Historical films build collective memory by selectively focusing on certain storylines. In times of changing history syllabus in India, and renaming of places having Mughal connections, many films and TV/OTT series with medieval Muslim themes but fictitious plots have been produced in the last decade with a concerted agenda-setting strategy. In nationalistic narratives, Mughal emperor Aurangzeb was the orthodox bigot in contrast to Akbar the Great. However, in OTT series, Taj: Divided by Blood and Taj Season 2: Reign of Revenge, on Zee 5 Mughal figures like Akbar, Salim, and Nur Jahan are vilified, while the historiography of Abul Fazl and Abdul Qadir Badauni have been questioned. By adopting an interdisciplinary approach navigating between historical sources and narrative analysis of the Taj series, we argue in this article that on the pretext of creative freedom and entertainment, there is an eruption of Mughalophobic monstrous imagery to help strengthen Islamophobia and promote anti-Muslimism in majoritarian memory.
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