"Babur inherited his religious policy from the Lodis. Sikandar Lodi’s fanaticism must have been still remembered by some of the officials who continued to serve when Babur came into power. Babur was not a great administrator. He was content to govern India in the orthodox fashion. He projected no great changes in the government of the country except the design of a royal road from Agra to Kabul. But the Hindus, he met with, occupied no humble position. Rana Sanga, a Hindu, led a host wherein even Muslim armies were present under disaffected Pa than chiefs. It was Babur’s success at the battle of Khanava against Rana Sanga that enabled him to remain in India as her ruler. These two factors seem to have governed his religious policy. Babur, the born fighter against heavy odds, knew he was at a great crisis in his life on the eve of his battle against Rana Sanga. In order to conform strictly to the Muslim law he absolved Muslims from paying stamp duties thus confining the tax to Hindus alone. He thus not only continued, but increased, the distinction between his Hindu and Muslim subjects in the matter of their financial burdens. One of his officers, Hindu Beg, is said to have converted a Hindu temple at Sambhal into a mosque. His Sadr, Shaikh Zain, demolished many Hindu temples at Ghanderi when he occupied it. By Babur’s orders, Mir Baqi destroyed the temple at Ayudhya commemorating Rama’s birth place and built a mosque in its place in 1528-29. He destroyed Jain idols at Urva near Gwalior. There is no reason to believe that he did anything to relax the harshness of the religious policy which he found prevailing."
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Sources
Sharma Sri Ram. 1988. The Religious Policy of the Mughal Emperors. 3rd ed. New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal. ch 2
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Babur
Zahir-ud-Din Muhammad Babur or Babur (February 14, 1483 – December 26, 1530) was a descendant of Genghis Khan and Timur; Babur was a military adventurer, a soldier of distinction, a poet, diarist and statesman. Babur was the first Mughal Emperor and founder o
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