Concerns mount over erasure of India’s Islamic history

SHAH ALAM – The Indian government is believed to have embarked on an acrimoniously contentious effort to erase the country’s Islamic history with one of the casualties being the legacy of the Mughal Empire.

The shocking claim was revealed by the chairman of a Bihar-based non-profit, Mohamad Sohaib, who led the Al Imdaad Charitable Trust (AICT) in an episode of Sinar Daily’s Fireside Chat.

“The history of the Mughal Empire which had ruled India for years and decades are being removed from the school’s history books. They do not want the future generations to know that there were Muslims who ruled India.

“They are doing this so that when our children grow up, they do not learn any history on Muslims in India and at the same time, they are indulging the non-Muslim history in India.

“This is the problem with the Indian education right now,” claimed Sohaib adding that the controversial attempted historical erasure – along with the rise Islamophobia in India – has only been going on since the past 10 years.

To the unfamiliar, the Mughal Empire, was founded by Emperor Babur – a descendant of Gengis Khan – in 1526, reached its peak under Akbar the Great, marked by religious tolerance and cultural flourishing.

The decline of the empire, however, began during the reign of Emperor Aurangzeb, followed by the British colonial rule, ending in 1858 with the exile of the last Mughal Emperor, Bahadur Shah Zafar.

One of the seven wonders of the world, the Taj Mahal, was also built during the reign of the Mughal Empire.

Sohaib’s claim over the religious tension in India was backed by a 2022 report from the Panel of Independent International Experts, confirming that there was indeed a serious violation of human rights of the Muslim minority since 2019.

According to the evidence reviewed, federal and state-level authorities “adopted a wide range of laws, policies and conduct that target Muslims directly or affect them disproportionately.”

“The Panel further found that some of the violations may amount to crimes against humanity, war crimes and incitement to commit genocide,” read the report led by three renowned international law experts, Sonja Biserko, Marzuki Darusman and Stephen Rapp.