Mullah Sangeet Som Omar

IN Gujarat, the Prime Minister tries to take the high road and talks of development; in Uttar Pradesh his party MLA, a riot veteran, takes the low road and declares the Taj Mahal to be a blot on “our” culture. The Meerut MLA, Sangeet Som, wants to do something about this blot, hinting at destruction. Sangeet Som chooses to see the Taj Mahal as a Muslim monument, which should find no place in the “New India”. This kind of venomous talk is not an off-the-cuff pronouncement; it is, by now, a part of a familiar pattern. While national leaders talk of grand visions and national renaissance, local-level leaders are put up to instigate our visceral animosities, re-energise historical feuds and work up religious antagonism. 

If the Sangeet Som understanding of history is to be carried out to its logical end, we should expect to see an officially-approved campaign, at least in Uttar Pradesh, to bring down Mughal-period monuments. If the Taliban could destroy 2,000-year-old Buddha statues at Bamiyan in Afghanistan, our own Talibani forces can also demonstrate a similar capacity for destruction. Sangeet Som has taken the argument a step beyond the Babri Masjid/Ramjanambhoomi contestation over a site. History is the new enemy. Obliteration of traces of that history is the new short-cut to national greatness and renaissance. 

There may be a token disapproval of Sangeet Som’s take on the Taj Mahal. The BJP may even formally disassociate itself from him. But Sangeet Som is now too firmly ensconced in the BJP scheme of things. It is a decision the BJP leadership — with the proverbial blessings from the Sangh Parivar — has apparently taken to field him from time to time to talk inflammatory dribble whenever the government, either at the Centre or in the state, finds itself failing to live up to its exaggerated promises. The BJP is already in the election mode; good governance and its requirements are yielding to the compulsion of winning the 2019 Lok Sabha. The Sangeet Som hate-song has ominous overtones.