Everybody’s Taj, no one’s monument
DISPUTE It has been at the centre of politics, various outfits have staked claim to it, but the neglect that the mausoleum has suffered over the years tells a different story
LUCKNOW/AGRA: Countless millions have marvelled over the beauty of the Taj Mahal, the 17th century white marble mausoleum built by Mughal emperor Shah Jahan for his wife Mumtaz. Unesco describes the monument to love as “one of the universally admired masterpieces of the world.”
Countless controversies have also visited the Taj Mahal, which in recent years has been the subject of disputes that have dragged in Muslim and Hindu groups, governments, the judiciary, environmentalists, conservationists and investigating agencies. Everyone has an opinion on the Taj and its history and no one shies away from expressing it.
The latest is the claim laid to the monument by the Uttar Pradesh Sunni Wakf Board in the Supreme Court. The board claimed in April that none other than emperor Shah Jahan had declared the Taj a wakf property — an endowment by a Muslim for a religious, educational or charitable purposes.
In response, the apex court ordered the board to produce proof in the form of documents signed by the emperor.
Chief Justice of India (CJI) Dipak Misra had a few questions. “How did he (Shah Jahan) sign the wakfnama? He was in jail and used to view the monument while in custody,” CJI Misra said. Shah Jahan died in Agra fort, where he was put under house arrest by son Aurangzeb in July 1658, following a bitter war of succession.
“Who in India will believe it belongs to the wakf board? These kind of issues must not waste the time of the Supreme Court,” a bench led by CJI Misra told the board.
YH Tucy, who claims to be the the great-grandson of the last Mughal emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar, weighed in. “Taj Mahal belongs to India, not religious boards,” he said.
The case is still in the apex court. The board has hired eminent lawyer and Congress leader Salman Khurshid to represent its position.
UP Sunni Central Wakf Board chairman Zufar Ahmed Farooqui, the man behind the latest controversy, said: “It is a settled law. Taj Mahal as a tomb is a ‘wakf by use’ as defined under Section 3 (r) of the Wakf Act, 1995. It has several graves and a mosque located within its precincts. Its physical features prove beyond doubt that it is a wakf property.”
The Uttar Pradesh Sunni Wakf Board is battling the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) over the Taj Mahal.
“We are not claiming the ownership or control of Taj Mahal,” Farooqui hastened to add. “A waqf is an endowment of land or property where the ownership vests with the Almighty and its proceeds are utilised for religious, educational or charitable purposes,” he added.
MAUSOLEUM OR TEMPLE?
In August last year, another controversy had been generated when the Central Information Commission (CIC) lobbed into the central government’s court a potential hot potato. It asked the government to clarify whether the Taj Mahal was a mausoleum or a Shiva temple.
The CIC was pulled into the debate after a Right to Information (RTI) application asked whether the monument was called Taj Mahal or ‘Tejo Mahalaya’.
Three weeks later, ASI submitted before a local court in Agra that the Taj is a tomb and not a temple. It was the first time that ASI had categorically stated this in connection with a case going on in Agra district court. The claim that the Taj Mahal is a Shiva temple is not new. There have been such claims since historian Purshottam Nagesh Oak’s book ‘Taj Mahal: The True Story’ was published in 1989.
In the book, Oak claimed that the Taj was originally a Shiva temple and a Rajput palace named Tejo Mahalaya, which Shah Jahan seized and adopted as a tomb.
In October 2017, Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Vinay Katiyar added fuel to fire when the Taj did not figure in the tourism brochure of Yogi Adityanath’s Uttar Pradesh government which instead gave prominence to Gorakhpur Math and Ayodhya.
Katiyar said the Taj Mahal was built on the ruins of a Shiva temple. Yogi Adityanath had in June suggested the Taj Mahal did not represent Indian culture.
BJP legislator Sangeet Som went a step further and said Taj Mahal had been built by traitors and should not get a place in history. “It is a blot on Indian culture,” he said. Adityanath waded in for a spot of damage control. “It does not matter who built it and for what reason. It was built by the blood and sweat of Indian labourers ... It is very important for us, especially from the tourism perspective,” he said.
Former CM and Samajwadi Party chief Akhilesh Yadav, who visited the monument on Valentine’s Day with his wife when he was in power, attacked Yogi and other BJP leaders on the issue of not including the monument in a state tourism brochure. Eventually, when Adityanath visited Agra, Yadav tweeted: “Yeh hai Yamuna kinare khadey Taj ka kehna, yeh hai pyaar ka tirth, yahan bhi aatey rehna (The Taj on the banks of Yamuna says it is a pilgrimage of love, do visit).”
UP government ministers clarified that the Taj had been deliberately omitted from the brochure. Tourism principal secretary Avanish Awasthi said the brochure was not a tourist guide but an internal budgeting-related pamphlet meant for a press conference.
This was the second time in 2017 that the Adityanath government had come under criticism over the Taj. In July, the annual budget for 2017-18 made no mention of the Taj Mahal in the special section ‘Hamari Sanskritik Virasat’ (our cultural heritage), incorporated in the state finance minister’s 63-page speech.
In May 2017, right-wing activists, including Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal volunteers, staged a protest at the Taj Mahal and some of them entered the monument wearing saffron to protest against reports that some foreign models who had visited the Taj were asked to deposit their saffron stoles at the monument’s gate.
“Muslims are allowed to carry metreslong ‘chadar’ on ‘Urs’ of Shah Jahan, ‘biryani’ is cooked on Taj premises and drums are played but those wearing saffron are stopped at the gate. That is why we entered Taj wearing saffron after purchasing ticket,” was the explanation offered by Sunil Sharma, an organiser.
NOT SO PRISTINE
Damage done to its once-pristine white marble face by industries surrounding the Taj has been another longstanding concern. More than two decades ago, on December 30, 1996, a Supreme Court bench headed by justice Kuldeep Singh passed an order on a public interest litigation (PIL) filed by environmentalist MC Mehta that the use of coal and coke should be banned in the Taj Trapezium Zone (TTZ), an area of which the Taj is the epicentre. The same court is once again, hearing a plea seeking protection of the Taj from the ill-effects of polluting gases and deforestation in and around the area. On May 9, the court slammed ASI for not being able to protect the iconic monument, and asked about the steps being taken to prevent the Mughal structure.
What came up first – the Taj Mahal or the old crematorium on its premises? The debate has been on for decades. In the 1990s, a proposal was made to shift the crematorium but BJP leaders and workers opposed it, saying that the crematorium was older than the Taj. The government eventually shelved the idea.
The issue resurfaced in 2015 when sitting judge of Supreme Court Justice Kurian Joseph pointed out that smoke and ash flying from the cremation ground located about 500 metres from the monument could be hazardous to it.
The Supreme Court asked the UP government to shift the crematorium, but the then Akhilesh Yadav government told the apex court that it might create a law and order problem because of protests by right-wing outfits. The Supreme Court suggested that the government open an electric crematorium where funerals are performed free.
THE TAJ CORRIDOR SCAM
Those moving on the Yamuna Kinara road in Agra in 2002-2003 saw tractors and loaders on the Yamuna riverbed. Sand in the river basin was being lifted from the middle and shifted towards the banks, leaving the river bed deeper and narrower in the middle. Officials were tightlipped initially over what was being done. It eventually emerged that what was taking shape was the Taj Heritage Corridor – an ambitious project of then chief minister Mayawati. It later came to be known as the Taj Corridor Case or Taj Corridor Scam.
The project planned to upgrade tourist facilities near the Taj Mahal. The corridor was aimed at connecting all the monuments alongside the Yamuna. Environmentalists then warned that meddling with the river’s course and the banks could have disastrous consequences and threaten the Taj Mahal.
“Not much was revealed about the Taj Heritage Corridor and no DPR (detailed project report) was made public. The plan allegedly included grand complexes in the backdrop of the Taj with commercial activities,” said environmentalist Brij Khandelwal, who runs the River Connect Campaign in Agra. “Prima facie, it appeared that the course of the river was being changed and its basin being narrowed. This could have left water moving with gushing speed, affecting the walls of Taj Mahal. The project was stopped and it turned out to be a major political controversy. The matter reached the Supreme Court and the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI).” Amid the controversy, the BJP withdrew support to the Mayawati government, leading to its collapse.
The CBI is still looking into the Taj corridor case.