With this total lack of evidence, the AIBMAC cannot hope to clinch the issue in its favour.  So, the next best thing it could try, is to prevent the Hindu side from clinching the issue in its favour, by showing that the evidence which we have given, is not really evidence.  Though some of our documents have been dug up from the archives only recently, a number of them had been drawn attention to in public forums, so the AIBMAC could have attacked the reliability of those evidences.  However, in the long list of AIBMAC documents, there is not a trace of a critique of the four Muslim testimonies presented by Harsh Narain (IE 26/2/1990) or Tieffenthaler's testimony presented by A.K. Chatterjee (IE 26/3/1990).  There is also not a trace of evidence for the oft-used explanation that the local people, gullible as Hindus and Muslims both can be, swallowed a story purposely concocted by the British.

The anti-Mandir argumentation in other intellectual forums including the press has also not come up with any evidence that disproves our case or renders our evidence unreliable.  The AIBMAC list of documents contains a number of these samples of the anti-Mandir rhetoric that has been spread in the press, which invariably blow a lot of hot air but don't give any evidence whatsoever.

There have been a few attempts to discredit the archaeological conclusions made public by Prof. B.B. Lal and Dr. S.P. Gupta.  These attempts are not made by competent archaeologists or people who have any kind of first-hand knowledge of the Janmabhoomi archaeology, but by armchair historians like Prof. R.S. Sharma or the JNU historians, who happen to be firmly rooted in Marxism, a tradition notorious for its numerous brutal falsifications of history.  In particular, there have been baseless insinuations against the professional integrity of both archaeologists.  On top of that, all kinds of untenable denials as well as fantastic alternative explanations of the archaeological findings have been floated.  But no evidence.

Competent archaeologists and art historians have come out in support of Prof. Lal and Dr. Gupta, including Muhammed K.K. (Dy. Superintending Archaeologist, ASI Madras circle, in IE 15/12/90), Mr. Iravatham Mahadevan (indologist and editor of Dinamani, IE 5/12/90), and Dr. R. Nath, author of History of Mughal Architecture, whom the AIBMAC had quoted in support of its case.  He has confirmed :"I have been to the site and have had occasion to study the mosque, privately, and I have absolutely no doubt that the mosque stands on the site of a Hindu temple on the north-western corner of the temple-fortress Ramkot." (IE 2/1/91) But so far, not one among the Hindu-baiters who have lectured us about the primacy of science over myth, has given up his attachment to the anti-Mandir myth in the face of the incontrovertible scientific evidence.

There is a method in these unscholarly attempts to sow suspicions against the undeniable archaeological facts, though it is not the scientific method.  It is like a defence lawyer's attempt to create confusion and thus hold up the clear-cut case of the prosecutor.  Perhaps such tactics are alright in court, but in a scholarly debate they are considered highly objectionable, and a definite indication of a commitment to something else than the truth.

A distraction tactic, that is what the entire anti-Mandir argumentation amounts to.  Instead of coming up with one genuine piece of evidence, the Babri polemists merely raise new distractions to create confusion.  The effect is that, in writing this reply, we have been forced to deal with silly statements made by biased and incompetent people, whose opinions would count for nothing in a sincere academic debate.  What does a Hindu-baiting politician like Ramaswamy Naicker know about Ayodhya? Yet, because his biased layman's opinion is presented as evidence, we are forced to deal with it.  To be sure, we are perfectly willing to devote our time to any kind of evidence deemed valid by our opponents, on this occasion.  But in the press, where the public opinion is sought to be moulded, it is hardly feasible to go and disprove all these spurious contentions, so bringing them up has effectively created the impression that the anti-Mandir hypothesis really rests on some evidence of its own.

A strong example of these distraction tactics in the AIBMAC bundle of documents, is the fact that no less than seven different hypotheses regarding Rama's birth place have been given: 1) He was never born at all; 2) He was born at an unknown place; 3) He was born at Ayodhya, a few dozen yards north of the Ram Janmabhoomi site, where now the Sita ki Rasoi stands; 4) He was born in the village Ghuram in Panjab; 5) He was born in Afghanistan; 6) He was born on the banks of the Saryu in Nepal; 7) He was born in Benares.  So, they expect us to go and disprove all these seven hypotheses, of which they themselves disbelieve at least six.

A typical case of a story floated in the press to distract from the real debate on the real evidence is the "theory" that the Janmabhoomi spot housed a Buddhist establishment.  The Leftist press is exploiting this canard to the fullest, the AIBMAC evidence mentions it in several places, but understandably does not highlight it too much.  In tactical terms, the stand that the Masjid was built on empty space, is the first line of defence, and it is still taken by the AIBMAC.  The stand that the spot was not empty, but that the building was Buddhist, is the next line of defence, increasingly taken by the Leftists, who realise that the first line has become untenable.

That the Babri Masjid replaced a Buddhist building, is not indicated by any iconographical or documentary evidence (in contrast to the solid iconographical testimony that it was a Vaishnava temple and the massive written testimony that it was a Rama temple).  While there were plenty of Buddhist buildings in North India, the Ram Mandir was not one of them.

But the general proposition that whatever Buddhist establishments existed, we demolished the way the Ram Mandir was demolished, that proposition is of course correct.  For the Muslim conquerors, Buddhism was just one sect of Hindu paganism.  So, they totally exterminated Buddhism both in Central Asia and in North India.  Owing to their centralised and high-profile institutions, the Buddhist monks were an easier target than the decentralised Vedic-Hindu society.  The recent canard that Hindus destroyed Nalanda University (destroyed by Muslim conqueror Bakhtiar Khilji) and the Bodh Gaya temple (never destroyed but left unkempt after the Buddhists had been slaughtered by Bakhtiar and other Muslim conquerors), is just an artificial smokescreen to conceal the well-attested fact that Islam did to Buddhism exactly what it did to other sects of Sanatana Dharma as well as to other Pagan traditions wherever it found them.

The strongest weapon of the anti-Mandir polemists has so far been their near-total control of the media.  This alone has enabled them to bring into disrepute a firmly established and massively attested tradition, to depict it as "myth" and "distortion", and to float an alternative hypothesis which is incoherent with our general historical knowledge and in conflict with all the available specific evidence.  This mighty propaganda feat, achieved over the last couple of years, is one small instance of a larger operation of history-distortion.  This operation seeks to erase from our people's consciousness the memory of the unprecedented crimes committed in the name of Islam.