Praful Goradia Quotes

It is best to quote the letter dated May 1, 1952 issued by the Collector of Dhar district of the then Madhya Bharat state which later became a part of Madhya Pradesh: I am directed to request you kindly to inform the Hindu Maha Sabha that the building called Bhoj shala situated at Dhar cannot be given to either the Hindu or the Muslim communities for conversion into a temple or a full-fledged mosque and that this being an archaeological monument the right of entry to it would be conceded to all sections of people for purpose of sight seeing. The Muslim community may also be kindly informed, if necessary, that while the Muslims may continue to say their Friday prayers in the building, no effects must be kept there and nobody should use any part of it for residence. The Dhar State Huzur Durbar office file year 1935-36.

In 1403 AD Ibrahim Naib Barbak ordered all Hindus to quit the city so that only Muslims could live there.

Aurangzeb, 1658-1707, was the last of the iconoclasts who had a go at this edifice which was then known as the Vijay Mandir from which the successor mosque was known as Bijamandal. He celebrated the visit by renaming Vidisha as Alamgirpur. Despite some excavations between 1971 and 1974 which clearly showed that Bijamandal was originall y a temple, namaz at Eid time continued right until 1965 when Dr. Dwarka Prasad Mishra's government banned worship in, what was, a protected monument. Mishra earned the gratitude of most Vidishans and many others in Madhya Pradesh.

As Mr Quereshi wanted to visit the site along with the Superintendent, Archaeological Department, he went to Siddhpur on March 8, 1980. At first, he agreed to the preservation but later he insisted on getting the trenches closed in his presence that day. The superintendent ordered closure of the trenches and construction of the compound wall and both the works were started in his presence. Should the work of the ASI be allowed to be halted by the intervention of the Minorities Commission? Should a commission work at the behest of narrow local vested interests? Or, should not the government rein in the commission from undertaking such obstructionist activity? If there is legitimacy in such activity, would it not be logical that the ASI be wound up? Which, of course, would imply that we have lost interest in the search for our civilisational heritage.

The Adina or Friday mosque is situated on National Highway No. 34 between Raiganj in West Dinajpur district of West Bengal and Maida. At first glimpse, the dual colour of the edifice walls strikes the visitor. The first ten feet immediately above the ground are grey in colour because of stone tiles. The upper 12 feet comprise of red brick work. Evidently, the current mosque was superimposed on an earlier building.

A few masjids have undergone shuddhi, whether in full or part, while others are still unattended and deserve a change. For example, the Gobind Dev mandir at Vrindavan was returned to the Hindus by the British some 130 years ago. While Sultan Ghari at Delhi became a place of worship for all people; when, no one really knows. The saga at Ayodhya is incomplete. While the Nand and Rohini temple palace at Mahaban is believed to have been redeemed in the wake of independence. The edifices at Kannauj and Etawah have not undergone any stage of shuddhi. Since the cities are situated in Uttar Pradesh, the Waterloo of Aryavrat is a part of the series in the area. Quwwatul Islam at Delhi and the Adhai Din Ka Jhopra at Ajmer tell the tale of vandalism so eloquently that the viewer is shocked as he enters these masjids. The Krishnajanmabhoomi as well as Kashi Vishwanath are making do with pathetic alternatives for no shuddhi whatsoever has taken place. So also Ataladevi at Jaunpur and Bhojshala at Dhar. At Vidisha, all worship has been suspended while a great deal of the Rudra Mahalaya complex remains buried. The Adina masjid. at Maida has fallen into disuse as a place of worship, whereas Jungle Pir Baba as well as the shrine at Pavagadh are in full use as dargahs. Daulatabad is a case of redemption which took place on the morrow of the police action in 1948 against the Nizam of Hyderabad.

The temple today is 55 feet tall. Before its upper part was destroyed on Aurangzeb's orders in anticipation of his visit to Vrindavan in 1670 AD, the mandir was reputed to be twice that height. On its roof, after the destruction, a mehrab or prayer wall was erected and the iconoclastic emperor offered namaaz. Almost two centuries later, F.S. Growse, who belonged to the Bengal Civil Service and was Collector of Mathura District, had the mehrab removed. First, because it was an eyesore, and second, in an endeavour to redeem whatever character was left of the temple. Although the original idol remained at Jaipur, another set of deities was installed by the pujaris or priests. Since then, the temple has a flat roof. Probably, no other desecrated temple had been the subject of so much repair and refurbishment by British rulers. Of supreme importance was the fact of the mandir being restituted to Hindu devotees. It was the greatest act of shuddhi or purification although performed before Swami Dayanand Saraswati reintroduced Vedic procedures.... The Gobind Dev temple at Vrindavan, Mathura, is indeed massive its plinth is 105 feet by 117 feet. It is estimated that the original height was about 110 feet without which it would not have been possible to see the mashaal or torch either from Agra or from Delhi. The temple was built in 1590 AD by Maharaja Mansingh of Jaipur.

The Department of Archaeology, Gwalior, 1952, has in a special book dealt on the Cultural Heritage of Madhya Bharat, which, in 1956, amalgamated with the Central Provinces and came to be known as Madhya Pradesh. This book Dhar and Mandu reiterates what Major C.E. Luard,34 the official gazeteer of Dhar, had said in 1912. The carved pillars used all over the building and the delicately carved ceilings of the prayer hall seem to have belonged to the original Bhojshala. On the pavement of the prayer hall are seen numerous slabs of black slate stone the writings on which were also scraped off. From a few slabs recovered from another part of the building and now exhibited there, which contain the texts of the poetic works of Parijatamanjari and Kurmastotra, it appears that the old college was adorned with numerous Sanskrit and Maharashtri Prakrit texts, beautifully engraved on such slabs.

It is strange that what a writer on Khwaja Moinuddin Chishti and the Dargah Sharief at Ajmer has said about the role of Raja Jaichand should have precipitated our visit to Kannauj on August 2, 2001. Equally strange is the fact that our interest in this great capital city of ancient Hindustan was first aroused in 1983 by Dr N .K. Bezbaruah, the versatile grand old man of Assam. He then told us how proud he was to claim direct lineage from one of the chosen Kannauj Brahmins, who were invited specially to introduce Hinduism amongst the Ahoms who had captured power in Assam and had set up their capital city at Sibsagar in the 13th century. Incidentally, the Ahoms belonged to the Shan race whose base was in Thailand. The doctor was bemoaning the paradox of his clan being, on the one hand, so proud of its Hindu ancestry and, on the other, a few sons of the same proud families taking to gun s and terrorism, as it were, against the rest of Hindustan.

One night during the monsoon of 1991, the rain was so heavy that it washed away the wall that was concealing the frontage of the Bijamandal mosque established by Aurangzeb in 1682. This masjid is a centre of attraction in the district town of Vidisha situated some 40 kms from Bhopal. The broken wall exposed so many Hindu idols that the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) was left with no choice but to excavate. For three centuries, the idols were buried under the platform, on the northern side, which was used as the hall of prayer conducted specially on days of Eid. Fortunately, the district col lector in 1991 happened to offer protection to the surveyors of ASI, who were otherwise reluctant to expose themselves to the wrath of bigots.

The author prefers to quote either British authorities or Muslim chroniclers so that neither authenticity nor objectivity is questioned. However, before moving on to the next monument, he wishes to iterate that additions and alterations of such historic edifices are still taking place. He was quite put off by the white-washing, however fresh or glistening, that had been done on the granite pillars and ceiling of the Jama masjid. The Makhdum Jahaniya fortunately has not suffered this ugly transformation. On the other hand, the Jami masjid at Etawah, only about a hundred kilometres away, which we visited the previous day, was a lso a casualty of whitewashing. What should be the role of the Archaeological Survey is best answered by its directors and, perhaps, the Ministry of Culture.

The excuse given was that the Bhojshala was, in any case, a protected monument and barricading it would be the best way to secure its protection. Incidentally, there was no threat from anyone either damaging or demolishing the structure. The discriminatory order of entry 52 times a year to one community, and only once a year to another and none to the rest is based on an extraordinary precedent. The author understands that-in 1935 on the insistence by some local residents of Dhar, which was then a princely state, that the Bhojshala was a Hindu institution -the temple of Goddess Saraswati, on the one hand, and a school, on the other. A photograph of the deity's image which adorned the temple is reproduced in this book. The idol is still on display in the British Museum in London. A part of the Sanskrit inscription which is engraved on a wall of the Bhojshala is also reproduced. It is called Dhar Prasasti of Arjunavarma: Parijatamanjari-natika by Madana.

On the strength of their conviction, the local residents demanded that the Bhojshala masjid be reconverted into a mandir. Although the Maharaja of Dhar was a Hindu, he was under the influence of the British Resident, who was reported to have advised him to ban entry into the edifice for a while. The Maharaja therefore did as advised, except for allowing Hindus to enter on Vasant Panchami day which is the day of Saraswati puja. Similarly, the Muslims were allowed entry on one day in the year. This precedent was twisted by the Digvijay Singh government into a discriminatory order mentioned earlier. Such are the wages of secularism in our country. · '

Sherring appreciates that Muslims yearn to visit Mecca and the Christians desire to go on a pilgrimage to Jerusalem but the Hindu heart goes out to Benares. If the Hindus refer to any one city as their holiest, it is Benares. Yet, Aurangzeb thought it fit to change its name to Muhammadabad. The temple of Bisheswar, who was regarded as king of all the Hindu gods, was systematically demolished by Aurangzeb during the 17th century. The large collection of deities stored on a platform called the court of Mahadev on the northern side of the temple, were found from the debris. As recorded by Sherring, extensive remains of this ancient temple are still visible and they form a large portion of the western wall of the mosque which was built upon its site by the bigoted oppressor. Evidently, the former temple was much larger than the present one, which is really small for so important a shrine. But there was a reason for it.

Rich treasures of sculpture were thus salvaged. Some of the statues were particularly splendid; some were as high as eight feet. The work of the archaeologists, however, did not last long. The ASI soon received instructions to stop further work. The officer of the ASI working on the excavations was transferred, as was the collector. Whether this had anything to do with the new Human Resource Development Minister, Arjun Singh, I 99 1-94, who happened to be the leader of the self-styled secular lobby in Madhya Pradesh, is not known. Since then, the Bijamandal mosque is marking time with a great deal of sculpture hidden under its southern side.