Hardline Hindu nationalists step up campaign against Taj Mahal

Resentment at the fact India’s most recognisable monument was built by a Muslim emperor fuels campaign to push it to margins of Indian history

Times are tough for India’s monument to love. Air pollution is turning its marble surface yellow. Restoration work is obscuring its famous minarets. Tens of millions of tourists still flock to Agra each year, but numbers are reportedly waning.

Critics of the Taj Mahal are also growing increasingly bold. In past months, religious nationalists in the Hindu-majority country have stepped up a campaign to push the four-century-old Mughal monument to the margins of Indian history. One legislator recently kicked up a national storm when he labelled the tomb “a blot”.

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from The Guardian http://ift.tt/2xxYLxM