On 24 May, Union Home Minister Amit Shah announced that a Chola Dynasty Sceptre named Sengol will be placed at the new parliament building on 28 May after its inauguration. The Sengol was specially commissioned in 1947 and was handed over to India’s first prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru, as a symbol of the transfer of power from the British, as the same sceptre was handed over to new Chola kings at the beginning of their terms. Since then, the history of the Sengol, how it was quietly forgotten after August 1947 and how it was mislabelled as Nehru’s walking stick and was languishing at Anand Bhawan in Allahabad have been widely reported by almost all media houses.
Amid this, left-wing publication The Hindu yesterday tried to find holes in the history of the Sengol, as narrated by the government. In an article titled “Evidence thin on government’s claims about the sceptre” published on 25 May, author Pon Vasanth B A claimed that there is no evidence in the claim that the sceptre was used as a symbol of the transfer of power in August 1947.
The Hindu does not dispute the fact that the Sengol was handed over to Nehru on 14th August 1947 by Sri la Sri Ambalavana Pandarasannadhi Swamigal, the head of the Adheenam in Tamil Nadu. However, it claimed that it was merely a ‘gift’ by the priests, and didn’t symbolise the transfer of power. The article also says that there is no evidence that the sceptre was first symbolically handed over to Lord Mountbatten and then taken back before being presented to Nehru.
The article notes that while the govt has presented several news reports from August 1947 which had reported the handing over the sceptre to Nehru, adding that none of them said it was first given to the British viceroy. It says, “evidence is thin on the government’s claim that this presenting of the sceptre was treated by the leaders and the then government as the symbolic transfer of power.”
However, ironically, while The Hindu is calling the govt claims baseless, it itself had published those same details about the Chola sceptre. In an article titled “The Sengol — A historic sceptre with a deep Tamil Nadu connection”, the newspaper had written that the Sengol “was specially commissioned by the Thiruvavaduthurai Adheenam and was handed over to the soon-to-be Prime Minister Nehru before his historic speech, ‘Tryst with Destiny’, given in the Constituent Assembly to announce the birth of the nation freed from British rule.”
While the Hindu on 25 May claimed that Nehru and others didn’t consider the Sengol as a symbol of the transfer of power, on 24 May it had said that handing over of a sceptre to denote the transfer of power has been in practice for nearly 2,000 years since the Sangam Age. Quoting a well-known historian and researcher of Sangam Literature, the Hindu had written that the use of Sengol has been mentioned in texts such as the Purananooru, Kurunthogai, Perumpaanatrupadai, and Kalithogai.
The article on 25 also claimed that there is no evidence that C. Rajagopalachari had suggested Nehru to use the Sengol as a ceremonial gesture, a day after making the same claim. In the 24 May article, the Hindu wrote, “it was freedom fighter Rajaji (C. Rajagopalachari) who suggested to Nehru the ceremonial gesture, a tradition found to have been documented even in the Chola-era as a symbol of the transfer of power to a new king, according to sources in the Adheenam.”
In that article, the Hindu sad that Rajaji had approached the Thiruvavaduthurai Adheenam in the old Thanjavur district to arrange for the sceptre. It further says, “Sri La Sri Ambalavana Desika Swamigal, the seer of the Thiruvaduthurai Adheenam at the time, then commissioned a five-foot-long, intricately carved, unbending gold sceptre with a miniature replica of Nandi (divine bull on top, and tasked the craftsmen from Vummidi Bangaru, a famous jeweller in Madras, to get it done on time and as per specifications, according to sources in the Adheenam.”
The 24 May article by Hindu was bylined by N. Sai Charan, and it was not just a report on what Amit Shah and the others in the govt had said on the matter. The narration given by Hindu in that article is similar to what the govt said.
It is also notable that Vummidi Ethirajulu, from the Vummidi Bangaru who had designed the Sengol, has said that it was made as per specifications given by the Adheenam seer, and they took almost a month to make it using silver and gold. The sceptre was handed over to the Adheenam, who then handed over to Nehru.
Vummidi Sudhakar, Ethirajulu’s brother, said that they were told that Sengol was being made because it marks the transfer of power, and that is why it was being presented to Nehru.
While questioning the govt claims, the Hindu mention that Sri Chandrasekarendra Saraswathi, the 68th head of Sri Kanchi Kamakoti Pitam, had told a disciple in 1978 that the Sengol was used as a transfer of power from Mountbatten to Nehru. With the claims, the Hindu is basically saying that the seer was lying when he was narrating the incident from his memory.
On the lack of sufficient evidence that it was used as a symbol of the transfer of power, it is evident that while Nehru accepted the sceptre, the ‘rationalist’ Congress leader was not very excited about it. That is why it was quietly forgotten, the sceptre became ‘Nehru’s golden walking stick’, and was lying at his residence turned museum Anand Bhawan in Allahabad for 75 years. Nehru and successive Congress governments never mentioned about it anywhere, and therefore, it was quickly forgotten after some media houses had briefly reported that it was handed over to him by Adheenam seers.
It is notable that in kingdoms and monarchies, generally, new kings assume power only after the death of the previous king. Therefore, in Chola era also, the Sengol was handed over to the new king by the seers. It was not done by the previous kings. Similarly, even if Lord Mountbatten didn’t take and then symbolically handed it back, it does not reduce the importance of the sceptre. Just like the former kings, seers had handed over the sceptre to Jawaharlal Nehru as per traditions, following the rituals, and therefore the event did mark the transfer of power, just like it did during the Chola era.
