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1. Sacredness of the site

 

The Ram Janmabhoomi site has been a sacred site for crores of Hindus

since time immemorial, and was kept alive as a focus of Ram devotion

even in the face of the forcible Muslim occupation of the site during

more than four centuries. Why this is a sacred site, is beyond the

limits of the dispute, firstly because the Government of India had

asked us for evidence for the pre-existence of the Mandir on the Babri

Masjid site, no more, no less; and secondly because we do not have to

prove and justify the sacredness of our sacred sites, anymore than the

Muslims have ever been asked to prove that, against all available

indications, the Kaaba was built by Abraham.

 

Many dozens of Sanskrit texts from the first millennium BC and the

first millennium AD attest the veneration for Ram, and put to rest

recent allegations that the Ram cult became popular only in the last

few centuries. There is multiple archaeological and iconometrical

evidence for Ram worship since at least the 15th century AD.

 

2. Archaeological evidence for the temple

 

Archaeological excavations have brought to light the remains of an

11th century building on the disputed site. This was already clear

from the first brief report of the excavations led by Prof. B.B. Lal

in 1975-80 (though motivated "eminent historians" have tried first to

conceal and later to deny this pertinent fact), but recently more

details have been made public, especially the rows of pillar-bases,

aligned with the pillars of the present structure. Datable pottery

remains indicate that the building was in use till at least the late

15th century. Nothing points to a period of disuse between this

building's demolition and the Masjid's erection. But the "robbers

trench" around the pillar-bases indicates that the materials of the

demolished building had been taken for use in a new building, probably

the Masjid.

 

That the pre-existing building was a Mandir, is coherent with all the

evidence so far, and requires no special assumptions or ad hoc

hypotheses. More importantly, it is positively indicated by the 14

black pillars of schistose used in the masjid. Documentary evidence

from the 18th century as well as common sense dictate that, in

conformity with a general pattern, these were materials of the

demolished temple incorporated in the masjid built over it. The

disfigured sculptures on the black pillars all belong to Hindu

religious iconography. Some of the motifs are common to different

traditions, including Buddhist and Shaiva, but some are specifically

Vaishnava.

 

All indications converge easily, without any artificial theoretical

assumptions, on the hypothesis that a Vaishnava temple stood on the

janmabhoomi site until it was forcibly replaced with the Masjid. That

it was specifically a Ram temple, is indicated by a wealth of

documentary evidence.

 

3. Documentary evidence for the temple tradition

 

There are plenty of authentic documents available that unanimously

prove two things: everyone agreed, and no one ever doubted, that the

site on which the Babri Masjid was built, was taken from the Hindus;

and the Hindu devotees kept coming back to the site for worship. Some

sources suggest that in some periods the Hindus even used the Masjid

itself. At any rate they set up Ram Chabootra just outside the Masjid,

and in the 18th century they also built a make-do Janmasthan temple

just nearby.

 

Among the most remarkable of the Muslim testimonies, we may mention

the Chapel Nasaiah, written by Aurangzeb's granddaughter around 1700,

in which she exhorts Muslims to assert their presence in the "place of

worship of the Hindus situated at Mathura, Banaras and Awadh etc., in

which the Kafirs have great faith - the birthplace of Kanhaiya, the

place of Rasoi Sita, the place of Hanuman... were all destroyed for

the strength of Islam, and at all these places mosques have been

constructed". Ten other testimonies of local Muslims confirm that the

Babri masjid had replaced the Ram Janmasthan temple. That Hindus kept

coming for worship as nearby the site as possible, and that they kept

claiming the site, is attested by a number of these same sources, as

well as by a Faizabad Qazi in 1735.

 

Among the European records, the most remarkable is probably Josef

Tieffenthaler's (1767), who describes in detail how Hindus kept on

worshipping in the masjid courtyard, with a big celebration on Ram

Navami day, and how everyone believed that the pre-existent Ram Mandir

had been forcibly replaced with the masjid, though opinions differed

on whether this had been done by Babar or Aurangzeb. All the British

surveyors, archaeologists and Gazetteer-writers, as well as the

District Judge of Faizabad in 1886, saw no reason at all to doubt the

unanimous local tradition that the Masjid had been built on the

forcibly demolished temple marking Rama's birthplace.

 

Revenue records show that the disputed site has always been known as

Janmasthan. Recent attempts to manipulate these records cannot change

that, just like recent attempts to conceal or even obliterate pieces

of testimony by local Muslims cannot change the facts to which these

uncalculating witnesses testified.

 

4. Evidence must be coherent

 

All the authentic testimonies of various kinds converge, without

exception, on the following scenario. A Ram Mandir standing on the

now-disputed site since the 11th century was demolished and replaced

by a Muslim ruler, probably Babar or his aide Mir Baqi, who flaunted

the victory over Paganism by using and displaying some of the temple

pillars in his Masjid. But because the place was so sacred to them,

the Hindus kept on trying to continue the worship on the site, or as

close to it as possible.

 

This scenario, which is confirmed by all the available evidence of

every kind, is moreover in perfect consonance with well-attested

behaviour patterns of people in general (who built castles or temples

on elevated and central places), of Muslim rulers (who destroyed

thousands of temples to replace them with mosques, and often visibly

displayed the iconoclastic origin of their Masjid), and of Hindu

devotees (who in many cases kept on revering the desecrated site)

 

5. The AIBMAC non-evidence

 

In contrast to our own collection of coherent testimony for one

precise scenario, our AIBMAC friends have just given a pile of papers,

without adding even an attempt to show the coherence, the proof value,

or even just the relevance of this pile. Their documentation consists of:

 

1. casual statements of opinion by 20th century writers supporting all

kinds of conflicting scenarios (most of them not even concerning the

pre-existence of the Mandir), including outright crank theories;

 

2. a large number of documents relative to judicial disputes, which

all emanate from the unjust situation created by the forcible Muslim

takeover, and are therefore irrelevant to the question under

consideration, viz. what was there just before the Masjid was built;

 

3. exactly three documents relevant to the historical question under

consideration, of which one has the relevant pages missing (Babar's

diary), one is not a matter of dispute between us (the inscriptions on

the Masjid declaring that it was built by Mir Baqi on Babar's orders),

and one is a proven forgery (Babar's testament).

 

There is absolutely nothing in our AIBMAC friends' documentation that

proves their point or disproves our evidence. It is in fact not even

collected or presented as evidence for something. Any statement by any

crackpot or secularist is included as long as it disagrees with the

well-established consensus for which we have presented a mass of

corroborating evidence, and regardless of mutual contradictions.

 

One example out of a dozen: while disputing the belief that Ram was

born on the Janmabhoomi site; they do not build up coherent evidence

that he was born at a specific other site. instead, they give

"evidence" that Ram was born in Nepal, in Punjab, in Afghanistan, in

Egypt, in Varanasi, in Ayodhya on a different site, in an unknowable

other place, or not at all. So, each of these 8 "evidences" is

contradicted by 7 other pieces of "evidence" in the AIBMAC's own pile.

 

Obviously, they did not even attempt to build a case for an

alternative scenario to the one for which we have given evidence. They

just wanted to make us dissipate our energy on disproving all manners

of inconsistent and spurious contentions. And they counted on the

sloppiness, ignorance or bias of the press, to present their quantity

of worthless arguments as a genuine counter-weight to our coherent

body of evidence.

 

6. The rebuttal

 

In our rejoinder, we have dealt with all the AIBMAC documents relevant

to the historical question, but the AIBMAC has not replied to our own

evidence. Their only reply was yet another set of the same kind of

documents, again containing not a trace of evidence that the masjid

was built on something else than a forcibly destroyed Mandir. They

have not given any rebuttal whatsoever to our evidence. Since they

have not challenged our evidence, not even in this round of

Government-sponsored scholarly contest, they must be considered as

having accepted our evidence.

 

7. This debate is now closed

 

Since our AIBMAC friends have not disproven nor even denied the

validity of the evidence we have given, the way we have demonstrated

the utter inadequacy of their bulky but incoherent and irrelevant

documentation, our evidence stands. it should now count as a proven

proposition, i.e. supported by all the evidence available, not

disproven and not even challenged, that the Babri masjid was built on

a Hindu sacred place, forcibly replacing a Mandir.

 

All the Babri polemists and secularist intellectuals who were so

cocksure in lambasting us for clinging on to "myths", spreading

"distortions" and denying "history", now have to face the fact that it

is we who have given conclusive evidence, while they have merely given

politically motivated opinions and swearwords, apart from erudite

considerations on issues beside the point. From now on (as until a few

years ago), the established historical opinion is that the Babri

masjid has forcibly replaced a Ram Mandir built on a specially sacred

Hindu site.

 

In our opinion, any Government decisions should from now on honour

this established position of historical science, without giving in to

further distraction anoeuvres such as calls for "non-partisan"

arbitration. Since our evidence has not even been challenged by the

AIBMAC, there is no need for any arbitration. The historical facts

themselves are the only competent and non-partisan arbitrator, and

they have spoken through the authentic and unchallenged testimonies,

which we have collected and submitted, to the Government.

 

8. Our request

 

Since it is now firmly established, and no longer being competently

challenged, that the disputed site was one of the Hindu sacred places,

we would like to ask our Muslim friends and fellow-countrymen the

following questions:

 

1. In the Middle Ages, theologians and conquerors told you it was all

right to destroy and occupy other communities' sacred places. Now in

this age of secularism, do you still insist on continuing this

occupation, or do you opt for "equal respect for all religions"? We

are not occupying your Kaaba or Al-Aqsa mosque, so is it not time you

renounce the occupation of our most sacred places?

 

2. The last few years, motivated politicians and anti-Hindu

propagandists, both communalist and communist, have concocted the

theory that there was no temple at this site, that the masjid was

innocently built on empty land. Given the pretentious titles they

flaunted, like "protectors of Islam" and "eminent historians", we can

understand that you were misled into believing their made-up story.

But now, scientific research has firmly established that this theory

was indeed a concoction, and that the masjid was built on a Hindu

sacred site. Even the AIBMAC has not challenged the evidence, which

re-establishes that the Masjid has replaced a Hindu temple by force.

in view of the renewed certainty that this Masjid was willfully

located on a Hindu sacred site in order to disturb and humiliate the

religious practices of your Hindu fellow-countrymen, do you still

insist on resuming the occupation of our Ram Janmabhoomi site, or do

you agree to leave this Hindu sacred site to the Hindus?

 

 

Footnotes:

 

 

1 The Summary was released to the press on 10 January, 1991 by the

Vishva Hindu Parishad headquarters in New Delhi.

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