Ayodhya, Archaeology, and Identity Reinhard Bernbeck; Susan Pollock Current Anthropology, Vol. 37, No. 1, Supplement: Special Issue: Anthropology in Public (Feb., 1996), $138-S142, Stable URL hitp://links jstor-org/sii?sici=001 1-3204%28199602%2937%3A 1%3CS 138%3AAAAIG3E2,0,CO%3B21 Current Anthropology is currently published by The University of Chicago Press. ‘Your use of the ISTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR’s Terms and Conditions of Use, available at hup:/www,jstororglabout/terms.hml. ISTOR’s Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unless you have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and you may use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use. Please contact the publisher regarding any further use ofthis work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at hupulwww.jstor.org/journals‘uepress html. Each copy of any part of @ JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the sereen or printed page of such transmission. STOR is an independent not-for-profit organization dedicated to creating and preserving a digital archive of scholarly journals. For more information regarding JSTOR, please contact support @jstor.org, hupslwwwjstor.org/ Sun May 16 13:47:23 2008$138 | CURRENT ANTHROPOLOGY Ayodhya, Archaeology, and Identity! REINHARD BERNBECK AND SUSAN POLLOCK Seminar fiir Vorderasiatische Altertumskunde, Freie Universitat Berlin, Bitterstr. 8-12 14195 Berlin, Germany/ Department of Anthropology, State University of New York at Binghamton, Binghamton, N.Y. 13902-6000, U.S.A. 25 1V 95 The past is not dead nor its meaning singular and decided, It is always precariously perched on the present. ARJUN SINGH, 1994 ‘The relevance of the past to the present is evident in ‘many facets of daily life: in the news, in advertising, in the history lessons taught to schoolchildren. The past is a means through which identities—whether ethnic, national, religious, or other—can be formed and rein- forced in the present. In this way, the past plays a legiti- mating role for present groups (or would-be groups) by allowing them to trace their roots into earlier times: ‘what has a precedent has a right to exist in the present. Popular acceptance of the past as a source of identity remains largely unquestioned {for a few examples, see Bernbeck and Lamprichs 1992, Dietler 1994, Pollock and Lutz 1994). In archaeology, however, opinions on this subject have varied historically. Archacologists of the late roth and the early 2oth century were much taken ‘with the prospects archaeology offered for defining past “peoples” (Kossinna r911, Childe 1925). Historical ‘groups were traced back in time using resemblances in material remains. Archaeology was used, more ot less flagrantly in different countries and at different times, to support nationalist, colonialist, and imperialist claims (Trigger 1984), sometimes with horrifying results, as the examples of the Nazis or American efforts to disentran- chise native Americans make all too clear (Amold 1990, ‘Trigger 1980). ‘Western archaeologists gradually became dissatisfied with an approach that concentrated on the identification of culture groups in time and space |though it is debat- able whether archaeology has ever rid itself entirely of the pots = people syndrome]. This dissatisfaction coin- cided with the rise of functionalism in anthropology (Trigger 1989:244). In many non-Western archaeological traditions, however, a focus on archaeology as a way of tracing past peoples remained predominant (Trigger 1989:182-86}, 1. © 1996 by The Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research All sights reserved oot1-s304/96/y7sup-000581.00, We thank vend Hansen, Heinrich Hatke, Maries Heine Ed Laby, Helga Seeden, and Cail Sinopol forthe comments on this paper tnd Kalen Morison, ana Shmis, Ca Snool, Ue Sommer, and Henry Wright for elping t collee newspaper art See cteulacs dung the Word Afchacoloieal Comps and {or sharing information an views on the proceedings This paper was writen while one of us (Pollock) held a research llowship From the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation at the Free Unt versie Berlin, Explicit archaeological concem with identity has sur- faced again with renewed vigor in the West in the past decade, largely through the efforts of post-processual ar- chacologists." Post-processualists have castigated the ar- chaeological profession for its hegemonic attitude and dismissal of non-Westem, “nonscientific” interpreta- tions of the past. They argue that the past is a positive source of identity for subordinate groups, be they based on ethnic, gender, or political criteria. Proponents of post-processual archacology have advocated “returning the past to the people” (Hodder 1984] and the support of indigenous archaeologies [Hodder 1986:157-59; Shanks and Tilley 1987b:196-95}, While much has been made—and rightly so, in our view—of the unacceptability of an exclusively Western- dominated discourse on archaeology and the past and its typically dismissive attitude toward alternative inter- pretations of subordinate groups, considerably less at- tention has been paid to the problematic aspects of this position (but see Dietler 1994 for a valuable attempt to portray multiple sides of the problem). The post processual position has ignored the complexity of “the Other,” preferring to hold, at least implicitly, to the ro: mantic conceptualization of a monolithic, conflict-free Other which has a single, common interest. ‘We argue, following the lead of others who have been critical of post-modernist positions (e.g, Wylie 1987, 1991; Harke 1993], that a philosophic framework that refuses to establish criteria by which to evaluate com- peting knowledge claims is unacceptable. In such an ap- proach, there is no basis on which to challenge those versions of the past that contain racist, sexist, or other discriminatory interpretations. The unacceptability of such a position extends well beyond the esoteric realm of academic debate into the “real world,” in which it can have dangerous consequences. We use the example of recent events in Ayodhya, India, and their repercus- sions to illustrate our point. AYODHYA AND ARCHAEOLOGY ‘On December 6, 1992, the réth-century Babri Mosque in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh, was destroyed by Hindu militants, acting at Ieast in part at the instigation of political organizations [Vavrouskova 1994:r14-15}. The event, which was widely reported in the intemational news media, led to bloody riots in India and in neigh- boring Bangladesh, where the majority Muslims sought to wreak revenge on the Hindu minority. Hundreds died in the rioting* 2, We use the term “post processual archaeology” to refer specifi cally tothe brand of archacology that shares many epistemological beliefs with post-modernism, especially that “all appeals to founds onal anseontcrtualy valid stand Wylie 991-49 are cha Ienged. This approach in archacology is best exemplified by 1 ‘work of Hodder 1984, 1986, but see 1991 for a somewhat different approach], Shanks and Tilley 987, bj, and Bapty and Yates (990. 4, it was these events that prompted the Bangladeshi author Tas- Jima Nasrin to write her now-famous book Lajja: Shame. «4 Only alter our completing this paper did the issue of Internatio. ‘ales Aslenforum [vol 25, 1994) devoted entirely to an analysis of‘The Babri Mosque was built in 1528 by the Mughal emperor Babur. Some Hindu groups claim that the ‘mosque was built on the spot where a Hindu temple had stood. This had been not just any Hindu temple but one that marked the birthplace of Rama, a mythical king ‘who was a reincarnation of one of the major Hindu gods, ‘Vishnu. According to this version of events, Babur was responsible for destroying the temple in order to erect his mosque. In 1949, shortly after independence from Britain, the ‘mosque was ritually cleaned and rededicated as a Hindu temple (Rao 1994:156). Shortly thereafter it was closed, and it remained so until 1986, when a judge ordered it ‘opened for Hindu worship. Protests by Muslim groups followed. Following further conflict between the two sides, the national government brought them together in 1990 in an attempt to reach a negotiated settlement. ‘The discussion centered around two questions: Had Ba- bur indeed destroyed a Hindu temple in Ayodhya, and, if $0, had he built his mosque on the same spot? The negotiations, however, led nowhere. In December 1992 Hindu militants stormed the mosque, leaving it in ruins, ‘The day after the destruction, the prime minister of India, Narasimha Rao, promised that the mosque would be rebuilt, a promise which he repeated in August 1993. To date, this has not happened. In 1993 the case was, referred to the Indian Supreme Court. The court refused to rule on it and returned the case to the government, in whose hands it currently rests. “Archaeology has loomed large in the conflict over Ay- ‘odhya, in part because the absence of eyewitness or other contemporary accounts of Babur's activities in Ay- ‘odhya has precluded resolution of the issue through his- torical documentation. There have been several archaeo- logical investigations in the vicinity of the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya. The first consisted of small stratigraphic soundings conducted in 1969-70 by Roy (1986:18~20} A second and more sustained investigation was under- taken under the direction of B. B. Lal in the mid-r970s, (Lal 1980, 1983). Finally, a number of sculptures were recovered during construction activities near the mosque in the summer of 1992, and other objects were reportedly observed by archaeologists present at the time of the mosque’s destruction in December 1992 (¥. D. Sharma et al. n.d,, Gupta 1994). Interpretations of these archacological data vary widely. In a brief report published shortly after the exca- vations, Lal claimed that the medieval occupation (post- dating the 11th century ap.) was “devoid of any special interest” (Lal 1980:53). However, in 1990 Lal wrote an article in which he claimed that he had found under the mosque remains of a columned temple (Lal 1990°15) Asked whether this alleged finding indicated that @ Hindu temple marking Rama's birthplace existed un- der the Babri Mosque, he is quoted as saying, “I am not saying so. But my spade is” (Malhotra and Sehgal 1992381) Lal's reinterpretation of his data has been challenged ‘he Ayodhya conlliet come to our atention, lt contains detalled reports and analyses relevant to discussion of Ayodhya Volume 37, Supplement, February 1996 | $139 by other scholars who have reevaluated the stratigraphic information (available from a single published photo of his excavation trench, which illustrates the purported columned room [Mandal 1993: fig. 1, pls. 1—3]}.* Several scholars have also contended that the features identified as column bases could not have supported a structure of, the sort envisioned by Lal [Mandal 1993, R. S. Sharma et al. 1992), As for the subsequent finds of sculptures, ‘one group has maintained that they come from an r1th- century temple [Y. D. Sharma et al. n.d.|, while another disputes this claim on the basis of both date and undocu- mented archaeological context (R. S. Sharma et al. 1992) ‘The conflict spilled over into the recent meeting of the World Archaeological Congress that took place in Delhi December 4—12, 1994.° Not least of the reasons for this was that the second anniversary of the destruc- tion of the Babri Mosque fell during this week. The main Indian organizational committee” included two parti- sans of the Hindu side in the conflict: B. B. Lal, the principal person to excavate near the Ayodhya mosque, and S. P. Gupta, an archaeologist known for his close associations with an extremist Hindu paramilitary orga- nization, the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. Lal served as president of the congress, while Gupta acted in the ‘capacity of liaison between the Indian organizers and the congress's intemational executive committee. Some Indian archaeologists and historians of the “other side” chose to boycott the congress in protest against what they considered to be the misuse of archaeology for divi sive political purposes, Others preferred to participate on the ground that only by taking part could they bring the topic before an intemational forum for debate. Hopes for an open debate were shattered even before the congress began. Just a few days before the official opening, the president of the international executive committee, J. Golson, issued a statement—reportedly ‘under pressure, although neither the source nor the par- ticulars of the pressure were divulged—saying that there ‘was to be no discussion of the Ayodhya issue in any forum at the congress. What ensued instead of an open 5. 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