AA Edit | Honour Somnath Lesson, Stand United As Indians

It is important that all people are mindful of history and learn the lessons it offers so that they can live in the present and plan the future. It is helpful to avoid repetition of past mistakes and ensure optimal use of resources for the future.

The repeated attacks on the Somnath temple in Gujarat that began 1,000 years ago offer valuable lessons for India in that unity of purpose of the people is the best guarantee against a powerful enemy who may attempt an invasion from outside the border. It is also a symbol of resilience of the Indian people in that they rebuilt the temple whenever it was destroyed by the marauding foreign forces, starting with Mahmud of Ghazni’s attack in 1026. Somnath indeed can offer a lesson to today’s Indians.

However, facts, fiction and interpretations of the attacks have been a staple item in the agenda of the Indian right wing which it has used to paint a coat of victimhood onto a section of the Indian people which it believes is their captive audience. It uses the stories not to unite the people but to widen and deepen the fault lines amongst them, by dividing them as descendants of the attackers and of the victims.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi was toeing the same line when he addressed devotees at Somnath Swabhiman Parv, marking the 1,000 years of the attack of Muhammad Ghori on the temple. Mr Modi said the forces that had opposed the reconstruction of the Somnath temple after Independence are “still active among us”, and India needs to be alert, united and strong to defeat them. His obvious reference was to Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minister of India, and his partymen now.

The fact remains that India chose to remain a secular nation despite the Partition which happened on religious grounds, and as Prime Minister, Nehru opposed the government’s direct involvement with the reconstruction effort. His objection to then President Dr Rajendra Prasad opening the temple was also based on his belief that a government which belongs to all people must not be seen as being part of a specific religion. It may be remembered that the temple was indeed rebuilt during Nehru’s time and Dr Prasad presided over the inauguration ceremony.

It is understandable that Nehru’s logic is lost on Mr Modi who consecrated a temple while being Prime Minister. It is equally unimaginable that the first Prime Minister would ever say after a disturbing incident that arsonists can be identified by the dress they wear, but Mr Modi did. Mr Modi follows politics of a different grain but that hardly gives him the right to denigrate the actions of his predecessor who followed the spirit of a Constitution that both have sworn on. The followers of Nehru’s principles draw their right to be in the country thanks to the Constitution and not out of the largesse of the government of the day.

It is important that we as a country remember the wounds that history has wrought on us in order to stay vigilant against their repetition, instead of licking them and bleeding them even further.