Ayodhya – II

“Yesterday”:https://varnam.org/archives/000215.html we discussed the results of Ayodhya excavations. Here is the history on Ifran Habib, one of the “Eminent Historians” as recorded by Arun Shourie.
Irfan Habib was a member of ICHR (the same agency that is being accused of being saffronized). In 1992, a major project titled “Medieval Sources” was started by the ICHR. One of the people who took the money and did not complete the work was Ifran Habib. According to the list supplied to Shourie from ICHR, Ifran Habib was paid Rs. 27,000 of tax payers money to write Akhbarat-e-Aurangzeb and no output was produced.

Another stunning piece of information in Shourie’s book is this: Dr. Parmatma Sharan submitted a research work titled “English Translation of Arif Qandari’s Tarik-i-Aqbari”. The ICHR itself reported once that they had received the manuscript and later changed it to they had not received it. During his investigation Shourie discovers that it was missing because, Tasneem Ahmed, Deputy Director of the Mideival Unit of ICHR had obtained his PhD from Rajsthan University by submitting the same manuscript. Before this, the original manuscript was destroyed. But a search by the current chairman of ICHR found 60 pages of the original work, done 20 years earlier. And guess who wrote the foreword for the plagarised work — Ifran Habib. In his foreword, he wrote
bq. I feel confident that it would reinforce the interest in Akbar’s age widespread among those who have a care for the long process of the creation of composite culture and a unity that together constitute what is India”
And the plagiarist returned the favor and wrote
bq. I express my profound sense of gratitude, very personal regards and respects to Professor Irfan Habib, who encouraged and guided me at every stage of the work
So Irfan Habib encouraged Ahmed while he was copying from one manuscript to another ?
But anyways this does not answer the question why he did not know about lime mortars.