A Colonial Misstep and Its Lasting Echoes

In 1842, during the chaotic aftermath of the First Anglo-Afghan War, British forces recaptured the fortress of Ghazni in present-day Afghanistan. Among their discoveries were two massive gates, allegedly carved from sandalwood and purportedly looted from the Somnath Temple in Gujarat during the 11th-century raids of Mahmud of Ghazni. Seizing what he saw as a political opportunity, Lord Ellenborough, the Governor-General of British India, proclaimed their return as an act of historical justice—a symbolic redress for centuries of Muslim “humiliation” inflicted upon Hindu India.

Yet the gates were neither from Somnath nor made of sandalwood. They were crafted from local cedar, and no contemporary Islamic records even mentioned their plunder. This colonial miscalculation, however, inadvertently cemented Mahmud of Ghazni’s reputation as a desecrator of Hindu sacred sites—a narrative later weaponized by Hindu nationalists in the 20th century.

Mahmud of Ghazni: Raider or Demon?

Mahmud of Ghazni, the Turkic ruler of the Ghaznavid Empire, launched 17 raids into India between 1000 and 1026 CE. His 1026 sack of Somnath—a coastal temple dedicated to Shiva—became legendary for its brutality. Muslim chroniclers recorded the massacre of its Brahmin defenders and the destruction of its towering lingam, a sacred representation of Shiva. Fragments of the idol were said to have been embedded into Ghazni’s mosque steps, a deliberate act of humiliation.

Yet modern historians question whether Mahmud’s notoriety was exaggerated by later political agendas. Romila Thapar notes that contemporary Indian sources scarcely mention his raids, and a 13th-century Sanskrit inscription even celebrates the peaceful coexistence of a local mosque and the Somnath Temple. The British colonial narrative, however, transformed Mahmud into a timeless villain—a convenient foil for their own “civilizing” mission.

Why India Fell: The Deeper Historical Context

Mahmud’s raids exposed systemic vulnerabilities in India’s medieval polities. Unlike earlier invaders like Alexander, who faced unified resistance, Mahmud encountered a fragmented landscape of warring kingdoms. Historians cite several factors:

– Economic Exploitation: Rulers overtaxed peasants to fund temple-building and elite patronage, weakening grassroots resilience.
– Political Fragmentation: Rival Rajput clans prioritized infighting over collective defense, dismissing Muslim raiders as temporary nuisances.
– Social Rigidity: The caste system, as Arnold Toynbee argued, stifled social cohesion, leaving no unified “Indian” identity to mobilize against invaders.

Military disparities also played a role. Muslim armies employed Central Asian cavalry tactics and professional standing forces, while Indian levies relied on feudal lords assembling ad hoc troops.

From Colonial Myth to Nationalist Symbol

The Somnath myth resurfaced violently in 1990, when BJP leader L.K. Advani launched his Rath Yatra (Chariot Journey) from the rebuilt Somnath Temple. His campaign—culminating in the 1992 demolition of the Babri Masjid in Ayodhya—framed medieval Muslim rulers as eternal oppressors, with Mahmud as their archetype. The 2019 Supreme Court verdict permitting a Ram Temple on the mosque’s ruins marked the political triumph of this narrative.

Legacy: History as Political Weapon

The Somnath story reveals how colonial distortions can fuel modern nationalism. Ellenborough’s fabricated “return” of the gates and Advani’s Rath Yatra both weaponized Mahmud’s raids—one to justify British rule, the other to mobilize Hindu identity politics. Yet as Thapar and others show, medieval India’s realities were far more nuanced, with periods of coexistence alongside conflict.

Today, the Somnath Temple stands not just as a religious site but as a symbol of how history, once simplified into myth, can shape a nation’s destiny. The gates of Ghazni may have been a colonial blunder, but their legacy endures in the fraught politics of modern India.