The Battle for Ancient India: An Essay on the Sociopolitics of Indian Archaeology.

• Author: Possehl, Gregory L.
• Position: Book review

The Battle for Ancient India: An Essay on the Sociopolitics of Indian Archaeology. BY DILIP K. CHAKRABARTI. Delhi: Aryan Books, 2008. Pp. x + 173.

Dilip K. Chakrabarti is Professor of South Asian Archaeology at Cambridge University. He has a long list of publications including at least thirteen books and has been actively engaged in fieldwork in northern India and Bangladesh for decades. In both theme and lone, the book under review follows on his Colonial Archaeology: Sociopolitics and the Ancient Indian Past (1997) and Archaeology in the Third World: A History of Indian Archaeology Since 1947 (2003). As in these books, and other works, the author combatively takes on what he considers to be misrepresentations of, or wrong-headed attitudes towards, ancient India. Western scholars are the focus of his criticism, but Chakrabarti's Indian colleagues do not all escape unscathed. It is not that we have the same text in these books, but the sets of issues that Chakrabarti addresses, and the manner in which he addresses them, overlap; and one might indeed wonder if there was a need for a new book.

The book under review begins with the author's concern about migration theory in general and the Indo-Aryan invasion of the sub-continent in particular. In more general terms Chakrabarti professes " ... a strong sense of dissatisfaction with the way the ancient Indian past has been viewed so far ... Why should the dominant academic discourse on ancient India be keen on its portraying it in a poor light?" (p. 1). The rest of the book is devoted to the author's attempt to demonstrate, and document, his dissatisfaction. How have particular topics in Indian archaeology (e.g., diffusion and migration theory) been shaped by scholars' prejudices? How has this contributed to the "poor light" in which, he feels, ancient India has been depicted? However, his discussion of these issues is seriously marred by over-dramatic blanket condemnations of Western, and some Indian, scholarship, the abundant use of outdated examples of the faults he sees, and a presentation that is poorly organized and argued.

After the statement of his principal grievance. Chapter 1 develops a position on what he calls "nationalist archaeology in India" (p. 5), a position first stated in Archaeology in the Third World. He then returns to migration/invasion theory in archaeology, mostly specific to India. Many of his examples of the use of migration/invasion theory are dated: Grahame Clark 1966 ('The Invasion Hypothesis in British Archaeology," Antiquity 40: 172-89), H. D. Sankalia 1973 ("Prehistoric Colonization in India," World Archaeology 5: 86-91), and later in the book Sir Mortimer Wheeler 1947 ("Harappa 1946: The Defences and Cemetery R-37," Ancient India 3: 58-130).

This discussion of the weaknesses of migration and colonization theory as the sole explanation in archaeology is further developed in Chapter 2, entitled "'Sunrise' in the West: Different Stands on Indian Prehistoric and Proto-Historic Archaeology." As the...