May 15, 2003	Thursday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 12, 1424

NEW DELHI: It’s a question that has forced Indian historians out of their ivory towers and into the hurly burly of politics and strife.

Was a 16th-century mosque in the holy northern city of Ayodhya that was razed by Hindu zealots more than a decade ago built on the ruins of an ancient Hindu temple?

Archaeologists began digging at the site in March to find an answer to the question that has convulsed and dramatically altered Indian politics and lies at the heart of tension between the country’s majority Hindus and minority Muslims.

But different scholars have drawn sharply divergent conclusions from the evidence already recovered and as the digging draws to a close, many historians say the excavation will not solve the row, but further inflame religious passions.

Government archaeologists were given permission by a court to excavate in a bid to settle a half-century legal wrangle over the site. They are expected to complete their work later in May.

“They’re unlikely to find evidence of a temple,” said Harbans Mukhia, a professor at New Delhi’s Jawaharlal Nehru University.

“Until now, it seems they’ve found bangles, some pots and pans and a staircase which suggest domestic architecture, not a temple, either Buddhist or Hindu,” Mukhia said.

The Babri mosque was torn down in 1992 by a Hindu mob using sledgehammers, crowbars and bare hands, sparking India’s worst religious violence since independence. About 3,000 people, most of them Muslims, were killed.

Some Hindus believe the mosque was built on the spot where the god-king Ram was born after the Mughal emperor Babar razed a Hindu temple there in 1528.

The Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party rose to power in the 1990s on the back of a campaign to build a Ram temple at Ayodhya, ousting the centrist Congress party which has mostly ruled the nation since independence in 1947.

Congress projects a secular image.

HISTORICAL TEXTS SILENT ON TEMPLE: Some historians say there is no historical evidence of a temple in any 17th or 18th-century texts such as emperor Babar’s memoirs or the writings of Tulsi Das, a devout follower of Ram.

They say the first reference to Ram’s birthplace only came in 1822 when an official told a court the mosque was built next to the spot where Ram was born.

But even then, they say, there was no mention of a temple, and it was only in the late 19th century that a popular belief grew that a Ram temple lay under the Babri mosque.

“Destruction of temples and mosques was a sign of conquest in the mediaeval period everywhere. If the Mughal rulers destroyed a Ram temple, Muslim historians would have talked up about the demolition with great hyperbole,” Mukhia said.

“But right up to the 19th century there’s total silence in historical texts about it.”

Historians also say a court order to excavate creates a dangerous precedent that could lead to the tearing down of thousands of mosques that Hindu nationalists say have been built over Hindu temples and the razing of Hindu temples built over Buddhist temples.

“It seems that the Babri Masjid was destroyed first and now we are looking for evidence to justify the act,” leading historian Irfan Habib told Indian Express newspaper.

POLITICAL SOLUTIONS: Some historians say a 1992 dig unearthed 14 pillars inscribed with names of Hindu deities as well as a slew of Hindu sculptures and carvings that proved the existence of a temple.

They say the demolition of the mosque six months later revealed many remains including a temple bell, an image of Hindu god Vishnu and a sandstone tablet with an inscription saying a Ram temple had existed there from the 12th century.

“The dig in 1992 found 48 broken temple pieces that were used in the foundation of the masjid. Also, the stones in the foundation were carved with meandering flowers and leaves which are typical of 12th-century Hindu temples,” said S.P. Gupta, president of the Indian Archaeological Society.

But other historians disagree, saying the pillars and sculptures could be Muslim, Hindu or Buddhist because there was a lot of overlap of styles in that period.

If proof of a temple is found, Hindu militant groups could use it to try to persuade the courts to allow construction of a grand new temple at the dusty site where a makeshift temple stands today at the end of a caged walkway.

But for some academics, it is an idea that goes against the essence of a historian’s craft.—Reuters