“Babri Masjid” a casualty of the Liberhan report

By TwoCircles.net staff writer,

India’s most expensive and longest serving commission set up after the 1992 destruction of the 16th century mosque submitted its findings after 17 long years but nowhere in the over a thousand page long report Justice Liberhan calls the structure with its legal name: "Babri Masjid."

After writing the introduction and mandate of the commission but before presenting the report, Justice Liberhan on page 6 of his report lists what are not the conclusions of his Commission. The first point he mentions is that he does “not wish to comment upon whether the structures, as they existed in Ayodhya on the 6th of December 1992 constituted a Hindu Temple or a Muslim Mosque or any other type of structure.”

Not paying heed to his own disclaimer, through out the report the mosque is referred simply as “disputed structure.” A few places where “Babri Masjid” is mentioned it is qualified with “Ram Janmabhoomi” so that the only place where text “Babri Masjid” is mentioned without any qualifier is where committees leading the Muslim side are mentioned, since it was part of the organizations’ names.

Interesting enough there is a section called “The “disputed structure” and in it Justice Liberhan insists on calling it the “disputed structure” since according to him, this is how it is referred “in judgments, in the statement of witnesses, and also in the issues referred to the Commission.”

In the very next point though Justice Liberhan try to show that the term is actually a compromise since hard core Hindu leaders like Vinay Katiyar claim it to be birth place of Ram while Muslims claim to be a mosque, therefore to him “disputed structure” seemed most appropriate. Little does he realize that even Hindu claim is about the land and not the structure itself. There was never any doubt that the structure that stood there was a mosque built by Mir Baqi. The dispute is only if it was built at the same place where Lord Rama was born.

But the report goes a step further and disregarding its own disclaimer says that “the disputed structure and the places around it were known as the Ram Janambhoom Complex,” then mentioning an alternate name for the “disputed structure” calling it “Garb Grah” and in the footnote on the same page giving its meaning as “Sanctum Sanctorum.” This is given without a reference and it seems that the report itself is suggesting that Babri Masjid was actually a sanctum sanctorum of the larger temple complex.

In paragraphs 12.7 & 12.10 term “Garb Grah” was again used. If you think Justice Liberhan is just confused about the terms, in paragraph 12.14 he clarifies - “There were three domes in the disputed structure. The middle dome was described by one section to the dispute, as the Garb Grah while others described it as a Mosque." Though Justice Liberhan freely uses the term Garb Grah he never used the term mosque to refer to what he calls the “disputed structure.”

In paragraph 12.12 there is a strange statement that “the topography and facts about Ram Katha Kunj, Ayodhya town or the Ram Janambhoomi complex or Ram Katha Kunj or the disputed structure are however not disputed.” At this point, one is not sure if there is any dispute at all?

But the very next paragraph declares that the “disputed structure” situated on raised ground actually resembled a Stupa.