TALKING WITH: PROFESSOR IRFAN HABIB

[As a special team of the Archaeological Survey of
India (ASI) begins excavation at the disputed site in
Ayodhya today, as per the directions of the Allahabad
High Court, the former chairman of the Indian Council
of Historical Research, Professor Irfan Habib, speaks
to Humra Quraishi about the futility of the exercise.
The noted historian who has authored several books,
prominent among which are Agrarian System of Mughal
India and An Atlas of the Mughal Empire, has also
written extensively on the Babri Masjid. Excerpts from
the interview:

Q: As a historian, do you think an excavation of the
disputed site in Ayodhya would clear up the
temple-masjid controversy?

A: In a resolution passed by the Indian History
Congress by ‘‘an overwhelming majority’’ at its annual
session on February 15, 1993 (the first ever after the
Babri Masjid demolition on December 6, 1992), the
principal organisation of Indian historians protested
against the principle that ‘‘a monument can be
destroyed or removed if there are any grounds for
assuming that a religious structure of another
community had previously stood at its site.’’ It went
on to warn that ‘‘such a post-facto rationalisation of
what was done on December 6, 1992 would place in
jeopardy the fate of numerous historical monuments all
over the country, an increasing number of which are
being targeted for destruction by the communal
forces.’’ It would seem that ten years later, the very
principle that the historians had found so intolerable
has received tacit judicial recognition. In this
regard, I feel that today things have got more
complicated and it will be a long fight.

Q: 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?

A: From the text of the order, it appears that the
High Court had earlier ordered a geophysical survey
through a ‘‘Canadian’’ 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 ‘‘Canadian citizen’’ and the company’s
‘‘advisor and chief geophysicists’’, any less
doubtful. The company’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:

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

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

For reasons not stated, the company’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 ‘‘temple’’ 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 ‘‘pillars’’
since the Parivar’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 ‘‘pillar
bases’’, 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.

Q: In this latest excavation, would the Tojo Vikas
company have a role?
A: 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.

Q: Would you suggest that the ASI should conduct the
excavation independently without any other
body/bodies?

A: I can’t say much about the ASI’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.

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

Q: As a historian, what is your opinion on this
mandir-masjid debate?
A: There’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 Historians’ 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.

Q: What about the Sangh Parivar’s claims that they
possess evidence that the Ram Janmabhoomi temple was
originally there?
A: 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
‘‘evidence’’. Before one studies this ‘‘evidence’’, 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 ‘‘pillar bases’’
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.

Q: What about the claims of sculptures being found in
a pit when the ground was being levelled in 1992?
A: It is strange that when these sculptures were
‘‘found’’, the ASI was not informed. The discovery was
suddenly announced by the VHP and pronounced by such
‘‘experts’’ 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.

Q: What about the inscribed slab that was found within
the domes of the structure, on the very day of the
destruction?
A: According to the VHP’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.

Q: Your writings and viewpoints have often been
criticised as being Leftist.

A: 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, he’s called Leftist
by them.

(By courtesy of Indian Express, March 12, 2003)

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