AURANGZEB TO HIS TEACHER (POLITICAL SCIENCE(H) (ENGLISH)

LETTER: AURANGZEB TO HIS TEACHER

Aurangzeb would have given his teacher the highest position in his empire had the latter taught him properly. He asks a straightforward and embarrassing question. He wants to know from his teacher what reward he wants from the emperor. He makes it clear that he could have jolly well appointed him his couriter or in a higher post had he taught him well in his childhood. A father who teaches properly is more respectable than a father. This feeling of Aurangzeb should be accepted as true. It shows that he honours good teachers. This teacher had given him false information about various kings of the world. He was taught that the kings of European states, Holland, England, Spain were very small and weak. He was taught that kings of China, Burma and Russia were also petty. This misinformation (wrong facts) was given to him with the view to make him feel that Indian kings were the most powerful in the whole world. Thus, the teacher fed wrong information (taught wrong facts) into the young brain of the prince. What was the purpose of this education – this false way of teaching? It was only to make the prince vain about his position. The teacher filled him with false vanity and pride.

The teacher failed miserably to motivate the prince to objectively (impartially) read various histories to assess his own strength. It was the duty of the teacher to first understand and then teach Aurangzeb various states along with their strength, their war strategy (ways of fighting) their customs, their religions, their political and administrative set-ups, their public welfare programmes, their progress in various fields, their fall and the reasons for such falls. A teacher teaching a prince must teach him to avoid the mistakes committed by other kings so as to rule smoothly. A good teacher teaching a prince should prepare him to successfully discharge his duty as a king in the later years. This is possible only if he gives him a comparative analysis of kings and their administration. Forget the history of other people, the teacher has not cared to teach him the history of his own forefathers, the founders of the Moghul empire in India. The teacher did not care to teach him the means and ways his fore-fathers adopted to establish a powerful empire in India. Thus, the teacher failed on the home front (history of his own family, as well. Kingdoms will crumble if such princes were to rule after their such teachings.

Aurangzeb blames his teacher for fixing wrong priorities (subject) to teach. The teacher had planned to make Aurangzeb a great scholar of Arabic language and literature. The teacher conviently forgot that the prince was not to become a Arabic grammarian or a poet but the king after his father’s death. It is a sheer waste of time for a they don’t concern his job. A king has to deal with very grave and serious issues and he needs much commonsense for that. Learning of words does not stand him in good stead in this direction. Aurangzeb rightly condemns his former teacher for having mistaught him. A teacher must know what his pupil needs. Once he chooses a wrong direction knowingly or otherwise, he is to blame for ruining the career of the child. A prince should not be given the details of words but the details of the world he has to deal with. Don’t teach him grammar in detail but the ways to run the administration. The views expressed by Aurangzeb are perfectly valid even today.

Aurangzeb pinpoints (make a special mention) the lapses of his former teacher. He is of the confirmed (sure) view that the child must be taught in his mother tongue. Education through mother tongue is always better than through any other language. The child learns fast and remembers for all his life the things taught to him in his childhood days if the teaching is done through his mother tongue. Aurangzeb feels he was wasted his childhood in learning science, law language through the medium of Arabic. He feels so sorry for his teacher who taught him philosophical abstractions (only ideas) which were very hard to understand and were useless in real life. He felt how he confused him with very big and difficult philosophic concepts (ideas). Those words would confuse even the best of scholars. Even the best scholars would not know their actual meaning. His teachers taught him hard philosophical concepts as if he were the most competent (able) man to teach philosophy. The fact is that all incompetent and ignorant men use high words to conceal (hide) their incompetence (inability). Aurangzeb speaks out of disgust and despair and bitterness (anger). His bitterness against his teacher is greatly justified. He wishes that his teacher would have taught him the way to build fortitude and unshakable self-confidence. He should have been taught to remain calm both in prosperity and adversity. He should have taught him about human life, about the universe and all noble thins. Had he ennobled (made better) his mind and soul, given him spiritual and moral strength to face the world like a hero, he would have been more devoted to him than was Alexander to Aristotle. He should have taught him the duty of the king to his people, and the people’s duty to their king. He should have taught him the ability to run the administration in a good manner. He should have been taught how to lead his army to war successfully and defeat the enemy. He tells his former teacher or flatterer to go and live in his obscure village so that he does not ruin the career of other people. Let others not know through the king or through his bad teaching what a bad man he is. No one knows whether his former tutor left for his village. But it is a fact no one respects him in the history of the Moghul empire.

Question and Answers

1.     What sort of philosophy teaching would have helped Aurangzeb?

Philosophy teaches us how to think rightly, freely and methodically. This type of philosophy teaching would have helped Aurangzeb in the running of his administration.

2.     How could the teacher teach him to be a better and efficient king?

The teacher would have done a good job had he taught him his duties towards the people, people’s duties towards him, the use of power to be successful in his kingdom, the art of besieging a town and raising the army.

3.     What is Aurangzeb’s attitude towards his former teacher?

Aurangzeb is critical of his way of teaching, the subjects that he taught and the desire for money. He is angry with him but requests him politely to go back to the village where he came from and live unknown.

4.     What should Mullah Sahe have taught Aurangzeb?

It was the professional duty very comprehensively the war strategies, customs, religions, administrative set-ups, rise and fall, mistakes done by heads of states rebellions and other such things of the states of the world. He should have taught him an objective and true history of his own forefathers who founded the Moghul empire in India. It is sad that his teacher failed him in all fields.

5.     Why was learning Arabic a waste of time as far as Aurangzeb was concerned?

Aurangzeb was a prince. He had to take his father’s throne after some time. He was not to teach Arabic language, grammar and literature in a school. He was not interested to become a linguist or a grammarian. He had a different field altogether. He is right when he says that learning Arabic was a sheer waste of time for him. He should have been taught war craft, administration, public welfare schemes, comparative world history, fate of those kings who did not discharge their duties and such issues.

6.     Why is learning any foreign language unpleasant?

Learning any foreign language is unpleasant and tedious because the learner is not culturally associated with it. He is always reluctant to learn a foreign language because he does not like its longsome words, expressions and many other things.

7.     Why is childhood a good period for learning? To what use could it have been put?

Childhood is a good period of learning because a well-taught child remember all the good things taught him then all his life. These things prepare him to be good and noble in life. It is useless to teach a child the law, religion and sciences in a foreign language. A child taught well in his childhood is surely a good and noble man.

8.     What is Aurangzeb’s parting advice to his teacher?

Aurangzeb’s last advice to his former tutor is to go back to his village from where he had come to teach him. He tells him to hide himself in a remote village. Nobody should know about his position as a teacher. Nobody should about his position as a teacher. Nobody should also know that he has been censored by the emperor for teaching him in a wrong way. This is some sort of punishment to the bad teacher.