Sangh heaps praise on Aurangzeb’s brother Dara Shikoh

New Delhi: Mughal emperor Aurangzeb could be one of the saffron camp’s biggest villains but the Sangh is all praises for his brother Dara Shikoh, who for them was a “devout Muslim who made efforts to understand the real Hindustan.”

Asking why there is a fear among Muslims in India, whose population is in crores while Jains, Buddhists, Jews and Zoroastrians, who are few thousands or lakhs have no fear, RSS joint general secretary Dr Krishna Gopal on Wednesday, asserted that “oneness” and “cohesiveness” are the basic characters of India and “unity is one of the core fundamentals of the country.”

“If one can understand India's legacy, the person can understand Dara Shik-oh... India has never all-owed devisive thoughts... we have word for exclusiveness in Indic languages because we believe in inclusiveness... Dara, through his research found that there can be a synergy between his faith and Hinduism, which Aurangzeb saw as a threat... this exclusiveness is the problem... why there is fear among Muslims, who are in crores, had ruled India for 600 years... what is the reason... why don’t you get rid of this fear, discuss it... the (India) community coexisted peacefully with members of clans, which attacked it from other regions of the world, but decided to stay here... if you seek for threads of cohesiveness than you will find it,” said the senior RSS leader.

At a symposium ‘A hero of the Indian syncretist tradition: Dara Shikoh’, Dr Krishna Gopal said had Dara ruled India then “Hindus” would have und-erstood Islam in a “much better manner” and Islam would have flourished in a “better way.”

Crediting Dara for taking Indian traditions and culture to the foreign world through the translation of Indian scriptures, minority affairs minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi said “unfortunately” he was the “victim” of “intellectuals, secular historians and Left historians’ intolerance,” who presented him as “anti-Islam”. The minister said it was due to this “intolerance” that Dara never had any road or memorial named after him unlike Aurangzeb, until recently.

The minister asserted that had Dara’s messages been promoted, terror organisations like Al-Qaida, ISIS and JuD would not have existed. He added that was during the Modi-led NDA-I that a road in the Lutyens Delhi was renamed after the Mughal prince, beheaded by his brother and future king Aurangzeb, and another road named after Aurangzeb, was renamed after former President APJ Abdul Kalam.

“The truth is Dara Sikoh was a believer of Islam, was a follower of Sufism, he was committed to his faith but he never had any hatred for other faiths like Aurangzeb. While Aurangzeb was an example of pure cruelty and terror, Dara was a personification of cohesiveness, amalgamation of India's culture and tradition,” said Mr Naqvi.