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October 22, 2017

India: Lotus shadow over the Taj (Anuradha Bhasin Jamwal)

Kashmir Times, Sunday, October 22, 2017

Lotus shadow over the Taj
By Anuradha Bhasin Jamwal

ye chaman-zār ye jamunā kā kināra ye mahal

ye munaqqash dar o dīvār ye mehrāb ye taaq

ik shahanshāh ne daulat kā sahārā le kar

ham ġharīboñ kī mohabbat kā uḌāyā hai mazāq

Thus wrote Sahir Ludhianvi about Taj Mahal. The poet neither challenged the historic richness of the monument nor its architectural feat that makes it one of the seven wonders of the world. His words were simply a rebuke at the symbolisation of the monument, which signifies the architectural grandness and the financial and political might of an emperor, with love.

Moghuls who ruled India for almost three centuries left their mark on every aspect of Indian society through an assimilation of cultures their ancestors brought from outside and absorption of existing ones. Art and architecture flourished during their periods, enriching India with some of the finest sites of heritage that is a matter of pride for any Indian. The magnificience of grand monuments like Fatehpur Sikri today narrate the tale of the grandeur of the times and of the people who lived and visited the palace-city. Fatehpur Sikri today stands as a grand monument that is a blend of both Islamic and Hindu elements in its architectural designs. The Agra Fort, Red Fort in Delhi and many other Moghul monuments gifted to India unique architectural styles which were an amalgam of Persian, Turkic and Indian patterns, as well as engineering feats including water works. Unlike these symbols of robust life, the Taj Mahal was a tribute of one Moghul king to his beloved wife, a tomb where they both lie buried. So does that make it a symbol of love? Or symbol of death? It is for the individuals to draw their own conclusion. But the architectural grandeur of the Taj, a white marble wonder like a drop of pearl in the backdrop of the calm banks of Yamuna river, its fame and significance is global and undeniable.

In India, its significance goes beyond the artistic to pure economics as well since this monument rated as one of the seven wonders of the world fetches India more than half its foreign tourists and foreign exchange as well. Only a foolish mind would ignore the Taj Mahal while re-drawing the tourist map. And, only an illiterate and obsessed mind would root it out on grounds that it is not part of Indian culture.

The Moghuls not only conquered India. They expanded horizontally and vertically building it as their home and assimilating the cultures and influences they brought from outside with the local existing cultures and enriching India like never before. Unlike many other conquerors in history, who plundered and looted India’s wealth, they became one with India and consolidated for the first time the country as a huge empire. Needless to point out that there is enough historic evidence to show that in ancient India when Hindu kingdoms fought each other they looted and plundered each other’s monuments and temples because these were store-houses of wealth.

The contribution of Moghuls in changing this trend from plundering to consolidating and strengthening cultural spaces is a valid proof of their Indianness. The Mughals took keen interest in paintings that depict a collaboration of Indo-Persian synthesis. The art flourished under each ruler and paintings of the Mughal era depict themes from fables of Persian literature and Hindu mythology, and gradually assimilated realistic subjects like portraits, royal life, festivals, events like hunting and battles. These paintings today occupy a place of pride in many museums in India and across the world. Literature flourished too. Apart from the famous biographies like Abul Fazl’s Akbarnama, the Mughals also promoted Hindi literature. Akbar wholeheartedly patronised Hindi poetry. Sursagar by Surdas, Ramcharitamanas by Tulsidas and the Persian-Sanskrit dictionary were documented at this time.

By and large, Mughals were great lovers of music. Babar is recorded to have composed songs. Akbar’s court was adorned by famous musicians like Tansen of Gwalior and Baz Bahadur of Malwa. Shah Jahan was fond of vocal and instrumental music. The two great Hindu musicians of his time were Jagannath and Janardhan Bhatta. But Aurangzeb who was a puritan dismissed singing from his court. However, ironically, the largest number of books on classical music were written in his reign. Bahadur Shah Zafar was one of the finest Urdu poets of his times. The Mughals also promoted traditional dance and brought to India the famous kathak dance, which till date is performed and applauded globally. Kathak is legitimately both Hindu and Islamic and many a tales of Hindu mythology continue to be enacted through dance form by Kathak exponents today.

India has a long history from loose small kingdoms to its final consolidation under British regime who also left it divided into two dominions in 1947. It has been shaped by many influences and cultures which became part and parcel of India. Does the majority religion alone signify the country? This is legitimately and historically a flawed argument.

The Taj Mahal is being rejected by the BJP on grounds that it was built by a treacherous king and a traitor. India reached its zenith and nadir during the Mughal era and many Mughal kings were known for their benevolence. Some Mughals collected high taxes including Jaziya but they spent every little penny in India and did not take it outside the country. If there are some instances of brutality, that was the way of life under the monarchs who have ruled not just India but any other part of the world from time to time. How do Mughal emperors qualify as traitors?

After this argument did not cut much ice among public in India, the BJP leaders have now appropriated the site of Taj Mahal, imagining that there once existed a temple. There is no historical evidence of such an assertion barring the weird theories of some Hindutva proponents. While there is abject silence within the BJP at the highest echelons of power and the ‘Mann ki Baat’ man has nothing to reveal or clarify amounting to tacit patronage to the likes of Yogi Adityanath, Vinay Katiyar and Sangeet Som. The pattern is all too familiar. Such a discourse earlier led to demolition of Babri Masjid, a parallel that was only found in Afghanistan with the fall of the historic Bamiyan Buddha statues. The BJP-RSS are inching towards converting its army into Hindutva Talibans. They denigrate symbols that carry even a feeble glimpse of Islamic element in them or appropriate them. The Taj, that occupies a prime place of pride in the hearts of many Indians for all its architectural and artistic worth, is today being stamped with a lotus. Sadly, this is not the lotus the poet, Mahshar Badayuni had in mind when he wrote of Taj Mahal:

“Allāh maiñ ye taaj mahal dekh rahā huuñ

Yā pahlū-e-jamunā meñ kañval dekh rahā huuñ”

(Oh! Lord, am I beholding Taj Mahal

Or on the banks of Yamuna, a lotus in its splendor)