‘Hindu’
Narratives of Desecration of Somnath, Buddhist and Jain Temples in India
According to
the present RSS-BJP rulers of India, Indian Muslims are the villains of
history. Categorized as Babar zade (children of first Mughal emperor of
Hindustan), they are held responsible for all the crimes committed by rulers
with Muslim names beginning from the capture of Sindh by Mohamnmad bin Qasim,
an Arab military rogue in 711 AD. We are told that Muslim rule was Islamic rule
which aimed at cleansing Hindustan of idolatry, Hindu religion. This theme
continues to recur in the utterances of RSS-trained PM of India, Modi and
members of his ruling elite who also happen to be members
of RSS.
The latest outburst
was on January 11, 2026, when inaugurating the Swabhiman Parv (self-respect
event) in Somnath, he declared that “every particle of the soil of Prabhas
Patan is a witness to valor, courage, and heroism, and that countless devotees
of Shiva sacrificed their lives for the preservation of Somnath’s form. He said
that on the occasion of Somnath Swabhiman Parv, he bows first to every brave
man and woman who dedicated their lives to the protection and reconstruction of
Somnath, offering everything to Lord Mahadeva”
Shri Modi
further stated that “when invaders from Ghazni to Aurangzeb attacked Somnath,
they believed their swords were conquering eternal Somnath, but those fanatics
failed to understand that the very name ‘Som’ carries the essence of nectar,
the idea of remaining immortal even after consuming poison. He added that
within Somnath resides the conscious power of Sadashiva Mahadev, who is both
benevolent and the fierce ‘Prachanda Tandava Shiva’.”
[‘PM addresses
the Somnath Swabhiman Parv in Somnath, Gujarat’, 11 Jan, 2026, https://www.pmindia.gov.in/en/news_updates/pm-addresses-the-somnath-swabhiman-parv-in-somnath-gujarat/?comment=disable]
The senior most
security advisor of the RSS-BJP government and close confidant of PM Modi, Ajit
Doval was at his best seeking revenge for the religious crimes of Muslim
rulers. Speaking at the opening ceremony
of Viksit Bharat Young Leaders Dialogue, at Delhi on January 9, 2026, Doval
said, "This independent India wasn't always as free as it appears now.
Our ancestors made great sacrifices for it. They endured great humiliation and
experienced periods of profound helplessness. Many people faced the gallows...
Our villages were burned. Our civilisation was destroyed. Our temples were
looted, and we watched helplessly as silent spectators. This history presents
us with a challenge that every young person in India today should have the fire
within them. The word 'revenge' isn't ideal, but revenge itself is a powerful
force. We have to take revenge for our history. We have to take this country
back to where we can build a great India based on our rights, our ideas, and
our beliefs."
[‘NSA Ajit
Doval urges youth to learn from history, rebuild a strong India’ 10 Jan-2026, https://firstindia.co.in/news/delhi/nsa-ajit-doval-urges-youth-to-learn-from-history-rebuild-a-strong-india]
The gist of the
speeches of both Modi and Doval was that Muslims destroyed Hindu temples. The
revenge has to be taken from Indian Muslims who are necessarily children of the
Muslim rulers. These calls were nothing but brazen demonizing the largest
religious minority of India. PM Modi and NSA chief, in fact, were dog-whistling
for cleansing of Muslims. However, we need to compare the above-mentioned
claims with the ‘Hindu’ narratives of destruction of Somnath Temple.
No sane
person can deny that Somnath Temple in Gujarat was desecrated, looted and razed
by an army led by Mahmud Ghazi (Mahmud Ghaznavi) in 1026. But a crucial fact
remains buried that it was done with the active help and participation of local
Hindu chieftains. The most prominent ideologue of RSS, MS Golwalkar while
referring to the desecration and destruction of Somnath Temple by Mahmud Ghazi in
the RSS English organ, Organizer (January 4, 1950) stated:
“He
crossed the Khyber Pass and set foot in Bharat to plunder the wealth of
Somnath. He had to cross the great desert of Rajasthan. There was a time when
he had no food, and no water for his army, and even for himself left to his
fate, he would have perished…But no, Mahmud Ghazi made the local chieftains to
believe that Saurashtra had expansionist designs against them. In their folly
and pettiness they believed him. And they joined him. When Mahmud Ghazi
launched his assault on the great temple, it was the Hindu, blood of our blood,
flesh of our flesh, soul of our soul-who stood in the vanguard of his army.
Somnath was desecrated with the active help of the Hindus. These are facts of history.”
[Organizer, January 4, 1950.]
So far
as valour of defenders of Somnath Temple against ‘idol-breaker’ Ghazni was
concerned founder of Arya Samaj, Swami Dayananda Sarswati in his fundamental work,
Satyarth Prakash, a Bible for Arya Samajists, stated that instead of
resisting the army of defilers, the then priests, “made offering, called on
gods and prayed: ‘O Mahadeva kill this infidel and protect us!’ They advised
their royal followers to have patience as Mahadeva would send Bhairava or
Bhadra who would kill all the infidels
(mlechhas) or blinden them…Many popish astrologers said that it was not
astrologically proper for their advance…Thus the warriors were misled and
delayed. The army of infidels soon came
and surrounded them. They fled in disgrace.” [Swami
Dayananda Sarswati, Light of Truth (English translation of Satyarth
Prakash), Dayanand Sansthan, Delhi, 1908, p. 328.]
PM, Ajit
Doval and Hindutva tribe instead of calling for revenge against Muslims need to
do a serious introspection about the guilty-men responsible for desecration of Somnath Temple. It is generally
accepted that Mahmud entered India as aggressor seventeen times between 1000 AD
and 1027 AD. He travelled approximately 2000 kilometers from Ghazni to reach
Somnath Temple in 1025, covering almost 1000 kilometers in the region which
fell in India. According to ‘Hindu’ narrative after destroying the Temple he travelled
back with huge precious booty laden on hundreds of camels and horses. Those who
are telling stories of valour at Somnath need to tell the nation: Who allowed
his journey back? Why were he and his gang of robbers not liquidated despite
destroying one of the holiest temples of India? The horrendous reality is that our
ancestors miserably failed in resisting one of the meanest aggressors in Indian
history.
Desecration
of Buddhist and Jain Temples by ‘Hindus’
These
were not ‘Muslim’ rulers only who were defiling Hindu temples. Swami
Vivekananda shared the fact that, “Temple of Jagannath is an old Buddhistic
temple. We took this and others over and re-Hinduised them. We shall have to do
many things like that yet”.
[The
Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda, vol. 3, 264.]
It has
been corroborated by another darling of the Hindutva fraternity, Bankim Chandra
Chatterjee. According to him RATH YATRA, an integral part of the rituals
connected with Jagganath Temple was originally a Buddhist ritual. Bankim Chndra
Chatterjee wrote:
"I
am aware that another and a very reasonable, account of the origin of the
festival of Rath [at Jagganath Temple] has been given by General Cunningham in
his work on the Bhilsa Topes. He there traces it to a similar festival of the
Buddhists, in which the three symbols of the Buddhist faith, Buddha, Dharmma,
and Sangha, were drawn in a car in the same fashion, and I believe about the
same season as the Rath. It is a fact greatly in support of the theory, that
the images of Jagannath, Balaram, and Subhadra, which now figure in the Rath,
are near copies of the representations of Buddha, Dharmma, and Sangha, and
appear to have been modelled upon them."
[Chatterjee, Bankim Chandra, 'On the origin of
Hindu festivals' in Essays & Letters,
Rupa, Delhi, 2010, pp. 8-9.]
Conversion of
Buddhist monasteries into Hindu temples was a common occurrence after Buddhist
rulers were gradually overthrown by Brahmins. This process began when the last
of Maurya dynasty’s Buddhist king (Ashoka being one), Brihadratha was
assassinated by Pushyamitra Shunga, a
Brahmin in 184 BCE thus ending the rule of a renowned Buddhist dynasty and
establishing the rule of Brahman Shunga dynasty. It was corroborated by Bankim
in his controversial novel Anandmath, Bible of the Hindu nationalism. He
described the scene of a temple used by Hindu army in the following words:
"Within
this wood there stood a large monastery on a large piece of land with broken
stones all around. Antiquarians would perhaps say that it was a Buddhist
monastery in old days and was subsequently converted into a Hindu one."
[Sen-Gupta, Nares Chandra
(translator Bankim Chandra Chatterjee’s Anandamath),
Abbey of Bliss, Padmini Mohan Neogi,
Calcutta, nd, 16]
Many of Jain temples too met
the same tragic fate. Swami Dayanand Saraswati regarded as a Prophet of
Hindutva while dealing with the contribution of Adi Shankaracharya (8TH
CENTURY) in his tome, Satyarth Prakash wrote:
“For ten years he toured all over the country,
refuted Jainism and advocated the Vedic religion. All the broken images that
are now-a-days dug out of the earth were broken in the time of Shankar, whilst
those that are found whole (unbroken) here and there under the ground had been
buried by the Jainis for fear of their being broken.”
[Swami
Dayananda Sarswati, Light of Truth (English translation of Satyarth
Prakash), Dayanand Sansthan, Delhi, 1908, p. 294.]
Crimes
of Maratha ‘Hindu’ armies against Hindus
Sir Jadunath
Sarkar (1870-1958), a renowned historian, held no brief for Islam or Muslim
rulers in India. In fact, he is regarded as a Hindu historian, narrator of the
history of India from a Hindu point of view. His description of the Maratha
invasion of Bengal in early 1740s, makes it clear that this army of ‘Hindu
nation’ cared least about honour and property of Hindus of Bengal. According to
Sarkar, “the roving Maratha bands committed wanton destruction and
unspeakable outrage”.
[Jadunath Sarkar (ed.), The
History of Bengal-Volume II Muslim Period 1200 A.D.–1757 A.D. (Delhi: BR
Publishing, 2003), (first edition 1948), p. 457.]
Sarkar, in his monumental work on the history of Bengal, reproduced
eyewitness accounts of the sufferings of Bengali Hindus at the hands of
Marathas. According to one such eyewitness, Gangaram,
“The Marathas snatched away gold and silver, rejecting everything
else. Of some people they cut off the hands, of some the nose and ear; some
they killed outright. They dragged away the beautiful women and freed them only after raping them”.
[Jadunath Sarkar (ed.), The
History of Bengal-Volume II Muslim Period 1200 A.D.–1757 A.D. (Delhi: BR
Publishing, 2003), (first edition 1948), 457.]
Another eyewitness, Vaneshwar Vidyalankar, the court Pandit of the
Maharaja of Bardwan, narrated the horrifying tales of atrocities committed by
the Marathas against Hindus in the following words:
“Shahu Raja’s troops are niggard of pity,
slayers of pregnant women and infants, of Brahmans and the poor,
fierce of spirit, expert in robbing the property of everyone and committing
every kind of sinful act.” [Ibid., 458.]
Another crucial
fact which is consciously kept under wrap is that despite more than 500 hundred
years of ‘Muslim’/Mughal rule which according to Hindutva historians was
nothing but a project of annihilating Hindus or forcibly converting the latter
to Islam, India remained a nation with an almost 2/3 majority of Hindus at the
historical juncture when even ceremonial ‘Muslim’ rule was over. The British
rulers held first census in 1871-72. According to the Census report:
“The population
of British India is, in round numbers, divided into 140½ millions [sic]
of Hindoos (including Sikhs), or 73½ per cent., 40¾ millions of Mahomedans, or
21½ per cent. And 9¼ millions of others, or barely 5 per cent., including under
this title Buddhists and Jains, Christians, Jews, Parsees, Brahmoes…”
This happened
because Hindu high Castes with few exceptions decided to serve the Muslim
rulers for hundreds of years which is known as a relationship of roti-beti
(bread and
daughter).
[Memorandum
on the Census of British India of 1871-72: Presented to both Houses of
Parliament by Command of Her Majesty London, George Edward Eyre and William
Spottiswoode, Her Majesty's Stationary Office 1875, 16.]
The linking of crimes committed by
rulers with Muslim names in the pre-modern India to their religion is going to
create serious unthinkable consequences even for ‘Hindu’ history as narrated by
the RSS. Take for example, Ravana, the king of Lanka who according to again
‘Hindu’ narrative committed unspeakable crimes against Sita, her husband Lord
Rama and his companions for 14 years long vanvaas or exile. This Ravana,
according to the same narrative, was a learned Brahman who also happened to be
one of the greatest worshippers of Lord Shiva.
The epic Mahabharata is a story of a great war between two
families known as Pandavas and Kauravas (both Kashtriyas) not between Hindus
and Muslims but between two ‘Hindu’ armies in which, if you go by the ‘Hindu’
version 1.2 billion (120 crore) people, all Hindus are stated to have been
slaughtered. Draupadi joint wife of Pandavas was disrobed by Kauravas, all
Hindus. Modi and Doval must be aware that if the crimes of Ravana and Kauravas,
are linked to their religion then India country will lose 80% of
the population. And if revenge is to be taken from the present descendants of
the past perpetrators then beginning must be made from the beginning of the
Indian civilization; turn of the Indian Muslims will come far later!
Shamsul Islam
19-01-2026
http://du-in.academia.edu/ShamsulIslam
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