A piece in Huffington Post India titled Why Aurangzeb's Reputation As A Tyrant And Bigot Doesn't Stand The Test Of History caused quite a tweet-storm among Indian users. The article, which is a review of a book by historian Audrey Truschke argues that the Mughal emperor's image has been misread in our binary word. Reviewing the book, Somak Ghoshal writes: “Aurangzeb's life, widely misrepresented by the Hindutva brigade as that of a cardboard despot, was far more complex, as anyone with common sense would expect, as well as riddled with many contradictions. Those who are familiar with politics should not be surprised by the persistence of the latter either.”

A lot of Indian Twitter however didn’t take too kindly attempt to whitewash one of the biggest tyrants to rule in India as they used the hashtag #YoAurangzebSoNoble to make jokes about Aurangzeb’s supposed magnanimity.

Here are some of the best ones:

#YoAurangzebSoNoble he used to wipe his sword with Dettol b4 beheading Non Believers! Every time I see a Teddy Bear, it reminds me of him! — Nitin Gupta (@Nitin_Rivaldo) March 29, 2017

#YoAurangzebSoNoble that all his slaughterhouses (where Kaafirs were beheaded)were Legal! As per Sharia. — Eminent Intellectual (@padhalikha) March 29, 2017

I hope @AudreyTruschke has kids, else who will whitewash crimes of ISIS and tell Yezidis in future to love ISIS? #YoAurangzebSoNoble pic.twitter.com/fe0v5zSNCu March 29, 2017

#YoAurangzebSoNoble that he used to boil people alive to disinfect them — Jackfruit (@arallan78) March 29, 2017

#YoAurangzebSoNoble that he always broke a Coconut before destroying a temple. — TheFrustratedIndian (@FrustIndian) March 29, 2017

Even though Aurangzeb forced kafir to pay Jizya, but never forced them to use Aadhar. #YoAurangzebSoNoble — Kalpesh (@ekvichar_) March 29, 2017

#YoAurangzebSoNoble he used to behead only those people who had migraine. — Rahul Roushan (@rahulroushan) March 29, 2017

#YoAurangzebSoNoble he offered free 4G with unlimited data for 4 years. — Rahul Roushan (@rahulroushan) March 29, 2017

#YoAurangzebSoNoble that he never destroyed any temple on Tuesday or Saturday. — चार लोग (@WoCharLog) March 29, 2017

#YoAurangzebSoNoble he killed only 4.6 million people out of ~100 million people — Yellow (@PeeliHaldi) March 29, 2017

Aurangzeb gave the slogan- “Mandir Wahin Banayenge" #YoAurangzebSoNoble — Ankur Singh (@iAnkurSingh) March 29, 2017

Of--course, he was a benevolent soul who only killed his father, brother, ordered persecutions of Hindus, forceful conversions etc. Noble! https://t.co/Rc1pPoBrkJ — Dead Mau5hi (@AdvancedMaushi) March 29, 2017

Aurangzeb never cancelled goa plan https://t.co/hedtUxoR9P — Simba (@ChhotaSimba) March 29, 2017

True. Aurangzeb was a sweet mushy guy in touch with his feminine side and sentiments. He also used to Bikini Wax. https://t.co/cL4roIMn56 — RIP Roy Mathew (@Chopdasaab) March 29, 2017

#YoAurangzebSoNoble that he scrapped EVMs and conducted elections using paper ballots — The Masakadzas (@Nesenag) March 29, 2017

Why did Aurangzeb cross the road? Because the mandir he was about to demolish was on the other side.#YoAurangzebSoNoble — MansahaRatty (@YearOfRat) March 29, 2017

#YoAurangzebSoNoble He gave 3 months advance notice before implementing Demonetisation. — Ankur Singh (@iAnkurSingh) March 29, 2017

In her new book, historian Audrey Truschke also says that had Aurangzeb's

reign been 20 years shorter, he would have been judged differently by modern historians.Truschke, an assistant professor of South Asian history at Rutgers University in Newark and an avid follower of Mughal history, New Jersey, has now come up with a new biography on Aurangzeb. "Aurangzeb: The Man and The Myth", published by Penguin Random House, takes a fresh look at the controversial Mughal emperor.

According to Truschke, Hindu and Jain temples dotting the landscape of Aurangzeb's kingdom were entitled to Mughal state protection, and he generally endeavoured to ensure their well-being.

"By the same token, from a Mughal perspective, that goodwill could be revoked when specific temples or their associates acted against imperial interests. Accordingly, Emperor Aurangzeb authorised targeted temple destructions and desecrations throughout his rule," she claims.

"Many modern people view Aurangzeb's orders to harm specific temples as symptomatic of a larger vendetta against Hindus. Such views have roots in colonial-era scholarship, where positing timeless Hindu-Muslim animosity embodied the British strategy of divide and conquer," she writes.She says there are, however, numerous gaping holes in the proposition that Aurangzeb razed temples because he hated Hindus.

"Most glaringly, Aurangzeb counted thousands of Hindu temples within his domains and yet destroyed, at most, a few dozen. This incongruity makes little sense if we cling to a vision of Aurangzeb as a cartoon bigot driven by a single-minded agenda of ridding India of Hindu places of worship.

"A historically legitimate view of Aurangzeb must explain why he protected Hindu temples more often than he demolished them." Truschke argues that Aurangzeb followed Islamic law in granting protection to non-Muslim religious leaders and institutions.

"Indo-Muslim rulers had counted Hindus as dhimmis, a protected class under Islamic law, since the eighth century, and Hindus were thus entitled to certain rights and state defences.

"Yet, Aurangzeb went beyond the requirements of Islamic law in his conduct towards Hindu and Jain religious communities. Instead, for Aurangzeb, protecting and, at times, razing temples served the cause of ensuring justice for all throughout the Mughal Empire."

freedom in Mughal India, and Aurangzeb did not hesitate to strike hard against religious institutions and leaders that he deemed seditious or immoral.

"But in the absence of such concerns, Aurangzeb's vision of himself as an even-handed ruler of all Indians prompted him to extend state security to temples."

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She says Aurangzeb had 49 years to make good on his princely promise of cultivating religious tolerance in the Mughal Empire, and he got off to a strong start.

"In one of his early acts as emperor, Aurangzeb issued an imperial order (farman) to local Mughal officials at Benares that directed them to halt any interference in the affairs of local temples."

Truschke claims that political events incited Aurangzeb to initiate assaults on certain Hindu temples.

She also argues that if Aurangzeb's reign had been 20 years shorter, closer to that of Jahangir (who ruled for 22 years) or Shah Jahan (who ruled for 30 years), modern historians would judge him rather differently.

"But Aurangzeb's later decades of fettering his sons, depending on an increasingly bloated administration, and undertaking ill-advised warring are a hefty part of his tangled legacy. Thus, we are left with a mixed assessment of a complex man and monarch who was plagued by an unbridgeable gap between his lofty ambitions and the realities of Mughal India," she writes.

With inputs from PTI