Octogenarian Niranjan Verma, a former parliamentarian, remembers how Jawaharlal Nehru found some reason or the other not to meet the delegations led … - Praful Goradia

A visit to Vidisha and interaction with the man in the street, would reflect that there is a lingering, although suppressed, but bitter resentment against the government treatment of what they believe to be their dearest treasure, architectural as well as sentimental. The moral of a pilgrimage to Vidisha is that no purpose would be served by hushing up what is naked history.

Sultan Bahadur Shah of Gujarat, 1526-37, was the iconoclast of Vidisha, preceding Aurangzeb. He captured the town and about the first thing he did was to desecrate the Vijay Mandir claiming that the conquest ofBhilsa was in the service of Islam. The episode is recorded in Mirat-I -Sikandri. About 200 years earlier, Sultan Alauddin Khilji, 1293, had also enjoyed the 'devout' pleasure of damaging Vijay Mandir. The honour of being the first iconoclast, however, went to Sultan Shamsuddin Iltutmish, 1234, yet another half a century earlier. This episode is described with relish in Tabqat-I-Nasiri.

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.