The notion that Babur’s officer destroyed a temple dedicated to Rama’s birthplace at Ayodhya and then got the emperor’s sanction to build a mosque on the site – the Babri Masjid – was elaborated in 1936 by S.K. Banerji. However, the author offered no evidence that there had ever been a temple at this site, much less that it had been destroyed by Mir Baqi. The mosque’s inscription records only that Babur had ordered the construction of the mosque, which was built by Mir Baqi and was described as “the place of descent of celestial beings” (mahbit-i qudsiyan). This commonplace rhetorical flourish can hardly be construed as referring to Rama, especially since it is the mosque itself that is so described, and not the site or any earlier structure on the site.
American historian
Richard Maxwell Eaton (born 1940) is an American historian, currently working as a professor of history at the University of Arizona. He is known for having written the notable books on Indian history before 1800. He is also credited for his work on the social roles of Sufis, slavery, and cultural history of pre-modern India. His research is focused on the Deccan, the Bengal frontier, Islam in India
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Richard M. Eaton
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Richard M Eaton
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Much of the contemporary evidence on temple desecration cited by Hindu nationalists is found in Persian materials translated and published during the British occupation of India. Especially influential has been the eight-volume History of India as Told by its Own Historians, first published in 1849 and edited by Sir Henry M. Elliot, who oversaw the bulk of the translations, with the help of John Dowson. But Elliot, keen to contrast what he understood as the justice and efficiency of British rule with the cruelty and despotism of the Muslim rulers who had preceded that rule, was anything but sympathetic to the “Muhammadan” period of Indian history.