Latest / Aurangzeb: The Emperor Who Expanded and Broke the Mughal Empire — Fexingo History / The Price of Faith: Aurangzeb's War on the Sikhs
Transcript
- Lucas: So we've talked a lot about Aurangzeb's campaigns in the Deccan, his temple policies, his long war with the Marathas. But there's another front that really reveals the cost of his approach — his conflict with the Sikhs. Luna: Right, we mentioned Guru Tegh Bahadur's execution in episode one. But I feel like we barely scratched the surface. Lucas: Exactly. That execution in 1675 is the flashpoint, but the roots go back much further. The Sikh faith had been developing since the early 1500s under Guru Nanak, and it was generally peaceful. The fifth Guru, Guru Arjan, compiled the Adi Granth, the Sikh scripture, and built the Harmandir Sahib — the Golden Temple. But he ran afoul of Emperor Jahangir, who saw the growing Sikh community as a political threat. Luna: And Jahangir had him tortured to death, right? Lucas: Yes. In 1606, Guru Arjan was arrested, tortured, and died in Mughal custody. That martyrdom fundamentally changed the Sikh community. It militarized them. His successor, Guru Hargobind, took up arms and even fought skirmishes against Mughal forces. But under Shah Jahan and early Aurangzeb, there was a tense peace — until Aurangzeb's religious policies pushed things over the edge. Lucas: Aurangzeb reimposed the jizya tax on non-Muslims in 1679, but even before that, he was pressuring Hindu pandits and Sikh gurus to convert to Islam. According to Sikh tradition, a group of Kashmiri pandits came to Guru Tegh Bahadur in 1675, asking for help. The Guru promised to protect their faith, and that defiance led to his arrest. Luna: He was offered a choice: convert or die. Lucas: Exactly. He refused, and Aurangzeb had him publicly beheaded in Chandni Chowk, in Delhi. That execution was a huge miscalculation. It didn't crush Sikh resistance — it electrified it. Tegh Bahadur's nine-year-old son, Gobind Rai, became the next Guru. And he would transform the Sikhs into a formidable military force. Lucas: Guru Gobind Singh — as he's known — was a poet, a warrior, and a brilliant organizer. In 1699, he founded the Khalsa, the community of the pure. He initiated the first five Sikhs, the Panj Pyare, by baptizing them with sweetened water stirred with a dagger. He gave all Sikhs the five Ks: kesh, kangha, kara, kirpan, and kachera — uncut hair, a comb, a steel bracelet, a ceremonial sword, and shorts. Luna: So he was creating a visible, disciplined brotherhood — one that wouldn't back down. Lucas: Precisely. And the Khalsa was explicitly dedicated to fighting tyranny. Guru Gobind Singh didn't just preach — he took up arms against the Mughal governors in the Punjab. Aurangzeb responded by sending a large army to crush the Sikhs. The conflict came to a head in 1704–1705, during the siege of Anandpur, the Guru's fortified town. Lucas: The Mughal forces, along with hill rajas allied with them, besieged Anandpur for months. The situation became desperate. Eventually the Guru agreed to evacuate the fort in exchange for safe passage. But as the Sikhs left, the Mughals attacked them in the open. The Guru's family was separated. His two younger sons, aged 7 and 9, were captured and taken to the governor of Sirhind. Luna: And they were executed for refusing to convert. Lucas: Yes. They were bricked alive into a wall. The two older sons died fighting in the Battle of Chamkaur, where Guru Gobind Singh himself barely escaped. The Guru lost all four of his sons — his entire family — in the span of a few days. But he continued the struggle. He sent a letter to Aurangzeb, the Zafarnama, a letter of victory, accusing the emperor of breaking his oath. Luna: And there's some evidence that Aurangzeb was moved by it? Lucas: There's a tradition that Aurangzeb invited the Guru for a meeting, and that the Guru was on his way when Aurangzeb died in 1707. But it's contested. What's certain is that the conflict didn't end with Aurangzeb. After the emperor's death, a Sikh disciple named Banda Singh Bahadur led a major rebellion in the Punjab. He captured Sirhind and avenged the deaths of the Guru's sons by executing the governor. Luna: So in a way, Aurangzeb's persecution of the Sikhs sowed the seeds of the empire's decline in the north. Lucas: Absolutely. The Mughal Empire never fully controlled the Punjab after that. The Sikhs became a constant thorn, and by the mid-18th century they were carving out their own state. So when we talk about Aurangzeb breaking the empire, we have to include this front — it wasn't just the Marathas and the Deccan. His religious intolerance turned a formerly loyal community into a determined enemy that would outlast the Mughals themselves. Luna: It's a really sobering example of how state violence can backfire spectacularly. Lucas: Exactly. The Sikh Gurus before Tegh Bahadur had been largely peaceful. Aurangzeb's policies radicalized them. And in the end, the Khalsa became a military power that the Mughals couldn't suppress. It's one of the great ironies of Aurangzeb's reign: his attempts to enforce religious orthodoxy created the very forces that would help dismantle his empire.