The sixth Mughal emperor, Aurangzeb, was evidently—and without doubt—a great bundle of paradoxes. He was a suspicious mind in the times when any absence from one's capital would cost one's throne—and possibly life as well. Yet this emperor remained in the Deccan for 27 years—never to come back. Aurangzeb was aware that the overwhelming majority of his subjects were Hindu. Yet, he went out of his way to oppress them with a vengeance. He destroyed their temples, reintroduced the jaziya, which Akbar had abolished, and aggressively promoted conversion to Islam.

The dissolution of the Mughal Empire showed Aurangzeb hadhis priorities all wrong. Despite this, he is called a "Great Mughal" by many a historian. This book, therefore, has been presented to explode this myth.