Audrey Truschke has strong academic credentials. She earned a PhD in the Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies at Columbia University. She is currently Assistant Professor of South Asian History at Rutgers University-Newark. According to her official resume, she has “reading fluency” in Persian and Sanskrit and “reading competency” in Hindi, Urdu and Braj Bhasha.
In her book book Aurangzeb: The Man and the Myth, she warned against: “Many who condemn Aurangzeb have no training in the discipline of history and lack even the basic skills in reading pre-modern Persian”. So, there you are, voilà !
Truschke argues in the book that historians like Sarkar, who wrote about Aurangzeb, not only lacked the knowledge of pre-modern Persian but also had a communal agenda. She tries to debunk his credibility sans which, of course, it is difficult to do a plastic surgery of the great Emperor.
Here are some gems: “Sarkar’s rendering is incomplete and contain errors.” In her book, she does not enumerate or specify these alleged errors but reminds us that Sarkar is not reliable. She also says “I draw on Sarkar’s anecdotes with caution and disregard entirely some of the more likely (emphasis added) fabrications therein, such as Aurangzeb’s second will.”
Truschke in her book argues that Aurangzeb could not have been anti-Hindu because during his time, the term “Hindu” was not in vogue. She conjectures that Aurangzeb introduced the jizya tax not to oppress the non-believers but to create employment and income for Muslim religious clerics.
Truschke herself admits “Dara Shukoh was beheaded on Aurangzeb’s direct orders.” She also writes “the bodies of Sambaji (Shivaji’s son) and Kavi Kalash were thrown to the dogs while their heads were stuffed with straw and displayed before being hung on one of Delhi’s gates.”
#Aurangzeb #Historian #AudreyTruschke
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