Flashpoint Ayodhya.

The article speculates on whether Hindu hard-liners recruited archaeologists to rewrite history. The destruction of the Babri Mosque in Ayodhya, India, was an expression of an extreme nationalist ideology, Hindutva, which preaches a revival of Hindu pride and honor. The event exposed tensions between the country's Hindu and minority Muslim populations; several thousand people have died in violence associated with the dispute to rebuild the Ram temple. To resolve the deepening crisis, archaeologists and historians suggested that the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), the government agency in charge of archaeology and heritage preservation, classify the 462-year-old mosque as a protected historical monument. The ASI took no action. An ASI report was hailed by nationalists as indisputable scientific evidence to support their efforts in building a Ram temple at Ayodhya. Most dissenting archaeologists are still reluctant to publicly speculate on what exactly the ASI has unearthed, claiming a conclusion can be arrived at only after examining the full excavation records, not the controversial final report. There is some suspicion, however, that the "massive structure" is in fact an earlier mosque.