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Monday, September 01, 2003
Posted by: Awaaz / 9/01/2003 11:43:30 PMThe New York Times [USA] August 31, 2003
A DEMOCRACY THAT HAS ROOM EVEN FOR VIOLENCE
by Amy Waldman
BOMBAY Americans can count on one hand the incidents of large-scale political violence in the last 10 years: the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and on the federal building in Oklahoma City. The most recent major racial disturbance was in Los Angeles in 1992, the last sustained period of broad upheaval in the 60's and early 70's.
Indians, in contrast, lost count of such incidents long ago. For decades, they have lived with left-wing and Islamic insurgencies, ethnic and geographically based separatist movements, communal riots and terrorism. In the last two decades, they have lost two prime ministers — Indira Gandhi and her son, Rajiv — to assassination. In the country's northeast, militants fighting Indian rule marked the eve of India's Independence Day this month by killing at least 34 people.
So when two bombs shook Bombay last week, killing 52, the shock was more at the mystery — no one claimed responsibility — than at the method of expression.
In this hearty democracy, elections are held, Parliament meets and the Constitution holds. The society seems to offer adequate nonviolent means for accessing power and resolving disputes. Yet political violence is routine.
The question is why.
Sunil Khilnani, the author of "The Idea of India," calls it the "curious co-existence" of violence and democratic politics. Democracy, he notes, is usually seen as a pacifying force that "draws the teeth" from conflict.
But he also points out that perhaps India's predicament is not curious after all. India's democracy is only a half century old. It was imposed by political elites on the masses after centuries of rule by invaders and empire-builders, rule that was usually maintained by force.
"In India the choice can never be between chaos and stability," Ashis Nandy, a political psychologist, has written. "It is always between manageable and unmanageable chaos, between humane and inhuman anarchy, and between tolerable and intolerable disorder."
In other democracies as well, Mr. Khilnani notes, the early years are often marked by violence, and even civil war. This was true in France and America, even ancient Athens. As democratic politics intensifies, it can become as much about conflict as competition.
That is certainly the case in India, where the broadening of democratic participation has seemed only to churn up more violence. Like an American democracy that initially tolerated slavery, the democracy born here was incomplete: it left intact a feudal, caste-based system that even now has a grip. It was inevitable, perhaps, that the further transformation of that system would not be entirely peaceful.
"With majoritarian democracy you unleash all these forces," said Ajai Sahni, the executive director of the Institute for Conflict Management in New Delhi. As the old system weakens, he argues, space opens for ideologies of violent transformation, like Sikh separatism in Punjab.
Violence can also deliver electoral dividends. Indians have used their roles in insurgencies to build political profiles. Communal and caste violence has often helped solidify constituencies, most recently in Gujarat, where the chief minister called and won early elections in what many saw as an attempt to capitalize on Hindu-Muslim riots. "The shortest route to democratic power is a rejection of democracy," Dr. Sahni argues.
There has also been, many have argued, a decline in the quality of India's political leadership. The number of parties has multiplied, but mostly along caste or regional lines. So voters get an illusion of options and ideologies, rather than real chances to transform their society. This only helps left-wing revolutionary groups in poor states like Bihar.
There is also India's extraordinary diversity. All sorts of groups have grievances — about language, religion, ethnicity and more. Even the Hindu majority can feel aggrieved, since the Congress Party, which dominated national politics in India's early decades, built its electoral victories partly by catering to Muslims.
Mr. Sahni also argues that not all of the roots of the violence lie in India. Starting in the late 1980's, he says, Pakistan began acting on the notion that it could bleed India by a "thousand cuts." The result, he said, has been the "hardening, strengthening, and arming of all these movements that exploit all these grievances or fissionary tendencies." Pakistan denies any role in the violence, saying India's flawed democracy breeds violence all on its own.
Outside money has also given political violence an entrepreneurial cast. Where at the dawning of independence, for example, there was one separatist movement in India's northeast, there have since been perhaps a dozen. Some have even been sponsored by the central government, to destabilize political rivals.
Such self-interested and potentially deadly political activity drags on partly because of the Indian political system's seemingly high tolerance for the loss of human life, Dr. Sahni argues. "Even today we're dealing with 150 to 200 lives a month in Jammu and Kashmir, and it makes no difference to anyone," he said.
Bombay, too, is an example. The blasts on Monday were preceded in the last nine months by five smaller ones. Every time there is an incident, Dr. Sanni said, "there's 10 days of excitement, but nothing changes."
ENDS.
The Daily Star [Bangladesh] September 01, 2003 | Editorial
UP SLAP IN THE BJP'S FACE: THE WAGES OF OPPORTUNISM by Praful Bidwai
The decisive speed with which Ms Mayawati wrecked her Bahujan Samaj Party's alliance with the Bharatiya Janata Party is stunning. The BJP leadership was taken so completely aback that its sole counter-gambit was to give to the UP Governor a letter withdrawing support.
This was clearly an afterthought -- two hours after the August 25 Cabinet meeting.
This shows the BJP in poor light. It demands a revision of the view that the BJP's ideology may be controversial, but its leadership is astute, and always stays one step ahead of its adversaries.
UP's BJP leaders didn't have a clue to Ms Mayawati's likely moves -- even after she told the media the previous day to expect "spicy news". Meanwhile, she drafted an elaborate 30-page letter to the Governor.
To cover up its political ineptitude, the BJP now claims that Ms Mayawati's recommendation to the Governor to dissolve the Assembly is invalid because it came after she had lost her legislative majority. But she commanded a majority when she held the Cabinet meeting! Not one BJP minister resigned for the next two days despite the "withdrawal of support".
It is constitutionally irrelevant for the BJP to claim that Ms Mayawati made her decision "unilaterally", without "consulting" her allies. Under the Westminster system, which India follows, the Chief Minister's word is final.
In any case, according to The Indian Express, Ms Mayawati had obtained her ministers' prior signatures on a blank sheet. As to how the BJP supposedly a "party with a difference" agreed to this servile and humiliating arrangement defies comprehension.
But let that pass. Let us also not go into the rationale of the Governor's decision not to dissolve the Assembly.
What is material is the pathological opportunism underlying the BJP-BSP alliance. Ms Mayawati openly says the two parties shared neither ideology nor programme, only power. Why else would she ally with a party wedded to casteist Manuvad -- the antithesis of Dalitism?
The BJP is more culpable than the BSP for this unprincipled politics. It allied with the BSP for the third time -- with its eyes wide open. Unlike the BSP, which says it needs short-term power to advance the Dalit cause, the BJP claims adherence to "principle".
The BSP's UP social base is unshakable. That's not true of the BJP. Now even the "novelty factor" hasn't worn out.
Thanks to its third "honeymoon" with the BSP, much of the BJP's upper-caste support has eroded. Earlier, most of its OBC support-base moved out when former CM Kalyan Singh was expelled.
It would be a great surprise if the BJP retains even half of its current seats in UP: 87 (of a total of 403), compared to the SP's 142 and the BSP's 110.
The BJP's situation nationally is hardly better. The BJP and allies, forecasts a friendly India Today-ORG-Marg poll, will lose 55 Lok Sabha seats (from the present 304), reducing the NDA to a minority.
The BJP's own national tally appears certain to drop from 182 to under 150. Without the BSP's help, the BJP might win barely 100 seats -- reflecting its "natural" status.
The collapse of the BJP-BSP alliance in UP will have an immediate impact on the four Hindi-heartland Assemblies (Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Chhattisgarh and Delhi) where elections are due. Without the BSP's crutch -- through its 6-to-10 percent vote -- the BJP could face a defeat in all four states, especially if the Congress reaches a seat understanding with the BSP.
This, on top of reverses everywhere except Gujarat, and growing general unpopularity due to misgovernance, spells serious trouble. In the next Lok Sabha elections, the BJP faces disaster, and loss of credibility, leading to yet more electoral-political defeats.
So the party will try devious and desperate means to avert marginalisation and collapse. Amongst these are: communal polarisation through sectarian issues (e.g. Ayodhya, cowslaughter), and terrorist violence, for which to blame Muslims, with or without proof.
The BJP can stoop very low. It can incite and use communal violence as a strategy of political mobilisation. Other parties may occasionally flirt with communalism or soft-Hindutva. But none (barring the Shiv Sena) has systematically used anti-minority violence to garner votes like the BJP.
Amidst the BJP's grave crisis comes the report of the Archaeological Survey of India on the Ayodhya excavation. The BJP will use it to press the temple demand. But the "final report" is thoroughly rigged. None of the ASI's earlier "interim" reports even mentioned the possibility of a temple having pre-existed the Babri.
According to reputed archaeologists and historians, the "evidence" of a 10th century temple was smuggled in at the last stage, dodging independent scrutiny. It cites as key evidence 50 "pillar bases" with carvings bearing lotus motifs, etc. which are "distinctive features" associated with north Indian temples.
However, archaeologists Suraj Bhan and Supriya Verma and historians Irfan Habib and R.C. Thakran, who have visited the site many times, say "no pillar bases" exist. They don't belong to a single period; they aren't aligned, and the material doesn't suggest a temple. "When I was there, I did not see any 'massive structure' beneath the Babri mosque," says Prof Thakran.
The "pillar base" is an old red herring. In 1975 too, pro-Hindutva archaeologist BB Lal claimed to have excavated "pillar bases". This claim was convincingly refuted by archaeologist D. Mandal. To establish a temple's pre-existence, what's needed is not figurines or carvings, but a sizable structure, with clearly defined walls, plinth, base, etc. That has not been found.
The BJP will try to capitalise on popular ignorance of archaeology, and play on "patriotic" sentiments and false pride about Indian civilisation. It will stoke feelings of revenge and present our religious minorities as villains. It must be stopped in its tracks.
Postscript: Mr Mulayam Singh Yadav's appointment as CM has raised high expectations, especially about the Ayodhya-case chargesheet against Mr Advani and about a secular, non-vindictive, agenda. Mr Yadav must not disappoint.
(Praful Bidwai is an eminent Indian columnist. )
ENDS.
Deccan Herald [India], Sunday, August 31, 2003
SENTIMENTAL INTOLERANCE The Sangh Parivar is up in arms against a play by noted theatre personality Habib Tanvir which attacks the custom of untouchability and exposes the illogicality inherent in the caste system. The Parivar's grouse is that the play hurts Hindu sentiments http://www.deccanherald.com/deccanherald/aug31/sl4.asp
ENDS.
Frontline [India] Volume 20 - Issue 18, August 30 - September 12, 2003 http://www.flonnet.com/fl2018/stories/20030912000807400.htm
BOOKS Books of bias and errors
PARVATHI MENON
History in the New NCERT Textbooks: A Report and an Index of Errors by Irfan Habib, Suvira Jaiswal, and Aditya Mukherjee; Indian History Congress, Kolkata, 2003; pages 129 Rs.50.
TOWNS and cities in our Neolithic past? Cloth woven on wheels in ancient India? 4,600 B.C. as the date when the Indus Civilisation took birth? The Mughal emperor Babur deliberately selecting a site for a mosque in a place where the "tenth and last avatar of Vishnu was to appear at the end of the yuga"? The English East India Company established in 1600 in India? India, "a land of free looters"? Lenin leading merely a coup in Russia in 1917?
These and many more historical howlers contained in a clutch of history books brought out by the National Council of Education Training and Research (NCERT) in 2002 could have served simply to provide us a hilarious foray into nonsensical history, were it not for the fact that they form the stuff of school textbooks that will give lakhs of Indian children their only insight into nearly 5,000 years of their country's past. Carrying the stamp of approval of the powerful NCERT, which has a pervasive reach into the school system, the new history textbooks of 2002, written in conformity with the NCERT's own saffronised National Curriculum Framework of School Education, 2000, are shot through with factual errors, falsehoods, unreason and bias. They are surely a disgrace to the discipline of history writing, and draw nothing from the scholarship and analytical sophistication attained by this branch of the social sciences in India.
Although there was an outcry against these textbooks from several quarters after their appearance, it is the Indian History Congress (IHC), through the publication of the book under review, that has given the most serious rebuff to this official exercise in the falsification of history. The credentials of the IHC to do so are impeccable. With a membership of over 7,000, it is a forum that is representative of professional historians in the country today. Founded in 1935, the IHC has over the years set benchmarks in scientific and secular history writing; it has provided a valuable forum for peer interaction and review amongst historians; it has helped historians from small colleges and less advantaged departments of history to publish their work; and it has maintained its independence by putting in place a tradition of resistance to establishment pressures of one kind or the other. Thus, just as it once boldly opposed the Emergency as an attack on democratic and intellectual freedoms, it is today fighting another assault on scholarship and reason by a communal and divisive state-supported ideology.
When the NCERT published its policy statement on school education in 2000, the IHC responded almost at once at its session in Kolkata in January 2001. A detailed resolution was passed expressing concern at the way history was being treated in the school curriculum. In the following year at its Amritsar session, the IHC Executive Committee set up a committee to scrutinise the history textbooks that had been published by the NCERT in 2002.
The committee, comprising Professor Irfan Habib (Aligarh), Professor Suvira Jaiswal (Hyderabad) and Professor Aditya Mukherjee (New Delhi), produced a report along with an Index of Errors, which was released as a publication of the IHC in June 2003. Four textbooks published in 2002 were reviewed. These were Makhan Lal, et al: India and World, for Class VI (Historical Portion: Unit II); Hari Om, et al: Contemporary India, for Class IX (Historical Portion: Unit 1); Makhan Lal: Ancient India, for Class XI; and Meenakshi Jain: Medieval India, for Class XI.
In the published Index, each error in the textbook is quoted in full under the relevant page number. A concise analysis or comment follows the error. Note has been taken of the corrections made in the reprinted edition. The authors state that the Index is not complete and that "... many slips and misstatements of varying degrees of seriousness have had to be overlooked to keep our Index within manageable limits".
The Index lists 99 errors in Makhan Lal's India and World for Class VI, 112 mistakes and 22 spelling errors (of proper nouns) in Ancient India for Class XI by the same author, 127 mistakes in Meenakshi Jain's Medieval India for Class XI, and 141 errors in Hari Om, et al, Contemporary India for Class IX.
A quick categorisation of the errors listed in the Index in just one of the four books reviewed, namely, Meenakshi Jain's Medieval India, shows their range and incidence. A few errors find place under more than one category.
1. Errors of commission. Careless and inexcusable errors of historical fact. These account for the largest number in all the books. In Medieval India, 79 such errors out of 127 are listed. The corrections for these are provided by the compilers of the Index.
Examples: On page 194, the author says that Aurangazeb died at Aurangabad. (He died at Ahmadnagar). On page 132 the author says that Rana Sanga died in the Battle of Khanua. (In fact, he was not killed in battle at all; he fled from the battlefield).
2. Errors of omission. Important facts left out of the narrative, conveying thereby an incomplete understanding of the particular topic. Twenty-three of the errors listed in the Index in Medieval India come under this category.
Examples: In the description of Shivaji's administration (page 190-91) the author does not mention Shivaji's levy of chauth (one-fourth of revenue) and sardeshmukhi (an additional one tenth), which he exacted from areas not under his control with the threat of sacking those regions that did not pay up. In levying these exactions and in the punishment for non-payment, he did not differentiate between Hindus and Muslims. Or, the author's total omission of Akbar's views and actions on social matters, like his prohibition of slave trade, disapproval of sati and prohibition of involuntary sati. Or, when the author lists the appalling record of the number of Bahmani kings murdered, deposed, and blinded, she fails to mention that other ruling dynasties of that period had blood on their hands too. For example, the practice amongst the Rajputs and the Vijaynagar ruling classes of killing hundreds of wives, concubines and slave girls of a ruler when he died. The logic of exclusion suggests that the author would like to associate violence and cruelty with Muslims rather than with the conventions and practices that were common to all medieval ruling classes.
3. Errors deriving from communal bias. There are 14 such examples of communally biased assertions of historical fact. These also include attempts to Sanskritise names or terminology in a wholly inappropriate fashion.
Examples: On page 10, the author has separately classified modern historians of medieval India by their religions, that is, as Muslim or Hindu. On page 92, she states that Bukka I of the Vijaynagar period "freed practically the whole of the south from foreign domination". From this the reader must surmise that Muslims are equated with foreigners, as the compilers of the Index point out. The heading for Chapter 2 is "Struggle for Chakravartitva", an inappropriate phrase used obviously to make a point of Sanskritising what could, as the authors point out, have simply been titled "Political Supremacy".
4. Errors of spelling. There are seven such errors.
Examples: "Fawadul Fawaid" for "Fawaidul Fawad", Bahamani for Bahmani, Guru Arjun for Guru Arjan, Suleh-kul for sulh-i kul, and so on.
5. Errors of language. Poor English, along with displays of ignorance and obfuscation add up to nine examples listed in the Index
For example, on page 162 the author writes of Nur Jahan: "The new queen soon became the favourite of the Emperors' wives". What she obviously meant was that the new queen became the favourite wife of the emperor. On page 26 and page 27, the author writes about "Muhammad Ghur" and "Mahmud Ghazni", instead of Muhammad of Ghur, and Mahmud of Ghazni. The compilers refer to these errors as "pieces of illiteracy". On page 160, there is an illustration titled "Meeting of Jahangir with the Persian king Shah Abbas". The reader is not informed that it is an imaginary representation and that in reality the two never met.
According to the report, all four books reveal a shocking lack of awareness of basic historical facts. Secondly, the language is riddled with grammatical errors, spelling mistakes and inappropriate expressions. Finally, they all present History with a strong chauvinist and communal bias. Thus, in respect of the Ancient India textbook, the familiar myths abound - India is the original homeland of the Aryans; "Vedic civilisation" embraced the Indus civilisation; Hinduism is held to be the most advanced of all religions; the caste system was fine until some "rigidities" crept in later; women in ancient India were held in high esteem and had equal inheritance rights as men.
A "neutral or even admiring stance", according to the authors of the report, accompanies the accounts of sati and jauhar. The Medieval India textbook is imbued with anti-Muslim prejudice. Muslims, or "foreigners", brought nothing to India but bloodshed, violence and the practice of temple destruction. The substantial evidence of the rise of a composite culture in this period is firmly stamped out. Thus, there is barely a sentence on Kabir and his teachings, the report reveals.
The Contemporary India textbook appears to be in a class by itself in respect of the distortions mentioned. According to the authors of the report and the Index, this book portrays "Muslim separatism" as the beast, while Hindu communalism is ignored and Hindu Mahasabha leaders are idolised as patriots. The great Indian social reform movement is ignored; the modern values of democracy and secularism that the freedom movement stood for are passed over; Jawaharlal Nehru is either ignored or presented in an unfavourable light; and the Communists are vilified. The prejudice and distortion has, as its foundation, a singular ignorance of colonialism and its economic and political impact on India.
Indeed, the sheer range and variation of errors, 141 in all, as listed by the authors of the Index from Hari Om's Contemporary India, qualifies this single textbook as perhaps the most damaging of all. Here is an authorial pen that is untroubled by the rules of English grammar and usage, that constructs a history of modern India from which all modernity has been purposefully cut away, and that oftentimes projects Indian history as a theatre of the absurd. For example, on page 22, he tells us:
"Lord Curzon even went to the extent of saying that the people of India were `the peasants, whose life was not one of political aspiration'. This had a tremendous impact on the Indian Freedom Struggle".
Or again, on page 23:
"Both of them (Tilak and Aurobindo Ghose) believed in and advocated cultural nationalism... They also held the view that the Moderates were only playing with "bubbles" like the legislative councils and not taking up the issues capable of protecting and promoting the Indian culture."
"Bubbles" is Hari Om-speak for "baubles", but on a more serious note he has conjured cultural nationalists out of Extremists, as the index compilers point out.
The NCERT appears to be undaunted by the criticism and by the potential damage such textbooks might cause to young minds. Some minor changes have been made in the reprint editions, but more textbooks containing material on history for other classes have been published this year. For this once prestigious organisation, which brought out several splendid History textbooks from the 1970s onwards, the rewriting of history commissioned by it now surely represents a great leap backwards.
To conclude with this reviewer's favourite error, from Hari Om's Contemporary India, pages 59-60, picked out from the Index:
"... leaders and think-tanks like Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel and V.P. Menon."
The Index authors' tired response: "One has not heard of single persons as "think-tanks". But one lives and learns"!
ENDS.
DAWN [Pakistan] 29 August 2003 (Encounter)
Islam and secularism: odd couple or partners? By Dr Iftikhar H. Malik
Europeanization of the world since the 15th century is a mixed but significantly painful human experience and that is why there has been so much scepticism of the whole idea of progress. Interpreting contemporary conflicts simply as clash of cultures or contestation between modernity and tradition is already simplistic. For instance, as suggested by Edward Said and more recently by John Gray, Political Islam - or whatever one may call it - is, to a large extent, rooted in modernity and is not an entirely traditional assertion.
Bernard Lewis, Daniel Pipes, Oriana Fallaci, Ann Coulter and several proponents of westernized modernity, along with the other neo-conservatives, are not being correct in presenting Islam as a traditional monolith, arraigned against a modernist, value-based West. To Bush-Blair duo and their ideological cohorts Islam may have to be retrieved from its medieval time warp through an altruist crusade. In the same manner, several Islamicists seek West and the Rest lost in jahliya (ignorance) waiting to be retrieved by the turbaned and bearded Mujahideen.
Within the context of this heated controversy, interestingly, some Muslim ulema, instead of an outright dismissal of secularism, have quietly begun to debate the possible interface between Islam and secularism rather than viewing them as eternal foes. However, the quest is still in infancy and like several mundane scholars the effort is in its embryonic stage understandably due to statist and societal rejectionism of secularism and of any reconstructive discourse on Islam.
This self-questioning exhibits a growing disgust with the hijacking of both religion and political authority by nefarious elements at the expense of societal prerogatives. While Islamicists may seek Muslim predicament, among other factors, in the absence of Islamic law in the Muslim states, the fact remains that even the confessional states with professed Islamic order such as Saudi Arabia, Iran, Pakistan or Taleban's Afghanistan have consistently failed to improve upon participatory and accountable systems.
Islam, in many of these states, simply came to be used as a legitimiser for sheer authoritarian, anachronistic systems and discretionary policies. Retrospectively, it will be safe to suggest that the selective and penal use of Islam by these states not only exacerbated the public anguish but also worsened human rights in those societies. The contradictions - thanks to this partisan intermingling of religion and politics- are more obvious if one looks at the state of minorities in these states along with a clear deterioration in the status of women.
The so-called westernised elite in the post-independence decades have only kow-towed to the external backers while concurrently denying basic rights to their own people. The religio-political elements within the governments and outside have equally repressed civic rights and their bombastic rhetoric has only exacerbated sectarian and inter-ethnic violence. Interestingly, both of them have often used the West, neighbours and even modernity as convenient foes, not out of some genuine conviction but simply for selective expediency.
Understandably, while there are problems within the respective trajectories such as Westernised modernity and politicised Islam, there is urgency for promoting a reconstructive debate, which could steer Muslim peoples towards a better understanding, peace and progress. Lately, unlike their other counterparts, some of the Iraqi and even Iranian ulema have begun to suggest a rethink on separation of religion from state. They are not suggesting a complete banishment of religion from political discourse but are being increasingly critical of its routine exploitation by political authorities for personalist or dynastic gains.
They are even using the terms such as Muslim secularism more boldly though such a discourse is ironically happening only after the Anglo-American decimation of a Muslim region and which also remains occupied. A similar debate is still not openly possible in any other Muslim state. Coming from the ulema in Najaf, Karbala, Baghdad or even Qum, such a quest is certainly nascent yet amazingly positive.
In an interview in Baghdad, Sayyid Iyad Jamaleddine, an eminent Shia leader and the mentor of Sayyid Hussein Khomeini, the grandson of the late Imam Khomeini, candidly observed: "We want a secular constitution. That is the most important point. If we write a secular constitution and separate religion from state, that would be the end of despotism and it would liberate religion as well as the human being. The Islamic religion has been hijacked for 14 centuries by the hands of the state". (International Herald Tribune, 11 August 2003)
One may add that it is not just the political authority that has misused and abused Islam as a legitimiser, the religious authority has been equally responsible for mayhem after mayhem of ordinary believers. Millions of innocent Muslims have laid their lives in all these centuries thanks to obscurantist fatwas and uncalled-for exhortation to Jihad, of which many have been against fellow Muslims.
The more recent examples are of General Zia's Pakistan where Muslim minorities paid a huge price to a growing Sunni majoritarianism. According to the common parlance in Pakistan, the Mullah + Military axis is the bane of most of the sectarian and anti-women violence. The promotion of Jihadist elements in the 1980s and a nod from Washington and elsewhere has resulted into a whole plethora of outfits pursuing several hazy ideas across the region.
In the neighbouring Afghanistan, Iran and Central Asia, Islam remains a tool both for regimes and the Mullahs to extract maximum blood from their marooned population. Denial of democracy and other human rights is a consensus point for otherwise these often hostile rival religious and political authorities.
Algeria, where France created a mess in league with the army, is another sad reminder of both religion and politics being hijacked by respective rent-seeking interests. Saudi and the Gulf regimes while kow-towing to the western elite blatantly discriminate against foreign workers from poor countries. They have altogether different policies and touchstones for the western convicts while dozens of poor Bangladeshis, Pakistanis and Afghans are routinely executed by Muttaa (religious police) outside Friday mosques.
The Westerners, even after their conviction, are habitually pardoned for similar crimes by the Muslim kings and emirs. Not a single alim from the so-called Muslim heartland has ever raised his voice over this sheer discrimination that smacks of a rabidly racist ideology. No end to double standards! Though the status quo or external hegemony are not acceptable yet concurrently leading innocent and vulnerable Muslim citizens into kamikaze attacks is equally reprehensible.
The humanist reinterpretation of Islam and likewise of secularism can surely deliver Muslims from this continued monopolist exploitation by the political and religious authoritarianism, and also augur an overdue Islamic renaissance. It may also offer a unique alternative to an abrasive modernity in the West itself locked in collective violence perpetrated through institutional racism and unilateralist militarism. The reconstruction of long overdue Ijtiha'ad is the only way-out of gnawing societal and statist oppression; can offer a respite from suffocating conformity while halting the foreign denigration of a human heritage like Islam.
India's secularism, despite its severe strains and some contradictions due to a rather erstwhile dismissive elitism, is the best modus operandi for similar plural societies and could offer a useful parallel for a rethink among the Muslim reconstructionists. Its Gandhian portents appear similar to Islamic sensitivities on religion, as here religion is accepted as a part of collective and individual life without being totally divorced from the public domain.
However, while Muslims in India have felt comparatively safer under a secular system and are certainly apprehensive of a majoritarian Hindutva, their own localism, dependence upon some clerics for political articulation and other socio-economic handicaps have not allowed them to fully benefit from the systemic dynamics in the country. But compared to any other Muslim state, India's democracy still offers the best hope for coexistence and its secular system the viable safety valve for minorities. It is a different thing that the clerical versions of Islam abound Muslim India, yet secularist polity is the best guarantee for collective survival and welfare of Indian Muslims and other such minorities.
This is not to deny the fact that, to a great extent, India's own future and of its plural communities depends upon the policies of its majority population groups. If the Hindus, as egged on by Kar Sevaks and Vishwa Hindu Parishad, are intent upon turning the country into a Hinduist mould the minorities may have fewer options at their disposal boding a major disaster for the most plural and equally populous country on earth.
It is only the time and the Indian political and intellectual leadership who hold the key to this grave challenge. It is still difficult for practising and reconstructing Indian intellectuals like Asghar Ali Engineer or Mushirul Hasan to be able to hoist the banner of a tolerant, accommodative and all-encompassing Muslim secularism and the opposition to them mainly comes from Muslim clergy as well as well from Hindu fanatics.
Empirically, secularism as seen in the West, despite a paucity of self-professing states, emerged through a gradual separation of church and state but in its original form secularism stood for the primacy of mundane knowledge away from the monopoly of ecclesiastics. Secularism is not culture- or region-specific.
Thus, it is uniquely akin to Political Islam in its struggle against colonialism. The development of the Ummayyid literature and philosophy in Muslim Spain, promotion of learning and debate in Mughal India, pre-Safwid Persia, Central Asian and Turkish kingdoms -on several extended occasions- reflected a model where worldly knowledge and religious interaction coexisted without vetoing each other out. The diffusion of Greek, Hindu and Chinese learning and a conscious synthesis with the African and European mores and customs energised Islamic civilisation at all times.
Very few people may know that the Muslim metropolitan centres such as Constantinople, Delhi, Lahore and Baghdad stayed Muslim minority cities even under the Muslim rule, which reveals an amazing level of tolerance and co-existence at a time when most of the world suffered from inquisitions and pogroms. Thus, irrespective of the heuristics of the term itself, the practice of a humanist secularism as an exploitation-free, egalitarian and forward looking system-both in politics and education-falls in line with the Islamic heritage spreading over centuries.
A hasty rejection of secularism, despite its various pitfalls as a western construct or a modernist edifice, may not be a fair way to judge its merits. Muslim secularism is a possibility in the near future, as it has been a historic Muslim experience in the past and is not an alien proposition. It may prove a death knoll to the vast disempowerment and continued exploitation of Muslim masses both by the sultans and scholars. That is where intellectuals such as Syed Ahmed Khan, Muhammad Abduh, Muhammad Iqbal, Fazlur Rahman, Ali Shariati, Abdul Karim Surush, Asghar Ali Engineer and some Shia clerics in Iraq become more persuasive.
ENDS.
The Hindu [India], Aug 31, 2003
'Saffronisation' of Gandhi statue By Manas Dasgupta
AHMEDABAD Aug. 30. The "saffronisation'' of Mahatma Gandhi's statue on the busy Ashram road in Ahmedabad city has created a fresh controversy over the ruling BJP's "hijacking'' of the national leaders.
The entire route of the `Veeranjali yatra' carrying the urns containing ashes of the revolutionary freedom fighter, Shyamji Krishna Varma, and his wife Bhanumati, which entered Ahmedabad from north Gujarat this evening, was painted saffron by the BJP workers. BJP flags were seen hanging from every corner, treetops, the street lamp posts and every other convenient spot and in their over-enthusiasm, they also decorated Gandhi's statue by tying a few saffron bands on hands and neck.
Some of the Gandhian leaders in the city while strongly objecting to the "saffronisation'' of the father of the nation called it a sacrilege while some others felt it be "too childish'' on the part of the ruling party to "try to mislead the younger generation by projecting the Mahatma as a member of the saffron brigade. The BJP leaders, however, instead of regretting the over-enthusiasm of the party workers, tried to dismiss it as a non-issue. "What is wrong, after all saffron colour is there in the national flag too,'' the BJP's city unit president, Mayaben Kodnani, said with a wry smile. But despite her defence, some better sense later prevailed upon the party leadership and the statue later in the evening was found to be "liberated'' of the saffron scarfs.
Even otherwise, the BJP organising the Veeranjali yatra itself has created a controversy as many of the non-political voluntary organisations including the social centre associated with Shyamji Krishna Varma have taken objection to the "politicisation'' of the revolutionary leader from the Kutch. While the Gujarat Congress, apparently for political reasons, has decided to boycott all the ceremony connected with the yatra till it end at Kutch-Mandvi, the birthplace of Shyamji Varma, on September 4, some social organisations viewed it as an attempt by the BJP to carve out a "niche'' for the Sangh Parivar in the country's history of the freedom movement where even its oldest outfit, the RSS, figure nowhere.
While the Chief Minister, Narendra Modi, had brought the urns from Geneva and the Governor, Kailashpati Mishra, received the urns at Umbergaon on the Maharashtra-Gujarat border for its onward journey within the State, the "yatra'' was completely taken over by the BJP even though it fully used the government machinery for its success. Almost in every city and towns through the yatra is scheduled to pass, the district education officer concerned had been asked by the Government to issue circulars to all the schools and colleges to send compulsorily the students to receive the "yatra''.
The circulars turned out to be the saving grace for the BJP for its show in Ahmedabad this evening which otherwise would have flopped in the absence of the people. In fact, the 3,000 odd gathering at the function where the Defence Minister, George Fernandes, received the urns from Mr. Modi in the presence of the Union Minister of State for Home, Harin Pathak, were mostly made of schoolchildren, NCC and NSS cadets and some college students. Though the Congress had boycotted the public functions related to the "Veeranjali yatra'', the school and colleges run by the family members of the former Chief Minister, Chimanbhai Patel, had to send volunteers to the function because of the government circular.
An official spokesman of the State Government, however, claimed the yatra had been receiving "overwhelming response'' from the people wherever it went in south, central and north Gujarat.
ENDS.
SAHMAT 8, Vithalbhai Patel House Rafi Marg, New Delhi-110001 [India]
29.8.2003
Statement on THE ARCHAEOLOGICAL SURVEY OF INDIA'S REPORT ON AYODHYA
The report of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) submitted to the Ramajanmabhoomi-Babri Masjid Bench of the Allahabad High Court, Lucknow, on 22 September and released on 25 September 2003, is an absolutely unprofessional document, full of gross omissions, one-sided presentations of evidence, fraudulent falsifications and motivated inferences. Its only aim is to so ignore and twist the evidence as to make it suit its 'conclusions' tailored to support the fictions of the Sangh Parivar about the previous existence of a temple. The following is a list of the ASI's major acts of omission and commission:
FORGETTING THE BONES One decisive piece of evidence, which entirely negates the possibility of a temple, is that of animal bones. Bone fragments with cut marks are a sure sign of animals being eaten at the site, and, therefore, rule out a temple existing at the site at the time. The Report in its 'Summary of Results' admits that 'animal bones have been recovered from various levels of different periods' (Report, p.270). Any serious archaeological report would have tabulated the bones, by periods, levels and trenches, and identified the species of the animals (which in bulk seem to be of sheep and goats). There should, indeed, have been a chapter devoted to animal remains. But despite the statement in its 'Summary', there is no word about the animal bones in the main text. This astonishing omission is patently due to the ASI's fear of the fatal implications held out by the animal bone evidence for the temple theory. GLAZED WARE The glazed ware, often called 'Muslim' glazed ware, constitutes an equally definite piece of evidence, which militates against the presence or construction of a temple, since such glazed ware was not at all used in temples. The ware is all-pervasive till much below the level of 'Floor No.4', that is falsely ascribed in the Report to the 'huge' structure of a temple allegedly built in the 11th-12th centuries. The Report tells us that the glazed ware sherds only 'make their appearance' 'in the last phase of the (sic) period VII' (p.270). Here we directly encounter the 'Period Fraud' of the Report (see below). On this page (270), Period VII is called 'Medieval Sultanate', dated 12th-16th century A.D. But on
1 p.40 'Medieval-Sultanate' is the name for Period VI, dated 10th and 11th centuries. In Chapter V (Pottery), there is no statement made at all to the effect that the glazed ware appears in 'the last phase of Period VII' as is asserted in the Summary. Rather, it is there definitely stated that 'the pottery of Medieval-Sultanate, Mughal and Late-and-Post Mughal period (Periods VII to IX)Š indicates that there is not much difference in pottery wares and shapes' and that 'the distinctive pottery of the periods is glazed ware' (p.108). How the 'Summary' obtained its 'last phase' can only be guessed at: perhaps at some stage it had been conceded that the glazed ware was also found in Period VI (also 'Medieval-Sultanate') and was then prudently put in its 'last phase', because otherwise it would militate against a temple being built in that period. All this gross manipulation has been possible because not a single item of glazed pottery is attributed to its trench and stratum in the select list of 21 (out of hundreds of items actually obtained) items of glazed ware on pages 109-111. Seeing the importance of glazed ware as a factor for elementary dating (pre-or post-Muslim habitation at the site), a tabulation of all recorded glazed-ware sherds according to trench and stratum was essential. That this has been entirely disregarded shows that the glazed-ware evidence being totally incompatible with any temple construction activity in Period VI, could not simply be provided. Even as the Report stands (going not by its 'Summary', but by the description in the main text, p.108), the presence of Glazed Ware throughout Period VII (Medieval, 12th-16th centuries) rules out what is asserted on page 41, that a 'column-based structure' ó the alleged 50-pillar temple ó was built in this period. How could Muslims have been using glazed ware inside a temple?
THE 'PERIOD' FRAUD The ASI's Report is so lacking in elementary integrity that it tries to achieve its object by manipulating nomenclature. In Chapter III, 'Stratigraphy and Chronology' it has names for Periods VI and VII that are coolly altered in the other Chapters in order simply to transfer inconvenient material of Period VI to Period VII and thus make Period VI levels purely 'Hindu'. On pages 30-41, the nomenclature for Periods V, VI and VII is given as follows: Period V: Post-Gupta-Rajput, 7th to 10th Century Period VI: Medieval-Sultanate, 11th-12th Century Period VII: Medieval, 12th-16th Century Now let us turn to 'Summary of Results' (pp.268-9). Here the nomenclature is altered as follows:- Period V: Post-Gupta-Rajput, 7th-10th century AD Period VI: Early medieval, 11th-12th century Period VII: Medieval-Sultanate, 12th-16th century This transference of 'Medieval-Sultanate' from Period VI to Period VII has the advantage of ignoring Islamic-period materials like Glazed ware or lime-mortar bonding by removing them arbitrarily from Period VI levels to those of Period VII so that their actual presence in those levels need not embarrass the ASI in its
2 placing the construction of a 'massive' or 'huge' temple in Period VI. The device is nothing but a manipulative fraud.
THE 'MASSIVE' FANTASY While digging up the Babri Masjid, the excavators found four floors were found, numbered, upper to lower, as Nos.1, 2, 3 and 4, Floor No.4 being the lowest and so the oldest. Floor No.3 is linked to the foundation walls of the Babri Masjid ó the ASI's 'demolished' or 'disputed structure' ó built in 1528. Floor No.4 is described by the Report as 'a floor of lime mixed with fine clay and brick crush', i.e. a typically Muslim style surkhi and lime-mortar bonded floor. It is obviously the floor of an earlier mosque (qanati or open mosque or an idgah); and a mihrab and taq were also found in the associated foundation wall (not, of course, mentioned in the ASI's report). Such a floor, totally Muslim on 'stylistic grounds' (a favourite formula in the Report), is turned by the ASI into a temple floor, 'over which a column-based structure was built'. (On this latter assertion, see below: 'Pillar-less Pillar Bases.') No single example is offered by the ASI of any temple of pre-Mughal times having such a lime-mortar surkhi floor, though one would think that this is an essential requirement when a purely Muslim structure is being appropriated as a Hindu one. Once this appropriation has occurred (page 41), we are then asked to imagine a 'Massive Structure Below the Disputed Structure', the massive structure being a temple. It is supposed to have stood upon 50 pillars, and by fanciful drawings (Figures 23, 23A and 23B), it has been 'reconstructed'. (Though one may still feel that it was hardly 'massive' when one compares Figure 23 (showing Babri Masjid before demolition) and Figure 23B (showing the reconstructed temple with 50 imaginary pillars!) Now, according to the ASI's Report, this massive structure with 46 of its alleged 50 pillars was built in Period VII, the Period of the Delhi Sultans, Sharqi rulers and Lodi Sultans (1206-1526): This attribution of the Grand Temple, to the 'Muslim' period is not by choice, but because of the presence of 'Muslim' style materials and techniques all through. This, given the Sangh's view of medieval Indian history, must have been a bitter pill for the ASI's mentors to accept; and, therefore, there is all the more reason for them to imagine a still earlier structure assignable to an earlier time. Of this structure, however, only four alleged 'pillar bases', with 'foundations' below Floor 4, have been found; and it is astonishing that this should be sufficient to ascribe them to 10th-11th century and to assume that they all belong to one structure. That structure is proclaimed as 'huge', extending nearly 50 metres separate the pillar-bases at the extremes. Four 'pillar bases' can hardly have held such a long roof; and if any one tried it on them it is not surprising that the result was 'short-lived' (p.269). All of this seems a part of the VHP kind of propagandist archaeology than a report from a body called the Archaeological Survey of India. Before we leave this matter, a small point. The four alleged pillar bases dated to 11th-12th centuries are said 'to belong to this level with a brick crush floor'.
3 Really! Surkhi in Gahadavala times! Any examples, please? None! Now one can see why it had been necessary to call this period (Period V) 'Medieval -Sultanate' (p.40) though it is actually pre-Sultanate, being dated 11th-12th century. By clubbing together the Gahadavalas with the Sultanate, the surkhi is sought to be explained; but if so, the 'huge' structure too must come to a time after 1206, for, apparently unknown to ASI, the Delhi Sultanate was only established in that year. And so the earlier allegedly 'huge' temple too must have been built when the Sultans ruled! Since the entire basis of the supposed 'huge' and 'massive' temple-structures preceding the demolished mosque lies in the alleged 'pillar bases' it is time to consider what these really are and what they imply.
PILLAR-LESS 'PILLAR BASES' One must first remember that what are said by the ASI to be pillar bases are one or more calcrete stones resting upon brickbats, bonded with mud or just heaped up. In many the calcrete stones are not found at all. As one can see from the descriptive table on pages 56-67 of the Report not a single one of these supposed 'pillar bases' has been found in association with any pillar or even a fragment of it; and there are no marks or indentation or hollows on any of the calcrete stones to show that any pillar had rested on them. The ASI Report nowhere attempts to answer the questions (1) why brickbats and not bricks were used at the base, and (2) how mud-bonded brickbats could have possibly withstood the weight of roof-supporting pillars without themselves falling apart. Despite the claims of these 'pillar bases' being in alignment and their being so shown in fancy drawings (Figures 23, 23A and 23B), the Report is curiously chary of giving a detailed grided plan showing each base in relation to a set of others on a scale sufficient for one to check whether their positions are in alignment. This was especially important since there were objections raised that the ASI was ignoring calcrete-topped brickbat heaps where these were not found in appropriate positions and selected only such brickbat heaps as were not too far-off from its imaginary grids. But the most astonishing thing that the ASI so casually brushes aside relates to the varying levels at which the 'pillar-bases' stand. Even if we go by the ASI's own descriptive table, as many as seven of these 50 'bases' are definitely above Floor 2, and one is level with it. At least six rest on Floor 3, and one rests partly on Floor 3 and 4. Since these are undisputedly floors of the Mosque, how come that so many pillars were erected after they had been laid out --in order to sustain a temple structure over them! More, as many as nine 'pillar bases' are shown as cutting through Floor No.3. So, are we to understand that when the Mosque floor was laid out, the pillar bases were not floored over? It is thus clear that what we have are simply not 'pillar bases' at all, but some kind of loosely-bonded brickbat deposits, which continued to be laid right from Floors 4 to Floor 1. Dr Ashok Dutta of Kolkata University, an archaeologist, who was among those who volunteered to watch the doings of the ASI during the excavations, has given
4 an explanation for these brick-bat deposits, which offers a clear and elegant explanation. When the surkhi-lime mortar bonded Floor No.4 was being laid out over the mound sometime during the Sultanate period, its builders must have had to level the mound properly. The hollows and depressions then had to be filled by brickbats topped by calcrete stones (often bonded with lime mortar) to fill them and enable the floor to be laid. When in time Floor 4 went out of repair, its holes had similarly to be filled up in order to lay out Floor 3. And so again when Floor 3 decayed, similar deposits of brickbats had to be made to fill the holes in order to lay out Floor 2 (or, indeed, just to have a level surface). This explains why the 'pillar bases' appear to 'cut through' both Floors 3 and 4, at some places, and at others 'cut through' Floor 3 or Floor 4 only. They are mere deposits to fill up holes in the floors. Since such repairs were needed in time all over the floors, these brickbat deposits are widely dispersed. Had not the ASI been so struck by the necessity of finding pillars and 'pillar bases' to please its masters, which had to be in a proper alignment, it could have found scattered over the ground not just fifty but perhaps over a hundred or more such deposits of brickbats. A real embarrassment of riches of 'pillar bases', that is ó only they are not pillar bases.
THE CIRCULAR ILLUSION Much is made in the ASI's Report of the 'Circular Shrine' (pages 70-71), again with fanciful figured interpretations of the existing debris (Figs.24 and 24A). Comparisons with circular Shaivite and Vaishnavite shrines (Fig.18) are immediately made. The ASI had no thought, of course, of comparing it with circular walls and buildings of Muslim construction ó a very suggestive omission. The surviving wall, even in ASI's own drawing makes only a quarter of circle, and such shapes are fairly popular in walls of Muslim construction. And then there are Muslim-built domed circular buildings. But even if we forget the curiously one-eyed nature of ASI's investigations, let us first consider the size of the alleged 'shrine'. Though there is no reason to complete the circle as the ASI does, the circular shrine, given the scale of the Plan (Figure 17 in the Report), would have an internal diameter of just160 cms. or barely 5‡ feet! Such a small 'shrine' can hardly be worth writing home about. It goes without saying that, as admitted by the ASI itself, nothing has been found in the structure that can justify it being called a shrine.
STRAY 'TEMPLE' FINDS No Vaishnavite images have been found. All finds are stray ones or, as with the black schist pillar, visible within it when the Masjid had stood but broken by the Karsevaks (who says they love temple remains!) and buried in the Masjid debris in 1992. Whatever little in stone has come out (as one decorated stone or inscribed slab-used in a wall), like stones with 'foliage patterns, amalaka, kapotapadi door jamb with semi-circular pilaster, lotus motif,' (p.271), are in total very few, and all easily explicable as belonging to ruins elsewhere and
5 brought for re-use. The extremely short list that the ASI is able to compile shows that they did not come from any 'massive' temple at the site, but brought randomly from different earlier ruins.
SAFFRONISED ARCHAEOLOGY The bias, partisanship and saffronised outlook of the ASI's Report takes one's breath away. In almost everything the lack of elementary archaeological controls is manifest. The one-page carbon-date report, without any description of material, strata and comments by the laboratory, is meaningless, and open to much misuse. There has been no thermoluminescence (TL) dating of the pottery; no carbon-dating of the animal or human bones. No care has been exercised in chronology, and Period I 'Northern Black Polished Ware' has been pushed back to 1000 BC in the 'Summary of Results' (page 268), when even in Chapter II 'Stratigraphy and Chronology', the earlier limit of the period is rightly placed at 6th century B.C. (page 38). The urge is obviously to provide the maximum antiquity to habitation at Ayodhya, however absurd the claim. Quite obviously saffronization and professional integrity cannot go together. What all well-wishers of Indian Archaeology have to consider is how, with a Report of the calibre we have examined, there can be any credibility left in the Archaeological Survey of India, an organisation that has had such a distinguished past. Today there is no professional head of the ASI; a civil servant, completely subject to the desires of the Government of the day is in charge as Director-General. It cannot be overlooked that the occupant of the office of Director-General was changed almost simultaneously with the High Court's direction to the ASI to begin the excavations in early March. The signal given thereby was obvious; and the present Report should come as no surprise. Politicians gloating over it are precisely those who have got it written.
National honour was deeply compromised when the Babri Masjid was demolished. Now the good repute of the Archaeological Survey of India has also suffered an irremediable blow. When will the list of Saffronization's victims end?
6. The excavation was ordered to find out if there existed any Hindu temple below the BabriMasjid. The GPR survey was also ordered to help find if there were anomalies indicating the possibility of architectural remains below the mosque. The GPR survey could have made the excavation economical both in time and money. But the excavation undertaken from 12th March, 2003 came out to be an area excavation. The excavation has distorted the Mughal levels allover leaving no scope for cross checking the evidence collected by the present excavation or for taking up excavation in future with improved techniques and with better perspective. To that extent it is a loss to our cultural heritage.
The report on the present excavation has also been submitted. It is infact a report on the total data collected and not specific to the problem at hand. It practically abides by the perspective of 'Rewriting of history' School. In doing so the date of the NBPW Period ( Early historic era) has been pushed back to at least 1000 B.C., (three to four centuries earlier than the established date). Secondly, it has tried to highlight in its attempt at periodisation the Sunga Period, Rajput Period etc. for no sound reason. Besides this, it has used the data selectively and ignored some crucial facts relating to the Babri masjid complex, the massive burnt brick structure found below the mosque (assumed to be a temple of the 10th-11th centuries) and the base (for woodenposts) having bearing on the problem.
It is well known that the temples are characterised by its architectural type i.e. its plan and the superstructure, etc. , the objects associated with its function and placed in their original position inside the temple. Important temples in the past were known for their styles. The Nagar style as known form the famous Khajuraho temples,became popular in North India between the 9th and 12th centuries.
The excavation report has come out with a thesis that there have been found remains of an Early Medieval temple constructed in the 11th-12th century which continued to exist until the early 16th century (when the Babri Masjid was constructed over this complex). This thesis is based on the following assumptions:
1. that the 'massive' burnt brick structure was constructed in the 11th-12th centuries. 2. that there have been found at least 50 Pillar-bases associated with this structure, particularly with its last floor. 3. that a circular depression ( Ghata shaped), in due east of the centre of the central dome of the Babri Masjid and the central point of the western wall of the preceding 'massive' burnt brick structure, was cut into a brick pavement. 4. that the site excavated was not inhabited after the Gupta period. It was put to public use only, thereby implying its use for religious purposes.
The ASI has claimed the existence of a 'massive' burnt brick structure below the Babri Masjid complex or the existence of some genuine circular, rectangular or squarish constructions of brickbats or of stones termed in the report as 'pillar bases'. But the report has willfully ignored crucial evidence from the Ayodhya excavation. This is briefly discussed as under :
1. The alleged alleged 'massive' burnt brick structure belongs to the Sultanate Period and not to the early medieval period ( 11th-12th centuries) as its floor as well as the plaster on the wall, are made of lime and surkhi mortar, used in the Sultanate and Mughal Periods. Lime mortar has also been used in the construction of the so called pillar bases assumed to be associated only with this structure. Moreover, an arch, 'Mehrab' so typical of the medieval period, was noticed by me on the inner face of the 'massive' burnt brick structure to the south of the make-shift temple when I visited the site in June. 2. The plan of the alleged 'massive' burnt brick structure tallies with that of the Babri Masjid complex in its extent and construction of the central dome exactly over the central point of the western wall of the former and not with Burnt brick structure of the Post-Gupta period. Secondly the southern chamber of the Babri Masjid overlies the remnants of this pre-Babri Masjid burnt brick structure. 3. The 'massive' burnt brick structure was not a Hindu temple complex is clear from the fact that it does not correspond with the typical by Hindu Nagar style of temple of the early medieval period. Secondly, the foundation of the western wall of the 'massive' burnt brick structure has in it sculptured stones (like those found used in the temples) The Hindus immerse the temple remains ( when out of use) in water. They do not bury these under the earth or in the foundation walls. The southern hall of this 'massive' structure is nearly as large as that of the mosque. Temples of the past neither had such large square halls nor a plan similar to it. No artifacts used in the temples such as the icons, conch shell, Aarti lamps, dhoopdan etc. were found inside this chamber or in any other context within the alleged massive structure. The above facts clearly points out that the 'massive' burnt brick structure belonged to the Sultanate period ( 1206-1526) and not to the 11th-12th centuries: Secondly, its plan and architectural features exposed so far helps to infer that it was a mosque and not a temple. It is unfortunate that the report has not made us wiser on the problem. Rather it has stood behind the Hindutava viewpoint.
Prof. Suraj Bhan
ENDS.
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