[newyankee]

Also when discussing Mughals the most important elephant in the room is ignored. Their intention to totally Islamise India. But this is more about Indian history being editorialised by few communists and others as they hate the notion of a caste system filled India and prefer the Mughal & British rule in their sanitised version. The historic animosity in different groups exists and persists to this day and is reflected in these perspectives. The atrocities of Mughals are not only glossed over, they are completely whitewashed, especially their demolition of 1000s of temples, subjugation of native population and many other crimes are painted as something normal in their time when reality is much more complicated. This is to not even speak of the over romanticisation of Taj Mahal as something 'Indian' while ignoring numerous other architecture that still survives to this day. When pointed out that many mosques were built on top of temples whose basement still survives to this day that part of history is conveniently ignored.

[anon291]

The British and Mughals were fine with the caste system. Caste is a pan Indian social phenomenon found even amongst Muslims and Christians (and Jews) of the subcontinent, as well as the dharmic religions. I agree that there's a bizarre desire to only acknolwedge the Islamic empires, but I'm not sure it's about caste.

Britain in particular was completely into the caste system and made huge lists of which caste ought to fill which roles in its government.

All of this is problematic of course. However while its fairly easy to criticize England in the Indian context, it is bizarrely difficult to criticize the Mughals because some people are offended should anyone in their religion ever be criticized

[g8oz]

>>Their intention to totally Islamise India.

Given their military superiority during their zenith, if they really wanted to do that, they could have. But we didn't see that happen even within their core territories.

[chimp_brain]

That's nuanced, they were always challenged every few decades, from Marathas to Ahoms in North East. Fighting with all Hindu princely state instead of making them ally would've surely might have been counter productive. While it was their intention to Islamise, and many did, but it was impossible without an extremely cultural backlash that they also feared.

[g8oz]

Again even within their "safe" core territories we don't see an organized ongoing program of mass coerced conversion. So the point is - they weren't trying to totally Islamicize India and whether you believe that's because they didn't care to or they were afraid to due to political calculation doesn't really make a difference.

Remember, most Indians who converted did so due to the influence of wandering Sufi mystics who were regarded with suspicion by the court-aligned clerics.

[chimp_brain]

Your assumption is that mass pogroms were possible, such attempts would've lead to massive revolt and unification of all hindu ally's and perhaps Mughals losing power. Having said that in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Kashmir, Iran ( which was Zorastrian ), state discrimination and oppression of Zorastrians were used.

Again that doesn't mean all Indians converted through sword, but discrimination was a tool, jizya, and even extreme oppression. India has more Zorastrian than modern day Iran, more Sikhs, Jains and even countless Tribal religions. All other neighbouring countries which had Islamic rules have either a dwindling population, or nothing left.

[jhbadger]

There were also financial reasons not to, just as there were with the Ottoman Empire in Eastern Europe -- Islamic law says that no Muslim can be taxed more than a non-Muslim so non-Muslims were handy to have around because they could be taxed more.

[anon291]

like arguing Hitler could have killed all the Jews but was nice enough to let some escape

[g8oz]

This is a silly analogy, and ahistorical to boot.

[anon291]

Half of my ancestors were kept in the dungeons at Seringapatam for decades for the crime of being Christian by a Muslim ruler, which resulted in 2/3 of them dying. What gracious overlords we had to let the other 1/3 not die even though they could have killed them. I remain eternally grateful to their magnanimity.

Just because the world doesn't recognize how awful that Islamic rule of India was to the actual people living there doesn't mean we don't get to criticize those who continue to glorify it.

When you can't criticize someone you should ask why.

[defrost]

That was a very big deal in a specific locale 220 years ago to be sure, although it was just a decade and a half in total.

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captivity_of_Mangalorean_Catho...

* https://www.jstor.org/stable/44147210

Should this behaviour be generalised to all Islam rule all the time, or was it more specific to Tippu Sultan in he Kingdom of Mysore ?

Should we generalise the Albigensian Crusade as an example of typical Catholic rule over christians (but heretics!!) - that saw 200,000 killed (not imprisoned).

[anon291]

I'm not generalizing. All I said is that people should not be called Islamophobes for pointing out very real events in the Indian subcontinent. The simple truth is that even mentioning that a Muslim ruler did something wrong in the Indian context often ends up with death threats, claims of 'Islamophobia', and other attempts to silence people. The history of India is large and varied; there is a persistent effort to pretend the history of Islam in India is glorious and wonderful. No such bias exists for the Hindus or for the British / Portuguese, who are often criticized without much fuss.

Many Islamic rulers of India killed people or forced them -- via violence -- to convert to Islam. Not sure why this is controversial or Islamphobic. Someone pointing out that Islamic rulers had enough power to be even worse but didn't is not some great claim of charity on behalf of the Muslims -- far from it.

Also, let me guess -- you never knew about the captivity of the Mangalorean Christians (who would, lol) -- you read a wikipedia article, and now you pretend to be such an expert at it that you can say things like:

> That was a very big deal in a specific locale 220 years ago to be sure,

That specific locale, 220 years ago had actual people inside. Like real people. It's a big deal because it affected real people, if that wasn't clear.

> Should we generalise the Albigensian Crusade as an example of typical Catholic rule over christians (but heretics!!) - that saw 200,000 killed (not imprisoned).

I currently attend a Dominican parish, and I openly criticize the Albigensian Crusade. No one issues death threats; there is no claim of 'Christophobia'; etc. Similarly to all the various interventions by Christian polities. That's the point -- we are relatively free to criticize Christian colonialism, genocides, etc. The same is true of most religions. There's only one religion of which criticism is constantly met with speech trying to cajole others into silence.

This general disposition towards criticism of Islamic regimes and Islamic genocides means that it's relatively normal to be skeptical of Islamic rule, both ancient and modern. Islam seems unable to criticize itself. I'm hardly the first to notice this.