The dating game at Ayodhya

Differences among historians over the ASI8217;s findings are to be expected 8216;What lies underneath8217;, IE, August 28. As Romila Th...

Differences among historians over the ASI8217;s findings are to be expected 8216;What lies underneath8217;, IE, August 28. As Romila Thapar noted, Indian historians have always been reluctant to use or accept hard archaeological evidence. They have preferred literary sources 8212; to the extent that they often trace the beginnings of Indian civilisation to Vedic literature, even though archaeology has revealed that a more advanced culture, the Indus Valley Civilisation, preceded the Vedic age! Thapar observed: 8220;Archaeology, since it is concerned with the discovery and interpretation of the material remains of the past, provides evidence on two significant areas of investigation. One is the study of technology, the answer to how cultures changed. The other is the evidence on the environment or the ecology. Both of these assist in a more realistic assessment of the period concerned.8221; The Past and Prejudice, Sardar Patel Memorial Lectures, January 1972.

When archaeological evidence is dismissed with charges that the ASI is 8220;saffronised8221;, there8217;s little room left for debate, leave alone rationality. Such charges are dangerous because they obscure the facts and confuse the people; they add more venom to the poisonous Ayodhya pot, and thereby serve the interests of groups such as the VHP and BMAC who thrive on stirring that pot. The artifacts recovered by ASI are real; we must examine them and accept the truth they represent, however uncomfortable that truth might be.

Fortunately, there is a purely scientific way to ascertain the age of the lime-mortar material found by the ASI, and which reportedly formed part of a temple. As described in the journal American Scientist 8216;Dating Ancient Mortar8217;, John Hale et al, March-April 2003, the technique of radiocarbon dating, usually used to determine the age of organic material, can be successfully applied to determine the exact age of construction materials containing lime. The principle is simple: all building materials based on lime-mortar, concrete, plaster, whitewash absorb atmospheric carbon dioxide as they harden. Thus, carbon-14 is 8220;fixed8221; in these substances at the exact time of construction, and from then on the radioactive clock in this C-14 begins ticking just as it does with C-14 in the remains of plants and animals after they die. Analysis of the remaining C-14 content reveals the age of the material with great accuracy. Perhaps the courts should consider applying this technique to determine the age of the lime-mortar structure found by the ASI, and thereby settle once and for all the question as to whether it belonged to a pre-Islamic period or not.

Certainly, a solution to the dispute will not emerge from the results of ASI8217;s Ayodhya excavations or judicial verdicts on the title suit. But surely it will not come from the political class either. The politics of communalism created the problem; the VHP and BMAC 8212; spawn of that very communal politics 8212; continue to play the deadly game. The key to a peaceful 8220;negotiated settlement8221; lies with religious leaders of both faiths. Learning the truth about the ASI8217;s findings will certainly strengthen their hands.