Arun Shourie
"This is an old charge which keeps surfacing now and then," wrote one of those "eminent historians", K. N. Panikkar, in an vituperative response to an article of mine -- the charge that close to two crores had been spent on the "Towards Freedom" project of the Indian Council of Historical Project, and little had been achieved. "About a year back Times of India carried a front page story on this. The historians had then clarified through a public statement published in several newspapers, that they have not drawn any money from the ICHR and that they worked for five years purely in an honorary capacity. When he [that is, me] gets the information from the ministry, if he does, that the editors have not taken any money, I would normally expect Shourie to tender a public apology. But given the intellectual honesty and cultural level reflected in his article, I do not think it would be forthcoming. The alternative of suing for defamation the likes of Shourie is below one's dignity. But I do expect at least the ministry to make a public statement on the factual position."
Strong stuff, and definitive, one would think. It turns out that on 17 July, 1998, in answer to a question tabled in the Rajya Sabha, the Ministry stated that only one part of the project has been completed and published since the original volume of Dr. P. N. Chopra. This is the volume -- in three parts -- by Dr. Partha Sarthi Gupta covering 1943-44. In answer to another question, the Ministry has reported that "After publication of the Volume he was paid an honorarium of Rs. 25,000 in September, 1997."
Dr. Partha Sarthi Gupta, in other words, is the one editor who has completed the work which he had undertaken. For that he has been paid Rs. 25,000. The others have not completed the work they had undertaken, they have therefore not been paid the Rs. 25,000 which are to be paid to them only when their volumes are completed and published. That is how they go about proclaiming themselves to be social workers -- we have been working in an honorary capacity, we have not taken a penny !
And as bits and pieces about the ICHR at last start trickling out, we learn that the "Towards Freedom" project isn't the only one on which large amounts have been spent and which has not been completed. There is an "Economic History of India Project." Rs. 1,955,000 have been spent on it. Nothing has been published as a result. Though, the Ministry told the Rajya Sabha that "according to the information furnished by the ICHR," two volumes of the project -- on Railways and Agriculture -- are "ready for the press".
The Ministry also told the Rajya Sabha that "Professor Bipin Chandra was sanctioned a sum of Rs. 75,000 during 1987-88 for the assignment entitled 'A History of the Indian National Congress'. A sum of Rs. 57,500 has been released to him till 23-6-1989. The remaining balance of Rs. 17,500 is yet to be released because a formal manuscript in this regard is yet to be received." In a word, spare readers this social-worker stance -- "doing all this in a strictly honorary capacity". It is as if Bipin Chandra were to go about saying, "See, I have not even taken the Rs. 17,500 which the ICHR still owes me." And do not miss that effort from the ICHR to help to the extent possible -- "The remaining balance of Rs. 17,500 is yet to be released because a formal manuscript in this regard is yet to be received." Does that mean that some "informal" manuscript has been received, or that no manuscript has been received?
As newspapers and magazines such as Outlook had done, Panikkar had concocted his conspiracy theory on the charge that the BJP Government had changed the word "Rational" into "National", and that it had suppressed three of the five objectives of the ICHR by changing the Memorandum of Association of the ICHR. I had reproduced relevant paragraphs from the Resolutions to show that the same wording had continued for at least twenty years. I had given the numbers and dates of the Resolutions. I had also reported that I had requested the Secretary of the Ministry to help ascertain the year since which the same wording had continued. And what was the response of this "eminent" historian who, as he said, writes signed articles in publications of the Communist Party "because I believe in the ideals it stands for"? "Even if Shourie's contention is true (unlike Shourie who is a BJP MP, a resident of Delhi elected from UP, I have no means to ascertain from the Ministry)..."
That is a much favoured stance: when caught peddling a lie, insinuate that the other fellow is privileged! And that as you are from the working masses, you cannot ascertain whether the facts he has stated are true. Therefore, what you stated must stand as fact -- Q.E.D. !
Exactly the same dodge was used a day or so later by another of these progressives. Manoj Raghuvanshi had invited K. M. Shrimali and me to discuss on Zee Television's Aap ki Adalat the charge that history was being rewritten in communal colours. Raghuvanshi read out what Outlook had reported -- that the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education had issued instructions in 1989 that "Muslim rule should never attract any criticism. Destruction of temples by Muslim rulers and invaders should not be mentioned."
Raghuvanshi asked Shrimali, whether this did not amount to distortion? True, that was a painful period of our history, Raghuvanshi said, but should it be erased from our history books? Would that be objective, rational history? Shrimali's response was the well-practised script : firstly, he did not know that such an instruction was ever issued; if it was issued, he said, he was against it; but one must see what the context was in which the instruction had been issued...
Concerned teachers in West Bengal have been so kind as to send me the circular relating to textbooks for class IX. Dated 28 April, 1989, it is issued by the West Bengal Secondary Board. It is in Bengali, and carries the number "Syl/89/1".
"All the West Bengal Government recognised secondary school Headmasters are being informed," it begins, "that in History textbooks recommended by this Board for Class IX the following amendments to the chapter on the medieval period have been decided after due discussions and review by experts." "
"The authors and publishers of Class IX History textbooks," it continues, "are being requested to incorporate the amendments if books published by them have these aushuddho [impurities, errors] in all subsequent editions, and paste a corrigendum in books which have already been published. A copy of the book with the corrigendum should be deposited with the Syllabus Office (74, Rafi Ahmed Kidwai Road, Calcutta -- 16)." Signed,
"...Chattopadhyaya, Secretary."
The accompanying pages contain two columns : aushuddho -- impurity, or error -- and shuddho. One has just to glance through the changes to see the objective the progressives are trying to achieve through their "objective", "rational" approach to the writing of history. Here are some of the changes.
Book : Bharat Katha, prepared by the Burdwan Education Society, Teachers Enterprise, published by Sukhomoy Das....
*
Page 140 : Aushuddho -- "In Sindhudesh the Arabs did not describe Hindus as Kafir. They had banned cow-slaughter."
Shuddho -- "Delete, 'They had banned cow-slaughter'."
*
Page 141 : Aushuddho -- "Fourthly, using force to destroy Hindu temples was also an expression of aggression. Fifthly, forcibly marrying Hindu women and converting them to Islam before marriage was another way to propagate the fundamentalism of the ulema."
Shuddho : though the column reproduces the sentences only from "Fourthly....", the Board directs that the entire matter from "Secondly.... to ulema" be deleted.
*
Page 141 : Aushuddho -- The logical, philosophical, materialist Mutazilla disappeared. On the one hand, the fundamentalist thinking based on the Quran and the Hadis...."
Shuddho -- "Delete, 'On the one hand, the fundamentalist thinking based on the Quran and the Hadis'...."
Book : Bharatvarsher Itihash, by Dr. Narendranath Bhattacharya, published by Chakravarty and Son...
*
Page 89 : Aushuddho -- "Sultan Mahmud used force for widespread murder, loot, destruction and conversion."
Shuddho -- "There was widespread loot and destruction by Mahmud." That is, no reference to killing, no reference to forcible conversions.
*
Page 89 : Aushuddho -- "He looted valuables worth 2 crore dirham from the Somnath temple and used the Shivling as a step leading up to the masjid in Ghazni."
Shuddho -- "Delete 'and used the Shivling as a step leading up to the masjid in Ghazni.'"
*
Page 112 : Aushuddho -- "Hindu-Muslim relations of the medieval ages is a very sensitive issue. The non- believers had to embrace Islam or death."
Shuddho -- All matter on pages 112-13 to be deleted.
*
Page 113 : Aushuddho -- "According to Islamic law non-Muslims will have to choose between death and Islam. Only the Hanafis allow non-Muslims to pay jaziya in exchange for their lives."
Shuddho -- Rewrite this as follows : "By paying jaziya to Allauddin Khilji, Hindus could lead normal lives." Moreover, all the subsequent sentences "Qazi...", "Taimur's arrival in India..." to be deleted.
*
Page 113 : Aushuddho -- "Mahmud was a believer in the rule of Islam whose core was 'Either Islam or death'.
Shuddho -- Delete.
Book : Bharuter Itihash, by Shobhankar Chattopadhyaya, published by Narmada Publishers.
*
Page 181 : Aushuddho -- "To prevent Hindu women from being seen by Muslims, they were directed to remain indoors."
Shuddho -- Delete.
Book : Itihasher Kahini, by Nalini Bhushan Dasgupta, published by B. B. Kumar.
*
Page 132 : Aushuddho -- According to Todd [the famous chronicler of Rajasthan annals] the purpose behind Allauddin's Chittor expedition was to secure Rana Rattan Singh's beautiful wife, Padmini."
Shuddho -- Delete.
*
Page 154 : Aushuddho -- "As dictated by Islam, there were three options for non-Muslims : get yourself converted to Islam; pay jaziya; accept death. In an Islamic State non-Muslims had to accept one of these three options."
Shuddho -- Delete.
*
Page 161 : Aushuddho -- "The early Sultans were eager to expand the sway of Islam by forcibly converting Hindus into Islam."
Shuddho -- Delete.
Book : Bharuter Itihash, by P. Maiti, Sreedhar Prakashini.
*
Page 117 : Aushuddho -- "There is an account that Allauddin attacked the capital of Mewar, Chittorgarh, to get Padmini, the beautiful wife of Rana Rattan Singh."
Shuddho -- Delete.
*
Page 139 : Ashuddho -- "There was a sense of aristocratic superiority in the purdah system. That is why upper-class Hindus adopted this system from upper-class Muslims. Another opinion has it that purdah came into practice to save Hindu women from Muslims. Most probably, purdah came into vogue because of both factors."
Shuddho -- delete.
The most extensive deletions are ordered in regard to the chapter on "Aurangzeb's policy on religion". Every allusion to what he actually did to the Hindus, to their temples, to the very leitmotif of his rule -- to spread the sway of Islam -- are directed to be excised from the book. He is to be presented as one who had an aversion -- an ordinary sort of aversion, almost a secular one -- to music and dancing, to the presence of prostitutes in the Court, and that it is these things he banished. The only allusion to his having done anything in regard to Islam which is allowed to remain is that "By distancing himself from Akbar's policy of religious tolerance and policy of equal treatment, Aurangzeb caused damage to Mughal rule."
Book : Swadesho Shobhyota, by Dr. P. K. Basu and S. B. Ghatak, Abhinav Prakashan.
*
Page 126 : Ashuddho -- "Some people believe that Allauddin's Mewar expedition was to get hold of Padmini, the wife of Rana Rattan Singh." Shuddho -- Delete.
*
Page 145 : Ashuddho -- "Apart from this, because Islam used extreme inhuman means to establish itself in India, this became an obstacle for the coming together of Indian and Islamic cultures." Shuddho -- Delete.
Book : Bharat Katha, by G. Bhattacharya, Bulbul Prakashan.
*
Page 40 : Ashuddho -- "Muslims used to take recourse to torture and inhuman means to force their religious beliefs and practices on Indians." Shuddho -- Delete.
*
Page 41 : Ashuddho -- "The liberal, humane elements in Islam held out hope for oppressed Hindus." Shuddho -- The entire paragraph beginning with "the caste system among Hindus.... was attacked" is to be deleted. Instead write, "There was no place for casteism in Islam. Understandably, the influence of Islam created an awakening among Hindus against caste discrimination. Lower caste oppressed Hindus embraced Islam."
*
Page 77 : Ashuddho -- "His main task was to oppress non-believers, especially Hindus." Shuddho -- This and the preceding sentence to be deleted.
Book : Bharuter Itihash, by A. C. Roy, published by Prantik.
*
Page 102 : Ashuddho -- "There is an account that Allauddin attacked Chittor to get the beautiful wife of Rana Rattan Singh, Padmini." Shuddho -- Delete.
*
Page 164 : Ashuddho -- "It was his commitment to Islam which made him a fundamentalist." Shuddho -- Delete.
*
Book : Bharut Kahini, by G. C. Rowchoudhury, published by A. K. Sarkar and Co.
*
Page 130 : Ashuddho -- "That is why he adopted the policy of converting Hindus to Islam -- so as to increase the number of Muslims. Those Hindus who refused to discard their religion were indiscriminately massacred by him or his generals." Shuddho -- Delete.
In a word, no forcible conversions, no massacres, no destruction of temples. Just that Hinduism had created an exploitative, casteist society. Islam was egalitarian. Hence the oppressed Hindus embraced Islam !
Muslim historians of those times are in raptures at the heap of Kafirs who have been dispatched to hell. Muslim historians are forever lavishing praise on the ruler for the temples he has destroyed, for the hundreds of thousands he has got to see the light of Islam. Law books like The Hedaya prescribe exactly the options to which these little textbooks alluded. All whitewashed away.
Objective whitewash for objective history. And today if anyone seeks to restore truth to these textbooks, the scream, "Communal rewriting of history."
But there isn't just whitewash of Islam. For after Islam came another great emancipatory ideology -- Marxism- Leninism.
The teachers furnish extracts from the textbook for Class V.
".... in Russia, China, Vietnam, Cuba and in other East European countries, the workers and peasants are ruling the country after capturing power, whereas in U.S.A., England, France and Germany the owners of mills and factories are ruling the country."
".... after the Revolution in Russia the first exploitation-free society was established."
".... Islam and Christianity are the only religions which treated man with honour and equality...."
Thus, not just whitewash, there is hogwash too.
Showing posts with label quran. Show all posts
Showing posts with label quran. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
The Futility of Dialogue with Babari Committee
Arun Shourie
For a year and a half you keep issuing statements to the press, and writing ostensibly scholarly articles, and holding forth in interviews that the Babri Mosque was not, most definitely not, built by demolishing or even on a site of a temple. Documents of the other side are sent to you. You are nominated by the All India Babri Mosque Action Committee as an expert who will give his assessment of them. A meeting is scheduled. Before that you meet the then Director General of Archeology who had supervised the excavations at the site. The day the meeting is to begin the newspapers carry yet another categorical statement from "intellectuals", again asserting the line convenient to the AIBMAC. You, of course, are among them.
The meeting commences. on point after point, on document after document, your response is that you have not studied the evidence, that, therefore, you require time to visit it. You are not a field archeologist, you say, and will, therefore, nominate another person, and he too will naturally require time. The person happens to be present. You are informed that the person has not only studied the evidence, he has met and discussed the matter with the Director General, Dr B B Lal, under whose supervising the excavations had been conducted in 1975. others too are named whom he has met for the purpose. But that was in another capacity, you say, now you will need time.
On behalf of the Government, the officer present says that the records of the excavation, maps, four types of narrative accounts, photographs, are available, that Dr Lal has agreed so that they can be inspected the very next day. No, we will need time, you say.
You are on to a new tack. But why has Dr Lal not stated a definite conclusion? In fact it turns out that he has: a video cassette of the interview he gave to the BBC is produced. Can't see it now as there is no VCP, we will need time, you say.
The next day you don't even turn up for the meeting. An expert of the AIBMAC, a Marxist, an intellectual whose name appears invariably in the statements propagandising the AIBMAC point of view.
I summarize; but the account applies more or less to the four professional "experts" who appeared as the AIBMAC's nominees in the meeting on January 24, 1991. The other "experts" of the AIBMAC were just its own office bearers. They went one better. They denied the contents. Indeed they denied the very existence of books written not just by Islamic historians and authors, the photocopies of the relevant pages from which had all been supplied weeks earlier, but they also denied the knowledge of even standard works like the Encyclopedia Britannica. That done, the next day they did not turn up either.
THE ISSUES SPECIFIED
The one thing on which Chandra Shekar's government can claim to have catalysed progress is the Ram Janmabhoomi controversy. This was done in two ways: by getting the two sides to begin talking to each other, and by pin-pointing the issue. The issue Chandra Shekar emphasised was: Was the mosque built by demolishing a Hindu temple or structure?
And in this, Chandra Shekar was adhering to what had been stated categorically by Shri Syed Shahbuddin: "I say that if it is proved that the Babri Masjid has been built after demolishing the Ram Janmabhoomi Mandir on its place, then such a mosque built on such a usurped land deserves to be destroyed. No theologian or Alim can give a fatwa to hold Namaz on it." And this view, in turn, reflects the classical expositions of the law. For instance, the Fatwa-e-Alamgiri categorically states: "It is not permissible to build a mosque on unlawfully acquired land. There may be many forms of unlawful acquisition. For instance, if some people forcibly take somebody's house (or land) and build a mosque or even a Jama Masjid on it, then Namaz in such a mosque will be against the Shariat." In consultation with the two sides, therefore, Chandra Shekar made the issue specific. Each side agreed to submit evidence on this specific issue.
THE AIBMAC EVIDENCE
I was appalled when I saw what the AIBMAC had furnished. It was just a pile of papers. You were expected to wade through them and discover the relevance which flowed from them. I read them dutifully, and was soon convinced that the leaders of the AIBMAC and the intellectuals who had been guiding them had themselves not read them. It wasn't just that so much of it was the stuff of cranks, pages from the book of some chap, to the effect that Ram was actually a Pharaoh of Egypt. Or an article by someone based, he says, on what he has learnt from one dancer in Sri Lanka, and setting out a folk story, knowledge of which he himself says is confined to a small part of a small district in that country, to the effect that Sita was Ram's sister whom he married, etc.
It was not just that so much of the rest was as tertiary as can be -- articles after articles by sundry journalists which set out no evidence -- it was that the overwhelming bulk of it was just a pile of court papers selective court judgment underlying it, some merely the plaints, i.e. the assertions of the parties that happen at the moment to be convenient. And it was that document after document in this lot buttressed the case not of the AIBMAC but of the VHP!
They show that the mosque had not been in use since 1934. They show that it had been in utter neglect: the relevant authority testifying at one point to the person-in-charge being an opium addict, to his being thoroughly unfit to look after even the structure. They show different groups or sects of Muslims fighting each other for acquiring the property, and with the descendants of Mir Baqi, the commander who built the structure. They show that the lands, etc., which were given to them by the British were given not so that they may maintain the structure through the proceeds but so that they may maintain themselves, and that they were given these for services, political and military, they had rendered to the British.
It was evident too that it would be difficult to sustain the claim that the structure was a waqf, as was being maintained now. It was not even listed in the lists of either the Shia or Sunni Waqf Boards, as the law required all waqf properties to be. While the AIBMAC has striven now to rule out of court British gazetteers -- as these, after meticulous examination of written and other evidence, record unambiguously that the mosque was built after demolishing the Ram Janmabhoomi temple -- the rulings and judgments filed by the AIBMAC rely on, reproduce at length and accept the gazetteers on the very point of the issue, indeed, they explicitly decree that the gazetteers are admissible as evidence.
They show the Hindus waging an unremitting struggle to regain this place, held, the documents say, "most sacred" by them. They show them continuing to worship the ground inspite of the mosque having been super imposed on it. They show them constructing structures and temples on the peripheral spots when they are debarred from the main one. They show the current suit being filed well past the time limit allowed by our laws.
On regarding the papers, the AIBMAC had filed as "evidence", I could only conclude, therefore, that either its leaders had not read the papers themselves, or that they had no case and had just tried to over-awe or confuse the government, etc., by dumping a huge miscellaneous heap.
THE VHP DOCUMENTS
In complete contrast, the VHP documents are pertinent to the point, and have not as yet been shown to be deficient in any way. They contain the unambiguous statement of Islamic historians, of Muslim narrators, of the grand-daughter of Aurangzeb, to the effect that the mosque was built by demolishing the Ram temple. They contain accounts of European travelers as well as official publications of the British period -- the gazetteers of 1854, 1877, 1881, 1892, 1905; the Settlement Report of 1880; the Surveyor's Report of 1838; the Archeological Survey Reports of 1891 and 1934 -- all of them reaffirming what the Muslim historians had stated: that the mosque was built by destroying the temple, that some of the pillars are in the mosque still, that the Hindus continue to revere the spot and struggle unremittingly to reacquire it.
They contain revenue records of a hundred years and more, which list the site as "Janmasthan" and specify it to be the property of the mahants. They also show how attempts have been made to erase things from these records and superimpose convenient nomenclatures on them -- crude and unsuccessful attempts, for while the forgers have been able to get at the records in some offices they have not been able to get at them in all the offices!
Most important of all, they contain accounts of the archeological excavations which were conducted at the site from 1975 to 1980. These are conclusive: the bases and the pillars, the stone of which the pillars are made, everything coheres. And everything answers the issue the government and the two sides had specified in the affirmative, and unambiguously so.
"CONTEMPORARY ACCOUNT"
"But where is a contemporary account of the temple being destroyed?" At first it was, "Show us any document." When the gazetteers were produced, it was, "But the British wrote only to divide and rule." (Why, then, do you keep producing judgments of British Magistrates, pray?) "Show us some non-British document, some pre-British document." Now that these too are at hand, the demand is for contemporary account. This when it is well-known that in the contemporary account of the period -- Babar's own memoir -- the pages from the time he reaches Ayodhya, 2nd April 1528 to 18th September 1528 are missing lost, it is hypothesised, in a storm or in the vicissitudes which Humayan's library suffered during his exile.
It is not just that this latest demand is an after thought. It is that in the face of what exists at the site to this day -- the pillars, etc. -- and in the face of archeological findings, and what has been the universal practice as well as the fundamental faith of Islamic evangelists and conquerors such accounts are not necessary. But there is even more conclusive consideration. Today a contemporary account is being demanded in the case of the Babri Mosque. Are those who make this demand prepared to accept this as the criterion - that if a contemporary account exists of the destruction of a temple for constructing a mosque - the case is made?
This entry for 2nd September 1669, for instance, is as contemporary an account as any can ask for: "News came to Court that in accordance with the Emperor's command his officers had demolished the temple of Vishwanath at Banaras." The entry for January 1670 set out the fact for the great temple at Mathura: "In this month of Ramzan, the religious minded Emperor ordered the demolition of the temple at Mathura. In a short time by the great exertions of his officers the destruction of this strong center of infidelity was accomplished. A grand mosque was built on its site at vast expenditure. The idols, large and small, set with costly jewels which had been set up in the temple were brought to Agra and buried under the steps of the Mosque of Begum Sahib in order to be continually trodden upon. The name of Mathura was changed to Islamabad." The entry for 1st January 1705 says: "The Emperor summoning Muhammed Khalid and Khidmat Rai, the darogha of hatchetmen, ordered them to demolish the temple at Pandarpur, and to take the butchers of the camp there and slaughter cows in the temple. It was done."
If the fact that a contemporary account of the temple at Ayodhya is not available leaves the matter unsettled, does the fact that contemporary accounts are available for the temples at Kashi, Mathura, Pandharpur, and a host of other places, settle the matter? One has only to ask the question to know that the "experts" and "intellectuals" will immediately ask for something else.
HISTORICITY
"But there is no proof that Ram himself existed; nor are any of the other facts about him proven."
The four Gospels themselves, to say nothing of the work that has been done in the last hundred years, differ on fact after fact about Jesus - from the names of his ancestors to the crucifixion and resurrection. The Quran repudiates even the most basic facts about Jesus Christ - it emphatically denounces the notion that he was the Son of God, it repudiates the notion of his virgin birth, it insists that he was not the one who was crucified but a look alike, thereby putting the question of resurrection out altogether. And which member of the AIBMAC will say that the Quran is not an authentic recounting of the facts? Does that mean that every single church rests on myth?
Nor is the historicity of the Prophet the distinguishing feature about him. Every ordinary person living today is historically verifiable after all. The unique feature about the Prophet is that Allah chose him to transmit the Quran, but it would be absurd to ask anyone to prove the fact of Allah having chosen him. It is a matter of faith.
Indeed, the uniqueness of the Quran itself is a matter of faith. What we have read, and revere, is the reproduction of the original which lies in heaven inscribed on tablets of gold. And it is the contents of that original which Allah transmitted through the angel Gabriel to the Prophet. Heave, the original on tablets of gold, Allah's decision, Gabriel -- do we prove these?
They, too, are matters of faith. And every mosque is a celebration of those separate foci of faith.
Specific mosques are even more so. The great Al-Aqsa mosque marks the print which the Prophet's foot made as he alighted from the winged horse which had carried him on his journey. The winged horse, the imprint of one particular foot -- in regard to these would we entertain a demand for "proof"? The Hazratbal mosque in Kashmir enshrines what we revere as the hair of the Prophet. Would we think of proving the matter?
And yet that is what we are insisting the devotees of Ram do.
CONCLUSION
The Muslim laity have been badly misled, and now been badly let down by those who set themselves up as their guardians and sole spokesmen. First, they created the scare that were any reasonable solution to be accepted on this matter, Islam would be endangered. Now they have failed to substantiate their rhetoric. Now that they seem to be finding excuses to withdraw from examining the evidence, we are liable to be plunged back into the vicious politics of manipulating politicians by tempting them with promises of delivering banks of votes -- that is, the precise politics which has fermented the current reaction.
We can stem the relapse. As the "experts" have withdrawn, each of us should secure the documents submitted by the two sides and examine them in the minutest detail. Once we do so it will be that much more difficult for propagandists to thwart this singular effort to introduce reason and reasonableness into the problem.
(Reproduced from his column "As I see it.")
For a year and a half you keep issuing statements to the press, and writing ostensibly scholarly articles, and holding forth in interviews that the Babri Mosque was not, most definitely not, built by demolishing or even on a site of a temple. Documents of the other side are sent to you. You are nominated by the All India Babri Mosque Action Committee as an expert who will give his assessment of them. A meeting is scheduled. Before that you meet the then Director General of Archeology who had supervised the excavations at the site. The day the meeting is to begin the newspapers carry yet another categorical statement from "intellectuals", again asserting the line convenient to the AIBMAC. You, of course, are among them.
The meeting commences. on point after point, on document after document, your response is that you have not studied the evidence, that, therefore, you require time to visit it. You are not a field archeologist, you say, and will, therefore, nominate another person, and he too will naturally require time. The person happens to be present. You are informed that the person has not only studied the evidence, he has met and discussed the matter with the Director General, Dr B B Lal, under whose supervising the excavations had been conducted in 1975. others too are named whom he has met for the purpose. But that was in another capacity, you say, now you will need time.
On behalf of the Government, the officer present says that the records of the excavation, maps, four types of narrative accounts, photographs, are available, that Dr Lal has agreed so that they can be inspected the very next day. No, we will need time, you say.
You are on to a new tack. But why has Dr Lal not stated a definite conclusion? In fact it turns out that he has: a video cassette of the interview he gave to the BBC is produced. Can't see it now as there is no VCP, we will need time, you say.
The next day you don't even turn up for the meeting. An expert of the AIBMAC, a Marxist, an intellectual whose name appears invariably in the statements propagandising the AIBMAC point of view.
I summarize; but the account applies more or less to the four professional "experts" who appeared as the AIBMAC's nominees in the meeting on January 24, 1991. The other "experts" of the AIBMAC were just its own office bearers. They went one better. They denied the contents. Indeed they denied the very existence of books written not just by Islamic historians and authors, the photocopies of the relevant pages from which had all been supplied weeks earlier, but they also denied the knowledge of even standard works like the Encyclopedia Britannica. That done, the next day they did not turn up either.
THE ISSUES SPECIFIED
The one thing on which Chandra Shekar's government can claim to have catalysed progress is the Ram Janmabhoomi controversy. This was done in two ways: by getting the two sides to begin talking to each other, and by pin-pointing the issue. The issue Chandra Shekar emphasised was: Was the mosque built by demolishing a Hindu temple or structure?
And in this, Chandra Shekar was adhering to what had been stated categorically by Shri Syed Shahbuddin: "I say that if it is proved that the Babri Masjid has been built after demolishing the Ram Janmabhoomi Mandir on its place, then such a mosque built on such a usurped land deserves to be destroyed. No theologian or Alim can give a fatwa to hold Namaz on it." And this view, in turn, reflects the classical expositions of the law. For instance, the Fatwa-e-Alamgiri categorically states: "It is not permissible to build a mosque on unlawfully acquired land. There may be many forms of unlawful acquisition. For instance, if some people forcibly take somebody's house (or land) and build a mosque or even a Jama Masjid on it, then Namaz in such a mosque will be against the Shariat." In consultation with the two sides, therefore, Chandra Shekar made the issue specific. Each side agreed to submit evidence on this specific issue.
THE AIBMAC EVIDENCE
I was appalled when I saw what the AIBMAC had furnished. It was just a pile of papers. You were expected to wade through them and discover the relevance which flowed from them. I read them dutifully, and was soon convinced that the leaders of the AIBMAC and the intellectuals who had been guiding them had themselves not read them. It wasn't just that so much of it was the stuff of cranks, pages from the book of some chap, to the effect that Ram was actually a Pharaoh of Egypt. Or an article by someone based, he says, on what he has learnt from one dancer in Sri Lanka, and setting out a folk story, knowledge of which he himself says is confined to a small part of a small district in that country, to the effect that Sita was Ram's sister whom he married, etc.
It was not just that so much of the rest was as tertiary as can be -- articles after articles by sundry journalists which set out no evidence -- it was that the overwhelming bulk of it was just a pile of court papers selective court judgment underlying it, some merely the plaints, i.e. the assertions of the parties that happen at the moment to be convenient. And it was that document after document in this lot buttressed the case not of the AIBMAC but of the VHP!
They show that the mosque had not been in use since 1934. They show that it had been in utter neglect: the relevant authority testifying at one point to the person-in-charge being an opium addict, to his being thoroughly unfit to look after even the structure. They show different groups or sects of Muslims fighting each other for acquiring the property, and with the descendants of Mir Baqi, the commander who built the structure. They show that the lands, etc., which were given to them by the British were given not so that they may maintain the structure through the proceeds but so that they may maintain themselves, and that they were given these for services, political and military, they had rendered to the British.
It was evident too that it would be difficult to sustain the claim that the structure was a waqf, as was being maintained now. It was not even listed in the lists of either the Shia or Sunni Waqf Boards, as the law required all waqf properties to be. While the AIBMAC has striven now to rule out of court British gazetteers -- as these, after meticulous examination of written and other evidence, record unambiguously that the mosque was built after demolishing the Ram Janmabhoomi temple -- the rulings and judgments filed by the AIBMAC rely on, reproduce at length and accept the gazetteers on the very point of the issue, indeed, they explicitly decree that the gazetteers are admissible as evidence.
They show the Hindus waging an unremitting struggle to regain this place, held, the documents say, "most sacred" by them. They show them continuing to worship the ground inspite of the mosque having been super imposed on it. They show them constructing structures and temples on the peripheral spots when they are debarred from the main one. They show the current suit being filed well past the time limit allowed by our laws.
On regarding the papers, the AIBMAC had filed as "evidence", I could only conclude, therefore, that either its leaders had not read the papers themselves, or that they had no case and had just tried to over-awe or confuse the government, etc., by dumping a huge miscellaneous heap.
THE VHP DOCUMENTS
In complete contrast, the VHP documents are pertinent to the point, and have not as yet been shown to be deficient in any way. They contain the unambiguous statement of Islamic historians, of Muslim narrators, of the grand-daughter of Aurangzeb, to the effect that the mosque was built by demolishing the Ram temple. They contain accounts of European travelers as well as official publications of the British period -- the gazetteers of 1854, 1877, 1881, 1892, 1905; the Settlement Report of 1880; the Surveyor's Report of 1838; the Archeological Survey Reports of 1891 and 1934 -- all of them reaffirming what the Muslim historians had stated: that the mosque was built by destroying the temple, that some of the pillars are in the mosque still, that the Hindus continue to revere the spot and struggle unremittingly to reacquire it.
They contain revenue records of a hundred years and more, which list the site as "Janmasthan" and specify it to be the property of the mahants. They also show how attempts have been made to erase things from these records and superimpose convenient nomenclatures on them -- crude and unsuccessful attempts, for while the forgers have been able to get at the records in some offices they have not been able to get at them in all the offices!
Most important of all, they contain accounts of the archeological excavations which were conducted at the site from 1975 to 1980. These are conclusive: the bases and the pillars, the stone of which the pillars are made, everything coheres. And everything answers the issue the government and the two sides had specified in the affirmative, and unambiguously so.
"CONTEMPORARY ACCOUNT"
"But where is a contemporary account of the temple being destroyed?" At first it was, "Show us any document." When the gazetteers were produced, it was, "But the British wrote only to divide and rule." (Why, then, do you keep producing judgments of British Magistrates, pray?) "Show us some non-British document, some pre-British document." Now that these too are at hand, the demand is for contemporary account. This when it is well-known that in the contemporary account of the period -- Babar's own memoir -- the pages from the time he reaches Ayodhya, 2nd April 1528 to 18th September 1528 are missing lost, it is hypothesised, in a storm or in the vicissitudes which Humayan's library suffered during his exile.
It is not just that this latest demand is an after thought. It is that in the face of what exists at the site to this day -- the pillars, etc. -- and in the face of archeological findings, and what has been the universal practice as well as the fundamental faith of Islamic evangelists and conquerors such accounts are not necessary. But there is even more conclusive consideration. Today a contemporary account is being demanded in the case of the Babri Mosque. Are those who make this demand prepared to accept this as the criterion - that if a contemporary account exists of the destruction of a temple for constructing a mosque - the case is made?
This entry for 2nd September 1669, for instance, is as contemporary an account as any can ask for: "News came to Court that in accordance with the Emperor's command his officers had demolished the temple of Vishwanath at Banaras." The entry for January 1670 set out the fact for the great temple at Mathura: "In this month of Ramzan, the religious minded Emperor ordered the demolition of the temple at Mathura. In a short time by the great exertions of his officers the destruction of this strong center of infidelity was accomplished. A grand mosque was built on its site at vast expenditure. The idols, large and small, set with costly jewels which had been set up in the temple were brought to Agra and buried under the steps of the Mosque of Begum Sahib in order to be continually trodden upon. The name of Mathura was changed to Islamabad." The entry for 1st January 1705 says: "The Emperor summoning Muhammed Khalid and Khidmat Rai, the darogha of hatchetmen, ordered them to demolish the temple at Pandarpur, and to take the butchers of the camp there and slaughter cows in the temple. It was done."
If the fact that a contemporary account of the temple at Ayodhya is not available leaves the matter unsettled, does the fact that contemporary accounts are available for the temples at Kashi, Mathura, Pandharpur, and a host of other places, settle the matter? One has only to ask the question to know that the "experts" and "intellectuals" will immediately ask for something else.
HISTORICITY
"But there is no proof that Ram himself existed; nor are any of the other facts about him proven."
The four Gospels themselves, to say nothing of the work that has been done in the last hundred years, differ on fact after fact about Jesus - from the names of his ancestors to the crucifixion and resurrection. The Quran repudiates even the most basic facts about Jesus Christ - it emphatically denounces the notion that he was the Son of God, it repudiates the notion of his virgin birth, it insists that he was not the one who was crucified but a look alike, thereby putting the question of resurrection out altogether. And which member of the AIBMAC will say that the Quran is not an authentic recounting of the facts? Does that mean that every single church rests on myth?
Nor is the historicity of the Prophet the distinguishing feature about him. Every ordinary person living today is historically verifiable after all. The unique feature about the Prophet is that Allah chose him to transmit the Quran, but it would be absurd to ask anyone to prove the fact of Allah having chosen him. It is a matter of faith.
Indeed, the uniqueness of the Quran itself is a matter of faith. What we have read, and revere, is the reproduction of the original which lies in heaven inscribed on tablets of gold. And it is the contents of that original which Allah transmitted through the angel Gabriel to the Prophet. Heave, the original on tablets of gold, Allah's decision, Gabriel -- do we prove these?
They, too, are matters of faith. And every mosque is a celebration of those separate foci of faith.
Specific mosques are even more so. The great Al-Aqsa mosque marks the print which the Prophet's foot made as he alighted from the winged horse which had carried him on his journey. The winged horse, the imprint of one particular foot -- in regard to these would we entertain a demand for "proof"? The Hazratbal mosque in Kashmir enshrines what we revere as the hair of the Prophet. Would we think of proving the matter?
And yet that is what we are insisting the devotees of Ram do.
CONCLUSION
The Muslim laity have been badly misled, and now been badly let down by those who set themselves up as their guardians and sole spokesmen. First, they created the scare that were any reasonable solution to be accepted on this matter, Islam would be endangered. Now they have failed to substantiate their rhetoric. Now that they seem to be finding excuses to withdraw from examining the evidence, we are liable to be plunged back into the vicious politics of manipulating politicians by tempting them with promises of delivering banks of votes -- that is, the precise politics which has fermented the current reaction.
We can stem the relapse. As the "experts" have withdrawn, each of us should secure the documents submitted by the two sides and examine them in the minutest detail. Once we do so it will be that much more difficult for propagandists to thwart this singular effort to introduce reason and reasonableness into the problem.
(Reproduced from his column "As I see it.")
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