Hyderabad, March 24 -- When Sunil Ambekar, the chief spokesperson of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, clarified to the Times of India on March 19 that "The glorification of Aurangzeb should stop. The tomb issue is not irrelevant; Aurangzeb is," he might have sounded self-contradictory yet he has a point. What he left unsaid is that it is the ruling establishment which decides what is relevant and what is not.

The RSS leader's viewpoint can be understood with the help of the following contemporary examples, which apparently might have nothing to do with the Mughal Emperor.

As it suits the incumbent rulers to be more critical of their immediate predecessors-particularly those who have been in power for too long-West Bengal chief minister Mama...