Opinion - Letters to the Editor   

Digging up the past

Sir, — It is surprising that your Editorial `Digging up the past' (March 7), has overlooked one aspect — the impracticability of implementing the Allahabad High Court order to the Archaeological Survey of India. Excavations have been going on there for decades without being able to come across any evidence regarding the historicity of the Ramayana or the existence of a Ram temple beneath the Babri Masjid. It is difficult to imagine how the ASI can be expected to complete the excavations in one month and submit a report.

Is it necessary to order such excavations unless it is to verify some other evidence produced by the parties concerned in their favour? The ordered association of a private firm, which, according to the VHP, has already collected evidence regarding the existence of a temple beneath the disputed site by conducting radar studies, may also cast a shadow on the whole affair. Excavations may further complicate the matter.

G. Radhakrishnan,
Thiruvananthapuram

Sir, — Your doubt about the legal sustainability of `historical events', as a ground for resolving current disputes is relevant. The possibility of a temple at the disputed site, as well as building a mosque in the same spot, centuries later, are historical and certainly beyond the reach of our times to amend. Does any of our Constitutional institutions have any jurisdiction over the omissions and commissions, violations of a commander of 1530's or 40's A.D.? Even if his progeny is to be tried today, what are the laws to be adopted, today's or yesteryear's?

It would be wiser for us to take lessons from history and sharpen our knowledge, rather than wishing the events not to have taken place at all or to have happened in our favour.We cannot undo the victories of bygone warriors by merely eliminating the victory symbols of that age. Nor can we fight and take revenge against foes, a millennium later, in the same fashion of more brutal and less intellectual approach, as of that age.

R.K. Divakara,
Bangalore

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