus.
Akbar lived most of his life drawing inspiration from the Quran and plundering
the Hindus according to the Quranic injunctions. Yet, the constant company of
the noble Rajputs seems to have had some impact on him towards the end of his
life when he started to abandon Islam to propound his own religion, Din-i-Ilahi
– an act according to the Quran that makes him an apostate. Apostasy alone
does not qualify Akbar for greatness. The fact that his new religion did not
survive beyond his own death and that Islam continued to grow more oppressive
after his lifetime confirms that Akbar could not usher in any lasting systemic
change like other great Indian emperors such as Ashoka, the Guptas, the Cholas,
or Krishnadeva Raya had.
It is quite a sad irony that a filmmaker’s search for a tolerant and
compassionate Muslim king could find none better than a jihadi like Akbar who
vindictively butchered defenseless civilians and raped the captured women –
all because he wholeheartedly believed in the Quranic injunction that the
infidel woman is an object of plunder.
It is equally amusing that some Rajput organizations believe that Jodhaa was
Akbar’s daughter-in-law and hence protest the portrayal of marriage between
the two as improper. It would be improper to lust after or marry one’s
daughter-in-law in Hinduism. No such restrictions apply to Muslims. Muhammad,
whom Muslims call their Prophet, had an adopted son named Zaid. Zaid’s
beautiful wife was Zainab. Once, Muhammad accidentally saw her naked and desired
her. Zaid divorced Zainab to fulfill his father’s desire and Muhammad married
her. The Quran (33:37-38) confirms that this is an example that Muhammad set for
future Muslims to follow. So, even if Jodhaa had been Akbar’s daughter-in-law,
nothing would have prevented Akbar from marrying her so long as he remained an
ardent Muslim.
Are the Rajput organizations holding Akbar to the higher Hindu standards just
because the filmmaker created an imaginary portrait of a tolerant Akbar?
The complete text of Fathnama-i-Chitor is below for reference.
Kalavai Venkat is a Silicon Valley-based practicing, orthodox, agnostic Hindu.