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Heritage hushed up

Heritage hushed up

Author: Prafull Goradia
Publication: The Pioneer
Date: December 12, 2000

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 raised by Aurangzeb in 1682.

This unusual masjid is a centre of attraction in the district town of Vidisha situated some 40 km 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, these idols were buried under the platform which was used as the hall of prayers conducted specially on the days of Eid.  Fortunately, the district collector in 1991 happened to offer protection to the surveyors of the ASI who were otherwise reluctant to expose themselves to the wrath of the devout.

Rich treasures of sculpture were thus salvaged.  Some of the statues were particularly splendid; some went up to a height of 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 excavation was transferred out as was the collector.  Whether this had anything to do with the new HRD Minister (1991-94), 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.

Aurangzeb was the last of the iconoclasts that 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 showed clearly that Bijamandal was originally a temple, namaz at Eid time continued right until 1965 when Dr Dwarka Prasad Mishras Government banned worship in, what was, a protected monument.  Dr Mishra earned the gratitude of most Vidishans and many others in Madhya Pradesh.

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

Few temples in India have had the misfortune of having been desecrated four times.  Being a huge structure built in solid stone, it could survive enough to be restituted as a mandir three times.  The ASI has still to undo the damages by Aurangzeb.  The work of excavation stopped some seven years ago is yet to be resumed.  Admittedly, it is difficult to redeem the pristine glory of Vijay Mandir whose scale and dimension are reminiscent of the Konark temple.  Nevertheless, it would be a shame if independent India allows its architectural treasures to remain in a state of desecration and burial without even an attempt to revive them.

It is all the more unfortunate that the ASI is not being allowed to work on the site despite pressure from the local citizens.  No other temple turned mosque has witnessed more repeated agitation and satyagraha than Vijay Mandir.  The citizens of Vidisha relate how year after year at every Eid time they used to offer satyagraha and get arrested.  Leaders who agitated way back some 50 years ago are still alive to narrate the saga of their efforts.

Octogenarian Niranjan Verma, a former parliamentarian, remembers how Nehru found some reason or the other not to meet the delegations led by him.  Eventually, he diverted Verma to see Maulana Abul Kalam Azad, who could not spare the time to visit Vidisha but deputed Prof.  Humayun Kabir, the then Education Secretary.  The professor was impartial and immediately conceded in the presence of many a local citizen that it was indeed a temple.  However, at this late stage, since the matter would take a political colour, as a bureaucrat, he could do little.

Verma and his supporters also approached Dr Kailash Nath Katju when he became Chief Minister of MP.  The reply they got was that Verma and his men should first persuade the Congressmen of Vidisha into agreeing that the Chief Minister may intervene in Bijamandal.  Not long after that, the delegation met the then Chief Minister Mandloi who, incidentally, was sympathetic.  His only problem was the fear of Nehru's wrath, which he candidly admitted.  As already mentioned, Dr DP Mishra did bring a halt to namaz being conducted in the edifice.  His Government donated Rs 40,000 for the construction of a separate idgaah nearby.  By then Jawaharlal Nehru had been succeeded by the not-antipathetic Lal Bahadur Shastri.

A visit to Vidisha and interaction with the man in the street would reflect that there is a lingering, although suppressed, resentment against the governmental treatment of what they believe to be their dearest treasure, architectural as well as sentimental.  The moral of the visit would be that an open dialogue with all parties concerned would be a far better alternative than attempts to hush up or cover what is naked history.
 


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