I spent the first twenty years of my life in Karachi. The only two languages I became conversant with during that period were my mother tongue, Sindhi, and the language I had my education in, English.
In September 1947, a month after partition, I came over to this part of the country. The next one decade, 1947-1957, I worked as an RSS pracharak in different parts of Rajasthan.
It is during this phase that I read almost all the historical novels about Gujarat written by Dr Kanaiyalal Maniklal Munshi. It is in the course of my study of Munshi’s works (written originally in Gujarati) that I came across Jaya Somnath, a book that was to influence even my politics later.
Jaya Somnath was a fictional story set against the backdrop of the invasion of the Somnath Temple. But reading that made me interested in the story as it developed in modern day Independent India. In an article published in selections from ‘The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda’ under title ‘The Future of India’, Swamiji writes:
“Temple after temple was broken down by the foreign conqueror, but no sooner had the wave passed than the spire of the temple rose up again. Some of these old temples of South India, and those like Somnath in Gujarat, will teach you volumes of wisdom, which will give you a keener insight into the history of the race than any amount of books.”
It is, therefore, natural that, when India became independent, many Hindus felt 1947 should signify not only freedom from British rule but also a break from those aspects of the pre-British history that were identified with subjugation, assaults on Hindu temples, vandalising idols and erosion of our cultural traditions.
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One such occasion presented itself in the princely state of Junagadh in Gujarat’s Saurashtra region, where the Somnath temple is located. Over 80 per cent of Junagadh’s population was Hindu, but its Nawab was a Muslim. On the eve of Independence, the Nawab announced the accession of his state to Pakistan. This enraged Junagadh’s Hindus whose revolt against the Nawab culminated in their setting up of a parallel government under a local Congress leader, Samaldas Gandhi. The Nawab sought the support of Pakistan. All his tricks were of no avail, so one night he finally fled to Pakistan.
Samaldas Gandhi and the Dewan of Junagadh, Sir Shah Nawaz Bhutto, who, incidentally, was Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s father, conveyed to India that Junagadh was acceding to India. Munshi recalls in his book ‘Pilgrimage to Freedom’ that Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel handed over the telegram of accession to him with the words: ‘Jai Somnath’.
Four days after the takeover of Junagadh on November 9, 1947, Patel visited Saurashtra. There, he made an important announcement: The government of independent India would reconstruct the historic temple of Somnath at the same spot where it stood in ancient times, and reinstall the jyotirlingam.
Shortly after Patel’s return from Junagadh, Nehru convened a Cabinet meeting and endorsed Patel’s announcement. That evening, when Patel and Munshi called on Gandhiji, he also blessed the move, but told them that the cost of construction should be borne by the people, and not by the government. It was decided that a Somnath Trust would be set up.
The government appointed Munshi as chairman of the advisory committee. He had contemplated he would have Sardar Patel inaugurate the temple. But by the time the construction was completed, Patel had passed away.
In ‘Pilgrimage to Freedom’, Munshi writes: “I approached Dr Rajendra Prasad and asked him to install the deity, but added a rider that he should accept it only if he was prepared not to fail us.”
“Prasad said he would come and install the deity, whatever the attitude of the prime minister be, and added: “I would do the same with a mosque or church if I were invited.” This, he held, was the core of Indian secularism.
“My foreboding proved correct. When it was announced Prasad was attending the inauguration of the temple, Nehru vehemently protested this. But Prasad kept his promise.”
(Excerpts from Bharatiya Janata Party leader L K Advani’s blog, October 3, 2010)