People's Democracy

THE decision of the Taliban regime of Afghanistan to destroy the great rock-cut images of the Buddha at Bamiyan as well as of all pieces of historic statuary has shocked and dismayed all those who have any care for the preservation of humanity’s cultural heritage.

It is to be affirmed that there can be no justification for the Tailban’s conduct, even if, as they allege, their action is in accordance with the dictates of Islam. It is, however, to be noted that it has always been held by leading Islamic jurists that old temples should not be destroyed.

It also needs to be recalled that though Afghanistan has had a Muslim population for the last millennium or so, the Bamiyan sculptures have always aroused nothing but admiration from such Muslims as have described the images down the centuries. In his great geographical dictionary, the Mu’jam-al-Baldan, written early in the 13th century, Yaqut speaks of the "two mighty idols cut in the live rock" at Bamiyan, which he calls the "Red Buddha" and "Grey Buddha." Nowhere else, he exclaims, "is there anything to equal these." He also speaks of the sculptured likeness of "every species of birds that Allah had created." In his book Ajaibal-Makhluqat, Zakariya Qazwini (d. 1263) gives a report in the same vein. When Sultan Muhammad, author of the geographical work Majmaul- Ghara’ib, passed by Bamiyan in 1528, he was grateful for the shelter that the gigantic niches, cut in the rock for sculpturing the two great images, offered to large caravans during rain and snow storms. He enthusiastically describes these images themselves and two lesser images cut nearby. Bamiyan was situated within the Mughal empire, and Akbar’s minister Abul Fazl, in the account of the empire in the Ain-i-Akbari (1595), duly noted the sculptured "colossal images" at Bamiyan, one said to be 80 "yards" high, the other 50 "yards." (These are actually 53 and 38 metres high.)

In more recent times, Afghan scholars of repute have worked on the sculptures and cave paintings of the same complex and neighbouring sites, there being some 750 artificial caves there. Among such scholars have been Ahmad Ali Kohzad, Abdul Hayyi Habibi, Zamaryalai Tanzi and Ahmad Ali Motamedi. They devoted themselves to exploring and studying the complex, because they knew it was an inalienable part of the national heritage of Afghanistan.

Along with Bamiyan, countless priceless treasures of art, including Gandhara sculptures and Sasanian paintings, are also being defaced and destroyed by the Taliban. It is sad that this century has had to begin with such a great cultural tragedy.

If there is no limit to the infamy that the Taliban have earned for themselves by this act; there is a lesson for us in India too. Mr A B Vajpayee, our prime minister, would have been far more convincing in his appeal to others to make the Taliban desist from their act, if he had not only the other day acclaimed as part of our "national awakening" the wilful destruction of the Babri Masjid, a monument in its own right. Nor are the US and western powers very persuasive in their outcry. Let the world remember who so powerfully armed the fundamentalist forces to overthrow a modern regime in Afghanistan.

What the Taliban, armed to the teeth, have done can never be restored. They have probably destroyed many pieces of Afghanistan’s heritage which have not even been properly explored, studied or photographed. The loss to Afghanistan and to the world is, therefore, immeasurable. It is a warning to all of us where religious fanaticism can lead us, of whatever colour it may be. Such fanaticism should always be uncompromisingly opposed.