The new parliament building of India will be inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on 28 May. On this occasion, a historic tradition will be revived, when the historic Tamil sceptre, ‘Sengol’, will be placed in the new parliament. A tradition forgotten, a piece of the illustrious Hindu history tucked away, shunned, discarded and insulted.
The golden sceptre is studded with jewels and was worth about Rs 15000 at the time of Indian independence. Nandi, the protector and symbol of justice, and bull vahana of Lord Shiva, sits proudly on the top of the sceptre. The Sengol is 5 feet long, which is a masterpiece of Indian art with rich workmanship from top to bottom.
During the inauguration of the new Parliament building, the Sengol will be ceremoniously transported to the House in a grand procession. The occasion is likely to be steeped in Tamil tradition, reminiscent of the ancient traditions of the Chola empire.
It was a traditional Chola practice for Samayacharyas (spiritual leaders) to lead the coronation of kings and sanctify the transfer of power, which is also considered a kind of recognition for the ruler.
When it was decided that the British will hand over power to the Indians, Lord Mountbatten asked Pandit Nehru about the cultural symbol that should be used as a representation of the transfer of power. However, Nehru was also not sure, he sought some time to discuss with others. He discussed the matter with C Rajagopalachari. He studied multiple historic books and informed Jawaharlal Nehru about the Sengol.
Following that, the head of the Thiruvaduthurai Mutt Sri La Sri Ambalavana Desika Swamigal sent the Sengol to Nehru, who accepted it to use as a symbol of power. The seer had sent a delegation carrying the sceptre in a special aircraft arranged by the government.
The Sengol, which was handed down to Nehru, was made of silver, and gold-plated, this was ordered specially by the Adheenam. Jeweller Vummidi Bangaru Chetty in Madras hand-crafted this. It was therefore a replica. However, that it was the Chola tradition being followed makes it a divine Sengol representing The Hindu traditions of the Chola dynasty.
Sengol, the historical sceptre from Tamil Nadu, was received by India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru to represent the transfer of power from the British. However, this sceptre was soon forgotten and was since kept in a museum in Prayagraj as “Jawahar Lal Nehru’s golden walking stick”. Nobody knows for sure how and why such a historic artefact was kept in a museum as Nehru’s walking stick, but now it gets a place worthy of its significance in the new Parliament.
The historic hatred harboured by Jawaharlal Nehru and his handpicked diplomats against anything Hindu
There are, however, significant questions that we must ask, as this historic symbol of Hindu tradition and kingship gets its rightful place in the parliament. Seemingly, from the information available, we can’t particularly say that Congress did this intentionally. Essentially, we cannot say for certain that Congress wanted to insult Hindu traditions and therefore, relegated this Sengol to a political museum as the walking stick of a political figure.
However, given that Congress was in power for decades and it was indeed first handed down to Jawaharlal Nehru, one must ask about the inherent disdain that Congress harbours for Hindu traditions. Jawaharlal Nehru must be recalled, had utter disregard, if not contempt, for Hindu traditions and values.
After the Nawab of Junagarh had fled to Pakistan on 26th October 1947, the Indian army moved into Junagarh on 9th November 1947. After the famed uprising, Sardar Patel arrived in Junagarh on 13th November 1947 to a massive reception from the people of the state and had vowed to rebuild the dilapidated Somnath Temple that was attacked 17 times in its existence, most brutally by Islamic invaders. When Sardar Patel returned to Delhi, the decision to rebuild the Somnath temple was passed in a cabinet meeting and a decision was made for the state to dole the expenses. A decision later overturned due to MK Gandhi’s insistence, that the people be asked to pay for it.
Gandhi died in 1948 and Sardar Patel’s soul departed in 1950. After the demise of Sardar Patel, the task of Somnath Temple’s restoration was to be undertaken by then cabinet minister, KM Munshi, who was the Chairman of the Advisory Committee of the Trust formed for this purpose.
Jawaharlal Nehru has been famed to tell KM Munshi, in 1951, “I don’t like your trying to restore Somnath. It is Hindu Revivalism.” By Congress’ own admission, Nehru did not attend the Bhumi Pujan of the Somnath Temple because he said he was the leader of “secular” India. When the then-President Rajendra Prasad went for the inauguration ceremony, Nehru objected after learning about his plans via a letter. President Prasad wrote back and said, “I believe in my religion and cannot cut myself away from it.” The said exchange of letters was mentioned in the book by Durga Das, “India: From Curzon To Nehru And After”.
A letter written by India’s first ambassador to China, K. M. Panikkar, to then PM Nehru shows that Nehru’s hatred for Hinduism was shared by his handpicked diplomats.
Narrating how he opposed the idea of rebuilding temples destroyed by Islamic invaders, Panikkar wrote, “if an unofficial Hindu organisation wanted to restore that temple, no one could have any objection. Even then, where is one to stop? Kutub Minar to be pulled down and the stones which came from temples used for restoring the shrines? Is Aurangzeb’s tomb in Banares to be pulled down and Kashi Viswanath restored to original glory? If we start on this Path, where are we to stop? This is the state of mind that leads straight to RSS and the desire to revive Hindupada padishahi in India. I was rather surprised to see that some members of the Government were associated with it and the suggestion that the President of India should be the chief yajaman of this obscurantist revivalslism, I confess, was a little frightening”.
The Ambassador to China had also alleged that the “Somnathists” were trying to forget the period of Indian history after the Muslim invasion. “These are the real founders of the India of today and our “Somnathists” unfortunately desire to forget them. I am sorry to inflict this on you, but I think you should know how strongly some of us feel at all this dangerous “revivalism” which seems to have affected even those closely associated with Governments in the Provinces and even at the Centre”.
The letter by Panikkar and the comments by Nehru explain, rather starkly, why India became deracinated and painfully divorced from its roots, also explaining, why the sceptre was forgotten, insulted and shunned.
The apotheosis of Congress leaders and the shunning of Bharatiya traditions at the feet of Islamic appeasement and British colonialism
From what Jawaharlal Nehru felt about the Somnath Temple and the letter of Pannikar, a few realities of India’s contemporary political history stare us in the face. When India won its independence, Bharat was brutally tortured, killed and buried by those who may have led free India, but were caged by their own Abrahamic and colonial intellectual shackles. The fact that the British, who still have a Monarchy committed to the Church, forced an ancient civilisation like India to adopt a skewed version of secularism, one which was then internalised by white-adjacent masters like Nehru, led to the notion that for India to treat its people justly, regardless of their collective numerical strength, India must bury its proud, Hindu history.
It is for this reason that Nehru was so vehemently opposed to the rebuilding of the Somnath Mandir. It is for this reason by Pannikar was utterly ashamed to even acknowledge those who refused to forget their own roots – like the then President.
Another reason why Bharat’s proud heritage had to be erased is that the internalised obsession that historic atrocities, when spoken about or corrected, would deliver a massive blow to the misplaced, bloated and alien pride that the Muslim community feels in the tyrannical Mughal rule. If you take pride in the Hindavi Swaraj that Chhatrapati Shivaji Maharaj established or the glory and valour of Tarabai, you might offend the Muslims who bask in the glory of Aurangzeb. If you talk about Ram Janmabhoomi, you might offend the converted-by-Mughal Islamists who take pride in the demolition of idolaters and temples. You rebuild Somnath, you might offend those who deify Mahmood Ghazni.
And it is perhaps the urge to preserve the feelings of those who deify Mahmood Ghazni that also contributes to the insult of the Sengol. It was the head of the Thiruvaduthurai Mutt Sri La Sri Ambalavana Desika Swamigal who sent the Sengol to Nehru, who accepted it to use as a symbol of power. The seer had sent a delegation carrying the sceptre in a special aircraft arranged by the government. The Sengol is a lasting Hindu tradition of the Chola Dynasty.
Mahmud Ghazni was a contemporary of the Chola King, Rajendra I and there have been several attempts made by the likes of Romila Thapar to minimise the Somnath raids of Mahmud Ghazni by blaming the Chola King for not foiling the raids. That theory has been summarily debunked in this article by Swarajya, however, the fact that any Hindu traditions handed down by the Cholas would diminish Congress’ narrative is obvious and one that cannot be ignored.
Since Nehru was against the rebuilding of the Somnath Mandir and his trusted soldiers, decades later, diminished the Chola King and whitewashed the Somnath Raids of Ghazni (by blaming the Chola Kind instead), even with no direct evidence to suggest that the sceptre was insulted and tucked away because of Congress’ utter contempt for Hindu history, it does not take a lot to connect the dots.
Any acknowledgement of the proud Hindu history of the Cholas would immediately demolish the lies of Macaulay historians that the Cholas did not particularly care about Ghazni demolishing the Somnath Temple because they were Kings from the South of India and did not necessarily fight for Temples at all.
Consider this – Jawaharlal Nehru knew the historic Hindu legacy that he had been handed down. Yet, he chose to use it as a walking stick. The Congress and its lackeys then chose to discard it in some museum insulting Bharatiya Sanskrit and the divine right that came with the sceptre by calling it a mere walking stick of their deity – Nehru. I say they chose to do so because every article that is kept in a museum is researched, documented and described. I find it very hard to believe that those who placed the sceptre there did not know exactly what its history is. But perhaps for them, that Nehru used it as a walking stick is the identity that mattered. Either way, after it was placed in the museum, there were several historians who visited the museum, many who wrote about Nehru and the articles placed in the museum that tells the tale of Chacha – how is it that none of them, to date, raised alarms that the sceptre was one that held significance to Hindu culture was not a mere walking stick used by their favourite politician?
While everyone looked away and chose to insult the sceptre, there were politicians claiming that Cholas had nothing to do with Hinduism and historians trying to whitewash Ghazni by blaming the Chola King, Rajendra I.
When one erases history, one erases the consciousness of a people. You erase the pride they must feel in their identity, knowing that they are the children of great warriors who fought to preserve Dharma. You kill their appreciation for their roots and their will to preserve a civilisation hard fought and kept intact for generations, battling Islamic invasion and colonialism. You kill their will to fight the external threat and their courage to battle neo-colonialism.
When you reduce a divine sceptre to an ornamental walking stick, you tell the Hindus of this land that the person using the walking stick is the only one worth remembering, the person from whom your history starts.
One recalls how Congress stood up tall in court to assert that Lord Ram was a mere fictional character and that the Ram Setu must be demolished. In 2007, the government in an affidavit to the Supreme Court in the Sethusamudram project case had not only dismissed the existence of any man-made bridge between India and Sri Lanka but even questioned the existence of the characters of Ramayana.
History means nothing to Congress. Heritage means nothing to Congress. Hindus mean nothing to Congress. Our civilisational memory and consciousness mean nothing to Congress. The only thing that means something to Congress is to prove that their leaders were the apotheosis of our great civilisation and for that, the divine sceptre atop which Nandi baba sits must be reduced to a walking stick.
