Truschke has been a frequent target of harassment by right-wing Hindu nationalists, who accuse her of having prejudiced views on Hinduism, and making offensive statements; scholars reject the charges.
[7] Edmond Smith of the University of Kent, writing for Reviews in History, found the work to be "evocative, [and] expertly researched", where Truschke used her "exceptional linguistic talents" to pose and answer provoking questions about the Mughal Empire while inspiring other scholars to re-examine their approaches to studying religions.
[10] Truschke, in her reading of sources, suggests that Aurangzeb was not the anti-Hindu tyrant he has been made out to be in popular scholarship; there was no "systematic" attack on Hindus and his sporadic destruction of temples or imposition of jizya must be interpreted from within a political and economical milieu.
Munis D. Faruqui, a historian of Mughal India, found the book to be an excellent work aimed at non-specialists, and praised Truschke's willingness to tackle the topic despite being aware about the inevitability of "vicious personal attacks from mostly nonacademic critics".
"[11] Sara Mondini, a scholar of Indo-Islamic art and architecture, commended Truschke for having penned a "precise and exhaustive" volume on the subject with due regard to sources; it was far more "rich and complex" than the "stereotypical nationalist" ones prevailing in scholarship, and was "pivotal" to the understanding of Hindu-Muslim encounters in the premodern era.
[14] In May 2021, Truschke co-edited "The Ramayana of Hamida Banu Begum, Queen Mother of Mughal India" which was published by Silvana Editoriale and Museum of Islamic Art, Doha.
[24] Writer Purushottam Agrawal found the tweet to be inflammatory, disrespectful and poor; it reduced the layered and complex character of Rama to a "caricature in a contemporary American comic strip," noting that "'Prakrita' [is] a common word, which essentially means 'ordinary' or 'uncivilised', or 'raw' as opposed to refined.
[1] Among the alleged reasons were Truschke's claiming that the Bhagavad Gita rationalizes mass slaughter,[1][a] linking Hindus with the 2021 storming of the United States Capitol,[1][b] whitewashing the "trauma" inflicted on Hindus by Aurangzeb,[1][c] and designing an undergraduate course to portray an "exotic-erotic-chauvinist-oppressive" view of Hindu India by relying on scholars like Wendy Doniger and focusing on the multiplicity of Ramayana among other errors of omission and commission.
[2] The university, while defending academic freedom and calling for an immediate end to hate speech directed at her, said that it was initiating a dialogue with the Hindu community to understand their concerns.
[e][43] A diverse group of intellectuals and academics—Akeel Bilgrami, Amitav Ghosh, Anita Desai, Cornel West, Martha Nussbaum, Nandini Sundar, Noam Chomsky, Romila Thapar, Sudipta Kaviraj, Sheldon Pollock, and Wendy Doniger among others—have condemned HAF's tactics as a strategic lawsuit against public participation to silence critics and push forward Hindutva.
[45] [T]he line between virtue and vice [ in Mahabharata], dharma and adharma, is often muddled [...] Krishna's discourse to Arjuna, known as the Bhagavadgita (‘Song of the Lord’), or Gita for short, is often read as a standalone work today, and revered by many across the world for its insights on morality and even nonviolence.