Archaeology seems to have become a buzzword nowadays. Almost every day, one hears of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) being ordered by various courts to survey mosques. How has this come to be? The ASI is a government body—under the Ministry of Culture—established in the latter half of the 19th century by the British government to look after the archaeological heritage of the colony. The intrinsic nature of the ASI has meant that the primary body responsible for archaeology in India is at the service of the state. Since its origin, the ASI has been a behemoth responsible for conservation, preservation and survey of the major archaeological remains in this country. Thus, any object or building of antique date that is recovered immediately becomes the concern of the ASI and the state. This ownership reminds us of ancient kings claiming everything that was found within their lands: animals, minerals, and resources such as fertile soil and water.
Unlike other countries where there are cultural resource management bodies that are separate from the government, in India, archaeological remains are regulated by the state, through the ASI. Lately, the ASI has started farming out management of some of the major properties it is responsible for to corporate bodies under its Adopt a Heritage Scheme and has allowed the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) to document, value and conserve unprotected monuments by formulating case-specific guidelines. The ASI라이브 바카라 officers also undertake excavations and conduct research, but these tasks are also undertaken by archaeologists in universities and a few trusts and institutions working in the field of heritage. However, since anything to do with heritage is within the purview of the ASI, control over who can excavate a site, how much and how long a site can be excavated is completely in the hands of the ASI. This has also meant that very few practising archaeologists in India or outside have the freedom to speak out about the ASI라이브 바카라 archaeological practices and methods.
Moreover, the various arms of the government only recognise the ASI as the legitimate spokesperson for archaeology in India. The honourable judges (both High Court and Supreme Court) in the Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi case accepted the ASI라이브 바카라 verdict regarding the structure under the mosque, calling the ASI “expert of experts”. This has meant an unalloyed acceptance of the work of an organization that is part of the country라이브 바카라 governmental framework. The judiciary, in calling for the ASI to survey and excavate the contested site, has, unfortunately, involved the discipline in the legal case surrounding the Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi structure. This has had damaging consequences for both archaeology and the ASI.
The Babri Masjid-Ram Janmabhoomi case has subsequently provided a playbook that has been used again and again in different parts of India in the last few months till a stay was put by a bench presided over by the current Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of India. This stay is in place to ascertain the validity of the Places of Worship (Special Provisions) Act, 1991, that was enacted to preserve the religious character of places of worship as they were on August 15, 1947. While the Babri Masjid was kept outside the purview of the Act, the implication was that all other places of worship were to maintain status quo or the same religious character that they possessed on August 15, 1947. According to the 1991 Act, existing suits that were pending before courts were to abate, and no new suits were to be filed. However, what we have seen in the recent past is the mushrooming of cases, from the Shahi Jama Masjid at Sambhal, the Kamal Maula Mosque at Dhar, and the Jama Masjid at Aligarh to the 13th century Sufi shrine of Khwaja Moin-ud-din Chishti at Ajmer and the Atala Masjid at Jaunpur.
There has been an outcry among historians, archaeologists and the public over the ASI라이브 바카라 role in all these disputes, but does the ASI really have a choice but to follow the orders given by the government or the judiciary? The fact that the ASI is in a compromised situation, having to follow government orders, suggests their lack of agency. Ideally, as a government body and that too, at the behest of the state, the ASI should not be excavating, as they do not have the requisite training to carry out cutting-edge research. Its officers have little idea of how far the discipline of archaeology the world over has evolved in the last 75 years, as they continue to practise a kind of archaeology that was taught by Mortimer Wheeler in the late 1940s.
As long as the state remains insecure about the nation라이브 바카라 past and selective about its history and heritage, we will continue to find an attempt to assuage past hurt sentiments of a segment of its population, and concentrate on issues that focus on the nation being first, whether it be with the origin of iron metallurgy or the domestication of rice. And it is not just the nation, but regional governments as well are impelling the search for their own histories. The recent focus by the Tamil Nadu government on the findings from Keezhadi and of iron from other sites in the region speaks to a similar desire for primacy, and a contestation with the northern parts of the country.
So, what does one take away from the current situation? One can say that resolution in the Babri Masjid case should not have rested on the involvement of archaeology through the ASI. That opened the space for the ASI to be used for settling historical hurt sentiments of the majority community. As a result of the ASI being dragged into legal cases concerning mosques, the perception among the general public is an instrumentalist one, wherein archaeology is seen to only have this kind of role at the service of the state and the nation. Undoubtedly, excavations that are called for by the state will get public attention, but the discipline has paid a heavy price for what the ASI has been made to do.
However, this is not where the potential of archaeology rests. This country라이브 바카라 universities have several able archaeologists working on diverse and complex issues, and archaeology is best left to them. This is a discipline that can bring to light the little people, the unknown crafters, workers, and farmers, the women and children in households, and the vast anonymous numbers who peopled our past villages, towns and cities. This is also a discipline that can explore material, social and political inequalities of access to resources such as land and water as well as the efforts that people made to sustain and conserve them. Archaeology is not just a discipline focusing on the deep past but can speak to more recent historical periods as well as recent and contemporary times, and periods that are exposed to such rapid change that need to be recorded before they are lost. Such archaeologies allow us to combine the material with texts and oral narratives in ways that archaeologists are better equipped to handle. This is the potential of archaeology that is tragically lost in the attempt to misuse it to address political issues.
(Views expressed are personal)
Jaya Menon has taught Archaeology at M. S. University Of Baroda, Aligarh Muslim University and Shiv Nadar University
(This appeared in the print as 'Sponosored Survey')
