Talk:Dhaneshwar Mandal

Apropos nothing

Avikunthak's Bureaucratic Archaeology has a funny-yet-not-so-funny byte from one of the excavators:

Who can work with a group of anxious maulvis, nervous pundits, suspicious RSS swayamsevaks, and the skeptical communists, voyeuristically gazing at every act we did in the trench. They even followed us when we went to relive (sic) ourselves. As if we will smuggle something incriminating from the toilet into the trenches. The Muslims wanted us to find Babur’s name plate and the Hindus wanted us to find Ram’s paduka (shoes)!

TrangaBellam (talk) 13:14, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

Meenakshi Jain

TrangaBellam, I don't see the grounds for the claim that Jain is not an RS, especially because all the statements used are attributed to the Allahabad High Court. Even newspapers would be RS for those. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 15:25, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

WP:PRIMARY is more relevant. Given that scholars appear to accept Mandal's critiques—and not even mention the Court's observations—, I am opposed to using them. For precedent, see Godhra train burning which is actually a less-academic topic. TrangaBellam (talk) 15:35, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

Also, it appears to me that the adverse comments on our subject (p. 3646-3655) came from J. Sudhir Agarwal alone; not from the entire bench. And, now that I read through J. Agarwal's observations, they are absolutely bizarre and must not find a place in our article unless used by academic sources which I doubt will be uncritical. He selects parts from Mandal's deposition under cross-examination — so, I assume that these chosen fragments impressed upon him the most about Mandal being an unreliable scholar. So, the fragments can be enlisted (in rough sequence) as:

1. We start with Mandal professing his ignorance about Babar.

   Why did Mandal need to be an expert on Babar given that his critique was entirely hinged on the archaeological aspects of the controversy and not on, say, whether it was Babur's habit to go about demolishing temples or how much of a syncretic Hinduphile Babar was or ...? Do note (p. 3590) of his judgement that there were two categories of expert witnesses from both camps — historians and archaeologists; Mandal was in the latter and I assume this bifurcation of expertise had happened with the Court's consent at a very early stage of the dispute.

2. Mandal, when probed on the contents of Romila Thapar's preface to his book, professes his ignorance on certain aspects thereof.

   I have no idea on why Mandal is expected to vouch for arguments put forward by Thapar in her preface for his book. That makes no sense.

3. Mandal asserts that he is atheist and that he wrote a book for Orient Blackswan's (OB) Tracts for the Times series but is ignorant about the rest of the books (and their nature) published under the series including Tanika Sarkar's critically-acclaimed Khaki Shorts and Saffron Flags.

   And ... ? What's the implication — that since OB has published a critique of RSS in the same series, Mandal's work be also interpreted in the same vein?

4. Mandal claims ignorance about Bharucha's widely-acclaimed The Question of Faith as well as Balraj Puri's Kashmir: Towards Insurgency, both published under the same series by OB.

   And ... ? Given the invocation of "faith" and "Kashmir", I can only speculate that it is an attempt to tarnish the entire series (and by extension, Mandal himself) as part of anti-Indian/anti-Hindu/... lobby.

5. Mandal professes to be a CPIM cadre and claims that Romila Thapar has been influenced by Marxism. Further, that both Thapar and Ratnagar had taught at JNU. He also claimed to have been a friend of both Bhan and Jaiswal (fellow witnesses), the latter of whom was also influenced by Marxism. And that he had been inspired by his colleagues to write the book.

   And ... ? That there is a cabal?

6. That his book is primarily a critique of B. B. Lal's claims — hence (or otherwise), it depends on Lal's short reports (118C-1/35, etc.) and even his photographs to a critical extent. [Has his notebooks still seen the light of the day?]

   In the judgement, J. Aggarwal is explicit that he does not like scholars relying on other's evidence much less authority. Now, he is free to have his own views — irrespective of the involved merits — but it is bizarre to expert that historians cannot anymore rely upon evidence produced by others — even state-employed archaeologists — and must do everything from scratch. That is not how academia operates; not just history.

7. Twice, it is quoted that Mandal has never been to an excavation-site in Ayodhya.

   Note that Mandal did visit the site of the Babri Masjid atleast once after the Court permitted him to, in 2003 (see article; in particular, the 2011 judgement by the same bench of the HC in the contempt case!); so, this must be in relation to his '93 book from OB — Ayodhya: Archaeology After Demolition critiquing Lal's finds. Now, the concerned excavations in around the site had happened long ago — in c. 1975, iirc — and Mandal was indeed not a part of the team; I believe that it was also impossible for him (or anybody else) to check them at the time of the controversy! So, is the point of J. Agarwal that archaeological evidence cannot be reinterpreted except by the involved archaeologists (like Lal)? Again, irrespective of the merits in his argument, that is not how the discipline operates.

8. Mandal lets the Court know about his view on the demographic history of Ayodhya.

   Looks uncontroversial to me.

9. Mandal notes that he does not know — much less have had cared about enough to have it confirmed — if the (demolished) structure was "Babri Masjid", a mosque.

   Again, irrelevant; see my response to (1) and indented-reply below. Indeed Mandal clarifies, Our objective was to study or discover whether there was a temple below the Babri Mosque or not. My objective did not have any relation to the structure above the ground. And fwiw, nobody has doubted that the structure that existed at the place (and was eventually demolished) was anything but a mosque irrespective of the question of how that mosque came to be.

10. That Mandal has not got any educational degree — much less a PhD — in archaeology.

    Archaeology is one of the few disciplines where field-expertise used to stand as a substitute for a degree in today's academia atleast till a few decades ago. See Cower (2013) for a broadsweep overview and why this has been good.

In any case, coupling (6), (7), (9), and (10) — and in no small part aided by the tantalizing (3), (4), and (5) —, the court arrives at Mandal's manifest unreliability. TrangaBellam (talk) 16:21, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

There is a white elephant in this curious interaction between the Court and Mandal which, unsurprisingly, is not one of Mandal's credbility but rather of disciplinary episteme. Which Tapati Guha-Thakurta — among India's most pre-eminent modern-art historians — had laid bare in her 1996 lecture at CSSSC (since republished, perhaps with emendations, in Monuments, Objects, Histories (2004)); describing Mandal as an "orthodox field archaeologist" who had "painstakingly reexamined the available data from the mandir/masjid complex", she goes on to write —

[Mandal's] exercise has involved a recourse to the primary analytical tools used by the first team of excavators at Ayodhya — the first trench notebooks, drawings and photographs. So, "an excellent photograph taken during excavation (almost certainly by B.B. Lal) of the trench near the south wall of the Babri Masjid" set out the key working point for Mandal's renewed scrutiny of each of the reported 'discoveries' ... With each of these, the criticisms have tended to converge around a singular issue: that of 'stratigraphic context', the constitutive core of the present-day science of archaeology ... The task is to return every material remnant to its embedded location within the excavated soil strata: for in this stratigraphic reconstruction lies the clue to the relative chronology and inter-relationship of different artefacts. It is through such stratigraphic analysis that the 'easy' conclusions derived about the 'pillar bases' were overturned ...

The invocation of stratigraphy becomes all the more pointed with regard to the discovered hoard of stone sculptures. Faulty digging, here, in the course of a land-levelling operation had led inevitably to a confusion of soil layers, a mix-up of artefactual sequences, and a complete loss of the stratigraphic context of the objects — thus denuding ithem of any value as 'evidence'. These stone sculptures were thus branded as 'contaminated' (with modern post-depositional debris) and lacking in any evidential or archaeological significance. Perhaps their artistic and iconographic features could be productively analysed and dated, but not their archaeological context vis-a-vis the mosque. For, 'archaeological value' is seen to be grounded centrally in the fidelity to stratigraphy and proper excavation procedure.

It is possible to draw out from this rigorous stand on stratigraphy a set of larger claims and postures that today stand integral to the discipline. For instance, in contrast to much of the 19th century premises of archaeological research in India, access to knowledge, it is emphasised, no longer centres around the experience of direct observation or first-hand presence at an excavation site. Hence emerges the central importance of systematic trench notebooks, detailed photographic records of the trench and its fmds, and a laborious noting of all artefactual and stratigraphic information - to enable all other scholars to reexamine the data with the same facilities as the on-the-spot excavator.

This norm, it is alleged, has been repeatedly flouted by archaeologists at Ayodhya. Another emphatic point is made around present-day archaeology's primary concern with excavated, underground material rather than with over-ground standing structures. The priority is set by a system of dating and identifying surface objects on the basis of material excavated in that locus, and never the reverse. This thus invalidated the elaborate conclusions drawn around the-black stone pillars in the mosque. And it relegated to secondary status much of the iconographic analysis of the material from the suspect 'hoard' through comparison with other examples of temple architecture and sculpture. However, outside this narrowly-defined circuit of archaeological reexamination, historians and art-historians too had closely analysed the iconography of the twelve carved stone pillars within the mosque to discover in these strong affinities with Buddhist and Jain motifs. Their conclusion was that the pillars in the mosque were clearly of an assorted lot, probably amassed from different sources, and "could on no account be described as in situ".

Like all these attendant positions, the highlight on stratigraphy serves then to reiterate the uniqueness and autonomy of the disciplinary field. Each point of contention with the pro-Mandir thesis becomes also a stand about the advancement of the science, its great progression from its 19th century concerns, the rarity of its procedures, and the separateness of its spheres from those of ancient history or art history. There is an attempt, all along, to return the objects uncovered in Ayodhya to this self-enclosed space of 'archaeology' - to remove them from all the 'extra-archaeological' wrangles of the Ramjanmabhoomi movement. And, just as each excavated material remnant is arduously relocated in its stratigraphic context, the discipline itself retreats into its own in-grown and exclusive sphere.

Do note that Guha-Thakurta is not critiquing Mandal's methods — or his objectives or his conclusions at all — but rather the epistemiological development of the discipline of archaeology in India (and outside). J. Aggarwal might have chosen to made a point on the compartmented-nature of Mandal's evidence — though I am at a loss about what he was expected to know about Babar — but instead, chose to hint at a Marxist-conspiracy-by-incompetent-scholars before dismissing it wholesale. TrangaBellam (talk) 17:50, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

Ah, this is a rehash of this dispute where Bhan was asked questions so-irrelevant that I did not even find citing Guha-Thakurta (1997; repr. 2002) useful. So, K3, I will remove these assessments by J. Agarwal (NOT the Court) from all pages where you have inserted them unless you can present some exceedingly good reasons that justify violating not just core policies but also common sense and precedents. TrangaBellam (talk) 18:10, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

Hold on! That is a WP:FORUMy debate. You can't go around citicising portions of the judgement that are not even cited on the page!

Secondly, you are confusing between WP:RS and WP:DUE, it seems to me. To claim that Jain is not an RS, on your own, you need to argue that she made claims that are demonstrably false. Since these are all attributions to the court judgement, that can only happen if she wrote stuff that are not in the judgement. Do you have any evidence of that?

Now, if you want to argue WP:DUE, please feel free. You can't say that she fails RS just because she discusses the judgement at all, which you don't seem to like. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 18:51, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

Nope; which policy says that any source ceases to be a RS only when it publishes demonstrably false content? Jain's book has been published by a barely-known publisher and the onus is on you demonstrate her reliability. You can take a stab at it at RSN but given her reception (Nussbaum, Sundar, et al), I doubt that it will be productive. And, I am not even going into WP:VNOTSUFF and WP:UNDUE.

I am critiquing the particular part of the judgement in entirety including the cited bits about his shallowness, unreliability, and lack of knowledge on over-ground structures. Not in a FORUM-y style but rather by trying to connect it with Guha-Thakurta's critique.

All in all, the Ayodhya dispute has been studied by a few dozen historians who have, in turn, been studied by a dozen, who perhaps have, in turn, ... If you need to scrape at the barrel to criticize involved historians, that is a reliable indicator about the criticism being UNDUE. TrangaBellam (talk) 19:01, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

Court judgements are not meant to by scholarly documents. They have their own requirements for what needs to go in there and what not, which I don't claim to understand. So, criticising them here is not at all appropriate, especially when they are not even cited. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 19:26, 10 March 2024 (UTC)

But it was you who had inserted the Court's J. Agarwal's observations across a host of BLPs! In any case, we appear to agree that the content is UNDUE and so, it stays out. TrangaBellam (talk) 12:14, 12 March 2024 (UTC)