No
evidence that present Ayodhya is the Ayodhya mentioned in Ramayana - Ruchika Sharma
by Abhish K Bose
Dr. Ruchika
Sharma obtained her doctorate in History from Centre for Historical Studies,
Jawaharlal Nehru University. Her thesis looks at urban space in medieval Mandu,
Madhya Pradesh. Previously, she did her M. Phil. degree from Centre for
Historical Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University. Her dissertation examines
architectural reuse in medieval Bijapur, Karnataka. She also obtained her Master’s
degree in medieval Indian history from Centre for Historical Studies,
Jawaharlal Nehru University. Dr. Ruchika Sharma has a teaching experience of
five years. She has taught at Indraprastha College for Women, University of
Delhi as Assistant Professor of History, where she was not only responsible for
teaching the assigned courses but also to grade both internal assignments and
external examinations. She was also guest faculty at St. Stephens and Hindu
College of the University of Delhi. She briefly worked as a Teaching Fellow at
Ashoka University. Her interest in public history has led her to contribute to
many English dailies such as Scroll, Quint, The Wire, News
laundry, Mint, Daily O and First Post
Print. She also runs a You tube Channel on history,
Eyeshadow & Etihaas which is largely aimed at busting popular myths of
Indian history as well as making academic history available to the public at
large. The channel currently has over 13,000 subscribers, mostly in the 18-45
age group. She also does a regular video series on history for another YouTube
Channel, the Credible History. The series is titled History Clinic as is
dedicated to weeding out the long-held myths of Indian history. Previously she
also did another series for journalist Barkha Dutt’s channel, Mojo Story. The series is called Beete Din. Dr. Ruchika Sharma has
also written on Dalit activist Savitribai Phule and Mughal queen Nur Jahan as
book chapters for the book Equal Halves published by Juggernaut Books. She was
recently peer reviewed for her paper on the Dar-us-Shifa at Mandu. She is
fluent in English, Hindi, Punjabi, Persian and Urdu.
In an
interview with Abhish K. Bose, Dr Ruchika Sharma discusses a range of issues
pertaining the historical evidences in connection with the Ram temple at
Ayodhya.
Excerpts
from the interview
Abhish K. Bose: Surveying the profession of historians of India,
both in India and abroad (the latter being a growing number of late), can you
comment on the challenges and constraints in addressing majority communalism
adequately? The extent to which historians after independence claimed to be
both secular, and simultaneously confident that Hindu majoritarianism had been
curbed is notable, for example, as is the reluctance to admit that communalism
had a history even before the British practiced their divide and rule tactics.
Do you agree?
Dr. Ruchika Sharma
Dr Ruchika Sharma: There are many challenges.
First of course is this lack of academic history in the public sphere that has
allowed many non-historians to make false claims about our history that have no
sources. These claims are causing a deep polarization in the Indian society
which is dangerous to say the least. What is worrisome is the way in which such
contestations sometimes occur in India, for example the idea that I will show
my history to be great by bringing down the history of another community. But
even more worrisome is the disinformation that often accompany such
contestations. Disinformation in Indian history again stems from not having a
historical methodologies course in school, which could help students understand
how history is done, what are sources, how they are analysed. Then of course is
the brutal trolling, which can me quite challenging to face for anyone who
wishes to spread academic history and bust the myths of history the majority
community supports.
True, there
was communalism even in pre-modern India but not the kind of communalism that
started under the British. Colonial historiography divided all of India’s
history into the binaries of Hindu and Muslim and therefore made it seem like all
Indian history has been just the clash of these two religions. This is of
course ahistorical, there has been plenty of Jaina v/s Virashaiva, Shaiva v/s
Vaishanava clashes in Indian history too. But with the coming of the
British,this ahistorical notion spread that all of Indian history had only
Hindus and Muslims fighting. This belies examples such as the Rajputs fighting
against Maharana Pratap for Mughal emperor Akbar or the Rajputs fighting for
Jahangir against the decani general Malik Ambar. So, this kind of Hindu-Muslim
communalism where the majority Hindu community constantly feels victimised is a
colonial construct and is still stuck!
Abhish K. Bose: With Hindutva borrowing much of the
anticolonial rhetoric, and exploiting nationalist historians’ selective
treatment of the precolonial past, these omissions seem to have come to roost
today – kindly qualify this view from your perspective?
Dr Ruchika Sharma: I would argue Hindutva has a pro
colonial rhetoric, the idea of dividing everything into religious binaries of
Hindu and Muslim was first done by the British when they started writing our
history, architecture was Hindu Muslim, texts were Hindu Muslim, kings were
Hindu Muslim. This was a deeply superficial way of looking at history, because
it erases all complexities of Indian history and makes it look as if religion
was the only governing factor of Indian history which was obviously not the
case. Saffronisation of history takes this even further, and wants to explore
the glorious Hindu history of India. The project is therefore deeply colonial,
because it again continues to divide everything into Hindu and non-Hindu (which
for them is Muslim). So, everything in Indian history which was not Hindu was
villainous and harmful and everything that is Hindu was great and glorious. It
is a disturbingly simplistic reading of Indian history. Plurality and
acculturation have been a hallmark of Indian history, anything that
ignores/erases that is effectively falsifying Indian history and is continuing
the colonial project of reducing Indian history to mere binaries.
Abhish K. Bose: How do you respond to the claims that there
were the structural remains of a temple at the place of the Mosque. In your
studies have you noticed any kind of structural evidences such as any metal or
any other objects? Please explain?
Dr Ruchika Sharma: According to Prof Supriya Varma and
Prof Jaya Menon, what was found underneath the Babri Masjid was a qibla wall of
a mosque. Prof Varma and Menon were part of the court ordered 2003 excavation
as observers and they flagged many problems with the ASI excavation such as the
excavators deliberately creating pillars. Furthermore, the ASI was also unable
to prove that any temple was destroyed to build the mosque, this is written in
the Supreme Court judgment pages 906-907. There is also no textual evidence of
any structure that was destroyed to build Babri mosque, plus it is the mosque
was also not built by Babur. The Baburnama, that is the memoirs of Babur,
mentions nothing of this sort. In fact, it does not even mention Babur ever
going to Ayodhya.
Abhish K. Bose: There is an allegation against the left
historians and intellectuals that they have misguided the Muslim community at
the time of the Babri Masjid dispute resolution by aggravating the dispute,
whereas they were not able to provide concrete evidences to substantiate that
there was no temple at the place of the Babri Masjid and not able to refute the
documents including the revenue records, Gazettes and other sources of
evidences provided by the VHP. Do you have any documentary evidences to refute
these allegations
Dr Ruchika Sharma: The biggest documentary evidence
is the report published by Prof Varma and Menon, mentioned above and the
Supreme Court judgment which clearly states that the land is being allotted to
the Hindus based on faith, since no destruction could be proven. The ASI
excavation itself was flagged by Prof Varma and Prof Menon; 14 complaints were
lodged the most serious one being that the ASI was “creating” pillars.
Furthermore, as stated in the answer above there is no textual evidence that
mentions any destruction of any kind. In fact, the earlier excavations at
Ayodhya, that of Alexander Cunningham in 1876 yielded nothing, only Buddhist
stupas and no ancient or medieval temple or temple remains.
Abhish K. Bose: Is there any archaeological evidences
to support the popular claim that Ayodhya is the birth place of Sri Rama. As a
historian who conducted detailed studies of the documents of the Babri Masjid
Mosque do you agree with that point of view?
Dr Ruchika Sharma: In the Dashratha Jataka, Varanasi is
considered to be the capital and the birthplace of Ram. Furthermore, Ayodhya as
Ramjanmabhoomi starts gaining currency when Abul Fazl is writing his Akbarnama
and Tulsidas his Ramacharitamanas, which is in the 16th century.
Archaeologist BB Lal’s excavation of Ayodhya does not yield any evidence of
descriptions found in Ramayana; the oldest layer of excavation is only 8th
century BCE.
Abhish K. Bose: Is there any historical or archaeological
evidences to confirm that the present Ayodhya is the Ayodhya mentioned in Ramayana?
If so, what are the direct evidences?
Dr Ruchika Sharma: If archaeologist BB Lal’s
excavation reports from 1976-77 and 1979-1980 are to be considered then the
description of Ayodhya found in Ramayana are not found in its excavations.
Hence it is tough to say if the two are the same.
Abhish K. Bose: While studying the original documents
related to Babri Masjid and Ayodhya what are your inferences regarding the
narrative that Muslim rulers of the medieval period destroyed and plundered temples?
Please explain?
Dr Ruchika Sharma: Babri masjid was never built by
destroying any temple, that must even the Supreme Court agree on. As for the
Muslim rulers destroyed temples rhetoric, historian Richard Eaton has done a
study which informs us that only 80 temples were destroyed between 1192-1760 AD
which is generally regarded as the period of the “Muslim rulers”. Furthermore,
many rulers destroyed temples even before the Turks came in. Take the example
of King Harsha of Kashmir, 11th century ruler who according to
Kalhana’s Rajatarangini destroyed many temples and even appointed a man,
Udayaraja as “devotpatanayaka”, officer incharge of breaking idols.
Rajatarangini even informs us how the idols were soiled and desecrated before
breaking them. The Cholas in 10th-11th century broke the
Jain temples built by the ruler Permadi Ganga. Kshemagupta, 10th
century king of Kashmir, wreaked wanton destruction on a Buddhist monastery,
Jayendraviahara, and then reused parts of it to make a Shiva temple,
Ksemagaurisvara. So, temple destruction predates the coming of the Islamic
rulers
Abhish K. Bose: Moves are ongoing to eliminate the medieval
period from the academic curriculum of the country. What will be the long-term
consequences of this in the academia as well as the stimulating reasons behind
this move?
Dr Ruchika Sharma: Many things that we consume,
wear etc have origins in medieval history of India, for example clothes like
kurta, pajama, lehenga choli, recipes based on onion gravy, monuments that we
see around us the Taj Mahal, the Golconda fort, languages such as Hindi, Urdu
etc all have origins in India’s medieval history. Removing medieval Indian
history from curriculum would leave a massive void of 800-900 years in Indian
history and we will not be able to understand so much of our culture that is an
indelible part of our lives today. History is anyway a continuum and it is
important to understand every part of it to understand the preceding and
succeeding parts of an event. So, taking away any part of history will render
other parts of it incomprehensible. Mughal history in fact is so important to
know because it continues to impact the politics in India today.
Abhish K
Bose: A journalist with fifteen
of years of experience Abhish K Bose was a staffer at The Times of India and
The Deccan Chronicle – Asian Age. As a contributor, his interviews and articles
have been published in Frontline magazine, The Wire, The Print, The Telegraph,
The Federal, The News Minute, Scroll, The Kochi Post, Countercurrents.org,
Andolana, Madhyamam Weekly, and the Asian Lite international published out of
Manchester.
Courtesy: www.countercurrents.org
