Even though the Taj Mahal was 350 years old many years back, the Govt celebrated it’s 350th anniversary recently. Right now the controversy is, Is the Taj Mahal leaning, like the tower in Pisa.? But there is one report which says it is not.
Talking to The Pioneer on Tuesday, Superintending Archaeologist, ASI Agra, Dr D Dayalan, said that though it is a fact that one of the front minarets of the Taj mahal was indeed ’tilting’ by 8.5 inch outwards, this was either a deliberate structural feature introduced by the architect of the monument or it may have occurred sometime back in history due to a natural calamity like an earthquake.
Dayalan said that this issue was not new, in fact it had been raised by the media a few decades ago as well. Following this, the department had fixed glass strips in the base of the minarets to ensure that if there indeed was a movement in the minarets even by 1mm, the strips would crack, but they haven’t cracked till date.
This indicated that the minarets were not tilting any further and the controversy being raised over the ‘Leaning tower of Taj Mahal’, is completely hypothetical, created by a section of the media bent upon sensationalising the issue. [Baseless babble over ‘leaning’ Taj Mahal]
