Vigourousness of Empire: Aurangzeb, Stalin and Modi

On Sunday 27 December, 2020, Indian Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu said that the reformers process, which was initiated by P V Narsimha Rao Government and carried by Vajpayee government, was being implemented more vigorously by the present Narendra Modi government. The slogan of “Vigorousness” is used as a shield by the supporters of Modi government for all the decisions. This quality of vigorousness is highly celebrating nowadays in India. Indian Mughal Emperor and Russian Auto create Joseph Stalin were also known as vigorous leader. It is historical fact that the vigorousness of a political leader leads monarchy or ultra centrist power. An affiliated vigorousness of any leader or party is a threat to democratic system. The vigorousness of Stalin and Aurangzeb was highly anti-democratic and at the same time they are greatly disliked by RSS/ BJP lobby and supporters. Ironically, there are many similarities among Narender Modi, Joseph Stalin and Aurangzeb that needs to be explored. This question that is discussed in the article.

1. Removal of equals: After imprisoning his father Shah Jahan, Aurangzeb became emperor of Delhi’s Mughal power. Aurangzeb is known as a powerful and Islamic orthodoxy king. He slained his competitor brothers Dara Shikoh, Sujah, Murad and Dara’s son to gain autonomous power of Delhi. Dara Shikoh and his son were made to ride on a weak female elephant and were processed in the streets of Delhi. The demand of Dara Shikoh’s death was tagged to welfare of Islam and peace for people. Due to the development of Sunni sentiment against Dara, his beheaded head was sent to Shah Jahan in jail. It was possible because Shah Jahan spread Sunni orthodoxy at every level and even he brought up Aurangzeb under the shadow of the same orthodoxy. And Aurangzeb emerged as vigorous king to create dar-ul-Islam with the sacred punishment to Kafars of dar-ul-harb.

Joseph Stalin became very public in the mourning of Lenin and he was expert to present himself in glorious form. He sharply overshadowed seven members of Politburo and slowly expelled all the members to get autonomous power in Soviet Russia. Lev Kamenev and G. Zinoviev were sentenced to imprison under the murder of Sergei Kirov. Clemency was granted to them and they were promised not to be executed but after some time both were executed. Even Trotsky was expelled from party and exiled to central Asia.

Modi doesn’t execute or imprison any leader of equal status or senior one but he made some rules for his political party BJP and marginalised almost all senior leaders who put him into the game of power. Senior BJP leaders L K Advani, Yashwant Singh, M L Joshi did not get ticket for elections under the new rule upper age limit of 75yrs for candidature. Modi lobby modified party regulations for Modi’s benefits. Advani, who was then called the father figure, an iron man of BJP, was replaced with junior leader Amit Shah who has been very near to Modi. Modi became unchallenged leader within party and in government. He finished challenging leadership of equal status as Aurangzeb and Stalin removed their equals.

2. Party Ideology and Ideology of the self: It is said that Stalin’s opponents were attached deeply to the core Marxist theory rather than action but Stalin was an activist and he did not have any deep understanding of the core Marxist theory. He always used Marxism for his own benefits, and, expelled or executed ‘comrades’ who were more Marxist than him. After the death of Lenin, he turned towards Marxist orthodoxy to get power and gave the slogan of “Socialism in one country”. His vigorous approach was based on some slogans. The same is happening in the context of BJP and Modi who are the followers of Hindutava ideology. L K Advani followed and carried forward the very same ideology. Moreover he fought to enlarge the space of Hindutava ideology in the power of secular ideology of Congress and left. L K Advani et.al. were worked as bridge between Hindutava of Atal Bihari Vajpayee and N K Modi but they are made disappear from political stage. Shah Jahan was less Sunni orthodox than Aurangzeb but he too followed same ideology of Nakashbandi of Sirhind. Dara Shikoh, who was killed by Aurangzeb, was the follower of kind Sufism. Aurangzeb is a little bit different to Stalin and Modi because he executed the followers of other ideology but Stalin eliminated core Marxist and Modi marginalized core Hindutavi leaders. Narender Modi and Joseph Stalin are more self-centred than Aurangzeb.

It requires attention that Mughals, Stalin and Modi et. al. are users of ideologies that they followed. Historically it is proved that Mughals named their wars as Jihad (crusade) but most of them left Islamic orthodoxy and behaved like some tolerant emperor after establishment. But their slogans of Jihad led to Islamic bigotry which was major cause of historical bloodshed in Indian history. Stalin used Marxist ideology for his favours like deportation or elimination of anti-power elements under the campaigns of red terror, collectivization in the Soviet Union, great purge and Gulag etc. but that caused a great bloodshed. Similarly, Narender Modi et.al. has been provoking the issues of Hindutava since decades for their own political motives and it caused the genocide of Delhi 1984, bloodshed of Gujrat and UP. Even Advani has been performing as an agent of provoking since decades, M L Joshi and Yashwant Singh were not so far from that campaign.

It should be kept in mind that Auranzeb and Stalin punished their own community under political campaigns, even most of those victims were in favour of the state. Most of victimized people were member of relative orthodoxy but they were punished with others for the interests of state. It needs attention that majority of people in India are identified under the Hindu identity but they will not be treated specially under the corporate policies of Indian power. An imperialist leader uses public and bigotry interests and enters in the next zone then he ignores his old supporters.

3. Monarchy and Increased number of Assenters and Assentation: Lust of power and removal of equals are major factor for political autocracy and for the growth of sycophancy and flunkeyism. Historians considers that in the era of Aurangzeb, political autocracy, sycophancy and flunkeyism led to public oppression and injustice. A meeting was organised to discuss the punishment that was to be given to Dara Shikoh In this meeting, majority of relatives and authorities gave the very same opinions as Aurangzeb already had. The environment of flattering and obsequious led to many other trails. Sufi Saint Sai Sarmad was beheaded in 1661 because he did not show his assentation to Aurangzeb. A Brahmin was killed because he said Hinduism is true like Islam. Stalin also eliminated all dissenters and nobody dared to challenge his decision. ‘Stalin had a strong faction around himself, including figures like Mikhail Kalinin, Kliment Vorishilov, and Vyacheslav Molotov.’ Nowadays in India, there is a strong faction in favour of Modi. Even Vice-President of India, Cabinet and most of the Members of Parliament strongly support Modi government’s decisions of demonization, GST, NRC and farmer laws etc. with the argument of vigorous approach. It is a public notion that the power of Indian government and administration, nowadays is going towards PM office. Space of dissent is gradually becoming narrow because of the autocratic behaviour of the power. The dissenters of the state are either killed or they are under threat. Farmer’s laws are passed under a pure autocratic way. Numbers of assenters and prevalence of assentation will create a problem to majority population of India.

4. Vigorousness upon Common People/farmers: The farmer community is often majority in every society and in every era. Farmers and associated community can be called common people till early twentieth centuary and in India till now. Happiness of farmer is an index to measure happiness of the society. The commonness among Aurangzeb, Stalin and Modi is that in their respective eras there is loss of happiness of farmers and their sufferings also increase. The era of Aurangzeb was also known as era of wars, he attacked South India for 25 years and spent lot of money, 1,77,000 soldiers and other employees. Economy of the state took a great loss for wars and other autocratic decisions. The emperor put huge taxes on farmers but could not able to establish a balanced economy. Manusi told that the great number of crops and trees had been destroyed with the wars of Aurangzeb. The farmers were not able to bear huge amount of taxes, so the peasantry went to very miserable condition. The farmers angrily agitated against the state. Irfan Habib considered that the farmers protest became a cause to destruct the Mughal Empire.

Stalin created a policy in agriculture which is called Collectivization in the Soviet Union. It is a campaign between 1928-1933 for creation of the state controlled agriculture farm. It was a forceful government order to consolidate individual farms and the labour into collective farms in the favour of “Socialism in the Soviet Union”. It was called famine and mass repression in history of world which killed about 15 millions of people. It was a farmer law which had not repealed and it claimed millions of lives, millions of displacements from households to collective farms and a great loss of public property for the state. It was happened due to egoist personality of Lenin, his autocracy, his vigorousness and sycophancy and flunkeyism of his faction.

Narender Modi government vigorously or under the shelter of epidemic trauma formed three farmer laws to transform Indian agriculture and to attract private investment. Agriculture is a state subject under the Indian constitution but government crossed constitutional powers and present farmer bills in parliament as an emergency need and then the same has been passed and stamped by the President of India. Farmers from all over India denied to follow the laws and asked to repeal those but government instead of attending farmers, made a pollution law with penalty up to 10 million rupees and an electricity bill against the farmer interests. Millions of farmers begun protest against framer laws and nowadays major roads of Delhi have been blocked by farmers since 26 November, 2020 but due to the egoist personality of Prime Minister of India, his autocracy, his vigorousness and sycophancy and flunkeyism of his faction they are not ready to repeal 5 laws. If those laws will lead to any bloodshed, any oppression then that will be a step to collapse India like Russia after Lenin and Mughal Empire after Aurangzeb. If the farmer law won’t be repealed, Narender Modi’s government will be considered equal to Aurangzeb and Lenin.

It should be kept in mind that many farmers of India, who belonged to other states than Punjab are Hindus which are asset of Hindutava, an ideology of the Party of Narender Modi. Majority common population of shopkeeper, local or small and mid scale traders are Hindus which is estimated to be badly effected with these farmer laws. It is estimated that approximately 8,000 million Indian populations will be badly effected with those farmer laws and majority of them are Hindu and supporters of BJP as well as asset of RSS. Ultimately it is an attack on Hindu population. Any decision against farmers and small scale traders will only be for the exclusive interests of upper class. Thus it can be said that Aurangzeb, Stalin and Modi are in the same pool in the context of decisions against public interests.

5. After the Vigorousness of the State: East India Company in India, breaking of USSR and corporate after 1991 has a close relationship among all. East India Company came in the time of Akbar in 1600 for trade and business. The trader British tried to attack on the empire of Aurangzeb in 1686, that is called battle of Child but they were defeated by the Mughal forces and they apologised for the offence. The trader again got permission for trade with all tax relaxations after paid fine for offence. 50 years later, after the death of Aurangzeb the trader again attacked in the field of Plassey and won Bengal, and seven years later the Company became owner of Orissa and Bihar also. In the year of 1803 the Company got control of Delhi seat of power and Mughal emperor was under the Company. After some years the trader became king of the whole Subcontinent and looted for decades. It was happened due to the vigorousness of the king against peasantry and common population. The vigorousness of Stalin and his predecessors and successors with some other factors caused the collapse of USSR.

Nowadays India is facing the vigorousness of Modi in the favour of new corporate traders in the form of farmer laws. Indian Union Minister Rajnath Singh said on 27 December, 2020 the farmer law will take 2 years for good results as 1991 reforms took many years to show positive results. The Vice President of India also presented similar views in the favour of farmer laws. Government and its supporters argued in the favour of laws that the corporate agriculture and marketing will boost economy and GDP of the Union. Nowadays, corporate are trying to establish corporatocracy, a system governed by corporate. Corporate does not limit itself to business class only moreover it is gradually trying enlarge its arena and starts to control political and social system. Some multinational corporations has developed private military forces and weapons. USA used private military contractors (PMCs) for the war against Afghanistan. PMCs are gradually getting attention through media. Primarily it is using for banking recovery etc. and slowly took recognition under public scrutiny. The PMCs will become powerful and resourceful after the corporatization in the field of agriculture. Legitimacy of PMCs will be first a threat to people and then to governing power and the state. The Space and laws in the favour of corporate are some ways to bring worst dependency and slavery again in India. It is a way from democracy to corporatocracy.

It should be kept in mind that the vigorousness of Modi may result to corporatocracy, a dependency and slavery like Mughals to East India Company and Stalin to collapse of USSR. Shiv Sena leader Sanjay Raut warned for that also.

6. At the end: At the end of comparison among Aurangzeb, Stalin and Modi it can be said that the threat of Modi is not lesser than that of Aurangzeb and Stalin. His way to get power, his autocracy, his vigorousness, sycophancy and flunkeyism of his faction, his overshadow on whole party and his self bigger than his ideology and country are not characterizations of a democratic elected leader. Recognition of his masculinity made him a great egoistic Prime Minister over the democracy. On the day of 26 December, 2020 after the election results of Jammu and Kashmir, the PM Modi said, some people in Delhi are trying to teach him democracy every day. It means he is not ready to listen the voice of people, the voice of farmer, the voice of majority. It is necessary for India to understand whether it is the behaviour of an elected leader or elected autocrat. If this is behaviour of an autocrat then India is under threat of new Aurangzeb and new Stalin. Now Delhi under the Modi government starts to fight against the farmers and small traders of South India, Maratha, Rajstahan, Bengal, UP, Bihar as well as Punjab as Aurangzeb ans Stalin did. Narender Modi lobby, Stalin and Aurangzeb have common characteristics of lying and breaking promises.

The official and main stream history of India created an idiom that ‘Sikhs are the protectors of India and they protected India from Mughals by giving many martyrdoms’. The Sikhs always define and prove themselves as protector of the poor and powerless and eliminators of injustice, autocratic oppressor. Nowadays they are again on the way to protect the poor, powerless and elimination of oppressor, autocrat and the enemy of farmer and the land as well as enemy of small scale trader.

Dr Sikander Singh
Dept. Of Punjabi
Sri Guru Granth Sahib World University
Fatehgarh Sahib