Arun Shourie, THE BUCKLING STATE, in Ayodhya And The Future India, Chapter 2 https://www.cpsindia.org/index.php/pub/155-ayodhya-and-the-future-india/contents/chapter-2/117-chapter-2
“

So great was the compulsion and enthusiasm of the historians to somehow discredit the archaeological evidence unearthed at Ayodhya that one of them, Prof. Irfan Habib, who is known amongst his fellow historians as a great scholar of medieval India, ended up making a great professional howler. He announced that he had dated the artifacts found in the Ayodhya excavations, by the carbon dating technique, and found that these artifacts were of rather recent origin. And it so happened that an officer of the Archaeological Survey reviewed the procedures of Prof. Irfan Habib and found that if Prof. Habib’s dating procedures were to be followed then one would come to the conclusion that the reign of Emperor Akbar is yet to begin: It shall begin in 2009 A.D.!

— Arun Shourie on Irfan Habib

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "So great was the compulsion and enthusiasm of the historians to somehow discredit the archaeological evidence unearthed at Ayodhya that one of them, Prof. Irfan Habib, who is known amongst his fellow historians as a great scholar of medieval India, ended up making a great professional howler. He announced that he had dated the artifacts found in the Ayodhya excavations, by the carbon dating technique, and found that these artifacts were of rather recent origin. And it so happened that an officer of the Archaeological Survey reviewed the procedures of Prof. Irfan Habib and found that if Prof. Habib’s dating procedures were to be followed then one would come to the conclusion that the reign of Emperor Akbar is yet to begin: It shall begin in 2009 A.D.!" in the context of "Arun Shourie, THE BUCKLING STATE, in Ayodhya And The Future India, Chapter 2 https://www.cpsindia.org/index.php/pub/155-ayodhya-and-the-future-india/contents/chapter-2/117-chapter-2" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

Quote Image
Source: Wikiquote: "Irfan Habib" (Quotes about Irfan Habib) The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
Arun Shourie

About Arun Shourie

Arun Shourie (born 2 November 1941) is a prominent journalist, author, and politician of India.