Anangpal II

• The government has recently formed a Maharaja Anangpal II Memorial Committee to popularise the legacy of 11th-century Tomar king, Anangpal II.
• Crediting him with giving Delhi its present name and also repopulating it, the National Monument Authority — which functions under the Ministry of Culture — has embarked on a mission to present “correct history” to the people through the works of historians, academics and archaeologists.

Who was Anangpal II/AnangpalTomar?

• He belonged to the Tomar dynasty that ruled parts of present-day Delhi and Haryana between the 8th and 12th centuries.
• The capital of Tomars changed many times from being initially at Anangpur (near Faridabad) during the reign of Anangpal I (who founded the Tomar dynasty in the 8th century), to Dhillikapuri (Delhi) during the reign of Anangpal II.
• The Tomar rule over the region is attested by multiple inscriptions and coins, and their ancestry can be traced to the Pandavas (of the Mahabharata).
• AnangpalTomar II was succeeded by his grandson Prithviraj Chauhan, who was defeated by the Ghurid forces in the Battle of Tarain (present-day Haryana) after which the Delhi Sultanate was established in 1192.
• His connection with Delhi
• Anangpal II is credited to have established and populated Delhi during his reign in the 11th century.
• He was instrumental in populating Indraprastha and giving it its present name, Delhi.
• The region was in ruins when he ascended the throne in the 11th century, it was he who built Lal Kot fort and AnangtalBaoli.
• He was the founder of Dhillikapuri, which eventually became Delhi.”
• Tomars and their Delhi link find mention in some modern-day literature as well.
• KA Nizami’s Urdu book, Ehd-e-WustakiDilli, translated in English as Delhi in Historical Perspectives, looks at Delhi across six centuries (from 1300 to 1800).
• Tracing the antecedents of Delhi, Nizami refers to Persian annals that describe it as “Inderpat”. And yet, according to his book, Delhi formally emerged as a city only in the 11th century when TomarRajputs took over the mountainous Aravalli region.

SOURCE: THE HINDU