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Why the Social Context of Archaeology Matters in the Study of the Indus Valley Civilization: Insight on Banerji’S “Pre‐Buddhist” Period at Mohenjodaro

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Why the Social Context of Archaeology Matters in the Study of the Indus Valley Civilization: Insight on Banerji’S “Pre‐Buddhist” Period at Mohenjodaro Why the Social Context of Archaeology Matters in the Study of the Indus Valley Civilization: Insight on Banerji’s “Pre‐Buddhist” Period at Mohenjodaro Neha Gupta 1 1. Anthropology and Geography/Interdisciplinary Studies, Lakehead University, 500 University Ave, Orillia, Ontario, L3V0B9, Canada (Email: nguptag@ gmail.com) Received: 25 September 2013; Accepted: 10 October 2013; Revised: 24 October 2013 Heritage: Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies in Archaeology 1 (2013): 36‐62 Abstract: Most scholars agree that the Indian middle‐class is deeply interested in the Indus Valley civilization; a situation best reflected in popular publications within India on the ancient society. Furthermore, growing numbers of archaeologists, Indian and Western, remark that Indian archaeology is nationalistic. What does this mean for the study of the Indus Valley civilization, and, how does the relationship between Indian society and archaeology influence our understandings of ancient India? In this article, I use historical methods to examine the social context of archaeology with focus on the archaeological work of Rakhaldas Banerji at Mohenjodaro in the early twentieth century. I show how British scholars interpreted Indian archaeology to justify colonialism, and how Indian scholars, in turn, reinterpreted these views to challenge imperialism in colonial India. Keywords: History of Archaeology, Archaeology of India, Indus Valley Civilization, Rakhaldas Banerji, History of Science, Colonial Science, Cultural Heritage Introduction In their article entitled, “Basic Issues in Harappan Archaeology: Some Thoughts” (2006), Vasant Shinde, an archaeologist at the Deccan College Post‐Graduate and Research Institute, and his colleagues underscore the role of archaeology in contemporary Indian society. Although they do not say so explicitly, Shinde et al. (2006: 63) believe that Indian archaeology is both a way to expand Indian history and a tool to challenge Western views of Indian history. They remark, for example, that the discovery of the “Harappan Civilization” “stretched back the antiquity of settled life in the Indian Subcontinent by two thousand years at one stroke”. Moreover, the antiquity of the civilization, the researchers argue, “proved [Vincent Smith] wrong” (ibid: 63; emphasis added). The British historian Vincent A. Smith penned several works on the history of India, including The Early History of India in 1904, in which he pinned the beginning of Indian history to 600 BC and Alexander’s invasion. Few scholars today would disagree that Gupta 2013: 36‐62 Early History reflects Smith’s imperialist views of Indian history (Thapar 1968; Inden 1990), or that the discovery of the Indus Valley civilization in the 1920s (after Smith’s death) impacted Indian society (Ramaswamy 2001). Yet we have only a partial understanding of how British scholars interpreted Indian archaeology to justify colonialism, and how Indian scholars, in turn, reinterpreted these views to challenge imperialism in colonial India. This situation presents an opportunity to deepen our understanding of the social context of archaeology and shed light on archaeological practices in contemporary Indian society. What do we mean by Indian Subcontinent? Shinde et al. (2006: 64) do not define the term, but rather describe the vast expanse of the Harappan civilization “over major parts of the western and north‐western subcontinent”, with influence “beyond, up to the Tajikistan border in the north and the Gulf region in the west” (see also S. P. Gupta 1979). The oversight in geographic and spatial characterization disengages the practice of archaeology from its social context. Although many Indian archaeologists readily employ ‘subcontinent’ in their discussion of Indian archaeology, few have offered the origins of this term (U. Singh 2004; Ray 2008). Throughout Colonial Archaeology, for example, Himanshu P. Ray (2008) alternates between ‘South Asia’ and ‘subcontinent’. South Asia is a Cold War term that refers to the independent states of Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Nepal, and the island states of Sri Lanka and the Maldives. Subcontinent has a lineage in mid‐ nineteenth century imperialism and denotes geopolitical self‐containment and isolation. Specifically, it referred to the extent of British possessions east of the Durand Line, which demarcated the northwest most territories under Crown control, and stretched southeastward through to territories in natural resource‐rich Burma. In this conceptual framework, I will examine the seemingly distinct study of the Indus Valley civilization and the social context of archaeology. I argue that a deeper understanding of the social milieu in which Indian archaeology is practiced offers ways to broaden the scope of investigation of the Indus Valley civilization. Previous approaches, while fruitful, have focused on the discovery and popular perceptions of the ancient society, and have overlooked an overall understanding of archaeology and its changing relationship with Indian society. How, for example, did beliefs and values influence the interpretation of archaeological data in colonial India? Insights on these issues can help us understand archaeological practices that changed and continued in independent India. This, in turn, can shed light on the strengths and weaknesses of archaeology as a science. Drawing upon John Marshall’s sensational announcement of the “Indo‐Sumerian civilization” in 1924 and subsequent appellation “Indus civilization” (Neha Gupta 2012), I trace the work of Rakhaldas Banerji, the archaeological superintendent for the Western Circle in the Archaeology department at Mohenjodaro. It was there that Banerji identified “pre‐Buddhist” remains, a discovery that he believed was the first 37 ISSN 2347 – 5463 Heritage: Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies in Archaeology 1: 2013 evidence for the Hindu period in Indian history. Moreover, the Buddhist stupa in Mohenjodaro figured prominently in Banerji’s understanding of the archaeological site. His recovery of seals with the Indus script from beneath the massive structure represented the first time that the artefacts had been collected in a stratigraphic context, which was crucial in recognizing their antiquity. It was precisely Banerji’s understanding of stratigraphic principles, combined with his knowledge of Indian culture‐history that laid the foundation for Marshall’s announcement of the ancient society. I show that geo‐political concerns and competing colonial and nationalist interests influenced understandings of the Indus Valley civilization before the creation of Independent India in 1947. I argue that assumptions about cultural continuity between contemporary and prehistoric societies influenced interpretations of Indus sites. These methods often served social and political aims. Prior to professionalization of their discipline, archaeologists often garnered support for their knowledge claims through public outreach. Through an analysis of government reports, scholarly publications and popular works, I show how, before independence, colonial understandings of the civilization were reinterpreted as Indian or nationalistic ones. This has implications for our understanding of colonial and national science. My examination overlaps with the history of science, and the study of complex societies in addition to colonial and post‐colonial studies which developed following in the wake of the Second World War, as support for imperialist institutions waned. The creation of Pakistan and Independent India in 1947, forming the region now known as South Asia, is best understood in the context of changing geo‐political interests and alliances during which Indians increasingly questioned the legitimacy of the British Crown and demanded swaraj (self‐rule). A growing Western‐educated Indian middle class rejected claims by Western scholars that the Indus Valley civilization was a mere offshoot of the Sumerian one at Ur. Leading politicians often thought of the Indus civilization in terms of a glorious golden age when India was independent, peaceful, technologically‐advanced and idyllic. It was precisely this nationalistic reaction that propelled poorna swaraj (complete independence) from the British Crown. The dissolution of empires, as Fredrick Cooper (2005: 231) has pointed out, must not be divorced from the concurrent development of “supranational” institutions and international justice in the form of universal human rights, all of which influenced post‐colonial developments. Moreover, as the historian of science Kapil Raj (2013: 344) has argued, power resides in the “asymmetry in negotiation processes” and thus, the analysis of these processes alone can draw out how knowledge, space and power are intertwined. Indians who took over administration from the Crown faced the challenge of uniting and securing a sprawling multi‐ethnic and multi‐lingual state. For leading politicians, foreign policy concerns as well as the maintenance of internal social and political stability were pressing as they sought to form a representative Indian government. These issues influenced where Indian archaeologists carried out 38 Gupta 2013: 36‐62 archaeological field studies, and the particular time‐periods they gave most attention to. The historian of science Mark Harrison (2005: 56) has pointed out Basalla’s colonial science (1967) assumes that science was unified, directed by the state and practiced without conflict. This essentialist view resulted in limited understanding of
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