The barbarism of the Taleban Islamic militia in Afghanistan seems to know no bounds. After placing most of Afghanistan under the harshest rule, the Pakistan-backed Taleban is now setting out to destroy Afghanistan's historical treasures and identity.

Its reclusive and faceless leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, who has hardly ventured anywhere beyond his sanctuary in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar and parts of Pakistan and has not been photographed to date, has issued the order for the destruction of all "statues" as "un-Islamic." His main target is a 1,500-year-old statue of the Buddha in the central Afghan province of Bamiyan. This 53-meter-high sculpture, carved into a cliff face, is the most famous landmark in Afghanistan and the most visible testimony to the country's Buddhist past before the arrival of Islam in the ninth century. It is one of the few historical treasures to have survived the country's turbulent and violent history.

The statue happens to be located in the province that has traditionally housed the Afghan Shiite Muslim minority, which has been a target of the Taleban's Sunni sectarian hatred. The Taleban took over the province in 1998. In the last few months Bamiyan has changed hands several times between the Taleban and the opposition. Since 1998 the Taleban has threatened to destroy the Buddha statue and its subsidiaries, and has carried out horrific massacres of the province's Shi'ite inhabitants. But not until now did the Taleban leader issue the specific order for destruction of the statues. This comes at a time of mounting failure to crush all opposition to the Taleban's barbaric rule in the name of Islam. There is frustration, too, at failure to gain international recognition as the legitimate government of Afghanistan.

The destruction of pre-Islamic statues ought to prove counterproductive. It is important that the international community stand firm against this act of the Taleban. There is nothing in Islam that could justify the destruction of history and culture. Islam is a rich religion that aims to enlighten its followers about their past and to guide them to a bright future. It shares with Buddhism an emphasis on enlightened compassion and tolerance. The most important aesthetic quality of all statues of the Buddha is serenity.

In India, meanwhile, a group of militants has been determined to prove that Hindus can match the Taleban in discrediting a great religion. Having destroyed the 16th century mosque eight years ago, religious nationalists now embarrass the nation by attacking Christians for being un-Indian. The political payoff to the Bharatiya Janata Party comes from attention being drawn to Sonia Gandhi's Italian Catholic background. The party is committed to refashioning the Indian polity in the image of "Hinduness." Party candidates ask voters to choose between "Rome rule" and "Rama rule," Rama being one of the main Hindu gods and "Rama rule" being a popular metaphor for an idealized state of affairs. Like the Taleban, the Hindu extremist movement draws vitality from a reaction to the perceived evils of foreign cultural imperialism. In the name of cultural purity, they engage in cultural vandalism of the most primitive sort.

To destroy history is to erase collective identity. The Bamiyan Buddha was as much a part of every Afghan's cultural treasure as the Taj Mahal, an Islamic monument and still a functioning mosque, is part of every Hindu's cultural inheritance.

For 1,500 years the Buddha smiled down to travelers on the great silk road. One of those was Babur, founder of the Mughal empire, after whom the 16th century mosque in Ayodhya was named. Truly the statues were a common heritage of mankind. Now they are disappearing.

Who has responsibility for protecting humanity's common heritage? How can we hold cultural criminals accountable for their acts of desecration and destruction?

Mr. Saikal, a Muslim from Afghanistan, is a professor of political science and director of the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies at the Australian National University in Canberra. Mr. Thakur, a Hindu from India, is vice rector of the United Nations University in Tokyo. They contributed this personal comment to the International Herald Tribune