Hindu caste representation in government rose during Aurangzeb Alamgir’s reign

Less than a month after Prime Minister Narendra Modi paid a glowing tribute to Sufism and its spiritual teachings embodying India’s cultural legacy, fanatical Hindu mobs have been seized with a murderous rage, targeting a grave in Khuldabad, also known as valley of saints, in the Deccan. Fanatical Hindu mobs have been seized with a murderous rage, targeting a grave in Khuldabad, also known as valley of saints, in the Deccan The grave in question belongs to Aurangzeb Alamgir, the sixth and last great Mughal emperor, and possibly the least favourite. As Meena Bhargava writes in, Understanding Mughal India: Sixteenth to Eighteenth Centuries, “the biased ideological portrayal of the emperor, regardless of historical accuracy, makes it difficult to explain the increase in the number of Rajput mansabdars in Aurangzeb’s administration as compared to Akbar’s period, and their rise from 24 per cent under Shahjahan to 33 per cent in 1689. Beyond this, historical accounts also indicate that Chhatrapati Shahu I, who was the fifth monarch of the Maratha Empire and grandson of Shivaji, who had been taken captive by Aurangzeb in 1689 and spent nearly two decades in Mughal courts, made a visit to Emperor Aurangzeb’s tomb to show his respect.