6_Glorious_Epochs_of_Indian_History

5TH GLORIOUS EPOCH 401
is that to say that Akbar treated all his subjects equally and '
sponsored equality of status for the whole humanity—as is
being taught in schools—is absolutely erroneous, and is the
result of the bad habit of extolling the Muslims unpro-
portionately. For, being a Moghal Emperor, he never'
hesitated to crush down ruthlessly anyone who refused to
bear the yoke of his sovereignty—might he then be a Muslim
or a Hindu ! Now all the Muslims were not Moghals. As a
matter of fact many of them hated the Moghals bitterly
because he had extended his empire by destroying the old
Afghan and Turkish Sultanates. It means that like any
other ambitious adventurer Akbar fought for the sake of his
own Moghal glory not only against the Hindus alone but
against others also. Obviously enough he did not treat even
the Muslims equally. He liquidated and annexed many Mus­
lim kingdoms. Only with a view to safeguarding the interests
of his empire did Akbar in his later life repeal the revolting
religious taxes like the Jizia and refrained from opening
campaigns of mass conversion of Hindus. There was no
such intention of behaving equitably with Hindus and the
Muslims behind this policy, as is generally supposed"'. On
the contrary he knew quite well that whenever such atrocities
were committed on the Hindus, in the name of religion, by the
former Sultans, they were followed with disastrous revolts.
Sometimes even the whole Sultanates were consumed in the
conflagration of the Hindu wrath. In order to avoid this
disastrous end for his empire and to establish a tranquil
administration of his own did he treat all his subjects whether
they were Hindus or Muslims, justly so far as their individual
life was concerned and much more leniently and harmlessly
than other emperors, like AUauddin or Aurangzeb. But
once again let it be remembered that it was not because he
believed in the equality of man or the equality of the Hindus
and the Muslims irrespective of their religion, certainly not
because he did not consider the Hindus as kafirs !
990. Once he became the all-powerful and absolute mo­
narch in temporal affairs of his empire, his ambition goaded him