Mausoleum controversy
Lawmaker: Monument of love built by traitors
Monument of love, the Taj Mahal, at heart of political storm.
LUCKNOW: India’s famed monument of love, the white marble Taj Mahal, is finding itself at the heart of a political storm, with some members of the country’s ruling Hindu rightwing party claiming that the mausoleum built by a Muslim emperor does not reflect Indian culture.
The most recent attack came this week when Sangeet Som, a lawmaker from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), called the 17th century monument “a blot on Indian culture” that was built by “traitors”.
But Som was not the first to attack the mausoleum, which Mughal emperor Shah Jahan built in the northern city of Agra in memory of his favourite wife.
Last month, Yogi Adityanath, the controversial head monk of a famed Hindu temple who is now the top elected official of Uttar Pradesh state, where the Taj Mahal is located, said foreign dignitaries visiting his state should be gifted a copy of the Hindu religious book Bhagvad Gita instead of replicas of the Taj Mahal.
This is not the first time that India’s Islamic past has come under attack by members of the BJP or smaller Hindu groups.
The federal government, led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has also been accused of attempting to rewrite history textbooks, especially where India’s past Muslim medieval rulers are concerned.
In Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, the state government even deleted the profile of the Taj Mahal from its official tourism booklet published earlier this month.
It listed Hindu pilgrimage spots such as Gorakhnath Temple in Gorakhpur, which Adityanath heads, and included plans for new attractions such as a tour of locations related to the Hindu text, Ramayana. Emperor Shah Jahan had the Taj Mahal built between 1632 and 1654 for his favourite wife, Mumtaz Mahal, after her death.
The complex houses their graves and a mosque, as well as several other graves of lesser Mughal royalty.
The stunning monument is India’s biggest tourist draw, with about three million visiting every year. The tourism business it drums up keeps some 200,000 people employed and Agra’s economy moving.
“The Taj Mahal should have no place in Indian history, as it was built by traitors,” Som said in the rabblerousing style he is known for at a rally in Meerut, 300km southwest of the Uttar Pradesh state capital Lucknow.
“Mughal emperor Shah Jahan wanted to wipe out Hindus. If these people are part of our history, then it is very sad and we will change this history,” he added.
Som, who was inaugurating a statue of the eighth century Hindu king Anangpal Singh Tomar, went on to add, incorrectly, that Shah Jahan had killed his own father.
In fact, it was Shah Jahan who was imprisoned and killed by his son Aurangzeb.
The BJP distanced itself from Som’s comments, with the party’s general secretary Vijay Bahadur Pathak saying the Taj Mahal was part of Indian pride and “whatever Som said is his personal view”.
The Taj Mahal should have no place in Indian history. Sangeet Som