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‘Sengol’ returns: Sceptre given to Nehru in 1947 to make comeback when Modi inaugurates new Parliament

Tamil kings like Cholas were vested with 'sengol' when they ascended throne. PM will receive same sceptre that Mountbatten handed to Nehru in 1947 to mark transfer of power.

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New Delhi: On 14 August, 1947, Lord Mountbatten presented Jawaharlal Nehru with a specially crafted sengol (Tamil for sceptre or dharma danda) to mark the transfer of power to the government of independent India from the British. On 28 May, after a gap of more than 75 years, the very same sengol will be handed to Prime Minister Narendra Modi as he inaugurates the new Parliament building, Union Home Minister Amit Shah said Wednesday.

Modi will then place the sengol — a five-foot-long gold-plated sceptre topped with a figure of the bull Nandi, the vehicle of the Hindu god Shiva — next to the Lok Sabha Speaker’s chair. The ceremony will be accompanied by the recitation of 11 Tamil verses in praise of Shiva from the Thevaram.

Historically, new rulers of the Chola Empire were vested with the sengol when they ascended the throne. The government’s move is expected to go down well in Tamil Nadu, where the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) is striving hard to expand its footprint.

“The sengol is linked to our ancient culture and we thought it wasn’t right to keep it in a museum. Our government thinks that no place is more pure or rightful to place the sengol than Parliament. That is why when the new Parliament is dedicated to the nation, the PM will accept the sengol from Thiruvavaduthurai Adheenam Mutt and will place it next to the chair of the Lok Sabha Speaker,” Shah said at a press conference in Delhi.

Adheenams are monastic Shaivite institutions. The Thiruvavaduthurai Adheenam Mutt, a prominent institution about 20 km northeast of Kumbakonam that conducted the 1947 ceremony, will once again do so on 28 May.

Shah’s announcement also comes on a day when 19 “like-minded” opposition parties — including the Congress, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) and the Trinamool Congress — announced that they would boycott the event because the government did not invite President Droupadi Murmu or Vice-President Jagdeep Dhankhar to inaugurate the new Parliament building.

In a joint statement issued Wednesday, these opposition parties said the prime minister’s act was an insult to the office of the President of India, who is not only the head of state but also an “integral part” of Parliament.


Also Read: Modi’s Central Vista project has a history-shaped hole in it


The symbolism behind the sengol

According to a background note issued by the central government, the sengol symbolises “virtual and ethical rule” and is highly spoken of in the ancient Tamil texts — saint-poet Thiruvalluvar, the note says, wrote 10 verses celebrating the sengol and sengonmai, which means rule based on aram, or duty.

At the press conference, Shah said the sceptre was made by Vummidi Bangaru Chetty & Sons — one of Chennai’s renowned jewelers — and after it was given to Nehru, it was kept at Anand Bhawan in Allahabad, now Prayagraj. 

“It’s being brought from there,” Shah told reporters.  

Giving more details of the ceremony that took place in 1947, Shah said Mountbatten had asked Nehru what ritual should be followed to symbolise the transfer of power.

“Nehru sought the advice of his colleagues — including Rajagopalachari (C. Rajagopalachari, who would become the last governor-general of India). The latter conceptualised the Chola model of ascension to the throne and told Nehru, who conveyed it to Mountbatten. The latter agreed to it and that is how the sengol ceremony happened,” Shah said. 

The Thiruvavaduthurai Adheenam Mutt was then asked to conduct the ceremony. It was carried out by an ascetic and a team of musicians and oduvars (those appointed to recite Shaivite hymns) from the institution, who the government had specially invited for the purpose. 

“The sacred sengol ceremony took place just before Nehru hoisted the national flag and addressed the nation with his stirring message of ‘Tryst with Destiny’,” Shah said. 

So, how did the Modi government decide on recreating this moment in history for the inauguration of the new Parliament building?

According to the government note, an article written in a May 2021 issue of Thuglak — a popular Tamil weekly magazine founded by the late Tamil journalist Cho Ramaswamy — was the genesis of the idea. The article, which delved into the historical event, was translated and sent to the Prime Minister’s Office by Bharatanatyam exponent and author Padma Subrahmanyam. 

In an accompanying note, Subrahmanyam said that such a “profound, sacred, and historic ceremony” had been kept out of public knowledge and history, and she asked the government to make this public.

“This is what set off the government to verify the media reports and authenticity of the sengol vesting ceremony on 14/15 August 1947,” the government note says. 

The note also explains why the ceremony was kept out of public records in 1947 — with the nation ravaged by Partition and violence, and also since the Sengol ceremony had to be arranged in haste and by oral orders, it remained unrecorded. 

“As a result, the sacred sengol and its vesting ceremony seem to have disappeared from the institutional memory of the Indian state,” the note says. Despite this, reports appearing in Tamil media from 2017 do mention the ceremony, it adds.

(Edited by Uttara Ramaswamy)


Also Read: Delhi’s had a ‘bhawan’ boom, but era of ‘decentralised’ govt buildings could end with Central Vista


 

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