BJP MLA questions Taj Mahal’s ‘history’, says Mughals were traitors

Shahira Naim

Tribune News Service

Lucknow, October 16

Describing one of the wonders of the world — the Taj Mahal — as a “blot on Indian culture”, BJP MLA Sangeet Som claimed that the person who had built it had imprisoned his father.

While addressing a gathering at Sisoli village, after inaugurating a statue of 8th century king Anangpal Singh Tomar, the controversial MLA not only pushed the divisive agenda but also exposed his ignorance of history by confusing Shah Jahan with Aurangzeb.

He said many people are worried at the Taj Mahal being removed from the list of historical monuments in UP’s tourism department booklet.

“Whose history are we talking about? The man who built the Taj imprisoned his father. He had massacred the Hindus of UP and India? If this is history, it has to be changed,” he said.

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According to the BJP MLA, the present-day Uttar Pradesh Government is correcting a historical wrong by removing the ‘kalank katha’ (sullied stories) of Akbar, Babar and Aurangzeb from school textbooks.

“Lives and achievements of the “real great men” of the country like Ram, Krishna, Maharana Pratap and Shivaji would be taught in schools and colleges,” he said.

Read: Will govt now tell tourists not to visit Taj Mahal: Owaisi on Som’s remarks

Seeking the support of the common man in the UP Government’s endeavour to remove the name of traitors from history books, Som virtually endorsed CM Yogi Adityanath, who had said that the Taj Mahal did not reflect Indian culture and had objected to foreign dignitaries being given a replica of the Taj Mahal.

The Taj Mahal does not figure in the list of historical monuments in the UP Government tourism booklet released earlier this month.

Later, in damage control mode, the state government had issued a press release saying tourism projects worth Rs 370 crore were proposed under which schemes worth Rs 156 crore were meant for the Taj Mahal and its surrounding areas in Agra.

Som, who questioned the Taj Mahal’s place in Indian history, is an accused in the Muzaffarnagar communal violence and had violated the law by making a provocative statement in Dadri after the lynching of Mohammad Akhlaq in September 2015.

Answering a question on the Taj Mahal in the Lok Sabha on July 19, 2016, the then Union Tourism and Culture Minister Mahesh Sharma had revealed that the world-famous monument had earned a revenue of Rs 75 crore in three years of which only Rs 11 crore had been spent on its maintenance and other important environmental development of the Taj Mahal during the same period.