The Ayodhya Dispute pt1

[Guest guest]

N.S. Rajaram

The Ayodhya Dispute - Fact and fiction in the temple-mosque

controversy (Part 1)

 

Editor's Note: The following are excerpts from the book, The Ayodhya

Dispute written by N. S. Rajaram.

 

Preface - History Vs. Negationism

 

Background: Hindu historical awareness

This book summarizes some of the latest and the most relevant

information relating to the temple-mosque controversy over the site

known since time immemorial as Ramajanmabhumi. In addition, it also

brings into focus what may be seen as the real issues involved -

issues that have been obscured by the cloud of controversy

surrounding it. Upon carefully examining it, the reader will discover

that the dispute is not so much about the right of possession to the

ancient site known as Ramajanmabhumi as it is over the version of

history that is sought to be imposed on the people of India. It is a

serious contraction of the scope and meaning of the Ayodhya episode

of December 6, 1992 to treat it as a dispute over a piece of land,

and brick and mortar; the dispute really is part of a struggle being

waged by an ancient people to recover their own history from the

clutches of imperial interests. This is what I have tried to

highlight in the present document.

 

It is therefore a serious error to treat the demolition of the Babri

Masjid as a mere retribution for the temple destructions by Islamic

vandals going back a thousand years. That would place the Islamic

vandals and the kar sevaks on the same moral plane which I see as a

historic error - for what the kar sevaks were trying to recover was

not merely the disputed structure built over their sacred site, but

the true history of their land. In this regard I am with V.S. Naipaul

in seeing the demolition as a symbol of rising historical awareness

on the part of the Hindus. Hindus have recognized that the Babri

Masjid was never intended as a place of worship; it was a symbol pure

and simple of the victory of Islamic imperialism over the Hindu

Civilization. This is what I have tried to highlight in this volume.

 

At the same time, the historical facts about the existence or non-

existence of previous temples at the site, and the record of their

destruction are very much part of this struggle. This also I have

tried to bring to light by presenting the relevant information from

literary, archaeological and epigraphical sources. My goal in all

this is to enable everyone to see the true historical facts behind

the struggle free from the propaganda and misinformation that has

plagued the field so far. Unless we have a true picture of the

historical facts, we have little chance of finding our way out of the

present impasse.

 

Islamic view of history

In spite of the enormous volume of writing that has appeared on

Ayodhya, a central theme that runs through the dispute has not been

sufficiently highlighted; this theme is the effort to impose the

Islamic view of history not only on the Ayodhya dispute, but on all

of Indian history. The Islamic view holds that the history of any

place begins with its Muslim takeover, and nothing that took place

before the takeover is of any account. According this version, the

demolition of the Babri Masjid is a crime, but the destruction of

previous temples at the site (or anywhere else) is of no account.

 

It is this version of history that has been imposed on countries

conquered by Islam - countries like Arabia, Iran and Afghanistan. It

is this version that Islamic warriors sought to impose on India also

for several centuries but failed. (But this is the version taught at

Islamic institutions in India, like the madrasahs and even the

Aligarh Muslim University.) The Indian Muslim leaders and their

allies calling themselves 'Secularists' are fighting to see this

version prevail, while the Hindus are fighting to preserve their own

history and tradition. Ayodhya is a symbol of this struggle for

history.

 

I see the present work as a small effort aimed at highlighting the

following: (1) the true facts of history relating to Ayodhya; (2) the

struggle for the recovery of their history that lies behind the

temple-mosque dispute; and (3) understanding the consequences of

hasty actions by reacting to transient passions and political

compulsions, while failing to take note of the course of history. The

key fact to note is that the events of December 6, 1992 do not stand

alone; they are part of the history of the struggle being waged

between exclusivism and pluralism going back a thousand years. The

stakes in this for the people of India are enormous. We ignore it

only at our peril.

 

A note on terminology: 'secularism'

Ever since Jawaharlal Nehru assumed control of India following its

partition in 1947, the keyword of modern Indian political parlance

has been 'secularism'. This in itself strikes one as odd, for no one -

including Nehru - had bothered to raise the issue of secularism to

prevent the partition of India on the basis of religion; that was the

time when arguments based on secularism were really relevant - not

after conceding the division of India. Nonetheless, it is important

to clearly understand how the word is used and misused in Indian

political and intellectual circles.

 

Secular literally means 'wordly' or 'unrelated to religion'.

Historically, secularism evolved in Europe as an antidote to

theocracy, in breaking the power of the Church over the affairs of

the state. In the Indian political parlance, the word 'Secularism' is

often claimed to mean equality of all religions - a usage that cannot

be justified either on linguistic or historical grounds. In practice

it has been used by Leftist politicians and academics (including

Nehru), now joined by right-wing Islamic leaders, to shelter purely

theocratic institutions like religious laws and Islamic legal code.

In India, both the Marxists and Muslim leaders (Christians also)

often refer to their exclusivist ideologies as 'Secular'. Thus, in

the Indian context, one would not be far wrong to interpret 'Secular'

to mean anti-Hindu. It has become little more than a euphemism used

by anti-Hindu forces to describe themselves. These call themselves

the 'Secular Forces'.

 

Thus, for all practical purposes, secularism in India has meant the

practice of sheltering exclusivist and theocratic practices that

stand in opposition to the pluralistic traditions of

Hinduism. 'Secularists' (always with a capital 'S') are those that

to this viewpoint. These are part of the so-called 'Secular

Forces' - a nexus of anti-Hindu interest groups, notably Leftist

academics and right-wing Islamicists including the clergy. This is

often called 'Nehruvian Secularism' by its critics.

 

JNU is the Jawaharlal Nehru University located in Delhi; AMU is the

Aligarh Muslim University. Both are considered bastions of

secularism - of the Nehruvian brand.

 

Acknowledgements

The present volume is an offshoot of my work for a book that was to

be called Profiles in Deception: Ayodhya and the Dead Sea Scrolls, a

project that I reluctantly undertook at the persuasion of Sita Ram

Goel. He supplied me with many of the sources used here. Though I

began with considerable misgivings, the project in fact has proven

uncommonly fruitful, leading also to my book The Dead Sea Scrolls and

the Crisis of Christianity (Minerva Press, London) and others on

Christianity. The Ayodhya part is presented here. For all this I am

very grateful to Sita Ram Goel.

 

I am also grateful to Koenraad Elst for valuable insights into the

Ayodhya dispute from his unique perspective as an outsider.

 

Chapter 1 - The Two Ayodhya Disputes

 

The real struggle: history, not brick and mortar

The Ayodhya dispute and its fallout - both political and historical -

have dominated Indian polity and public life over the past decade.

This little book is an attempt to provide an easy to read account of

the basic historical facts about the Ayodhya controversy. In this, my

goal is to provide the interested reader with the essential facts

about the controversy, separating the historical facts from

politically motivated fiction. When I say 'historical facts', I mean

not only the facts associated with the possession and ownership of

the structure on the site known since time immemorial as

Ramajanmabhumi, but also the vicissitudes of the historical drama

being played over it.

 

The Ayodhya dispute is over four hundred and fifty years old. It came

to head on December 6, 1992 with the demolition of the structure

known as the Babri Majid (Babar's Mosque) by Hindu activists. This

event has been seen as marking a watershed in modern Indian history.

Some like the British writer V.S. Naipaul see it as an event marking

the birth of a new historical awareness on the part of the Hindus;

while others, calling themselves the 'Secular Forces' - actually

little more than a motely mix of Leftist academics and politicians,

and right-wing Muslim leaders and the clergy - see it as the

beginning of the transformation of India into a Hindu theocratic

state.

 

My own view, however, is slightly different. I see Ayodhya as the

symbol of the emergence of the Indian Civilization - more

specifically, the Hindu Civilization - from the grip of alien

imperialistic forces and their surrogates that have tried to hold on

to their previleged positions by suppressing the legitimate

nationalistic and cultural aspirations of the Hindus. This they have

sought to do by whitewashing the record of vandalism by Medieval

Islamic rulers. This is what brought together this seemingly 'modern'

and 'Westernized' Leftist intellectuals and right wing Islamists with

their roots firmly in Medieval history and tradition. Koenrad Elst

calls this whitewashing of history 'Negationism', more

particularly 'Jihad Negationism'.1

 

The present volume is only peripherally about Negationism. It is in

the main a concise summary of the latest evidence on the Temple-

Mosque controversy based on the primary sources including recent

archaeological finds. I found it necessary to prepare this volume

because there is still much confusion in the minds of many Indians

about the existence of a Rama temple and its destruction by Babar in

1528. Many educated Indians still believe that there are some doubts

about the historical question; many honestly believe that no temple

was ever destroyed by Babar because he was tolerant towards the

Hindus. (Towards the end, I have included a brief discussion of

Babar's famous work Baburnama to give an idea of what he was really

like.)

 

This view, while a tribute to the effectiveness of negationist

propaganda, is not a true representation of facts. In reality there

can no doubt about either the existence or the destruction of a Rama

temple by Babar at Rama Janmabhumi. What 'controversy' there is, is a

modern concoction, the result of a massive disinformation campaign

by 'Secularist' scholars, politicians and a large segment of the

English language press. What is more important is that this happens

to be part of a larger agenda of denying altogether the destruction

of any Hindu temples by Muslim rulers - a step towards whitewashing

the record of Islam in India. This is what Elst has called

Negationism in his remarkable book Negationism In India: Concealing

the Record of Islam. The reader will be the best judge of the facts

upon reading the material presented in this volume.

 

A point that I wish to emphasise: any effort aimed at understanding

the history leading up to the Ayodhya demolition must be careful not

to view the events of December 6, 1992 in isolation, ignoring the

thousand year history leading up to it. This would cause one to lose

sight of the single most important historical theme in India today:

the ongoing struggle between the two versions of history - the

nationalistic and the imperialistic. Those calling

themselves 'Secularists' in the Ayodhya dispute are representatives

of defunct imperialisms - the Islamic and the European. What they

fear most is the loss of their privileges following the rise of

nationalism. This is the real battle over Ayodhya

 

The negationist version of Indian history means accepting the Islamic

view of history - to wit, that the history of any place begins with

its Muslim takeover; nothing that happened before is of any account.

This is how Muslims view the history of all the conquered lands -

from Egypt to Iran and even Pakistan. They have been defeated in

their purpose to impose this version of history on India also. The

struggle over Ayodhya is but a facet of this larger struggle.

 

This is best understood by recognizing that there are really two

Ayodhya disputes. The first is over the right of possession to the

site known since time immemorial as Rama Janmabhumi. The second is

over the version of history to be imposed on the people of India

today. The beneficiaries of defunct imperialisms - Islamic and the

Eurocentric - are using the first dispute as a diversionary tactic to

draw attention away from their real concern; their real concern is

the unraveling of an imperialistic version of history highly

advantageous to themselves. As surrogates of past imperialistic

movements, they have also been its main beneficiaries. Once the true

history comes to the fore, it will mean the end of their privileged

existence.

 

To achieve their goal, the agents (or surrogates) of imperialisms

have found it necessary to preserve and protect their (negationist)

version of history. No imperialism can succeed unless the subject

people are made to forget their history. This is what Islam did to

Arabia, Egypt, Iran and Afghanistan; this is what Christianity did to

Europe and the Americas; and this is what Mao also did to China, and

later Tibet. And this is what the Secularists would like to see

happen in India also. Destruction of history is the goal of every

imperialism. Speaking of imperialisms and their specially crafted

language, more specifically Islam, Sita Ram Goel observes: 2

 

.... every language of imperialism divides human history into two

sharply separated periods - an age of darkness which prevailed before

the birth of an incomparable person, and an age of light which

followed thereafter. The entire past history of every nation

preceding the age of darkness is painted so black that nothing in

which the nation can take pride is left unscathed.

[This 'incomparable person' is Prophet Muhammad in the case of Islam,

and Karl Marx in the case of the Secularists. So it is essentially a

personality cult. Such cults were built around 'incomparable persons'

Stalin and Mao also.]

 

.... every language of imperialism divides mankind into two mutually

exclusive camps - the believers who accept the dogmas propounded by

the incomparable person [as propagated by his followers], and the

unbelievers who doubt or reject those dogmas. ... The believers do

not have to be better human beings in terms of morality or character.

It is sufficient if they have fervour and ferocity born of faith.

 

The Secularists see India's indigenous Hindu Civilization as the dark

force whose entire history should be blackened beyond redemption and

ultimately effaced, to be replaced by its own Age of Secular Light.

The first step is to coin a derogatory term for it - 'Hindu

Communalism' (or Kaffir Communalism). They see India as an impure

land plagued by pluralistic Hinduism that awaits Secularist

cleansing. This is the Secularist version of the Islamic concept of

Dar-ul-Harb and Dar-ul-Islam. Their version of the Ayodhya dispute

which seeks to erase a thousand years of history leading up to

December 6, 1992 is part of this enterprise.

 

It should be noted that such an ideology confers great material

advantages on believers if the imperialism succeeds. And this is

precisely what the surrogates of these defunct imperialisms, now

calling themselves 'Secular Forces' or 'Secularists' are trying to

preserve. So the measure of any such imperialistic doctrine is not

truth or justice, but material success and political dominance by a

self appointed elite. This of course does not stop its votaries from

invoking high sounding terms like 'morality', 'equality', 'justice'

and so forth. As previously noted, this is also what has brought

together two such disparate groups as Leftist intellectuals and the

right-wing Islamists.

 

End to Negationism

This again highlights the two Ayodhya disputes: the first ancient and

historical, the second recent and ideological. To understand the

second - the 'real dispute' so to speak - we must perforce study the

first. This little book is intended to present the essential facts of

history relating to the Ayodhya dispute. Once these are understood,

readers will be in a better position to appreciate the real struggle

which Ayodhya represents.

 

I recognize that much of what I have written in this book will make

for unpalatable reading for many Muslims. But history is history,

whether we like it or not. Also, no one is asking for revenge or

retribution for past crimes. Nor has anyone the right to object to

another's belief, as long as that belief remains personal. All one is

asking is that Negationism must stop, so a true history can come to

the fore. Above all, we cannot expect the Hindus to accept the

Islamic view of history - that their civilization had engulfed India

in a Dark Age to which light came only with the arrival of Islamic

invaders. Nor can Muslims expect the Hindus to accept their version

that nothing that happened at Ayodhya before the arrival of Babar is

of any account, let alone their theology that there was no history

before the arrival of Islam.

 

This is in the interests of all concerned - not just the Hindus.

Communal harmony in India is an unattainable goal as long as one side

keeps insisiting on whitewashing its own record, while blaming the

victims for all the problems. And the victims of such propaganda will

never rest content until they feel their case has been justly

treated. Here is where the Secularists have done immense harm to the

cause of communal harmony in the name of 'secularism' - whitewashing

Jihad Negationism, while heaping abuse and blame on the victims.

 

This is not a new or recent development. Within four years of Indian

independence and the Partition, the late K.M. Munshi had warned Nehru

of the dangers of this less than honest stand on secularism. In a now

famous and remarkably prophetic letter, Munshi, one of the foremost

constitutional lawyers of the day wrote Nehru:

 

In its [i.e. secularism's] name, again, politicians adopt a strange

attitude which, while it condones the susceptibilities, religious and

social of the minorities, it is too ready to brand similar

susceptibilities in the majority community as communalistic and

reactionary. How secularism sometimes becomes allergic to Hinduism

will be apparent from certain episodes relating to the reconstruction

of Somnath Temple.

 

These unfortunate postures have been creating a sense of frustration

in the majority community. If, however, the misuse of this

word 'secularism' continues, ... if, every time there is an inter-

communal conflict, the majority is blamed regardless of the merits of

the question, ..., the springs of traditional tolerance will dry up.

While the majority exercises patience and tolerance, the minorities

should adjust themselves to the majority. Otherwise the future is

uncertain and an explosion cannot be avoided. (Emphasis added.)

 

Prophetic indeed, written forty years before the explosion at

Ayodhya! And this has gone on for nearly fifty years. It looks as

though nothing has been learnt by the Secularists and their allies.

The politicians too keep on promising the impossible to the Muslims

in the hope of garnering their votes. If this goes on much longer,

more explosions like Ayodhya become all but inevitable.

 

The result of this has been most unfortunate; it has turned the

traditionally tolerant Hindus into a majority community with a

persecuted minority complex - making them believe that they are

second-class citizens in their own country. (This has now been

aggravated by the aggressive behavior of Christian missionaries

caught in a millennian frenzy.) This is a dangerous development that

bodes ill for the minority community, and for the country at large.

In this the culprit is Jihad Negationism, and the suspicion and

hatred which it breeds.

 

What are we to do about it? In this regard, one can learn a valuable

lesson by looking at European history. The record of Christianity in

Europe and the Americas is no less blood-soaked than the record of

Islam in India. But there are no 'Crusade Negationists'

or 'Inquisition Negationists' in Europe comparable to the Jihad

Negationists in India. This has allowed communal harmony to prevail

in Europe.

 

The lessons for India are clear, she must come to terms with her

history. A similar situation prevailed in the United States over the

question of slavery. There was no shortage of negationists who argued

that slavery was a natural law that contained much good. But Abraham

Lincoln, one of the greatest men of modern times, would have none of

it. He told Americans to face up to their history:

 

Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history. ... No personal

significance or insignificance can spare one or another of us. The

fiery trial through which we pass will light us down in honor or

dishonor to the last generation.

 

Truer words were never spoken. Its message is clear: for peace and

harmony to prevail in India, Negationism must end. Indian history

must be freed from the shackles of its imperial surrogates acting in

the name of 'secularism'.

 

It is time now to look at the Ayodhya dispute against the background

of this brand of 'secularism' and the conduct of its votaries

 

Selected Bibliography

The Ayodhya Reference: Supreme Court Judgement and Commentaries.

1995. New Delhi:Voice of India. Ayodhya and the Future of India.

1993. Edited by Jitendra Bajaj. Madras: Centre for Policy Studies.

 

Baburnama: Memoirs of Babur, Prince and Emperor. 1996. edited,

translated and annotated by Wheeler M. Thacktson. New York and

London: Oxford University Press.

 

Elst, Koenraad. 1990. Ram Janmabhoomi vs. Babri Masjid. New Delhi:

Voice of India.

 

Elst, Koenraad. 1991. Ayodhya and After: Issues before Hindu Society.

1991. New Delhi: Voice of India.

 

Elst, Koenraad. 1993. Negationism in India: Concealing the Record of

Islam. 2nd enlarged edition. New Delhi: Voice of India.

 

Goel, Sita Ram. 1984. Perversion of India's Political Parlance. New

Delhi: Voice of India.

 

Goel, Sita Ram. 1991. Hindu Temples: What Happened to Them. Volume I

(A Preliminary Survey). New Delhi: Voice of India.

 

Goel, Sita Ram. 1991. Hindu Temples: What Happened to Them. Volume II

(The Islamic Evidence). New Delhi: Voice of India.

 

Goel, Sita Ram. 1993. Islam vis-a-vis Hindu Temples. New Delhi: Voice

of India. History versus Casuistry: Evidence of the Ramajanmabhoomi

Mandir presented by the Vishwa Hindu Parishad to the Government of

India in December-January 1990-91. New Delhi: Voice of India.

 

Narain, Harsh. 1993. The Ayodhya Temple Mosque Dispute: Focus on

Muslim Sources. Delhi: Penman Publishers.

 

Rajaram, N.S. 1995. Secularism, the New Mask of Fundamentalism:

Religious Subversion of Secular Affairs. New Delhi: Voice of India.

 

Rajaram, N.S. (1998). A Hindu View of the World: Essays in the

Intellectual Kshatriya Tradition. New Delhi: Voice of India.

 

Rajaram, N.S. (2000). Profiles in Deception: Ayodhya and the Dead Sea

Scrolls, to appear.

 

Shourie, Arun (1999). Eminent Historians: Their Metholdology, Their

Line, Their Fraud. New Delhi: Harper Collins.