Debris under Babri: Ethical claims to ‘Indic’ Indigeneity

the petition by Maurya is not a territorial claim to the disputed property. It is a needed intervention that introduces nuance to the construct of a ‘civilisational conflict’ between Hindus (imagined as the inheritors of Bharat) and Muslims (the outsiders). Through  Iyothee Thass’s speculative idea of ‘adi-Dravidas’as the  Ur Buddhists of the subcontinent, I deconstruct this binary.

Noel Mariam George| Hyderabad | 02 July 2020

The acceptance of Vineet Kumar Maurya’s petition by the Supreme Court has further complicated what has often been described ‘the most controversial case’ in modern Indian legal history. Those who demand the construction of the Ram temple see the new petition as ‘politically motivated’, in contrast to their own claims that are purely “a matter of faith”. At the same time, those who demanded the reconstruction of the masjid (as the only principle of true justice) see the petition as another claim of territorial indigeneity. This suspicion nevertheless comes from a legitimate space in the context of how indigeneity claims in various instances have been used to ‘other’ an already marginalised Muslim community in India, who have been systematically denationalised. However, the petition by Maurya is not a territorial claim to the disputed property. It is a needed intervention that introduces nuance to the construct of a ‘civilisational conflict’ between Hindus (imagined as the inheritors of Bharat, with Ram as divine and sovereign king) and Muslims (the outsiders)[1]. Maurya’s project is to provoke an epistemological questioning of the dominant, linear historiography in India. While the sentiment that emphasises the Babri Majid Case to be primarily a Muslim question is justified; Maurya’s petition nevertheless needs to be taken seriously. He says his petition is “for the declaration of Ayodhya to be a national heritage site of importance to Buddhists, on the lines of Shravasti and Kapilavastu, Sarnath and Kushinagar”[2]. His petition would also demand a legal provision for the preservation of several artefacts (more than 50 artefacts according to Maurya) that have been found under the site, which have been certified by the ASI to be of Buddhist origin. Mauyra’s petition does not arise out of a random interest to preserve Buddhist artefacts, but one that follows from a strain of anti-caste thought since the 1800s that has been relegated to the background, often deliberately.

Dalits as Ur-Buddhists of the subcontinent

Maurya follows  a method of unconcealment of historical truth similar to the one developed by the Tamil Buddhist thinker Iyothee Thass. Thass was one of the earliest scholars who introduced a hermeneutic of suspicion, of meta-historical, Hindu civilisational reading of the subcontinent constructed by Orientalists. He insisted that a closer examination of many traditions (not all) codified as Hindu would reveal a Buddhist past. He attempted to prove this through the examination of Hindu folklore, medical practises, artistic and architectural marvels. Following this assumption, he also formulated the idea of the adi-shudras or the adi-dravidas (whom he saw as Ur Buddhists) as the origin people of the subcontinent which intertwined a history of caste, language and religious marginalisation[3]. While many Hindu indigeneity claims today come out of the ‘out of India (Bharat)’ hypothesis the colonial period saw the Aryan Invasion hypothesis, with murky truth in historical reality, appropriated to justify dominance not just by the colonial apparatus, but also by many upper-castes who saw themselves as the spiritual brothers of the Europeans (Sanskrit had been decoded as a Indo-European language by then)[4]. It is in this context that Thass laid the claim that the complex grammar of Tamil was formulated by the adi-dravida Buddhists; an idea that discursively travelled all across South India. Phule developed a mythological narrative that saw the lower castes as the aboriginals who succumbed to colonisation by the casteist Aryans along similar lines. Following Phule, it was Babasaheb Ambedkar who attempted to tease out historical truth in the claim of dalits as the Ur Buddhists of the subcontinent. Ambedkar did not subscribe to a racial theory of the Aryan invasion hypothesis, but rather saw Aryan/Vedic traditions as a method of cultural domination[5]. In contrast to this dominance, Ambedkar argued that Buddhism, a tradition that proposed equality challenged the hierarchical ordering of society or the varna system. Ambedkar’s attempt to locate Buddhism as combative, as an assertive marginality, rather than as the subset of the Hindu traditions enabled the deconstruction of the Orientalist idea of the history of ancient India as a static civilisation of the Hindus[6]. The Ambedkarite historian Balwant Singh Charwak draws a history of destruction of the Buddhist structures in Ayodhya as prior to Babur and the Ram Janmabhoomi struggle as an appropriation of a Buddhist historical site as a temple of the Hindus through mythical reconstruction[7].  A clear demarcation of conflict between Buddhism and Brahmanism (which is used alternatively to denote dominant practises of modern Hinduism) cannot be teased out as neatly as claimed by Ambedkar or Singh. Nevertheless, Buddhist autonomy as a tradition different from Hinduism is important in the present context where Buddhism has been subsumed within modern Hinduism. When ASI has declared that the unearthed structures are not ‘Islamic’, what makes the jump that justifies a Hindu claim?

Nevertheless, Buddhist autonomy as a tradition different from Hinduism is important in the present context where Buddhism has been subsumed within modern Hinduism. When ASI has declared that the unearthed structures are not ‘Islamic’, what makes the jump that justifies a Hindu claim?

Power/ Knowledge and Truth

While the legal dispute in Ayodhya is almost 140 years, an anti-caste historical perspective places the Ram Janmabhoomi movement in the context of several movements of the 80s. The Mandal movement, the Dalit Panther struggle and the Meenakshipuram conversions were strong anti-caste articulations that challenged the ascriptive principle of caste. As a reaction to such radical articulations, the Ram Janmabhoomi movement launched the BJP into mainstream politics with the ideal of uniting the Hindus against Muslims. The emerging discourse on caste was muffled in the binary construction of Hindu-Muslim conflict.  

The Buddhist claim in Ayodhya introduces an anti-caste counter narrative that demands autonomy. Maurya’s petition is not about property dispute and cannot be reduced to that. It is a demand for the epistemological preservation of Buddhist and anti-caste histories of the subcontinent. It is also an attempt to expose the inter link between power and knowledge in the production of truth. Despite determinative findings of Buddhist debri in the archaeological studies by Alexander Cunningham, Alois Anton and A.K. Narayan; Babri  masjid was demolished by mobs who claimed it to be the Ram Janmabhoomi. Present day Ayodhya is important for many traditions. For the Jains, it is the birthplace of five tirthankaras. There are several sufi shrines like Dargah Naugazi, Dargah Teen Darvesh, the shrine to Badi Bua, Dargah Sheesh Paigamber and ofcourse the demolished masjid. Several ancient travel records including those of the Chinese traveller Xuanzang show Saket as parallel to that of modern Ayodhya. Hence, modern Ayodhya cannot claim an exclusive Hindu history just because it is the faith of the majority.

The Indian nation was formed based on the consensus of various communities. The Nehruvian and Ambedkarite imagination was to build a nation not based what once existed, but on the reality of what existed at the time of the constitutional consensus[8]. Demolishing a religious structure that has deep relevance for believers of a particular tradition with the claim of a contesting tradition that existed centuries ago is unconstitutional. The judgement made clear, the illegality of the claim to a Ram temple by criminally placing idols to produce a false mythic imagination and over such a myth, organising an agitated yet trained mob to rip apart a mosque- stone by stone[9]. Yet despite these illegalities, the judgment contradictorily argued that the Hindus have the right to build their temple, as it is the belief of a majority of Hindus even when facts prove the underlying structure to be “non- Islamic”  and not necessarily Hindu. This conclusion is not only strange, but one that does not hide a structuring of power that claims secular objectivity yet legitimises the ‘beliefs’ of the dominant majority. It shows how power produces Truth. It is in this context that Maurya’s claim is not just subversive, but also ethical. His position does not essentialise conflicts between empires of the subcontinent prior to the nation state to make a territorial claim on Babri. But rather, his petition  points out the inconsistency of the claim that demolished an existing religious structure for an assumed past that was not even there. He maintains the consensus upon which the constitution was laid, while at the same time demands an epistemological revolution and preservation of Buddhism. This then, is an ethical claim to ‘indigeneity’ that is not ethno-nationalist, and recognises the pluriversality of the traditions in the subcontinent.  

Write to the author at [email protected]

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[1] Mehta, D. (2015). The Ayodhya dispute: The absent mosque, state of emergency and the jural deity. Journal of Material Culture. https://doi.org/10.1177/1359183515607093a

2 An interview by Dubey, Scharada  (2018): https://thewire.in/history/ayodhya-dispute-buddhist-history-supreme-court

[3] Geetha, Krishnamurthy Alamelu. (2011).  From Panchamars to Dalit . Prose Studies. https://doi.org/10.1080/01440357.2011.632220

[4] Figueira, Dorothy. (1993) “Myth Ideology and the Authority of an Absent Text”. Yearbook of Comparative and General   Literature:53-6

[5] Ambedkar, B. R. (2014). Annihilation of Caste. Igarss 2014. https://doi.org/10.1007/s13398-014-0173-7.2

[6] Ambedkar, B. R.  (2008). Revolution and Counter-Revolution in Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar: Writings and Speeches, vol. 3

[7] Sonpimple, Rahul (2019) https://thefederal.com/opinion/beyond-hindu-muslim-binary-the-buddhist-claim-on-ayodhya/

[8] Bajpai, R. (2002). Minority Rights in the Indian Constituent Assembly Debates, 1946-1950. Working Thesis.

[9] Paola, B. (2000). Sacred Space in Conflict in India: The Babri Masjid Affair. Growth and Change.