A few months ago, I came across an article on Dara Shikoh arguing that things might have turned out differently for India if he, not Aurangzeb, had become Mughal Emperor. I don’t think so. No Indian ruler, Dara or anyone else, could have thwarted European domination. Even the Ottoman Empire fell. Mughal India’s reluctance, along with the rest of Asia, to invest in science, technology, and scientific education during the 17th and 18th centuries would have held it back regardless. While Indians were building the Taj Mahal, American colonists were founding Harvard. National priorities, especially investment in education, shape what a nation becomes. The Mughals didn’t prioritize a strong navy, and Dara’s ascension wouldn’t have changed that. The Marathas tried, but their defeat in the third battle of Panipat ended those aspirations. And the religious discord would have continued.
Instead of Dara, I find Aurangzeb the tragic figure in Indian history. I take my view from Sir Jadunath Sarkar’s research on Aurangzeb’s life and rule. Towards the end of his reign, Aurangzeb expressed despair with the phrase “Az ma ast, fasaad baqi” (after me, chaos), echoing Louis XV’s “après moi le déluge.” As a leader, Aurangzeb had qualities one would hope to see in modern politicians. He lived simply, refused any salary from the treasury, and earned his income through calligraphy and cap-making. He was devoutly religious and avoided the indulgences his father and grandfather were known for. He valued merit over religion or family when making appointments, and had Hindus serving in his military and administration. He even prohibited Sati, the Hindu practice of burning widows on their husbands’ funeral pyres, something not even Akbar had addressed. The British eventually banned it permanently. Aurangzeb also had a vision of expanding the Mughal Empire deeper into southern India. But his successors couldn’t hold the line, and the empire began to unravel by the end of his reign. That, to me, is the tragedy.
Dara, by contrast, spent his time with mystics. He got the Upanishads translated from Sanskrit to Persian. But unlike his three younger brothers, he had never led armies into battle or governed a province. For a medieval prince, that was a fatal gap. And it cost him in the war of succession. Dara had a vision for a syncretic Indian culture, but not for the political structure that would sustain it.
Looking at the long arc of Indian history, two things keep shifting. First: the body politic itself. Sometimes unified under a strong central authority, more often fragmented. The unifying periods over the past 2,500 years add up to less than 500 years in total: roughly 100 years under the Mauryas, 100 under the Guptas, 100 under the Mughals, 100 under British rule, and 75 under the modern Indian republic. The remaining 80% of those 2,500 years has been fragmented kingdoms and smaller empires. During the time when Ghaznavi was plundering temples in Gujarat, Rajendra Chola was raiding temples in Bengal. I’m not weighing in on whether an imperial India or a state of warring factions is preferable. I’m just noting the pattern.
Second: the dominant culture. Is it rigid or flexible? Imposed top-down or grown bottom-up? You’d think a top-down, rigid mono-culture, the kind Han rule imposed on China millennia ago, could unify India too. Aurangzeb held a rigid cultural vision, believing (understandably) that such rigidity was necessary to hold and expand the empire. His vision of India did not accommodate a Shia-ruled Golconda. Dara’s vision was flexible and inclusive, but his methods wouldn’t have built a stronger state. Even Ashoka had to impose Buddhism as a state religion. Sufism and Bhakti, by contrast, are organic, grassroots movements. But neither has been shown to politically unify hundreds of millions of people.
In the long arc of history, the Dara-vs-Aurangzeb debate matters less than the trajectory of India itself: unity or fragmentation. And if unity, on what basis? Flexibility and tolerance, or mono-culture? Aurangzeb’s tragedy is the lesson: a state has to balance unity with tolerance, rigidity with flexibility, and never neglect investment in military strength and education.