Dravidianist Celebration Of John Marshall Is A Case Of Internalised Colonialism, Not Pride In Indian History

The year 2024 marks the centenary of Sir John Marshall’s groundbreaking announcement in 1924 of the discovery of Mohenjo-daro, a milestone with profound significance not only for the academic study of ancient Indian history but also for shaping contemporary Indian politics and perceptions of Hinduism.

Marshall’s speculation of the site’s pre-Vedic origins and its Dravidian connection have, over the past century, been embraced by Dravidianist politicians and historiographers to bolster their ideological narratives.

While it is fitting to honour the discovery of the Indus Valley Civilisation (IVC) or (Sindhu Saraswati Civilisation, as it is claimed now) and Marshall’s contributions, the Dravidianist perspective extends this gratitude further.

Their reverence for Marshall inadvertently highlights a core issue within the Dravidian movement: the belief that, without British intervention, the rich heritage of the Dravidians might have remained obscured by an alleged Brahminical dominance.

In the Dravidianist narrative, it was a British missionary Caldwell who provided the movement with the text, Comparative Grammar, which gave the clarion call for the removal of all Sanskrit words from Tamil. It provided a politically attractive cocktail of linguistics and racial identity.

Marshall, the British archaeologist, brought to the world the glory of a long forgotten Dravidian civilisation that was probably ended by 'cunning alien Aryans'.

However, such a narrative is factually wrong.

In 1984, the manuscript of a report by Indian archaeologist Rakhal Das Banerji (1885-1930) was brought out by a publishing firm in Varanasi — 'Prithvi Prakashan'.

This was the typed manuscript submitted in 1926 by Banerji to the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) but was held unpublished and returned with a curt regret. The 1984 publishers give the following background information on this report — now titled as ‘Mohenjadaro – A Forgotten Report’.

Paraphrased:

In 1921 it was Indian archaeologist Rai Bahadur Dayaram Sahni who established Harappa as Chalcolithic site, anterior to Bronze age thus claiming an antiquity hitherto not given to Indian history. Then in 1922 he discovered and established the antiquity of Mohenjo-daro. He also published a report, working for four years. In the year 1922, John Marshall’s article on the ancient monuments in India was published in 'The Cambridge History of India', in which he did not mention Mohenjo-daro. He was not aware of its importance.

While John Marshall announced the discovery in 1924, Banerji could bring out his report based on his field work only in 1926. The report was withheld for four years. The manuscript was returned to Banerji in 1930 though the photographs were not returned despite his repeated requests. Banerji died in the same year.

In 1931 Marshall came with his own detailed report and book, ‘Mohenjadaro and the Indus Civilisation’. With access strategically denied to his own field photos and with paucity of printing presses and their very limited capacity and above all his premature death, Banerji could not publish his report though today in the archaeological circles at least and in passing references in history textbooks, his name also gets mentioned. Marshall did acknowledge his contribution eventually in 1931.

So the Dravidianists should at least acknowledge R D Banerji before they express their ideological gratitude to the British.

In reality, R D Banerji and other important Indian archaeologists, who were pioneers in Indus Valley Civilisation archaeology, are not given the recognition they deserve. Instead, only John Marshall is celebrated and portrayed as the hero. This reflects a subservience towards the British, which is a key aspect of the Dravidianist ideology.

But why blame the Dravidianists? At least they have an ideological axe to grind. At every opportunity available they have to display their loyalty and gratitude to the colonialists whose influence still lingers in their minds. But what about the so-called 'nationalists'?

On 1 September 2024, Harappa.com posted a tweet highlighting the remarkable contributions of Indian archaeologists in uncovering the greatness of the Harappan civilisation. It pointed out that those contributions are 'little described or known'. That is quite a commentary on the total lack of vision on the part of the cultural commissars of present-day government.

This is despite the fact that highlighting such contributions of Indian archaeologists would serve the purpose of national integration and would ignite a scientific interest in ancient Indian history beyond the narrow confines of isolated ideologies.

Today, we know that the proto-Dravidian is not Tamil, just as how proto-Indo-European is not Sanskrit. Nor do terms like 'Sanskrit', 'Indo-European', 'Tamil' and 'Dravidian' carry any ethnic meaning. For example, the misleading quasi-literate term 'Dravidian stock' which the Dravidianist politicians use to abuse our knowledge of ancient history.

On the other hand what we know is that even in the identification of the linguistic family of Dravidian languages, the pioneering effort was not done by the Christian missionary Robert Caldwell, who gave his own racial distortion and imparted his own prejudices to the narrative.

In reality, the roots of the identification go back to a set of scholars whom the Indologist Thomas Trautmann calls the ‘Madras Circle’. They should be considered as the ones who brought out the so-called ‘Dravidian evidence’.

This circle consisted of Francis Ellis, D A Campbell, Vedam Pattabhirama Shastri and Bomakonti Shankara Shastri.

Trautmann in his book, Languages and Nations: Dravidian Proof in Colonial Madras, states that the role of Vedam Pattabhirama Shastri (1760–1820), in the making of the Dravidian proof was ‘crucial’.

Instead of Caldwell, who infused his racial biases and colonial interests into Dravidian linguistics, it is Vedam Pattabhirama Shastri who should be credited for pioneering the recognition of the Dravidian language family in modern linguistics.

However in the book, Grammar of the Teloogoo Language, one finds only the names of the two Europeans — Campbell and Ellis. Though Ellis defended Indian culture against attacks by imperialists like Mill, it is important to note that the colonial knowledge production did not acknowledge Indians as equal partners even when they were equal contributors.

Even if one subscribes to the racialist Dravidianist view that Harappans were Dravidian and Tamil is a pure Dravidian language — both unsupported by evidence — credit for identifying the Dravidian language family should go to Vedam Pattabhirama Shastri, a Brahmin. His work brought this legacy into modern linguistics. Likewise, the discovery of Mohenjo-daro and the establishment of its antiquity should be attributed to Bengali Kulin Brahmin Rakhal Das Banerji.

It is only because Dravidianist politics promotes the stereotypes of the 'cunning Brahmin' and the 'beneficent coloniser' that these facts are sought to be highlighted. In any other context, scholars like Shastri and Banerji need to be celebrated for their knowledge and contributions alone, and not their caste background.

It is also interesting to note some more Indic linguistic dimensions here.

Indian historiography often draws from Puranic lore. Madhava Sivajnana Munivar (1753-1785), a master of both Tamil and Sanskrit, emphasises in his Kanchi Puranam the independent yet deeply rooted divine sources of both languages. The divine source for him is of course Shiva.

This Puranic motif contains although a historical core, reflecting the Hindu view of languages as expressions of universal consciousness. Both languages are seen as independent yet interconnected, a perspective well-established in Indian tradition without cognitive conflict.

In other words, Tamil belonging to a separate linguistic branch had been made common knowledge through such works.

Sanskrit itself has what is called a Dravidian substratum. Even if one accepts the extra-territorial origin of Proto-Indo-European language, Sanskrit is more Indic than European and nearly all languages of the subcontinent have contributed to it. This truth was well known to Indian Pandits.

What the Dravidianists do not want to understand with respect to Sanskrit is that it has been the vehicle of carrying ‘Dravidian’ ideas and cognates to all of India because just as Tamil without Sanskrit is an artificial fantasy inseminated by colonialism, Sanskrit without Dravidian elements in it simply cannot exist at all.

Coming to IVC itself, one can say much water has flown in Indus and much soil has been swept by wind in the paleochannels of Ghaggar-Hakra. Even a seasoned Dravidianologist like the late Iravatham Mahadevan agreed that Harappan culture was Vedic, though he considered its language to be Dravidian. (By the way he never relinquished Indo-European migration theory as claimed in certain Hindu rightwing quarters).

Meanwhile, recent studies have problematised the view of a linguistically monolithic IVC. In 2023, in the magazine Science Paul Heggarty et al, published a paper which pointed out the untenable nature of Steppe-based incursion bringing in Indo-European languages to South Asian region.

The paper stated that the period 4300–3700 years before the present (BP) does not attest to any such south-ward Steppe incursion.

So the standard model of Indo-European migration into Indus valley region (‘South Asia’) associated with a (1500 BCE) Steppe population is untenable.

The paper more importantly points to the fact that the Indic and Iranic had diverged from each other already by around 5,520 years BP (4,540 to 6,800 years BP). To assume that such a split happened two thousand years before Indo-European languages entered India and Iran is again too improbable to be a historical scenario. This would make the presence of IE languages in Harappan civilisation a real possibility, unrelated to the so-called Steppe incursion.

Archaeologists have also busted another one favourite political fantasy of Dravidianists as well as assorted Tamil chauvinists. In all probability, the Harappan society had a proto-varna/jati system if not the varna system itself.

If the so-called Aryans indeed came from outside, then they did not bring the system. Rather, they got incorporated into it.

Archaeologist Jonathan Kenoyer points out that all archaeological correlates of "a concept of hierarchical stratification based on ritual purity" which "would be represented in much the same manner as it is represented in later societies in South Asia; segregation of living areas, private water sources, drainage and waste disposal and distinct sets of ceramics, specifically those connected with cooking, food preparation and food serving" then "all of the basic data sets are present" in IVC.

It was not as rigid as it became later in Indian society but it was present.

With all of this, one can safely and categorically dismiss the Dravidianist irrational or quasi-educated claim of Harappan civilisation belonging to the ‘Dravidian stock’ even if that claim was made in the tweet of the Chief Minister himself.

On the other hand, in all probability, Harappan society had multiple languages, different spiritual traditions and possibly different ethnicities — very much like today’s India. It is in this sense the Harappan civilisation reflects the Atharva Vedic principle:

Janam bibharti bahudha vivachasam nanadharmanam Prthivi yathaukasam (Atharva Veda: 12.1.45)