India Behind The Lens (News Centre)

On the day of December 6th, the Babri Masjid was demolished 20 years back. But that happened after a long chain of events that took place from 1989 to 1992 in which the government and leftist historians tried to undermine the evidences provided by VHP and others.

Right from the time of independence, institutions like the (Jawaharlal Nehru University) JNU and their allied publications ruled the sphere of history The communist view and interpretation of history was considered 'standard' and any other view was termed 'fundamentalist'. A tag of 'Hindu Fundamentalist Historian' was considered to be the worst shame for an indologist.

As they say, "Power Corrupts". Right from the time of Independence, the left-liberal creed had a place of honour in every council, publication and organization of history. Plus they were given a special treatment by the Government. The cumulative effect was that a breed of spoiled brats was created who believed that their views on history, which were kindly borrowed from the British, were the correct ones and any other contradicting view, howsoever correct, was shown the dustbin. But the first ever jolt to this tribe came in the early nineties when people started to understand the farce they were going through. The leftists were naturally feeling insecure and had declared an unwritten blitzkrieg against the Saffron people. All the people belonging to the secular side of the argument were roped in to fight in this world war of existence.

In such a case, the debate of Ram Janmabhoomi was bound to have reverberations throughout the political and historian class. The same happened.

Till 1989, the very much accepted view, even by western historians, was that the structure was the birth place of Ram. The then Encyclopedia Britannica (1989 Edition, entry Ayodhya) said "Rama's birthplace is marked by a mosque erected by Mogal emperor Babar in 1528 on the site of an earlier temple"

On the day of December 6th, the Babri Masjid was demolished 20 years back. But that happened after a long chain of events that took place from 1989 to 1992 in which the government and leftist historians tried to undermine the evidences provided by VHP and others.

Right from the time of independence, institutions like the (Jawaharlal Nehru University) JNU and their allied publications ruled the sphere of history The communist view and interpretation of history was considered 'standard' and any other view was termed 'fundamentalist'. A tag of 'Hindu Fundamentalist Historian' was considered to be the worst shame for an indologist.

As they say, "Power Corrupts". Right from the time of Independence, the left-liberal creed had a place of honour in every council, publication and organization of history. Plus they were given a special treatment by the Government. The cumulative effect was that a breed of spoiled brats was created who believed that their views on history, which were kindly borrowed from the British, were the correct ones and any other contradicting view, howsoever correct, was shown the dustbin. But the first ever jolt to this tribe came in the early nineties when people started to understand the farce they were going through. The leftists were naturally feeling insecure and had declared an unwritten blitzkrieg against the Saffron people. All the people belonging to the secular side of the argument were roped in to fight in this world war of existence.

In such a case, the debate of Ram Janmabhoomi was bound to have reverberations throughout the political and historian class. The same happened.

Till 1989, the very much accepted view, even by western historians, was that the structure was the birth place of Ram. The then Encyclopedia Britannica (1989 Edition, entry Ayodhya) said "Rama's birthplace is marked by a mosque erected by Mogal emperor Babar in 1528 on the site of an earlier temple"

Normally, historians open up a well settled issue for discussion only after fresh evidence shows up. But strangely the leftists from JNU published a pamphlet ''The political abuse of history" in 1989. No guesses who authored it - Romila Thapar, S Gopal, K.N Panikkar, Bipin Chandra, etc. The contents were obvious.

This pamphlet was expected to be digested by Hindus hands down. But that did not happen. The opposition grew so loud that unlike their expectations they were met by a fierce force and genuine confrontation of historians like Prof. Harsh Narain, Prof. B.P. Sinha, Dr. S.P. Gupta, Dr. B.R. Grover, and Mr. A.K. Chatteji (none of them formally associated with the Vishva Hindu Parishad except for Gupta).

The no-temple committee also called BMAC (Babri Masjid Action Committee) approached a leftist Irfan Habib belonging to the Indian Council of Historical Research and his team of historians including R.S Sharma.

Now, the then P.V Narsimha Rao government negotiated both sides and organized a 'state sponsored' debate in 1991 in which both sides were to present evidences. The VHP historians were genuine and their case was too strong. (If they had pursued their arguments even after the demolition in 1992, the accusations of them being violent and communal could have been thwarted). The funny part is, the no-temple side headed by R.S Sharma demanded they wanted 6 whole weeks to study the 'evidence'. Ironically, just a few days before Sharma had collected signs of 40 historians on a statement on the non-existence of the temple. Now if a man can gather 40 historians, how on earth can he need 6 weeks for furnishing arguments? It was the first indication that the no-temple side was on the losing end.

And the funniest part is, on 24th January 1991 these people were to put forth their arguments. And what did they do? THEY DIDN'T TURN UP! They unilaterally broke all talks with the VHP historians..!

In order to cover up, they published a token reply called "Historians' report to the nation" as if the nation was eagerly waiting for their report. And what was in that report? Typical Marxist style of argument - personal vilification, change of subject, nullifying a wrong with a wrong. All kinds of cheap gimmicks shown by people who don't have a direct answer.

Arguments that were put up by the no-temple side were not only wrong but showed the deep hatred filled in for Hinduism and RSS.

# The first argument was that of Tulsidas (ca 1600AD) not mentioning the construction of Babri by Babar in 1528 in his works of Ram Charit Manas. Funny isn't it? Is Ram Charit Manas a spiritual work or a history manual? For the sake of argument, it doesn't mention Akbar, a contemporary of Tulsidas, too.

# People like Romila Thapar tried to prove that Hindus themselves demolished their temples. Then how can Babar be considered evil? Funny evidences of Hindus destroying Kashi Vishwanath temple were given. The examples (?) of Harsha of Kashmir destroying temples, Pushyamitra destroying Buddha idols were furnished.

# A 'political' scholar Rajesh Kochhar exceeded all limits. He tried to prove that Ayodhya and Sharayu river existed in Afghanistan and not in India. Lanka was a small island in the Indus (LOL) and so Babri is not Ram Janmabhoomi.

# Another historian called Sanujit Ghosh tried to undermine the evidences in Valmiki Ramayana by trying to prove that Mahabharata occurred before Ramayana. *faint*

Personal mud-slinging was at an all-time high during that time.

Sita Ram Goel was one of the famous historians whose book 'Hindu Temples- What happened to them' was a voluminous account of how Islamic invaders destroyed Hindu temples. The communist were indeed pained by such facts seeing that this book also contained valid references to Babri Masjid.

And here started the defamation-

Chetan Bhatt, another communist accused Goel as a person having “highly selective obsession with archaeology and to some extent anthropology" and a “fairly typical RSS-Hindu nationalist text".

Harbans Mukhia carried a long article on how 'bad' Sita Ram Goel is. It was published in newspapers. The next day a reader commented “I felt the article was more of Goel's biography. I still don't know what Goel's arguments were on Babri"

Manini Chatterjee (a journalist today) was the member of the Communist Party (Marxist) and had written in Calcutta Telegraph on 30th January 1991 calling the works of Goel and others as 'a very bad book' but not a single word of refutation..!

At the end of it, the left-liberals were on the losing side of the argument and had assorted to all sorts of funny tactics to keep their ship sailing. But the damage was done. Right from those fateful years till today, the commies have a bad name for them. The libbers have failed the test of Ram Janmabhoomi debate and they stand decimated even today. Even after 20 years, any reference to that fateful day sends shivers to the spines of historians and leftist intellectuals.

Ultimately, we ourselves have to analyze and be clear on our history and not rely on any borrowed knowledge from the West. This alone can liberate us.

Normally, historians open up a well settled issue for discussion only after a fresh evidence shows up. But strangely the leftists from JNU published a pamphlet ''The political abuse of history" in 1989. No guesses who authored it - Romila Thapar, S Gopal, K.N Panikkar, Bipin Chandra, etc. The contents were obvious.

This pamphlet was expected to be digested by Hindus hands down. But that did not happen. The opposition grew so loud that unlike their expectations they were met by a fierce force and genuine confrontation of historians like Prof. Harsh Narain, Prof. B.P. Sinha, Dr. S.P. Gupta, Dr. B.R. Grover, and Mr. A.K. Chatteji (none of them formally associated with the Vishva Hindu Parishad except for Gupta).

The no-temple committee also called BMAC (Babri Masjid Action Committee) approached a leftist Irfan Habib belonging to the Indian Council of Historical Research and his team of historians including R.S Sharma.

Now, the then P.V Narsimha Rao government negotiated both sides and organized a 'state sponsored' debate in 1991 in which both sides were to present evidences. The VHP historians were genuine and their case was too strong. (If they had pursued their arguments even after the demolition in 1992, the accusations of them being violent and communal could have been thwarted). The funny part is, the no-temple side headed by R.S Sharma demanded they wanted 6 whole weeks to study the 'evidence'. Ironically, just a few days before Sharma had collected signs of 40 historians on a statement on the non-existence of the temple. Now if a man can gather 40 historians, how on earth can he need 6 weeks for furnishing arguments ? It was the first indication that the no-temple side was on the losing end.

And the funniest part is, on 24th January 1991 these people were to put forth their arguments. And what did they do ? THEY DIDN'T TURN UP ! They unilaterally broke all talks with the VHP historians..!

In order to cover up, they published a token reply called "Historians' report to the nation" as if the nation was eagerly waiting for their report. And what was in that report ? Typical Marxist style of argument - personal vilification, change of subject, nullifying a wrong with a wrong.. All kinds of cheap gimmicks shown by people who don't have a direct answer.

Arguments that were put up by the no-temple side were not only wrong but showed the deep hatred filled in for Hinduism and RSS.

The first argument was that of Tulsidas (ca 1600AD) not mentioning the construction of Babri by Babar in 1528 in his works of Ram Charit Manas. Funny isn't it ? Is Ram Charit Manas a spiritual work or a history manual ? For the sake of argument, it doesn't mention Akbar, a contemporary of Tulsidas, too.

People like Romila Thapar tried to prove that Hindus themselves demolished their temples. Then how can Babar be considered evil ? Funny evidences of Hindus destroying Kashi Vishwanath temple were given. The examples (?) of Harsha of Kashmir destroying temples, Pushyamitra destroying Buddha idols were furnished.

A 'political' scholar Rajesh Kochhar exceeded all limits. He tried to prove that Ayodhya and Sharayu river existed in Afghanistan and not in India. Lanka was a small island in the Indus (LOL) and so Babri is not Ram Janmabhoomi.

Another historian called Sanujit Ghosh tried to undermine the evidences in Valmiki Ramayana by trying to prove that Mahabharata occurred before Ramayana. *faint*

Personal mud-slinging was at an all-time high during that time.

Sita Ram Goel was one of the famous historians whose book 'Hindu Temples- What happened to them' was a voluminous account of how Islamic invaders destroyed Hindu temples. The communist were indeed pained by such facts seeing that this book also contained valid references to Babri Masjid.

And here started the defamation-

Chetan Bhatt, another communist accused Goel as a person having " highly selective obsession with archaeology and to some extent anthropology" and a " fairly typical RSS-Hindunationalist text".

Harbans Mukhia carried a long article on how 'bad' Sitaram Goel is. It was published in newspapers. The next day a reader commented " I felt the article was more of Goel's biography. I still don't know what Goel's arguments were on Babri"

Manini Chatterjee (a journalist today) was the member of the Communist Party (Marxist) and had written in Calcutta Telegraph on 30th January 1991 calling the works of Goel and others as 'a very bad book' but not a single word of refutation..!

At the end of it, the left-liberals were on the losing side of the argument and had assorted to all sorts of funny tactics to keep their ship sailing. But the damage was done. Right from those fateful years till today, the commies have a bad name for them. The libbers have failed the test of Ram Janmabhoomi debate and they stand decimated even today. Even after 20 years, any reference to that fateful day sends shivers to the spines of historians and leftist intellectuals.

Ultimately, we ourselves have to analyze and be clear on our history and not rely on any borrowed knowledge from the West. This alone can liberate us.