11-05-2003, 03:20 AM
[url="http://www.hvk.org/specialrepo/bjpwp/ch1.html"]http://www.hvk.org/specialrepo/bjpwp/ch1.html[/url]
Arnold Toynbee, one of the great historians of the present century, while delivering the Azad Memorial Lecture, said:
âAs I have been speaking, some vivid visual memories have been flashing up in my mindâs eye. One of these is a mental picture of the principal square in the Polish City of Warsaw some time in the late nineteen twenties. In the course of the first Russian occupation of Warsaw (1614-1915) the Russians had built an Eastern Orthodox Christian Cathedral on this central spot in the city that had been the capital of the once independent Roman Catholic Christian country, Poland. The Russians had done this to give the Poles a continuous ocular demonstration that the Russians were now their masters. After the reestablishment of Polandâs independence in 1918, the Poles had pulled this cathedral down. The demolition had been completed just before the date of my visit. I do not greatly blame the Polish Government for having pulled down that Russian Church. The purpose for which the Russians had built it had been not religious but political, and the Purpose had also been intentionally offensive. On the other hand, I do greatly praise the Indian Government for not having pulled down Aurangzebâs Mosques: I am thinking particularly of two that overlook the ghats at Benares, and of one that crowns Krishnaâs hill at Mathura.
âAurangzebâs purpose in building those three Mosques was the same intentionally offensive political purpose that moved the, Russians to build their Orthodox Cathedral in the city centre at Warsaw. Those three Mosques were intended to signify that an Islamic Government was reigning supreme, even over Hinduismâs holiest of holy places. I must say that Aurangzeb had a veritable genius for picking out provocative sites. Aurangzeb and Philip II of Spain are a pair. They are incarnations of the gloomily fanatical vein in the Christian- Muslim-Jewish family of religions. Aurangzeb - a poor wretched misguided bad man spent a lifetime of hard labour in raising massive monuments to his own discredit. Perhaps the Poles were really kinder in destroying the Russians self-discrediting monuments in Warsaw than you have been in sparing Aurangzebâs Mosques. Anyway, it is Aurangzeb, and not the Hindu holy ground on which his Mosques are planted, that suffers from their very conspicuous presence...
âAurangzebâs Mosques are not outstandingly beautiful works of Indian Muslim architecture. But the standard of all Moghal works is high. I have noticed the loving care with which the Indian archaeological service looks after such world-famous masterpieces as the Taj Mahal, and the forts at Agra and here in Shahjehanabad (Delhi). Not only the Islamic world but the whole world ought to feel grateful to India for this. But the careful preservation of public monuments is perhaps not so meritorious when these are supremely beautiful, as it is when they do not have this intrinsic appeal. The British rulers of India followed their Muslim predecessorâs practice of perpetuating the memory of their fleeting presence by leaving monuments behind them. Unfortunately for the British, the style of their epoch in India was no longer the Moghalâs, it was the Victorian Gothic. If any of my countrymen still had a say in determining the policy of the Indian Ministry of Public Works, I suspect that they might press for the demolition of some ofâ these Philistini reminders of the British phase in the history of India. But not so the Indian authorities. They are, so far as I know, being as tender to these British monstrosities as they are to the Taj.â (One World and India, compiled by National Book Trust, pp. 59-61).
So the construction of mosques on Hindu holy sites pained even a scholar like Toynbee. He would not object if the Hindus had removed these political insults as the Poles had removed the Russian insult.
Arnold Toynbee, one of the great historians of the present century, while delivering the Azad Memorial Lecture, said:
âAs I have been speaking, some vivid visual memories have been flashing up in my mindâs eye. One of these is a mental picture of the principal square in the Polish City of Warsaw some time in the late nineteen twenties. In the course of the first Russian occupation of Warsaw (1614-1915) the Russians had built an Eastern Orthodox Christian Cathedral on this central spot in the city that had been the capital of the once independent Roman Catholic Christian country, Poland. The Russians had done this to give the Poles a continuous ocular demonstration that the Russians were now their masters. After the reestablishment of Polandâs independence in 1918, the Poles had pulled this cathedral down. The demolition had been completed just before the date of my visit. I do not greatly blame the Polish Government for having pulled down that Russian Church. The purpose for which the Russians had built it had been not religious but political, and the Purpose had also been intentionally offensive. On the other hand, I do greatly praise the Indian Government for not having pulled down Aurangzebâs Mosques: I am thinking particularly of two that overlook the ghats at Benares, and of one that crowns Krishnaâs hill at Mathura.
âAurangzebâs purpose in building those three Mosques was the same intentionally offensive political purpose that moved the, Russians to build their Orthodox Cathedral in the city centre at Warsaw. Those three Mosques were intended to signify that an Islamic Government was reigning supreme, even over Hinduismâs holiest of holy places. I must say that Aurangzeb had a veritable genius for picking out provocative sites. Aurangzeb and Philip II of Spain are a pair. They are incarnations of the gloomily fanatical vein in the Christian- Muslim-Jewish family of religions. Aurangzeb - a poor wretched misguided bad man spent a lifetime of hard labour in raising massive monuments to his own discredit. Perhaps the Poles were really kinder in destroying the Russians self-discrediting monuments in Warsaw than you have been in sparing Aurangzebâs Mosques. Anyway, it is Aurangzeb, and not the Hindu holy ground on which his Mosques are planted, that suffers from their very conspicuous presence...
âAurangzebâs Mosques are not outstandingly beautiful works of Indian Muslim architecture. But the standard of all Moghal works is high. I have noticed the loving care with which the Indian archaeological service looks after such world-famous masterpieces as the Taj Mahal, and the forts at Agra and here in Shahjehanabad (Delhi). Not only the Islamic world but the whole world ought to feel grateful to India for this. But the careful preservation of public monuments is perhaps not so meritorious when these are supremely beautiful, as it is when they do not have this intrinsic appeal. The British rulers of India followed their Muslim predecessorâs practice of perpetuating the memory of their fleeting presence by leaving monuments behind them. Unfortunately for the British, the style of their epoch in India was no longer the Moghalâs, it was the Victorian Gothic. If any of my countrymen still had a say in determining the policy of the Indian Ministry of Public Works, I suspect that they might press for the demolition of some ofâ these Philistini reminders of the British phase in the history of India. But not so the Indian authorities. They are, so far as I know, being as tender to these British monstrosities as they are to the Taj.â (One World and India, compiled by National Book Trust, pp. 59-61).
So the construction of mosques on Hindu holy sites pained even a scholar like Toynbee. He would not object if the Hindus had removed these political insults as the Poles had removed the Russian insult.