Holocaust
of human heritage
Taliban worst culprit in history
Inder Malhotra
http://www.tribuneindia.com/20010308/edit.htm#4
No words can be strong
enough to condemn what the unspeakable the Taliban regime of Afghanistan has
done, not in a fit of blind rage but as an act of cold-blooded zealotry that Mr
Atal Behari Vajpayee has rightly described as “barbaric”. Not since the
Nazis has anything so vile and horrific as the destruction of the unique and
priceless fifth-century giant Buddhas of Bamiyan been heard of. This savagery is
comparable not to the orgy of book burning by Hitler and his henchmen but, in
terms of culture and human heritage, to their holocaust of six million Jews.
Sadly, the foul deed has
already been done. The incomparable works of art, sculpture and architecture
that were the proud pre-Islamic heritage of not just Afghanistan but entire
humanity now lie shattered to smithereens. Further attempts by sections of the
international community, including UNESCO, rather belated in the first place,
are now pointless. Prince Sadruddin Agha Khan, in a letter to The International
Herald Tribune, had aptly compared the destroyed heritage to the “Pharaonic
monuments of Egypt, the Babylonian treasures of Iraq, the pre-Islamic
masterpieces of Persepolis in Iran”, the Greco-Roman temples and so on. To
point out all this to the medieval and mad mullahs operating from Kandahar and
Kabul, however, was like the proverbial playing of the been (a musical
instrument) to a buffalo.
Does this mean that the
world can only wring its hands and do nothing further about the monstrosity at
Bamiyan? Not at all. The international community must unite to pillory
Afghanistan’s barbaric rulers at every step and in every manner. They may
control most of the Afghan territory. But only three countries — Pakistan,
Saudi Arabia and the UAE — recognise the Taliban regime. The UN, UNESCO, other
international bodies and the numerous countries that have spoken out agony
against the outrage must see to it that the Taliban regime does not get
international recognition at all. This is the minimum price the vandals must be
made to pay for their villainy. The UN sanctions against it must be enforced
rigorously and indeed intensified.
The suggestion for a
complete de-recognition of the Taliban has come significantly from Mr Dimitri
Loundras, the Greek Ambassador to Pakistan who also heads a UN committee to deal
with the Taliban on the archaeological issues. Other Pakistan-based Ambassadors
had joined him and UNESCO’s special envoy as well as a representative of the
UN Secretary-General, in frantic but fruitless last minute attempts to reason
with the Taliban. It is gratifying that a number of Muslim countries have
condemned the Taliban. They have also joined a host of Muslim intellectuals
across the world, including a large number from this country, in declaring the
demolition of the Bamiyan Buddhas as “un-Islamic”.
The rage and the sorrow of
the Buddhist countries such as Thailand, Japan, South Korea and Mongolia are
limitless. The Dalai Lama also has given voice to deep anguish. The Japanese
Ambassador to Pakistan has cried out against “betrayal”. These countries
ought to be active at the UN even more than India that is, of course, the
birthplace of the Buddha. As Jawaharlal Nehru once
said, Buddhism might have taken root in other countries but “India has always
lived under the Buddha’s umbrella”.
Some have already started
arguing that, however, deplorable the action of the Taliban, such vandalism,
based on religion or ideology, has been a part of life almost throughout
history. They can cite any number of instances beginning from the destruction by
the all-conquering Romans of the Second Temple of the Jews in Jerusalem in 70 AD
when they crushed a Jewish revolt in their empire. The argument is specious and
must be rejected. What happened in medieval times cannot justify its repetition
in the present age that is supposed to be enlightened. In any case, in medieval
Spain when zealots tried to demolish the magnificent mosque at Cordoba and
replace it by a cathedral, King Charles V had intervened to halt the havoc.
“What you are building here”, he had told the hotheads, “can be found
anywhere. But what you have destroyed exists nowhere”. Has there been a single
such voice of sanity in Afghanistan, a land benighted by the Taliban?
The Taliban’s own excuse
for their monstrous act has shifted from time to time. At one stage someone had
claimed on its behalf that it was pulverising its own heritage in retaliation
for the demolition of Babri Masjid in India. The alternative claim to be
articulated next was that the Taliban had been driven to act desperately, if
also foolishly, by its isolation and even more by the sanctions imposed by the
UN at a time when arms were allegedly flowing in to their rivals, the Northern
Alliance. The gullible might have swallowed this — as quite a few in this
country indeed did — but then the Taliban itself decided to cut out the
cackle. It proclaimed from the housetops that the only reason for its despicable
decision was that the statues in human form, whether actually worshipped or not,
were “un-Islamic”.
This has raised other
pertinent questions. Muslims have ruled Afghanistan for at least a thousand
years before Mullah Mohammed Omar and his wild followers seized power in the
nineties. All of them had respected the Bamiyan Buddhas as their heritage. As
someone has pointed out, with an appropriate touch of irony, Mahmud of Ghazni
was among such rulers. He did march to Somnath to break
the idols there and on the way. But he left Bamiyan strictly alone.
In the understable angry
discussion on the Bamiyan Buddhas a critical point has been generally ignored.
What are the Taliban, if not a creation of Pakistan? Pakistan’s support to it
is vital for its continued hold on power. Full allowance should surely be made
of the fact that proteges sometimes do defy their mentors. It must also be
recognised that Pakistan did join other countries in urging restraint on the
Taliban. But regrettably its intervention was too late and too feeble. It was
rather pathetic to watch Mr Shamshad Ahmed, Pakistan’s Ambassador to the UN
and a former Foreign Secretary, on the CNN fumbling for words and finally coming
up with “ill-considered” as the description of the horrendous act in which
the Taliban regime was already engaged when he spoke.
The real worry in Pakistan,
and among its well-wishers, should be what might happen next. Pakistan may have
created the Taliban, nurtured them in its madrassas and sustained them in power
with the constant supply of warplanes, tanks and other sophisticated weapons.
But now the roles are getting reversed, ideologically at least. In the words of
many Pakistanis themselves, their country is getting “Talibanised”. Mr
Sadruddin Agha Khan, in the letter quoted above, has asked: “How would
Pakistan react if some cleric ordered the destruction of all the Indus Valley
Gandhara Buddhas?”
His question is not
rhetorical but very pertinent. The sway of the Taliban-like insanity in Pakistan
is a regrettable fact of life. Neither the military regime presided over by
General Musharraf nor those sections of Pakistani society who are dismayed by
the rising tide of fundamentalism seem able to resist. This, especially in the
light of what is going on in Kashmir after the third extension of the unilateral
ceasefire, must be a source of major concern.
No less dismaying is the
role of some sections of the Indian media that have been virtually condoning, if
not applauding, the Taliban’s barbarity at Bamiyan. Their argument is
convoluted to the point of being perverse. Because there are in India elements
like the VHP and the Bajrang Dal, they argue, the world has to live with the
Taliban. The destruction of the matchless Buddhas, in their view, is justified
because of the earlier demolition of the Babri Masjid. Mullah Omar and Acharya
Giriraj Kishore are supposed to be the two sides of the same coin.
The destruction of the Babri
Masjid was an egregious and unpardonable outrage. It is a matter of shame for
this country that it has not yet punished its perpetrators. Instead, the
government of the day is trying to fudge the case against some of the alleged
culprits who occupy positions of power in the present set-up. But how does this
justify the Taliban’s savagery? Doubtless, the VHP’s threat to avenge the
blasting of the Bamiyan Buddhas by some similar idiocy at Ajmer or elsewhere has
to be resisted by the Indian State firmly. But the
curious mindset being displayed by the Taliban’s Indian apologists can in no
way be defended by equating one evil with another. To do so is a perversion, not
promotion, of liberal values.
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Defenceless
Buddhas
If the two Bamiyan Buddha
statues have a voice, they will simply utter the unutterable: we have seen it
all and suffered it all. But being the statues of the Buddha, they will simply
and painfully smile and tell the Taliban destroyers, “Sons, you do not know
what you are doing.”
The
last person to vandalise was Genghis Khan who cut off the legs in 1221. He also
killed all residents of the town on the Silk Route as a punishment for living
with two majestic Buddhas. It was the restoration work by Afghan and Indian
experts that attracted new migrants and hotels to cater to tourists. In due
course, the very tall statues – one 150 feet tall and the other 30 feet
shorter – became world famous, being declared a heritage of the entire
humanity.
Dedicated sculptors, mostly
from India, created the icons out of a rock. In other words, the Buddhas were
not built but carved out of a hillside very much like the Elephanta Caves and
Ajanta. Again, in other words, there was just a hilltop to begin with and after
the chistle and hammer work there stood two stunning figures spreading
benediction. Of course the creators used a finely ground paste of limestone to
produce the effect of folded robes and the contemplative expression. At one time
there were also much gold plating and jewels, now sadly missing.
There are some priceless
Buddha statues in the Kabul museum. This is after all the theft and pilferage by
successive invaders. The first one was by an Iraqi General, Yakub ibn Layeth who
took away many Buddhist treasures from the rockcuts of Bamiyan (some scholars
spell it without the “y”). Chinese traveller Hsuen Tsang has said that
Bamiyan was a very important Buddhist centre and housed many monks. They all
lived in the caves cut out of the rocks. There need not be any greater evidence
of Indian influence than this.
One
last word. Temple architecture is normally style-bound. Like the tall spires of
churches, domes and minarets of mosques. But in India it is bewilderingly
different, The tall spires of the Bodh Gaya temple is different from the
gopurams of the south. Humpi is a marvellous blending of the northern and
southern architecture. The marble Jain temples of Rajasthan and Gujarat are a
breed apart as are the temples in Khajuraho and Konarak. Then there are the
exquisite designs of small temples in Himachal Pradesh and the grand and richly
endowed gurdwaras in Punjab. No doubt, India’s most attractive exportable
product in ancient times was religion and temple architecture and it did well.
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