Nationalist representations of the Mughal state: The views of Tilak and Gandhi

The Mughal Empire as the major polity in India preceding the colonial regime was seen by British historians as a Muslim regime, imposed over a Hindu majority, and this fitted into their picture of two irreconcilable religious camps, existing within India, whose mutual conflict was kept at bay only because of the intervention of the colonial power. Tilak accepted this picture and saw Shivaji as the leader of Hindu resistance against foreign, Muslim domination. His early views were, however, modified in later years when he realised that overtures should be made to Muslims in order to strengthen the national struggle. The tag of ‘foreign’ was removed from the Mughals. It was argued that because Akbar’s successors no longer followed his enlightened policy, Shivaji rose against the Mughals and so must be treated as a national hero. On the other hand, Gandhi from his South Africa days was not prepared to denounce Muslim rulers, including the Mughals, as foreigners or as evil. While not prepared to concede to any religion’s superiority over another, he was critical of what he thought to be Akbar’s attempt to unite all religions into one. On the other hand, he praised Mughal rulers for their tolerance and even defended Aurangzeb though on the basis only of what Mohammad Ali, for long his political associate, told him! Unlike Jawaharlal Nehru, Gandhi did not explicitly extol composite culture possibly because while he wished that all religions tolerate each other, he did not want them to get mixed up