India: Naseeruddin Shah says running Mughals down convenient for ‘present dispensation’: ‘To paint all Muslims in one colour…’
Veteran actor Naseeruddin Shah says it is disinformation that the Mughals came to the Indian land to “loot” and destroyed temples. The veteran feels running them down favours the government’s attempts to paint all Muslims in one colour. Shah, who plays Mughal emperor Akbar in ZEE5’s Taj: Reign of Revenge, said it has become easy to target Mughals because they are the only ones “the whole world knows about”.
In an interview with Bollywood Hungama, Shah said, “Mogul has become an English word, an American word; movie Mogul. Running them down is very convenient for the present dispensation to paint all Muslims in one colour and to claim that they looted the country, they destroyed temples, they did this and that and they had many wives. Every king does this.”
Shah cited the example of King Alexander and said he “destroyed the whole of Iran on his rampages” but he is still addressed as Alexander the great. The actor said it is important to understand the history of Mughals. “Mughals came here to make this their homeland. They did not come here to loot and scoot. Like Nadirshah stole the peacock throne. He destroyed Delhi and massacred the citizens of Delhi and took his loot and pushed off. People don’t know this.”
Shah said he is amused with the kind of stories that are peddled about the barbarism of Babur and Humayun. The truth, Shah said, was different. “Humayun was an opium addict who fell down the steps when he was probably too stoned one day. And Akbar did this. And Aurangzeb, of course, the biggest villain of them all. They don’t talk of the other dynasties that were here before. Even before the Mughal dynasty, there were several dynasties of the Turks.”
The actor also took a dig at changing school syllabuses, which are rooted in political ideology more than reality. “Theory of evolution is knocked out from the textbooks. Next, I suppose Einstein will be knocked out off the science textbooks. Then the head of ISRO saying that all the scientific discoveries are there in the Vedas (and) all these discoveries are attributed to the west falsely. Now what can you say to a thing like that?” he wondered.