There are two facets to Rajeev Dhavan’s latest bout of open-court lunacy. The first is his clutching-at-the-straws attempt to somehow save face with his clients, the Muslim bodies in favour of restoring the Babri mosque. The second is actually what led to the first. In brief, it is the role played by the aforementioned goon squad of eminent fraudsters who convinced the Babri Masjid Action Committee (BMAC) that they, the fraudsters, were the real saviours of the Babri cause. Their names: (alleged) historians R. S. Sharma, D. N. Jha, M. Athar Ali, and (alleged) archeologist Suraj Bhan who eventually took a thick file to the Chandrashekhar Government claiming that it was “evidence” that “proved” that Ayodhya was not Rama’s birthplace and that the Rama temple never existed. And what did the “evidence” contain? A bunch of newspaper cuttings, random works of questionable scholarship, opinion pieces, editorials and the like. Among other things was “evidence” that Rama was actually the Egyptian Pharaoh Ramses II! The name of the author? M.V. Ratnam.