Opinion Criticism of the historicity of Sengol is baseless
That Sengol was relegated to a museum corner as a “walking stick” of Nehru simply means that it was an intentional destruction of evidence to erase the historic event from national memory
Dilip Kumar Chakrabarti writes: The Sengol was relegated to a museum corner as a “walking stick” of Nehru simply means that it was an intentional destruction of evidence to erase the historic event from national memory. (PTI) 
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I do not know Tamil, least of all its ancient texts dealing with ancient rituals. I have read, however, Padma Subrahmanyam’s translation of S Gurumurthy’s article on the Sengol in the Tamil magazine, Thuglak (May 5, 2021). On May 26, 2023, like millions of Indians, I too sat glued to the television broadcast of the ritual preceding the placement of the Sengol near the Speaker’s chair in our newly consecrated Parliament and Prime Minister Modi’s stirring speech. This ceremony is a tangible demonstration of the civilisational continuity of our land, tracing the roots of many of our ideas to as early as the Indus civilisation, about 5,000 years ago. At this proud moment, however, there is a sense of unease: The very fact of the Sengol ceremony on the eve of August 15, 1947, is doubted in some quarters. There is no way one can doubt evidence which is genuinely contemporary, like the reports in the newspapers of the day or the observations by many contemporary political commentators.
The Modi government’s detailed docket of 30-odd pages, which has already been circulated among the public, establishes beyond doubt that the vesting of the Sengol, an important cultural mark of transfer of power during the Chola period, was adopted to symbolise the transfer of power from the British to India. That it was thus adopted has been proved by such unimpeachable evidence as the present discovery of the Sengol itself, the reports of contemporary media like Time Magazine, books such as D F Karaka’s Betrayal of India and Freedom at Midnight by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre, and scores of other books and papers of the period. The ritual included the rendering of the 11 verses of the Tamil religious script, “Kolaru Pathikam”, ending with the prayer to Lord Shiva that the new power would rule forever.
Nobody in a sane frame of mind would ask for a photo proof of the whole chain of events. The Sengol was first handed over to Louis Mountbatten, then taken back from him, given gangajala abhishekam to purify it of all the blemishes of the colonial regime, and then given to Jawaharlal Nehru to mark the transfer of power.
More evidence is contained in the government docket mentioned earlier. One, a recollection of the 1947 ceremony by the highly revered Kanchi Mahaswami in August 1978 and second, Adheenam’s souvenir, the date of which is not known but should be several decades old. Both are compelling pieces of evidence. The Adheenam record graphically describes the ceremony and its background. It fully corroborates the independent recollection of Kanchi Mahaswami. The first attempt to cast doubt on the Sengol as symbolic of the transfer of power was a report in a newspaper that had said that Mahaswami’s recollection was “very thin” evidence. But surprisingly, the newspaper did not notice the Adheenam document in Tamil, which was translated into English and put in the government docket itself. When the newspaper’s attention was drawn to it, it modified its report but with a rider that the Adheenam record was found in a souvenir, whose date was not known. Eventually, the newspaper corrected its position.
The Kanchi saint’s recollection is an independent testimony by itself. He expresses his regret: “Our history books must contain this fact. But, for these 31 years it has not been recorded.” It is 45 years old today. History accepts such evidence. It is ridiculous to think that the Kanchi saint or the Adheenam would have said things so that, decades later, in 2023, some government would make use of it.
One more point. The testimony of the Kanchi saint and the Adheenam’s record both suggest that it was Mountbatten who suggested the holding of a pre-Independence ritual. Mountbatten’s positive role in the matter is borne out by the fact that the handing of the sceptre as a symbol of the transfer of power was an Anglo-Christian tradition. A week after the Sengol ceremony in Indian Parliament, on May 5, 2023, the Church Times UK, published an article titled “Coronation rite imbued with ancient symbolism”.
There is, however, a difference between the Sengol and the sceptre. The latter is exclusively the symbol of Christian theology. But the Sengol has less religious and more moral implications, which is commensurate with the basic principle of Dharma, a principle firmly embedded in the ancient Indian idea of kingship. The Sengol, according to the testimonies attached to the aforementioned docket, is rooted in the idea of “Aram”, the Tamil equivalent of dharma. Saint Tiruvalluvar has devoted 10 of his 1,330 verses extolling the virtues of the Sengol as symbolic of the higher principles that rule over the ruler himself/herself.
That the Sengol was relegated to a museum corner as a “walking stick” of Nehru simply means that it was an intentional destruction of evidence to erase the historic event from national memory. Finally, if some alleged historians could rubbish the Ayodhya excavation findings, it is natural that they would rubbish the evidence related to the Sengol as well. Should we not throw them unceremoniously in the rubbish heaps of historical studies? That is their rightful place.
The writer is Emeritus Professor of South Asian Archaeology, Cambridge University & Distinguished Fellow, Vivekananda International Foundation
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