Arun Shourie
It isn't just that it is our right, it is our duty. For our Lord, Jesus Christ, has commanded us to go to all the nations of the world, and spread his message and baptize", the missionaries say, and even lay Christians. "How can we disobey his command and still claim to be Christians?"
The point apart that the claim cannot stand in law, how much weight can one attach to the claim itself? What exactly is Jesus supposed to have said? How do we know he said that?
Answers to these questions are vital in themselves - they are central to believing the claim or setting it aside. They are doubly important because they lead us to a fundamental point, indeed to what is the fundamental fraud in missionary activity. But first the answers themselves.
The bare sequence is as follows. Jesus has been nailed to the Cross. He dies. His body is interred. A large stone is placed to close the tomb. Devotees visit the tomb. The body is missing. Jesus appears to disciples. He speaks to them.
Now, let us take the sequence step by step. As everyone knows, there are four Gospels - by Mathew, Mark, Luke and John. In the eyes of the Church each is a saint. Every word of each Gospel is the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Who goes to the tomb ? For what purpose ? "Mary Magdalene and the other Mary to see the sepulchre", says St. Luke [288.1]. "Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome," says St. Mark, as they "had bought sweet spices, that they might come and anoint him" [16.1]. "Mary Magdalene, and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, and other women that were with them", says St. Luke, "bringing the spices which they had prepared" [24.1, 11]. St. John reports Mary Magdalene alone as having gone to the tomb [20.1]. Thus : from Mary Magdalene alone to her and the other Mary, to the two of them and Salome, to the two of them and Joanna plus the other women who were with them. Similarly, whoever went, the purpose was either to "see the sepulchre" or to anoint the body. For the latter they were carrying sweet spices which they had either bought or prepared themselves.
What happened when, whoever went, arrived at the tomb? "And, behold, there was a great earthquake," says St. Mathew, "for the angel of the Lord descended from heaven, and came and rolled back the stone from the door, and sat upon it" [28.2]. St. Mark mentions no earthquake, no angel descending; instead he says that, while on their way the women had been asking each other "who shall roll us away the stone from the door of the sepulchre?," when they arrived they saw that the stone had already been rolled away [16.3-4]. St. Luke too does not report any earthquake, he too says that when the women arrived they found the stone to have been rolled away [24.2]. According to St. John, Mary Magdalene alone had gone. He too mentions neither an earthquake, nor any angel descending. But he too reports that she found the stone to have been rolled away already [20.1].
Upon reaching the tomb, upon seeing the stone rolled away, whom do they encounter ? An angel, says St. Mathew, sitting on the stone he has rolled away, "his countenance was like lightening, and his raiment white as snow", and so awesome was his presence that "and for fear of him the keepers [that is, the guards] did shake, and became as dead men" [28.2-4]. Not an angel, but "a young man", sitting, not on the stone outside the entrance to the tomb, but "on the right side" inside the sepulchre [the women see him after entering the sepulchre]. The young man is "clothed in a long white garment" -- not dazzling like lightening, just ordinary white. And upon encountering a young man unexpectedly inside the tomb, the ones who are "affrighted" are the women -- there is no mention of guards. St. Luke reports no angel, nor does he report one young man. According to him the women encountered "two men.... in shining garments" [24.4]. St. John has Mary Magdalene going alone, she encounters no one [20.1-2]. Thus, from "an angel" to "one young man" to "two men" to no one.
One woman, two sets of three women, or more than three women have reached the tomb. They have encountered an angel, one young man, or two, or none. The women see that the body of Jesus is missing. What happens next?
Do not be afraid, the angel told them. St. Mathew says. You are looking for the Jesus who was crucified. He is not here, for he is risen. "Go quickly and tell his disciples that he is risen from the dead; and behold, he goeth before you into Galilee; there shall ye see him." The women depart quickly "with fear and great joy", and run to the disciples. But on the way, Jesus meets them. "All hail", he says. They fall at his feet, they hold his feet, they worship him. "Be not afraid", Jesus says, "Go tell my brethern that they go into Galilee, and there shall they see me" [28.7-10].
According to St. Mark, neither the angel at the bomb nor Jesus on the way asked them to give that message to the disciples. That one young man did so -- at the tomb itself [16.7].
According to St. Luke the conversation takes place with the two men at the tomb. Not only are the words that are exchanged different. No one - not the angel, not one man, not Jesus, not either of the two men - asks the women to tell the disciples that Jesus is going to Galilee ahead of them and that they will see him there [24.5-7].
According to St. John, what transpired was altogether different. Mary Magdalene goes alone. She sees that the stone has been removed, and the body is missing. She runs "to Simon Peter and to the other disciple, whom Jesus loved", and informs them that the body is missing. Simon Peter and the other disciple run to the sepulchre. They see for themselves, and return home. Mary, on the other hand continues to stand outside, weeping. She looks into the sepulchre and sees two angels "in white sitting, the one at the head, and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain". And then Jesus himself appears to her. Jesus appears to her - as in Mathew. But there are three differences. In Mathew Jesus appears to the two Marys, in John he appears to Mary Magdalene alone. In Mathew he appears as the two Marys are rushing to the disciples, in John he appears when Mary Magdalene, having informed two of the disciples, returns with them to the sepulchre. And, third, in Mathew, Mary Magdalene and Mary, the mother of James, at once recognise him, they fall at his feet, they hold his feet, and worship him [28.9]. But in John, even when she sees Jesus standing in front of her, she does not recognise him. Instead, she takes him to be the gardener [20.14-15].
Jesus speaks to her in John, as Jesus does in Mathew -- though in the latter to two Marys, not one; though on their way to the disciples, and not at the tomb when one of them has returned with the disciples. But what he says is altogether different. In Mathew he says, "Be not afraid : go tell my brethren that they go into Galilee, and there they shall see me." In John, Jesus tells Mary Magdalene, "Touch me not [in Mathew, the two Marys hold him by the feet]; for I am not yet ascended to my Father : but go to my brethern, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and to my God, and your God" [20.17]. Not a word about going to Galilee !
To proceed. The women have seen that the body is missing. They have or have not been told by an angel, by one man, by two men or by Jesus to tell the disciples one thing or something altogether different. Whom do they go and tell ?
In Mathew, they run to get the message to the disciples -- that they get to the disciples can only be inferred. For the account is overtaken by other happenings. First, as we have seen, Jesus himself appears to them. Second,the Gospel diverts to narrate a conspiracy of the Jews -- one which none of the other three Gospels mentions : noticing that the body is missing, the guards go to the chief priests who are at that time in assembly with the elders; there a conspiracy is hatched : to deny that Jesus has risen, the guards are to say that they had fallen asleep and, as they slept, the followers of Jesus whisked away his body. The guards are paid, and guaranteed protection. And on this basis the Jews get a concoction to deny the Resurrection unto this day [28.11-15].
In Mark, the women tell no one : after the conversation with the youngman, Mark informs us, "they went out quickly, and fled from the sepulchre; for they trembled and were amazed : neither said they any thing to any man; for they were afraid" [16.8]. It is in what is acknowledged even in the printed Bibles to be one of three different endings to the Gospel of St. Mark that we are told that the women went to "Peter and his friends" and conveyed what they had been told [third alternate, 16.9-10 in The Good News Bible].
In Luke, the women convey the message to "the eleven disciples and all the rest" [24.8].
In John, Mary Magdalene, who alone has gone to the tomb, goes and tells not, for instance, "the eleven disciples and all the rest", she tells "Simon Peter and the other disciple, whom Jesus loved" [20.2].
But, of course, as she has not encountered anyone at the tomb at this state, she has no message to convey -- neither about going to Galilee nor about Jesus ascending to the Father. All she conveys is that the body is missing.
Informed or not, having received only the news of the missing body or having received that as well as a message, having received one message or an entirely different one, which of the disciples goes to the tomb?
In Mathew no one goes to the sepulchre. The eleven disciples proceed to Galilee [28.16].
In Mark, no one goes to tell the disciples that the body is missing -- the women having been struck dumb by fear. So, no occasion arises for the disciples to go to the sepulchre. Subsequently, Jesus appears to Mary Magdalene. She tells them. But "they, when they had heard that he was alive, and had been seen of her, believed not" [16.11]. In any event, no one goes to the sepulchre.
In Luke, the women narrate everything to the apostles. But, "their words seemed to them as idle tales, and they believed them not" [24.11]. Peter alone gets up and rushes to the sepulchre [24.12]. Though later on, when they are talking to the resurrected Jesus, whom they take to be a stranger, two disciples speak of "certain of them which were with us" having gone to the sepulchre" [24.24].
In John, the information is conveyed not to all the apostles, Mary Magdalene informs only two - "Simon Peter and the other disciple, whom Jesus loved". And the two of them rush to the sepulchre [20.2-4].
The body, having disappeared, Jesus appears. To whom ?
In Mathew he first appears to the two Marys when they are rushing to the disciples [28.9]. Subsequently, as he had promised, he appears to the eleven disciples at Galilee [28.16].
In Mark he appears first to Mary Magdalene alone -- the occasion is neither at the tomb, nor on the way to the disciples, but an altogether different, sui generis one [16.9]. After that he appears "in another form unto two of them, as they walked, and went into the country" [16.12]. And finally he appears "unto the eleven as they sat at meat" [16.14] - where the conversation, to which we shall just return, takes place.
In Luke he appears first to two of the disciples as they are on their way to a village called Emmaus "which was from Jerusalem about three-score furlongs." Jesus walks with them, he talks with them. But they do not recognise him for the longest time - it is only later after he vanishes that, seeing how their hearts burned as the stranger talked with them, that they realise who he was [24.13-32].
They go to tell the eleven. Who says that he has appeared to Simon [24.34]. And as they are talking "Jesus himself stood in the midst of them." Jesus talks to them at length [24.36-50].
In John, Jesus first appears to Mary Magdalene -- outside the sepulchre when she has returned with two of the disciples. She takes him to be the gardener, as we have seen, till he addresses her by her name [20.14 - 17].
He next appears to the disciples as they have assembled behind shut doors "for fear of the Jews" [20.19 - 23].
He appears again to the disciples eight days later - this time doubting Thomas too is present [20.26 - 29].
He appears a third time to his disciples at "the sea of Tiberias" [21.1 - 22]. Extensive exchanges take place between Jesus and the disciples on this - the last -- occasion.
By this uncertain route we reach the exhortation to carry the message to all nations. But what precisely does Jesus say on the subject ?
In Mathew, after telling his disciples that all power has been given to him in heaven and in earth, Jesus says, "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost : teaching them to observe all thing whatsoever I have commanded you : and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen" [28.18 - 20].
In Mark, he upbraids them for "their unbelief and hardness of heart, because they believed not them which had seen him after he had risen." And then come the words relevant to our concern : "And he said unto them Go ye into all the world, and preach the gospel to every creature." "He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned" [16.15 - 16]. Notice that here Jesus is asking the disciples to go "and preach the gospel to every creature" -- he is not asking them to baptize and convert the people they encounter. What he does is to forecast a future for those who believe and have been baptized, and for those who do not believe.
Incidentally, after this Jesus tells them : "And these signs shall follow them that believe; in my name shall they cast out devils; they shall speak with new tongues, they shall take up serpents; and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them; they shall lay hand on the sick, and they shall recover" [16.17 - 18]. Are the missionaries able to take up serpents? Are they immune to poison ? Do the sick recover as they touch them ? Are there devils which missionaries drive away ?
Thus, in a word, while in Mathew what Jesus says about baptism is an exhortation, in Mark it is an adjective. The even more consequential fact in this context is that the earlier manuscripts of the Gospel of St. Mark end at the 8th para of this chapter. Paras 9 to 20 - of which paras 15 to 18 which contain the exhortation form a part -- are acknowledged, even in the printed versions of the Bible today, to be later add-ons.
In Luke, Jesus is at pains to convince the disciples that what has been visited upon him is in accord with what had been written in the scriptures. Luke adds, "And he said unto them, Thus it is written, and thus it behoved Christ to suffer, and to rise from the dead the third day," "And that repentance and remission of sins should be preached in his name among all nations, beginning at Jerusalem" [24.44-47]. Notice that here also Jesus is not asking them to convert and baptize, he is merely asking them to preach in his name -- indeed, what he asks them to preach is also limited to "repentance and remission of sins".
John also reports at length the exchanges which Jesus has with his disciples when he reappears to them. There is not a word in these passages about going out, converting and baptising, or even preaching to the others.
Would a claim based on so tenuous a foundation survive in any court assessing evidence?
Showing posts with label jesus christ. Show all posts
Showing posts with label jesus christ. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 28, 2008
The Futility of Dialogue with Babari Committee
Arun Shourie
For a year and a half you keep issuing statements to the press, and writing ostensibly scholarly articles, and holding forth in interviews that the Babri Mosque was not, most definitely not, built by demolishing or even on a site of a temple. Documents of the other side are sent to you. You are nominated by the All India Babri Mosque Action Committee as an expert who will give his assessment of them. A meeting is scheduled. Before that you meet the then Director General of Archeology who had supervised the excavations at the site. The day the meeting is to begin the newspapers carry yet another categorical statement from "intellectuals", again asserting the line convenient to the AIBMAC. You, of course, are among them.
The meeting commences. on point after point, on document after document, your response is that you have not studied the evidence, that, therefore, you require time to visit it. You are not a field archeologist, you say, and will, therefore, nominate another person, and he too will naturally require time. The person happens to be present. You are informed that the person has not only studied the evidence, he has met and discussed the matter with the Director General, Dr B B Lal, under whose supervising the excavations had been conducted in 1975. others too are named whom he has met for the purpose. But that was in another capacity, you say, now you will need time.
On behalf of the Government, the officer present says that the records of the excavation, maps, four types of narrative accounts, photographs, are available, that Dr Lal has agreed so that they can be inspected the very next day. No, we will need time, you say.
You are on to a new tack. But why has Dr Lal not stated a definite conclusion? In fact it turns out that he has: a video cassette of the interview he gave to the BBC is produced. Can't see it now as there is no VCP, we will need time, you say.
The next day you don't even turn up for the meeting. An expert of the AIBMAC, a Marxist, an intellectual whose name appears invariably in the statements propagandising the AIBMAC point of view.
I summarize; but the account applies more or less to the four professional "experts" who appeared as the AIBMAC's nominees in the meeting on January 24, 1991. The other "experts" of the AIBMAC were just its own office bearers. They went one better. They denied the contents. Indeed they denied the very existence of books written not just by Islamic historians and authors, the photocopies of the relevant pages from which had all been supplied weeks earlier, but they also denied the knowledge of even standard works like the Encyclopedia Britannica. That done, the next day they did not turn up either.
THE ISSUES SPECIFIED
The one thing on which Chandra Shekar's government can claim to have catalysed progress is the Ram Janmabhoomi controversy. This was done in two ways: by getting the two sides to begin talking to each other, and by pin-pointing the issue. The issue Chandra Shekar emphasised was: Was the mosque built by demolishing a Hindu temple or structure?
And in this, Chandra Shekar was adhering to what had been stated categorically by Shri Syed Shahbuddin: "I say that if it is proved that the Babri Masjid has been built after demolishing the Ram Janmabhoomi Mandir on its place, then such a mosque built on such a usurped land deserves to be destroyed. No theologian or Alim can give a fatwa to hold Namaz on it." And this view, in turn, reflects the classical expositions of the law. For instance, the Fatwa-e-Alamgiri categorically states: "It is not permissible to build a mosque on unlawfully acquired land. There may be many forms of unlawful acquisition. For instance, if some people forcibly take somebody's house (or land) and build a mosque or even a Jama Masjid on it, then Namaz in such a mosque will be against the Shariat." In consultation with the two sides, therefore, Chandra Shekar made the issue specific. Each side agreed to submit evidence on this specific issue.
THE AIBMAC EVIDENCE
I was appalled when I saw what the AIBMAC had furnished. It was just a pile of papers. You were expected to wade through them and discover the relevance which flowed from them. I read them dutifully, and was soon convinced that the leaders of the AIBMAC and the intellectuals who had been guiding them had themselves not read them. It wasn't just that so much of it was the stuff of cranks, pages from the book of some chap, to the effect that Ram was actually a Pharaoh of Egypt. Or an article by someone based, he says, on what he has learnt from one dancer in Sri Lanka, and setting out a folk story, knowledge of which he himself says is confined to a small part of a small district in that country, to the effect that Sita was Ram's sister whom he married, etc.
It was not just that so much of the rest was as tertiary as can be -- articles after articles by sundry journalists which set out no evidence -- it was that the overwhelming bulk of it was just a pile of court papers selective court judgment underlying it, some merely the plaints, i.e. the assertions of the parties that happen at the moment to be convenient. And it was that document after document in this lot buttressed the case not of the AIBMAC but of the VHP!
They show that the mosque had not been in use since 1934. They show that it had been in utter neglect: the relevant authority testifying at one point to the person-in-charge being an opium addict, to his being thoroughly unfit to look after even the structure. They show different groups or sects of Muslims fighting each other for acquiring the property, and with the descendants of Mir Baqi, the commander who built the structure. They show that the lands, etc., which were given to them by the British were given not so that they may maintain the structure through the proceeds but so that they may maintain themselves, and that they were given these for services, political and military, they had rendered to the British.
It was evident too that it would be difficult to sustain the claim that the structure was a waqf, as was being maintained now. It was not even listed in the lists of either the Shia or Sunni Waqf Boards, as the law required all waqf properties to be. While the AIBMAC has striven now to rule out of court British gazetteers -- as these, after meticulous examination of written and other evidence, record unambiguously that the mosque was built after demolishing the Ram Janmabhoomi temple -- the rulings and judgments filed by the AIBMAC rely on, reproduce at length and accept the gazetteers on the very point of the issue, indeed, they explicitly decree that the gazetteers are admissible as evidence.
They show the Hindus waging an unremitting struggle to regain this place, held, the documents say, "most sacred" by them. They show them continuing to worship the ground inspite of the mosque having been super imposed on it. They show them constructing structures and temples on the peripheral spots when they are debarred from the main one. They show the current suit being filed well past the time limit allowed by our laws.
On regarding the papers, the AIBMAC had filed as "evidence", I could only conclude, therefore, that either its leaders had not read the papers themselves, or that they had no case and had just tried to over-awe or confuse the government, etc., by dumping a huge miscellaneous heap.
THE VHP DOCUMENTS
In complete contrast, the VHP documents are pertinent to the point, and have not as yet been shown to be deficient in any way. They contain the unambiguous statement of Islamic historians, of Muslim narrators, of the grand-daughter of Aurangzeb, to the effect that the mosque was built by demolishing the Ram temple. They contain accounts of European travelers as well as official publications of the British period -- the gazetteers of 1854, 1877, 1881, 1892, 1905; the Settlement Report of 1880; the Surveyor's Report of 1838; the Archeological Survey Reports of 1891 and 1934 -- all of them reaffirming what the Muslim historians had stated: that the mosque was built by destroying the temple, that some of the pillars are in the mosque still, that the Hindus continue to revere the spot and struggle unremittingly to reacquire it.
They contain revenue records of a hundred years and more, which list the site as "Janmasthan" and specify it to be the property of the mahants. They also show how attempts have been made to erase things from these records and superimpose convenient nomenclatures on them -- crude and unsuccessful attempts, for while the forgers have been able to get at the records in some offices they have not been able to get at them in all the offices!
Most important of all, they contain accounts of the archeological excavations which were conducted at the site from 1975 to 1980. These are conclusive: the bases and the pillars, the stone of which the pillars are made, everything coheres. And everything answers the issue the government and the two sides had specified in the affirmative, and unambiguously so.
"CONTEMPORARY ACCOUNT"
"But where is a contemporary account of the temple being destroyed?" At first it was, "Show us any document." When the gazetteers were produced, it was, "But the British wrote only to divide and rule." (Why, then, do you keep producing judgments of British Magistrates, pray?) "Show us some non-British document, some pre-British document." Now that these too are at hand, the demand is for contemporary account. This when it is well-known that in the contemporary account of the period -- Babar's own memoir -- the pages from the time he reaches Ayodhya, 2nd April 1528 to 18th September 1528 are missing lost, it is hypothesised, in a storm or in the vicissitudes which Humayan's library suffered during his exile.
It is not just that this latest demand is an after thought. It is that in the face of what exists at the site to this day -- the pillars, etc. -- and in the face of archeological findings, and what has been the universal practice as well as the fundamental faith of Islamic evangelists and conquerors such accounts are not necessary. But there is even more conclusive consideration. Today a contemporary account is being demanded in the case of the Babri Mosque. Are those who make this demand prepared to accept this as the criterion - that if a contemporary account exists of the destruction of a temple for constructing a mosque - the case is made?
This entry for 2nd September 1669, for instance, is as contemporary an account as any can ask for: "News came to Court that in accordance with the Emperor's command his officers had demolished the temple of Vishwanath at Banaras." The entry for January 1670 set out the fact for the great temple at Mathura: "In this month of Ramzan, the religious minded Emperor ordered the demolition of the temple at Mathura. In a short time by the great exertions of his officers the destruction of this strong center of infidelity was accomplished. A grand mosque was built on its site at vast expenditure. The idols, large and small, set with costly jewels which had been set up in the temple were brought to Agra and buried under the steps of the Mosque of Begum Sahib in order to be continually trodden upon. The name of Mathura was changed to Islamabad." The entry for 1st January 1705 says: "The Emperor summoning Muhammed Khalid and Khidmat Rai, the darogha of hatchetmen, ordered them to demolish the temple at Pandarpur, and to take the butchers of the camp there and slaughter cows in the temple. It was done."
If the fact that a contemporary account of the temple at Ayodhya is not available leaves the matter unsettled, does the fact that contemporary accounts are available for the temples at Kashi, Mathura, Pandharpur, and a host of other places, settle the matter? One has only to ask the question to know that the "experts" and "intellectuals" will immediately ask for something else.
HISTORICITY
"But there is no proof that Ram himself existed; nor are any of the other facts about him proven."
The four Gospels themselves, to say nothing of the work that has been done in the last hundred years, differ on fact after fact about Jesus - from the names of his ancestors to the crucifixion and resurrection. The Quran repudiates even the most basic facts about Jesus Christ - it emphatically denounces the notion that he was the Son of God, it repudiates the notion of his virgin birth, it insists that he was not the one who was crucified but a look alike, thereby putting the question of resurrection out altogether. And which member of the AIBMAC will say that the Quran is not an authentic recounting of the facts? Does that mean that every single church rests on myth?
Nor is the historicity of the Prophet the distinguishing feature about him. Every ordinary person living today is historically verifiable after all. The unique feature about the Prophet is that Allah chose him to transmit the Quran, but it would be absurd to ask anyone to prove the fact of Allah having chosen him. It is a matter of faith.
Indeed, the uniqueness of the Quran itself is a matter of faith. What we have read, and revere, is the reproduction of the original which lies in heaven inscribed on tablets of gold. And it is the contents of that original which Allah transmitted through the angel Gabriel to the Prophet. Heave, the original on tablets of gold, Allah's decision, Gabriel -- do we prove these?
They, too, are matters of faith. And every mosque is a celebration of those separate foci of faith.
Specific mosques are even more so. The great Al-Aqsa mosque marks the print which the Prophet's foot made as he alighted from the winged horse which had carried him on his journey. The winged horse, the imprint of one particular foot -- in regard to these would we entertain a demand for "proof"? The Hazratbal mosque in Kashmir enshrines what we revere as the hair of the Prophet. Would we think of proving the matter?
And yet that is what we are insisting the devotees of Ram do.
CONCLUSION
The Muslim laity have been badly misled, and now been badly let down by those who set themselves up as their guardians and sole spokesmen. First, they created the scare that were any reasonable solution to be accepted on this matter, Islam would be endangered. Now they have failed to substantiate their rhetoric. Now that they seem to be finding excuses to withdraw from examining the evidence, we are liable to be plunged back into the vicious politics of manipulating politicians by tempting them with promises of delivering banks of votes -- that is, the precise politics which has fermented the current reaction.
We can stem the relapse. As the "experts" have withdrawn, each of us should secure the documents submitted by the two sides and examine them in the minutest detail. Once we do so it will be that much more difficult for propagandists to thwart this singular effort to introduce reason and reasonableness into the problem.
(Reproduced from his column "As I see it.")
For a year and a half you keep issuing statements to the press, and writing ostensibly scholarly articles, and holding forth in interviews that the Babri Mosque was not, most definitely not, built by demolishing or even on a site of a temple. Documents of the other side are sent to you. You are nominated by the All India Babri Mosque Action Committee as an expert who will give his assessment of them. A meeting is scheduled. Before that you meet the then Director General of Archeology who had supervised the excavations at the site. The day the meeting is to begin the newspapers carry yet another categorical statement from "intellectuals", again asserting the line convenient to the AIBMAC. You, of course, are among them.
The meeting commences. on point after point, on document after document, your response is that you have not studied the evidence, that, therefore, you require time to visit it. You are not a field archeologist, you say, and will, therefore, nominate another person, and he too will naturally require time. The person happens to be present. You are informed that the person has not only studied the evidence, he has met and discussed the matter with the Director General, Dr B B Lal, under whose supervising the excavations had been conducted in 1975. others too are named whom he has met for the purpose. But that was in another capacity, you say, now you will need time.
On behalf of the Government, the officer present says that the records of the excavation, maps, four types of narrative accounts, photographs, are available, that Dr Lal has agreed so that they can be inspected the very next day. No, we will need time, you say.
You are on to a new tack. But why has Dr Lal not stated a definite conclusion? In fact it turns out that he has: a video cassette of the interview he gave to the BBC is produced. Can't see it now as there is no VCP, we will need time, you say.
The next day you don't even turn up for the meeting. An expert of the AIBMAC, a Marxist, an intellectual whose name appears invariably in the statements propagandising the AIBMAC point of view.
I summarize; but the account applies more or less to the four professional "experts" who appeared as the AIBMAC's nominees in the meeting on January 24, 1991. The other "experts" of the AIBMAC were just its own office bearers. They went one better. They denied the contents. Indeed they denied the very existence of books written not just by Islamic historians and authors, the photocopies of the relevant pages from which had all been supplied weeks earlier, but they also denied the knowledge of even standard works like the Encyclopedia Britannica. That done, the next day they did not turn up either.
THE ISSUES SPECIFIED
The one thing on which Chandra Shekar's government can claim to have catalysed progress is the Ram Janmabhoomi controversy. This was done in two ways: by getting the two sides to begin talking to each other, and by pin-pointing the issue. The issue Chandra Shekar emphasised was: Was the mosque built by demolishing a Hindu temple or structure?
And in this, Chandra Shekar was adhering to what had been stated categorically by Shri Syed Shahbuddin: "I say that if it is proved that the Babri Masjid has been built after demolishing the Ram Janmabhoomi Mandir on its place, then such a mosque built on such a usurped land deserves to be destroyed. No theologian or Alim can give a fatwa to hold Namaz on it." And this view, in turn, reflects the classical expositions of the law. For instance, the Fatwa-e-Alamgiri categorically states: "It is not permissible to build a mosque on unlawfully acquired land. There may be many forms of unlawful acquisition. For instance, if some people forcibly take somebody's house (or land) and build a mosque or even a Jama Masjid on it, then Namaz in such a mosque will be against the Shariat." In consultation with the two sides, therefore, Chandra Shekar made the issue specific. Each side agreed to submit evidence on this specific issue.
THE AIBMAC EVIDENCE
I was appalled when I saw what the AIBMAC had furnished. It was just a pile of papers. You were expected to wade through them and discover the relevance which flowed from them. I read them dutifully, and was soon convinced that the leaders of the AIBMAC and the intellectuals who had been guiding them had themselves not read them. It wasn't just that so much of it was the stuff of cranks, pages from the book of some chap, to the effect that Ram was actually a Pharaoh of Egypt. Or an article by someone based, he says, on what he has learnt from one dancer in Sri Lanka, and setting out a folk story, knowledge of which he himself says is confined to a small part of a small district in that country, to the effect that Sita was Ram's sister whom he married, etc.
It was not just that so much of the rest was as tertiary as can be -- articles after articles by sundry journalists which set out no evidence -- it was that the overwhelming bulk of it was just a pile of court papers selective court judgment underlying it, some merely the plaints, i.e. the assertions of the parties that happen at the moment to be convenient. And it was that document after document in this lot buttressed the case not of the AIBMAC but of the VHP!
They show that the mosque had not been in use since 1934. They show that it had been in utter neglect: the relevant authority testifying at one point to the person-in-charge being an opium addict, to his being thoroughly unfit to look after even the structure. They show different groups or sects of Muslims fighting each other for acquiring the property, and with the descendants of Mir Baqi, the commander who built the structure. They show that the lands, etc., which were given to them by the British were given not so that they may maintain the structure through the proceeds but so that they may maintain themselves, and that they were given these for services, political and military, they had rendered to the British.
It was evident too that it would be difficult to sustain the claim that the structure was a waqf, as was being maintained now. It was not even listed in the lists of either the Shia or Sunni Waqf Boards, as the law required all waqf properties to be. While the AIBMAC has striven now to rule out of court British gazetteers -- as these, after meticulous examination of written and other evidence, record unambiguously that the mosque was built after demolishing the Ram Janmabhoomi temple -- the rulings and judgments filed by the AIBMAC rely on, reproduce at length and accept the gazetteers on the very point of the issue, indeed, they explicitly decree that the gazetteers are admissible as evidence.
They show the Hindus waging an unremitting struggle to regain this place, held, the documents say, "most sacred" by them. They show them continuing to worship the ground inspite of the mosque having been super imposed on it. They show them constructing structures and temples on the peripheral spots when they are debarred from the main one. They show the current suit being filed well past the time limit allowed by our laws.
On regarding the papers, the AIBMAC had filed as "evidence", I could only conclude, therefore, that either its leaders had not read the papers themselves, or that they had no case and had just tried to over-awe or confuse the government, etc., by dumping a huge miscellaneous heap.
THE VHP DOCUMENTS
In complete contrast, the VHP documents are pertinent to the point, and have not as yet been shown to be deficient in any way. They contain the unambiguous statement of Islamic historians, of Muslim narrators, of the grand-daughter of Aurangzeb, to the effect that the mosque was built by demolishing the Ram temple. They contain accounts of European travelers as well as official publications of the British period -- the gazetteers of 1854, 1877, 1881, 1892, 1905; the Settlement Report of 1880; the Surveyor's Report of 1838; the Archeological Survey Reports of 1891 and 1934 -- all of them reaffirming what the Muslim historians had stated: that the mosque was built by destroying the temple, that some of the pillars are in the mosque still, that the Hindus continue to revere the spot and struggle unremittingly to reacquire it.
They contain revenue records of a hundred years and more, which list the site as "Janmasthan" and specify it to be the property of the mahants. They also show how attempts have been made to erase things from these records and superimpose convenient nomenclatures on them -- crude and unsuccessful attempts, for while the forgers have been able to get at the records in some offices they have not been able to get at them in all the offices!
Most important of all, they contain accounts of the archeological excavations which were conducted at the site from 1975 to 1980. These are conclusive: the bases and the pillars, the stone of which the pillars are made, everything coheres. And everything answers the issue the government and the two sides had specified in the affirmative, and unambiguously so.
"CONTEMPORARY ACCOUNT"
"But where is a contemporary account of the temple being destroyed?" At first it was, "Show us any document." When the gazetteers were produced, it was, "But the British wrote only to divide and rule." (Why, then, do you keep producing judgments of British Magistrates, pray?) "Show us some non-British document, some pre-British document." Now that these too are at hand, the demand is for contemporary account. This when it is well-known that in the contemporary account of the period -- Babar's own memoir -- the pages from the time he reaches Ayodhya, 2nd April 1528 to 18th September 1528 are missing lost, it is hypothesised, in a storm or in the vicissitudes which Humayan's library suffered during his exile.
It is not just that this latest demand is an after thought. It is that in the face of what exists at the site to this day -- the pillars, etc. -- and in the face of archeological findings, and what has been the universal practice as well as the fundamental faith of Islamic evangelists and conquerors such accounts are not necessary. But there is even more conclusive consideration. Today a contemporary account is being demanded in the case of the Babri Mosque. Are those who make this demand prepared to accept this as the criterion - that if a contemporary account exists of the destruction of a temple for constructing a mosque - the case is made?
This entry for 2nd September 1669, for instance, is as contemporary an account as any can ask for: "News came to Court that in accordance with the Emperor's command his officers had demolished the temple of Vishwanath at Banaras." The entry for January 1670 set out the fact for the great temple at Mathura: "In this month of Ramzan, the religious minded Emperor ordered the demolition of the temple at Mathura. In a short time by the great exertions of his officers the destruction of this strong center of infidelity was accomplished. A grand mosque was built on its site at vast expenditure. The idols, large and small, set with costly jewels which had been set up in the temple were brought to Agra and buried under the steps of the Mosque of Begum Sahib in order to be continually trodden upon. The name of Mathura was changed to Islamabad." The entry for 1st January 1705 says: "The Emperor summoning Muhammed Khalid and Khidmat Rai, the darogha of hatchetmen, ordered them to demolish the temple at Pandarpur, and to take the butchers of the camp there and slaughter cows in the temple. It was done."
If the fact that a contemporary account of the temple at Ayodhya is not available leaves the matter unsettled, does the fact that contemporary accounts are available for the temples at Kashi, Mathura, Pandharpur, and a host of other places, settle the matter? One has only to ask the question to know that the "experts" and "intellectuals" will immediately ask for something else.
HISTORICITY
"But there is no proof that Ram himself existed; nor are any of the other facts about him proven."
The four Gospels themselves, to say nothing of the work that has been done in the last hundred years, differ on fact after fact about Jesus - from the names of his ancestors to the crucifixion and resurrection. The Quran repudiates even the most basic facts about Jesus Christ - it emphatically denounces the notion that he was the Son of God, it repudiates the notion of his virgin birth, it insists that he was not the one who was crucified but a look alike, thereby putting the question of resurrection out altogether. And which member of the AIBMAC will say that the Quran is not an authentic recounting of the facts? Does that mean that every single church rests on myth?
Nor is the historicity of the Prophet the distinguishing feature about him. Every ordinary person living today is historically verifiable after all. The unique feature about the Prophet is that Allah chose him to transmit the Quran, but it would be absurd to ask anyone to prove the fact of Allah having chosen him. It is a matter of faith.
Indeed, the uniqueness of the Quran itself is a matter of faith. What we have read, and revere, is the reproduction of the original which lies in heaven inscribed on tablets of gold. And it is the contents of that original which Allah transmitted through the angel Gabriel to the Prophet. Heave, the original on tablets of gold, Allah's decision, Gabriel -- do we prove these?
They, too, are matters of faith. And every mosque is a celebration of those separate foci of faith.
Specific mosques are even more so. The great Al-Aqsa mosque marks the print which the Prophet's foot made as he alighted from the winged horse which had carried him on his journey. The winged horse, the imprint of one particular foot -- in regard to these would we entertain a demand for "proof"? The Hazratbal mosque in Kashmir enshrines what we revere as the hair of the Prophet. Would we think of proving the matter?
And yet that is what we are insisting the devotees of Ram do.
CONCLUSION
The Muslim laity have been badly misled, and now been badly let down by those who set themselves up as their guardians and sole spokesmen. First, they created the scare that were any reasonable solution to be accepted on this matter, Islam would be endangered. Now they have failed to substantiate their rhetoric. Now that they seem to be finding excuses to withdraw from examining the evidence, we are liable to be plunged back into the vicious politics of manipulating politicians by tempting them with promises of delivering banks of votes -- that is, the precise politics which has fermented the current reaction.
We can stem the relapse. As the "experts" have withdrawn, each of us should secure the documents submitted by the two sides and examine them in the minutest detail. Once we do so it will be that much more difficult for propagandists to thwart this singular effort to introduce reason and reasonableness into the problem.
(Reproduced from his column "As I see it.")
The Futility of Dialogue with Babari Committee
The Futility of Dialogue with Babari Committee
Arun Shourie
For a year and a half you keep issuing statements to the press, and writing ostensibly scholarly articles, and holding forth in interviews that the Babri Mosque was not, most definitely not, built by demolishing or even on a site of a temple. Documents of the other side are sent to you. You are nominated by the All India Babri Mosque Action Committee as an expert who will give his assessment of them. A meeting is scheduled. Before that you meet the then Director General of Archeology who had supervised the excavations at the site. The day the meeting is to begin the newspapers carry yet another categorical statement from "intellectuals", again asserting the line convenient to the AIBMAC. You, of course, are among them.
The meeting commences. on point after point, on document after document, your response is that you have not studied the evidence, that, therefore, you require time to visit it. You are not a field archeologist, you say, and will, therefore, nominate another person, and he too will naturally require time. The person happens to be present. You are informed that the person has not only studied the evidence, he has met and discussed the matter with the Director General, Dr B B Lal, under whose supervising the excavations had been conducted in 1975. others too are named whom he has met for the purpose. But that was in another capacity, you say, now you will need time.
On behalf of the Government, the officer present says that the records of the excavation, maps, four types of narrative accounts, photographs, are available, that Dr Lal has agreed so that they can be inspected the very next day. No, we will need time, you say.
You are on to a new tack. But why has Dr Lal not stated a definite conclusion? In fact it turns out that he has: a video cassette of the interview he gave to the BBC is produced. Can't see it now as there is no VCP, we will need time, you say.
The next day you don't even turn up for the meeting. An expert of the AIBMAC, a Marxist, an intellectual whose name appears invariably in the statements propagandising the AIBMAC point of view.
I summarize; but the account applies more or less to the four professional "experts" who appeared as the AIBMAC's nominees in the meeting on January 24, 1991. The other "experts" of the AIBMAC were just its own office bearers. They went one better. They denied the contents. Indeed they denied the very existence of books written not just by Islamic historians and authors, the photocopies of the relevant pages from which had all been supplied weeks earlier, but they also denied the knowledge of even standard works like the Encyclopedia Britannica. That done, the next day they did not turn up either.
THE ISSUES SPECIFIED
The one thing on which Chandra Shekar's government can claim to have catalysed progress is the Ram Janmabhoomi controversy. This was done in two ways: by getting the two sides to begin talking to each other, and by pin-pointing the issue. The issue Chandra Shekar emphasised was: Was the mosque built by demolishing a Hindu temple or structure?
And in this, Chandra Shekar was adhering to what had been stated categorically by Shri Syed Shahbuddin: "I say that if it is proved that the Babri Masjid has been built after demolishing the Ram Janmabhoomi Mandir on its place, then such a mosque built on such a usurped land deserves to be destroyed. No theologian or Alim can give a fatwa to hold Namaz on it." And this view, in turn, reflects the classical expositions of the law. For instance, the Fatwa-e-Alamgiri categorically states: "It is not permissible to build a mosque on unlawfully acquired land. There may be many forms of unlawful acquisition. For instance, if some people forcibly take somebody's house (or land) and build a mosque or even a Jama Masjid on it, then Namaz in such a mosque will be against the Shariat." In consultation with the two sides, therefore, Chandra Shekar made the issue specific. Each side agreed to submit evidence on this specific issue.
THE AIBMAC EVIDENCE
I was appalled when I saw what the AIBMAC had furnished. It was just a pile of papers. You were expected to wade through them and discover the relevance which flowed from them. I read them dutifully, and was soon convinced that the leaders of the AIBMAC and the intellectuals who had been guiding them had themselves not read them. It wasn't just that so much of it was the stuff of cranks, pages from the book of some chap, to the effect that Ram was actually a Pharaoh of Egypt. Or an article by someone based, he says, on what he has learnt from one dancer in Sri Lanka, and setting out a folk story, knowledge of which he himself says is confined to a small part of a small district in that country, to the effect that Sita was Ram's sister whom he married, etc.
It was not just that so much of the rest was as tertiary as can be -- articles after articles by sundry journalists which set out no evidence -- it was that the overwhelming bulk of it was just a pile of court papers selective court judgment underlying it, some merely the plaints, i.e. the assertions of the parties that happen at the moment to be convenient. And it was that document after document in this lot buttressed the case not of the AIBMAC but of the VHP!
They show that the mosque had not been in use since 1934. They show that it had been in utter neglect: the relevant authority testifying at one point to the person-in-charge being an opium addict, to his being thoroughly unfit to look after even the structure. They show different groups or sects of Muslims fighting each other for acquiring the property, and with the descendants of Mir Baqi, the commander who built the structure. They show that the lands, etc., which were given to them by the British were given not so that they may maintain the structure through the proceeds but so that they may maintain themselves, and that they were given these for services, political and military, they had rendered to the British.
It was evident too that it would be difficult to sustain the claim that the structure was a waqf, as was being maintained now. It was not even listed in the lists of either the Shia or Sunni Waqf Boards, as the law required all waqf properties to be. While the AIBMAC has striven now to rule out of court British gazetteers -- as these, after meticulous examination of written and other evidence, record unambiguously that the mosque was built after demolishing the Ram Janmabhoomi temple -- the rulings and judgments filed by the AIBMAC rely on, reproduce at length and accept the gazetteers on the very point of the issue, indeed, they explicitly decree that the gazetteers are admissible as evidence.
They show the Hindus waging an unremitting struggle to regain this place, held, the documents say, "most sacred" by them. They show them continuing to worship the ground inspite of the mosque having been super imposed on it. They show them constructing structures and temples on the peripheral spots when they are debarred from the main one. They show the current suit being filed well past the time limit allowed by our laws.
On regarding the papers, the AIBMAC had filed as "evidence", I could only conclude, therefore, that either its leaders had not read the papers themselves, or that they had no case and had just tried to over-awe or confuse the government, etc., by dumping a huge miscellaneous heap.
THE VHP DOCUMENTS
In complete contrast, the VHP documents are pertinent to the point, and have not as yet been shown to be deficient in any way. They contain the unambiguous statement of Islamic historians, of Muslim narrators, of the grand-daughter of Aurangzeb, to the effect that the mosque was built by demolishing the Ram temple. They contain accounts of European travelers as well as official publications of the British period -- the gazetteers of 1854, 1877, 1881, 1892, 1905; the Settlement Report of 1880; the Surveyor's Report of 1838; the Archeological Survey Reports of 1891 and 1934 -- all of them reaffirming what the Muslim historians had stated: that the mosque was built by destroying the temple, that some of the pillars are in the mosque still, that the Hindus continue to revere the spot and struggle unremittingly to reacquire it.
They contain revenue records of a hundred years and more, which list the site as "Janmasthan" and specify it to be the property of the mahants. They also show how attempts have been made to erase things from these records and superimpose convenient nomenclatures on them -- crude and unsuccessful attempts, for while the forgers have been able to get at the records in some offices they have not been able to get at them in all the offices!
Most important of all, they contain accounts of the archeological excavations which were conducted at the site from 1975 to 1980. These are conclusive: the bases and the pillars, the stone of which the pillars are made, everything coheres. And everything answers the issue the government and the two sides had specified in the affirmative, and unambiguously so.
"CONTEMPORARY ACCOUNT"
"But where is a contemporary account of the temple being destroyed?" At first it was, "Show us any document." When the gazetteers were produced, it was, "But the British wrote only to divide and rule." (Why, then, do you keep producing judgments of British Magistrates, pray?) "Show us some non-British document, some pre-British document." Now that these too are at hand, the demand is for contemporary account. This when it is well-known that in the contemporary account of the period -- Babar's own memoir -- the pages from the time he reaches Ayodhya, 2nd April 1528 to 18th September 1528 are missing lost, it is hypothesised, in a storm or in the vicissitudes which Humayan's library suffered during his exile.
It is not just that this latest demand is an after thought. It is that in the face of what exists at the site to this day -- the pillars, etc. -- and in the face of archeological findings, and what has been the universal practice as well as the fundamental faith of Islamic evangelists and conquerors such accounts are not necessary. But there is even more conclusive consideration. Today a contemporary account is being demanded in the case of the Babri Mosque. Are those who make this demand prepared to accept this as the criterion - that if a contemporary account exists of the destruction of a temple for constructing a mosque - the case is made?
This entry for 2nd September 1669, for instance, is as contemporary an account as any can ask for: "News came to Court that in accordance with the Emperor's command his officers had demolished the temple of Vishwanath at Banaras." The entry for January 1670 set out the fact for the great temple at Mathura: "In this month of Ramzan, the religious minded Emperor ordered the demolition of the temple at Mathura. In a short time by the great exertions of his officers the destruction of this strong center of infidelity was accomplished. A grand mosque was built on its site at vast expenditure. The idols, large and small, set with costly jewels which had been set up in the temple were brought to Agra and buried under the steps of the Mosque of Begum Sahib in order to be continually trodden upon. The name of Mathura was changed to Islamabad." The entry for 1st January 1705 says: "The Emperor summoning Muhammed Khalid and Khidmat Rai, the darogha of hatchetmen, ordered them to demolish the temple at Pandarpur, and to take the butchers of the camp there and slaughter cows in the temple. It was done."
If the fact that a contemporary account of the temple at Ayodhya is not available leaves the matter unsettled, does the fact that contemporary accounts are available for the temples at Kashi, Mathura, Pandharpur, and a host of other places, settle the matter? One has only to ask the question to know that the "experts" and "intellectuals" will immediately ask for something else.
HISTORICITY
"But there is no proof that Ram himself existed; nor are any of the other facts about him proven."
The four Gospels themselves, to say nothing of the work that has been done in the last hundred years, differ on fact after fact about Jesus - from the names of his ancestors to the crucifixion and resurrection. The Quran repudiates even the most basic facts about Jesus Christ - it emphatically denounces the notion that he was the Son of God, it repudiates the notion of his virgin birth, it insists that he was not the one who was crucified but a look alike, thereby putting the question of resurrection out altogether. And which member of the AIBMAC will say that the Quran is not an authentic recounting of the facts? Does that mean that every single church rests on myth?
Nor is the historicity of the Prophet the distinguishing feature about him. Every ordinary person living today is historically verifiable after all. The unique feature about the Prophet is that Allah chose him to transmit the Quran, but it would be absurd to ask anyone to prove the fact of Allah having chosen him. It is a matter of faith.
Indeed, the uniqueness of the Quran itself is a matter of faith. What we have read, and revere, is the reproduction of the original which lies in heaven inscribed on tablets of gold. And it is the contents of that original which Allah transmitted through the angel Gabriel to the Prophet. Heave, the original on tablets of gold, Allah's decision, Gabriel -- do we prove these?
They, too, are matters of faith. And every mosque is a celebration of those separate foci of faith.
Specific mosques are even more so. The great Al-Aqsa mosque marks the print which the Prophet's foot made as he alighted from the winged horse which had carried him on his journey. The winged horse, the imprint of one particular foot -- in regard to these would we entertain a demand for "proof"? The Hazratbal mosque in Kashmir enshrines what we revere as the hair of the Prophet. Would we think of proving the matter?
And yet that is what we are insisting the devotees of Ram do.
CONCLUSION
The Muslim laity have been badly misled, and now been badly let down by those who set themselves up as their guardians and sole spokesmen. First, they created the scare that were any reasonable solution to be accepted on this matter, Islam would be endangered. Now they have failed to substantiate their rhetoric. Now that they seem to be finding excuses to withdraw from examining the evidence, we are liable to be plunged back into the vicious politics of manipulating politicians by tempting them with promises of delivering banks of votes -- that is, the precise politics which has fermented the current reaction.
We can stem the relapse. As the "experts" have withdrawn, each of us should secure the documents submitted by the two sides and examine them in the minutest detail. Once we do so it will be that much more difficult for propagandists to thwart this singular effort to introduce reason and reasonableness into the problem.
(Reproduced from his column "As I see it.")
Arun Shourie
For a year and a half you keep issuing statements to the press, and writing ostensibly scholarly articles, and holding forth in interviews that the Babri Mosque was not, most definitely not, built by demolishing or even on a site of a temple. Documents of the other side are sent to you. You are nominated by the All India Babri Mosque Action Committee as an expert who will give his assessment of them. A meeting is scheduled. Before that you meet the then Director General of Archeology who had supervised the excavations at the site. The day the meeting is to begin the newspapers carry yet another categorical statement from "intellectuals", again asserting the line convenient to the AIBMAC. You, of course, are among them.
The meeting commences. on point after point, on document after document, your response is that you have not studied the evidence, that, therefore, you require time to visit it. You are not a field archeologist, you say, and will, therefore, nominate another person, and he too will naturally require time. The person happens to be present. You are informed that the person has not only studied the evidence, he has met and discussed the matter with the Director General, Dr B B Lal, under whose supervising the excavations had been conducted in 1975. others too are named whom he has met for the purpose. But that was in another capacity, you say, now you will need time.
On behalf of the Government, the officer present says that the records of the excavation, maps, four types of narrative accounts, photographs, are available, that Dr Lal has agreed so that they can be inspected the very next day. No, we will need time, you say.
You are on to a new tack. But why has Dr Lal not stated a definite conclusion? In fact it turns out that he has: a video cassette of the interview he gave to the BBC is produced. Can't see it now as there is no VCP, we will need time, you say.
The next day you don't even turn up for the meeting. An expert of the AIBMAC, a Marxist, an intellectual whose name appears invariably in the statements propagandising the AIBMAC point of view.
I summarize; but the account applies more or less to the four professional "experts" who appeared as the AIBMAC's nominees in the meeting on January 24, 1991. The other "experts" of the AIBMAC were just its own office bearers. They went one better. They denied the contents. Indeed they denied the very existence of books written not just by Islamic historians and authors, the photocopies of the relevant pages from which had all been supplied weeks earlier, but they also denied the knowledge of even standard works like the Encyclopedia Britannica. That done, the next day they did not turn up either.
THE ISSUES SPECIFIED
The one thing on which Chandra Shekar's government can claim to have catalysed progress is the Ram Janmabhoomi controversy. This was done in two ways: by getting the two sides to begin talking to each other, and by pin-pointing the issue. The issue Chandra Shekar emphasised was: Was the mosque built by demolishing a Hindu temple or structure?
And in this, Chandra Shekar was adhering to what had been stated categorically by Shri Syed Shahbuddin: "I say that if it is proved that the Babri Masjid has been built after demolishing the Ram Janmabhoomi Mandir on its place, then such a mosque built on such a usurped land deserves to be destroyed. No theologian or Alim can give a fatwa to hold Namaz on it." And this view, in turn, reflects the classical expositions of the law. For instance, the Fatwa-e-Alamgiri categorically states: "It is not permissible to build a mosque on unlawfully acquired land. There may be many forms of unlawful acquisition. For instance, if some people forcibly take somebody's house (or land) and build a mosque or even a Jama Masjid on it, then Namaz in such a mosque will be against the Shariat." In consultation with the two sides, therefore, Chandra Shekar made the issue specific. Each side agreed to submit evidence on this specific issue.
THE AIBMAC EVIDENCE
I was appalled when I saw what the AIBMAC had furnished. It was just a pile of papers. You were expected to wade through them and discover the relevance which flowed from them. I read them dutifully, and was soon convinced that the leaders of the AIBMAC and the intellectuals who had been guiding them had themselves not read them. It wasn't just that so much of it was the stuff of cranks, pages from the book of some chap, to the effect that Ram was actually a Pharaoh of Egypt. Or an article by someone based, he says, on what he has learnt from one dancer in Sri Lanka, and setting out a folk story, knowledge of which he himself says is confined to a small part of a small district in that country, to the effect that Sita was Ram's sister whom he married, etc.
It was not just that so much of the rest was as tertiary as can be -- articles after articles by sundry journalists which set out no evidence -- it was that the overwhelming bulk of it was just a pile of court papers selective court judgment underlying it, some merely the plaints, i.e. the assertions of the parties that happen at the moment to be convenient. And it was that document after document in this lot buttressed the case not of the AIBMAC but of the VHP!
They show that the mosque had not been in use since 1934. They show that it had been in utter neglect: the relevant authority testifying at one point to the person-in-charge being an opium addict, to his being thoroughly unfit to look after even the structure. They show different groups or sects of Muslims fighting each other for acquiring the property, and with the descendants of Mir Baqi, the commander who built the structure. They show that the lands, etc., which were given to them by the British were given not so that they may maintain the structure through the proceeds but so that they may maintain themselves, and that they were given these for services, political and military, they had rendered to the British.
It was evident too that it would be difficult to sustain the claim that the structure was a waqf, as was being maintained now. It was not even listed in the lists of either the Shia or Sunni Waqf Boards, as the law required all waqf properties to be. While the AIBMAC has striven now to rule out of court British gazetteers -- as these, after meticulous examination of written and other evidence, record unambiguously that the mosque was built after demolishing the Ram Janmabhoomi temple -- the rulings and judgments filed by the AIBMAC rely on, reproduce at length and accept the gazetteers on the very point of the issue, indeed, they explicitly decree that the gazetteers are admissible as evidence.
They show the Hindus waging an unremitting struggle to regain this place, held, the documents say, "most sacred" by them. They show them continuing to worship the ground inspite of the mosque having been super imposed on it. They show them constructing structures and temples on the peripheral spots when they are debarred from the main one. They show the current suit being filed well past the time limit allowed by our laws.
On regarding the papers, the AIBMAC had filed as "evidence", I could only conclude, therefore, that either its leaders had not read the papers themselves, or that they had no case and had just tried to over-awe or confuse the government, etc., by dumping a huge miscellaneous heap.
THE VHP DOCUMENTS
In complete contrast, the VHP documents are pertinent to the point, and have not as yet been shown to be deficient in any way. They contain the unambiguous statement of Islamic historians, of Muslim narrators, of the grand-daughter of Aurangzeb, to the effect that the mosque was built by demolishing the Ram temple. They contain accounts of European travelers as well as official publications of the British period -- the gazetteers of 1854, 1877, 1881, 1892, 1905; the Settlement Report of 1880; the Surveyor's Report of 1838; the Archeological Survey Reports of 1891 and 1934 -- all of them reaffirming what the Muslim historians had stated: that the mosque was built by destroying the temple, that some of the pillars are in the mosque still, that the Hindus continue to revere the spot and struggle unremittingly to reacquire it.
They contain revenue records of a hundred years and more, which list the site as "Janmasthan" and specify it to be the property of the mahants. They also show how attempts have been made to erase things from these records and superimpose convenient nomenclatures on them -- crude and unsuccessful attempts, for while the forgers have been able to get at the records in some offices they have not been able to get at them in all the offices!
Most important of all, they contain accounts of the archeological excavations which were conducted at the site from 1975 to 1980. These are conclusive: the bases and the pillars, the stone of which the pillars are made, everything coheres. And everything answers the issue the government and the two sides had specified in the affirmative, and unambiguously so.
"CONTEMPORARY ACCOUNT"
"But where is a contemporary account of the temple being destroyed?" At first it was, "Show us any document." When the gazetteers were produced, it was, "But the British wrote only to divide and rule." (Why, then, do you keep producing judgments of British Magistrates, pray?) "Show us some non-British document, some pre-British document." Now that these too are at hand, the demand is for contemporary account. This when it is well-known that in the contemporary account of the period -- Babar's own memoir -- the pages from the time he reaches Ayodhya, 2nd April 1528 to 18th September 1528 are missing lost, it is hypothesised, in a storm or in the vicissitudes which Humayan's library suffered during his exile.
It is not just that this latest demand is an after thought. It is that in the face of what exists at the site to this day -- the pillars, etc. -- and in the face of archeological findings, and what has been the universal practice as well as the fundamental faith of Islamic evangelists and conquerors such accounts are not necessary. But there is even more conclusive consideration. Today a contemporary account is being demanded in the case of the Babri Mosque. Are those who make this demand prepared to accept this as the criterion - that if a contemporary account exists of the destruction of a temple for constructing a mosque - the case is made?
This entry for 2nd September 1669, for instance, is as contemporary an account as any can ask for: "News came to Court that in accordance with the Emperor's command his officers had demolished the temple of Vishwanath at Banaras." The entry for January 1670 set out the fact for the great temple at Mathura: "In this month of Ramzan, the religious minded Emperor ordered the demolition of the temple at Mathura. In a short time by the great exertions of his officers the destruction of this strong center of infidelity was accomplished. A grand mosque was built on its site at vast expenditure. The idols, large and small, set with costly jewels which had been set up in the temple were brought to Agra and buried under the steps of the Mosque of Begum Sahib in order to be continually trodden upon. The name of Mathura was changed to Islamabad." The entry for 1st January 1705 says: "The Emperor summoning Muhammed Khalid and Khidmat Rai, the darogha of hatchetmen, ordered them to demolish the temple at Pandarpur, and to take the butchers of the camp there and slaughter cows in the temple. It was done."
If the fact that a contemporary account of the temple at Ayodhya is not available leaves the matter unsettled, does the fact that contemporary accounts are available for the temples at Kashi, Mathura, Pandharpur, and a host of other places, settle the matter? One has only to ask the question to know that the "experts" and "intellectuals" will immediately ask for something else.
HISTORICITY
"But there is no proof that Ram himself existed; nor are any of the other facts about him proven."
The four Gospels themselves, to say nothing of the work that has been done in the last hundred years, differ on fact after fact about Jesus - from the names of his ancestors to the crucifixion and resurrection. The Quran repudiates even the most basic facts about Jesus Christ - it emphatically denounces the notion that he was the Son of God, it repudiates the notion of his virgin birth, it insists that he was not the one who was crucified but a look alike, thereby putting the question of resurrection out altogether. And which member of the AIBMAC will say that the Quran is not an authentic recounting of the facts? Does that mean that every single church rests on myth?
Nor is the historicity of the Prophet the distinguishing feature about him. Every ordinary person living today is historically verifiable after all. The unique feature about the Prophet is that Allah chose him to transmit the Quran, but it would be absurd to ask anyone to prove the fact of Allah having chosen him. It is a matter of faith.
Indeed, the uniqueness of the Quran itself is a matter of faith. What we have read, and revere, is the reproduction of the original which lies in heaven inscribed on tablets of gold. And it is the contents of that original which Allah transmitted through the angel Gabriel to the Prophet. Heave, the original on tablets of gold, Allah's decision, Gabriel -- do we prove these?
They, too, are matters of faith. And every mosque is a celebration of those separate foci of faith.
Specific mosques are even more so. The great Al-Aqsa mosque marks the print which the Prophet's foot made as he alighted from the winged horse which had carried him on his journey. The winged horse, the imprint of one particular foot -- in regard to these would we entertain a demand for "proof"? The Hazratbal mosque in Kashmir enshrines what we revere as the hair of the Prophet. Would we think of proving the matter?
And yet that is what we are insisting the devotees of Ram do.
CONCLUSION
The Muslim laity have been badly misled, and now been badly let down by those who set themselves up as their guardians and sole spokesmen. First, they created the scare that were any reasonable solution to be accepted on this matter, Islam would be endangered. Now they have failed to substantiate their rhetoric. Now that they seem to be finding excuses to withdraw from examining the evidence, we are liable to be plunged back into the vicious politics of manipulating politicians by tempting them with promises of delivering banks of votes -- that is, the precise politics which has fermented the current reaction.
We can stem the relapse. As the "experts" have withdrawn, each of us should secure the documents submitted by the two sides and examine them in the minutest detail. Once we do so it will be that much more difficult for propagandists to thwart this singular effort to introduce reason and reasonableness into the problem.
(Reproduced from his column "As I see it.")
The Futility of Dialogue with Babari Committee
The Futility of Dialogue with Babari Committee
Arun Shourie
For a year and a half you keep issuing statements to the press, and writing ostensibly scholarly articles, and holding forth in interviews that the Babri Mosque was not, most definitely not, built by demolishing or even on a site of a temple. Documents of the other side are sent to you. You are nominated by the All India Babri Mosque Action Committee as an expert who will give his assessment of them. A meeting is scheduled. Before that you meet the then Director General of Archeology who had supervised the excavations at the site. The day the meeting is to begin the newspapers carry yet another categorical statement from "intellectuals", again asserting the line convenient to the AIBMAC. You, of course, are among them.
The meeting commences. on point after point, on document after document, your response is that you have not studied the evidence, that, therefore, you require time to visit it. You are not a field archeologist, you say, and will, therefore, nominate another person, and he too will naturally require time. The person happens to be present. You are informed that the person has not only studied the evidence, he has met and discussed the matter with the Director General, Dr B B Lal, under whose supervising the excavations had been conducted in 1975. others too are named whom he has met for the purpose. But that was in another capacity, you say, now you will need time.
On behalf of the Government, the officer present says that the records of the excavation, maps, four types of narrative accounts, photographs, are available, that Dr Lal has agreed so that they can be inspected the very next day. No, we will need time, you say.
You are on to a new tack. But why has Dr Lal not stated a definite conclusion? In fact it turns out that he has: a video cassette of the interview he gave to the BBC is produced. Can't see it now as there is no VCP, we will need time, you say.
The next day you don't even turn up for the meeting. An expert of the AIBMAC, a Marxist, an intellectual whose name appears invariably in the statements propagandising the AIBMAC point of view.
I summarize; but the account applies more or less to the four professional "experts" who appeared as the AIBMAC's nominees in the meeting on January 24, 1991. The other "experts" of the AIBMAC were just its own office bearers. They went one better. They denied the contents. Indeed they denied the very existence of books written not just by Islamic historians and authors, the photocopies of the relevant pages from which had all been supplied weeks earlier, but they also denied the knowledge of even standard works like the Encyclopedia Britannica. That done, the next day they did not turn up either.
THE ISSUES SPECIFIED
The one thing on which Chandra Shekar's government can claim to have catalysed progress is the Ram Janmabhoomi controversy. This was done in two ways: by getting the two sides to begin talking to each other, and by pin-pointing the issue. The issue Chandra Shekar emphasised was: Was the mosque built by demolishing a Hindu temple or structure?
And in this, Chandra Shekar was adhering to what had been stated categorically by Shri Syed Shahbuddin: "I say that if it is proved that the Babri Masjid has been built after demolishing the Ram Janmabhoomi Mandir on its place, then such a mosque built on such a usurped land deserves to be destroyed. No theologian or Alim can give a fatwa to hold Namaz on it." And this view, in turn, reflects the classical expositions of the law. For instance, the Fatwa-e-Alamgiri categorically states: "It is not permissible to build a mosque on unlawfully acquired land. There may be many forms of unlawful acquisition. For instance, if some people forcibly take somebody's house (or land) and build a mosque or even a Jama Masjid on it, then Namaz in such a mosque will be against the Shariat." In consultation with the two sides, therefore, Chandra Shekar made the issue specific. Each side agreed to submit evidence on this specific issue.
THE AIBMAC EVIDENCE
I was appalled when I saw what the AIBMAC had furnished. It was just a pile of papers. You were expected to wade through them and discover the relevance which flowed from them. I read them dutifully, and was soon convinced that the leaders of the AIBMAC and the intellectuals who had been guiding them had themselves not read them. It wasn't just that so much of it was the stuff of cranks, pages from the book of some chap, to the effect that Ram was actually a Pharaoh of Egypt. Or an article by someone based, he says, on what he has learnt from one dancer in Sri Lanka, and setting out a folk story, knowledge of which he himself says is confined to a small part of a small district in that country, to the effect that Sita was Ram's sister whom he married, etc.
It was not just that so much of the rest was as tertiary as can be -- articles after articles by sundry journalists which set out no evidence -- it was that the overwhelming bulk of it was just a pile of court papers selective court judgment underlying it, some merely the plaints, i.e. the assertions of the parties that happen at the moment to be convenient. And it was that document after document in this lot buttressed the case not of the AIBMAC but of the VHP!
They show that the mosque had not been in use since 1934. They show that it had been in utter neglect: the relevant authority testifying at one point to the person-in-charge being an opium addict, to his being thoroughly unfit to look after even the structure. They show different groups or sects of Muslims fighting each other for acquiring the property, and with the descendants of Mir Baqi, the commander who built the structure. They show that the lands, etc., which were given to them by the British were given not so that they may maintain the structure through the proceeds but so that they may maintain themselves, and that they were given these for services, political and military, they had rendered to the British.
It was evident too that it would be difficult to sustain the claim that the structure was a waqf, as was being maintained now. It was not even listed in the lists of either the Shia or Sunni Waqf Boards, as the law required all waqf properties to be. While the AIBMAC has striven now to rule out of court British gazetteers -- as these, after meticulous examination of written and other evidence, record unambiguously that the mosque was built after demolishing the Ram Janmabhoomi temple -- the rulings and judgments filed by the AIBMAC rely on, reproduce at length and accept the gazetteers on the very point of the issue, indeed, they explicitly decree that the gazetteers are admissible as evidence.
They show the Hindus waging an unremitting struggle to regain this place, held, the documents say, "most sacred" by them. They show them continuing to worship the ground inspite of the mosque having been super imposed on it. They show them constructing structures and temples on the peripheral spots when they are debarred from the main one. They show the current suit being filed well past the time limit allowed by our laws.
On regarding the papers, the AIBMAC had filed as "evidence", I could only conclude, therefore, that either its leaders had not read the papers themselves, or that they had no case and had just tried to over-awe or confuse the government, etc., by dumping a huge miscellaneous heap.
THE VHP DOCUMENTS
In complete contrast, the VHP documents are pertinent to the point, and have not as yet been shown to be deficient in any way. They contain the unambiguous statement of Islamic historians, of Muslim narrators, of the grand-daughter of Aurangzeb, to the effect that the mosque was built by demolishing the Ram temple. They contain accounts of European travelers as well as official publications of the British period -- the gazetteers of 1854, 1877, 1881, 1892, 1905; the Settlement Report of 1880; the Surveyor's Report of 1838; the Archeological Survey Reports of 1891 and 1934 -- all of them reaffirming what the Muslim historians had stated: that the mosque was built by destroying the temple, that some of the pillars are in the mosque still, that the Hindus continue to revere the spot and struggle unremittingly to reacquire it.
They contain revenue records of a hundred years and more, which list the site as "Janmasthan" and specify it to be the property of the mahants. They also show how attempts have been made to erase things from these records and superimpose convenient nomenclatures on them -- crude and unsuccessful attempts, for while the forgers have been able to get at the records in some offices they have not been able to get at them in all the offices!
Most important of all, they contain accounts of the archeological excavations which were conducted at the site from 1975 to 1980. These are conclusive: the bases and the pillars, the stone of which the pillars are made, everything coheres. And everything answers the issue the government and the two sides had specified in the affirmative, and unambiguously so.
"CONTEMPORARY ACCOUNT"
"But where is a contemporary account of the temple being destroyed?" At first it was, "Show us any document." When the gazetteers were produced, it was, "But the British wrote only to divide and rule." (Why, then, do you keep producing judgments of British Magistrates, pray?) "Show us some non-British document, some pre-British document." Now that these too are at hand, the demand is for contemporary account. This when it is well-known that in the contemporary account of the period -- Babar's own memoir -- the pages from the time he reaches Ayodhya, 2nd April 1528 to 18th September 1528 are missing lost, it is hypothesised, in a storm or in the vicissitudes which Humayan's library suffered during his exile.
It is not just that this latest demand is an after thought. It is that in the face of what exists at the site to this day -- the pillars, etc. -- and in the face of archeological findings, and what has been the universal practice as well as the fundamental faith of Islamic evangelists and conquerors such accounts are not necessary. But there is even more conclusive consideration. Today a contemporary account is being demanded in the case of the Babri Mosque. Are those who make this demand prepared to accept this as the criterion - that if a contemporary account exists of the destruction of a temple for constructing a mosque - the case is made?
This entry for 2nd September 1669, for instance, is as contemporary an account as any can ask for: "News came to Court that in accordance with the Emperor's command his officers had demolished the temple of Vishwanath at Banaras." The entry for January 1670 set out the fact for the great temple at Mathura: "In this month of Ramzan, the religious minded Emperor ordered the demolition of the temple at Mathura. In a short time by the great exertions of his officers the destruction of this strong center of infidelity was accomplished. A grand mosque was built on its site at vast expenditure. The idols, large and small, set with costly jewels which had been set up in the temple were brought to Agra and buried under the steps of the Mosque of Begum Sahib in order to be continually trodden upon. The name of Mathura was changed to Islamabad." The entry for 1st January 1705 says: "The Emperor summoning Muhammed Khalid and Khidmat Rai, the darogha of hatchetmen, ordered them to demolish the temple at Pandarpur, and to take the butchers of the camp there and slaughter cows in the temple. It was done."
If the fact that a contemporary account of the temple at Ayodhya is not available leaves the matter unsettled, does the fact that contemporary accounts are available for the temples at Kashi, Mathura, Pandharpur, and a host of other places, settle the matter? One has only to ask the question to know that the "experts" and "intellectuals" will immediately ask for something else.
HISTORICITY
"But there is no proof that Ram himself existed; nor are any of the other facts about him proven."
The four Gospels themselves, to say nothing of the work that has been done in the last hundred years, differ on fact after fact about Jesus - from the names of his ancestors to the crucifixion and resurrection. The Quran repudiates even the most basic facts about Jesus Christ - it emphatically denounces the notion that he was the Son of God, it repudiates the notion of his virgin birth, it insists that he was not the one who was crucified but a look alike, thereby putting the question of resurrection out altogether. And which member of the AIBMAC will say that the Quran is not an authentic recounting of the facts? Does that mean that every single church rests on myth?
Nor is the historicity of the Prophet the distinguishing feature about him. Every ordinary person living today is historically verifiable after all. The unique feature about the Prophet is that Allah chose him to transmit the Quran, but it would be absurd to ask anyone to prove the fact of Allah having chosen him. It is a matter of faith.
Indeed, the uniqueness of the Quran itself is a matter of faith. What we have read, and revere, is the reproduction of the original which lies in heaven inscribed on tablets of gold. And it is the contents of that original which Allah transmitted through the angel Gabriel to the Prophet. Heave, the original on tablets of gold, Allah's decision, Gabriel -- do we prove these?
They, too, are matters of faith. And every mosque is a celebration of those separate foci of faith.
Specific mosques are even more so. The great Al-Aqsa mosque marks the print which the Prophet's foot made as he alighted from the winged horse which had carried him on his journey. The winged horse, the imprint of one particular foot -- in regard to these would we entertain a demand for "proof"? The Hazratbal mosque in Kashmir enshrines what we revere as the hair of the Prophet. Would we think of proving the matter?
And yet that is what we are insisting the devotees of Ram do.
CONCLUSION
The Muslim laity have been badly misled, and now been badly let down by those who set themselves up as their guardians and sole spokesmen. First, they created the scare that were any reasonable solution to be accepted on this matter, Islam would be endangered. Now they have failed to substantiate their rhetoric. Now that they seem to be finding excuses to withdraw from examining the evidence, we are liable to be plunged back into the vicious politics of manipulating politicians by tempting them with promises of delivering banks of votes -- that is, the precise politics which has fermented the current reaction.
We can stem the relapse. As the "experts" have withdrawn, each of us should secure the documents submitted by the two sides and examine them in the minutest detail. Once we do so it will be that much more difficult for propagandists to thwart this singular effort to introduce reason and reasonableness into the problem.
(Reproduced from his column "As I see it.")
Arun Shourie
For a year and a half you keep issuing statements to the press, and writing ostensibly scholarly articles, and holding forth in interviews that the Babri Mosque was not, most definitely not, built by demolishing or even on a site of a temple. Documents of the other side are sent to you. You are nominated by the All India Babri Mosque Action Committee as an expert who will give his assessment of them. A meeting is scheduled. Before that you meet the then Director General of Archeology who had supervised the excavations at the site. The day the meeting is to begin the newspapers carry yet another categorical statement from "intellectuals", again asserting the line convenient to the AIBMAC. You, of course, are among them.
The meeting commences. on point after point, on document after document, your response is that you have not studied the evidence, that, therefore, you require time to visit it. You are not a field archeologist, you say, and will, therefore, nominate another person, and he too will naturally require time. The person happens to be present. You are informed that the person has not only studied the evidence, he has met and discussed the matter with the Director General, Dr B B Lal, under whose supervising the excavations had been conducted in 1975. others too are named whom he has met for the purpose. But that was in another capacity, you say, now you will need time.
On behalf of the Government, the officer present says that the records of the excavation, maps, four types of narrative accounts, photographs, are available, that Dr Lal has agreed so that they can be inspected the very next day. No, we will need time, you say.
You are on to a new tack. But why has Dr Lal not stated a definite conclusion? In fact it turns out that he has: a video cassette of the interview he gave to the BBC is produced. Can't see it now as there is no VCP, we will need time, you say.
The next day you don't even turn up for the meeting. An expert of the AIBMAC, a Marxist, an intellectual whose name appears invariably in the statements propagandising the AIBMAC point of view.
I summarize; but the account applies more or less to the four professional "experts" who appeared as the AIBMAC's nominees in the meeting on January 24, 1991. The other "experts" of the AIBMAC were just its own office bearers. They went one better. They denied the contents. Indeed they denied the very existence of books written not just by Islamic historians and authors, the photocopies of the relevant pages from which had all been supplied weeks earlier, but they also denied the knowledge of even standard works like the Encyclopedia Britannica. That done, the next day they did not turn up either.
THE ISSUES SPECIFIED
The one thing on which Chandra Shekar's government can claim to have catalysed progress is the Ram Janmabhoomi controversy. This was done in two ways: by getting the two sides to begin talking to each other, and by pin-pointing the issue. The issue Chandra Shekar emphasised was: Was the mosque built by demolishing a Hindu temple or structure?
And in this, Chandra Shekar was adhering to what had been stated categorically by Shri Syed Shahbuddin: "I say that if it is proved that the Babri Masjid has been built after demolishing the Ram Janmabhoomi Mandir on its place, then such a mosque built on such a usurped land deserves to be destroyed. No theologian or Alim can give a fatwa to hold Namaz on it." And this view, in turn, reflects the classical expositions of the law. For instance, the Fatwa-e-Alamgiri categorically states: "It is not permissible to build a mosque on unlawfully acquired land. There may be many forms of unlawful acquisition. For instance, if some people forcibly take somebody's house (or land) and build a mosque or even a Jama Masjid on it, then Namaz in such a mosque will be against the Shariat." In consultation with the two sides, therefore, Chandra Shekar made the issue specific. Each side agreed to submit evidence on this specific issue.
THE AIBMAC EVIDENCE
I was appalled when I saw what the AIBMAC had furnished. It was just a pile of papers. You were expected to wade through them and discover the relevance which flowed from them. I read them dutifully, and was soon convinced that the leaders of the AIBMAC and the intellectuals who had been guiding them had themselves not read them. It wasn't just that so much of it was the stuff of cranks, pages from the book of some chap, to the effect that Ram was actually a Pharaoh of Egypt. Or an article by someone based, he says, on what he has learnt from one dancer in Sri Lanka, and setting out a folk story, knowledge of which he himself says is confined to a small part of a small district in that country, to the effect that Sita was Ram's sister whom he married, etc.
It was not just that so much of the rest was as tertiary as can be -- articles after articles by sundry journalists which set out no evidence -- it was that the overwhelming bulk of it was just a pile of court papers selective court judgment underlying it, some merely the plaints, i.e. the assertions of the parties that happen at the moment to be convenient. And it was that document after document in this lot buttressed the case not of the AIBMAC but of the VHP!
They show that the mosque had not been in use since 1934. They show that it had been in utter neglect: the relevant authority testifying at one point to the person-in-charge being an opium addict, to his being thoroughly unfit to look after even the structure. They show different groups or sects of Muslims fighting each other for acquiring the property, and with the descendants of Mir Baqi, the commander who built the structure. They show that the lands, etc., which were given to them by the British were given not so that they may maintain the structure through the proceeds but so that they may maintain themselves, and that they were given these for services, political and military, they had rendered to the British.
It was evident too that it would be difficult to sustain the claim that the structure was a waqf, as was being maintained now. It was not even listed in the lists of either the Shia or Sunni Waqf Boards, as the law required all waqf properties to be. While the AIBMAC has striven now to rule out of court British gazetteers -- as these, after meticulous examination of written and other evidence, record unambiguously that the mosque was built after demolishing the Ram Janmabhoomi temple -- the rulings and judgments filed by the AIBMAC rely on, reproduce at length and accept the gazetteers on the very point of the issue, indeed, they explicitly decree that the gazetteers are admissible as evidence.
They show the Hindus waging an unremitting struggle to regain this place, held, the documents say, "most sacred" by them. They show them continuing to worship the ground inspite of the mosque having been super imposed on it. They show them constructing structures and temples on the peripheral spots when they are debarred from the main one. They show the current suit being filed well past the time limit allowed by our laws.
On regarding the papers, the AIBMAC had filed as "evidence", I could only conclude, therefore, that either its leaders had not read the papers themselves, or that they had no case and had just tried to over-awe or confuse the government, etc., by dumping a huge miscellaneous heap.
THE VHP DOCUMENTS
In complete contrast, the VHP documents are pertinent to the point, and have not as yet been shown to be deficient in any way. They contain the unambiguous statement of Islamic historians, of Muslim narrators, of the grand-daughter of Aurangzeb, to the effect that the mosque was built by demolishing the Ram temple. They contain accounts of European travelers as well as official publications of the British period -- the gazetteers of 1854, 1877, 1881, 1892, 1905; the Settlement Report of 1880; the Surveyor's Report of 1838; the Archeological Survey Reports of 1891 and 1934 -- all of them reaffirming what the Muslim historians had stated: that the mosque was built by destroying the temple, that some of the pillars are in the mosque still, that the Hindus continue to revere the spot and struggle unremittingly to reacquire it.
They contain revenue records of a hundred years and more, which list the site as "Janmasthan" and specify it to be the property of the mahants. They also show how attempts have been made to erase things from these records and superimpose convenient nomenclatures on them -- crude and unsuccessful attempts, for while the forgers have been able to get at the records in some offices they have not been able to get at them in all the offices!
Most important of all, they contain accounts of the archeological excavations which were conducted at the site from 1975 to 1980. These are conclusive: the bases and the pillars, the stone of which the pillars are made, everything coheres. And everything answers the issue the government and the two sides had specified in the affirmative, and unambiguously so.
"CONTEMPORARY ACCOUNT"
"But where is a contemporary account of the temple being destroyed?" At first it was, "Show us any document." When the gazetteers were produced, it was, "But the British wrote only to divide and rule." (Why, then, do you keep producing judgments of British Magistrates, pray?) "Show us some non-British document, some pre-British document." Now that these too are at hand, the demand is for contemporary account. This when it is well-known that in the contemporary account of the period -- Babar's own memoir -- the pages from the time he reaches Ayodhya, 2nd April 1528 to 18th September 1528 are missing lost, it is hypothesised, in a storm or in the vicissitudes which Humayan's library suffered during his exile.
It is not just that this latest demand is an after thought. It is that in the face of what exists at the site to this day -- the pillars, etc. -- and in the face of archeological findings, and what has been the universal practice as well as the fundamental faith of Islamic evangelists and conquerors such accounts are not necessary. But there is even more conclusive consideration. Today a contemporary account is being demanded in the case of the Babri Mosque. Are those who make this demand prepared to accept this as the criterion - that if a contemporary account exists of the destruction of a temple for constructing a mosque - the case is made?
This entry for 2nd September 1669, for instance, is as contemporary an account as any can ask for: "News came to Court that in accordance with the Emperor's command his officers had demolished the temple of Vishwanath at Banaras." The entry for January 1670 set out the fact for the great temple at Mathura: "In this month of Ramzan, the religious minded Emperor ordered the demolition of the temple at Mathura. In a short time by the great exertions of his officers the destruction of this strong center of infidelity was accomplished. A grand mosque was built on its site at vast expenditure. The idols, large and small, set with costly jewels which had been set up in the temple were brought to Agra and buried under the steps of the Mosque of Begum Sahib in order to be continually trodden upon. The name of Mathura was changed to Islamabad." The entry for 1st January 1705 says: "The Emperor summoning Muhammed Khalid and Khidmat Rai, the darogha of hatchetmen, ordered them to demolish the temple at Pandarpur, and to take the butchers of the camp there and slaughter cows in the temple. It was done."
If the fact that a contemporary account of the temple at Ayodhya is not available leaves the matter unsettled, does the fact that contemporary accounts are available for the temples at Kashi, Mathura, Pandharpur, and a host of other places, settle the matter? One has only to ask the question to know that the "experts" and "intellectuals" will immediately ask for something else.
HISTORICITY
"But there is no proof that Ram himself existed; nor are any of the other facts about him proven."
The four Gospels themselves, to say nothing of the work that has been done in the last hundred years, differ on fact after fact about Jesus - from the names of his ancestors to the crucifixion and resurrection. The Quran repudiates even the most basic facts about Jesus Christ - it emphatically denounces the notion that he was the Son of God, it repudiates the notion of his virgin birth, it insists that he was not the one who was crucified but a look alike, thereby putting the question of resurrection out altogether. And which member of the AIBMAC will say that the Quran is not an authentic recounting of the facts? Does that mean that every single church rests on myth?
Nor is the historicity of the Prophet the distinguishing feature about him. Every ordinary person living today is historically verifiable after all. The unique feature about the Prophet is that Allah chose him to transmit the Quran, but it would be absurd to ask anyone to prove the fact of Allah having chosen him. It is a matter of faith.
Indeed, the uniqueness of the Quran itself is a matter of faith. What we have read, and revere, is the reproduction of the original which lies in heaven inscribed on tablets of gold. And it is the contents of that original which Allah transmitted through the angel Gabriel to the Prophet. Heave, the original on tablets of gold, Allah's decision, Gabriel -- do we prove these?
They, too, are matters of faith. And every mosque is a celebration of those separate foci of faith.
Specific mosques are even more so. The great Al-Aqsa mosque marks the print which the Prophet's foot made as he alighted from the winged horse which had carried him on his journey. The winged horse, the imprint of one particular foot -- in regard to these would we entertain a demand for "proof"? The Hazratbal mosque in Kashmir enshrines what we revere as the hair of the Prophet. Would we think of proving the matter?
And yet that is what we are insisting the devotees of Ram do.
CONCLUSION
The Muslim laity have been badly misled, and now been badly let down by those who set themselves up as their guardians and sole spokesmen. First, they created the scare that were any reasonable solution to be accepted on this matter, Islam would be endangered. Now they have failed to substantiate their rhetoric. Now that they seem to be finding excuses to withdraw from examining the evidence, we are liable to be plunged back into the vicious politics of manipulating politicians by tempting them with promises of delivering banks of votes -- that is, the precise politics which has fermented the current reaction.
We can stem the relapse. As the "experts" have withdrawn, each of us should secure the documents submitted by the two sides and examine them in the minutest detail. Once we do so it will be that much more difficult for propagandists to thwart this singular effort to introduce reason and reasonableness into the problem.
(Reproduced from his column "As I see it.")
The Pope Dispels All Doubts!
Arun Shourie
One thing to be said for the Pope�s visit: he has silenced secularists, as well as missionary-apologists.
Whenever attention has been drawn to the plans the Church has of converting India to Christianity, to its plans of "reaping the great harvest for Jesus," these propagandists and secularists have asserted that a miasma was being manufactured to sow hatred. Now that the Pope has himself declared that the Synod of Bishops was "a call to conversion;" now that he has reiterated his call to the Bishops to "open wide to Christ the doors of Asia;" now that he has proclaimed the goal of the Church again, "just as in the first millennium the Cross was planted on the soil of Europe, and in the second on that of the Americas and Africa, we can pray that in the Third Christian Millennium a great harvest of faith will be reaped in this vast and vital continent;" now that he, having heard reports of the Bishops has proclaimed his expectation, "the character, spiritual fire and zeal" of Asians "will assuredly make Asia the land of a bountiful harvest in the coming millennium;" now that having recalled what he wrote in Redemptoris Missio -- "God is opening before the Church the horizons of a humanity more fully prepared for sowing of the Gospel," -- the Pope has announced, "This vision of a new and promising horizon I see being fulfilled in Asia;" now that the Pope has embraced as his own what his Bishops had proclaimed -- "the heart of the Church in Asia will be restless until the whole of Asia finds its rest in the peace of Christ, the Risen Lord" -- now that he has again proclaimed that the very purpose of the Church is evangelization, that it is "driven" in this task by "the Holy Spirit" indeed that "the Holy Spirit is the prime agent of evangelization," that the Church is "empowered by the Holy Spirit" to carry out this task, the secularists seem a bit non-plussed about how to make out that the apprehensions which were being expressed about the Church�s plans and stratagems are figments manufactured to justify persecution.
And so are the Cardinals and Bishops, I presume! "We don�t want to convert everybody to Christianity," Cardinal Lourdasamy, described by the papers as "the only Indian Cardinal in Vatican City," told Doordarshan. "We just want to say we are Christians." How touching! How humble! And what do the propagandists say after the Pope�s explicit enunciation?
Every time they are confronted with what the Church has itself proclaimed is its one and only purpose -- to enlarge the empire of Christianity -- these propagandists have insisted that after Vatican II such a view is untenable. Vatican II marked a radical break with the past dogma, they have insisted. It acknowledged that other religions too can be paths to salvation. It explicitly embraced ecumenism, it explicitly asked Christians to develop respect for other religions. Vatican II did nothing of the kind, of course. But, confident that few in countries like India would have gone through the documents put out by the Council, the Church here has been putting out such fables. In any case, we now have the Pope himself clear up what he calls "a certain confusion about the true nature of the Church�s mission."
Yes, the Church respects the traditions to be found in Asia, the Pope says. Yes, it respects "the rights of consciences." "Respect, however, does not eliminate the need for the explicit proclamation of the Gospel in its fullness," he states. "Especially in the context of the rich array of cultures and religions in Asia," he says, "it must be pointed out that �neither respect and esteem for these religions nor the complexity of the questions raised are an invitation to the Church to with-hold from these non-Christians the proclamation of Jesus Christ.� " He reiterates the play on words by which he had camouflaged the matter during his visit to India in 1986.
He recalls that he had "stated clearly" then, "the Church�s approach to other religions is one of genuine respect... This respect is twofold: respect for man in his quest for answers to the deepest questions of his life, and respect for the action of the Spirit in man." What does that mean? The Pope explains: "Indeed, the Synod Fathers readily recognised the Spirit�s action in Asian societies, cultures and religions, through which the Father prepares the hearts of Asian peoples for the fullness of life in Christ."
Yes, Asia has many religions. Yes, the Asian people have sought answers to the deepest questions of life. But these religions are just a preparation for their becoming Christians. That is the essential point. Asia has given birth to the major religions, and to many others, and millions in it still espouse traditional and tribal religions, the Pope notes, and says, "The Church has the deepest respect for these traditions and seeks to engage in sincere dialogue with their followers. The religious values they teach await their fulfillment in Jesus Christ." "The Church in Asia finds herself among peoples who display an intense yearning for God," he acknowledges, only to add, "The Church knows that this yearning can only be fully satisfied by Jesus Christ, the Good News of God for all the nations." And again that "The Church is convinced that deep within the people, cultures and religions of Asia there is a thirst for �living water�..., a thirst which the Spirit himself has created and which Jesus the Saviour alone can fully satisfy."
True, these peoples have their ancient traditions and beliefs. But it is the Church which by transmitting "her truths and values" which "renews" them "from within," the Pope asserts. It strengthens "the positive elements already found in them," he maintains. It "refines" them, it "renews" them "in the light of the Gospel." In a word, it is in their own interest that the Church strives to bring the poor souls into Christianity! "The peoples of Asia," declares the Pope on our behalf, "need Jesus Christ and his Gospel. Asia is thirsting for the living water that Jesus alone can give.... The disciples of Christ in Asia must therefore be unstinting in their efforts to fulfill the mission they have received from the Lord..."
In India we are taught to believe that God is everywhere, that He has manifested Himself in many forms, and that, therefore, we must subscribe to sarva dharma samabhav, etc. The Pope has no time for such syrupy make-believe. In his eyes this is no virtue, it is one of the difficulties in making Asians accept that Jesus is the one and only Saviour, it is a notion that has to be put out of harm�s way. Nor, he warns, is the notion that God is universally present to be allowed to become "an excuse for a failure to proclaim Jesus Christ explicitly as the one and only Saviour." Indeed, he asserts emphatically, "the presence of the Spirit in creation and history" points only to Jesus as the one "in whom creation and history are redeemed and fulfilled." To Jesus, and to the Church, he adds for good measure!
It is in this background that the Church�s invitations to "dialogue" must be seen. Much is made of its invitations, they are projected as proof of its openness, even of its modesty -- see, we are willing to learn from others! Almost without exception such non-Christians are invited for exchanges who have little knowledge of the workings of the Church, and even less of their own tradition. They feel compelled to recite the usual homilies about "the essential unity of all religions," they repeat the same platitudes about the Sermon on the Mount. And the Church�s purpose is served: it can show that it is open, that it is tolerant, that it respects people of other faiths.
What does the Pope say is the purpose of such "dialogues"? "Ecumenical dialogue" -- by which he means dialogue with non-Catholic Christians -- "is a challenge," he declares, "and a call to conversion for the whole Church, especially for the Church in Asia where people expect from Christians a clearer sign of unity." The reason he gives for attaining unity among different denominations of Christians is itself revealing: "The Synod of Bishops acknowledged," he recalls, "that �the scandal of a divided Christianity is a great obstacle for evangelization in Asia.� " For us, of course, what he says about the form and purpose of "dialogue" with non-Christians is even more important.
"From the Christian point of view," he declares candidly, "inter-religious dialogue is more than a way of fostering mutual knowledge and enrichment; it is a part of the Church�s evangelizing mission, an expression of the mission ad gentes." "Christians bring to inter-religious dialogue the firm belief," he continues, "that the fullness of salvation comes from Christ alone and that the Church community to which they belong is the ordinary means of salvation."
He recalls that he has already written in an earlier communication to the Asian Bishops, "Although the Church gladly acknowledges whatever is true and holy in the religious traditions of Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam as a reflection of that truth which enlightens all people, this does not lessen her duty and resolve to proclaim without failing Jesus Christ who is �the way and the truth and the life�... The fact that the followers of other religions can receive God�s grace and be saved by Christ apart from the ordinary means which he has established does not thereby cancel the call to faith and baptism which God wills for all people."
Those not accustomed to the circumlocutory enunciations of the Church would do well to note the condescending phrase, "whatever is true and holy in the religious traditions of Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam as a reflection of that truth which enlightens all people." What is true and holy in these religions? That which conforms to Christianity! The rest is but a groping, a preparation for being fulfilled in Christianity!
Therefore, the Pope reminds the assembled Bishops that he has earlier instructed them in Redemptoris Missio, "There must be no abandonment of principles nor false irenicism" -- that is, Christians engaged in "dialogue" must not fall for false attempts to create peace. He is explicit, what he wants Christians to strive for is, to use his words, "Evangelization in dialogue and dialogue for evangelization."
As this is the purpose, he declares that "only those with mature and convinced Christian faith are qualified to engage in genuine interreligious dialogue." Only such persons "can without undue risk and with hope of positive fruit engage in interreligious dialogue." And therefore he urges the Church in Asia "to provide suitable models of interreligious dialogue.... and suitable training for those involved."
And he draws attention to some devices that are already yielding "good results." "Scholarly exchanges," "common action for integral human development," "defence of human and religious values" -- friends who get so enamoured at being called to seminars and workshops on such topics should remember what the purpose of such get-togethers is. Exactly what the purpose of the erstwhile Comintern used to be in setting up "Peace Conferences" and "Peace Committees"!
But there is more that the Pope has dispelled, as we shall see, more for which we must be grateful to His Holiness.
The Observer
November 19, 1999
One thing to be said for the Pope�s visit: he has silenced secularists, as well as missionary-apologists.
Whenever attention has been drawn to the plans the Church has of converting India to Christianity, to its plans of "reaping the great harvest for Jesus," these propagandists and secularists have asserted that a miasma was being manufactured to sow hatred. Now that the Pope has himself declared that the Synod of Bishops was "a call to conversion;" now that he has reiterated his call to the Bishops to "open wide to Christ the doors of Asia;" now that he has proclaimed the goal of the Church again, "just as in the first millennium the Cross was planted on the soil of Europe, and in the second on that of the Americas and Africa, we can pray that in the Third Christian Millennium a great harvest of faith will be reaped in this vast and vital continent;" now that he, having heard reports of the Bishops has proclaimed his expectation, "the character, spiritual fire and zeal" of Asians "will assuredly make Asia the land of a bountiful harvest in the coming millennium;" now that having recalled what he wrote in Redemptoris Missio -- "God is opening before the Church the horizons of a humanity more fully prepared for sowing of the Gospel," -- the Pope has announced, "This vision of a new and promising horizon I see being fulfilled in Asia;" now that the Pope has embraced as his own what his Bishops had proclaimed -- "the heart of the Church in Asia will be restless until the whole of Asia finds its rest in the peace of Christ, the Risen Lord" -- now that he has again proclaimed that the very purpose of the Church is evangelization, that it is "driven" in this task by "the Holy Spirit" indeed that "the Holy Spirit is the prime agent of evangelization," that the Church is "empowered by the Holy Spirit" to carry out this task, the secularists seem a bit non-plussed about how to make out that the apprehensions which were being expressed about the Church�s plans and stratagems are figments manufactured to justify persecution.
And so are the Cardinals and Bishops, I presume! "We don�t want to convert everybody to Christianity," Cardinal Lourdasamy, described by the papers as "the only Indian Cardinal in Vatican City," told Doordarshan. "We just want to say we are Christians." How touching! How humble! And what do the propagandists say after the Pope�s explicit enunciation?
Every time they are confronted with what the Church has itself proclaimed is its one and only purpose -- to enlarge the empire of Christianity -- these propagandists have insisted that after Vatican II such a view is untenable. Vatican II marked a radical break with the past dogma, they have insisted. It acknowledged that other religions too can be paths to salvation. It explicitly embraced ecumenism, it explicitly asked Christians to develop respect for other religions. Vatican II did nothing of the kind, of course. But, confident that few in countries like India would have gone through the documents put out by the Council, the Church here has been putting out such fables. In any case, we now have the Pope himself clear up what he calls "a certain confusion about the true nature of the Church�s mission."
Yes, the Church respects the traditions to be found in Asia, the Pope says. Yes, it respects "the rights of consciences." "Respect, however, does not eliminate the need for the explicit proclamation of the Gospel in its fullness," he states. "Especially in the context of the rich array of cultures and religions in Asia," he says, "it must be pointed out that �neither respect and esteem for these religions nor the complexity of the questions raised are an invitation to the Church to with-hold from these non-Christians the proclamation of Jesus Christ.� " He reiterates the play on words by which he had camouflaged the matter during his visit to India in 1986.
He recalls that he had "stated clearly" then, "the Church�s approach to other religions is one of genuine respect... This respect is twofold: respect for man in his quest for answers to the deepest questions of his life, and respect for the action of the Spirit in man." What does that mean? The Pope explains: "Indeed, the Synod Fathers readily recognised the Spirit�s action in Asian societies, cultures and religions, through which the Father prepares the hearts of Asian peoples for the fullness of life in Christ."
Yes, Asia has many religions. Yes, the Asian people have sought answers to the deepest questions of life. But these religions are just a preparation for their becoming Christians. That is the essential point. Asia has given birth to the major religions, and to many others, and millions in it still espouse traditional and tribal religions, the Pope notes, and says, "The Church has the deepest respect for these traditions and seeks to engage in sincere dialogue with their followers. The religious values they teach await their fulfillment in Jesus Christ." "The Church in Asia finds herself among peoples who display an intense yearning for God," he acknowledges, only to add, "The Church knows that this yearning can only be fully satisfied by Jesus Christ, the Good News of God for all the nations." And again that "The Church is convinced that deep within the people, cultures and religions of Asia there is a thirst for �living water�..., a thirst which the Spirit himself has created and which Jesus the Saviour alone can fully satisfy."
True, these peoples have their ancient traditions and beliefs. But it is the Church which by transmitting "her truths and values" which "renews" them "from within," the Pope asserts. It strengthens "the positive elements already found in them," he maintains. It "refines" them, it "renews" them "in the light of the Gospel." In a word, it is in their own interest that the Church strives to bring the poor souls into Christianity! "The peoples of Asia," declares the Pope on our behalf, "need Jesus Christ and his Gospel. Asia is thirsting for the living water that Jesus alone can give.... The disciples of Christ in Asia must therefore be unstinting in their efforts to fulfill the mission they have received from the Lord..."
In India we are taught to believe that God is everywhere, that He has manifested Himself in many forms, and that, therefore, we must subscribe to sarva dharma samabhav, etc. The Pope has no time for such syrupy make-believe. In his eyes this is no virtue, it is one of the difficulties in making Asians accept that Jesus is the one and only Saviour, it is a notion that has to be put out of harm�s way. Nor, he warns, is the notion that God is universally present to be allowed to become "an excuse for a failure to proclaim Jesus Christ explicitly as the one and only Saviour." Indeed, he asserts emphatically, "the presence of the Spirit in creation and history" points only to Jesus as the one "in whom creation and history are redeemed and fulfilled." To Jesus, and to the Church, he adds for good measure!
It is in this background that the Church�s invitations to "dialogue" must be seen. Much is made of its invitations, they are projected as proof of its openness, even of its modesty -- see, we are willing to learn from others! Almost without exception such non-Christians are invited for exchanges who have little knowledge of the workings of the Church, and even less of their own tradition. They feel compelled to recite the usual homilies about "the essential unity of all religions," they repeat the same platitudes about the Sermon on the Mount. And the Church�s purpose is served: it can show that it is open, that it is tolerant, that it respects people of other faiths.
What does the Pope say is the purpose of such "dialogues"? "Ecumenical dialogue" -- by which he means dialogue with non-Catholic Christians -- "is a challenge," he declares, "and a call to conversion for the whole Church, especially for the Church in Asia where people expect from Christians a clearer sign of unity." The reason he gives for attaining unity among different denominations of Christians is itself revealing: "The Synod of Bishops acknowledged," he recalls, "that �the scandal of a divided Christianity is a great obstacle for evangelization in Asia.� " For us, of course, what he says about the form and purpose of "dialogue" with non-Christians is even more important.
"From the Christian point of view," he declares candidly, "inter-religious dialogue is more than a way of fostering mutual knowledge and enrichment; it is a part of the Church�s evangelizing mission, an expression of the mission ad gentes." "Christians bring to inter-religious dialogue the firm belief," he continues, "that the fullness of salvation comes from Christ alone and that the Church community to which they belong is the ordinary means of salvation."
He recalls that he has already written in an earlier communication to the Asian Bishops, "Although the Church gladly acknowledges whatever is true and holy in the religious traditions of Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam as a reflection of that truth which enlightens all people, this does not lessen her duty and resolve to proclaim without failing Jesus Christ who is �the way and the truth and the life�... The fact that the followers of other religions can receive God�s grace and be saved by Christ apart from the ordinary means which he has established does not thereby cancel the call to faith and baptism which God wills for all people."
Those not accustomed to the circumlocutory enunciations of the Church would do well to note the condescending phrase, "whatever is true and holy in the religious traditions of Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam as a reflection of that truth which enlightens all people." What is true and holy in these religions? That which conforms to Christianity! The rest is but a groping, a preparation for being fulfilled in Christianity!
Therefore, the Pope reminds the assembled Bishops that he has earlier instructed them in Redemptoris Missio, "There must be no abandonment of principles nor false irenicism" -- that is, Christians engaged in "dialogue" must not fall for false attempts to create peace. He is explicit, what he wants Christians to strive for is, to use his words, "Evangelization in dialogue and dialogue for evangelization."
As this is the purpose, he declares that "only those with mature and convinced Christian faith are qualified to engage in genuine interreligious dialogue." Only such persons "can without undue risk and with hope of positive fruit engage in interreligious dialogue." And therefore he urges the Church in Asia "to provide suitable models of interreligious dialogue.... and suitable training for those involved."
And he draws attention to some devices that are already yielding "good results." "Scholarly exchanges," "common action for integral human development," "defence of human and religious values" -- friends who get so enamoured at being called to seminars and workshops on such topics should remember what the purpose of such get-togethers is. Exactly what the purpose of the erstwhile Comintern used to be in setting up "Peace Conferences" and "Peace Committees"!
But there is more that the Pope has dispelled, as we shall see, more for which we must be grateful to His Holiness.
The Observer
November 19, 1999
The Pope Dispels All Doubts!
Arun Shourie
One thing to be said for the Pope�s visit: he has silenced secularists, as well as missionary-apologists.
Whenever attention has been drawn to the plans the Church has of converting India to Christianity, to its plans of "reaping the great harvest for Jesus," these propagandists and secularists have asserted that a miasma was being manufactured to sow hatred. Now that the Pope has himself declared that the Synod of Bishops was "a call to conversion;" now that he has reiterated his call to the Bishops to "open wide to Christ the doors of Asia;" now that he has proclaimed the goal of the Church again, "just as in the first millennium the Cross was planted on the soil of Europe, and in the second on that of the Americas and Africa, we can pray that in the Third Christian Millennium a great harvest of faith will be reaped in this vast and vital continent;" now that he, having heard reports of the Bishops has proclaimed his expectation, "the character, spiritual fire and zeal" of Asians "will assuredly make Asia the land of a bountiful harvest in the coming millennium;" now that having recalled what he wrote in Redemptoris Missio -- "God is opening before the Church the horizons of a humanity more fully prepared for sowing of the Gospel," -- the Pope has announced, "This vision of a new and promising horizon I see being fulfilled in Asia;" now that the Pope has embraced as his own what his Bishops had proclaimed -- "the heart of the Church in Asia will be restless until the whole of Asia finds its rest in the peace of Christ, the Risen Lord" -- now that he has again proclaimed that the very purpose of the Church is evangelization, that it is "driven" in this task by "the Holy Spirit" indeed that "the Holy Spirit is the prime agent of evangelization," that the Church is "empowered by the Holy Spirit" to carry out this task, the secularists seem a bit non-plussed about how to make out that the apprehensions which were being expressed about the Church�s plans and stratagems are figments manufactured to justify persecution.
And so are the Cardinals and Bishops, I presume! "We don�t want to convert everybody to Christianity," Cardinal Lourdasamy, described by the papers as "the only Indian Cardinal in Vatican City," told Doordarshan. "We just want to say we are Christians." How touching! How humble! And what do the propagandists say after the Pope�s explicit enunciation?
Every time they are confronted with what the Church has itself proclaimed is its one and only purpose -- to enlarge the empire of Christianity -- these propagandists have insisted that after Vatican II such a view is untenable. Vatican II marked a radical break with the past dogma, they have insisted. It acknowledged that other religions too can be paths to salvation. It explicitly embraced ecumenism, it explicitly asked Christians to develop respect for other religions. Vatican II did nothing of the kind, of course. But, confident that few in countries like India would have gone through the documents put out by the Council, the Church here has been putting out such fables. In any case, we now have the Pope himself clear up what he calls "a certain confusion about the true nature of the Church�s mission."
Yes, the Church respects the traditions to be found in Asia, the Pope says. Yes, it respects "the rights of consciences." "Respect, however, does not eliminate the need for the explicit proclamation of the Gospel in its fullness," he states. "Especially in the context of the rich array of cultures and religions in Asia," he says, "it must be pointed out that �neither respect and esteem for these religions nor the complexity of the questions raised are an invitation to the Church to with-hold from these non-Christians the proclamation of Jesus Christ.� " He reiterates the play on words by which he had camouflaged the matter during his visit to India in 1986.
He recalls that he had "stated clearly" then, "the Church�s approach to other religions is one of genuine respect... This respect is twofold: respect for man in his quest for answers to the deepest questions of his life, and respect for the action of the Spirit in man." What does that mean? The Pope explains: "Indeed, the Synod Fathers readily recognised the Spirit�s action in Asian societies, cultures and religions, through which the Father prepares the hearts of Asian peoples for the fullness of life in Christ."
Yes, Asia has many religions. Yes, the Asian people have sought answers to the deepest questions of life. But these religions are just a preparation for their becoming Christians. That is the essential point. Asia has given birth to the major religions, and to many others, and millions in it still espouse traditional and tribal religions, the Pope notes, and says, "The Church has the deepest respect for these traditions and seeks to engage in sincere dialogue with their followers. The religious values they teach await their fulfillment in Jesus Christ." "The Church in Asia finds herself among peoples who display an intense yearning for God," he acknowledges, only to add, "The Church knows that this yearning can only be fully satisfied by Jesus Christ, the Good News of God for all the nations." And again that "The Church is convinced that deep within the people, cultures and religions of Asia there is a thirst for �living water�..., a thirst which the Spirit himself has created and which Jesus the Saviour alone can fully satisfy."
True, these peoples have their ancient traditions and beliefs. But it is the Church which by transmitting "her truths and values" which "renews" them "from within," the Pope asserts. It strengthens "the positive elements already found in them," he maintains. It "refines" them, it "renews" them "in the light of the Gospel." In a word, it is in their own interest that the Church strives to bring the poor souls into Christianity! "The peoples of Asia," declares the Pope on our behalf, "need Jesus Christ and his Gospel. Asia is thirsting for the living water that Jesus alone can give.... The disciples of Christ in Asia must therefore be unstinting in their efforts to fulfill the mission they have received from the Lord..."
In India we are taught to believe that God is everywhere, that He has manifested Himself in many forms, and that, therefore, we must subscribe to sarva dharma samabhav, etc. The Pope has no time for such syrupy make-believe. In his eyes this is no virtue, it is one of the difficulties in making Asians accept that Jesus is the one and only Saviour, it is a notion that has to be put out of harm�s way. Nor, he warns, is the notion that God is universally present to be allowed to become "an excuse for a failure to proclaim Jesus Christ explicitly as the one and only Saviour." Indeed, he asserts emphatically, "the presence of the Spirit in creation and history" points only to Jesus as the one "in whom creation and history are redeemed and fulfilled." To Jesus, and to the Church, he adds for good measure!
It is in this background that the Church�s invitations to "dialogue" must be seen. Much is made of its invitations, they are projected as proof of its openness, even of its modesty -- see, we are willing to learn from others! Almost without exception such non-Christians are invited for exchanges who have little knowledge of the workings of the Church, and even less of their own tradition. They feel compelled to recite the usual homilies about "the essential unity of all religions," they repeat the same platitudes about the Sermon on the Mount. And the Church�s purpose is served: it can show that it is open, that it is tolerant, that it respects people of other faiths.
What does the Pope say is the purpose of such "dialogues"? "Ecumenical dialogue" -- by which he means dialogue with non-Catholic Christians -- "is a challenge," he declares, "and a call to conversion for the whole Church, especially for the Church in Asia where people expect from Christians a clearer sign of unity." The reason he gives for attaining unity among different denominations of Christians is itself revealing: "The Synod of Bishops acknowledged," he recalls, "that �the scandal of a divided Christianity is a great obstacle for evangelization in Asia.� " For us, of course, what he says about the form and purpose of "dialogue" with non-Christians is even more important.
"From the Christian point of view," he declares candidly, "inter-religious dialogue is more than a way of fostering mutual knowledge and enrichment; it is a part of the Church�s evangelizing mission, an expression of the mission ad gentes." "Christians bring to inter-religious dialogue the firm belief," he continues, "that the fullness of salvation comes from Christ alone and that the Church community to which they belong is the ordinary means of salvation."
He recalls that he has already written in an earlier communication to the Asian Bishops, "Although the Church gladly acknowledges whatever is true and holy in the religious traditions of Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam as a reflection of that truth which enlightens all people, this does not lessen her duty and resolve to proclaim without failing Jesus Christ who is �the way and the truth and the life�... The fact that the followers of other religions can receive God�s grace and be saved by Christ apart from the ordinary means which he has established does not thereby cancel the call to faith and baptism which God wills for all people."
Those not accustomed to the circumlocutory enunciations of the Church would do well to note the condescending phrase, "whatever is true and holy in the religious traditions of Buddhism, Hinduism and Islam as a reflection of that truth which enlightens all people." What is true and holy in these religions? That which conforms to Christianity! The rest is but a groping, a preparation for being fulfilled in Christianity!
Therefore, the Pope reminds the assembled Bishops that he has earlier instructed them in Redemptoris Missio, "There must be no abandonment of principles nor false irenicism" -- that is, Christians engaged in "dialogue" must not fall for false attempts to create peace. He is explicit, what he wants Christians to strive for is, to use his words, "Evangelization in dialogue and dialogue for evangelization."
As this is the purpose, he declares that "only those with mature and convinced Christian faith are qualified to engage in genuine interreligious dialogue." Only such persons "can without undue risk and with hope of positive fruit engage in interreligious dialogue." And therefore he urges the Church in Asia "to provide suitable models of interreligious dialogue.... and suitable training for those involved."
And he draws attention to some devices that are already yielding "good results." "Scholarly exchanges," "common action for integral human development," "defence of human and religious values" -- friends who get so enamoured at being called to seminars and workshops on such topics should remember what the purpose of such get-togethers is. Exactly what the purpose of the erstwhile Comintern used to be in setting up "Peace Conferences" and "Peace Committees"!
But there is more that the Pope has dispelled, as we shall see, more for which we must be grateful to His Holiness.
The Observer
November 19, 1999
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