Policies of Akbar and Aurangzeb

Religious Policy of Akbar:

Akbar is known for his liberal ideas and liberal religious policy. He adopted a policy of mutual understanding and reconciliation among followers of different faiths and equality of all religions. He tried to harmonize the relations. He founded a new religion known as ‘Din-i-Ilahi’ based on the common points of all religions. Of course, in this endeavor he was not successful.

Akbar followed the policy of religious toleration on account of the following major considerations:

1. Influence of the age over Akbar:

In the words of Dr. H.N. Sinha:

<i>“The sixteenth century is a century of religious revival in the history of the world. The grand currents of the reformation compare favorably with the staging up of a new life in India. India experienced an awakening that quickened her progress and visualized her national life. The dominant note of this awakening was love and liberalism—love that united man to God and therefore to his brother man and liberalism, born of this love that leveled down the barrier of caste and creed, and took its stand on the bedrock of human existence and essence of all religions—Universal Brotherhood.</i>

2. Strength and prosperity of an empire depends upon unity of its people:

Dr. V.A. Smith explained the aim of his religious policy in his own words thus:

<i>“For an empire ruled by one head, it was a bad thing to have the members divided among themselves, at variance one with the other…We ought, therefore, to bring them all into one, but in such fashion that they should be one and with the great advantage of not losing what is good in any one religion, while gaining whatever is better in another. In that way honour would be rendered to God, peace would be given to the people and security to the empire.”</i>

3. Truth in every religion.

4. Influence of several personalities.

Religious policy of Aurangzeb:

Aurangzeb completely reversed the religious policy of Akbar. He followed a policy of persecuting people of all faiths other than Sunnis.

1. He established a separate department for the destruction of temples. All important temples of north India including the Vishwanath Temple of Banaras, Keshav Dev Temple at Mathura etc. were destroyed during his period.
2. Mosques were raised the sites of temples.
3. Images of Hindu gods and goddesses were broken and used for the construction of mosques.
4. Several taxes including ‘Jazia’ were imposed on the Hindus.
5. Hindus in large number were turned out of services and especially of the revenue department.
6. Various kinds of temptations were offered to Hindus to embrace Islam.
7. Restrictions were imposed on the celebration of Hindu festivals and fairs.
8. The execution of the 9th Sikh Guru Teg Bahadur on his refusal to embrace Islam is the most glaring example of the bigotry of Aurangzeb.
9. During his reign, two sons of the 10th Sikh Guru Gobind Singh were buried alive.