Hyderabad, May 29 -- The Edit page article 'Old Shadow' (The Telegraph, Kolkata, May 24, 2025) by Asim Ali contains a small, but a very significant error. The locks of Babri Masjid in Ayodhya were not opened on February 1, 1985 as mentioned, but exactly a year later in 1986.

As those tumultuous years of Indian politics deserve a very careful and dispassionate study one cannot wash off the hand by conceding that it was just a printing mistake when the fact is that the whole article is premised on this issue. At the same time there is absolutely no scope to say that the Faizabad district court ruling earlier on the same day was in fact a 'balancing act' of the then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi who wanted to upturn the Shah Bano verdict by e...