Hindustan, Bharat or India? Their history is the same
Sunday, 24 August 2014 | Kanchan Gupta | in Coffee Break
History around the world was invariably penned in blood, artful calligraphy not withstanding. Violence was often confused with valour, and the vanquished vilified by the victor
James Tod joined the Bengal Army as a cadet in 1799, presumably looking for a life of adventure in the heat and dust of India. He swiftly rose through the ranks and, as a Lieutenant-Colonel, provided valuable service to the East India Company. His uncanny ability to gather information helped the early colonisers smash the Maratha Confederacy. Later, his assistance was sought during the Rajputana campaign.
Colonel Tod, as he was known, was a natural scholar with an eye for detail and a curious mind. He was fascinated by the history of Rajputana and its antiquities as much as by its palace intrigues and the shifting loyalties of its rulers and their factotums. That fascination led to his penning two books that are still considered mandatory reading for anybody interested in the history of the Rajputs, although latter-day scholars of the Marxist variety would disagree with both the contents and the style, neither leavened by ideological predilections. The first volume of Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan was was published in 1829 and the second in 1832, nearly a decade after he returned to Britain.
Thousands of people, Indians and foreigners, Muslims and non-Muslims, visit Ajmer every day to offer a chaadar at Dargah Sharif of Hazrat Khwaja Moinuddin Chisti, a shrine where all are welcome and every prayer is answered, or so the faithful and the pious choose to believe. Many stay on to visit the other antiquities of Ajmer, among them a magnificent mosque complex that bears little or no resemblance to its name: Adhai Din Ka Jhonpra.
People gawk at the columns and the façade intricately carved with inscriptions from the Quran in Arabic. They pose for photographs or capture the mosque's 'beauty' on video cameras and carry back memories of Islam's munificence towards its followers. Don't forget to visit Adhai Din Ka Jhonpra, they will later tell friends and relatives visiting Ajmer.
As for Indian Muslims who travel to Ajmer and see Adhai Din Ka Jhonpra, they would be tempted to wonder why similar mosques are no longer built, a wonderment that is only partially explained by the fact that sultans and badshahs no longer rule India and jizya is not extorted by the rulers from dhimmis any more. (The diversion of taxpayers' money in the name of Muslim welfare is another story and not germane in this context.)
The crescent had begun to wane long before Bahadur Shah Zafar was propped up by ghazis as Badshah of Hindustan, making a cruel mockery of a feckless 'Emperor' and his decrepit court. Eighteen Fifty-Seven witnessed the last gasp of Muslim rule in India; it also marked the end of munificence for a community used to its exalted status as the ruling class, even if living in abject poverty as many Muslims were even then as they are now. Not everybody was a nawab though we are expected to believe otherwise.
Such speculation as may flit through troubled minds need not detain us, nor is there any need to feel sorry for those who wallow in self-pity or are enraged by the realisation of permanent loss of power. More than a century-and-a-half is long enough time to reconcile to the changed realities of Hindustan. Those realities won't change if you were to call this land India or Bharat, never mind the spurious debate on what is the rightful name of this country and what is the true identity of its inhabitants — Hindu, Hindustani, Bharatiya or Indian? — for that is at best a passing distraction.
So, let us return to Adhai Din Ka Jhonpra, the magnificent mosque complex in Ajmer. Few who have seen and admired this antiquity would be aware of Colonel Tod's description of it in the first volume of Annals and Antiquities of Rajasthan: "The entire façade of this noble entrance"¦ is covered with Arabic inscriptions "¦ but in a small frieze over the apex of the arch is contained an inscription in Sanskrit." And that oddity tells the real story of Adhai Din Ka Jhonpra.
This is no place of worship that was built over weeks and months for the faithful to congregate five times a day, it is a monument to honour Shahabuddin Muhammad Ghauri who travelled through Ajmer after defeating, and killing, Prithviraj Chauhan in the second battle of Tarain in 1192 AD. Stunned by the beauty of the temples of Ajmer and shocked by such idolatory, he ordered Qutubuddin Aibak to sack the city and build a mosque, a mission to be accomplished in two-and-a-half days, so that he could offer namaz on his way back.
Qutubuddin Aibak fulfilled the task given to him: He used the structures of three temples to fashion what now stands as Adhai Din Ka Jhonpra. Mindful of sensitivities, his men used their swords to disfigure the faces of figures carved into the 70 pillars that still stand. It would not be incorrect to suggest that Hindustan's invaders had a particular distaste for Bharatiya noses portrayed in stone and plaster in Indian temples.
The story of Adhai Din Ka Jhonpra is not unique. Hindustan's landscape is dotted with mosques built on sites where temples stood, often crafted with material from the destroyed places of worship. Quwwat-ul Islam, the first mosque built in Delhi, bears testimony to the invader's smash-and-grab policy, as do the mosques Aurangzeb built in Kashi and Mathura, or the mosque Mir Baqi built at Ayodhya on the site Hindus believe to be, and revere as, Ram Janmabhumi.
History bears witness, as does Saryu, to this act of sacrilege.
The pillars and inner walls of Babri Masjid, as the disputed structure was known till it came crashing down on December 6, 1992, were those of a temple that once stood there, a fact proven beyond doubt. Somnath was fortunate: It was sacked repeatedly, but no permanent mosque came to occupy the land where it stood — and still stands — in Gujarat. The mosque that had been built was dismantled when the temple was rebuilt at Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel's initiative. The looted gold, of course, was beyond recovery.
There is no percentage in harking back to the past and reminding ourselves of the excesses committed by those who invaded Hindustan from the west. History around the world was invariably penned in blood, artful calligraphy not withstanding. Violence was often confused with valour, and the vanquished vilified by the victor. To try and prove otherwise is mighty foolish.
We can either come to terms with this harsh fact of life. Or play parlour games to fool ourselves into believing bunk peddled as fact.
(The writer is a Delhi-based senior journalist)
