Lajpat Rai’s comparison of Hindu-Muslim relations to Christian sectarian conflict already imputing an in-built intimacy, he underlined their relative peaceful coexistence under Muslim rule. He not only lauded Akbar for his interest in and patronage of all faiths, but questioned whether “even Aurangzeb” had ever seriously tried to “overpower and outcast” Hinduism. Vincent Smith was criticised for claiming that under the Delhi sultans, the “public exercise of Hindu religion was illegal”, “frequently treated as capital offence.” Quoting William Archer, he argued that Muslim princes had ruled over Hindu subjects as Hindu princes had ruled over Muslims – with a “very tolerable impartiality of rule or misrule.” Rai concluded that “Hindus had come to realise that, after all, the Mohammedan rule in India was not so bad or tyrannical and oppressive as they were told by interested historians” and that “even Aurangzeb was not, after all, as bad as they had supposed him to be”.
Lajpat Rai challenged British imperialist discourses, which contrasted an India in which Hindus and Muslims were historically locked in religious bigotry and conflict, with Europe as the locus of enlightenment and civilisation. He instead conjured late medieval/ early modern Europe as a site of religious conflict and…
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