The Monument's Men of India !

In the recently released and critically acclaimed  movie  "The Monuments Men" (pics courtesy columbia pictures) - director / actor - George Clooney (who plays Frank Stokes and is the leader of the army team put together to protect the art pieces being destructed by Nazi’s) peps up his team with this amazing dialogue -

 "Culture is a way of life.. you can wipe out an entire generation, you can burn their homes to the ground, and somehow they will still find their way back. But if you destroy their history, if you destroy their achievements then it is as if they never existed.”

Nazi's had plundered, stolen & destroyed Europe's master pieces of arts like sculptures, paintings etc. Few passionate men decide to team up and protect these master pieces. The movie is based upon this story line.

India during the Islamic invasion also suffered similar fate (albeit on a much larger scale)  when ruthless Muslim invaders raided & looted everything Hindu -  from Hindu temples to Hindu idols/sculptures  to Villages & to Institution’s of Knowledge (Nalanda university / library is reported to have burned for three months after the Islamic invadersset fire to it)

Brave Hindus (both men and women) provided an  amazing resistance and fought bravely against these heinous acts . From ordinary village folks to Kings and Queens of India had given up their life for the protection of their Culture/History.

I call these people “The Monuments (wo)Men of India” !!. 

As part of my recent India trip in June 2014, We  visited Somnath Temple. This Jyotirling temple can probably go down in history as the ONLY religious place which has been attacked & destroyed the maximum times (17 times by Mahmud Ghazni alone). 

(View of Somnath temple from Sagar Darshan where we stayed)

Per the book written by their own Islamic historian (Habibu-s Siyar by Khondamir)  during one such raid at Somnath - "Fifty thousand infidels (non Islamic - i.e Hindus) were killed round about the temple who were trying to defend the temple".

One such act of bravery is the amazing fight put up by Hamir Gohil  who gave up his life in 14^th century defending the Somnath temple from the attack of Muzaffar Shah. On the path leading to the temple complex, you would find a huge statue of Hamir Gohil, who attained martyrdom while defending the Somnath temple. 

In current scenario the challenge is of different kind. In my view Hindu’s (those who are not aware & unfortunately there are many) need to first start knowing about the real history of India, pass on the Hindu values/culture to their next generation thereby creating a proud Hindu Generation - Next !!

It would be great if all these  heroic events are taught in our school history classes as every Indian has the right to know the "correct" history of India.

Lastly please take out time and tell stories of these real heroes to our kids, grand kids during bed time instead of handing them over an iPad / tablet.

P.S –

1) I came to know about Hamir Gohil via an excellent Gujrati movie called “Veer Hamir” , which prompted me to plan my visit to Somnath. Would love if it is made in Hindi as well (Dr ChandraPrakash Dwivedi comes to my mind :-) ). 

2) In order to portray these real heroes of India - my cousin Pratik Parmar helped me to create the above photo which you see at the top of this post. As there are many unknown people who gave up their life - we have denoted it by the "unknown person with question mark". Photo Courtesy - Mahee Productions and Hindu Jagruti.

Bharat Mata ki Jay !!