"Sis dia Par Sirar na diya"

"He gave his head but not his principles"

Aurangzeb, had become the King of Delhi by imprisoning his father Shah Jehan, and by killing all his three brothers Dara Shikoh, Murad and Shujah by deceit. This made him very unpopular with his subjects, especially since Dara Shikoh was loved and respected by all. Therefore, he decided to cover his crimes with a coat of religion. He claimed that his father and Dara were infidels, whereas he was true to the teachings of Prophet Mohammed. He shipped the wealth of India to Mecca and Medina to win the hearts of the "Qazis" and "Mullahs." But, in the words of Guru Gobind Singh ji, he was neither true to Mohammed nor to Allah (God).

Aurangzeb also began a campaign of converting Hindus to Islam en masse, with the objective of converting Dar-Al Harb (land of infidelity) into Dar-Al Islam (land of faith). The easiest way to do this, would be to convert the Brahman priests into Islam, for the rest of the Hindus would automatically follow. This was because under the traditional Hindu society, knowledge was the confine of the Brahmans, and if they were converted, then no one could read the ancient scriptures written in Sanskrit.

If there had ever been a dark age in the history of the 5,000 years old Hindu religion, it was during the reign of Aurangzeb. The plight of the Hindus can be compared with that of the Jews under Hitler. The privileges of riding a horse; flying a flag; growing a moustache, chewing a beetle leaf or tying a turban were reserved only for Muslims.

Anyone, who did not wish to embrace Islam, had to pay a tax called "Jazia". Anyone, who did was rewarded well, and offered posts in the public service, release from prison, or succession to disputed property.

The temples of the Hindus were desecrated and destroyed and mosques were constructed on their foundations. The cows that are so sacred to the Hindus were slaughtered in their temples and their flesh thrown into the wells, from which Hindus were ordered to drink water. It would be no exaggeration to say that Hinduism was on the verge of extinction.

The Brahmans of Kashmir, the ancestors of Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru and Indira Gandi, suffered a particularly bad blow at the hands of Governor Iftikhar Khan - a fanatic Muslim. It is said that he had tyrannised the Brahmans to such an extent that he sent to the Emperor bundles of sacred threads of Brahmans, he had either converted or forcibly killed. He converted so many Hindus every day that their sacred threads, forcibly removed on conversion, weighed a "Maund and a quarter" (about 47 kg). (One sacred thread weighs less than a quarter of an ounce). Literally, hundreds of thousands of Hindus were being converted to Islam.