Prime Minister Narendra Modi not too long ago praised the Somnath temple in Gujarat, saying 2026 marks the 1,000th anniversary of the primary assault on the temple by Mahmud of Ghazni, stressing, “There isn’t any higher instance of the indomitable spirit of our civilization than Somnath, which stands tall and superb regardless of hardships and struggles.”
Forward of his go to to the Somnath temple on January 11 as a part of the year-long ‘Somnath Swabhiman Parv’ commemorations, the Prime Minister, in an article concerning the temple final Monday, mentioned, “The story of Somnath… will not be outlined by destruction. It’s outlined by the indomitable braveness of the tens of millions of kids of Bharat Mata.”
Prime Minister Modi linked India’s civilizational spirit and India’s present rise to his trigger, saying, “It’s our values and the willpower of our those that make India the middle of the world’s consideration right now. The world seems to be to India with hope and optimism.”
Whereas issuing a public assertion on the Somnath temple assault in 1026 AD, Prime Minister Modi sought to articulate the important thing themes of Hindutva and hyperlink it to India’s rise, future and “everlasting spirit”.
Many Hindutva writers and commentators see the assault on Somnath by Sultan Mahmud of Ghazni in 1026 AD as the start of what would change into a wave of Islamic invasions, typically as raids, typically ending with the institution of an empire, resulting in the destruction of temples and tales of resistance by Indian kings, most famously Chhatrapati Shivaji, Rana Pratap, and Guru Gobind Singh.
Though the Sangh Parivar has all the time thought of this story of invasion and resistance to be on the coronary heart of medieval India, the metaphor is far older than the start of the Sangh, as writers for the reason that nineteenth century have repeatedly deployed it.
If ‘secular historiography’ speaks of ‘200 years of slavery’, a interval of British rule that depleted India’s wealth, not like the Muslim kings who lived, spent and died right here, then the popular view of Hindutva voices is of ‘1,000 years of slavery’ beginning with Mahmud’s raids.
The Turko-Persian chronicles file that Mahmud not solely robbed the Somnath temple of its wealth, but in addition destroyed the idols, contemplating himself an iconoclast (bushkan in Persian) relatively than an idol-seller (however farosh). Within the nineteenth century, this story turned mainstream, and even the British Home of Commons famous it as a “trauma for Hindus”.
Secular historiography subsequently challenged this interpretation, recording that “temple looting” was frequent on the time to achieve wealth, and countering the notion of lasting trauma left behind by Mahmud. Historian Romila Thapar herself has written a e book on Somnath that questions the trauma narrative by numerous sources.
Nonetheless, the story that Somnath was the location of the primary Muslim invasion lingers. The symbolic significance of Somnath for the Sangh Parivar in latest a long time is evidenced by the truth that the primary rath yatra by BJP stalwart LK Advani in assist of the Ram Temple in Ayodhya was launched from Somnath on September 25, 1990.
Somnath not solely turned an ideological landmark for the Bharatiya Janata Get together within the reminiscence of Mahmood Ghazni, but in addition an entry level into mainstream Hindutva politics at a time when the get together was a comparatively minor political pressure.
It was underneath the Congress authorities that the Somnath Temple was rededicated in Might 1951, and it was India’s first Residence Minister Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, who had handed away earlier than this occasion, who took a eager curiosity within the temple’s reconstruction undertaking. Rajendra Prasad, India’s first president, presided over the temple’s dedication ceremony, regardless of makes an attempt by then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru to discourage the ceremony because it was not an official authorities occasion.
For the Sangh Parivar, this was a narrative of Islamic invasion, a logo of President Nehru’s distaste for public spiritual occasions attended by state workers, and an “overlap” between Sardar Patel’s place and that of Hindutva.
Prime Minister Modi additionally mentioned the identical in a press release on Monday. “The then Prime Minister Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru was not very eager on this growth (the Somnath temple inauguration occasion). He didn’t need the honorable president or ministers to be concerned on this big day. He mentioned that the occasion gave a foul impression on India. However Dr Rajendra Prasad stood agency and the remaining was historical past,” the Prime Minister wrote.
Sangh Parivar hardliners weren’t the one ones enamored with Somnath’s theme.
The late former Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee additionally developed this concept in his well-known speech on Hindutva ideologue VD Savarkar in Pune within the mid-Eighties. Mr. Vajpayee recalled that he had expressed his want to go to Afghanistan as international minister within the Janata Get together authorities and go to Ghazni, the capital of Mahmud’s empire. Vajpayee mentioned his hosts have been shocked and puzzled what he would see in such an inconsequential place as Ghazni. “I could not inform them all the pieces. Ghazni has been a thorn in my flesh since my adolescence, once I learn the tales of the marauders who got here from there. I wished to see that place referred to as Ghazni… It is a small village. There was once huts there, however the marauders gathered a band of marauders and got here to plunder the golden fowl (sleeping fowl),” Vajpayee mentioned on the event.
