The Ayodhya Temple-Mosque Dispute: Focus on Muslim Sources c17: Chap. 12: Attempts to Sidetrack, Slight, and Suppress Evidence
The Ayodhya Temple-Mosque Dispute: Focus on Muslim Sources c17
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Chap. 12: Attempts to Sidetrack, Slight, and Suppress Evidence
c17.1
Of quite a few casualties of the standards of academic integrity at the hands of self-styled 'secular' academics, those in the fied of medieval Indian historiography happen to be the worst. And, ironically enough, it is they who have begun to storm the world by raising the bogey of distortion of history. Broadly speaking, deliberate distortion of history is a phenomenon of recent growth, say of the current half century. It has been unknown by and large to the main line of Indian historiography. Thanks to the growing politicization of the aristocracy of letters, the unwary are being fed on the misconception that the tales of tyranny over the Hindus under the Sulṭāns and Mughuls are all fabrications of the colonialistically motivated British and pro-British historians in pursuance of the much-maligned British policy of divide-and-rule. Whereas the truth of the matter is that the tales have been told by medieval Muslim chroniclers—contemporaries, near-contemporaries, and eye-witnesses—as well as by some of the tyrants themselves. A veritable brain washing of the nation is under way trying to turn history upside down and write off the persecution of the Hindus through various subterfuges.
c17.2
The method followed by such historians consists of a number of assumptions. First, Muslim tyranny over the Hindus is sought to be ruled out. When researches of Sarkar and the like are referred to, they are dismissed as communal historians. When British historians, compilers, and translators are referred to, they are brushed aside as colonialists interested in setting the one community against the other. When the medieval Muslim historians are referred to, they are discarded as Dārbārī sychophants. When the Jihādic zeal and even candid confessions of such Hindu-persecutors as Maḥmūd of Ghaznin, Tīmūr, Fīrozshāh Tughluq, and Ṭīpū Sulṭān are referred to, they are laughed away as a cloak for a purely politic-economic motive. As Prof. K.S.Lal would have it, 'If the medieval chronicler cries out ''Jihād'', it is not heard; but if he cries aloud persistently, it is claimed that he never meant it.'¹ Finally, if the Jihādic character of the tyranny stands out in bold relief all the same, it is contended that religious persecution was the order of the day.
c17.3
¹ K.S. Lal, *Studies in Medieval Indian History*, p.86
c17.4
Quite in keeping with it all, Professor 'Irfān Ḥabīb adjudges the Rāma temple demolition story as a myth and ascribes its creation to 'Muslim communalist bravado' in order to score a point, viz. in order to proclaim the superiority of Muslim power over Hindu.² But can he give a single example of any Muslim author creating the fiction of demolition of any temple which either never existed or was never demolished? Cases can be cited of Muslim writers' ignoring or omitting facts of temple demolition but not one of fabricating a fiction thereof. It must not be forgotten that Mirzā Jān was a participant in the crescentade for recovery from the Bairāgī-s of the two Ayodhya temple-mosques, the Bābarī mosque and the Hanumāngaḍhī, and that his case would have greatly bolstered up in the court of the king of Awadh and in the eyes of the British Resident if the demolition story had been denied altogether as is being done today.
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² *Qaumī Āwāz*, February 23, 1991
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The irony of the situation is that, when people were not in a position to produce evidence of the temple demolition, they were jeered at for sustaining something without proof. When the British authors' evidence was produced, it was rejected as being motivated. When Muslim authors' evidence is being produced, it is being sought to be rejected as motivated in its own way. God knows what type of evidence will satisfy people of this ilk. The historian has the knack of extracting history from brick and stone. And here we have a lot of direct literary evidence, even from the pen of pro-mosque authors.
c17.7
Critics will do well to remember that demolition of the Rāma temple has never been doubted save in our own time. It is true that Bābar, Mīr Bāqī, and Tulasīdāsa mention neither the temple nor its demolition, but, had they mentioned the same, critics like Prof. ‘Irfān Ḥabīb would have dubbed them liars displaying Muslim communal bravado ! Again, if non-mention of the Rāma temple demolition by Mīr Bāqī be proof positive of its non-demolition or absolute non-existence, non-mention of the Bābarī mosque by Abu ‘l-Faḍl and William Finch would amount to proof of its disappearance after Mīr Bāqī. In fact, mere non-mention is not enough. The evidential value of the first non-mention is nullified by other evidence of the temple demolition, while the second non-mention’s evidential value is enhanced by the fact that there is no evidence of its continuance as a mosque till as late as 1707, as we have seen already. Indeed, non-mention unsupported by other circumstances is seldom a safe anchorage for such conclusions.
c17.8
There has for some time past been in evidence a sinister move in certain quarters to suppress, conceal, or eliminate primary sources in Arabic, Persian, and Urdu testifying to the temple demolition. Examples follow.
c17.9
We have seen in a previous chapter that such reference is available in the Arabic text entitled *Janna al-Mashriq wa Maṭla‘ an-Nūr al-Mashriq* (practically stated, *Jannatu ‘l-Mashriq-i wa Maṭla‘u ‘n-Nūr-i ‘l-Mashriq*), otherwise known as *Al-Hind fī ‘l-‘Ahd-i ‘l-Islāmiyy*, by Maulānā Ḥakīm Sayyid ‘Abdu ‘l-Ḥayy, Maulānā ‘Alī Miyāṅ's father, translated by Maulānā Shama Tabrīz Khāṅ under the title *Hindustān Islāmī ‘Ahd meiṅ*. Obviously for no fault of the book except the reference therein to the temple demolition, the Urdu version is found to have been withdrawn from circulation and even removed from several libraries. There is an English translation also, with which undue liberties have been taken. Writes the leading journalist and thinker Arun Shourie: 'Each reference to each of these mosques having been constructed on the sites of temples with, as in the case of the mosque at Benares, the stones of the very temple which was demolished for that very purpose have been censored out of the English version of the book! No accident that.' Mr. Shourie adds: 'Indeed, there is not just censorship but substitution. In the Urdu volume we are told in regard to the mosque at Qannauj for instance that "This mosque stands on an elevated ground inside the fort of Qannauj. It is well known that it was built on the foundation of some Hindu temple (that stood) here." In the English volume we are told in regard to the same mosque that "It occupied a commanding site, believed to have been the place earlier occupied by an old and decayed fort."¹
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¹ Arun Shourie & others, *Hindu Temples*, p.9
c17.11
In a previous chapter we have seen how the four historians have, in their report to the Government of India, slighted the *Ṣaḥīfah-i Chihal Naṣā'iḥ-i Bahādur-shāhī* instead of pursuing its search with the resources at their command. Indeed, they have gone to the extent of denying the very existence of such a book simply on the ground that it does not find mention in certain catalogues of Persian manuscripts.
c17.12
Another Persian text of Mawlawiyy 'Abdu 'l-Karim is not available to us. No efforts seems to have been made by the historians in power, in the Indian Council of Historical Research for instance. It is a pity that none of the 'secular' historians have to their credit the search for any of the Muslim sources discovered by us. Their job appears to be only to discourage and stifle attempts to carry out such a search.
c17.13
An Urdu translation of the work was published by Maulānā 'Abdu 'l-Ghaffār under the old or a new title *Gumgashtah Ḥālāta-i Ajodhyā Ya'nī Tārīkh-i Pārīnah-i Madīnatu 'l-Awliyā* some time before 1932. Thereafter, at least two more editions came out in 1979 and 1981 respectively. In some edition or editions before the 1981 edition, there is a clear narration of the story of the demolition of the Rāma temple on p. 40 thereof. Only this page of that edition has come to our hand. Maybe, fuller accounts were contained in that edition on matters connected with the demolition story. Any way, even the account appearing on that page is conspicuous by its absence in the 1981 edition which is available to us.
c17.14
Another such example is the fate of the *Muraqqan-i Khusrawī* by Shaykh Muḥammad 'Aẓamat 'Alī Kākorawī Nāmī, an eye-witness to much that happened during Wājid 'Alī Shāh's reign. The work was completed in 1969 but could see the light of day only in 1986, and that, too, after axing one whole section from it. Only one manuscript of the work is extant and that is in the Tagore Library of Lucknow University. A press copy of it was prepared by Dr. Zakī Kākorawī for publication with the final assistance of the Fakhru 'd-Dīn 'Alī Aḥmad Memorial Committee, U.P., Lucknow. The committee vetoed the publication out of its funds of the section dealing with the crescentade led by Mawlawiyy Amīr 'Alī Ameṭhawī for re-possession of the Hanumāngaḍhī and the Bābarī mosque, on the ground that its publication would not be opportune in view of the prevailing political situation.¹ The result was that Dr. Kākorawī had to publish the book minus that section in 1986. Later, however, he made bold to publish the excluded section separately without the Committee's aid or assistance under the title *Amīr 'Alī Shahīd aur Ma'rakah-i Hanumāngaḍhī* in 1987 from his own Markaz-i Adab-i Urdū, Lucknow. We have quoted from it earlier. Dr. Kākorawī rightly laments that 'suppression of any part of any old composition or compilation like this can create difficulties and misunderstandings for future historians and researchers.'²
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¹ Nāmī, *Amīr 'Alī Shahīd aur Ma'rakah-i Hanumāngaḍhī*, p.3
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² *Loc. cit.*
c17.17
Dr. Kākorawī has one more such feather to his cap. The original edition of Mirzā Rajab 'Alī Beg Surūr's *Fasānah-i 'Ibrat*, comprised of a historical narrative of the last four rulers of Awadh, was compiled around the middle of the last century but saw the light of day in 1884 A.D. It contained a reference to the demolition of the Rāma temple. Sayyid Mas'ūd Ḥasan Rizwī Adīb omitted the reference altogether in its second edition in 1957. Had Dr. Kākorawī not thought it fit to supply the omission in his third, 1977 edition, we would have been deprived of a valuable source of our knowledge of the temple's destruction. It redounds to his credit that he has drawn pointed attention to this important source by also including the account as an appendix to the *Amīr 'Alī Shahīd aur Ma'rakah-i Hanumāngadhī*.
c17.18
Of late, certain 'secular' historians have brought out compilations on the Rāma Janmabhūmi-Bābarī Mosque issue, such as the following:
1. *Babari Masjid Ram Janmabhoomi Controversy*, ed. Asghar Ali Engineer, Delhi, 1990
2. *Anatomy of a Confrontation : The Babari Masjid - Ram Janmabhumi Issue*, S. Gopal, Viking, 1991
3. Sushil Srivastava, *The Disputed Mosque: A Historical Inquiry*, New Delhi, 1991
4. R.S. Sharma, *Communal History and Rama's Ayodhya*, New Delhi, 1990. Their incredibly partisan approach has come under fire at the hands of responsible scholars thus: 'A.N. Engineer's book...is merely a collection of newspaper columns on the subject, or rather a selection, for the above mentioned pertinent critiques by dr. Harsh Narain, A.K. Chatterjee and prof. A.R. Khan.. as well as the relevant articles by Arun Shourie, Ram Swarup, Sita Ram Goel and Jay Dubashi, have been carefully omitted... The only two pro-Hindu articles which he has deigned to include, both published in the RSS paper *Organiser*, were selected for their containing a few weak arguments and poor comparisons, which he then takes on in his introduction.'¹ Further, 'Two weeks after Harsh Narain's article had been published and had disproven the "Janmabhoomi myth" concoction thesis, the *Illustrated Weekly* decided to publish the already well publicized JNU statement once more. Even after A.R. Khan's reply had exploded the objective and scientific pretence of the JNU historians, the whole secularist crowd kept on quoting the "eminent historians". More than half a year later, the leftist paper *Mainstream* still quotes them as "several eminent historians whose professional honesty nobody questions".¹ Again, 'In his *Anatomy of a Confrontation*, the JNU historians do not even mention the powerful argumentation by prof. A.R. Khan, while prof. Harsh Narain and Mr. A.K. Chatterjee's presentation of authentic testimonies...are only mentioned but not detailed and discussed, let alone refuted; but clumsy RSS pamphlets and improvised statements by BJP orators are quoted and analyzed at length.'² Further on, 'a number of the documents, facts and insights presented by people like prof. A.R. Khan, prof. Harsh Narain and Mr. A.K. Chatterjee, have been ignored in nicely published books by prestigious authors like the JNU historians, prof. R.S. Sharma and Mr. A.A. Engineer.'³
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¹ Koenraad Elst, *Ayodhya and After*, p. 85
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¹ *Ibid.*, p. 86
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² Koenraad Elst, *Negationism in India*, p. 40
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³ *Ibid.*, p. 106
c17.23
As a matter of fact, black-out of well documented, acutely argued contributions reinforcing the Hindu standpoint by both the electronic and the print media continues with renewed vigour. A certain leading library of the country of late instituted an enquiry as to how a particular book came to be utilized by the Vishva Hindu Parishad.⁴
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⁴ 'Vishwa Hindu Parishad ko *Hadiqaḥ-i Shuhadā* Kaise Milī', *Qaumī Awāz*, April 4, 1991
c17.25
It is a pity that, thanks to our thoughtless 'secularism' and waning sense of history, such primary sources of medieval Indian history as referred to above are presently in danger of suppression or total extinction. Instead of launching sustained search and research in this behalf, 'secular' historians are going about dismissing relevant data out of hand, imputing unfounded motive to the recorders themselves. The state in general and the universities in particular must do something to protect and retrieve such invaluable documents from unscrupulous hands.