People's Democracy

THE Indian History Congress has, ever since its foundation in 1935, stood for the common sharing of cultural heritage, regardless of religion and race. It has particularly urged that the architectural monuments and works of art should be preserved and protected. It consistently opposed the assault on the Babri Masjid and severely condemned its destruction eight years ago in the name of religion.

Today, as the Taliban are reportedly destroying the great Buddha images at Bamiyan and Buddhist statuary in various museums and in Afghanistan, the Indian History Congress, together with historians and archaeologists the world over, unreservedly condemns these acts of sheer vandalism. It is immaterial if the Taliban claim that they are doing it to fulfil what are alleged to be the prescriptions of Islam. No religion is entitled to sanction the destruction of the works of another faith. In any case, many Muslim countries have been appealing to the Taliban not to proceed with their barbarous acts.

It appears from newspaper reports that the work of destruction has already been largely accomplished, the great sculptured Buddha images at Bamiyan having been destroyed by dynamite, rockets and the like. There are a large number of caves at Bamiyan whose valuable frescoes of Buddhist Sasanid tradition are also under the threat of erasure. What has happened in the museums and at sundry places in Afghanistan will only be known later, and perhaps never fully.

One realises with sorrow the magnitude of the tragedy that has overtaken Afghanistan, depriving it and the world of so precious a heritage. It is likely to torment all historians and others concerned with that country’s rich cultural past. Unfortunately, the time for appeals, as far as the great Bamiyan sculptures are concerned, seems to be over. But all thinking people the world over should ponder over how a regime such as the Taliban came to control a country like Afghanistan, and to have the weaponry that have made them deaf to international opinion.

As historians, we can serve the cause of Afghanistan’s great cultural heritage best by keeping interest in it alive and undimmed in this country and throughout the world. One day, we hope, we will again have colleagues in Afghanistan serving most earnestly the same cause, in the footsteps of former savants like Ahmad Ali Kohzad and Abdul Hayyi Habibi who did so much acquaint the Afghan people with their great past.