THE POLITICAL ABUSE OF HISTORY 81 gions. Different communities have vested it with their own sacred meaning. The city cannot be claimed by any one community as its exclusive sacred preserve. The appropriation of history is a continual process in any society. But in a multi-religious society like ours, appropriations which draw exclusively on communal identities engender endless communal conflicts. And attempts to undo the past can only have dangerous consequences. It is appropriate, therefore, that a political solution is urgently found: 'Rama janmabhumi-Babri masjid* area be demarcated and declared a national monument.