International Conference On Indian History

[Guest]

PART TWO

Yvette Rosser

SAFFRON ARCHEOLOGY AND THE MEDIA


Professor Mukhia, in his newspaper article stressed that not only Muslims destroyed temples during the medieval period, but that Brahmans had also frequently destroyed Jain and Buddhist holy sites. He wrote that there were “innumerable instances of the demolition of Buddhist viharas by Hindus” (emphasis mine). This claim has long been the countervailing ‘leftist’ argument vis-à-vis temple destruction during the medieval period. This accusation was brought forth with a vengeance during the “history pamphleteering” years leading up to the destruction of the Babri Masjid in December 1992. In response to the archeological dog at the Jain temple unearthed near Fatehpur Sikri in 2000, several “JNU-type” scholars once again fell back on this analysis.

This theory has been one of the primary arguments for almost two decades. It became the main tact used during the Ram Janam Bhumi/Babri Masjid controversy by those who argued against the prior existence of a Hindu temple at the long contested sight. They could argue, as they did, that “Babur may have destroyed a temple”, but it was a common practice all over historical India. Especially, they will mention the “hundreds” of instances when Hindu kings destroyed Buddhist sites, though most contenders rarely offered any conclusive evidence.

As early as 1986, a group of Delhi historians, as a block, were writing letters to the editor claiming that Hindus destroyed Buddhist and Jain temples. An early example of this tactic is quoted in full by Sita Ram Goel, in his controversial book, “Hindu Temples, What Happened to Them.” Goel describes the circumstances leading to the publication of their letter, “In August 1986, The Times of India printed on its front page the photographs of two stones carrying defaced carvings of some Hindu deities. There was a short statement beneath the photographs that the stones had been found by the Archaeological Survey of India in course of repairs to the Qutb Mînãr at Delhi. The stones, according to the Survey, had been built into a wall with the carved faces turned inwards.”

Goel goes on to cite several letters to the editor that this photograph elicited:
“The majority of writers congratulated the editor for breaking a conspiracy of silence regarding publication of a certain type of historical facts in the mass media. A few writers regretted that a news item like that should have been published in a prestigious daily in an atmosphere of growing communal tension. None of the writers raised the question or speculated as to how those stones happened to be there. None of them drew any inference from the fact that the Qutb Mînãr stands near the Quwwat al-Islãm Masjid which, according to an inscription on its eastern gate, was built from the materials of twenty-seven Hindu temples.”

Goel mentions another article in The Times of India on September 15, 1986 with a photo depicting “the Idgãh built by Aurangzeb” and “the news that a committee had been formed by some leading citizens for the liberation of what is known to be Srî KrishNa’s place of birth”. This was followed by a few more letters to the editor and then, on October 2: “[A] dozen professors from Delhi…wrote a long letter of protest. The letter … reveals the line laid down by a well-entrenched clique which has come to control all institutions concerned with the researching, writing and teaching of history in this country.”

This letter, written by the Delhi historians twelve years before the BJP came to power at the center, four years before the destruction of the Babri Masjid, complained that they had “noted with growing concern a recent tendency in The Times of India to give a communal twist to news items”. They warned the Times that its “readers should know that historical analysis and interpretations involve more than a mere listing of dates with an eye to pious sentiments”. This list of historians included the same dozen names that still appear on op-ed pieces and press releases that continue to be written to counter what they consider to be communal history, such as the insinuation that the majority of Islamic invaders and rulers desecrated Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain temples.22 Importantly, relevant to the immediate topic, they promote the claim that Hindu rulers in the medieval era were almost as culpable of temple desecrations as were Muslim rulers.

The jointly signed 1986 letter to the editor then took up several issues including Aurangzeb’s temple desecrations and the destruction of Buddhist shrines by Hindus, which in a rebuttal, Sita Ram Goel addresses, one by one. None of the historians who signed the letter engaged Goel’s points. These kinds of one-sided exchanges are typical. When Delhi Historians bring out a critique of certain historical controversies, such as the interpretation of an archaeological dig, their objections are eagerly, sometimes vociferously, addressed by the recipient of the condemnation, issue by issue, such as D.V. Sharma’s response to Harbans Mukhia’s critique.

Regardless, this strategy has not created much dialogue, presumably because the leftist historians do not want to “lower themselves” to entertain what they consider to be “communal ideas”. Nonetheless, each time a leftist historian publishes a critique in the press, a non-leftist scholar, for want of a better word, or commentator writes back and points out flaws uncovered in the suppositions of the eminent historians, point by point. These rebuttal critiques are usually ignored. This pattern is undoubtedly what prompted Anjali Mody, a correspondent for The Hindu to write, in exasperation, “For every fact that a left or liberal historian throws into the public arena to counter the Sangh's claims the Sangh too can, as it has shown, conjure up an opposing ‘fact’. For every piece of masonry quoted as evidence by historians, the Sangh/BJP will produce two.”

This same predominance of data was brought forward to show that there had been a large 11th century temple under the Babri Masjid site, but since the evidence was “tainted by Saffron” or “Nationalism”, the “Delhi historians” refused to consider it. This tendency to discount all research, if it happens to also prove supportive of Indian and/or Hindu Nationalism is repeated constantly in academia. Professors in South Asian Studies Departments have written anthologies and organized conferences about Hindu Revivalism. These educational products rarely if ever include articles or presentations by members of the groups under study.

There are certainly many competent scholars in India who could represent the "non-Marxist", “indigenous”, "Indo-centric" point of view regarding the history and study of India. As a rule, however, their arguments and analyses are usually ignored--except when short excerpts are quoted out of context, especially in op-ed pieces written by “Delhi historians group”. This absence of Hindu voices in the academic treatment of Hindu Revivalism among colleagues in Departments of South Asian Studies is, in an academic world informed by post-Orientalism, post-Edward Said-ism. a startling deficit that does not allow for dispassionate and informed discourse, much less affording any possibility of dialogue.

Sita Ram Goel also complained about the media blackout that occurs when these “Marxist scholars” contest the treatment of certain historical issues. He wrote:
“[A] few readers of The Times of India including several professors of equal rank wrote letters challenging the facts as well as the logic of the Marxist professors. But none of these letters was published in the letters-to-the-editor column of the newspaper. After a fortnight, the daily published some nondescript letters from its lay readers and announced that the “controversy has been closed”. It was a curious statement, to say the least. The controversy had only started with the publication of the long letter from the Marxist professors, accusing The Times of India of spreading “communalism” and making a number of sweeping statements. The other side was waiting for its rejoinders to appear in print. The Times of India would have been only fair to itself and its readers to let the other side have its say. But it developed cold feet. Perhaps it was not prepared to get branded as ‘communalist’ for the sake of ‘a few facts from the dead past.’ Perhaps it was in a hurry to retrieve its reputation which had been ‘compromised’ by the publication of the ‘controversial photographs.’ “

In Western academia, it would seem that politically correct precautions continue dictate scholarship about not only Hindu Nationalism.

The same dismissive treatment and the lack of desire to engage their objects of criticism when those objects argue back, is made obvious by Harbans Mukhia’s failure to respond publicly, or for that matter, privately, to D.V. Sharma’s seven page rebuttal to his article. His response to a reporter from The Hindu is indicative: “Mukhia himself reacted mildly when contacted for his comments: ‘Let me assure Mr. Sharma that I am not denying the fact of demolition of temples in medieval India, but suggesting that each case has to be examined on its own merits and that Muslims had no monopoly over the demolition of others' places of worship. Historical evidence is far too complex to be reduced to simplistic formulas’.”

Professor Mukhia was himself guilty of reducing history to platitudes nurtured by many years of calling ancient Hindus to task for killing Jains and/or Buddhists and destroying their sacred places. He purposefully ignored the more detailed and informed nuances pointed out by the archaeologists concerning the excavation at the site of the demolished Jain temple. Not only had Mukhia pedantically pontificated and wildly speculated, but when the errors in his theory were deconstructed by the archaeologist in charge, he preferred to remain mum.

In much the same fashion that D.V. Sharma took Harbans Mukhia to task for misrepresenting historical evidence and lacking expertise, so too, S.R. Goel, launched into a detailed analysis of the errors he found in the statement sent to The Times of India by the Delhi Historians Group. Though his rejoinder is too lengthy to recount in full, a few examples of the facility with which these non-leftist historians bring forth an immense amount of documentation, just to have it dismissed, is of interest and typical of these ultimately unproductive, as far as mutual understanding is concerned, academic exchanges.