FAULT LINES RESURFACE

On March 17, a group of Hindu right-wing activists gathered at the old Mahal neighbourhood in Nagpur to demand the demolition of Mughal emperor Aurangzeb's tomb in Khultabad in Maharashtra.

- By Dhaval S. Kulkarni

Similar protests were taking place across the state. But soon rumours of protesters burning a fabric with religious inscriptions triggered violence in various pockets of Nagpur, leaving 33 people injured. The present spell of violence has exposed deep fissures across the state's socio-political landscape. Reigniting the whole controversy around the Mughal emperor and his antagonistic interface with Maratha history is a Hindi film and political reactions to it.

HOW DID THE ROW ERUPT?

Chhaava, a biopic on Chhatrapati Sambhaji Maharaj, elder son of the Maratha empire founder Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj, was released on February 14. It details how a 31-year-old Sambhaji was brutally tortured and killed on Aurangzeb's orders in 1689.