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Razing a Monument – the Taj Mahal

Remember the Buddhas at Bamiyan or the Babri Masjid at Ayodhya.  In one case the brave and fearless Taliban in a courageous and bold act of iconoclasm aimed cannon fire at the unarmed stone statues and blasted them out of their ornamented recesses leaving only some empty cannonball scorched niches. In the other case the kar sevaks egged on by Marga Darshaks demolished a magnificent old relic. We hear that the artistic, sensitive and diligent Japanese have assured the world they would restore the images at Bamiyan with holographic reproductions. That is good news because no amount of cannon fire could destroy a hologram. However, the Babri Masjid has no such saviours.

Will they be assembling cannons around the Taj Mahal? One wonders how many cannons and how many cannonballs would be needed to raze that monumental wonder of the world, the Taj Mahal, to dust. It may have been built by traitors who were in the lineage of successful conquerors, who adopted the land they conquered and like the ancient Aryans decided to stay on, but it is too beautiful a gift to our land; a land whose ancient aesthetic accomplishments in turning common stone to exquisite sculpture are there as unmatched legacy for all to behold. Will the inheritors of that great artistic tradition descend into a mindless aping of the destructive philistinism of the Taliban?

We do not have to take the ranting of bigots seriously. They are more used to rabble rousing than to leading men to think. What we have to consider is the atmosphere of bigotry and fear that has been unleashed in this our land of unbounded tolerance and large-hearted inclusiveness.  How has this come about and how can we push it back? For push it back we must else we would be untrue to the legacies of the Indian past. That would be an even bigger disaster than the razing of the Taj Mahal.