Indian Archaeology's Audit: Why 'Archaeologists of Independent India' Is An Indispensable Chronicle, A Necessary Polemic

Archaeologists of Independent India: Major Personalities and Their Work. Dilip K Chakrabarti. Aryan Books International. Pages: 386. Price: Rs 1995.

In the extensive and often contentious historiography of Indian archaeology, few figures loom as large as Professor Dilip K. Chakrabarti. Over a career spanning more than five decades, he has authored a foundational corpus of work that has sought to chart, critique, and ultimately reshape the discipline. His latest offering, Archaeologists of Independent India: Major Personalities and Their Work, stands as the capstone to this monumental project.

It is the concluding volume of an informal trilogy that began with A History of Indian Archaeology from the Beginning to 1947 (1988) and continued with the thematic survey, Archaeology in the Third World: A History of Indian Archaeology since 1947 (2003). While the latter focused on the evolution of ideas, this volume turns its gaze to the practitioners themselves, the individuals whose work at the ground level has often been 'hardly recorded in some detail'.

This work achieves a remarkable synthesis, fusing the profound dualism of an exhaustive, encyclopaedic reference with a deeply personal, fiercely argued polemic to forge and champion a holistic vision for Indian archaeology grounded in scientific fact.

The book's authority stems directly from the author's unique positionality. Chakrabarti presents himself not as a detached observer but as a 'foot soldier' who has 'lived through it'. His intimate involvement imbues the text with a tone that is both authoritative and poignant.

It is a chronicle written from the inside, a final accounting of a tradition that the author feels a deep, personal connection to, concluding with the declaration, 'After all, this is the tradition of research of which I am, hopefully, a part myself'. This framing transforms the book from a mere historical survey into a testament: a defence of a legacy and a definition of the tradition he wishes to see endure.

This testamentary quality is reinforced by the book's critical mission, which can be best understood through the powerful metaphor of a performance audit. Much like a state-sanctioned audit of a public institution, Chakrabarti's work serves as an intellectual audit of the discipline itself.

It implicitly asks whether the national investment in archaeology has yielded a commensurate socio-cultural intellectual return, or if, despite the growth of institutions, the core scholarly output has faltered. This framing is a deliberate act of holding the discipline to account, suggesting that it has, for too long, avoided the kind of rigorous self-assessment that one of its most senior members now feels compelled to provide.

The value of the book as a compendium of biographical and institutional data is unparalleled. Its most enduring significance is found in its distinctive, thought-provoking, and deeply-held national perspective.

By meticulously documenting the work of over 250 individuals and institutions, Chakrabarti builds a powerful, evidence-based case that forces the discipline to confront fundamental questions about its intellectual sovereignty, its methodological direction, and its ultimate purpose in the context of the Indian nation. It is a work that is destined to become a cornerstone of future historiographical debate.

Architects of the Past: A Collective Biography of Indian Archaeology

The primary methodological choice of the book is to narrate the history of post-1947 archaeology through a prosopography: a collective biography of its key practitioners. This is not a neutral organisational device but a strategic one, allowing Chakrabarti to construct a canon of what unfolds as authentic archaeological practice.

The criteria for inclusion are rigorous, the biographical sketches are textured with personal knowledge, and the result is a ground-level view of the discipline that is both a tribute and a pointed critique.

The central, uncompromising criterion for inclusion is made explicit from the outset: 'Independent fieldwork and its publication will be the essential criterion of being included in this volume'. This is presented as a foundational principle, a standard against which all claims to the title of 'archaeologist' must be measured.

This seemingly straightforward rule becomes a powerful tool, creating a clear distinction between those who engage directly with the material past and those who theorise about it from a distance. The political implications of this rigorously academic choice are unmistakable.

It excludes certain well-known academics, particularly from Delhi's Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), whose work the book shows to be without an empirical, field-based foundation. He dismisses one scholar as a 'celebrity of sorts in the prevailing political climate of the day' following an abortive excavation where the report was never published and the field notes went missing. He notes that others wrote on subjects like the Indus civilisation 'without any verifiable field data' of their own.

This act of exclusion strictly defines what constitutes a real archaeologist and serves as a direct challenge to a powerful and influential school of Indian historiography that is rooted in theory and detached from the material realities of the discipline.

The biographical entries themselves, which cover scores of individuals, are rich in detail and varied in tone, reflecting the author's deep and often personal knowledge of the field. The entry for the late Syed Jamal Hasan, for instance, is suffused with the warmth of personal mentorship, noting Hasan's work 'under the tutelage of the present author' and their joint fieldwork exploring the Kangra valley and excavating in Bengal.

This personal connection lends a unique authenticity and memoir-like quality to the narrative, grounding the history in lived experience.

In contrast, the entry for Shubhra Pramanik demonstrates Chakrabarti's commitment to recognising significant but perhaps under-published fieldwork. He highlights her work on the second-century CE dam at Sudarsan lake, Junagadh, as a 'major piece of research' of national importance, even while lamenting that 'nothing detailed has yet been published on this work' beyond a brief note.

This focus on substantive field contributions, regardless of their publication status, underscores his core thesis about the primacy of fieldwork.

Furthermore, Chakrabarti displays a keen sensitivity to the institutional hierarchies that can often obscure individual contributions, noting the problem of departmental fieldwork conducted in the name of a Head who may not be a trained archaeologist, while the 'actual responsibility in the field goes to relatively junior persons'.

By focusing on the people involved, Chakrabarti does more than list names; he maps out the true lineage of authentic Indian archaeology. This lineage is founded on the primacy of empirical data derived from fieldwork, standing in direct opposition to an overly theoretical, and politically motivated brand of scholarship.

Shaped by a distinctive authorial lens, the sheer breadth of information in Archaeologists of Independent India makes it an essential and peerless resource. It provides a human face to the discipline and will serve as an essential starting point for any future historian seeking to understand the people who built the foundations of archaeology in modern India and who carried forward the legacy.

The Institutional Mosaic: Mapping Archaeological Practice from the Centre to the Periphery

Beyond its focus on individuals, the book undertakes an ambitious and comprehensive survey of the institutional landscape of Indian archaeology, meticulously mapping the activities of the central Archaeological Survey of India (ASI), the myriad State Departments, and various university programmes.

This detailed cartography is far more than a descriptive exercise; it serves a crucial argumentative purpose. By juxtaposing the work being done across the country, Chakrabarti constructs a narrative in which the most vital, paradigm-shifting research is now emerging not from the traditional centres of power, but from the state-level periphery.

The chapter on the Tamil Nadu State Department of Archaeology (TNSDA) serves as a powerful microcosm of the book's central thesis: that the future, rich with evidence, may well reveal polycentric flow of the discipline.

The book's pan-Indian scope is one of its greatest strengths.

Chakrabarti provides a detailed accounting of the archaeological establishments in nearly every state, from the well-established to those he describes as 'currently moribund waiting for a new and active phase to set in'. The extended treatment of the seven Northeastern states is a particularly unique and valuable contribution, bringing often-marginalised archaeological landscapes into the national discourse.

By providing detailed lists of protected monuments in Arunachal Pradesh, summarising departmental activities in Nagaland and Manipur, and discussing the work of key regional figures, Chakrabarti offers a rare and consolidated overview of a region whose archaeological knowledge is 'still somewhat disoriented and scanty compared to the rest of India'.

This section alone makes the book an indispensable resource for understanding the true diversity of archaeological practice across the nation.

The analysis of the recent work undertaken by the TNSDA that forms the book's most startling and timely contribution. Chakrabarti presents a series of findings, which he checks meticulously through personal communication from Professor K. Rajan, that are nothing short of revolutionary.

Using advanced scientific dating techniques such as Accelerator Mass Spectrometry (AMS) and Optically Stimulated Luminescence (OSL), excavations at sites like Sivagalai, Adichchanallur, Keeladi, and Kilnamandi have radically overturned long-held chronologies for ancient South India.

The author himself describes these developments as 'absolutely amazing' and on the verge of bringing about a 'radical change in our understanding of archaeology in a large part of India'.

The new dates challenge the very foundations of the established narrative of Indian history. The discovery of iron artefacts at Sivagalai dating to the third millennium BCE, with dates falling between 2000-3000 BCE and one going back to 3345 BCE, is a momentous revelation.

This leads Chakrabarti to the stunning conclusion that 'when the Harappan civilisation experienced the Copper Age in the Indus valley, southern India experienced the Iron Age'.

This single, data-driven statement dismantles a century of diffusionist thought that presumed a north-to-south technological transfer. Similarly, the dating of Tamil-Brahmi inscribed potsherds to 580 BCE at Keeladi and 685 BCE at Sivagalai shatters the consensus that writing in the Brahmi script began in the post-Ashokan period (c. 3rd century BCE).

These findings push the introduction of the script in Tamil Nadu back to the 7th century BCE, establishing the existence of a literate, urban society in the Vaigai river valley contemporary with the so-called 'Second Urbanisation' of the Gangetic plains.

His own candid admission that, in light of the new iron dates, he must 'eat my words' regarding his previous objections to an early date for the iron-rich Satapatha Brahmana (suggested by late Prof. Narahari Achar) is a masterstroke of intellectual honesty.

It demonstrates a commitment to empirical evidence over long-held dogma, while simultaneously using that evidence to bolster his larger argument for indigenous origins.

The Chakrabarti Thesis: Arguing for Continuity Against the Colonial Shadow

One of the intellectual cores of Archaeologists of Independent India is a powerful and sustained argument against the lingering influence of the colonial-era interpretive framework. Throughout the book, Chakrabarti marshals evidence to dismantle theories predicated on invasion, migration, and cultural 'breaks', replacing them with a narrative of indigenous development and deep cultural continuity.

Chakrabarti's consistent rejection of supposed 'breaks' in the archaeological record is a recurring theme. This is most clearly articulated in his discussion of Y.D. Sharma's 1950s interpretation of a stratigraphic break between the Harappan and Painted Grey Ware (PGW) levels at Alamgirpur.

Though not mentioned in the book itself in detail this early criticism of Chakrabarti that 'the idea of break between the early periods was for some unknown reasons, was almost axiomatic in the Indian archaeological writing of the period', has been vindicated by later excavations at the same site, which 'revealed an overlap phase of both the cultures', confirming a cultural continuum where a rupture was once assumed.

This pattern of questioning established discontinuities and advocating for a model of indigenous evolution is the central pillar of the strictly data dependent national perspective in archaeology he champions.

This thesis is most powerfully displayed early on in the book through his complex assessment of the first generation of ASI leaders. Amalananda Ghosh, Director-General from 1953 to 1968. Chakrabarti acknowledges his enormous role in expanding research and his formidable command over a wide range of data.

Yet, this respect for his professional competence is paired with a profound disappointment in his intellectual framework. Ghosh is critiqued for his 'utter subjugation to the framework of writing offered by Wheeler' and for his 'remarkable unwillingness to break out of the frame of thought which controlled research on ancient India in the pre-independent India period'.

Chakrabarti identifies the imprint of colonial thought on Ghosh's worldview by highlighting several key positions: his belief that 'the idea of Indus urbanism might have been inspired by the contemporary Sumerian cities', his conviction that 'urbanism had no continuous tradition in India', and his acceptance of an 'Aryan' hand in the demise of the Indus Civilisation. His conclusion that 'the impact of iron was slow' in ancient India, is also highlighted.

For Chakrabarti, Ghosh represents a tragic paradox: a scholar with all the resources of an independent nation at his disposal who nonetheless chose to 'abide by the dictates of colonial Indology without showing any inclination to break out of their shackles'.

The assessment of B.B. Lal is similarly nuanced.

Lal is lauded as a master of fieldwork, a practitioner of the highest order. His report on Sisupalgarh is hailed as a 'textbook illustration' of Wheeler's methods, and his Hastinapur report is a 'classic illustration of how to take stratigraphic profile of a high mound'.

Chakrabarti also gives him due credit for breaking with Wheeler on the interpretation of Cemetery H pottery at Harappa and for his 'masterly study' of graffiti that demonstrated deep symbolic connections between Harappan and southern megalithic pottery. He also brings out the principled stand that Lal took with regard to Ayodhya excavation when he was under pressure to deny what he discovered.

However, there is an implicit critique of Lal's most famous hypothesis: the equation of the PGW culture with the 'Aryans' of the Mahabharata. Chakrabarti notes, with a critical edge, that this hypothesis 'attained the status of truth in myriad Indian and non-Indian publications', thereby reinforcing the very Aryan-centric paradigm that became a cornerstone of the diffusionist model. He also points out that in his later days Lal brought out various important works which highlighted Vedic elements in Harappan culture. His work on Vedic flora and fauna is particularly discussed.

Despite these sharp theoretical disagreements, Chakrabarti concludes his assessment of this generation with a surprising note of admiration for their scholarly makeup. He praises them because 'they knew the land well along with the manifold varieties of its archaeological remains and the scholarly literature they generated', and because they 'could handle a wide range of data from stone tools to pottery and from coins and inscriptions to sculptures to architecture'.

This holistic, field-based, and historically grounded scholarship is what he identifies as the great tradition of Indian archaeology, stretching back to the very inception of the Survey. His lament that 'it would be such a pity if this tradition ever got lost' reveals not just a concern but the high respect he holds for this generation of archaeologists.

The book also has entries which highlight the dedicated and path-breaking contributions of archaeologist S.R.Rao who made us realise the importance of marine archaeology and S.P.Gupta the great institution builder and also one of the finest archaeologists and Wakankar who made Bhimbetka caves famous.

D K Chakrabarti shows meticulously how the first generation of post-Independence archaeologists were technically brilliant and combined with that brilliance an in-depth subject knowledge ushering in a uniquely Indian tradition of fieldwork. His lament is that they failed to achieve intellectual decolonisation. The political independence of 1947 was not followed by an intellectual one.

That is the Bhagirathic task at hand.

The vital work of decolonisation has to be pursued vigorously while at the same time the culture of rigorous, data-driven inquiry bequeathed by the first generation of archaeologists in Independent India, should not be lost in that zeal.

Conclusion: A Manifesto for an Intellectually Sovereign Indian Archaeology

The final chapter, 'The Concluding Observations: the Subversive Factors at Work', is its most provocative and, arguably, its most important. This section moves beyond historical narration to deliver a passionate, and at times abrasive, polemic on the contemporary state of the discipline.

It is not a mere appendix of grievances but the book's ultimate manifesto: a call for intellectual self-reliance, academic honesty, and a re-grounding of Indian archaeology in its own historical and national context. The four 'subversive factors' identified by Chakrabarti are presented as interconnected symptoms of a single underlying malaise: a deep-seated crisis of confidence and a continued intellectual deference to Western academia, a condition he pithily describes as Indian collaborators possessing 'weak spines'.

The first and most fundamental factor is intellectual subservience. Chakrabarti argues that a 'derogatory, if not demeaning, view of India's ancient past' has been at play since Independence. He identifies the doyen H.D. Sankalia's repetition of the colonial-era conclusion that 'India was always a colony', dependent on foreign migrations for progress, as the prime example of this internalised inferiority.

This mindset, he contends, is the root cause of the other pathologies afflicting the discipline, leading Indian archaeologists to place themselves in a "comparatively inferior place in which the Indian archaeologists place themselves in relation to their Western counterparts".

The second factor, compromised foreign collaborations, is presented as a direct consequence of this subservience. In a scathing critique, Chakrabarti argues that in many modern collaborations, Indian university archaeologists are reduced to the role of 'mere facilitators – call them dalals or middlemen, if you prefer'.

They organise permissions and logistics, but the funding, research agenda, analysis, and final publication are controlled by the foreign partners, who are likely 'to get away by interpreting the Indian past... in any way he (or she) likes'. This arrangement, he suggests, is driven by the desire for international recognition, which 'hardly matters in the context of subjects that by their very character do not fall in the orbit of hard science'. The result is the effective outsourcing of the interpretation of India's past.

The third factor is the rise of unqualified 'archaeological scientists'. This is not a critique of science itself: Chakrabarti praises genuine scientists like the botanist Vishnu-Mittre and the chemist B.B. Lal. He decries the 'current tendency of pass-course science graduates and/or History MAs to masquerade as 'archaeological scientists''.

He points to the 'bizarre example' of an archaeologist with a history background co-authoring and interpreting ancient DNA results from Rakhigarhi, arguing that in a 'more transparent period', the publication would have been made by the actual DNA scientists. This trend is depicted as a desperate attempt to gain legitimacy by adopting the fashionable language of Western-dominated technology establishment without possessing the requisite technical training or understanding the 'science behind the interpretation'.

Finally, the fourth factor is the inevitable outcome of the preceding three: an increasing attitude of Western superiority and the imposition of alien academic frameworks. Chakrabarti argues that the deference of Indian scholars has fostered an 'increasing feeling of superiority of the West's south Asian archaeologists'.

This is coupled with the importation of an American-style, anthropology-based approach to archaeology. He argues that this is fundamentally unsuited to the Indian context, where 'archaeology... has to be a part of history in its educational sphere'. The specialised jargon of this anthropological school, he laments, has rendered much of the new literature 'beyond the understanding of many Indian archaeologists' trained in the traditional, historically-grounded Indian mode.

While such a rejection of anthropological archaeology serves as a necessary corrective, there is also a profound value of an indigenously-rooted approach, as demonstrated by scholars like Irawati Karve and Subhash Chandra Malik. The book also has a critical entry for the latter. Chakrabarti characterises Malik's works as 'devoted almost exclusively to theorisation and theoretical literature' and 'would have gained far more effectiveness' had Prof Malik 'combined this approach with a fair amount of empiricism.'

A pioneering Indic anthropologist Karve utilised an anthropological lens to offer a culturally relevant alternative to colonial interpretations, suggesting a Harappan street with mortars was inhabited by a 'caste-like group, who specialised in pounding rice' rather than being 'slave quarters'. Building on this, S.C. Malik proposed a more systemic model of 'deep continuity', using anthropological theory to explain the civilisation's remarkable stability and homogeneity without a coercive state, arguing for a non-coercive authority integrated by 'mythology, custom, values'.

The work of both these scholars demonstrates that a thoughtful Indic anthropological framework, far from undermining empirical rigour, actually enriches it by challenging colonial narratives and providing the interpretive tools necessary to transform archaeological data into a meaningful social history.

That said, this concluding manifesto of Chakrabarti is a defence of a historically-grounded, data-driven approach against a universalising anthropological model that he views as alien to the Indian tradition.

The book successfully operates on two distinct levels, and its enduring value lies in the synthesis of these two functions. On one level, it is an indispensable chronicle, a biographical and institutional encyclopaedia of the discipline's first seven decades after 1947. On another, it is a necessary, passionate and deeply personal argument for the intellectual decolonisation of Indian archaeology. It is a book that is at once a reference work, a history, a memoir, and a manifesto.

As a chronicle, its contributions are immense and undeniable. The meticulous compilation of the work of so many scholars provides an invaluable resource that rescues many significant but under-recognised figures from obscurity. The detailed survey of state-level archaeological organisations, particularly in regions like the Northeast, fills a major lacuna in the existing literature.

And its timely inclusion of the paradigm-shifting discoveries in Tamil Nadu without bias and situating them in the larger cultural context, ensures that it captures the discipline at a moment of profound transformation, making it an essential baseline for all future research. No serious student of Indian archaeology can afford to ignore the sheer empirical richness contained within these pages.

Yet, it is as a polemic that the book achieves its greatest significance. The work's highly personal and idiosyncratic nature, which might be seen as a flaw in a conventional history, is in fact its greatest strength.

It is Chakrabarti's unparalleled personal knowledge, his willingness to be both 'objective and respectful' to his subjects while being fiercely critical of the intellectual trends he deplores, that makes the book unique and irreplaceable. His central thesis – that the first generation of post-Independence archaeologists, while technically brilliant, failed to break free from the colonial intellectual framework – is a challenging and provocative rereading of the discipline's history. It reframes the subsequent decades as a continuing struggle for intellectual sovereignty.

This struggle culminates in his call for a 'nationalist narrative'. It is crucial to understand what Chakrabarti means by this term. As presented in this volume, his vision of nationalism is not one of chauvinistic myth-making or the rejection of scientific rigour. Rather, it is a scholarly framework that prioritises three core principles.

First, an emphasis on indigenous processes and cultural continuity over diffusionist explanations imported from the West.

Second, a demand for intellectual self-reliance and an end to the neo-colonial academic deference that he documents so scathingly in his concluding chapter.

And third, the firm placement of archaeology within the discipline of history, in constant and respectful dialogue with India's rich textual traditions, a practice he sees as the hallmark of the authentic Indian archaeological tradition.

In sum, Archaeologists of Independent India is a landmark publication. Its empirical depth makes it an essential reference, while its theoretical arguments, certain to be debated for years to come, are rigorously grounded in a lifetime of scholarship and fieldwork.

It is a challenging, passionate, and profoundly important work that not only documents the past of Indian archaeology but seeks to define its future. It is, without question, the magnum opus of one of the most significant Indian archaeologists of more than one generation.