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 arch… - Praful Goradia

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.

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.

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. · '