THE ABUSE OF HISTORY: A STUDY OF THE WHITE PAPERS ON AYODHYA 41 Ramayana. He justified the killing of Vali by Rama on the ground that he (Rama) being the viceroy of Bharata, the sovereign of the land, was obliged to kill the wrongdoer Vali who had forcibly abducted the wife of his younger brother. Bhatta Lakshmidhara did not justify the act of Rama by arguing that Rama, being the avatar of the Supreme Being, had the right to kill Vali.6 'Rama Bhakti' received universal acceptance after a very long period of time. In the nineteenth century, people in the northern part of India came to accept Rama as the personal or family deity. Several contemporary accounts also confirm that devotion to Rama emerged at a later period. Francis Hamilton Buchanan (1812-14) and Montgomery Martin (1838) visited Avadh and gave a detailed account of the people living in the area around Ayodhya. They observed that although the Bairagis were scattered all over, their influence and following was very limited. There were several other sects active in the area. In fact, the worship of Rama was not particularly popular among the higher castes.7 The worship of Rama as a deity was found to be prevalent particularly among poor and downtrodden. They also observed that the local people disliked the activities of the Bairagis who generally lived an immoral life. It is therefore quite clear that there has been an appreciable extension in the worship of Rama in the recent years, more so because of the campaign of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and the telecast of the 'Ramayana* serial on television. The white papers state another myth as a fact of history. They contend that a mosque was raised at the contentious site in Ayodhya by Mir Baqi at the behest of the Mughal emperor Babar in 1528 AD.8 The inscription that was on the outside wall of the demolished Babri Masjid can probably be said to be the only evidence to support this contention. However, this epigraphical evidence is not supported by any contemporary record. In fact there is no evidence to support the theory that Babar had ever gone to Ayodhya and that he had ordered the construction of a mosque at the place considered to be the 'descent of angels'. The inscription did convey the date of the construction of the mosque but it failed to provide us any information about either Mir Baqi or 'Babar Qalandar'. It may be mentioned that there was another inscription on the inside of the demolished mosque and the style of calligraphy on this slab of stone was very different from the style of writing adopted in the inscription on the outside wall. The style of calligraphy in the two inscriptions certainly raises several doubts9 which force an observer to question the very presence of the inscriptions in the outside and inside walls of the demolished Babri Masjid in Ayodhya. The papers further allege that the Babri Masjid had been raised on the site of the demolished Ramjanmabhoomi temple in Ayodhya. Although the BJP Paper is more explicit in its claims, the GOI Paper