A hard-line Hindu group’s call for the removal of the tomb of a 17th-century Mughal ruler has ignited tensions with Muslims in the western Indian state of Maharashtra, leading to communal violence and the imposition of a curfew.

       The violence, which occurred this week in the city of Nagpur, centered around the tomb of Aurangzeb, a Muslim emperor of India whom Hindu nationalists have vilified as a tyrant who brutalized Hindus.

       The clashes were contained by midweek, and the demand that the tomb be demolished has gone unheeded. But the flare-up showed how right-wing Hindus have seized on a long-ago history of Muslim rule of India to stoke grievances today against the country’s 200 million Muslims.

       The trouble started on Monday, which, according to the Hindu calendar, is the birth anniversary of Chhatrapati Shivaji, a valorized Hindu king who fought Aurangzeb. The Nagpur unit of a right-wing Hindu organization, the Vishwa Hindu Parishad or V.H.P., called for Aurangzeb’s tomb to be removed from the state, which had been the seat of Shivaji’s empire.

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       The grave is nearly 300 miles from Nagpur, in Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar district. Once known as Aurangabad, a name derived from the Mughal emperor’s name, the district was renamed after Shivaji’s son in 2023.

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       Security outside the tomb of the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb, in Maharashtra State on Sunday.Credit...Pti, via Associated Press

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