2024-11-05T19:14:41-05:00 https://archinect.com/news/article/150035792/muslim-built-taj-mahal-in-the-crosshairs-of-hindu-nationalists Alexander Walter 2017-10-30T15:47:00-04:00 >2017-10-30T15:47:13-04:00 <img src="https://archinect.gumlet.io/uploads/y4/y4912owi75rkg3gd.jpg?fit=crop&auto=compress%2Cformat&enlarge=true&w=1200" border="0" /><em><p>Times are tough for India&rsquo;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.</p></em><br /><br /><p>"Resentment at the fact the country&rsquo;s most recognisable monument was built by a Muslim emperor has always existed on the fringes of the Hindu right," <em>The Guardian</em> writes. "But those fringes have never been so powerful."</p>