'Digging
Won't Resolve Ayodhya Dispute'
Talking with Professor
Irfan Habeeb
As a special team of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) begins
excavation at the disputed site in Ayodhya, as per the directions of
the Allahabad High Court, the former chairman of the Indian Council
of Historical Research, Professor Irfan Habib, speaks to Humra Quraishi
about the futility of the exercise. The noted historian who has authored
several books, prominent among which are Agrarian System of Mughal India
and An Atlas of the Mughal Empire, has also written extensively on the
Babri Masjid.
Excerpts from the interview:
As a historian, do you
think an excavation of the disputed site in Ayodhya would clear up the
temple-masjid controversy?
In a resolution passed by the Indian History Congress by ''an overwhelming
majority'' at its annual session on February 15, 1993 (the first ever
after the Babri Masjid demolition on December 6, 1992), the principal
organisation of Indian historians protested against the principle that
''a monument can be destroyed or removed if there are any grounds for
assuming that a religious structure of another community had previously
stood at its site.'' It went on to warn that ''such a post-facto rationalisation
of what was done on December 6, 1992 would place in jeopardy the fate
of numerous historical monuments all over the country, an increasing
number of which are being targeted for destruction by the communal forces.''
It would seem that ten years later, the very principle that the historians
had found so intolerable has received tacit judicial recognition. In
this regard, I feel that today things have got more complicated and
it will be a long fight.
Why is there so much controversy around Tojo Vikas International,
the company that was earlier assigned to do the geophysical survey of
the disputed site?
From the text of the order, it appears that the High Court had earlier
ordered a geophysical survey through a ''Canadian'' company, Tojo-Vikas
International (Pvt) Limited, Kalkaji, New Delhi. This company has no
previous experience of archaeological surveying. Nor are the credentials
of Claude Robillard, a ''Canadian citizen'' and the company's ''advisor
and chief geophysicists'', any less doubtful. The company's report is
singularly taciturn on what exactly it was required to find out. Geophysical
surveying for archaeological purposes resorts basically to two kinds
of instruments:
. magnetic, which essentially
help locate metal artefacts and hearths;
. resistivity, which gives
clues about filled pits,buried walls etc.
For reasons not stated, the
company's survey was confined only to the resistivity survey, using
ground penetrating radar. No magneto-meter was employed, so there was
no possibility of locating hearths which would have indicated domestic
habitations and, to that extent, could have narrowed the area where
one might be looking for ''temple'' signs. While the Tojo Vikas team
in its report does not refer to any background information about the
dispute being furnished to it, it certainly lets slip the fact that
it was somehow expected by certain quarters to trace ''pillars'' since
the Parivar's late convert, B.B. Lal, in his second version (1989) of
his original findings on the excavations near the Babri Masjid proclaimed
his earlier secret discovery of certain aligned ''pillar bases'', which
he thought had belonged to a large Ram Temple.
Curiously, on the other hand,
they try to make no distinction between strong mortar-bonded rubble
(indicative of Muslim construction) and loose debris, and between stones
or baked bricks and sun-dried bricks, which one should have expected
from such a survey as theirs.
In this latest excavation,
would the Tojo Vikas company have a role?
It would. It is said the
excavation is to be conducted by the Archaeological Survey of India,
with the advice and assistance of Tojo Vikas.
Would you suggest that
the ASI should conduct the excavation independently without any otherb
body/bodies?
I can't say much about the
ASI's competence to conduct rigorous, scientific and impartial excavations.
For about ten years this organisation has not had a professional director-general
and persons belonging to the administrative service have occupied this
once highly prestigious position. One must remember that the archaeological
finds are subject to a wide range of interpretations. If the search
is for anything that could possibly belong to a non-Muslim shrine, then
almost anything could be defined as a temple relic: a pre-13 century
carved stone or image or even a Kushana period brick, though such might
easily have come from a domestic house. In that case, the dispute could
be
unending or could simply give the VHP the benefit of doubt.
What are your views on
the demolition of the Babri Masjid structure?
The destruction of the 475-year-old
mosque brought shame and dishonour to the country. It's not a question
of Hindu or Muslim - the very destruction was an insult to the country
and its citizens; an assault on the Indian secular consciousness.
As a historian, what is
your opinion on this mandir-masjid debate?
There's no acceptable proof
that the Babri Masjid had been built at the site of a Hindu temple.
None of the 14 inscribed Persian verses of the time of the original
construction (1528-29) even remotely mention this. As the 1991 Historians'
Report to the Nation by R.S. Sharma, M. Athar Ali, D.N. Jha and Suraj
Bhan conclusively showed, there was no reference, in any of the several
documents, of the mosque having been built on the site of the temple.
Not until nearly 250 years after its construction, was such a claim
made.
What about the Sangh Parivar's
claims that they possess evidence that the Ram Janmabhoomi temple was
originally there?
Once the destruction of the
Babri Masjid had taken place, it began to be justified by the Sangh
Parivar on various grounds, including that they possessed ''evidence''.
Before one studies this ''evidence'', it is important to note that the
securing of such evidence by the act of destruction was very much in
the mind of the BJP and Sangh Parivar, much before the final act of
vandalism. There was, till then, no acceptable proof that the Babri
Masjid had been built at the site of a Hindu temple. They then turned
to archeaology and to Professor B.B. Lal, who had dug near the Babri
Masjid. In 1990, in an article in the
RSS mouthpiece Manthan, Lal said some ''pillar bases'' he had found
had supported pillars of the extension of the original temple that the
Babri Masjid had been built on. It was a sheer piece of speculation.
What about the claims of
sculptures being found in a pit when the ground was being levelled in
1992?
It is strange that when these
sculptures were ''found'', the ASI was not informed. The discovery was
suddenly announced by the VHP and pronounced by such ''experts'' as
Swaraj Prakash Gupta as belonging to the 11th century. It seems certain
that the sculptures do not belong to a single period at all but range
from the 7th to 16th century, as testified by historian R.S. Sharma
and thus could not have come from the same temple. Furthermore, as D.
Mandal points out, the colouration of some of the objects suggests that
they have remained only partly buried and could not have been taken
out from a pit. There is every likelihood that these these sculptures
were simply brought from outside at a time when the VHP and BJP, through
the State Government, had absolute control of the site.
What about the inscribed
slab that was found within the domes of the structure, on the very day
of the
destruction?
According to the VHP's own
witness, the slab, as it fell, was coated with mortar. But the slab
that is now being presented is in a seemingly mint-fresh condition.
There is no trace of mortar on it, nor are there any marks that must
result if the strong medieval mortar was later removed from it. It must,
therefore, have come from some private collection, certainly not from
Babri Masjid.
Your writings and viewpoints
have often beencriticised as being Leftist.
There are no Left or Right
wing historians. All this is a creation of the BJP. In fact, if anyone
speaks with a scientific outlook, he's called Leftist by them.