In the Ayodhya controversy, there seems to be no real issue that is debatable in any serious way except that the compulsions of vote bank politics and the mass hysteria aroused in the name of religion have been virtually holding the country to ransom, threatening to tear apart its already tattered social fabric. It needs to be said at the very outset that a civilisation rightly proud of dating back to 5000 years is today engaged in a preposterous debate on whether or not a page from its own history should be thrown into the dustbin.
Has the lust for power made our political parties so blind as to wish to destroy a monument more than 450 years old? The point that needs to be forcefully made is that the Babari monument must be preserved... because of its antiquity. It needs to be preserved not because it was a mosque, but even if it had been a stable.
...Let us examine... the so-called documentary evidence presented by the two sides to the Government over the three rounds of talks that have been held since December last year between the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, the 'other' arm of the BJP representing the so-called Hindu view, and the All India Babari Masjid Action Committee....
...While submitting its 'documentary evidence' to the Government on December 23 last year, the VHP very clearly framed what it considers as the 'relevant question'. To quote from its covering note to the documents: 'The relevant question is: is there proof that an old and persistent tradition among Ram devotees has considered the site (of the Babari Masjid) as the sacred Ram Janambhoomi (Birthsite of Ram), and that Ram worship took place in a temple, before and until the Babari Masjid was built?' It can be seen from this question that archaeologically the VHP would like to prove that a temple devoted to Ram worship existed at the site immediately before the Babari Masjid was built in 1528 AD. It claims that it has presented evidence which 'will prove that the question has to be answered in the affirmative.'
Caught in the trap of its own 'relevant question' and realising this soon after posing it, the VHP has been quick to change its star. It was 'advised' by some that even if it could be proved that a temple existed at the site, the VHP would be hard put to it to prove that 'Ram worship took place', and one of its most vocal experts, Dr. S.P. Gupta, former Director of the Allahabad Museum, has now been saying that the VHP would not give up its claim even if it was proved that a Shaivite temple existed at the site. However, even after this modification of its stand, the VHP may find itself floundering against the hard evidence of history and archaeology.
Take the mosque itself. The builder, Mir Baqi, proudly proclaims in an inscription in stone that the construction of the mosque was at the bidding of Emperor Babur, but nowhere does the inscription mention the destruction of a temple. If this was done by an idol-breaker for whom it was an act of religious merit, why does he not proclaim it?
In 'Ain-i-Akbari', Abul Fazl, Akbar's Minister writing within 70 years of the supposed destruction of the temple, mentions Ayodhya as a pilgrimage centre but says nothing about the exact site of Ram's birth.
Finally, could Tulsidas, the great Ram devotee, writing his Ramacharitrmanas in Akbar's reign within a few decades of the construction of Babari Masjid, forget to mention that a temple at the very spot of Ram's birth had been desecrated and that the shrine had been denied to Ram's devotees? In fact the VHP has not been able to produce a single shred of historical evidence from the primary sources till almost the close of the 17th century to suggest that any temple, let alone a Ram temple, was destroyed at the site of the Babari Masjid.
From the late 17th-early 18th century, the VHP's key evidence is a passage which it attributes to 'Aurangzeb's granddaughter' where it is claimed that she refers to the destruction of several major Hindu temples to show the 'strength of Islam' and among these is the Ram temple at Ayodhya... This particular piece of evidence appears to be fabricated material. The passage is attributed to 'Sahifa-i-Chahal Nasaih Bahadur Shahi' supposedly written by the daughter of Bahadur Shah Alamgir'.
First of all... there was no Emperor 'Bahadur Shah Alamgir'. Aurangzeb Alamgir ruled from 1659 to 1707 and his son, Bahadur Shah from 1707 to 1712. The later author, Mirza Jan, writing in 1856, who quotes this passage does not even know the name of the authoress so that she simply cannot be traced. And the author who quotes the passage was ignorant enough to confuse the names of Aurangzeb and his son, Bahadur Shah.
Besides, the historian, Mr. R.S. Sharma, former chairman of the Indian Council of Historical Research, points out that the Chinese traveller, Huan Tsang visited Ayodhya in the seventh century and he noticed the place for its Buddhist domination, mentioning 100 Buddhist monasteries and only about 10 non-Buddhist temples. Ayodhya of that time was not the cradle of the Brahmanical tradition. Mr. Sharma has also very forcefully argued that the motifs of 'Yaksha', 'dwarapala' and 'Purnaghattas' found on the black stone pillars of the Babari Masjid do not prove that even the pillars belonged to a Hindu temple. Some of these motifs have become part of the Indo-Islamic architectural tradition, appearing in the Jama Masjid and the Asafi Imambara pillars in Lucknow, and later even in the residency building of the British times.
Ironically, the most forceful 'evidence' against the VHP's claim comes from the excavations around Ayodhya carried out from 1975 to 1980 by Prof. B.B. Lal, then Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India. While the VHP is claiming that this evidence has clinched the issue for them, the truth seems to point differently... But... his authentic report on the excavations which was published in the Indian Archaeology Review before the Ayodhya controversy started in 1986, has not a word to say about any find that establishes or even points to the destruction of any temple at the site. He very definitely says that the site was not inhabited before the seventh century (B.C.- ed.) that Islamic glazed ware belonging to the period from the 13th to the 15th century were found (pointing to Muslim occupation of the site?) and that the earliest figurine found was a Jaina figurine belonging to the seventh century.
... In fact another historian, Dr. J. Prasad Jain has argued in 'Ayodhya Aditirath', that the black pillars in the Babari Mosque were taken from earlier Jain temples...
Ironically, Prof. Lal's excavations have revealed nothing that would strengthen a Hindu claim on the site...
The VHP is trying to make out its case on the basis of some burnt brick pillars found in one of the trenches dug under Prof. Lal's supervision just south of the Babari Masjid... It claims that these formed the bases of the 14 black stone pillars used in the mosque and were part of the Hindu temple structure that existed at the site before it was demolished. Mr. Suraj Bhan, Professor of Archaeology at Kurukshetra University, contests this. He points out that the excavated pit reveals three floor levels. the lowest is dated at the 11th century, the second between the 13th and the 15 centuries, at which level Islamic glazed ware has been found, and the third is the level of the Babari Masjid, that is the 16th century. No pottery or utensil or other artefacts used in Hindu worship have been found: no figurine or any objects associated with the worship of Ram or Vishnu have been found.
Mr. Suraj Bhan also says that the pillar 'bases' have no sockets and could not have supported the stone pillars, and no broken bits of the stone pillars have been found stratigraphically associated with the burnt brick pillars. No tell-tale marks of the use of tools have been found which could suggest the demolition of an older structure at the place. Prof. Bhan also points out that even if it were to be granted, for the sake of argument, that the area of the south trench and the present Babari Masjid area were indeed part of an older temple complex, the garbh griha of the older temple could not have been at the point inside the Babari complex. For that would mean that the entrance of the older temple would be facing south, which is against all Hindu practice. The south belongs to the god of death, Yama, and no temple is ever built facing the south.
... Leaving aside these debates, the BJP itself has not denied that its own campaign for the temple is political. Mr. Advani has often stated that his campaign is directed mainly against the 'pseudo-secularists'....
“Our politicians should tell the Muslim leaders that the time has come for them to respect Hindu sentiments. The Hindus are in no mood to compromise.”
— Ashok Singhal, VHP Leader