145;Digging won146;t resolve Ayodhya dispute146;

Why is there so much controversy around Tojo Vikas International, the company that was earlier assigned to do the geophysical survey of the disputed site?
From the text of the order, it appears that the High Court had earlier ordered a geophysical survey through a 8216;8216;Canadian8217;8217; company, Tojo-Vikas International Pvt Limited, Kalkaji, New Delhi. This company has no previous experience of archaeological surveying. Nor are the credentials of Claude Robillard, a 8216;8216;Canadian citizen8217;8217; and the company8217;s 8216;8216;advisor and chief geophysicists8217;8217;, any less doubtful. The company8217;s report is singularly taciturn on what exactly it was required to find out. Geophysical surveying for archaeological purposes resorts basically to two kinds of instruments:

8226; magnetic, which essentially help locate metal artefacts and hearths;

8226; resistivity, which gives clues about filled pits, buried walls etc.

For reasons not stated, the company8217;s survey was confined only to the resistivity survey, using ground penetrating radar. No magneto-meter was employed, so there was no possibility of locating hearths which would have indicated domestic habitations and, to that extent, could have narrowed the area where one might be looking for 8216;8216;temple8217;8217; signs. While the Tojo Vikas team in its report does not refer to any background information about the dispute being furnished to it, it certainly lets slip the fact that it was somehow expected by certain quarters to trace 8216;8216;pillars8217;8217; since the Parivar8217;s late convert, B.B. Lal, in his second version 1989 of his original findings on the excavations near the Babri Masjid proclaimed his earlier secret discovery of certain aligned 8216;8216;pillar bases8217;8217;, which he thought had belonged to a large Ram Temple.

Curiously, on the other hand, they try to make no distinction between strong mortar-bonded rubble indicative of Muslim construction and loose debris, and between stones or baked bricks and sun-dried bricks, which one should have expected from such a survey as theirs.

In this latest excavation, would the Tojo Vikas company have a role?
It would. It is said the excavation is to be conducted by the Archaeological Survey of India, with the advice and assistance of Tojo Vikas.

Would you suggest that the ASI should conduct the excavation independently without any other body/bodies?
I can8217;t say much about the ASI8217;s competence to conduct rigorous, scientific and impartial excavations. For about ten years this organisation has not had a professional director-general and persons belonging to the administrative service have occupied this once highly prestigious position. One must remember that the archaeological finds are subject to a wide range of interpretations. If the search is for anything that could possibly belong to a non-Muslim shrine, then almost anything could be defined as a temple relic: a pre-13 century carved stone or image or even a Kushana period brick, though such might easily have come from a domestic house. In that case, the dispute could be unending or could simply give the VHP the benefit of doubt.

What are your views on the demolition of the Babri Masjid structure?
The destruction of the 475-year-old mosque brought shame and dishonour to the country. It8217;s not a question of Hindu or Muslim 8212; the very destruction was an insult to the country and its citizens; an assault on the Indian secular consciousness.

As a historian, what is your opinion on this mandir-masjid debate?
There8217;s no acceptable proof that the Babri Masjid had been built at the site of a Hindu temple. None of the 14 inscribed Persian verses of the time of the original construction 1528-29 even remotely mention this. As the 1991 Historians8217; Report to the Nation by R.S. Sharma, M. Athar Ali, D.N. Jha and Suraj Bhan conclusively showed, there was no reference, in any of the several documents, of the mosque having been built on the site of the temple. Not until nearly 250 years after its construction, was such a claim made.

What about the Sangh Parivar8217;s claims that they possess evidence that the Ram Janmabhoomi temple was originally there?
Once the destruction of the Babri Masjid had taken place, it began to be justified by the Sangh Parivar on various grounds, including that they possessed 8216;8216;evidence8217;8217;. Before one studies this 8216;8216;evidence8217;8217;, it is important to note that the securing of such evidence by the act of destruction was very much in the mind of the BJP and Sangh Parivar, much before the final act of vandalism. There was, till then, no acceptable proof that the Babri Masjid had been built at the site of a Hindu temple. They then turned to archeaology and to Professor B.B. Lal, who had dug near the Babri Masjid. In 1990, in an article in the RSS mouthpiece Manthan, Lal said some 8216;8216;pillar bases8217;8217; he had found had supported pillars of the extension of the original temple that the Babri Masjid had been built on. It was a sheer piece of speculation.

What about the claims of sculptures being found in a pit when the ground was being levelled in 1992?
It is strange that when these sculptures were 8216;8216;found8217;8217;, the ASI was not informed. The discovery was suddenly announced by the VHP and pronounced by such 8216;8216;experts8217;8217; as Swaraj Prakash Gupta as belonging to the 11th century. It seems certain that the sculptures do not belong to a single period at all but range from the 7th to 16th century, as testified by historian R.S. Sharma and thus could not have come from the same temple. Furthermore, as D. Mandal points out, the colouration of some of the objects suggests that they have remained only partly buried and could not have been taken out from a pit. There is every likelihood that these these sculptures were simply brought from outside at a time when the VHP and BJP, through the State Government, had absolute control of the site.

What about the inscribed slab that was found within the domes of the structure, on the very day of the destruction?
According to the VHP8217;s own witness, the slab, as it fell, was coated with mortar. But the slab that is now being presented is in a seemingly mint-fresh condition. There is no trace of mortar on it, nor are there any marks that must result if the strong medieval mortar was later removed from it. It must, therefore, have come from some private collection, certainly not from Babri Masjid.

Your writings and viewpoints have often been criticised as being Leftist.
There are no Left or Right wing historians. All this is a creation of the BJP. In fact, if anyone speaks with a scientific outlook, he8217;s called Leftist by them.