In Somnath, a new tryst with the civilisational past

Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the Somnath temple. (Express Photo)

When Prime Minister Narendra Modi chooses to spend two nights in Somnath, it sends a message. Indian political culture places great emphasis on where a leader goes; however, how long a leader stays is of even greater significance. A fly-in-and-out visit signals political courtesy, not commitment. A pause, however, signals intention.

PM Modi’s two-night stay in Somnath comes after his comments on the long arc of civilisational memory and resilience. This visit is a re-embedding of the Indian state in a geography marked by rupture and continuity. Destroyed, rebuilt, desecrated and rebuilt every time — if there was ever a civilisational stress test, Somnath has endured it and passed.

For decades after Independence, Somnath was treated with embarrassment. Jawaharlal Nehru, India’s first PM, made his disapproval of its reconstruction evident. This was the first symptom of the Indian state’s selective amnesia. Trauma was to be recognised only if it could be universalised; otherwise, it was dismissed as rooted in “backward” thought. If wounds demanded reparation, they were ignored and, more importantly, denied.

Modi plays politics of emphasis differently. He does not erase wounds; he acknowledges them. In doing so, he prevents them from festering. By placing Somnath and Ghazni in the same narrative breath, Modi presents a subtler argument: India does not need to avenge its past. It needs to understand it without apology.

Two nights in Somnath signal that this is not a speech-stop but a contemplative pause. In Indic tradition, staying is sacred. Kings did not merely visit temples; they resided, listened and absorbed, because even a king was meant to learn and imbibe.

At a time when India is redefining its identity as a civilisational state, symbols are loaded with greater meaning. The Islamic world anchors legitimacy in sacred geography. The West mythologises the Enlightenment. China foregrounds its civilisational identity. India alone attempted to compress itself into constitutionalism, as though a civilisation of millennia could be redacted so easily. This is more ironical given India’s civilisational inheritance was acknowledged by the Constitution’s framers .

It is therefore important to emphasise that Modi’s stay is not one that carries a message of division or supremacy, but one of presence and acknowledgement. It is a statement that clarifies: We are no longer in denial of what we have lived through.

The usual naysayers will inevitably give this visit a negative spin. Words like “majoritarian signalling” will be used. However, India’s civilisational story does not belong to only one community. More importantly, a nation that knows its civilisational spine has no use for facile, performative secularism.

By invoking Ghazni in the context of resilience, and Somnath without insecurity, Modi is repositioning Indian memory away from grievance. By staying there, he is reminding the political class that power, too, must sometimes bow to time.

Because civilisations do not shout. They endure. Kala is a writer, including of the novel, Almost Single