Marcos Falopa: The other side of Aurangzeb Alamgir

Kolkata, November 20:-

History lovers know as years rolled on, Aurangzeb Alamgir (1658-1707), the last Mughal, saw before his eyes failure piled upon failure and his Empire exhausted. Fear for the future of the Empire filled his mind with anguish, and made him extremely unhappy. His advice to his rebellious tons to save the Empire by partition went unheeded. Conscious of his failure and seriously apprehensive of the imminent disaster, he wrote to his son ‘A’ zam: ” I came alone and am going alone. I have not done well to the country and the people, and of the future there is no hope.” To Kam Bakhsh he wrote: “I carry away the burden of my shortcomings. . . . Come what may, I am launching my boat. ” The deep pathos of these letters is bound to move every human heart and to rouse in it sympathy for the old monarch on his “lonely death-bed”. Worn out in mind and body by heavy cares and hard toil, the Emperor died at Ahmadnagar in the morning of the 3rd March, 1707, “with the Muslim confession of faith on his lips”. His body was carried to Daulatabad and was interred in the compound of the tomb of the famous Muslim saint Burhan-ud-din. If Marcos Falopa, the just retired head coach of Kingfisher East Bengal Football Club, had to write an essay on his last days, I am sure, he would have gone through the Indian history and obviously the stories of the last Mughal. During my school days, one of my favourite teacher, Raktima Dutta, used to describe the Mughal era by saying, with Aurangzeb Alamgir becoming the king, it was the beginning of its (Mughal rule in India) end. Just after 30 years, when I thought of writing on chances of East Bengal getting i-League this year, I am left with no other alternative than quoting that same old history and the story of Aurangzeb Alamgir.

True, East Bengal Club officials have brought in Armando Colaco in by retrenching Falopa, but Falopa's presence in the last four months have done enough damage, at least on the psyche of our footballers. The scars are really very deep, and I doubt whether these footballers have that mental strength to heal these wounds or not. After all, footballers are too, human beings like us--they too have hearts, especially in East Bengal team, working more than their brain. Otherwise, players like Abhijit Mondol, Arnab Mondol, wouldn't have signed on blank contract papers at the beginning of this season. Why I am making room for this question again--when every thing has almost settled with the recruitment of India's most successful club coach, Armando Colaco? There are reasons. One may ask me, how Falopa did the damage? Just like successful surgeons, advocates, journalists or any other professionals, footballers, too have their own style and position while operating in the field. Subhash Bhowmik, I still remember, wanted to make Uga Okpara, playing as a striker, against our arch rival, Mohun Bagan--the match which we lost to Mohun Bagan 5-3. And Edeh Chiddi scored 4 goals alone in that match. If Uga agreed to Bhowmik, we wouldn't have get a wonderful defender in Indian football. I never considered Bhowmik as a great coach, but would love to take his name as one of the luckiest footballer, whose luck sometimes clicked as coach and East Bengal won Asean Club Cup and Churchill Brothers won last year's i-League trophy. Falopa was Aurangzeb Alamgir, who loves to be a dictator than a loving king. Just to implement his Brazilian paradox, Falopa started using the East Bengal players as guinea pigs. And the first victim was the most successful striker of the club--Edeh Chiddi. Then Sueoka, Saumik Dey, Arnab Mondal and the queue goes on....

He didn't love hearing the famous song: "When the going gets tough, the tough gets going", rather carried on doing same mistakes, sometimes blaming the footballers as unfit in front of television cameras as well as providing no chance to players like Abhra Mondal. It was really the beginning of an end of a dream for both the club as well as for its' few million supporters living in and around the globe. Again coming back to Aurangzeb Alamgir. To judge the character and policy of a personality like Aurangzeb is indeed a perplexing, task. Some have taken into consideration mainly his faults, and not his good qualities, which they have mostly ignored. There is -no reason why he should be singled out for severe strictures for the manner in which he secured the throne. In this, he was simply following the example that had become almost traditional in the Timurid family in India. It would be unjust to throw on him the entire responsibility for the war of succession; it would have come at any rate, as none of the brothers was willing to make any compromise. It should not be forgotten that while Shah Jahan removed all his possible rivals Aurangzeb did not put to death all his nephews. It is indeed hard to defend Aurangzeb’s harsh treatment of his old father, but, in justice to him it should be noted that at least he was not a parricide, of which we find numerous instances in the history of India and of other countries. But true, in spite of his vitality and strength of character, Aurangzeb, as a ruler of India, proved to be a failure. He hardly that the greatness of an Empire depends on the progress of its people as a whole. In the intensity of his religious zeal he ignored, the feelings of important sections of the people and thus roused forces hostile to his Empire. Indeed, the history of India since the days of the Mauryas clearly shows ,that political progress in this land is dependent on the policy of religious toleration which would seek to create harmony in the midst of various discordant elements. To build up a united India, while accentuating religious differences, is bound to remain an idle dream. Further, Aurangzeb’s plodding industry and capacity for work in one sense went against him by implanting in his mind a sense of over-confidence, and excessive distrust of his officers. This led him to interfere constantly in the minutest ire of the State. It resulted in keeping the local officers in a state of perpetual tutelage, and crushing their initiative, sense of responsibility, and efficiency, which could not but produce “administrative degeneration in an extensive and diversified empire like India”. Khafi Khan gives the following estimate of the Emperor from the point of view of an orthodox Sunni: “Of all the sovereigns of Delhi-no one, since Sikandar Lodi, has ever been apparently so distinguished for devotion, austerity and justice. In courage, long-suffering and sound judgment, he was unrivalled. But from revise of the injunction of the Law he did not make use of punishment, and without punishment the administration of a country cannot be maintained. Dissensions had arisen among his nobles through rivalry. So every plan and project that he formed came to little good and every enterprise which he undertook was long in execution and failed of its object.” Aurangzeb had many sterling qualities; but he was not a successful ruler; he was a great soldier but not a farseeing leader of men, a shrewd diplomat but not a sound statesman. In short, he was not a political genius, such as Akbar alone among the Mughuls had been, who could initiate a policy and enact laws to mould the life and thought of his contemporaries or of future generations. Largely owing to the Emperor’s lack of political foresight, the symptoms of the disintegration of the Mughul Empire appeared before he left this world. His weak successors only hastened the process of decay. The reign of the puritan Emperor was a great tragedy. Just like the last Mughal, Falopa was not a successful coach, he was a great theoretician, but never a great practical man. He was a shrewd Portuguese diplomat, but a worst man-manager. In short, he was not a coaching genius such as his predecessor, or his successor, only because of his lack of foresight as a leader of the team called East Bengal. With the end of Aurangzeb, started the history of the rise of Marathas. East Bengal, too, hopefully, will write another new history--The Rise of Armando--histrory truly repeats.