The writer is Dawn’s correspondent in Delhi.
PRIME MINISTER Narendra Modi has got India’s largest cricket stadium named after himself and this has kicked off needless fuss all around. If he is as bad as his critics say he is, someone will change the name of the stadium in the future, just as some from his ideological stable have changed other names of towns and streets, for example, Aurangzeb Road in Delhi.
The last of the major Mughal rulers was cruel to Hindus, so the Hindutva narrative goes, never mind that extremely powerful Hindu Rajputs were his chieftains. Was Aurangzeb any kinder to his father Shah Jahan or his brother Dara Shikoh or to the Sufi mystic Shah Sarmad who like Dara was decapitated although he posed no threat to the Mughal throne? Had the demand to erase Aurangzeb’s name from a Delhi road come from Sikhs, it would have made sense for what the emperor did to the revered Sikh guru.