adar survey that provides the road map, for the excavation. On March 12 morning, the ASI team met the parties contesting the Mandir Masjid title suit before the Allahabad High Court, surveyed the 5,000 odd sq. ft. to be excavated in essence, satisfied all concerned of the ASFs bona fides. At 1.30 p.m., the earth began to be scraped off, bit-by-bit, particle by particle. Mani’s monumental mission was under way.
The excavation had been ordered by the Lucknow Bench of the Allahabad High court on March 5. The court sought the answer to a seemingly simple question: was the Babri Masjid built on the remains of an earlier Hindu temple, structure. The ASI was asked to report back ‘within a m6nth’.
The full findings may take some time. They will also invariably be subjected to semantic hair-splitting. However, indications are that the eminent historians who have so far dismissed all existing evidence as either motivated or fabricated may have to eat crow. Ayodhya may still remain a burning issue but at least there will be fewer falsehoods to confront.
More pertinent is the legal value of ‘evidence’ that may be unearthed. There are four title suits — two filled by individual Hindus, one by the Nirrnohi Akhada and one by the Sunni Central Wakf Board that have been bunched together by the high court in 1989. A set of 22 issues was framed on the basis of points raised by the various litigants to help the court understand their respective claims. The digging that has now commenced will establish the nature of the structures and their antiquity but it will be a slow process.
Meanwhile, what is really needed is to bridge the gulf that is widening every day between various communities and here all the political parties, of one shade or the other, must search their hearts and find an amicable way out.