As Paresh Rawal’s The Taj Story revives P.N. Oak’s debunked Tejo Mahalaya theory, the BJP’s discomfort with Mughal legacy, and its bid to recast India’s plural history through ‘propaganda films’ comes sharply into focus
The Taj Mahal, the white marble mausoleum in Agra, which was described as the “teardrop on the cheek of infinity” by Nobel Laureate Rabindranath Tagore, has long held its place in global imagination as the ultimate symbol of enduring love. Built by the Mughal emperor Shah Jahan in memory of his favourite wife, Mumtaz Mahal, it tops the list of monuments that have needled the ruling establishment for a while, caught in the crosshairs of cultural revisionism. A UNESCO World Heritage site, the Taj Mahal draws millions of visitors (it was India’s most visited ticketed monument for both domestic and foreign tourists in FY 2024-25), powers entire local economies, and remains the country’s unofficial national monument of sorts.
For the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), however, the Taj represents a contradiction it can neither ignore nor fully claim. It’s linked to a lineage that the BJP has spent over a decade trying to politically edit out: the long, complex inheritance of the Mughal empire. With its Persian inscriptions and Islamic motifs, the monument stands as an inconvenient reminder of India’s plural past that resists the single-civilisation narrative the BJP prefers to foreground. The forthcoming release (on October 31) of the film The Taj Story, starring Paresh Rawal in a role that challenges the mainstream history of the monument, throws this drama into sharp relief.
The conspiracy theories
Its identity has turned the mausoleum on the bank of the river Yamuna into something like a pebble in the shoe of Hindu nationalist politics: too visible to erase, too symbolic to embrace. The party’s discomfort has surfaced repeatedly since 2014, with right-wing groups pushing theories that it was once a Hindu temple called “Tejo Mahalaya.” In 2017, Sangeet Som, a BJP legislator in Uttar Pradesh, described the Taj as a “blot on Indian culture built by traitors,” questioning why it should feature in state tourism booklet. Som’s statement was in response to the outrage over tourism department’s omission of one of the world’s seven wonders in the promotional brochure.
That same year, after Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath hinted that the Taj Mahal “does not reflect Indian culture,” he was later photographed sweeping its premises in a public relations course correction that spoke volumes about the political unease it provokes. Since then, the BJP’s approach has been to avoid direct confrontation, but keep alive the murmur that it’s not truly “ours.” If, in state curricula, Mughal history has been erased, in popular discourse, conspiracy theories about the Taj’s origins continue to be circulated.
The Taj, clearly, is both too important to be sidelined and too Muslim to be glorified in the party’s current ideological script. Its continued centrality — in postcards, in tourism campaigns, in cinema — reminds the BJP that the idea of India cannot be rewritten at will. Rawal’s The Taj Story may claim to have artistic freedom, but politically, it lands on contested ground. Because to question the Taj is, in effect, to test how far a state can go in reinterpreting history without erasing what holds a country together.
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In the trailer for the film, Rawal’s character — a tourist guide-turned litigant — demands a DNA test on the Taj Mahal, claiming it may not be what it has been taught to be. “DNA test karwalo,” his character says. He asks if the Taj is truly a mausoleum or in fact a temple, pointing to 22 “sealed rooms” under the monument and claiming there are hidden Hindu symbols in its architecture. The poster of the film shows the actor lifting the dome of the Taj Mahal to reveal a Lord Shiva idol inside.
The basis for the Tejo Mahalaya theory comes from two books written by a self-styled historian, Purushottam Nagesh Oak, who founded the Institute for Rewriting Indian History: Taj Mahal was a Rajput Palace (1965) and The Taj Mahal Is A Temple Palace (1968). Oak argued that the name Taj Mahal is a corrupted form of Tejo Mahalaya, meaning ‘Lord Shiva’s Palace.’ He claimed that the Taj was originally an ancient Shiva temple and palace built by a Rajput ruler. He believed that Shah Jahan seized the structure after a battle and renamed it the Taj Mahal.
The theory suggests that idols of Hindu gods and scriptures are hidden in over 20 sealed rooms in the Taj Mahal complex. In 2000, seven years before his death, Oak filed a petition in the Supreme Court, taking his theory to the highest court of the country, but SC dismissed his case, calling him someone with “a bee in his bonnet.” Two years later, a petitioner asked the Allahabad High Court to order the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) to open the sealed rooms for investigation. The court rejected the plea, and the ASI later released photos showing the rooms were simply for maintenance, not hidden shrines.
However, Oak’s claim doesn’t survive even the most basic historical scrutiny. There’s no record, inscription, or trace of architecture to back it up. Every Mughal chronicle, every archaeological study, and every art historian says the same thing: Shah Jahan built the Taj in the 17th century, and it’s exactly what it looks like: a Mughal mausoleum. But Oak had a habit of bending facts to fit his theory. He took a line from the Padshahnama about Shah Jahan buying land from a Rajput noble and turned it into “proof” that the monument already existed.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi sought to rein in his rhetoric by saying, in October 2017, that “no country can move ahead without taking pride in its heritage,” a subtle rebuke to Som’s remarks. But it didn’t do anything to change his party’s leaders' distorted perception of the Taj. More recently, in April 2023, Assam BJP legislator Rupjyoti Kurmi claimed that the Taj “cannot be a symbol of love” on the grounds that Emperor Shah Jahan married other women after Mumtaz Mahal’s death.
Rewriting the story of the Taj
The film’s trailer resurrects the Tejo Mahalaya theory, complete with the claim of secret rooms and Hindu iconography. Historians and the ASI have repeatedly called such claims baseless: in 2018, for instance, the ASI reiterated that the Taj Mahal is a tomb, not a Shiva temple, and that any evidence to the contrary is imaginary. This was part of the ASI’s legal defence in response to petitions claiming Hindu origins for the monument
But the film taps precisely into this vein of revisionist history, presenting it not merely as speculation but as a courtroom drama in which long-held historical narratives are challenged. There is little doubt that the Taj Mahal being framed has to do with the BJP and its ideological ecosystem’s attempts to rewrite history. Monuments built by the Mughal empire — which the BJP often meshes with a narrative of Muslim rule and foreign domination — are being recast in new light. They either get subsumed into a national heritage without acknowledgment of their origins, or they are challenged, sidelined, or replaced by alternative narratives.
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In this matrix, the Taj Mahal is problematic for a few reasons. First and foremost, the Taj is a quintessential Mughal monument, with its white marble and Persianate architecture screaming its Islamic heritage. By spotlighting it for revision, the narrative shifts from its Mughal-Muslim origin to a disputed one, thereby diminishing its status as unchallenged Islamic heritage. Critics note the monument’s deterioration and suspect indifferent upkeep may also be partly due to its heritage identity, especially since Yogi has formed the government.
Secondly, by re-assigning the origins of the Taj, the narrative demands a re-claiming of “our” past. In the BJP’s political logic, history isn’t just about the past: it is about who we are now. If a monument so famous becomes questionable, then what else might need to be re-examined? The audience is encouraged to believe that what they have accepted without question might be a façade. As the film’s poster declares: “What if everything you’ve been taught is a lie?”
Third, it is the timing that really matters. The release date (October 31) — which coincides with the birth anniversary of Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, a national integration icon beloved by the BJP — is no mere coincidence, but a calculated plan. By appearing to challenge “established” history days before the Bihar elections, the film and its themes are aimed to resonate with a section of voters who feel ‘left-leaning’ historians have overlooked Hindu heritage, or treated it as secondary. In the culture war in which history has become a proxy or a collateral damage, if you will, the Taj Mahal is just the latest frontline. Whether you and I are comfortable with it or not, the BJP certainly is comfortable making it part of the narrative it likes to push and control.
If you look at the film in the context of the BJP’s project of rewriting textbooks, renaming cities, foregrounding indigenous knowledge, reclaiming leaders like Patel and BR Ambedkar, and questioning colonial and Mughal legacies, the picture will be pretty clear. You will see that The Taj Story enters precisely into that vortex. By choosing the Taj as its pivot, the film, like the string of ‘propaganda films’ in recent years that have tanked at the box office, pushes an agenda of the Right. In the larger scheme of things, The Taj Story will be utterly inconsequential, but what it will do is sow a seed of division in the minds of viewers. But the BJP would likely end up achieving its goal.
