Points to ponder about Shahjahan

1. Shahjahan was a cruel king. On becoming the king, Shahjahan imprisoned his step mother Nur Jahan. He sent brother Shahryar to the gallows. He had earlier got rid of brother Khusrau. Now he got Khusrau's sons Dawar and Garshasp executed.

Jahangir's brother Daniyal had died earlier. Shahjahan now killed Daniyal's sons Tahmuras and Hoshang ― all on 23 January 1628.

2. He loved only violence and sex. He has no artistic sensibilities. *He raped his own daughter Jahanara and justified it, saying that a gardener

must enjoy the fruit he produced.*

3. A ruffian by nature, Shahjahan refused to be tutored by the plethora of tutors appointed from time to time. His misdeeds of dacoity and arson throughout India, while in revolt against his emperor father Jehangir, made the latter record,

in sheer despair and anguish, that his son Shahjahan was a wretch and a scoundrel.

How dare any historian ignore the father's estimate of his own son and call the miscreant a noble lover of art and finer things.

3. There is no evidence of Shahjahan being deeply attached to

Mumtaz-ul-Zamani (so called Mumtaz Mahal) except few Bollywood films. Mumtaz-ul-Zamani was only one among Shah Jahan's various wifes and hundreds of sex slaves. To marry her he killed her husband. *She died giving birth to her 14th child. (She died in Burhanpur, 1000 kms away

from Agra).* Soon after her death, Shahjahan married her sister. Such was his love!

Mumtaz-ul-Zamani's name is changed by the historians to Mumtaz Mahal to suit the story of Tajmahal.

4. No historian has ever tried to verify the myth of Shahjahan's authorship o

the Taj by asking as to how many palaces did Shahjahan build for a living Mumtaz before he built one for a dead Mumtaz? Nobody's historical conscience was disturbed by the doubt of Shahjahan venturing on a sepulchral project of the dimensions and magnificence of a

Taj Mahal within 2yrs of his accession to the throne. He could not have launched on such a fabulous project when at the very beginning of his reign he was confronted by 2 serious revolts by the Bundela chief & of Khan Jahan Lodi besides other disturbances throughout his realm

5. Like his pock-marked face, Shahjahan's near 30-year reign was marked by 48 campaigns. This gives us, on an average, one and a half campaigns per year. This is described by the idiots as a golden reign!

6. How could such a man even think of

making the buildings- Tajmahal and it's campus. (It is not 1 building, but a complex of many buildings. It consists of a 4 storied building with many rooms (closed for public), it has many doors along the river with hooks to fasten boats, above it is the Tajmahal, a

building on East side of Tajmahal which has a huge octagonal multistoried well (bawari), a building in West side which is now a mosque, a nakkarkhana (musicians space), many rooms along the boundary wall & a gate house. How one can imagine that a brute who

raped his own daughter, will make such elaborate structures in the memory of one of his many wifes, when he was busy in wars all the time.

7. It is only a myth that Shahjahan ordered for dismembering the hands of labourers engaged in the construction of the Taj.

This myth is created by historians to give credence to their imagined story of the construction of Tajmahal by a brute king Shahjahan.

8. But Shahjahan's own official chronicle, the Badshanama, admits on page 403 of volume I, that the Taj Mahal was Mansingh's palace taken from

Mansingh's grandson Jaisingh for Mumtaz's burial.

9. It is not known whether Mumtaz-ul-Zamani died in 1630 or 1631 A.D. And yet the whole cumbersome procedure of a disconsolate Shahjahan regaining his mental equilibrium, calling for world tender of a design, selection of the

design, making of thousands of drawings, preparation of its wooden model, sanctioning of the amount, ordering of the huge quantities of brick and marble and other precious stones, and the beginning of the construction itself all by 1631 A.D. is a staggering

and tall order even for a fertile Arabian Nights tale.

10. In the case of the Taj Mahal, there is proof to assert that far from spending even a farthing on the Taj Mahal, Shahjahan made enormous profit in grabbing this Hindu palace. He carried away its silver doors,

gold railings, gems from the gem-studded marble screens and the fabulous peacock throne. Even Tavernier, the French traveler who stayed at Shahjahan's court for several years, says on page 111 of his Travels in India (English translation) "that Shahjahan purposely buried Mumtaz

near Tas-i- Macan (i.e. the Taj Mahal), where foreigners used to flock, so that the world may admire.

11. Since Shahjahan ascended the throne in 1628 A.D. & Mumtaz died in 1630 or 1631 A.D. he could not have launched on such a fabulous project when at the very beginning of

his reign he was confronted by two serious revolts by the Bundela chief and of Khan Jahan Lodi besides other disturbances throughout his realm.

12. Horrid famines took over the people of Hindusthan during Shahjahan's reign because of his plunder regime. Not to talk of plenty

& prosperity, people died of starvation and pestilence by the thousands. This is borne out by Shahajahan's own official chronicle. Describing the famine in the Dakhin and Gujarat, Abdul Hamid writes: "Life was offered for a loaf but none would buy.

Dog's flesh was sold for goat's & pounded bones of the dead were mixed with flour & sold.
Destitution at last reached such a pitch that men began to devour each other, and the flesh of a son was preferred to his love. The numbers of the dying caused obstruction in the road."

It is an irony to call such a reign a golden period!
May be it's golden period for the selfish Shahjahan !!

- सुधीर सिंह खालसा