Anjuman Taraqqi-e-Urdu (Hind) has cancelled the staging of Aurangzeb , a critically acclaimed drama on the
Mughal emperor. The play was scheduled to be staged at the Aiwan-e-Ghalib
auditorium here during the three-day Dara Shikoh Seminar to be organised by the
Anjuman from this Friday.
Anjuman general secretary Ather Farouqui in an e-mail to the
play’s director K. S. Rajendran said, “… Representatives of the Anjuman saw a
recent performance of the play at India International Centre and expressed
their reservations about the play and its relevance to the present seminar…. I
am not blind to the rapidly intolerant society in South Asia, particularly in
India and Pakistan, with religious atavism as its central feature. From the
platform of an organisation like the Anjuman, the matter of your play gains
extraordinary sensitivity. Hence this decision.”
When contacted by The
Hindu, Mr. Farouqui refused
to reveal the objections raised or the names of the members who had objected.
The seminar is being funded partially by the National Council for the Promotion
of Urdu Language, a body under the Union Ministry of Human Resource
Development. Its director Khwaja Ekramuddin clarified that the grant was for
the seminar and not the play.
Rajendran, a renowned dramatist, is a professor of classical
Indian drama at the National School of Drama here. He has been staging the play
for the past six years in Urdu. The play was originally written in Tamil by
Indira Parthasarathy, a former academic of Delhi University who set up the
Department of Performing Arts at Pondicherry University. He retired in 1992 and
now lives in Chennai.
Written in 1974, the play is a critique of the
one-nation-one-language-one-religion theory. It deals with ideological and
religious differences between Aurangzeb and his brother Dara Shikoh.
The play has been staged four times in Delhi over the past seven
weeks. After a performance at Jawaharlal Nehru University on February 9, five
students under the banner of Muslim Students Association wrote to the
organisers saying “the script was not at par with the historical facts and was
many a time replete with exaggerations and gross distortion of religious
policies of Aurangzeb… Furthermore, these sort of things always play in
people’s mind and may lead to a feeling of hate towards a particular historical
character or a community at large which we feel is not good for a healthy
society”.
In the letter they cited historian Satish Chandra’s “Essays on
Medieval History” to say that the idea that Aurangzeb did not want to establish
an Islamic State is outdated and loyalties for Dara and Aurangzeb cut across
religious lines. Mr. Parthasarathy, who was present in the Capital at the time,
met the students and explained that his script is based on Sir Jadunath
Sarkar’s volumes on Aurangzeb written between 1912 and 1924. Years after the
play was written, more recent research had thrown new light on the Mughals.
Mr. Parthasarathy told The
Hindu that his play was a
psychological study of Aurangzeb and not a political analysis of his reign.
“The play explores why Aurangzeb turned against his father. He was fond of
music and Sufism as a child. The play depicts incidents that led to his
alienation from his father and Dara… The play shows how he used emotional and
religious slogans like a politician, even though he gave endowments to
temples.”
Historian and Padma Bhushan Irfan Habib, who will address the
seminar, said that during Aurangzeb’s time the concept of the nation did not
exist nor did the concept of a single faith. “Of course he (Aurangzeb)
discriminated against Hindus, but there’s no historical evidence of any plans
to create an Islamic State. I have not seen the play, but as I understand it,
the known facts, even in historical fiction, should be true,” he explained
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