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Hindus do not pay much attention
to the historical order of things," wrote Al Beruni in 1030 AD. "They are
very careless in relating the chronological succession of things." The
millennium-old censure of the Hindus' lack of historic sense by a medieval
Muslim historian appears to still apply, particularly to the Indian historians
of the present day. It is bizarre that eminent historians like Irfan Habib,
Suraj Bhan and KM Shrimali have opposed the interim direction of the Allahabad
High Court for excavation of the Ayodhya site. None of them has either
pleaded for such opportunity for historic research at the disputed site,
or voiced his support for the said direction of the court. Instead, they
seem to have their own political agenda.
In an interview published in the
Indian Express on March 12, Prof Irfan Habib, former Chairman of the Indian
Council of Historical Research, said: "Such a post facto rationalisation
of what was done on December 6, 1992, would place in jeopardy the fate
of numerous historical monuments all over the country." A historian of
the repute of Prof Habib is ordinarily expected to talk about possible
historic findings on excavation rather than resolution of the Ayodhya dispute.
Such apprehension is rather unfounded for two reasons. First, it is nobody's case that all existing historic monuments should be demolished for excavations. Second, the above measure was pertinent in the context of the observation by Mr Syed Shahabuddin himself, that if it was proved that the Babri masjid had been built after demolishing the Ramjanmabhoomi temple, then a mosque on such usurped land deserved to be destroyed in conformity with the tenets of the Shariat, which enjoins that it is not permissible to build a mosque on unlawfully acquired land and the namaz in such a mosque would be against the Shariat.
In case it is proved, after excavation, that a temple existed at the mosque site, Muslims are expected to hand over the site for the construction of a Ram temple. In the absence of any such proof, Muslims should get back the site.
Prof Habib also remarked that the archaeological findings are subjected to many interpretations. Given the core issue to find a permanent solution to the dispute, the archaeologists only have to find if a temple pre-existed the mosque. The dating of such structure can be done through Carbon-14.
The historians have totally ignored the startling revelation from the radar survey suggesting the existence of ancient structures at a layer that may be of the time period of two to three millennium BC. These findings are sufficient to inspire a historian to demand excavation of the site. Not a single ancient structure of early Vedic period has so far been unearthed to establish the antiquity of the Vedic civilisation, thus the excavation of the Ayodhya site is of immense importance.
According to Western scholars, the period of early Vedic civilisation commenced from 1500 BC. Assuming that an ancient temple structure of 2000 BC depicting well-known Vedic deities on its pillars is unearthed at the site, the find will once for all demolish the existing theories of Aryan invasion around 1500 BC and warrant the reconstruction of ancient Indian history.
Historians should not forget how, pursuing the ancient tale of Minotaur - the half bull and half human monster - living in a labyrinth and devouring seven Athenian youth and seven virgins every year till it was killed by Theseus, Arthur Evans dug out in 1900 the labyrinth of Knossos, Crete, dated around 1850-1800 BC. According to the tale, Theseus, an Athenian youth, escaped from the labyrinth with the help of the Cretan princess who fell in love with him. Similarly, for centuries people believed that The Iliad and The Odyssey were works of fiction composed by Homer till Heinrich Schliemann, the great German archaeologist, dug out Troy on the hill of Hissarlik. On this basis, the dating of Trojan War has now been fixed between 1218 and 1209 BC.
As in the case of hill of Hissarlik,
Iliad was proved to be history and not fiction, and in Crete the labyrinth
of Knossos was elevated from the status of myth to reality, we may stumble
upon the first ever evidence of historicity of Ramayana at Ayodhya. Indian
historians should shun their cynical approach toward Indian archaeologists
or excavation of ancient sites, and give history a chance.
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