Somnath Temple Back In Spotlight As BJP, Congress Lock Horns Over History

A thousand years after Mahmud of Ghazni’s first attack and 75 years after its reconstruction, the Somnath temple has returned to the heart of India’s political and ideological debate. As the millennium of the attack is marked with ‘Somnath Swabhiman Parv’, history, faith and politics collide once again. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s remarks describing Somnath as an “eternal proclamation of India’s soul” have reignited old arguments over secularism, nationalism and historical memory. With the BJP and Congress trading charges, the temple has become a symbol of competing ideas of India’s past, present and future.