Ayodhya the dark night by Krishna and Dhirendra Jha

The Secret History of Rama's appearance in Babri Masjid

Communists authors Krishna and Dhirendra Jha spin their own take on the Babri Masjid incident, no not the one in 1992 where the Masjid was destroyed by Kar Sevaks but the one in 22 DEC 1949. In the common man's memory the Babri Masjid incident is etched as an act of hyper Hinduism. In reality it has a deep political strategy at its core, this is true for both 1992 and 1949. In 1949, a sadhu, Abhiram Das, who was also a leader of one of the many Akharas in Ayodhya surreptitiously placed an idol of Lord Ram in the Babri Masjib, thus claiming it to be a place of worship for the Hindus and not Muslims. Thus kicking off the controversy of Babri Masjid which while writing this in May, 2015 is still unresolved..

Babri Masjid is of course built in Ayodhya, which is to Hindus what Mecca is to Muslims. On a side note do you know that one cannot build a temple in Saudi Arabia(the massive middle east Islamic country) let alone in holy Mecca, which is situated inside it. Alas, non Muslims cannot even enter Mecca let alone think about building a temple there. But I digress, the communist authors are so bigoted and prejudiced against the Hindus and the Hindu Mahasabha(a major political outfit back in the 1940's and 1950's) that they refer to them as communal in every line of the book. They literally prefix the word communal when referring to any person who supports the Mahasabha or the Hindus. The Communist authors have done no justice to the art of documenting history and writing a book. They come up with a conspiracy theory that the Mahasabha and its tallest leader Veer Savarkar were behind the plot to install the idol of Lord Ram in the Babri Masjid as they wanted to usurp power from the secular Congress party led by the bronze god Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru. Abhiram Das was only a pawn in the chess board of the Mahasabhaites and their sympathizers in the Congress, one of them being the Iron Man himself, Sardar Vallabhai Patel. The communists authors have the audacity to attack the architect of India, Patel and pit him against Nehru, at least that is what the book tries to portray. So they have a whole chapter called "Nehru-Patel Standoff", the chapter is like those videos on youtube who promise the latest episode from game of thrones but when you click on the video it instead shows you a static image for a long long time.



I'm not exactly sure why the communist authors choose to write a whole book about this incident? the way I see it, it did not require a whole book. They do not have enough content and keep exploring controversy theories and document imaginary fights between leaders. The book is based less on historic evidence and more on hearsay, the examples and references cited at the end of the book are gossip columns to communists newspapers. Meanwhile, I do agree that this placing of the idol was indeed done as a calculated political move and was an important historic truth that more people ought to know but I cannot imagine someone writing a whole book about it, maybe an article in a newspaper or a magazine like Outlook would have been enough. Looks like those damn communists wanted a piece of that forbidden capital!


The Communist Jhas did do a lot of research around Ayodha and its history. They also document the incidents of the night of 22 Dec 1949 as well as they could. If you want to find out who the initial actors were behind the Masjid incident then this book will provide what thy seeks.


2 Stars out of 5.



Boring, prejudiced, not prudent on facts and sometimes just plain poppy cock!