The decade of 90s had witnessed two landmark political movements, Mandal and   
   Kamandal. The Mandal movement was based on social justice while the Ram Mandir   
   roused majoritarian emotions of religious injustice. The supporters of Ram   
   Temple agitation,    
   despite their rightwing religious coating, have seemed to put forth one   
   logical argument. They used to say that their movement is to correct an   
   historical wrong. Their argument is that the Muslim invaders and rulers   
   destroyed many Hindu temples including    
   that of Ram's birthplace. What is wrong in reclaiming those in a modern   
   secular state?   
      
   Unfortunately very few liberals, secularists and progressives responded to   
   this argument. Their point was simply to preserve and nurture secularism in   
   India without falling into debate of historical myths and truth. Thus to avoid   
   any contradiction they    
   tried to maintain the status quo. Some of the leftist historians in an attempt   
   to counter this claim have taken great pains in showing Aurangzeb as a secular   
   emperor who used to give grants to Hindu temples, a temple in Ujjain is said   
   to be one such.    
   Much before that Mughal Emperor Akbar's Din-e-Ilahi and other secular attempts   
   have gained credentials in mainstream history.   
      
   However, by keeping silence on the charges of Hindu nationalists, the much   
   acclaimed accusation of Muslim attacks and usurpation of Hindu temples are   
   accepted as a truth not only by the masses but also by the progressive   
   intellectuals. In a recent    
   article[i], Justice Markandey Katju not only accepted it but justified it by   
   saying that 'It is true that many Hindu temples were destroyed by Muslim   
   invaders, and mosques built on their sites, sometimes even using the material   
   of the temple. For example,   
    the Quwwat ul Islam mosque near the Qutub Minar in Delhi has pillars with   
   Hindu carvings, or the Gyanvapi Masjid in Varanasi whose rear wall has Hindu   
   carvings, or the Atala Devi Masjid in Jaunpur. But is India to move forward,   
   or backward? It would be    
   a different matter if a Hindu temple is illegally demolished today and   
   converted into a mosque. But where this was done allegedly 500 years ago, does   
   it carry any sense to go about restoring the structure to its Hindu original?'   
      
   On the contrary, in Dalit-Bahujan discourse, scholars from beginning have   
   never been defensive in their arguments but in fact had been offensive against   
   the rightwing. Jotiba Phule in his Ghulamgiri and elsewhere showed how the   
   Brahmin invaders violently    
   attacked the indigenous masses, usurped their land and turned them into   
   permanent slaves by labeling them Shudras and Ati-Shudras. Dr Ambedkar went on   
   to search communal violence in ancient India and thereby concluded that the   
   history of India is nothing    
   but a mortal conflict between Buddhism and Brahmanism. He found that India has   
   witnessed many violent communal onslaughts against the Buddhists.   
      
   The recent accidental excavation at the disputed site of Ayodhya once again   
   revealed these facts. It is interesting that the BJP led governments in their   
   respective terms and also at present is trying hard to search the traces of a   
   mythical river,    
   Saraswati. But none of the Indian historians are sincere enough to trace the   
   history of India based on Buddhist scriptures. It was a British archaeologist   
   Alexander Cunningham who traced India's past through the writings of Chinese   
   travelers and other    
   Buddhist records. He took pains to explore the sites mentioned by Xuanzang. In   
   his study Cunningham[ii] found that the present city of Ayodhya was originally   
   called Saket. It has a great reverence in Buddhist texts and has been   
   mentioned by Xuanzang and    
   Faxian in their travelogues. According to Xuanzang, the Buddha spent six years   
   in this city. The most famous female Buddhist personality Vishakha was   
   resident of this city before her marriage to Purranaa Vardhana. Quite   
   naturally, Saket drew the    
   attention of Asoka.   
      
   He built a 200 feet large stupa which was preserved for a long time and had   
   been described by Xuanzang. He also saw a monastery which is identified as   
   Kalakadarma or Purvavadarma by Cunnigham. These monasteries were lost under   
   debris of the present site    
   of Mani Parvat. But this was not a natural process. The Brahmins told   
   Cunningham that the monkey king Sugriva accidently dropped this mountain at   
   this place which was used by monkeys to assist Ram. But this information was a   
   mere brahmanic attempt to    
   link this site with the myth of Ram. He received the other side of the story   
   from the locals. They informed him that the mound was formed by the labourers   
   shaking their baskets on this spot every evening on their return home from   
   building the temple of    
   Ramkot. This place is still called 'Jhowa Jhar' or 'Ora Jhar' which means   
   'basket shaking'. There shouldn't be the slightest doubt that this was a   
   deliberate attempt by brahmanic forces to hide and conceal Buddhist heritage.   
   Interestingly, this was not a    
   lone incidence, a similar story is told about the mounds of Banaras, Nimsar   
   and other places (Cunningham 2000: 323).   
      
   Saket had witnessed a constant struggle with Brahmanic forces and in this   
   process its identity was lost and it was renamed as Ayodhya. The first massive   
   attack on this city occurred with the usurpation of Magadhan empire by a   
   Brahmin Pushyamitra Shunga.    
   He killed the last Mauryan emperor Brihadratha and started a bloody communal   
   campaign against the Buddhists. This proved to be disastrous for the nation.   
   The Buddhist Viharas, which were the centres of mass education, were destroyed   
   and the monks were    
   killed by the Brahmanic goons. Terming this phase as a counter revolution, Dr   
   Ambedkar writes, 'How pitiless was the persecution of Buddhism by Pushyamitra   
   can be gauged from the proclamation which he issued against the Buddhist   
   monks. By this    
   proclamation Pushyamitra set a price of 100 gold pieces on the head of every   
   Buddhist monk'. He also quotes Haraprasad Shastri who said, "The condition of   
   the Buddhists under the imperial sway of the Shungas, orthodox and bigotted,   
   can be more easily    
   imagined than described. From Chinese authorities it is known that many   
   Buddhists still do not pronounce the name of Pushyamitra without a curse."   
      
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)