Economist and Sanskrit scholar Bibek Debroy passed away on November 1. (Express file photo by Renuka Puri)
It is hard to believe that Bibek Debroy is no more. Bibek da was a dear friend, someone whose advice I would often seek. As chairman of the National Monuments Authority (NMA), I was keen that the government recognise the contributions of Delhi’s founder, Anangpal II as well as the grand lake he created. The Anang Tal was buried in sewage water behind the Qutub Minar complex. The Archaeological Survey of India has, historically, been relatively ambivalent to sites that concern Hindu heritage. I asked Bibek da for his help to rediscover this aspect of India’s past. Any city should be proud to resurrect the memories of its founder: The pre-Christian legend of Romulus and Remus became the pride of Rome.
Bibek da promised to help. The next day, I got a call from him and he visited the Anang Tal with his wife Suparna ji. They passed the rough terrain that led to the lake, where sewage flowed on one side and there were encroachments on the other. This was a lake that once provided water to the people of much of the city. When we visited, it was full of garbage from roadside shops and eateries. They were there for a few minutes and left stunned and speechless.
Soon after, the ASI took up the Anang Tal. People suddenly seemed to remember that it was the ASI under legendary archaeologist B R Mani which excavated the site and recorded its historicity. A few months on, the great king of Delhi’s memorial was gazetted as a national monument, with other government agencies acting fast to have the area cleaned up. This, I know, was thanks to Bibek da.
The Qutub complex had Hindu Vedik and Jain iconography — sculptures and beautiful murals of Ganga, Yamuna, Navagrahas, Krishna’s birth, Mahavira, Tirthankars, a calf with its mother — that remained unseen. This was a result of the demolition of 27 temples of King Anang Pal Tomar’s Vedic and Jain temples by Qutb ud-Din Aibak. The icon of Hindu scientific knowledge and technology, the iron pillar that does not rust was originally known as Vishnu Garud Dhwaj — the traditional temple flag pillar. It stood in the front courtyard of the temples that were demolished to build a Qutub mosque. The front door to the “mosque” site declared proudly in Arabic how Qutb ud-Din demolished these 27 temples to become a ghazi. That declaration was also never brought to the knowledge of the visitors by apologists.
I told Bibek da that this minar must not merely be a place to take pride and have picnics in. It is a place of mourning that reverberates with the pain and cries of our subjugated ancestors.
Bibek da spent two hours with our NMA team, seeing every wall and the stone at the Qutub complex — Suparna ji with him. Soon, the Ministry of Culture swung into action to have these icons properly explained and identified for visitors — doing justice to truth and objectivity.
Later, he was instrumental in bringing out a significant policy thesis — under the authorship of his dear friend Sanjeev Sanyal — titled ‘Monuments of National Importance: The Urgent Need for Rationalisation’. Bibek da gave me the privilege to be interviewed on his hour-long Lok Sabha TV show, Itihasa, on how we are ignoring monuments of victory and valour while highlighting irrationally the monuments of invaders and those that represent our colonisation.
Bibek da understood the soul of Bharatvarsh. He translated Mahabharata and was as fluent in Sanskrit as in English. With Itihasa, he gave us an introduction to facets of India that we knew little about. His passing away has left the nation bereft of a sage who re-interpreted a Sanatan Bharat for billions of Indians.
The writer is a former Rajya Sabha MP from the BJP and former chairman of the National Monuments Authority
