Much of the population of Indian subcontinent, i.e. present day Pakistan, India and Bangladesh, has generalized views about the things which they have been taught in books and told by elders. Few take the pain of analyzing the facts rationally and even fewer dare to shed the false concepts of history inculcated in their minds. "Mughals Era" as we perceive generally was the golden period of the history of the sub-continent. The facts are however contrary, in my opinion, if we look in to it objectively. What was the major achievement that they accomplished in the region apart from just reigning innocent people? Apart from building monuments, they did nothing withstanding. There are a few major points which ought to be discussed.
Mughal empires were not strong internally. This applies on almost every Mughal Emperor from Babur to Aurangzeb. Babur died just after four years of his succession to Indian throne and his son Humayun took charge of the empire but had to face opposition from his own brother Kamran. Ultimately, Humayun had to flee from his own empire and fifteen years later resurged and took to the throne once again. Unfortunately, he died after only six months leaving the yet not re-established empire in the hands of his young son Akbar. Although Akbar was a better administrator and a better human being as compared to the rest of the Mughals but he too had to face his son Jahangir's defiance. Jahangir in turn was challenged by Khusrau, his eldest son. The next successor saw the most impertinent of the treatment by his son. Shah Jahan fell ill in his later years of life. His four sons namely Aurangzeb, Dara Shikoh, Shah Shuja, and Murad Baksh saw the succession of the throne nowhere after their father's death. Hence, the time saw the brothers at war with each other. The successor was Aurangzeb and so he had to take revenge. He ordered to kill his two brothers and a nephew. To add to the brutality and infidelity he captured his own father Shah Jahan to imprison him until his death. The list went on. After the death of Aurangzeb, his son Moazzam Shah exterminated his two brothers and assumed the title of Bahadur Shah. His successor Jahandar Shah snuffed out all the princes of the time. His nephew, Farrukh Siyyar, in turn had slain him the following year. Siyyar was also killed later on. It continued even till the last dummy emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar. So to speak, their internal integrity was too weak and continued through the centuries. How could they focus on welfare of their people when they were constantly threatened by insurgencies in their empires? They did not do anything to exterminate the reasons behind it.
The major profession in the sub-continent since thousands of years was cultivation and agriculture. But it remained; perhaps, the most misgoverned and uninfluenced area of concern. Almost fifty percent of the produce had to be snatched away from the cultivator. The one who collected tax was never an employee of the emperor but he was authorized to do so, provided he continuously added to the emperor's treasury. This left the petty farmer, forming the majority of the population, living hand to mouth, whereas the Mughal families and the flanking one's enjoyed every luxury available at that time.
Another serious issue which was overlooked was development in science and technology. When intellect of west was brimming with the innumerable discoveries and inventions, east was busy in settling old and creating new disputes and rivalries among themselves. The populace even at that crucial time had great potential in them. We saw the emergence of some great poets, writers and philosophers of that time. But they too were all there to entertain the great emperor of the time usually. It was not needed at that time. British over threw the last Mughal throne because they were far ahead in these fields of life.
Then talk about the emperor's courts. The emperor had immense powers of deciding cases regarding mere thefts to such serious ones as relating to people's lives. The presence in the court where the decisions were made was a prerogative of few. The justice was provided quickly but the intricacies of the matters were overlooked. Hence, it led justice to the extent of brutality. The appointments in the government were made by emperor himself, which of course left gaps for mistakes of appointing improper people at improper appointments.
The ostentatious behavior of Mughals was yet another cancer which had eaten up most of the wealth of the sub-continent. They used their every capacity to squeeze whatever they could from the poor masses of the region. The whole Mughal generation was obsessive of silver, gold, diamonds and other precious stones.
The famous Peacock Throne was one of such examples. Its value was more than 60 million rupees at that time. The infamous emperor Rangeela reportedly had ordered that jewels of all types to be scattered on the floor of his palace because he liked to walk over them. The treasuries used to be loaded with wealth in form of diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and many other precious stones and of jewelry and decorative art pieces made of gold and silver.
In 1739 Nadir Shah took away a wealth of 600 million worth rupees plus the Kohinoor Diamond and the Peacock Throne. The utensils used in the palace were of gold and silver too. Then they had a strong drive for constructing expensive monuments and buildings of massive structures. In Agra, the Taj Mahal was constructed by deploying more than 20,000 workmen of different expertise for about twenty two years. Their wages alone would exceed ten billion rupees if calculated on present standards. It even does not include the material used in that. Same figures stand true for Delhi Mosque and the Badshahi Mosque in Lahore. Such were the limitless merriments of our great emperors on behalf of bread and butter of ordinary people of the sub-continent.
The last but not the least is the moral values and religiosity. Almost all of them were morally corrupt themselves and far from religion, although they claim to be the greatest admirers of Islam. All of them were avid drinkers of liquor but Humayun and Jahangir drank so excessively that it cost them their lives. Their keeping of harems of so many women needs no elaborations. If they claimed to be Muslims rulers then Islam does not allow such extrusions. Akbar went to the extent to make a hodge-podge of all the religions. Historians claim that he created religious harmony. In my opinion, by removing boundaries between the religions, he had played with them. He tried to dismantle the originality and identity of the major religions of that time namely; Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. Religious harmony means to live peacefully yet not interfering in to each other's religious practices.
I tried to highlight few of the major misconceptions which are very much there but we unintentionally refuse to perceive them. It needs a lot more discussion to clear the fog but before concluding all the discussion here, one must question once again; what are the welfare steps that had been taken during the reign of Mughals? What were the policies which emancipated the ordinary people of the sub-continent? What change was brought down in the economic, social, and moral system already established (I leave culture aside)? The living of an ordinary farmer was even more scrutinized in terms of grabbing inordinate taxes and hence his life was even more miserable.
The "justice" was available to few and that too prejudiced by the emperor's own will and wish and there were no rules laid down. There were no civic facilities available to public which we see flourishing in the western empires of the same time. The people remained aloof of the technological advances which the rest of the world was witnessing and taking part in. Instead they were alluded in to literature and art which actually was to satisfy the emperor's pleasure and wishes.
Even in art the region could not produce a Picasso or Da Vinci, to say so. The one somewhat significant aspect of their whole era, their structural monuments, which historians claim to be the golden heritage, in my opinion, is even the worst thing to claim to. What good use is a palace, a Serai, a garden, a castle or even a mosque of that magnificence to a person living in the street? It was all to provide comfort to the emperor and those very few who were near to him. The people remained as they were or even worse in many cases.
The whole Mughal dynasty followed the simplistic but mean approach in governance, which focused on procuring wealth from the grass root level to enliven the palace no matter it cost the precious lives of people. In my opinion Mughals did the same as the British, in some cases even worst. If British looted the sub-continent tremendously then they did some reforms too notably in infrastructure, technology and irrigation system. They brought the concept of democracy in the sub-continent. We are benefitting from these fruits even to this day too.
Mughals excruciated people at large but left behind merely buildings built at the cost of people's blood, sweat and tears. Those might be marvels for some but whenever I visit them I can't exclaim Mughal sense of architecture, I feel the touch of calloused hands and smell the blood amid the massive walls.