Why India Still Honors Its Invaders - Anand Ranganathan & Aabhas Maldhaiyar | Aurangzeb Babur temple

Dr. Anand Ranganathan and Aabhas Maldahiyar dissect the paradoxes of Indian historical consciousness through the lens of Maldahiyar’s book Babur: The Chessboard King.

#anandranganathan #aabhasmaldahiyar #SambhalMosque #PlacesOfWorshipAct #Babur #Aurangzeb #Sambhaji #HinduGenocide #FreeSpeech #Blasphemy #NCERT

00:00 - promo
02:03 - Sambhaji Maharaj Film Sparks Fury
07:44 - Should India Ban Glorifying Aurangzeb Like Germany Bans Hitler?
10:25 - The Gruesome Truth of Sambhaji’s Torture
14:31 - Hitler Praised Islam Too
17:32 - Sambhal Mosque Mystery
24:38 - Babri Masjid Before Aurangzeb?
32:55 - Buddhist Temples Destroyed by Hindus?
37:38 - Audience Q&A Begins: Is India Truly Secular?
44:10 - Places of Worship Act
47:55 - Ashoka Was Buddhist BEFORE Kalinga
50:37 - Supreme Court Bias towards Hindu Victims
53:21 - Free Speech vs Blasphemy
55:58 - Absolute Free Speech or Regressive Society?

The conversation begins with a provocative analogy: while no Hitler road exists in Tel Aviv or Germany—where Holocaust denial carries prison terms up to five years—Indian cities proudly bear Babur roads and Aurangzeb roads despite their genocidal legacies. This, they argue, reveals a deep-seated Stockholm Syndrome in Indian society, where invaders are romanticized and victims forgotten.

Nehru praised Babur as “one of the most cultured men” even as the first act of a free India should have been reclaiming desecrated temples. Babur’s early attempt to destroy the Bamiyan Buddhas is cited as evidence of his iconoclasm, yet Marxist historiography once acknowledged Aurangzeb’s reign ended the Mughal empire—only for neo-Marxist scholars like the Truschke school to rehabilitate him as a misunderstood ruler.

Ranganathan challenges the audience: if Germany criminalizes glorifying Hitler, why does India tolerate memes celebrating Aurangzeb’s torture of Sambhaji Maharaj—eyes gouged, tongue cut, skinned alive—documented in Manucci and Maasir-i-Alamgiri? Hitler’s creation of Muslim SS units laid ideological groundwork for Hamas, al-Qaeda, and ISIS. This supremacist allure, Ranganathan argues, explains why 99% of Indian Muslims—descendants of Hindu converts—sometimes gloat over ancestral defeats.

Shivaji slaughtering pigs in mosques to retaliate against cow slaughter would brand him a bigot today, yet Aurangzeb’s 4.6 million Hindu deaths are downplayed. Claims of Marathas destroying Shringeri Math trace to Pindari mercenaries, not Maratha policy; the Peshwa promised punishment and restoration, while Tipu refurbished it for astrological reasons—a 1992 lecture by Pande relying on a spurious list of 153 Tipu-donated temples is exposed as baseless. Bengal raids involved invited Maratha forces, but pillage was by local Bargis/Pindaris, not Marathas.

The Buddhist shrine destruction myth collapses under scrutiny: Pushyamitra Shunga allegedly razed 84,000 stupas—one every four hours—mathematically impossible; Romila Thapar’s revised edition retracts blame. Harsha of Kashmir, labeled “Turuska” in Rajatarangini, destroyed Hindu temples too. Sitaram Goel’s eight unanswered questions to Thapar remain ignored after four decades.

On Sambhal mosque, Abul Fazl records a Vishnu/Krishna temple with no mosque; the 1879 ASI report calls the mosque “recent,” built on false claims. William Finch (1608–11) saw only the Ram temple; Beveridge’s translation fabricated Mir Baqi’s role from “Aad”—absent in the Persian Baburnama. Aurangzeb destroyed the temple; the mosque emerged later. Evidence pointing to Aurangzeb in Mathura, Kashi, and Ayodhya.

Ranganathan lambasts state cowardice: the Places of Worship Act blocks justice, Waqf Act creates a parallel government, and the BJP’s third term changes NCERT glorification of Mughals minimally. India is plural, not secular—government controls Hindu temples, funds Imams, Haj subsidies, and minority schemes, violating church-state separation.

Judicial discrimination is stark: the Supreme Court refused 1990 Kashmiri Hindu genocide cases citing elapsed time but ordered an SIT for 1984 Sikh riots—six years earlier. Ranganathan declares the court a “banana republic.” On free speech, he welcomes mockery of Hindu gods as progress—regressive societies punish blasphemy. Nehru’s First Amendment curtailed Article 19; absolute free speech alone confronts vitriolic philosophies. Ashoka was Buddhist four years before Kalinga—per his inscriptions and Charles Allen. Babur was evil to Hindustan, but Aurangzeb, not Babur, likely destroyed Ram Janmabhoomi and enabled Sambhal’s mosque.