Hindutva Horsing Around: Sid Harth

[navanavonmilita]

Hindutva Horsing Around: Sid Harth

Opinion - Interviews

Deciphering the Indus script: challenges and some headway

Interview with
Professor Asko Parpola.

Photo: SHAJU JOHN ASKO PARPOLA: ‘The Indus script encodes a Dravidian
language.'


Dr. Asko Parpola, the Indologist from Finland, is Professor Emeritus
of Indology, Institute of World Cultures, University of Helsinki, and
one of the leading authorities on the Indus Civilisation and its
script. On the basis of sustained work on the Indus script, he has
concluded that the script — which is yet to be deciphered — encodes a
Dravidian language. As a Sanskritist, his fields of specialisation
include the Sama Veda and Vedic rituals. Excerpts from replies that
Professor Parpola gave over e-mail to a set of questions sent to him
by T.S. Subramanian in the context of his being chosen for the
Kalaignar M. Karunanidhi Classical Tamil Award, 2009. The award,
comprising Rs. 10 lakh and a citation, will be presented during the
World Classical Tamil Conference to be held in Coimbatore from June 23
to 27, 2010. The award announcement said Professor Parpola was chosen
for his work on the Dravidian hypothesis in interpreting the Indus
script because the Dravidian, as described by him, was close to old
Tamil. The award, administered by the Central Institute of Classical
Tamil, Chennai, was instituted out of a donation of Rs. 1 crore made
by Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi:

You are a Vedic scholar. What brought you to the field of the Indus
script?

As a university student of Sanskrit and ancient Greek in the early
1960s, I read John Chadwick's fascinating book on how the Mycenaean
‘Linear B' script of Bronze Age Greece was deciphered [ The
Decipherment of Linear B, Cambridge University Press, 1958]. Michael
Ventris succeeded in doing this without the aid of any bilingual
texts, which in most cases have opened up forgotten scripts. Then my
childhood friend Seppo Koskenniemi, who worked for IBM, offered his
help if I wanted to use the computer for some task in my field. As
statistics and various indexes have been important in successful
decipherments, we took up this challenging problem of Indian
antiquity.

There is some criticism that the Indus script is not a writing system.

I do not agree [with that]. All those features of the Indus script
which have been mentioned as proof for its not being a writing system,
characterise also the Egyptian hieroglyphic script during its first
600 years of existence. For detailed counterarguments, see my papers
at the website www.harappa.com.

If it is a writing system, what reasons do you adduce for it?

The script is highly standardised; the signs are as a rule written in
regular lines; there are hundreds of sign sequences which recur in the
same order, often at many different sites; the preserved texts are
mostly seal stones, and seals in other cultures usually have writing
recording the name or title of the seal owner; and the Indus people
were acquainted with cuneiform writing through their trade contacts
with Mesopotamia.

Indus signs are generally available on seals and tablets. It was
presumed that the seals and tablets had short Indus texts because they
were meant for trade and commerce. However, a 3-metre long inscription
on wood inlaid with stone crystals was found at Dholavira in Gujarat.
It was also presumed that Indus inscriptions would not be available in
stone. Again, in Dholavira, a large slab with three big Indus signs
was found recently. The Archaeological Survey of India's website says
the Dholavira site “enjoys the unique distinction of yielding an
inscription made up of ten large-sized signs of the Indus script and,
not less in importance, is the other find of a large slab engraved
with three large signs.” What, in your assessment, is the significance
of Indus signs engraved on a large stone slab?

These finds show that the Indus script was used in monumental
inscriptions too. It is natural to expect writing to be used in such
contexts as well.

What are the impediments to deciphering the Indus script? Is the short
nature of the texts a big impediment? If we get a text with about 70
signs, will we able to decipher the script?

The main impediment is the absence of such a key as the Rosetta stone,
which contained the same text in different scripts and languages. Nor
is there any closely similar known script of the same origin which
could give clues to the sound values of the Indus signs. And not only
is the script unknown, there is much controversy also about its type
(alphabetic, syllabic, logo-syllabic) and about the language
underlying it. Apart from the likelihood that the Greater Indus Valley
was probably called Meluhha in Sumerian, there is no historical
information concerning the Indus Civilisation: it was the names and
genealogies of the Persian kings (known from Greek historians and the
Bible) which opened up the cuneiform script. The texts are so short
that they hardly contain complete sentences, probably only noun
phrases. But a text some 70 signs long would not lead to a dramatic
decipherment of the script, although it can be expected to throw some
new light on the structure of the underlying language.

Can you explain what you mean by the “Dravidian solution of the Indus
enigma?”

I mean by it obtaining certainty that the language underlying the
Indus script in South Asia belongs to the Dravidian language family.
For this, it is not necessary to decipher the entire script (which in
any case is impossible with the present materials) but we need a
sufficient number of tightly cross-checked sign interpretations.

It is 16 years since you published Deciphering the Indus Script. What
is the progress you have made since then in deciphering it?

Some progress has been made, and I shall talk about it at the
Classical Tamil Conference in June. Progress is very difficult,
however, also because our knowledge of Proto-Dravidian vocabulary and
especially phraseology is so incomplete. This knowledge is critical
for reliable readings, and here Old Tamil offers precious but
unfortunately limited material.

Some Indian scholars feel that the Indus Civilisation is Aryan and
connected with the Rig Veda. You are a Vedic scholar and you
specialise in the Indus script too. So what is your reaction to this
standpoint?

Rigvedic hymns often speak of horses and horse-drawn chariots, and the
horse sacrifice, ashvamedha, is among the most prestigious Vedic
rites. The only wild equid native to the Indian subcontinent is the
wild ass, which is known from the bone finds of the Indus Civilisation
and depicted (though rarely) in its art and script. The domesticated
horse is absent from South Asia until the second millennium BCE. Finds
from Pirak and Swat from 1600 BCE show it was introduced from Central
Asia after the Indus Civilisation. The earliest archaeological finds
of horse-drawn chariot come from graves dated to around 2000 BCE in
the Eurasian steppes, the natural habitat of the horse. There are also
ancient Aryan loanwords in Finno-Ugric languages spoken in
northeastern Europe (for example, the word for ‘hundred' in my own
language Finnish is sata). Some of these Aryan loanwords represent a
more archaic stage of development (that is, are phonetically closer to
the older Proto-Indo-European language) than Rigvedic Sanskrit. It is
very likely that these words came to Finno-Ugric languages from Proto-
Aryan spoken in the Volga steppes.

You have published two volumes of Indus Seals and Inscriptions along
with J.P. Joshi. Will there be a third volume?

Shri J. P. Joshi was the co-editor of the first volume of the Corpus
of Indus Seals and Inscriptions, S. G. M. Shah of the second. Volume
3, Part 1 is in the press and will come out by June 2010.

Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions dating back to 1st century BCE to third
century CE offer the fundamental evidence that Tamil is a classical
language. Would you like to comment on the threat posed to these Tamil-
Brahmi inscriptions in the hills in and around Madurai by the granite-
quarrying lobby?

The Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions are important monuments, which should be
adequately protected. The possibility of new finds must also not be
forgotten. In my own country, Finland, the government has been much
concerned about the damage caused to scenery by sand-quarrying and has
passed restrictive laws.

http://www.hindu.com/2010/04/15/stories/2010041553550900.htm

Volume 17 - Issue 23, Nov. 11 - 24, 2000
India's National Magazine
from the publishers of THE HINDU
SCHOLARLY COMMUNICATION

New Evidence on the 'Piltdown Horse' Hoax

Michael Witzel and Steve Farmer are the scholarly authors of the Cover
Story, "Horseplay in Harappa," in Frontline (October 13, 2000).

Michael Witzel is Wales Professor of Sanskrit at Harvard University
and the author of many publications, including the recent monograph
Early Sources for South Asian Substrate Languages, Boston: ASLIP/
Mother Tongue 1999. A collection of his Vedic studies will be
published in India by Orient Longman later this year. He is also
editor of The Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies, accessible through
his home page at

http://www.fas.harvard.edu/witzel/mwpage.htm.
He can be contacted at ***@fas.harvard.edu.

Steve Farmer, who received his doctorate from Stanford University, has
held a number of academic posts in premodern history and the history
of science. Among his recent works is his book Syncretism in the West,
which develops a cross-cultural mode l of the evolution of traditional
religious and philosophical systems. He is currently finishing a new
book on brain and the evolution of culture. He can be contacted at
***@safarmer.com.

MICHAEL WITZEL & STEVE FARMER

He who sees me everywhere
and sees everything in me...
Gita VI, 30

Our thanks to Iravatham Mahadevan and Asko Parpola, two of the world's
leading experts on the Indus script, for their comments on N. S.
Rajaram's latest "horse" fantasy. We welcome this opportunity to
discuss new evidence that has come to light since our expos‚ of
Rajaram's bogus "decipherment" of the Indus or Harappan script
appeared in "Horseplay in Harappa," the cover story of the October 13
issue.

Rajaram's newest 'horse': We would first like to add further detail to
Asko Parpola's thorough deconstruction of Rajaram's newest "horse"
discovery. As Parpola points out, the "horse" Rajaram imagines on the
cover of Frontline is an optical illusion that only shows up when seal
M-18 A is blown up (as it necessarily was to create the cover) to many
times its actual size. The "eye" of Rajaram's "horse" (seen in Figure
1) is created by a tiny fault (probably caused by abrasion) in the
ancient seal, which prior to its discovery lay in the ground for some
4,000-odd years.

Figure 1. On the left, the cover of the October 13 edition of
Frontline, illustrated with Harappan seal M-18 A. On the right, a
blowup of part of the cover, where Rajaram finds another "horse." The
"eye" of the "horse" is caused by a tiny flaw in the ancient seal,
highlighted by the lighting coming from the right. The lighting also
causes other Rorschach-like illusions that vanish when the seal or its
impressions are viewed in other conditions (see Figure 2).

In the beautiful colour photo by Erja Lahdenper„, especially
commissioned for Parpola's Corpus of Indus Seals and Inscriptions, the
tiny fault is highlighted by the illumination coming from the right.
(By convention, photos of seals are lighted fr om the right, seal
impressions from the left.) Similar illusions create the impression
that the "head" of the "horse" is much thicker than its "neck," that
its "shoulders" are rounded, and that the "horse" has "ears" and even
"feet." (As soon as you noti ce the "feet" or hooves, you realise that
Rajaram's poor horse has his neck twisted around and is facing the
wrong way - like the village lecher forced to ride backwards through
the marketplace on an ass!) All these illusions disappear when the
seal is v iewed at normal scale or in different conditions, as is
evident when we compare the images in Figures 1 and 2.

Quite a bit is actually known about this seal, which was chosen for
the cover because of its particular beauty. A careful drawing of the
newly discovered seal was made by G.R. Hunter less than two months
after the close of the excavating season in Mohenj o-daro in late
February 1927. Hunter's drawing of the seal's impression is found in
his classic 1934 study of the Indus script. Hunter's drawing shows
what has been known to Harappan scholars for almost 75 years: that the
sign is totally abstract and doe s not contain a hint of any animistic
form.

All illusions of "horses" (or other creatures) in the sign also vanish
when we examine photos not of the seal but of its impressions. This is
clear from the crisp black-and-white photo of its impression (M-18 a
in Parpola's Corpus of Indus Sea ls and Inscriptions) again
photographed by the talented Erja Lahdenper„. See the images (flipped
horizontally to simplify comparison with the seal) in Figure 2.

Figure 2. On the left, G.R. Hunter's original sketch (from The Script
of Harappa and Mohenjo-daro and Its Connection with Other Scripts,
1934, Plate XIX) of the sign where Rajaram finds his newest Harappan
"horse." We have flipped the image hor izontally to simplify
comparison with the colour photo in Figure 1. On the right, a photo of
the sign from a seal impression (Parpola M-18 a, again flipped
horizontally). In this case, the "eye" of the "horse," created by the
tiny fault, lies hidden deep in the shadow of the impression. All
other optical illusions vanish as well. Note in both images the
separation of the "head" and "neck" from "body" -- showing that at
best Rajaram's is a poor decapitated "horse."

Parpola notes that this character is a composite sign, and that the
sign's rooflike element (Rajaram's "head" and "neck") shows up in
other Harappan signs. In the lower half of this page, we show one of
dozens of examples of the same or similar element, which is often seen
combined with the Harappan "fish sign" - apparently to modify the
sign's base meaning. (On composite signs, see Parpola's Deciphering
the Indus Script, 1994, especially pp. 79-82.) Following the logic of
his note to Frontlin e, Rajaram might very well imagine a "horse" in
the figure on the right - all that is needed is an "eye" and
Coleridge's "willing suspension of disbelief"! See Figures 3 and 4.

As though all this evidence were not enough, we have Mahadevan's
direct testimony presented in his communication published in this
issue: "I have seen the original seal with the Archaeological Survey
of India, New Delhi (ASI No. 63.10/363). No horse is t o be seen
there. Rajaram's 'horses' only prove that one sees what one wants
to."

Figure 3. The so-called Harappan fish sign - shown in the first
example with and in the second without the rooflike modifying sign.
Details here are from Parpola H-129 a bis. The roof element above the
"fish" character is similar to the top element in the sign where
Rajaram sees his newest "horse." Figure 4. The roofed fish sign with
a simulated "eye" added. Through our whimsical "computer enhancement,"
we transform our fish into a dancing Harappan "horse"!

New light on the seal's 'computer enhancement': In "Horseplay in
Harappa," we noted that Rajaram let it slip out in an online exchange
that his original "horse seal" (based on a seven-decade-old photo of a
broken seal impression, Mackay 453) was a "computer enhancement"
produced to "facilitate our reading." Neither this fact, nor the
precise location of the original in Mackay's writings, nor the fact
that Mackay 453 was broken is told to the reader of Rajaram's book.
After this slip, Rajaram has adamantly refused to discuss his
"computer enhancement" publicly, although he has boasted to us that he
has many years' academic experience in computer imaging. (But see now
our postscript to this communication, reporting a recent Rajaram
interview.)

New evidence on this issue has come to light since our article was
published, through the good offices of Iravatham Mahadevan. In
scholarly communications printed in this and an earlier issue of
Frontline (October 27, 2000), Mahadevan relates that in September
1997, Rajaram sent him a copy of the "horse seal" that was different
in important ways from the "computer enhancement." Rajaram, in turn,
has repudiated Mahadevan's account, claiming in a note published in a
nationalistic email List that "t he copy I sent him in 1997 was
exactly the same one that went into the book." In the same note,
Rajaram hints that Mahadevan's first letter to Frontline might be a
forgery, qualifying his repudiation with the words "assuming that he
[i.e., Mahadev an] did write that letter."

In the light of these remarks, Mahadevan has made available to
Frontline, Witzel, and Farmer the correspondence he had with Rajaram
in the fall of 1997. That correspondence, not unexpectedly, supports
Mahadevan's and not Rajaram's view of reality. The copies of both the
"horse seal" and "Artist's reproduction" of the supposed horse
(illustrated in our original article) sent to Mahadevan are
significantly different from what later went into Rajaram's book.

Comparison of different versions of the "horse seal" by Frontline
graphics specialists (summarised in Figure 5) throws interesting new
light on the "computer enhancement" found in Rajaram's book. Koenraad
Elst, a Belgian writer and frequent defender of the Hindutva
"revisionists," has recently argued that Rajaram's problems with
Harappan horses have all been innocent errors1 Comparison of what
Rajaram sent to Mahadevan with what is found in his book suggests a
different interpre tation. We limit ourselves to two points involving
the "horse" image:

1. The photocopy of Mackay 453 sent by Rajaram to Mahadevan was hardly
a crisp image, but it was good enough for Mahadevan to see that the
original seal was broken. Not even a Harappan expert could tell that
the seal was broken from what is printed in Ra jaram's book. The so-
called "computer enhancement" badly degrades the image - hiding the
fact that the seal is broken and turning its break (as Mahadevan
suggests) into the "neck" and "front legs" of Rajaram's deer-like
"horse."

2. The copy of the "horse seal" that Rajaram sent to Mahadevan
includes annotations on its lower righthand side, in part identifying
the plate where Mackay 453 is found2. That information is crucial,
since thousands of images are found in Mack ay's works - many of them
quite tiny and difficult to distinguish. No data at all identifying
the plate (or even the publication) in which Mackay 453 is located are
contained in Rajaram's book. In the reproduction found in that book,
the annotations are clumsily covered up - creating the illusion of
what Indologists have taken to be a common icon (a "feeding trough"
looking a bit like an old-time telephone) often found at the feet of
animals in Indus inscriptions. (For examples of these objects, see our
article in Frontline, October 13.)

Figure 5. From bull to Hindutva horse in three steps. On the left, the
original of the "horse seal" impression (Mackay 453). Comparison with
dozens of seals shows that the image is that of a unicorn bull;
evidence of this was shown in our original art icle. In the middle,
the photocopy of Mackay 453 sent by Rajaram to the great Indian
scholar Iravatham Mahadevan in September 1997. The photocopying was
careless, but the image was sharp enough for Mahadevan to recognise at
a glance that the seal was bro ken. Note the annotations at the lower
right that in part identify the seal location. On the right, the
"computer enhancement" of Mackay 453 printed in Rajaram's book. In the
"enhancement," it is no longer possible to tell that the seal is
broken, and th e crack in the seal is turned into the "front legs,"
"neck," and "head" of Rajaram's deer-like "horse." The annotations
have been covered over, creating what Indologists have mistaken for a
common Harappan icon - a "feeding trough" often seen at the feet of
animals in Indus inscriptions. Frontline graphics specialists tell us
that many pixels were removed from the image during the "computer
enhancement" - but not data enhancing the illusion, like the large dot
often mistaken for the "eye" of the deer-like creature.

Other images in the Rajaram-Mahadevan correspondence, which it would
be superfluous to discuss here, also show that what Rajaram sent to
Mahadevan was not what appeared in his book. The story of the
"computer enhancement" of Mackay 453 is summarised in < B>Figure 5.

Hindutva motives behind Rajaram's work: As we showed in "Horseplay in
Harappa," Rajaram's "Piltdown horse" and bogus "decipherment" of the
Indus script were closely tied to Hindutva propaganda. The aim of both
was to fill in "missing links" betwee n Harappan and Vedic cultures -
as part of the broader goal of reducing India's rich multicultural
past to Hindu monotones. Since our first online expose this summer,
Rajaram has consistently portrayed the criticism directed against him
by Western and I ndian scholars as a minor quibble over a single seal.
The goal, as he portrays it, has been to divert attention from his
supposed breaking of the Harappan code, which he claims has solved
"the most significant technical problem in historical research of our
time." Thus, in his communication published in this issue, he claims
that the "main thrust" of our article and Romila Thapar's commentary
on our piece was simply "that the Harappan Civilisation was ignorant
of the horse because it is not depicted on any of the seals." Rajaram
argues that he and his co-author "regard the question of the horse to
be of minor significance: our book is about the Indus script, not the
Indus horse."

In fact, our article showed in detail that Rajaram's "decipherment" of
the Indus script is even more absurd - if that can be imagined - than
his fabricated "horse" evidence. Moreover, the two are closely linked:
if the seal does not depict a horse , then the method Rajaram used to
read the inscription on the seal, which he says refers to a horse, is
obviously bogus. This is why Rajaram insists that the seal depicts a
horse long after erstwhile supporters like Elst have backed away. To
change his r eading of the "horse seal" inscription at this late date
would be to admit publicly what we demonstrated in our article: that
the "decipherment" method has so many loopholes built into it that you
can get any reading out of any text. As we showed in our article, this
gives Rajaram the room to confirm his absurd Hindutva "revisions" of
history.

All this reflects the real "main thrust" of our article - Hindutva
horseplay in Harappa. There have been many failed but honest attempts
to decipher the Indus script, most of which have been quickly
forgotten. What makes Rajaram's effort worth close ana lysis is not
its scholarly merit - because it has none - but the element of
duplicity in his work and the ugly politics underlying it. This was
the real subject of our article, which focused on the enormous abyss
between Hindutva "revisions" of history a nd any sane view of the
past.

The absurdities of these "revisions" may be obvious to professional
historians, but due to their political ramifications they cannot be
ignored. The barrage of insults and threats that we have received
since our article went to press suggests that our an alysis has hit a
sensitive nerve in Hindutva circles. We view this as a welcome
suggestion that the mythologising tendencies of reactionary writers
can be defeated with hard evidence - but only so long as scholars take
their social responsibilities serio usly and are willing to combat
those tendencies head on. It has been written that "history is the
propaganda of the victorious." For historical scholars who ignore
those responsibilities, the sense of that saying may become obvious
all too soon.

Postscript

Just a few hours before our deadline for this communication, we were
forwarded the transcript of an interview with N.S. Rajaram conducted
by Frontline correspondent Anupama Katakam in Bangalore. This is the
first time, so far as we know, that Raja ram has discussed the
"computer enhancement" since he used that phrase in a note sent to the
two of us and his followers on July 30, 2000. At the end of that note,
he abruptly shut off discussion and declared that he would not discuss
the "horse seal" is sue with us further.

In his recent interview, Rajaram makes a number of startling
statements, a few of which we list here:

1. The 'feeding trough': When asked in the interview about the
"feeding trough," Rajaram pointed to his annotated copy of Mackay 453
(apparently the original of the copy he sent to Mahadevan in 1997) and
appeared to blame his publisher. According to his interpretation - and
we quote Rajaram verbatim - the annotations "got scrambled in the
scanning. This writing which has got scrambled resembles this
telephone-like thing which they refer to as a trough." Graphic experts
we have consulted in the pa st few hours tell us that "scrambling"
like this from scanning is absolutely impossible. Elsewhere in his
interview, Rajaram not only denies that he has scanned the picture,
but seems uncertain whether or not his publisher has either - which
makes his co nfident "scrambled in the scanning" story even less
credible. The story is especially peculiar in the light of the many
years of academic experience that Rajaram claims to have in computer
imaging.

2. The 'computer enhancement': Rajaram's long online letter from July
30 about the "horse seal," which is now on file at Frontline, states
that Rajaram and Jha "provide a computer enhancement and an artist's
reproduction to facilitate our r eading." At the end of his interview,
however, while showing the Frontline correspondent his copy of Mackay
453, Rajaram says: "This photograph is what Jha sent me. I have not
computer enhanced it. If I said that - which is possible...I might
have said [it]...because I didn't have the photo at the time, which I
traced later. I might have said it meaning not that I enhanced it but
it might have been done for publication." (The ellipses in these
quotations are in the original transcript: we have no t removed any of
Rajaram's words.) What he claims here is directly contradicted by what
he says in his July 30 letter, where he states that he had examined
the text at the Mythic Society in Bangalore. We also know that he had
a copy since at least 1997, when he sent it to Mahadevan. At another
point in his interview, Rajaram says that "I am not in a position to
say 'Yes' or 'No' [about the computer enhancement]." At still another,
he tells the interviewer: "And I either sent a photocopy of it.... And
I remember what I said to the publisher. I said, 'see if something can
be made of this.'"

No matter which, if any, of Rajaram's inconsistent stories is correct,
we find it remarkable that after all these months of controversy -
highlighted by frontpage stories in the Indian press - Rajaram claims
to know nothing about how the photo in his boo k was doctored.

3. Defence of the 'horse seal': The most remarkable statements in
Rajaram's interview concern his continued defence of his original
"horse seal." He repeats his original arguments in the interview,
ignoring the exhaustive analyses of the evidence that have appeared
online and in print. At one point Rajaram proclaims: "As far as
identification is concerned we are sure it is a horse!" To claim
otherwise, as we pointed out earlier, would necessitate admitting that
his "decipherment" was fraudulent a s well.

In any case, at this point Rajaram may be the last person on the earth
to believe in his "horse seal" or bogus "decipherment," which was
hailed as revolutionary by Hindutvavadis just one year ago. Last
summer, we offered $1,000 to any Harappan researcher willing to defend
Rajaram's claims. Not one has taken us up on our offer. So far as the
scholarly world goes, nothing is left of Rajaram's Hindutva
"revisions" of history than an as'va-s'ava - in plain English, a dead
horse.

- mw & saf

1 Elst was an early enthusiast of Rajaram's "decipherment" and "horse
seal," only repudiating the latter after our original expose online
this summer. In his Update on the Aryan Invasion Debate (1999: 182),
Elst speaks of "the apparent absence of horse motifs on the Harappan
seals (except one)" - referring readers to a reproduction supposedly
found "in N.S. Rajaram: From Harappa to Ayodhya, inside the front
page." The reference is to a booklet published by Rajaram in November
1997, based o n a talk given in September - just a few days before his
correspondence with Mahadevan. When we take Elst's advice and look at
the inside cover of the booklet (Sahitya Sindhu Prakashana, Bangalore,
November 1997), we find the "Artist's reproduction" of t he horse that
Rajaram sent to Mahadevan, but no picture of the seal on which it was
supposedly based! After being told by Mahadevan that he had a bull,
not a horse, Rajaram apparently decided to play it safe for the time
being and not publish the picture of his original "evidence."

2 Below the plate number and reference to Mackay 453, the annotations
also contain the number 443, explaining Rajaram's occasional
references in 1997 to the "horse seal" as Mackay 443 instead of Mackay
453. Mackay 443 (on the same plate) portrays a small seal of a bison
with a "feeding trough" at its feet.


http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl1723/17231260.htm

Volume 17 - Issue 23, Nov. 11 - 24, 2000
India's National Magazine
from the publishers of THE HINDU

SCHOLARLY COMMUNICATION

Of Rajaram's 'Horses', 'decipherment', and civilisational issues

Asko Parpola is Professor of Indology at the Department of Asian and
African Studies at the University of Helsinki. He is one of the
world's leading authorities on the Indus Civilisation and Indus script
and religion. He is the author of Deciphering t he Indus Script
(Cambridge University Press, 1994). His monumental Corpus of Indus
Seals and Inscriptions was published in two volumes in 1987 and 1991.
Parpola is a world expert on Jaiminiya Samaveda texts and rituals. His
other areas of expe rtise include the prehistory of Indian languages
and the prehistoric archaeology of South and Central Asia. Parpola
contributed this comment at the invitation of Frontline:

ASKO PARPOLA

India has a truly glorious past. It is sad that India's heritage
should be exploited by some individuals - usually people with few, if
any, academic credentials - who for political or personal motives are
ready even to falsify evidence. In order to vindi cate their ideology
and promote their own ends, these persons appeal to the feelings of
the 'common man' who, with full reason, is proud of his or her
country's grand heritage. They suggest that this grandeur is
denigrated by their opponents, particularl y by foreign scholars.
There is no need, however, to twist the facts in order to establish
the greatness of India's past. Of all people, Indologists, including
foreign Indologists, are among the first to acknowledge and admire the
great achievements of I ndian civilisation.

Michael Witzel and Steve Farmer have shown that N.S. Rajaram has no
scruples in falsifying evidence to suit his claims. Thus far Rajaram
has got away with this dishonesty because the scholarly community has
not considered his work worthy of serious consi deration: it has been
taken more or less for granted that any sensible person can see
through this trash and recognise it as such. However, the escalation
of this nonsensical propaganda now demands that the issue be
addressed. Frontline has clearl y exposed the untenability of
Rajaram's arguments. Having been invited to comment on Rajaram's
'Horse II,' I would like to point out just a few facts.

On the cover of Frontline, Seal M-18 from Mohenjo-daro has been
depicted four times larger than its natural size. The Harappans were
unable to see the fine details from which Rajaram presumes to
distinguish the head of a horse. The psychologist He rmann Rorschach
developed a projective technique to assess personality characteristics
in which the individual is presented with ambiguous charts of ink
blots, which he then interprets; different persons see different
things in them, as they see in the v arying patterns of clouds. In
like manner, Rajaram is looking for horses, and therefore sees them in
patterns where they do not actually exist. In this case, his
interpretation of certain details as a horse may seem to have some
plausibility when an enla rged photograph taken from a particular
direction with particular lighting is viewed, but the illusion
disappears and the pattern intended by the seal carver is clearly
distinguished when we take a look at the impression made with the
seal. Rajaram's 'ho rse' is part of a composite Indus sign, the last
one of a three-sign inscription forming one line. The sign consists of
two elements. The upper, roof-like element occurs in several other
composite signs, while the lower element has so far been found in t
his seal alone.

The 'horse argument' is an important criterion in determining the
linguistic affinity of the founders of the Indus Civilisation, as
pointed out in my book Deciphering the Indus Script (Cambridge
University Press, 1994), and by Witzel and Farmer in their Frontline
article. In the Rigveda, the horse is an animal of great cultural and
religious significance, being mentioned hundreds of times. Yet so far
not a single representation of the horse has been found on the
thousands of seals or the n umerous terracotta figurines of the Indus
Civilisation, although many other animals, real and imaginary, were
depicted by the Harappans. Further, Richard H. Meadow, one the world's
best experts on ancient animal bones, assures us that not a single
horse bone has been securely identified from the Indus Valley or
elsewhere in South Asia before the end of the third millennium BCE,
when the Indus Civilisation collapsed. By contrast, horse bones are
found, and the horse is depicted, just a few centuries late r in the
Indus Valley, in Gujarat and in Maharashtra, suggesting that by that
time speakers of Aryan (or Indo-Iranian) languages had already entered
South Asia, bringing with them this animal that was venerated by all
early Indo-European-speaking peoples .

On the basis of new archaeological evidence from Afghanistan and
Pakistan, I am inclined to think that the infiltration of small
numbers of Aryan speakers to the Indus Valley and beyond started as
early as the last urban phase of the Indus Civilisation, from about
the 21st century BCE onwards. (These Aryans were not yet those of the
Rigveda, who arrived a couple of centuries later.) The early Aryan-
speaking immigrants came through Central Asia from the Eurasiatic
steppes, the native habitat of the horse and the region where it
appears to have first been domesticated. As demonstrated by H. H. Hock
in his paper "Out of India? The linguistic evidence," published in J.
Bronkhorst and M. M. Deshpande (eds.), Aryan and Non-Aryan in South
Asia, Cambrid ge, Mass., 1999, it is impossible to derive the Aryan or
Indo-European languages from South Asia by valid linguistic methods.
In other words, it is untenable scientifically to postulate a South
Asian origin for these languages.

In my book, I have presented numerous facts suggesting that the
Harappans mainly spoke a Dravidian language. The Harappans are
estimated to have totalled at least one million people, while the
primarily pastoralist Aryan-speaking immigrants could have nu mbered
only a small fraction of this. Eventually, however, the language of
the minority prevailed over the majority. There are numerous parallels
to such a development. Almost the whole continent of South America now
speaks Spanish or Portuguese, while t he Native American ('Indian')
languages spoken there before the arrival of the European conquerors
are about to vanish. This linguistic change has taken place in 500
years, and was initiated by just 300 well-armed adventurers. In 400
years, the British m anaged to establish their language and culture
very widely in South Asia. To conflate the identity of the Vedic and
Harappan cultures and to deny the external origin of Sanskrit and
other Indo-Aryan languages is as absurd as to claim, as Dayananda
Sarasv ati did, that the railway trains and aeroplanes that were
introduced in South Asia by the British in the 19th and 20th centuries
had already been invented by the Vedic Aryans.

It is sad that in South Asia, as elsewhere in the world, linguistic
and religious controversies are the cause of so much injustice and
suffering. We should remember that from the very beginning, Aryan and
non-Aryan languages and associated cultures, reli gions and peoples
have intermingled and have become inextricably mixed. Every element of
the population has contributed to the creation of Indian civilisation,
and every one of them deserves credit for it.

http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl1723/17231240.htm

Volume 19 - Issue 07, Mar. 30 - Apr. 12, 2002
India's National Magazine
from the publishers of THE HINDU

SPOTLIGHT

The Gulf of Khambat debate

On January 16, 2002, Union Minister for Human Resource Development,
and Science and Technology, Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi, who holds
additional charge of the Department of Ocean Development, made a
sensational announcement at a press conference in New Delhi. He
claimed that an underwater urban settlement that pre-dated the
Harappan civilisation had been discovered in the Gulf of Khambat, off
the coast of Gujarat.

The spin and interpretation given by Dr. Joshi to the Gulf of Khambat
findings by scientists of the National Institute of Ocean Technology
(NIOT) generated criticism by, and objections from, Indian and foreign
archaeologists, scientists and historians (Frontline, March 15, 2002).
Most experts agreed that the claims were made by Dr. Joshi with a view
to politicising the issue and that more exploratory work needed to be
undertaken before any meaningful analysis of the findings, leave alone
interpretations, could be made. Experts felt that internationally
reputed marine archaeologists, scientists and archaeologists working
on India and on the Neolithic Age needed to be consulted on the
methodology of further exploration, dating and analyses. Well-known
experts on South Asian archaeology, like Richard H. Meadow of Harvard
University, even offered to help in such an effort.

Experts raised several objections to Dr. Joshi's claim that NIOT had
discovered the remains of a 9,500-year-old urban settlement and
civilisation. First, no marine archaeologist has seen the site and no
mapping or underwater photography of the site has been undertaken.
Secondly, the dating of the site was attempted on the basis of the age
of a piece of wood found there. Thirdly, there was no conclusive proof
that the perforations found in the artefacts were man-made. And,
fourthly, there were deviations from the standard, accepted procedures
of archaeology prior to going public with the findings.

COURTESY: NATIONAL INSTITUTE OF OCEAN TECHNOLOGY, CHENNAI

A few of the artefacts retrieved from the Gulf of Khambat.

Many experts in the field of Indian archaeology, history and ancient
Indian scripts have, in the past two months, examined the artefacts
recovered from the Gulf of Khambat. Among those who examined the
artefacts and held discussions with the NIOT scientists at Chennai
were the world-renowned scholars, Iravatham Mahadevan and Dr. Asko
Parpola.

One of the world's leading experts on the Indus Valley script,
Iravatham Mahadevan proved to international acclaim that it was
written right to left. His scholarly computer-aided study, The Indus
Valley Script: Texts, Concordances and Tables (Memoirs of the
Archeological Survey of India, New Delhi, 1977), is a recognised
source-book for research on the Indus script. A leading expert on the
Tamil-Brahmi script, this former officer of the Indian Administrative
Service and former Editor of a Tamil daily has developed a method to
read the earliest Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions and published the Corpus
of the Tamil-Brahmi Inscriptions (1966). Another major work, a
definitive study of the Tamil-Brahmi script, has just gone to press.

One of the world's leading authorities on the Indus civilisation and
the Indus script and religion, Dr. Asko Parpola is Professor of
Indology at the Department of Asian and African Studies, University of
Helsinki, Finland. A specialist in Vedic philosophy, Dr. Parpola has
over a period of three decades made outstanding contributions to the
still unsuccessful task of deciphering the Indus script. Though
associated with the Dravidian school of decipherment, his contribution
to the theory and documentation of the Indus script transcends
linguistic boundaries. Dr. Parpola is the author of Deciphering the
Indus Script (Cambridge University Press, 1994). His monumental Corpus
of Indus Seals and Inscriptions was published in two volumes in 1987
and 1991 and a third volume will be out soon. Dr. Parpola is also an
expert on Jaiminiya Samaveda texts and rituals. His other areas of
dedicated scholarship include the prehistory of Indian languages and
the prehistoric archaeology of South and Central Asia.

Soon after the two experts had examined the artefacts from the Gulf of
Khambat at the NIOT's office on the campus of the Indian Institute of
Technology, Madras and had a discussion with the scientists, they
spoke to Asha Krishnakumar of Frontline. They shared their impressions
and views on the significance of the findings, the reliability of the
dating methods used, the importance of the sonar images, the possible
future course of action, and the claims made by the Ministry. Asko
Parpola responded first to Frontline's questions. This was followed by
detailed responses and observations by Iravatham Mahadevan, with
Parpola offering additional insights.

Excerpts from the interviews:

'The conclusion is reasonable, but the claims are too much'

Interview with Asko Parpola.

What artefacts dredged out from the Gulf of Khambat did you examine?
What are your first impressions? Are there indications that they were
man-made? Do they support the Indian Government's claim of it being a
"pre-Harappan urban civilisation"?

I am not a specialist in this particular field. I have studied the
Indus script and the Harappan civilisation and followed Indian
archaeology over time. I am not a professional archaeologist, and
least of all a specialist in marine archaeology or of the Neolithic
period. I was interested in seeing the methods used and the materials
found in Khambat.

The materials were shown to us by the geologist Dr. S. Badrinarayan
and the scientist Dr. S. Kathiroli of the NIOT. My impression is that
the two scientists know what they are talking about. Dr. Badrinarayan
has been surveying the seabed all along the Indian coast. He should
know when he comes across materials that seem non-natural. Tectonic
activity does take place in that region. He was suggesting that on
grounds of tectonic activity and rise of sea level, it seems
impossible to date the articles or the site later than about 5000 B.C.
They must have been under water since then. This seemed a very
reasonable conclusion, going by his expertise. But the claims are too
much.

T.A. HAFEEZ

Dating in this case hinges on one piece of wood. First, can the age of
the wood found under the sea be correlated to the antiquity of the
site? Secondly, is this one piece of evidence enough to conclude the
antiquity of the site? Thirdly, is the underwater site a secure
context to gauge the antiquity of the site? What are credible dating
methods? How are they normally done in the case of underwater sites?
Can radio carbon dating (that is used in this case) and
thermoluminescence (that is to be used for pottery found at the site)
give reliable dating for ancient periods?

I was very suspicious about the dating of the site from a piece of
wood. For one, it could have come from anywhere. But Dr. Badrinarayan
says it actually comes from under the seabed. Thus, it is from a
stratified context. So, if the site went under water about 5000 B.C.,
dating this a little bit earlier does not seem unreasonable.

But I object to the use of the words "Cambay civilisation" as it
implies literacy and city life. On the basis of the evidence I have
seen, it seems to me that it is possible that this could be a
Neolithic site of 5000 B.C. Of course, I have not seen any
incontrovertible evidence for this. I am only saying that it is
possible. That is all.

I have seen some interesting materials that seem to occur only in this
place; not in the surrounding areas. But the problem with this site is
that there is very heavy tidal influence and the sands are shifting
all the time. So when we find flat objects here it seems to me
perfectly possible that this flattening is done by sand activity -
erosion by the sand. Even the holes that we found in the stones got
from this area may not be due to human drilling. A flat object could
have been stuck on a stone and started rolling around because of water
activity (currents). So, these holes may have occurred naturally.
Thus, I want to have a sceptical attitude about these findings until
we get incontrovertible proof.

What would you term "incontrovertible proof"?

For instance, very hard stones clearly drilled by human activity. Or,
if we are speaking of stone tools - flints, usually chipped. The
material found so far are smooth; they could have been smoothened by
sand. That is what is expected to happen if they remain under water
for thousands of years and the sand is shifting heavily all the time.

But they have found hard stones. They have also found what to a
layperson looks like pottery. All these things can be analysed, no
doubt. My impression is that the NIOT is quite open and willing to let
experts help it analyse these materials. It also appears that it is
doing its best to study the material scientifically.

What artefacts did you see? Do they give any clues that they are man-
made? What is their significance?

The most interesting things were animal remains, fossilised vertebrae,
different kinds of stones and so on. They could have been man-made.
But I am not fully convinced (that they are man-made) as I see the
possibility of natural activity. But, as I said, there are semi-
precious stones. It seems quite likely that the Tapti river flowed to
the Saurashtra side and this habitation, if it was such, would have
been on it. So, on the basis of what I have seen, I would expect that
this might be a Neolithic site of about 5000 B.C., similar to that in
Saurashtra and mainland Gujarat. They hypothesise that there could
have been a dam. On the basis of what has been discovered in pre-
Harappan cultures in Pakistan, we know that such dams were built.

With what certainty can sonar images be used to conclude the existence
of such structures as dams, granary and pillars? Have sonar images
been used to decipher such underwater sites?

I am not an expert on sonar images to make a pronouncement on this.
But Dr. Badrinarayan says that because they seem to continue under the
seabed these projections seem to have some foundation. I asked them:
'Is it not possible that the stone formation here is of different
hardness and while the soft parts are wiped away the hard parts
remain.' They want to do more research to find out if they are man-
made by taking more samples from there.

What are the standard, accepted procedures of excavating such
underwater marine sites? Is mechanical dredging the common procedure?
Would it not disturb the evidence?

Mechanical dredging is probably the only way to excavate such sites
because of the depth, the strong tide, the turbid water and the strong
currents. It is an extremely dangerous site for divers. So, mechanical
dredging is probably the only way of excavation here. But I think they
would like to get advice from marine archaeologists working elsewhere,
as the scientists who are involved in this are basically ocean
technologists and geologists who are not experienced in marine
archaeology.

Iravatham Mahadevan has suggested to them to organise an international
experts' colloquium to get opinions and advice.

Are there similar underwater marine sites that have been found
earlier? What are the methods used there?

There are some. But this site is one of its kind as it has very strong
tides. Marine archaeology is developed in several places. In Finland
we have a very strong tradition of marine archaeology. There have been
many shipwrecks in Finland which have been studied well. But the
situation is completely different there as the waters do not have such
strong tides.

'Be sceptical, and not negative and destructive'

Interview with Iravatham Mahadevan.

What are your views on the recent findings at the Gulf of Khambat?
What is their significance? Do they suggest they are man-made?

At the outset I would like to say that we should maintain a sceptical
attitude but not a negative one. These are Indian scientists who are
not archaeologists and who did not go there looking for any
civilisation. As Professor Asko Parpola emphasises, Dr. S.
Badrinarayan is a respected, senior scientist. My first impression
(after seeing the findings) is that the claims are honest. If they are
mistaken we can always find out.

Second, there are two types of exhibits. One, those found on the floor
of the ocean. Because of tidal action and ocean currents there, you
cannot just like that make any judgment (about the artefacts found
there).

T.A. HAFEEZ

Exception are the semi-precious stones, some of which are perforated.
I do not believe this can happen by any kind of nature's action there.
I have seen them and they (the stones) are very hard.

But they could have been washed into the sea from somewhere else...

Yes. You cannot also rule out the possibility that they were somewhere
inland and washed into the sea, coming into the palaeo channel.

How reliable are the sonar images? Have they been used in similar
underwater sites earlier? What is your assessment of NIOT's
interpretations of the sonar images?

The sonar photographs are very interesting. First, there are a series
of squares which they interpret as a settlement in a grid pattern. I
am not an archaeologist, much less an underwater archaeologist. So, I
am not really competent to judge, except as an educated layperson with
a considerable interest in Indian archaeology. It is very difficult to
imagine series of square plinth areas, with grid-like structures,
running for several kilometres, occurring in nature.

Again, there is a long rectangular structure with something similar to
steps leading downward, which is clearly man-made.

How significant are the artefacts found at the Gulf of Khambat site?
What are your first impressions on examining them? Is there any method
by which the structures there can be examined?

To begin with, let us keep the Indus or the Harappan civilisation
completely out of this. First, they (the NIOT scientists) are not
claiming it to be the Indus civilisation. No Indus script or metal has
been found there. No piece of pottery has been found there that can be
identified; except some very minute pieces.

There are a few stone-like implements. But, as Prof. Parpola
emphasises, due to tidal action it is very difficult to say for sure
whether they are paleolithic which have been smoothened to look like
neolithic or just natural stones that can acquire any kind of shape.

One point Dr. Badrinarayan is insistent about is that the square
plinth areas have foundations. Dr. Parpola asked some probing
questions such as whether there could not be some rock formations
underneath? To this Dr. Badrinarayan says, "no". To prove this, I have
suggested that one of the plinth areas be opened up by bucket
excavators. It is a crude method. But one cannot do better than that.
We do not expect brick structures. They could be random rubble
structures.

This is only a beginning. They should do this (excavation) for a few
more seasons. And they should associate well-known international
experts in underwater archaeology and neolithic age. I am told that
Dr. S.R. Rao, India's best expert in underwater archaeology, looked at
the findings and was quoted as saying that he is "baffled". He is not
able to come to any conclusion, as Dr. Parpola has also said.

I would like to maintain a cautious optimism. If the criticism is
destructive, you would discourage the scientists who are honest and
going about their jobs. Let us take their claims at face value. When
an expert says he has been doing underwater exploration for long and
has never found anything like this before, the claim has to be taken
at face value.

NIOT scientists stumbled on the site. They have made known their
findings. Should it still remain with them or be given to experts in
the area of marine archaeology and Indian archaeology?

I do not think it should remain with them. They should publicise them
in scientific journals and through academic debates. Second, they
should get in touch with international underwater archaeologists and
experts in neolithic and paleolithic civilisations.

Marine archaeologists should have been involved at some stage...

Exactly. They (the NIOT scientists) surely should not have used words
like "civilisation" and "acropolis". It is not their discipline.
Somebody puts such words into their mouth and they just repeat them.
'Civilisation' is certainly not the word they should be using.

But that there is evidence of man-made activity there is not unlikely.
First, it is an area which probably was above land for sometime, with
palaeo channels, and there could be human settlements that could be
palaeolithic or neolithic. I can say for sure that it is certainly not
Harappan. If at all it is a culture, it is pre-Harappan. Nothing found
there suggests Harappan. There are one or two pieces of slate-like
blocks, highly eroded but suggesting something artistic. They could be
man-made or natural. It is very difficult to make any firm
pronouncement on that. It is difficult to interpret them. Such things
are available even from palaeolithic times, like the so called Venuses
found in the West, which are thousands of years old.

Are the claims made by the Ministry about it being a "pre-Harappan
urban civilisation" justified?

Parpola: That is too much.

Mahadevan: Absolutely not. That is politics. But I would not say that
the finding should be discounted. We should ask questions and take a
helpful attitude. If all experts say that there is nothing there which
is man-made then scientists like Dr. Badrinarayan and Kathiroli will
accept it. But the arguments and approach should be scientific, and
the debate academic - keeping out politics.

In archaeology, any culture is a period of human activity. You can
talk about palaeolithic culture and so on. Whereas civilisation would
involve urban settlement. The comparisons with Jericho are all very
far-fetched. Any link with the Harappan civilisation is unwarranted.
There is no Indus script, no writing, no metal, no seal and not even
pottery. In fact, even if pottery is found it is very significant
because pottery is a human activity. But then again they are embedded
in clay. They could have been washed in by the palaeo channel. All
that is not conclusive.

One point is that it has been found in an area known to be Harappan in
the later period. In that area there are probably a hundred Harappan
sites. I have myself joined in one of the excavations, at Rojdi, by an
American team led by Possehl. But these are all on land. Take
Dholavira, in the Rann of Kutch, above land, but only barely so. With
or without the claim of Carbon-14, even the look of it suggests that
it is pre-Harappan.

So, let us not talk about the Harappan civilisation or the Indus
Valley culture. It is far earlier than that. But the question is
whether there is a culture there at all or we are imagining something.
My position would be that we should not jump to conclusions nor should
we straight away pooh-pooh it. We should take a helpful attitude.

How reliable are the dating methods used - carbon-14, for example?
Also, can the age of the wood piece found under water be correlated to
the antiquity of the site?

Mahadevan: I do not attach much importance to the carbon-14 dating
method (to gauge the antiquity of the site). That piece of wood could
have floated in from anywhere.

Parpola: Unless, of course, the wood piece has come from a stratified
layer under the seabed.

Mahadevan: But even then it might not have belonged to that place. The
stratification could have come later, by layers of silt settling over
it.

Can dating of a piece of wood be used to decide on the antiquity of
the site? The piece of wood could have come from anywhere. How can a
piece of wood found there be proof for any "civilisation"?

It is common practice to use carbon-14 on pieces of wood or charcoal
showing human activity. Otherwise, it could be a tree there which is
7,000 years old. But it may not have anything to do with human
activity. Supposing there had been a big tree in that area which has
been covered by sea. You do the carbon-14 dating and it will yield the
date. The one I saw today is 8,000 years old - about 6000 B.C. or
thereabouts. This more or less would agree with the geological dating
as well. But the wood could have come from anywhere or it could be a
big tree there, without any human activity. So, I have told them that
they should not lay any emphasis on the carbon-14 dating method. Apart
from that there is no method of dating.

Then how do you go about dating the findings?

Mahadevan: There are two points in this. They have some figurines.
Prof. Parpola is rather sceptical - (he feels that) they could have
been formed naturally. But some of them have perforations and some
look like two pieces of clay fused together. It is difficult to find
out if these had occurred naturally or not. This is again for experts
to say.

But semi-precious stones clearly show human activity. They are very
small and could have been washed into the sea but some are perforated.
They are not exactly beads. They are rough pieces. Nevertheless
perforated. Semi-precious stones are all hard. They do not get
perforated naturally.

Parpola: I am sceptical about the significance of the perforation.
More material needs to be excavated to get a clear evidence of human
activity on those stones.

Are the methods of dating followed in this case credible and
reliable?

Mahadevan: The only method of dating used is carbon-14.

Parpola: The other most important dating method used (in this case) is
geological - submerging. They made it clear that it could not have
been above water after 5000 B.C. So, the sea-levels and geological
reasons given for dating this as being 5000 B.C. or earlier and not
after 5000 B.C. is an important method of dating.

How credible are their arguments, even geologically, to say that this
site has been underwater since at least 5000 B.C.?

Parpola: I am not a specialist in this. But they showed maps of
different periods - of what parts were under- and above-water in
different periods. This Gulf of Cambay was above sea level until about
that time. But not after that. Whether this holds good or not, it is
one way of dating.

On the other hand, land has also been rising. This is one way we date
in our country as the ice has been pressing land down. After ice age,
land has been coming up slowly. To find out where the shoreline has
gone and so on, this is an important way of dating in our country. So,
I imagine that it is possible to date something on these lines.

I see this as a layperson. But, basically, I see no reason to suspect
that this is wrong. It is left to experts to make precise judgment on
this. But the NIOT scientists should be experts in precisely these
sort of things. So, I have no reason to doubt them.

What is your overall assessment of the Khambat findings?

Overall, an interesting discovery has been made by scientists who have
the right credentials and whose bona fide is hardly suspect. So I
repeat, be sceptical, which is a good scientific attitude, but not
negative and destructive. It could be a major discovery. We do not
know. Several more seasons of work would be required. And clearly
international cooperation is called for.

Is any international help forthcoming?

I believe many have offered help. Experts like (Richard) Meadow (of
the Harvard University) are on record saying if they are called to
help they would be most willing. UNESCO could be called in and it
could be a major project, getting underwater equipment like the kind
we do not have. As far as I can judge, the scientists are not against
international cooperation. They are to organise later this year, in
August or September, an international colloquium of experts.

Can you name some experts who can help?

In India, we have S.R.Rao, who has done underwater archaeology from
Poompuhar to Dwaraka. He knows what he is talking about. We have in
Deccan College (Pune) and at Baroda, experts in Deccan neolithic and
palaeolithic age - the pre-Harappan age. They are all very hard-nosed
archaeologists. They are not the ones to romanticise the past. There
are also experts such as Dhavlikar, V.N. Mishra and so on in India.
And outside India, Meadow, Kenoyer and so on can help. We should call
in international experts for two reasons: We require an objective and
independent opinion. And, some international funding would not be
unwelcome. We have to get such scholars and then look at this (the
findings). If, ultimately, it turns out to be not as imagined, it is
all right. But it should be kept in mind that it all began with an
accidental discovery by scientists who are puzzled and are talking
about it. Take them at their face value.

But why did scientists with such credentials lend themselves to this
kind of projections and interpretations in the company of Dr. Murli
Manohar Joshi? Would this not affect the credibility of their
scientific pursuit?

The answer to that is very simple. This is India and scientists are
under political control. They are not free. NIOT is a Government of
India organisation. And Murli Manohar Joshi happens to be their
Minister. And if he wants to make political capital out of this, they
are helpless. But, then, I would not judge what is happening in NIOT
by what Murli Manohar Joshi is saying.

Are there any similar underwater sites? What methods of archaeology,
dating and so on have been used there?

Mahadevan: Outside Cambay, one has been found by S.R. Rao at Bet
Dwaraka, where there were cyclopean walls and huge structures. A
Harappan seal was also found. These findings have been published. That
was a regular underwater archaeology from Goa done with divers using
diving bells and so on.

S.R. Rao has also done a smaller one, off Cauvery valley, in
Poompuhar, but not as extensive as in Dwaraka. As far as I know, no
diving bells were used in this case. But they did find some brick
structures about 5-6 km off the coast of Kaveripoompatinam. It has not
been published fully. But it has got some notice.

Dwaraka is a good example of huge structures found underwater. But
this was to be expected. The high tide rises several metres up and
down. And Rann of Kutch area is virtually above water for six months
and under water for the next six months. In that area because of
tectonic activity the land level keeps rising and falling. That
coastal towns should go under water in such areas is no surprise. But
this is not as deep as in the case of Cambay. And that makes all the
difference.

Parpola: Cambay is very deep. And also, as the underwater currents are
strong, it is extremely difficult and risky for any marine
archaeologist to go there. As for other sites, there was recently news
about parts of ancient Alexandria being discovered underwater. They
have found houses, statues and some structures belonging to the Roman
period. Underwater sites are being found. But Cambay is one of its
kind - it is very deep, the currents are strong and the sand is
constantly shifting. I do not know of any other site as difficult as
this one.

What is interesting (in the Gulf of Khambat site) is the macro picture
of several kilometre area of square plinths, something which look like
tanks, one that looks like a check-wall for break-water, another like
a fortress and so on. These are all sonar images and not direct
photographs as the water there is very murky to be directly
photographed.

Is there any way of overcoming the problem of murkiness of water and
taking direct photographs?

The sonar images could be computer-analysed. I am not an expert in
sonar pictures but surely there must be methods of doing it - maybe by
putting very bright lights or maybe by waiting for some season when
the water is less murky and so on. I do not know exactly.

And, even if it is very crude, some method of bringing out massive
material from there (would help). Excavation, the way it is done on
the ground, is obviously impossible in this case. And the scientists
say that it is very dangerous to work there where they went as it is
very deep and dark, and the currents are very strong, and the water
murky. Even sending a person down and keeping him there for more than
a few minutes is out of the question. These are the limitations and
one has to keep these things in mind.

What should be the future course of action?

Now the scientists must be allowed, without any political influence,
to publish the findings as they found them, in clear scientific
language in scientific periodicals. They can also publish their own
monographs. Above all, call in experts from within and outside India
keeping the politicians and Ministers out of this.

But it has already been politicised and Dr. Murli Manohar Joshi has
come into the picture...

A distinction must be made between what people in Delhi are saying and
what people at NIOT are doing. The NIOT scientists should be
acknowledged for their findings during the course of their normal work
and they should be allowed to proceed without any political
interference.

http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl1907/19070940.htm

From Harappan horse to camel

Those who put a break to rewrite history in some form or other are
thoughtless and object even before the rewriting is begun. Let the
rewriting be entrusted to impartial, competent scholars urgently and
let the books come out and if there are errors in the writings or
wilful distortions there are enough intellectuals in India who can
stand up boldly and demand their removal.

IT IS interesting to read the response of Michael Witzel, Harvard
University, to my article on Harappan horse, published in The Hindu
(May 21, 2002) and I am glad to note that he agrees with many points
raised by me, but some of the basic issues still remain. The main
thrust of Witzel's argument was that no horse is represented either in
seals or as bones in Harappan sites, and that the horse played a vital
role in Vedic society, and hence the Harappan civilisation cannot be a
Vedic society. The other important point he raises is the linguistic
evidence and argues that acceptable evidence is not found for
conceding the Vedic claim. Ignoring the language he employs to
ridicule his opponents, there is a need for the protagonists of Vedic
school to meet the points raised by him.

Carbon dating bones

While we are on the Harappan horse, he cites the example of a camel
found in a Harappan site, dated to 2200-1900 BC by the earlier
excavators, which now has been dated directly by Carbon 14 method to
690 BC, showing the earlier claim was wrong. When such scientific
evidences are found there should be no hesitation in accepting the new
evidence and discarding the earlier view. Regarding the question of
dating bones by Carbon 14, I consulted my friend Dr. Paul Craddock, a
leading scientist of the British Museum Laboratory, (who incidentally
appeared as an expert witness in the London Nataraja case on behalf of
India) who gives the latest position as follows:

"In many ways the dating of bone is now preferred to the dating of
wood or charcoal, and is carried out quite routinely. This is because
in most circumstances a bone found in an archaeological deposit, be it
burial or hidden, will have been alive recently before its deposition
and thus the date of the death of the bone will be fairly close to the
date of deposition. With charcoal, the situation is often very
different and there is no way of telling whether it came from the
outer parts of a short lived tree or was laid down in the centre of
some hardwood, centuries before the tree was felled and utilised. If
the charcoal derives from the timbers of a burning building the
timbers could have been in place for centuries or could have been part
of a repair done the week before. The intrinsic error on carbon dates
of bones is no different from any other material containing carbon and
is the result of sample size and the actual practicalities of the
method. Similarly the calibration of the date obtained from
radiocarbon years to calendar years is exactly the same. As I
explained above the relation between the time of death for the bone
and the time of its deposition in most cases will be relatively short,
making bone a good material for dating.

"As I am sure, you know, bone consists of two main components, the
largely inorganic apatite and collagen. The apatite attracts calcium
carbonate from ground waters and is thus not suitable for dating, but
can be easily separated by acid dissolution from the collagen. The
latter is made up of proteins, and should be suitable for dating.
There is, however some danger that the protein will have suffered from
bacteriological attack, which would affect the date obtained. This
could be detected by carrying out amino acid profiling; the various
amino acids are affected by bacteria attack differently. Also one
could separate and date one particular amino acid, using the
accelerator mass spectrometry method, which only requires a tiny
sample (AMS dating is rapidly taking over from conventional counting
methods all over the world). However, amino acid separation is slow
and costly, and for most bone samples is not necessary (only really if
one is dealing with Palaeolithic bones over 10,000 years old)." C14
dating deserves to be given credence.

Yet to be rechecked

However regarding the earlier find of horse bones by early
archaeologists, Witzel says that "Remains of horses claimed by early
archaeologists in the 1930s were not documented well enough, to let us
distinguish between horses, hemiones, or asses." (Frontline, October
13, 2000, P. 7). But this seems to be contradicted by his own
statement "Even if we accept the identifications as true horse
material from the old excavations and this still needs to be rechecked
by the specialists using original material ... " (The Hindu, May 21).
It clearly shows that original material has not yet been rechecked by
a specialist till date, and it would be appropriate not to come to any
conclusion at this stage in support of either claim, rather than
assert as what Witzel claims. The scientific evidence is yet to come
and it would be necessary to wait for the same.

Colonial writers

Witzel insists on vehemently attacking the present political climate
and rulers responsible for the revisionist history writings in India,
and their Hindutva leanings and in this he exhibits his political
intention. This seems irrelevant to academic interest, and exposes
himself to possible, similar counter allegation, but we would like to
keep our esteem for the Harvard University as a symbol of academic
greatness and not politics. As he is a good academician he could avoid
such an approach for, after all history writing in India is a legacy
inherited from the British colonial writers who dinned into our ears,
for nearly one hundred and more years, from 1850 to almost 1950 (even
two decades after Independence) how to project the political rule as
the summum bonum of virtuosity. They made us read about the glory of
England, all the British Governors-General, the Lord Governors and
collectors like Lord Duffrin, Lord Hardinge, and such others, whose
presence was of utter inconsequence, but as the greatest event in our
history. This writer himself studied in the 1940s in the secondary
schools, the history of the British political rulers as the glory of
India. Three fourths of our history books were filled then with the
greatness of colonial powers and most of the other parts filled with
Mughal contribution with very little of Indian life. Not a single
liberal voice was raised about this trend at any point of time then.
Some shrewd historians exploited this trend after Independence,
rewrote history to bolster the political leaning of the rulers and
fully cornered the favours. They did nothing to remove the imbalance
in the presentation of the regional histories, instead wrote
hypothetical theories. These political favours did not change till the
late 1990s when a different political ideology took over the reins of
power and the new one has applied a break to the "old shattered,
rattling goods train" and attempted to change the track. The track
however continues.

Ethnic craze is imported

Witzel also bemoans the "ethinic centred craze" for rewriting history.
This is also not especially Indian, and is only a copy of, or reaction
to the Euro centred Western university tradition. Just a few days
back, a professor of a British university came out with an academic
theory, calling it a (pseudo) psychological analysis, that the "White
race is superior to the black race and that there is nothing wrong in
claiming racism as natural and multi-culturalism is wicked madness."
This theory, propounded by Prof. Geoffrey Sampson, who incidentally
belonged to the Tory party, claims right to voice such an obnoxious
theory under the guise of academic freedom and the university pleads
helpless.

Witzel emphasises the importance of linguistic science that certainly
cannot be questioned by any. There are two claimants to the Indus
language, the Vedic and the Dravidian. The protagonists of Dravidian
language spearheaded by Dr. Asko Parpola and Iravatham Mahadevan argue
the language of the Harappans is Dravidian, though they differ among
themselves on each other's readings. Witzel seems to be in agreement
with Parpola.

How confident or conclusive are the Dravidian linguists about their
theories may be seen from the following. Asko Parpola, who came out
with the theory, later discarded it so much so when asked about his
first approach, he himself says that "he has given up the earlier
reports as they were written in the first flush of enthusiasm,
premature and incautious." This Mahadevan calls "rare intellectual
courage" to abandon the paradigm central to the earlier model of
decipherment and is virtually a new beginning. Reviewing Asko
Parpola's present hypothesis Mahadevan says "his (Parpola's)
decipherment based on the hypothesis has not been taken seriously,
because of his lack of familiarity with the Dravidian languages and
linguistics." (http/harappa.com/script/maha0.html) That dismisses the
leading authority on Dravidian hypothesis for Indus culture in the
world. The only other leading Dravidian expert on Indus script is
Mahadevan himself. We may see how his following views are relevant in
this connection. "In my earlier papers (1970, 72 and 73) I had
proceeded on the assumption that the frequent terminal signs of the
Indus script probably represented grammatical suffixes and their
values could be ascertained through the method of homophones. The
concordance does not bear this theory. I am now inclined to the view
that the frequent terminal signs were most probably employed in an
ideographic sense." Mahadevan concludes, "his method is speculative?"

Speculative theories

Thus both these Dravidian protagonists keep changing their own methods
frequently and float speculative theories. The one vital question that
is not addressed by them is that how the Dravidian linguistic theory
based on prevalent languages could be applied to a civilisation that
lived 4500 years ago. It is known that the earliest language among the
Dravidian group of languages is Tamil that has an impressive corpus of
literary works that could be dated at the most not earlier than first
century BC. The recent numismatic discoveries and archaeological
findings have brought the date of the early Tamil literature rather
close, based on Roman contacts. None of the early written records like
Tamil (Brahmi) inscriptions found so far, could be dated earlier than
2nd century BC. The latter already shows impressive and indisputable
mixture of Prakrit language integrated into Tamil. That leaves hardly
two or three Tamil words, like Chola, Pandya, found in the Asokan
inscriptions that could be securely dated to 3rd century BC. One
should not forget that we are looking for indisputable evidence as in
the case of Harappan horse, and so what and where is the Dravidian
language? What is its structure and how much of it is chronologically
dated to even 500 BC, (granting a few centuries for the development of
Tamil language, and its classical structure) not to speak of 1000 BC
or the beginning of the Harappan age 3000 BC? Which of the Dravidian
language, Central Dravidian, or North Dravidian group, is dated
securely to have existed in pre-Christian era? Whether the date of the
Brahui language found in Baluchistan, said to belong to the Dravidian
language group, is dated scientifically with the help of dated
inscriptions or artefacts? The existence of Dravidian language before
say 3rd-4th centuries BC is purely based on conjectural inference. How
a language, the existence of which is not known by any verifiable
means for over three thousand years except in hypothesis, could be
accepted as the language of Harappans? It is clear that the rejection
of Dravidian theory is far more logical than the absence of Harappan
horse, for one cannot have two standards for evaluating evidence.

The conflicting writings on Harappan horse and Vedic or Dravidian
speculation are so voluminous and the issues are so complex that there
is need to continue the dialogue, but not include them in school
textbooks. When I suggested earlier that only factual history should
be given in school textbooks, I clearly meant that the points like the
presence of horse, the Vedic or non-Vedic, Dravidian or non-Dravidian
nature of Harappans, the invasion theory of Aryans are all speculative
and not factually proven history and there is no need to include them
in our textbooks and brainwash our children either way.

Imbalances

I would like to end this with the note that Witzel agrees with me that
there are imbalances in the present textbooks and there is a need to
rewrite Indian history books. The Harappan and Vedic phases are only
parts of the long Indian history and there are several other important
gaps in the other parts, in the presentation of regional history and
the great contribution of India to the whole of South East Asia — in
every field of activity like history, philosophy, writing, art,
administration, religion, philosophy, architecture and the way of
life, for over one thousand four hundred years and where it survives
even to this day in some form, but has remained blacked out to our
children all these years — which need to be incorporated immediately.
Those who put a break to rewrite history in some form or other are
thoughtless and object even before the rewriting is begun. Let the
rewriting be entrusted to impartial, competent scholars urgently and
let the books come out and if there are errors in the writings or
wilful distortions there are enough intellectuals in India who can
stand up boldly and demand their removal. There exists a vibrant
democracy and alert media that can take care of corrections. What
eludes one's comprehension is that even before the exercise has begun
every attempt is made to obstruct this legitimate process. One thing
may be lastly mentioned that the errors or distortions likely to creep
in in rewriting history are not going to be as damaging to scientific
knowledge as those of the past 150 years of colonial writing.

R. NAGASWAMY

Former Director of Archaeology

http://www.hinduonnet.com/op/2002/07/02/stories/2002070200110200.htm

Volume 17 - Issue 20, Sep. 30 - Oct. 13, 2000
India's National Magazine
from the publishers of THE HINDU

COVER STORY

The direction of Harappan writing

MICHAEL WITZEL
STEVE FARMER

IN their attempts to "force fit" Harappan script into Sanskrit moulds,
Rajaram and his collaborator ignore many known facts about Harappan
inscriptions. One of the most glaring conflicts with the evidence
comes in their claim that in most cases the scrip t is to be read from
left to right, like Sanskrit.

M-66a

Much evidence has accumulated over seven decades that this is the
reverse of the case. Indeed, one of the few things that all Harappan
researchers agree on concerns the usual right-left direction of the
script. Writing direction in ancient scripts often varied in different
contexts, but evidence of many sorts suggests that Harappan deviated
from right-left patterns in less than seven per cent of inscriptions.

Some of this evidence arises from studies of inscriptions on pot
sherds. As B.B. Lal showed in the 1960s, examination of overlapping
lines on those inscriptions shows that the script was normally
inscribed from right to left. Other evidence is apparent t o the
untrained eye. Below, we give two examples from images in the Corpus
of Indus Seals and Inscriptions compiled by Asko Parpola and his
collaborators. The evidence in both cases has been known since the
early 1930s.

One kind of evidence involves the spacing of characters. In seal
impression M-66a (using Parpola's numbers), shown below, we see one of
many cases where an engraver ran out of room when engraving the seal,
causing a bunching of letters on the left. In th e seal, no room at
all was left for the "jar sign" often found at the end of
inscriptions. This forced the engraver to place it below the rest of
the inscription, on the far left. Its placement would be inconceivable
if the "jar sign" were a wildcard vow el beginning inscriptions, as
Rajaram and Jha claim.

H-103a

Other evidence shows up in Parpola's seal H-103a, shown below. The
unusually long inscription in this case runs around three sides of the
seal, with the top of the symbols pointing towards the nearest edge.
This suggests that the inscription was to be re ad by turning it
around in the hand to read its three parts. Only the top side of the
inscription is filled with symbols, indicating that this is the first
line. The inscription was hence to be read right to left, turning it
clockwise to see the rest.

Further evidence comes from studies of initial and final sign
sequences, from studies of repeating sign combinations, and other
data. All this evidence has been discussed by a long line of
researchers stretching from G.C. Gadd in 1931 to Gregory Possehl in
1996. None of this evidence is mentioned in Jha and Rajaram's book.

http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl1720/17200041.htm

The Indus ‘non-script’ is a non-issue

IRAVATHAM MAHADEVAN

There is solid archaeological and linguistic evidence to show that the
Indus script is a writing system encoding the language of the region
(most probably Dravidian). To deny the very existence of the script is
not the way towards further progress.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Indus script appears to consist mostly of word-signs. Such a
script will necessarily have a lesser number of characters and
repetitions than a syllabic script.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Photo Courtesy: ASI

A Riddle still: Indus seals with long inscriptions.

Is the Indus Script ‘writing’?

“There is zero chance that the Indus valley is literate. Zero,” says
Steve Farmer, an independent scholar in Palo Alto, California. “As
they say, garbage in, garbage out,” says Michael Witzel of the Harvard
University. These quotations from an online news item (New Scientist,
April 23, 2009) are representative of what passes for academic debate
in sections of the Western media over a serious research paper by
Indian scientists published recently in the USA (Science, April 24,
2009).

The Indian teams are from the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research,
Mumbai, the Institute of Mathematical Sciences, and the Indus Research
Centre of the Roja Muthiah Research Library (both at Chennai), and
backed by a team from the University of Washington at Seattle. They
have proposed in their paper, resulting from more than two years of
sustained research, that there is credible scientific evidence to show
that the Indus script is a system of writing which encodes a language
(as briefly reported in The Hindu, April 27, 2009).

This is a sober and understated conclusion presented in a refereed
article published by an important scientific journal. The provocative
comments by Farmer and Witzel will surprise only those not familiar
with the consistently aggressive style adopted by them on this
question, especially by Farmer. Their first paper, written jointly
with Richard Sproat of Oregon Health and Sciences University,
Portland, has the sensational title, “The collapse of the Indus script
thesis: the myth of a literate Harappan civilization” (Electronic
Journal of Vedic Studies 11: 2, 2004).

The “collapse of the Indus script thesis” has already drawn many
responses, including the well-argued and measured rebuttal by the
eminent Indus script expert, Asko Parpola, “Is the Indus script indeed
not a writing system?” (Airavati 2008), and a hilarious and
intentionally sarcastic rejoinder (mimicking the style of the
“collapse” paper) by Massimo Vidale (“The collapse melts down”, East
and West 2007). Here is a sampling from the latter: “Should we be
surprised by this announced ‘collapse’? From the first noun in the
title of their paper, Farmer, Sproat and Witzel are eager to
communicate to us that previous and current views on the Indus script
are naïve and completely wrong, and that after 130 years of illusion,
through their paper, we may finally see the truth behind the dark
curtains of a dangerous scientific myth.”

I am one of the co-authors of the Science paper. But my contribution
is limited to making available to my colleagues the electronic
database file compiled by me in collaboration with the computer
scientists at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, and partly
published in my book The Indus Script: Texts, Concordance and Tables
(1977). I have no background in computational linguistics. However, I
have closely studied the Indus script for over four decades and I am
quite familiar with its structure. The following comments are based on
my personal research and may not necessarily reflect the views of the
other co-authors of the Science paper.

In a nutshell, my view is that there is solid archaeological and
linguistic evidence to show that the Indus script is a writing system
encoding the language of the region (most probably Dravidian).

Archaeological evidence

Path-breaking work: Iravatham Mahadevan.

The strongest argument against the new-fangled theory that the Indus
script is not writing is provided by the sheer size and sophistication
of the Indus civilisation. Consider these facts:

• The Indus was by far the largest civilisation of the ancient world
during the Bronze Age (roughly 3000 – 1500 BCE). It extended all the
way from Shortugai in North Afghanistan to Daimabad in South India,
and from Sutkagen Dor on the Pak-Iran border to Hulas in Uttar Pradesh
— altogether more than a million sq km in area, very much larger than
the contemporary West Asian and Egyptian civilisations put together.

• The Indus civilisation was mainly urban, with many large and well-
built cities sustained by the surplus agricultural production of the
surrounding countryside. The Indus cities were not only well-built but
also very well administered with enviable arrangements for water
supply and sanitation (lacking even now in many Indian towns).

• There was extensive and well-regulated trade employing precisely
shaped and remarkably accurate weights. The beautifully carved seals
were in use (as in all other literate societies) for personal
identification, administrative purposes, and trading. Scores of burnt
clay sealings with seal-impressions were found in the port city of
Lothal in Gujarat attesting to the use of seals to mark the goods
exported from there. Indus seals and clay-tag sealings have been found
in North and West Asian sites, where they must have reached in the
course of trading.

This archaeological evidence makes it inconceivable that such a large,
well-administered, and sophisticated trading society could have
functioned without effective long-distance communication, which could
have been provided only by writing. And there is absolutely no reason
to presume otherwise, considering that thousands of objects, including
seals, sealings, copper tablets, and pottery bear inscriptions in the
same script throughout the Indus region. The script may not have been
deciphered; but that is no valid reason to deny its very existence,
ignoring the archaeological evidence.

Another important pointer to the literacy of the Indus civilisation is
that it was in close trading and cultural contacts with other
contemporary literate societies like the Proto-Elamite to the North
and the Sumerian-Akkadian city states (and probably the Egyptian
kingdom) to the West. It is again inconceivable that a civilisation as
urban and well-organised as the Indus could not have been alive to the
importance of writing practised in the neighbouring literate cultures
and was content with “non-linguistic” symbols of very limited utility
like those employed by pre-historic hunter-gathering or tribal
societies.

Linguistic evidence

While denying the status of a writing system to the Indus script,
Farmer, Sproat and Witzel point to the extreme brevity of the texts
(averaging less than five signs) and the presence of numerous
“singletons” (signs with only one occurrence). Seal-texts tend to be
short universally. Further, the Indus script appears to consist mostly
of word-signs. Such a script will necessarily have a lesser number of
characters and repetitions than a syllabic script. Thus the proper
comparison should be with the number of words in later Indian seals or
cave inscriptions. The average number of words in these cases matches
the average number of signs in an Indus text. There are, however, many
seal-texts that are much longer than the average. (See illustrations
of longer Indus texts). As for singletons, they appear to be mostly
composite or modified signs derived from basic signs, apparently meant
only for restricted or special usage. An apt parallel would be the
difference in frequencies between basic and conjunct consonants in the
Brahmi script.

The concordances

Photo Courtesy: UNESCO

A file photo of The Great Bath at Mohenjo-daro.

Three major concordances of the Indus texts have been published: a
manually compiled edition by Hunter (1934), and two computer-made
editions, one by the Finnish team led by Asko Parpola (1973, 1982) and
the other by the Indian scholar, Iravatham Mahadevan (1977). All the
three concordances provide definitive editions of the texts, sign
lists, and lists of sign variants. The Mahadevan Concordance also
provides in addition various statistical tabulations for textual
analysis as well as for relating the texts to their archaeological
context (sites, types of inscribed objects, and pictorial motifs
accompanying the inscriptions).

The concordance is a basic and indispensable tool for research in the
Indus script. It is a complete index of sign occurrences in the texts.
It also sets out the full textual context of each sign occurrence. The
frequency and positional distribution of each sign and sign
combination can be readily ascertained from the concordance. A study
of near-identical sequences leads to segmentation of texts into words
and phrases. Doubtful signs can be read with a fair amount of
confidence by a comparative study of identical sequences. Sign
variants can be recognised to a large extent by studying the textual
environment.

It is the concordance which conclusively established the direction of
the Indus script to be from right to left on seal-impressions and
direct writing (naturally reversed on the seals). The concordance also
reveals the broad syntactical features of the texts, like the most
frequent opening and terminal signs, as well as pairs and triplets of
signs in the middle representing important names, titles etc. Numerals
have been identified. As they precede the enumerated objects, we know
that adjectives precede the nouns they qualify. This is an important
result ruling out, for example, Sumerian or Akkadian as candidate
languages. According to competent and objective scholars like Kamil
Zvelebil and Gregory Possehl, the concordances are the most tangible
outcome of the prolonged research on the Indus script.

The concordances have been criticised for employing “normalised” signs
that are sometimes different from what are actually found in
individual inscriptions. The differences are as between a handwritten
manuscript and the printed book. All the three concordances employ
normalised signs, as there is no other possible way of presenting
hundreds of inscriptions and thousands of sign-occurrences in a
compact and logical arrangement for analytical study. The concordances
have also been faulted for differences in readings. The criticism
overlooks the fact that the Indus script is still undeciphered and
such differences are unavoidable, especially in reading badly
preserved texts or in deciding which are independent signs and which
are mere graphic variants.

The serious student of the Indus script will consult the concordances,
but refer to the sources for confirmation. Statistically speaking,
differences (or even errors in coding) in the concordances are
marginal and have not affected the interpretation of the main features
of the texts.

This was confirmed by an interesting study published recently by
Mayank Vahia et al of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research
(International Journal of Dravidian Linguistics, 37:1, 2008). They
removed all the doubtfully read signs (marked by asterisks) and
multiple lines (with indeterminate order) from the Mahadevan
Concordance and analysed the rest, a little less than half of the
total sign-occurrences. They found that the statistically established
percentages of frequencies and distribution of signs and segmentations
of texts remained constant, attesting to the essential correctness of
compilation of the full concordance.

The Dravidian hypothesis

There is archaeological and linguistic evidence to support the view
that the Indus civilisation is non-Aryan and pre-Aryan:

• The Indus civilisation was urban, while the Vedic was rural and
pastoral.

• The Indus seals depict many animals, but not the horse. The chariot
with the spoked wheels is also not depicted. The horse and chariot
with the spoked wheels are the main features of Aryan-speaking
societies. (For the best and most recent account, refer to David W.
Anthony, The Horse, the Wheel and Language, Princeton, 2007).

• The Indus religion as revealed in the pictorial depictions on the
seals included worship of buffalo-horned male gods, mother-goddesses,
the pipal tree, the serpent, and probably the phallic symbol. Such
modes of worship are alien to the religion of the Rigveda.

Ruling out Aryan authorship of the Indus civilisation does not
automatically make it Dravidian. However, there is substantial
linguistic evidence favouring the Dravidian theory:

• The survival of Brahui, a Dravidian language in the Indus region.

• The presence of Dravidian loanwords in the Rigveda.

• The substratum influence of Dravidian on the Prakrit dialects.

• Computer analysis of the Indus texts revealing that the language had
only suffixes (like Dravidian), and no prefixes (as in Indo-Aryan) or
infixes (as in Munda).

It is significant that all the three concordance-makers (Hunter,
Parpola, and Mahadevan) point to Dravidian as the most likely language
of the Indus texts. The Dravidian hypothesis has also been supported
by other scholars like the Russian team headed by Yuri Valentinovich
Knorozov and by the American archaeologist, Walter Fairservis, all of
whom have utilised the information available from the concordances.
However, as the Dravidian models of decipherment have still little in
common except the basic features summarised above, it is obvious that
much more work remains to be done before a generally acceptable
solution emerges.

I am hopeful that with an increasing number of Indus texts, and better
and more sophisticated archaeological and linguistic methods, the
riddle of the Indus script will be solved one day. What is required is
perseverance, recognising the advances already made, and proceeding
further. To deny the very existence of the Indus script is not the way
towards further progress.


Iravatham Mahadevan is a well-known authority on the Indus and Brahmi
scripts. He is the author of The Indus Script: Texts, Concordance and
Tables (1977) and Early Tamil Epigraphy (2003).

http://www.hinduonnet.com/mag/2009/05/03/stories/2009050350010100.htm

Volume 17 - Issue 23, Nov. 11 - 24, 2000
India's National Magazine
from the publishers of THE HINDU

SCHOLARLY COMMUNICATION

A TALE OF TWO HORSES

Editor's Introduction
"Horseplay in Harappa," the Cover Story by Michael Witzel and Steve
Farmer in Frontline (October 13, 2000), has attracted a lot of
interest from readers, including scholars, in India and abroad. In the
same issue, at Frontline's invitation, Romila Thapar, the eminent
historian of ancient India, commented on the Witzel-Farmer article and
offered a perspective on Hindutva and history.

The subsequent issue (October 27) carried letters from Iravatham
Mahadevan, the leading Indian expert on the Indus Valley script, and
Richard H. Meadow, Project-Director of the Harappa Archaeological
Research Project at Harvard University and one of the world's leading
experts on ancient animal bones. There has also been a large number of
letters from general readers. Additionally, the Witzel-Farmer
scholarly investigation and expos‚ has generated a lively discussion
on the Internet.

To take the discussion further and deeper, Frontline presents in this
issue scholarly communications on the subject. These comprise N.S.
Rajaram's letter to the editor, backed up by two scanned colour
images; and invited responses from two of the world's leading experts
on the Indus Valley script, Asko Parpola and Mahadevan, and from the
authors of "Horseplay in Harappa."

- Editor, Frontline

Frontline Cover has "the head of a horse"
N. S. Rajaram is the co-author with N. Jha of The Deciphered Indus
Script: Methodology, readings, interpretations (Aditya Prakashan, New
Delhi, 2000). He is also the co-author, with David Frawley, of Vedic
Aryans and the Origins o f Civilisation (Voice of India, New Delhi,
1997); and the author of From Sarasvati River To The Indus Script
(Mitra Madhyama, Bangalore, 1999) and the just released Profiles in
Deception: Ayodhya and the Dead Sea Scrolls (Voice of India, New D
elhi, 2000). Rajaram has an academic background in the mathematical
sciences and industrial engineering. His claim to have deciphered,
along with Jha, the Indus Valley script; the 'horse seal' (Mackay 453)
he presented as part of his thesis about the Ind us Valley script and
Civilisation; his assertion that the language of Harappa was 'late
Vedic Sanskrit'; and his ideological agenda figured in "Horseplay in
Harappa," the Cover Story in Frontline (October 13, 2000).

Rajaram's letter to Frontline, dated October 23, 2000, has occasioned
this scholarly communication. He can be contacted at
***@vsnl.com.

N.S. RAJARAM

Recently, Frontline published articles by Michael Witzel and Steve
Farmer and by Romila Thapar ("Horseplay in Harappa," Frontline,
October 13, 2000), the main thrust of which was that the Harappan
Civilisation was ignorant of the horse beca use it is not depicted on
any of the seals. On this premise they claimed that the image of the
seal known as Mackay 453 given in The Deciphered Indus Script by N.
Jha and N.S. Rajaram is a fabrication, with a unicorn bull made to
look like a horse .

Both Frontline and the authors overlooked the fact that the seal
displayed on the cover contains a figure recognisable as the head of a
horse at the top right-hand corner. The scanned images [on this page]
highlight this by giving both the cover p hoto (with the arrow
pointing) and the enlargement. I hope the authors will not suggest
that this is the head of a unicorn bull! This is just one example of
hasty conclusion due to preconception, unfamiliarity with the sources,
and insufficient attention to detail.

At the same time Jha and I don't want to be dogmatic because these are
artists' depictions and not anatomical specimens. So differences of
opinion are unavoidable. We regard the question of the horse to be of
minor significance: our book is about the Ind us script, not the Indus
horse. There are more fundamental issues like the Sarasvati River data
and others that need to be addressed. The broader issue, as Professor
Thapar makes clear, is the Vedic identity of the Harappan
Civilisation. This, I feel, ha s been amply demonstrated by our book
and by several others - with and without the decipherment.

"Jha sent the photo... I have not computer enhanced it"

Interview with N.S. Rajaram.

Following the publication of "Horseplay in Harappa," N.S. Rajaram
wrote a letter to the Editor of Frontline. In the covering note, he
offered access to "the original photograph" of the 'horse seal' on
which the image published in the Jha-Ra jaram book was based.
Frontline accepted the offer and received from Rajaram a copy of the
photograph, which was identical to the one Rajaram sent Iravatham
Mahadevan in 1997. Frontline correspondent Anupama Katakam interviewed
Rajar am in Bangalore on November 2 on the provenance of the image of
the 'horse seal,' the 'computer enhancement,' the 'decipherment,' and
other aspects of Rajaram's work and views. Excerpts from the tape-
recorded interview:

Where did the image of the 'horse seal' come from?

Jha had a photograph taken of the image from Mackay's book -
Mohenjodaro. This attribution is in the index of his book. Jha lives
in a small town. He may not have had access to high-tech equipment,
which explains the low quality of the image.

Why does he believe it to be a horse?

I looked at the original [photograph], which is very small. In
Mackay's book. Of course, Frontline gave a much better picture because
they have better facilities. To me it looks more like a horse. I am
convinced it is a horse.

The shape of the under-belly. If you look at the unicorn bull's
genital area, it is very prominent [referring to Frontline's cover].
It is not so in the horse. The tail is also quite different. And
another thing is - the tapering back is a feature of all fast-running
animals.

What is the significance of the 'horse'?

I feel the importance of the horse is blown out of proportion. We have
a great deal of much more important evidence that we have to explain.
They are making it the central issue... It was just a footnote in our
book...

As far as identification is concerned, we are sure it is a horse! And
we can demonstrate that horses existed.

I believe the debate should be on a whole range of issues.

What is the old-style-telephone-like object in front of the animal?

Do you find it in our book? You see what has happened is this writing
[pointing to the annotation] has got scrambled in the scanning. This
writing which has got scrambled resembles this telephone-like thing
which they refer to as a [feeding] trough. Noth ing is behind that
label. This is not in the original seal.

Who annotated or labelled it?

Jha must have. To keep the file number... This is the photo I received
and I have checked it with the original... But I didn't have such a
good print. The original seal is in Mackay's book. This [points to the
image numbered M-772A, published on p. 9 of the Frontline issue of
October 13] they say has been flipped horizontally. It is probably the
same seal, but you see there is more damage here. But I am not going
to look at this one. You see when Parpola took this photograph, it was
about 30 year s later. This has been computer-manipulated. As far as I
am concerned, I will go with the oldest.

In any case, it is irrelevant as they may be the same image. See, the
writing is the same... As far as the trough goes - it is a distortion
of the letters.

On the why and how of the 'computer enhancement'

I never said computer enhancement in my book. When they kept pressing
me, I said it might have been computer-enhanced. That is what I
mentioned in a particular note to these people. I had no idea. I think
it was scanned by the publisher. The best way of finding out is if you
look at what copy the publisher has and mine. Then you will know what
went into the book. This has not been scanned by me. I xeroxed it and
I either sent a smaller photograph to improve the resolution, or a
contraction of it taken o n a xerox machine.

If I had this quality [pointing to a clear image of the broken seal
published in Frontline], there would be no problem. My point is if
'computer enhancement' was said, it may have been said under pressure.
I have never done any computer enhancemen t.

Clearly he [Jha] has, or somebody has, taken the photograph from a
publication. And I either sent a photocopy of it... And I remember
what I said to the publisher. I said, "see if something can be made
out of this."

... I am not in a position to say 'Yes' or 'No' [about the computer
enhancement]. But I can definitely say I have done no computer
enhancement. In fact, I have not even scanned it. If the publisher has
done it, I might have said it has been computer enha nced. I am not
denying that, but I have... never done any computer work on it. The
only time it may have been scanned is by the publisher. He could have
done it.

Does he still think it is a horse? Does he stand by his decipherment?

Absolutely. Sure. We have done nothing...The issue they [Farmer and
Witzel] have raised is that no horses were found in Harappa. But there
is ample evidence that horse bones have been found at all levels at
the Harappan site.The reference to the horse is only in one part of a
footnote!

Our point is that decipherment is part of the historical connection
between the Vedic and the Harappan. What we see as the main
significance is the historical context which links Harappan
archaeology to Vedic literature...

We will hold on to our identification of the horse. But I have also
made the point in my letter [to the Editor of Frontline] - another
example. I don't know how it ended up on the cover but anyway, these
are artists' depictions and not anatomical representations. So we can
only argue it, we cannot prove it. It is simply a question of people's
impressions.

And at least for the last 50 years, horse bones have been found at
Harappan sites and some have been found much earlier. More information
will be coming now.

The main point I want to make is about the Vedic-Harappan connection.
Both the Vedic and Harappan civilisations - you cannot call it
saffronised if you relate it to Hinduism because both of them preceded
Christianity and Islam by thousands of years! And India before that
time was Hindu. My point is that I can demonstrate the Vedic-Harappan
connection - that the Harappan civilisation was Vedic and full of
Vedic symbolism even without the decipherment...

And we see our book on the decipherment not in isolation but
[alongside] a whole lot of information that has come out beginning
with the discovery of the Saraswati River. Which the Aryan invasion
model does not explain.

Was he mistaken in his identification of the 'horse seal'?

Just as I gave my clarification to you, I told him [Farmer] I would
check with Jha and give him the clarification. I had not located the
photograph because I never imagined this would be turned into such a
major [controversy]... and then I found it in my file.

I went to the Mythic Society to check the original for Farmer. And I
even told him we could have made an honest mistake. But I don't think
we have made any mistakes and we stand by our identification. I will
not be surprised if the same picture is found in some old books.

I can tell you this: This photograph is what Jha sent me. I have not
computer enhanced it. If I said that - which is possible... I might
have said [it]... because I didn't have the photo at that time, which
I traced later. I might have said it meaning no t that I enhanced it
but it might have been done for publication.

I still stand by my interpretation.

http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl1723/17231220.htm

Quaint charm

The agraharams are a striking feature of the city.

THERE WAS a time, when Brahmin agraharams enhanced the quaint charm of
the old city of Thiruvananthapuram. The streets where the Tamil
Brahmins resided had kolams drawn in front of the houses. Most such
agraharams were located in areas such as Karamana, Valiasala,
Sreevarahom, Kottayakom and Thycaud.

The alternating, decorative bands of ochre and white seen on the front
walls of their homes as well as the temples were yet another feature
of these agraharams. These colours had a symbolic significance--the
ochre and white, perhaps, were symbolic of blood and milk. This
probably signified the individual's self. The walls painted in these
colours signify the surrender of the self to the paramatma.

These Brahmins belong to the ancient Tamizhakom and had initially
settled down along the banks of the Makarakra river (the present
Karamana river). Theirs was a close-knit community. The agraharams
were constructed in such a way that each home shared a wall with the
other. It was a kind of linear conglomeration of the agraharams. The
word agraharam has various etymological meanings. It indicates the
conglomeration (haram) of the first among the four varnas (castes).
Agraharam also indicates a cluster of houses with a temple of Shiva on
the agram (extreme tip) of the street.

The agraharams were constructed according to its own principles of
architecture. Each house opened out into the street and each had a
vasal-thinnai, which led to the ul-thinnai, rezhi, thazhvaram,
adukkalai and kottil. Many of the agraharams had small inner
courtyards, which provided adequate daylight to the rooms.

Karamana was the oldest Brahmin quarters of the city and it, perhaps,
had the largest number of such streets numbering around 18. These
agraharams have seen the rise of illustrious personalities like
Neelakanta Sivan, Nagam Aiya and S. Sankhu Iyer to name a few.

At present, the Karamana locality's only claim to fame is Prof. M. H.
Sastrikal, who has been residing here for well over 40 years.

Dr. Asko Parpola, a Finnish scholar from the Helsinki University, was
in the city recently looking for an old street. His researches on the
Samaveda and its practitioners, Samavedis, had taken Dr. Parpola to
Tentiruperai near Alvar Tirunagari in Tirunelveli, last year.

Many centuries ago, a group of Samavedi Brahmins, who belonged to the
Jaimeneya sect, had migrated from the Kaveri basin to this region.
Some of these emigrants decided to move further west. A few of them
settled down in Azhakiya Pandyapuram, near Nagercoil, while the rest
came to Thiruananthapuram. Dr. Parpola wanted to see the kuzhaikathan
street, where the Tirunelveli Samavedis had built their agraharams and
discover something to substantiate his scholastic interests.

At first, his queries drew a blank. Nobody had ever heard of such a
name. But, the scholar's persistent enquiries yielded results when a
resident of the S.S. Street in Karamana, remembered that it had once
been called the kozhakka theruvu. This must have been the name of
kuzhai kathan Street that Dr. Parpola had come in search of.

Dr. Parpola is an expert on the Indus valley civilisation and has
spent a lifetime studying the migration routes that the Aryans had
chosen as well as decoding their script. It was his study of the old
manuscripts of Kerala that brought to light certain interesting
facts.

Dr. Parpola found that the names of two namboodiri scholars,
Bhavathrathan and Mathrudathan, recurred during various centuries in
the manuscripts. The 7th century Sanskrit poet and literary critic,
Dandin, mentions about his acquaintance with this father and son duo,
who were Jaimeneeya Samavedis and whose ancestry could be traced to
the genealogical tree extending from ancient Ahichatra in modern
Ramput of Haryana from where the Jaimeneeya Samavedis had travelled
south.

The Samavedis of Tentiruperai or Tentirupati originally came from
Kancheepuram. Out of the 108 who had set out for Tirunelveli, only 107
reached there. The story goes thus--the next morning there were 108
people again. The Brahmins realised it was lord Vishnu who had
appeared as the missing figure. An idol of Vishnu was installed in the
village and worshipped as kuzhaikathan meaning the one who wears
makara kundals (ear ornaments) shaped like a mythological fish.

Kuzhaikathan is a synonym for Lord Vishnu in Tamil. In the course of
time, many of the Samavedis living on the banks of the Karamana were
permitted to move inside the Fort area. The old name of the street
gradually sank into oblivion.

Today, the street is known by two names-- the S. S. Street or Sankara
Subramoni Iyer Street (after the name of a judge of the Kerala High
Court) and Eratta (twin) street. The bard of Avon may have his own
reasons for musing over the question-- `What's in a name?' But a
change of name, especially in the case of streets can completely
efface its historic and geographical significance. After all, there's
so much in a name.

M G SASHIBHOOSHAN & BINDU SASHIBHOOSHAN

Photo: S. Gopakumar

Printer friendly page

http://www.hinduonnet.com/mp/2004/02/23/stories/2004022301910300.htm

Volume 27 - Issue 01 :: Jan. 02-15, 2010
INDIA'S NATIONAL MAGAZINE
from the publishers of THE HINDU

HISTORY

Looking back

PARVATHI MENON

Frontline has held a mirror to history in all its dimensions, and its
coverage has created a class of loyal readers across age groups and
class backgrounds.

Dancing girl INDUS VALLEY.

AN important component of Frontline’s news agenda over the past 25
years has been coverage of history. Going well beyond a report-it-as-
news approach to this social science discipline, the magazine adopted
from the start a considered editorial policy that recognised the
importance of history to serious journalism in a country that has an
ongoing engagement with its past and where politics and society are
constantly being shaped by the filtered hist ory of 5,000 years.
Political upheaval and social change in India over the past 25 years
have more often than not been underpinned by contending visions of
history. As a chronicler and commentator of its times, Frontline has
sought to reflect this interaction accurately and fairly.

For its correspondents covering history, this editorial philosophy was
most stimulating, and the “beat” (to use a term more appropriate to
daily journalism) was enlarged to include many issues that fell within
the larger framework of history. Broadly, history reportage comprised
the following four categories: reporting new advances in historical
research; educating the reader on India’s historical heritage in all
its variety, colour and geographical spread; investigating and
exposing lapses in the conservation and maintenance of heritage; and
proactively defending the case for a scientific and secular history.
The magazine covered these issues in depth and from a progressive
standpoint.

Frontline has diligently covered major new research developments in
the discipline, presenting the significance of the findings in a
popular and accessible way. This was achieved without oversimplifying
the discipline’s methodologies and conclusions – an approach that has
won it many supporters among historians and scholars. More
significantly, it created a class of loyal readers across age groups,
occupations and class backgrounds who yearned for new, factual
information and fresh perspectives in history at a time of deep social
churn.

The range of such reporting was wide: from exciting ground-breaking
research into the Indus Valley script (Frontline, February 20, 1987),
to an entire package by leading historians on the significance of the
1857 Uprising on the occasion of its 150th anniversary (“The Call of
1857”, Frontline, June 29, 2007).

REPORTING HERITAGE
Frontline’s insightful coverage of historical heritage was aimed at
creating awareness and disseminating knowledge of the subcontinent’s
vast material legacy. Over the years Frontline has covered, among
other areas, most of the major archaeological sites and historical
monuments; libraries, archives, museums and other repositories of
historical source material; and some of the major historical sites in
other countries (for example, the work of the Archaeological Survey of
India on the Angkor Wat cluster of monuments in Cambodia and
Vietnam).

Frontline’s heritage reportage was marked by a generous use of
photographs. Indeed, the magazine’s use of high-quality colour
pictures, effectively harnessed for heritage reporting, set new
standards in Indian journalism. Not infrequently, it would be a set of
telling photographs that would be the starting point for a story on a
particular theme. The magazine has provided a platform for several
leading photographers to publish their work. The late photographer and
writer Raghubir Singh was a regular contributor until his untimely
death in 1999.

CONSERVATION ISSUES

The neglect of monuments because of shoddy conservation practices or
short-sighted or narrow-minded official policy was and continues to be
an area of focus for Frontline. For example, in 2002-03 the Mayawati
government’s plans to develop a Taj corridor near the Taj Mahal, a
project that was later shelved under public pressure, was an issue
that Frontline covered in some detail. T.S. Subramanian’s reports on
the destruction of heritage are fine examples of this genre of
reporting. In July 2009, he reported that illegal quarrying near the
Tiruvadavur caves in Madurai district had endangered the site where
thousands of ancient Tamil-Brahmi inscriptions have been cut into
rocks and on cave walls (Frontline, July 17, 2009). In August 2008 he
exposed a scandal involving the destruction of a 500-year-old
structure built by the Vijayanagara rulers in the Varadaraja Perumal
temple complex in Kancheepuram. The destruction was carried out under
the orders of the temple authorities, who claimed that they were only
“dismantling” it for later reconstruction (Frontline, August 1,
2008).

Tamil-Brahmi near MADURAI
DEFENDING SCIENTIFIC HISTORY

Frontline made the defence of secular and scientific history an
important focus of its reportage. By the late 1980s, not long after
the magazine was launched, the militant Ayodhya movement had started
using historical symbols as tools of popular political mobilisation.
As history slipped out of the confines of classrooms, research
libraries and seminar halls and into the public domain, professional
historians working on India found themselves politically and
ideologically polarised.

The Ayodhya movement, which emphasised myth and history and rested on
the dangerous notion of historical retribution, breathed fresh life
into the long-discredited and marginalised school of communal history.
Historians of this persuasion packaged their versions of ancient,
medieval and modern history as ready ammunition for use in the Ayodhya
campaign. Across the battle lines, secular historians marshalled their
resources against this attack on history and its misuse, and took the
fight to public platforms and the media.

Frontline did not merely report on this clash of ideas. It provided a
forum for historians to present new arguments and hone their
interpretations in defence of scientific history. Frontline reported
extensively on the saffronisation of history during the regime of the
National Democratic Alliance (NDA) at the Centre (1998-2004) when
scientific history came under official attack; when school history
textbooks brought out by the National Council of Educational Research
and Training (NCERT) were replaced by communal textbooks; when
historians of standing were hounded and prevented from doing their
research because they did not toe the line; and when professional
bodies such as the Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) were
subverted to suit the requirements of the new dispensation.

REPORTING HIGHLIGHTS

Between 1984 and 1987, Frontline’s history canvas was devoted largely
to highlighting some of the best of the subcontinent’s monuments. The
magazine was perhaps the first in India to use colour photographs so
effectively and extensively, and its pages of art paper were often
filled with a dazzling spread of colour photographs on a monument or
cluster, accompanied by an essay.

Prehistory defaced SIVAGANGA

The magazine carried photo features on the architecture of
Somanathapura (July 11, 1986); Bijapur (September 5, 1986), and
Golconda (April 3, 1987) to mention a few. There were other kinds of
writing as well during this phase – an insightful evaluation,
accompanied by historical photographs, of 25 years of Goa’s
integration into India (December 27, 1985); a special feature on 100
years of the Congress, with contributions by historians, journalists
and political leaders (December 28, 1985-January 10, 1986); and
interviews with two eminent non-Indian historians – Noburu Karashima
on his research on Chola land revenue systems (February 22, 1985) and
Asko Parpola on his work on the Indus script (February 20, 1987).

By the late 1980s, in addition to articles on heritage and
conservation, reports on the Ayodhya claims by the Sangh Parivar –
constructed around the proposition that the Babri Masjid was built on
the remains of a temple that marked the spot where the god-king Ram
was born – appeared in some detail in Frontline. In the April 24,
1992, issue, the historian R. Champakalakshmi, then Chairperson of the
Centre for Historical Studies of the Jawaharlal Nehru University, was
interviewed by Asha Krishnakumar and Vasanthi Devi on the Ayodhya
evidence. The debate on the methods used by historians sympathetic to
the Sangh Parivar in archaeological digs around the Babri Masjid, and
their claims that these showed evidence of a demolished temple,
continued through September, October and November of the same year.
Significantly, Frontline also offered space to Sangh Parivar
historians for their views.

On December 6, 1992, the 16th century Babri Masjid in Ayodhya was
demolished by kar sevaks in an operation planned by the leaders of the
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh
(RSS). Alongside the political coverage, Frontline continued reporting
on the historicity of the claims by the Sangh Parivar with respect to
the Babri Masjid, in interviews with historians and in its independent
reportage. In the issue dated March 28, 1993, the magazine carried a
detailed report on kar sevak archaeology by the historian Sushil
Srivastava. Sukumar Muralidharan of Frontline covered the World
Archaeological Congress held in New Delhi in December 1994 in two
consecutive issues, reporting on the attempt by historians associated
with the Ayodhya project to hijack the Congress and prevent a
discussion on their archaeological digs in Ayodhya.

Eldorado once GOLCONDA
Frontline’s Cover Story (November 29, 1996) by its Editor N. Ram and a
team of reporters on a proposed auction in England of a set of letters
written by Mahatma Gandhi put up for public scrutiny the entire sordid
story of private profiteering of a national treasure. By the time the
story appeared, the auction had been stopped, but the many-sided
investigation into this complicated transnational deal was vintage
Frontline.

After the NDA came to power, Frontline closely covered the rewriting
of history textbooks and the drive to purge academic bodies such as
the ICHR and the NCERT of distinguished scholars who opposed the
saffronisation agenda. T.K. Rajalakshmi of Frontline’s Delhi bureau
reported extensively on the changes made in NCERT textbooks under the
stewardship of Murli Manohar Joshi in the Human Resource Development
Ministry. The coverage exposed the communal biases and shoddy
scholarship on display in the rewritten textbooks, which were also
replete with factual errors. Sukumar Muralidharan tracked the
reconstitution of the ICHR by the NDA government and the targeting of
the “Towards Freedom” research project and its authors who stood up to
the saffronisation agenda.

Modern warrior TIPU SULTAN

“Horseplay in Harappa”, the title of Frontline’s Cover Story (October
13, 2000) by Indologists Michael Witzel and Steve Farmer, laid to rest
Hindutva claims that the Indus Valley was of Vedic vintage. They
demonstrated as false the claims of the historians N.S. Rajaram and
Natwar Jha that they had deciphered the Indus script and that its
language was Vedic Sanskrit. The two claimed to have found a horse
seal, which they said established the early Vedic origins of the Indus
civilisation. Witzel and Farmer proved that the “horse” was actually a
not-so-clever manipulation of a digital image of a broken Indus seal
depicting a unicorn bull.

V.V. KRISHNAN

With the return to power of the Congress at the head of the United
Progressive Alliance in 2004, Frontline’s diligent record of the
saffronisation agenda of the NDA and the damage it had caused could
surely have been used to reverse the damage, if the UPA government had
summoned the will to do so.

Since 2004, Frontline’s history lens has refocussed on heritage
restoration and conservation efforts in India. Several exposes by T.S.
Subramanian have highlighted the wanton destruction of historical
heritage, fuelled by the process of economic liberalisation. In recent
years, heritage structures, in particular, have been exposed to the
whimsical and destructive ways of private interest groups, even as the
state slowly abdicates its responsibility as their prime custodian.

A survey of Frontline’s coverage of history would be incomplete
without an acknowledgment of the scholarly contributions of A.G.
NOORANI, whom Frontline staffers rank amongst the magazine’s most
valued columnists.

http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl2701/stories/20100115270111800.htm

Volume 18 - Issue 01, Jan. 06 - 19, 2001
India's National Magazine
from the publishers of THE HINDU

LETTERS

Ayodhya

I agree with A.G. Noorani's view that even if a Hindu temple did exist
before the mosque was built in Ayodhya in 1528, it does not justify
the demolition of the mosque in 1992 ("Vajpayee and the Constitution",
January 5).

Going by the logic of those behind the demolition of the Babri Masjid,
many ancient monuments the world over would have to be demolished and
we can destroy the monuments constructed by the Mughals and the
British. History can never be erased.

R. Swaminath
Ratlam, Madhya Pradesh

Attacks on Christians

The continuing attacks against Christians in Gujarat are horrifying
("A concerted campaign", January 5).

In a secular democracy it is the duty and responsibility of the state
to protect every citizen and his/her rights, including the right to
worship.

Political parties that try to divide the people on religious and caste
lines must be shunned.

A. Jacob Sahayam
Karigiri, Tamil Nadu

The Indus script

The articles by acknowledged experts in the field of archaeology on
the Indus script ("Horseplay in Harappa", October 13 and "A tale of
two horses", November 24) were educative.

It was Fr. Henry Heras, the Dravidian from Spain as he proudly called
himself, who first declared that the language of the Indus Valley seal
inscriptions was proto-Dravidian. His Studies in Proto-Indo-
Mediterranean Culture, Volume I (1953) is a cl assic that gives rare
insights. Although experts who tried to decipher the Indus script
later have not accepted the particular readings given by Fr. Heras, no
reputed scholar has contested his conclusion.

Among those who have tried to decipher the Indus script as proto-
Dravidian are Walter A. Fairservis (no more with us now), Asko
Parpola, Y.V. Knorozov and Iravatham Mahadevan. Among the eminent
archaeologists and philologists who endorse this view are th e great
Sanskritist Dr. Burrow Bridget and Raymon Allchin (archaeologists) and
Kamil V. Zvelebil, one of the foremost Dravidian linguists. The best
summary of this issue has been given by Zvelebil in Dravidian
Linguistics, An Introduction (Pondich erry Institute of Language and
Culture, Pondicherry, 1990). No reasonable person can cavil against
his conclusion that "the most probable candidate is and remains some
form of Dravidian".

Stanley Wolpert paraphrases this scholarly consensus in a more telling
manner in his An Introduction to India (University of California
Press, 1991): "We assume from various shreds of evidence that they
were proto-Dravidian, possibly using a langu age that was a
grandfather of modern Tamil."

Among the numerous attempts made by Tamil-knowing scholars (apart from
the doyen among them, I. Mahadevan) to decipher the Indus script from
the proto-Dravidian angle, the work of Dr. R. Madhivanan, Chief Editor
of the Tamil Etymological Dictionary Proje ct, seems to be based on a
sound knowledge of ancient Tamil etymology and grammar (beginning from
Tholkappiam) and an awareness of all the proto-historical,
archaeological, cultural and anthropological backgrounds of the issue.
Madhivanan's work < I>Indus Script - Dravidian (Tamil Sandror Peravai,
Chennai, 1995) gives his readings of the seal inscriptions as syllabic
representations of names of merchants, chiefs, priests and gods of
proto-Tamil vintage. Madhivanan buttresses his reading withth e bio-
script metal seal discovered by Indrapala at Anaikottai in Yalpanam
with the word Tivu Ko (according to Madhivanan) in Indus Valley script
and also in southern Brahmi script; and the Indus script-like cave
inscriptions at Keezhavalai on the Villupuram-Thiruvannamalai road in
Tamil Nadu.

Scholars such as Parpola and Mahadevan have not accepted the readings
of Madhivanan so far. However, there is no gainsaying that attempts to
decipher the Indus script cannot ignore the sound linguistic and
grammatical parameters set by Madhivanan for dec ipherment.

P. Ramanathan
Chennai

http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl1801/18011050.htm

Volume 17 - Issue 20, Sep. 30 - Oct. 13, 2000
India's National Magazine
from the publishers of THE HINDU

COVER STORY

HORSEPLAY IN HARAPPA

The Indus Valley Decipherment Hoax

MICHAEL WITZEL, a Harvard University Indologist, and STEVE FARMER, a
comparative historian, report on media hype, faked data, and Hindutva
propaganda in recent claims that the Indus Valley script has been
decoded.

LAST summer the Indian press carried sensational stories announcing
the final decipherment of the Harappan or Indus Valley script. A
United News of India dispatch on July 11, 1999, picked up throughout
South Asia, reported on new research by "noted histo rian, N.S.
Rajaram, who along with palaeographist Dr. Natwar Jha, has read and
deciphered the messages on more than 2,000 Harappan seals." Discussion
of the messages was promised in Rajaram and Jha's upcoming book, The
Deciphered Indus Script. For nearly a year, the Internet was abuzz
with reports that Rajaram and Jha had decoded the full corpus of Indus
Valley texts.

This was not the first claim that the writing of the Indus Valley
Civilisation (fl. c. 2600-1900 BCE) had been cracked. In a 1996 book,
American archaeologist Gregory Possehl reviewed thirty-five attempted
decipherments, perhaps one-third the actual numb er. But the claims of
Rajaram and Jha went far beyond those of any recent historians. Not
only had the principles of decipherment been discovered, but the
entire corpus of texts could now be read. Even more remarkable were
the historical conclusions that Rajaram and his collaborator said were
backed by the decoded messages.

Harappa, area of the 'parallel walls.' Courtesy of the Archaeological
Survey of India, Punjab Photographic Volume 463/86.

The UNI story was triggered by announcements that Rajaram and Jha had
not only deciphered the Indus Valley seals but had read "pre-Harappan"
texts dating to the mid-fourth millennium BCE. If confirmed, this
meant that they had decoded mankind's earliest literary message. The
"texts" were a handful of symbols scratched on a pottery tablet
recently discovered by Harvard University archaeologist Richard
Meadow. The oldest of these, Rajaram told the UNI, was a text that
could be translated "Ila surrounds th e blessed land" - an oblique but
unmistakable reference to the Rigveda's Saraswati river. The
suggestion was that man's earliest message was linked to India's
oldest religious text.1 The claim was hardly trivial, since this was
over 2,000 year s before Indologists date the Rigveda - and more than
1,000 years before Harappan culture itself reached maturity.

Rajaram's World

After months of media hype, Rajaram and Jha's The Deciphered Indus
Script2 made it to print in New Delhi early this year. By midsummer
the book had reached the West and was being heatedly discussed via the
Internet in Europe, India, and the United States. The book gave credit
for the decipherment method to Jha, a provincial religious scholar,
previously unknown, from Farakka, in West Bengal. The book's publicity
hails him as "one of the world's foremost Vedic scholars and
palaeographer s." Jha had reportedly worked in isolation for twenty
years, publishing a curious 60-page English pamphlet on his work in
1996. Jha's study caught the eye of Rajaram, who was already notorious
in Indological circles. Rajaram took credit for writing most of the
book, which heavily politicised Jha's largely apolitical message.
Rajaram's online biography claims that their joint effort is "the most
important breakthrough of our time in the history of Indian history
and culture."

Rajaram's 'computer enhancement' of Mackay 453, transforming it into a
'horse seal' (From the book The Deciphered Indus Script, p. 177)

(Left) Figure 7.1a: The 'Horse Seal' (Mackay 453)
(Right) Figure 7.1b: The 'Horse Seal' (Artist's reproduction)

Boasts like this do not surprise battle-scarred Indologists familiar
with Rajaram's work. A U.S. engineering professor in the 1980s,
Rajaram re-invented himself in the 1990s as a fiery Hindutva
propagandist and "revisionist" historian. By the mid-1990s, he could
claim a following in India and in ‚migr‚ circles in the U.S. In
manufacturing his public image, Rajaram traded heavily on claims, not
justified by his modest research career, that before turning to
history "he was one of America's best-known wor kers in artificial
intelligence and robotics." Hyperbole abounds in his online biography,
posted at the ironically named "Sword of Truth" website. The Hindutva
propaganda site, located in the United States, pictures Rajaram as a
"world-renowned" expert o n "Vedic mathematics" and an "authority on
the history of Christianity." The last claim is supported by violently
anti-Christian works carrying titles like Christianity's Collapsing
Empire and Its Designs in India. Rajaram's papers include his "Se arch
for the historical Krishna" (found in the Indus Valley c. 3100 BCE);
attack a long list of Hindutva "enemies" including Christian
missionaries, Marxist academics, leftist politicians, Indian Muslims,
and Western Indologists; and glorify the mob dest ruction of the Babri
Mosque in 1992 as a symbol of India's emergence from "the grip of
alien imperialistic forces and their surrogates." All Indian history,
Rajaram writes, can be pictured as a struggle between nationalistic
and imperialistic forces.

In Indology, the imperialistic enemy is the "colonial-missionary
creation known as the Aryan invasion model," which Rajaram ascribes to
Indologists long after crude invasion theories have been replaced by
more sophisticated acculturation models by seriou s researchers.
Rajaram's cartoon image of Indology is to be replaced by "a path of
study that combines ancient learning and modern science." What Rajaram
means by "science" is suggested in one of his papers describing the
knowledge of the Rigveda poets. The Rigveda rishis, we find, packed
their hymns with occult allusions to high-energy physics, anti-matter,
the inflational theory of the universe, calculations of the speed of
light, and gamma-ray bursts striking the earth three times a day. The
l atter is shown in three Rigveda verses (3.56.6, 7.11.3, 9.86.18)
addressed to the god Agni. The second Rajaram translates: "O Agni! We
know you have wealth to give three times a day to mortals."

One of Rajaram's early Hindutva pieces was written in 1995 with David
Frawley, a Western "New Age" writer who likes to find allusions to
American Indians in the Rigveda. Frawley is transformed via the "Sword
of Truth" into a "famous American Vedic scholar and historian." The
book by Rajaram and Frawley proposes the curious thesis that the
Rigveda was the product of a complex urban and maritime civilisation,
not the primitive horse-and-chariot culture seen in the text. The goal
is to link the Rigv eda to the earlier Indus Valley Civilisation,
undercutting any possibility of later "Aryan" migrations or
relocations of the Rigveda to "foreign" soil. Ancient India, working
through a massive (but lost) Harappan literature, was a prime source
of civilis ation to the West.

The Deciphered Indus Script makes similar claims with different
weapons. The Indus-Saraswati Valley again becomes the home of the
Rigveda and a font of higher civilisation: Babylonian and Greek
mathematics, all alphabetical scripts, and even Roman numerals flow
out to the world from the Indus Valley's infinitely fertile cultural
womb. Press releases praise the work for not only "solving the most
significant technical problem in historical research of our time" -
deciphering the Indus script - but for demonstrating as well that "if
any 'cradle of civilisation' existed, it was located not in
Mesopotamia but in the Saraswati Valley." The decoded messages of
Harappa thus confirm the Hindutva propagandist's wildest nationalistic
dreams.

Rajaram's 'Piltdown Horse'

Not unexpectedly, Indologists followed the pre-press publicity for
Rajaram's book with a mix of curiosity and scepticism. Just as the
book hit the West, a lively Internet debate was under way over whether
any substantial texts existed in Harappa - let alone the massive lost
literature claimed by Rajaram. Indus Valley texts are cryptic to
extremes, and the script shows few signs of evolutionary change. Most
inscriptions are no more than four or five characters long; many
contain only two or three characters. Moreover, character shapes in
mature Harappan appear to be strangely "frozen," unlike anything seen
in ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt or China. This suggests that expected
"scribal pressures" for simplifying the script, arising out of the
repeate d copying of long texts, was lacking. And if this is true, the
Indus script may have never evolved beyond a simple proto-writing
system.

Mackay 453 before its 'computer enhancement' by Rajaram. When you look
at the original picture, it is clear that the seal impression is
cracked.

Once Rajaram's book could actually be read, the initial scepticism of
Indologists turned to howls of disbelief - followed by charges of
fraud. It was quickly shown that the methods of Jha and Rajaram were
so flexible that virtually any desired message co uld be read into the
texts. One Indologist claimed that using methods like these he could
show that the inscriptions were written in Old Norse or Old English.
Others pointed to the fact that the decoded messages repeatedly turned
up "missing links" betwe en Harappan and Vedic cultures - supporting
Rajaram's Hindutva revisions of history. The language of Harappa was
declared to be "late Vedic" Sanskrit, some 2,000 years before the
language itself existed. Through the decoded messages, the horseless
Indus Valley Civilisation - distinguishing it sharply from the culture
of the Rigveda - was awash with horses, horse keepers, and even horse
rustlers. To support his claims, Rajaram pointed to a blurry image of
a "horse seal" - the first pictorial evidence eve r claimed of
Harappan horses.

Chaos followed. Within weeks, the two of us demonstrated that
Rajaram's "horse seal" was a fraud, created from a computer distortion
of a broken "unicorn bull" seal. This led Indologist wags to dub it
the Indus Valley "Piltdown horse" - a comic allusion to the "Piltdown
man" hoax of the early twentieth century. The comparison was, in fact,
apt, since the "Piltdown man" was created to fill the missing link
between ape and man - just as Rajaram's "horse seal" was intended to
fill a gap between Harappa and Vedic cultures.

M-1034a

Once the hoax was uncovered, $1000 was offered to anyone who could
find one Harappan researcher who endorsed Rajaram's "horse seal." The
offer found no takers.

The "Piltdown horse" story has its comic side, but it touches on a
central problem in Indian history. Horses were critical to Vedic
civilisation, as we see in Vedic texts describing horse sacrifices,
horse raids, and warfare using horse-drawn chariots. I f Rigvedic
culture (normally dated to the last half of the second millennium BCE)
is identified with Harappa, it is critical to find evidence of
extensive use of domesticated horses in India in the third millennium
BCE. In the case of Hindutva "revisioni sts" like Rajaram, who push
the Rigveda to the fourth or even fifth millennium, the problem is
worse. They must find domesticated horses and chariots in South Asia
thousands of years before either existed anywhere on the planet.

Evidence suggests that the horse (Equus caballus) was absent from
India before around 2000 BCE, or even as late as 1700 BCE, when
archaeology first attests its presence in the Indus plains below the
Bolan pass. The horse, a steppe animal from the semi-temperate zone,
was not referred to in the Middle East until the end of the third
millennium, when it first shows up in Sumerian as anshe.kur (mountain
ass) or anshe.zi.zi (speedy ass). Before horses, the only equids in
the Near East w ere the donkey and the half-ass (hemione, onager). The
nearly untrainable hemiones look a bit like horses and can interbreed
with them, as can donkeys. In India, the hemione or khor (Equus
hemionus khur) was the only equid known before the horse; a few
specimens still survive in the Rann of Kutch.

As shown by their identical archaeological field numbers (DK-6664),
M-772A (published in Vol. II of Corpus of Indus Seals and
Inscriptions, 1991) is the original seal that seven decades ago
created the seal impression (Mackay 453) that Rajaram claims is a
'horse seal.'
M-772A (flipped horizontally) Mackay 453

The appearance of domesticated horses in the Old World was closely
linked to the development of lightweight chariots, which play a
central role in the Rigveda. The oldest archaeological remains of
chariots are from east and west of the Ural mountains, wh ere they
appear c. 2000 BCE. In the Near East, their use is attested in
pictures and writing a little later. A superb fifteenth-century
Egyptian example survives intact (in Florence, Italy); others show up
in twelfth-century Chinese tombs.

Chariots like these were high-tech creations: the poles of the
Egyptian example were made of elm, the wheels' felloes (outer rim) of
ash, its axles and spokes of evergreen oak, and its spoke lashings of
birch bark. None of these trees are found in the Ne ar East south of
Armenia, implying that these materials were imported from the north.
The Egyptian example weighs only 30 kg or so, a tiny fraction of slow
and heavy oxen-drawn wagons, weighing 500 kg or more, which earlier
served as the main wheeled tra nsport. These wagons, known since
around 3000 BCE, are similar to those still seen in parts of the
Indian countryside.

The result of all this is that the claim that horses or chariots were
found in the Indus Valley of the third millennium BCE is quite a
stretch. The problem is impossible for writers like Rajaram who
imagine the Rigveda early in the fourth or even fifth m illennium,
which is long before any wheeled transport - let alone chariots -
existed. Even the late Hungarian palaeontologist S. Bokonyi, who
thought that he recognised horses' bones at one Indus site, Surkotada,
denied that these were indigenous to South Asia. He writes that
"horses reached the Indian subcontinent in an already domesticated
form coming from the Inner Asiatic hors e domestication centres."
Harvard's Richard Meadow, who discovered the earliest known Harappan
text (which Rajaram claims to have deciphered), disputes even the
Surkotada evidence. In a paper written with the young Indian scholar,
Ajita K. Patel, Meadow argues that not one clear example of horse
bones exists in Indus excavations or elsewhere in North India before
c. 2000 BCE.3 All contrary claims arise from evidence from ditches,
erosional deposits, pits or horse graves originating hun dreds or even
thousands of years later than Harappan civilisation. Remains of
"horses" claimed by early Harappan archaeologists in the 1930s were
not documented well enough to let us distinguish between horses,
hemiones, or asses.

All this explains the need for Rajaram's horse inscriptions and "horse
seal." If this evidence were genuine, it would trigger a major
rethinking of all Old World history. Rajaram writes, in his accustomed
polemical style:


The 'horse seal' goes to show that the oft repeated claim of "No horse
at Harappa" is entirely baseless. Horse bones have been found at all
levels at Harappan sites. Also... the word 'as'va' (horse) is a
commonly occuring (sic) word on the seals. The sup posed
'horselessness' of the Harappans is a dogma that has been exploded by
evidence. But like its cousin the Aryan invasion, it persists for
reasons having little to do with evidence or scholarship.
Rajaram's "horse," which looks something like a deer to most people,
is a badly distorted image printed next to an "artist's reproduction"
of a horse, located below a Harappan inscription.4 The original source
of the image, Mackay 453, is a ti ny photo on Plate XCV of Vol. II of
Ernest Mackay's Further Excavations of Mohenjo-Daro (New Delhi,
1937-38). The photo was surprisingly difficult to track down, since
Rajaram's book does not tell you in which of Mackay's archaeological
works, whi ch contain thousands of images, the photo is located.
Finding it and others related to it required coordinating resources in
two of the world's best research libraries, located 3,000 miles apart
in the United States.

M-595a

Once the original was found, and compared over the Internet with his
distorted image, Rajaram let it slip that the "horse seal" was a
"computer enhancement" that he and Jha introduced to "facilitate our
reading." Even now, however, he claims that the sea l depicts a
"horse." To deny it would be disastrous, since to do so would require
rejection of his decipherment of the seal inscription - which
supposedly includes the word "horse."

Once you see Mackay's original photo, it is clear that Rajaram's
"horse seal" is simply a broken "unicorn bull" seal, the most common
seal type found in Mohenjo-daro. In context, its identity is obvious,
since the same page contains photos of more than two dozen unicorn
bulls - any one of which would make a good "horse seal" if it were
cracked in the right place.

What in Rajaram's "computer enhancement" looks like the "neck" and
"head" of a deer is a Rorschach illusion created by distortion of the
crack and top-right part of the inscription. Any suggestion that the
seal represents a whole animal evaporates as soo n as you see the
original. The fact that the seal is broken is not mentioned in
Rajaram's book. You certainly cannot tell it is broken from the
"computer enhancement."

While Rajaram's bogus "horse seal" is crude, because of the relative
rarity of the volume containing the original, which is not properly
referenced in Rajaram's book, only a handful of researchers lucky
enough to have the right sources at hand could trac k it down.
Rajaram's evidence could not be checked by his typical reader in
Ahmedabad, say - or even by Indologists using most university
libraries.

The character of the original seal becomes clearer when you look more
closely at the evidence. Mackay 453, it turns out, is not the photo of
a seal at all, as Rajaram claims, but of a modern clay impression of a
seal (field number DK-6664) dug up in Mohe njo-daro during the 1927-31
excavations. We have located a superb photograph of the original seal
that made the impression (identified again by field number DK-6664) in
the indispensable Corpus of Indus Seals and Inscriptions (Vol. II:
Helsinki 19 91, p. 63). The work was produced by archaeologists from
India and Pakistan, coordinated by the renowned Indologist Asko
Parpola. According to a personal communication from Dr. Parpola, the
original seal was photographed in Pakistan by Jyrki Lyytikk„ spe
cifically for the 1991 publication.

Like everyone else looking at the original, Parpola notes that
Rajaram's "horse seal" is simply a broken "unicorn bull" seal, one of
numerous examples found at Mohenjo-daro. Rajaram has also apparently
been told this by Iravatham Mahadevan, the leading I ndian expert on
the Indus script. Mahadevan is quoted, without name, in Rajaram's book
as a "well known 'Dravidianist"' who pointed out to him the obvious.
But, Rajaram insists, a "comparison of the two creatures [unicorns and
horses], especially in [the ] genital area, shows this to be
fallacious." Rajaram has also claimed on the Internet that the
animal's "bushy tail" shows that it is a horse.

Below, on the left, we have reproduced Lyytikk„'s crisp photo of the
original seal, compared (on the right) with the seven-decade-old photo
(Mackay 453) of the impression Rajaram claims is a "horse seal." We
have flipped the image of the original horizon tally to simplify
comparison of the seal and impression. The tail of the animal is the
typical "rope" tail associated with unicorn bull seals at Mohenjo-daro
(seen in more images below). It is clearly not the "bushy tail" that
Rajaram imagines - although Rajaram's story is certainly a "bushy
horse tale."

Checking Rajaram's claims about the "genital area," we find no
genitals at all in M-772A or Mackay 453 - for the simple reason that
genitals on unicorn bulls are typically located right where the seal
is cracked! This is clear when we look at other unico rn seals or
their impressions. One seal impression, Parpola M-1034a (on the
right), has a lot in common with Rajaram's "horse seal," including the
two characters on the lefthand side of the inscription. The seal is
broken in a different place, wiping out the righthand side of the
inscription but leaving the genitals intact. On this seal impression
we see the distinctive "unicorn" genitals, identified by the long
"tuft" hanging straight down. The genitals are located where we would
find them on Rajaram's "horse seal," if the latter were not broken.

Other unicorn bull seal impressions, like the one seen in Parpola
M-595a, could make terrific "horse seals" if cracked in the same
place. Unfortunately, Parpola M-595a is not broken, revealing the fact
(true of most Harappan seals) that it represents not a real but a
mythological animal. (And, of course, neither this nor any other
unicorn has a bushy tail.)

Rajaram's 'computer enhancement' of Mackay 453 on the left; the arrow
points to an object apparently stuck into the original image. On the
right, pictures of Mohenjo-daro copper plates showing similar
telephone-like 'feeding troughs.'


(Left) Figure 7.1a: The `Horse Seal' (Mackay 453)

A Russian Indologist, Yaroslav Vassilkov, has pointed to a suspicious
detail in Rajaram's "computer enhancement" that is not found on any
photo of the seal or impression. Just in front of the animal, we find
a small object that looks like a partia l image of a common icon in
animal seals: a "feeding trough" that looks a little like an old-style
telephone. Who inserted it into the distorted image of the "horse
seal" is not known. Rajaram has not responded to questions about it.

Below, we show Rajaram's "computer enhancement" next to pictures of
Mohenjo-daro copper plates that contain several versions of the
object.

'Late Vedic' Sanskrit - 2000 Years Before Schedule

The horse seal is only one case of bogus data in Rajaram's book.
Knowledge of Vedic Sanskrit is needed to uncover those involving his
decipherments. That is not knowledge that Rajaram would expect in his
average reader, since (despite its pretensions) th e book is not aimed
at scholars but at a lay Indian audience. The pretence that the book
is addressed to researchers (to whom the fraud is obvious) is a
smokescreen to convince lay readers that Rajaram is a serious
historical scholar.

The decipherment issue explains why Rajaram continues to defend his
"horse seal" long after his own supporters have called on him to
repudiate it. He has little choice, since he has permanently wedded
his "Piltdown horse" to his decipherment method. The inscription over
the horse, he tells us, reads (a bit ungrammatically) "arko-hasva or
arko ha as'va" - "Sun indeed like the horse (sic)." The reading
clearly would be pointless if the image represented a unicorn bull.
Rajaram claims that there are links between this "deciphered" text and
a later Vedic religious document, the Shukla Yajurveda. This again
pushes the Rigveda, which is linguistically much earlier than that
text, to an absurdly early period.

As we have seen, Rajaram claims that the language of Harappa was "late
Vedic" Sanskrit. This conflicts with countless facts from archaeology,
linguistics, and other fields. Indeed, "late Vedic" did not exist
until some two thousand years after the start of mature Harappan
culture!

Let us look at a little linguistic evidence. Some of it is a bit
technical, but it is useful since it shows how dates are assigned to
parts of ancient Indian history.

The Rigveda is full of descriptions of horses (as'va), horse races,
and the swift spoke-wheeled chariot (ratha). We have already seen that
none of these existed anywhere in the Old World until around 2000 BCE
or so. In most places, they did not appear until much later. The
introduction of chariots and horses is one marker for the earliest
possible dates of the Rigveda.

Linguistic evidence provides other markers. In both ancient Iran and
Vedic India, the chariot is called a ratha, from the prehistoric
(reconstructed) Indo-European word for wheel *roth2o- (Latin rota,
German Rad). ( A chariot = "wheels," just as in the modern slang
expression "my wheels" = "my automobile.") We also have shared Iranian
and Vedic words for charioteer - the Vedic ratheSTha or old Iranian
rathaeshta, meaning "standing on the chariot." Indo -European, on the
other hand - the ancestor of Vedic Sanskrit and most European
languages - does not have a word for chariot. This is shown by the
fact that many European languages use different words for the vehicle.
In the case of Greek, for example, a chariot is harmat(-os).

The implication is that the ancient Iranian and Vedic word for chariot
was coined sometime around 2000 BCE - about when chariots first
appeared - but before those languages split into two. A good guess is
that this occurred in the steppe belt of Russia a nd Kazakhstan, which
is where we find the first remains of chariots. That area remained
Iranian-speaking well into the classical period, a fact reflected even
today in northern river names - all the way from the Danube, Don,
Dnyestr, Dnyepr and the Ural (Rahaa = Vedic Rasaa) rivers to the Oxus
(Vakhsh).

These are only a few pieces of evidence confirming what linguists have
known for 150 years: that Vedic Sanskrit was not native to South Asia
but an import, like closely related old Iranian. Their usual assumed
origins are located in the steppe belt to th e north of Iran and
northwest of India.

This view is supported by recent linguistic discoveries. One is that
approximately 4 per cent of the words in the Rigveda do not fit Indo-
Aryan (Sanskrit) word patterns but appear to be loans from a local
language in the Greater Panjab. That language is close to, but not
identical with, the Munda languages of Central and East India and to
Khasi in Meghalaya. A second finding pertains to shared loan words in
the Rigveda and Zoroastrian texts referring to agricultural products,
animals, and domestic goods that we know from archaeology first
appeared in Bactria-Margiana c. 2100-1700 BCE. These include, among
others, words for camel (uSTra/ushtra), donkey (khara/xara), and
bricks (iSTakaa/ishtiia, ishtuua). The evidence suggests that b oth
the Iranians and Indo-Aryans borrowed these words when they migrated
through this region towards their later homelands.5 A third find
relates to Indo-Aryan loan words that show up in the non-Aryan Mitanni
of northern Iraq and Syria c.1400 BCE. These loanwords reflect
slightly older Indo-Aryan forms than those found in the Rigveda. This
evidence is on e reason why Indologists place the composition of the
Rigveda in the last half of the second millennium.

This evidence, and much more like it, shows that the claim by Rajaram
that mature Harappans spoke "late Vedic" Sanskrit - the language of
the Vedic sutras (dating to the second half of the first millennium) -
is off by at least two thousand years! At bes t, a few adventurous
speakers may have existed in Harappa of some early ancestor of old
Vedic Sanskrit - the much later language of the Rigveda - trickling
into the Greater Panjab from migrant "Aryan" tribes. These early Indo-
Aryan speakers could have mi ngled with others in the towns and cities
of Harappan civilisation, which were conceivably just as multilingual
as any modern city in India. (Indeed, Rigvedic loan words seem to
suggest several substrate languages.) But to have all, or even part,
of Hara ppans speaking "late Vedic" is patently absurd.

But this evidence pertains to what Rajaram represents as "the petty
conjectural pseudo-science" called linguistics. By rejecting the
science wholesale, he gives himself the freedom to invent Indian
history at his whim.

Consonants Count Little, Vowels Nothing!

According to Rajaram and Jha, the Indus writing system was a proto-
alphabetical system, supposedly derived from a complex (now lost)
system of pre-Indus "pictorial" signs. Faced with a multitude of
Harappan characters, variously numbered between 400 and 800, they
select a much smaller subset of characters and read them as
alphabetical signs. Their adoption of these signs follows from the
alleged resemblances of these signs to characters in Brahmi, the
ancestor of later Indian scripts. (This was the scri pt adopted c. 250
BCE by Asoka, whom Jha's 1996 book assigns to c. 1500 BCE!) Unlike
Brahmi, which lets you write Indian words phonetically, the alphabet
imagined by Jha and Rajaram is highly defective, made up only of
consonants, a few numbers, and some special-purpose signs. The
hundreds of left-over "pictorial" signs normally stand for single
words. Whenever needed, however - and this goes for numbers as well -
they can also be tapped for their supposed sound values, giving
Rajaram and Jha extraordin ary freedom in making their readings. The
only true "vowel" that Jha and Rajaram allow is a single wildcard sign
that stands for any initial vowel - as in A-gni or I-ndra - or
sometimes for semi-vowels. Vowels inside words can be imagine d at
whim.

Vowels were lacking in some early Semitic scripts, but far fewer
vowels are required in Semitic languages than in vowel-rich Indian
languages like Sanskrit or Munda. In Vedic Sanskrit, any writing
system lacking vowels would be so ambiguous that it would be useless.
In the fictional system invented by Jha and Rajaram, for example, the
supposed Indus ka sign can be read kaa, ki, ku, ke, ko, etc., or can
also represent the isolated consonant k. A script like this opens the
door to an enormou s number of alternate readings.

Supposing with Jha and Rajaram that the language of Harappa was "late
Vedic", we would find that the simple two-letter inscription mn might
be read:

mana "ornament"; manaH"mind" (since Rajaram lets us add the
Visarjaniya or final -H at will); manaa "zeal" or "a weight"; manu
"Manu"; maana "opinion" or "building" or "thinker"; miina "fish";
miine "in a fish"; miinau "two fish"; miinaiH "with fish"; muni
"Muni", "Rishi", "ascetic"; mRn- "made of clay"; menaa "wife"; meni
"revenge"; mene "he has thought"; mauna "silence"; and so on.
There are dozens of other possibilities. How is the poor reader,
presented with our two-character seal, supposed to decide if it refers
to revenge, a sage, the great Manu, a fish, or his wife? The lords of
Harappa or Dholavira, instead of using the scrip t on their seals,
would have undoubtedly sent its inventor off to finish his short and
nasty life in the copper mines of the Aravallis!

If all of this were not enough to drive any reader mad, Rajaram and
Jha introduce a host of other devices that permit even freer readings
of inscriptions. The most ridiculous involves their claim that the
direction of individual inscriptions "follows no hard and fast rules."
This means that if tossing in vowels at will in our mn inscription
does not give you the reading you want, you can restart your reading
(again, with unlimited vowel wildcards) from the opposite direction -
yielding further al ternatives like namaH or namo "honour to...,"
naama "name," and so on.

There are other "principles" like this. A number of signs represent
the same sound, while - conversely - the same sign can represent
different sounds. With some 400-800 signs to choose from, this gives
you unlimited creative freedom. As Raj aram puts it deadpan, Harappan
is a "rough and ready script." Principles like this "gave its scribes
several ways in which to express the same sounds, and write words in
different ways." All this is stated in such a matter-of-fact and
"scientific" manner that the non-specialist gets hardly a clue that he
is being had.

In other words, figure out what reading you want and fill in the
blanks! As Voltaire supposedly said of similar linguistic tricks:
"Consonants count little, and vowels nothing."

A little guidance on writing direction comes from the wildcard vowel
sign, which Rajaram tells us usually comes at the start of
inscriptions. This is "why such a large number of messages on the
Indus seals have this vowel symbol as the first letter." Wha t Jha and
Rajaram refer to as a vowel (or semi-vowel) sign is the Harappan
"rimmed vessel" or U-shaped symbol. This is the most common sign in
the script, occurring by some counts some 1,400 times in known texts.
It is most commonly seen on the left side of inscriptions.

Back in the 1960s, B.B. Lal, former Director-General of the
Archaeological Survey of India, convincingly showed, partly by
studying how overlapping characters were inscribed on pottery, that
the Harappan script was normally read from right to left. Much other
hard evidence confirming this view has been known since the early
1930s. This means that in the vast majority of cases the U-sign is the
last sign of an inscription. But here, as so often elsewhere, Rajaram
and Jha simply ignore well-establi shed facts, since they are intent
on reading Harappan left to right to conform to "late Vedic" Sanskrit.
(In times of interpretive need, however, any direction goes -
including reading inscriptions vertically or in zig-zag fashion on
alternate lines.)

The remarkable flexibility of their system is summarised in statements
like this:

First, if the word begins with a vowel then the genetic sign has to be
given the proper vowel value. Next the intermediate consonants have to
be shaped properly by assigning the correct vowel combinations.
Finally, the terminal letter may also have to be modified according to
context. In the last case, a missing visarga or anusvaara may have to
be supplied, though this is often indicated.
How, the sceptic might ask, can you choose the right words from the
infinite possibilities? The problem calls for a little Vedic
ingenuity:

In resolving ambiguities, one is forced to fall back on one's
knowledge of the Vedic language and the literary context. For example:
when the common composite letter r + k is employed, the context
determines if it is to be pronounced as rka (as in arka) or as kra as
in kruura.
The context Rajaram wants you to use to fill in the blanks is the one
that he wants to prove: any reading is proper that illustrates the
(imaginary) links between "late Vedic" culture and Indus Civilisation.
Once you toss in wildcard vowels, for example, any rk or kr
combination provides instant Harappan horseplay - giving you a Vedic-
Harappan horse (recalling their equation that arka "sun" = "horse")
long before the word (or animal) appeared in India.

Why did the Indus genius who invented the alphabet not include all
basic vowel signs - like those in Asoka's script - which would have
made things unambiguous? It certainly could not be because of a lack
of linguistic knowledge, since Rajaram claims that the Harappans had
an "advanced state of knowledge of grammar, phonetics, and etymology,"
just as they had modern scientific knowledge of all other kinds. But
vowels, of course, would rob Rajaram of his chances to find Vedic
treasure in Harappan inscript ions - where he discovers everything
from horse thieves to Rigvedic kings and advanced mathematical
formulae.

Peculiarly, in contrast to the lack of vowel signs, Jha and Rajaram
give us a profusion of special signs that stand for fine grammatical
details including word-final -H and -M (Visarjaniya and Anusvaara; if
these are missing, you can just toss them in); special verb endings
like -te; and noun endings such as -su. All of these are derived from
Paninian grammar more than two thousand years before Panini! They even
find special phonological signs for Paninian gu Na and vRddhi (that
is, u becomes o or au) and for Vedic pitch accents (svara).

Although the scribes lacked vowels, they thus had signs applicable
only to vowel combination (sandhi) - which is remarkable indeed, given
the absence of the vowels themselves.

A Hundred Noisy Crows

It is clear that the method of Rajaram and Jha is so flexible that you
can squeeze some pseudo-Vedic reading out of any inscription. But,
with all this freedom, what a motley set of readings they hand us!
Moreover, few of their readings have anything to do with Harappan
civilisation.

What were Indus seals used for? We know that some (a minority) were
stamped on bales of merchandise; many were carried around on strings,
perhaps as amulets or ID cards. Many of them were lost in the street
or were thrown out as rubbish when no longer ne eded. Sometimes a
whole set of identical inscriptions has been found tossed over
Harappan embankment walls.

In their usual cavalier way, Rajaram and Jha ignore all the well-known
archaeological evidence and claim that the inscriptions represent
repositories of Vedic works like the ancient Nighantu word lists, or
even the mathematical formulae of the Shulbasutras. The main object of
Harappan seals, they tell us, was the "preservation of Vedic knowledge
and related subjects."

How many merchants in the 5000-odd year history of writing would have
thought to put mathematical formulae or geometric slogans on their
seals and tokens? Or who would be likely to wear slogans like the
following around their necks?

"It is the rainy season"; "House in the grip of cold"; "A dog that
stays home and does nothing is useless" - which Rajaram and Jha
alternately read as: "There is raw meat on the face of the dog";
"Birds of the eastern country"; "One who drinks barley wat er"; "A
hundred noisy crows"; "Mosquito"; "The breathing of an angry person";
"Rama threatened to use agni-vaaNa (a fire missile)"; "A short
tempered mother-in-law"; "Those about to kill themselves with
sinfulness say"; or, best of all, the refreshingly populist: "O!
Moneylender, eat (your interest)!"
By now, we expect lots of horse readings, and we are not disappointed.
What use, we wonder, would the Harappans have for seal inscriptions
like these?

"Water fit for drinking by horses"; "A keeper of horses (paidva) by
name of VarSaraata"; "A horsekeeper by name of As'ra-gaura wishes to
groom the horses"; "Food for the owner of two horses"; "Arci who
brought under control eight loose horses"; an d so on.
The most elaborate horse reading shows up in the most famous of Indus
inscriptions - the giant "signboard" hung on the walls of the Harappan
city of Dholavira. The "deciphered" inscription is another attack on
the "no horse in Harappa" argument:

"I was a thousand times victorious over avaricious raiders desirous of
my wealth of horses!"
In the end, readers of Jha and Rajaram are likely to agree with only
one "deciphered" message in the whole book: apa-yas'o ha mahaat "A
great disgrace indeed!"

Vedic Sanskrit?

Before concluding, we would like to point out that the line we just
quoted contains an elementary grammatical error - a reading of mahaat
for mahat. The frequency of mistakes like this says a lot about the
level of Vedic knowledge (or lack thereof) of the authors. A few
examples at random:

- on p. 227 of their book we find adma "eat!" But what form is adma?
admaH "we eat? At best, adma "food," not "eat!"
- on p. 235, we find tuurNa ugra s'vasruuH. No feminine adjectives
appear in the expression (tuurNaa, ugraa), as required by the angry
"mother-in-law" (read: s'vas'ruuH!).

- on p. 230, we read apvaa-hataa-tmaahuH, where hataatma might mean
"one whose self is slain," or the "self of a slain (person)," but not
"those about to kill themselves." In the same sentence, apvaa does not
mean "sinfulness" (whic h is, in any case, a non-Vedic concept) but
"mortal fear."

- on p. 232, we have amas'aityaarpaa, supposedly meaning "House in the
grip of cold." But amaa (apparently what they want, not ama "force")
is not a word for "house," but an adverb meaning "at home." The word
s'aitya "cold" is not "late Vedic" but post-Vedic, making the reading
even more anachronistic than the other readings in the book.

- on p. 226, we find paidva for "horses," in a passage referring to
horse keepers. But in Vedic literature this word does not refer to an
ordinary but a mythological horse.

Many similar errors are found in the 1996 pamphlet by Jha, billed by
Rajaram as "one of the world's foremost Vedic scholars and
palaeographers."

None of those errors can be blamed on ignorant Harappan scribes.

History and Hindutva Propaganda

It might be tempting to laugh off the Indus script hoax as the
harmless fantasy of an ex-engineer who pretends to be a world expert
on everything from artificial intelligence to Christianity to Harappan
culture.

What belies this reading is the ugly subtext of Rajaram's message,
which is aimed at millions of Indian readers. That message is anti-
Muslim, anti-Christian, anti-Indological, and (despite claims to the
opposite) intensely anti-scientific. Those views pr esent twisted
images of India's past capable of inflicting severe damage in the
present.

Rajaram's work is only one example of a broader reactionary trend in
Indian history. Movements like this can sometimes be seen more clearly
from afar than nearby, and we conclude with a few comments on it from
our outside but interested perspective.

In the past few decades, a new kind of history has been propagated by
a vocal group of Indian writers, few of them trained historians, who
lavishly praise and support each other's works. Their aim is to
rewrite Indian history from a nationalistic and rel igious point of
view. Their writings have special appeal to a new middle class
confused by modern threats to traditional values. With alarming
frequency their movement is backed by powerful political forces,
lending it a mask of respectability that it do es not deserve.

Unquestionably, all sides of Indian history must be repeatedly re-
examined. But any massive revisions must arise from the discovery of
new evidence, not from desires to boost national or sectarian pride at
any cost. Any new historical models must be cons istent with all
available data judged apart from parochial concerns.

The current "revisionist" models contradict well-known facts: they
introduce horse-drawn chariots thousands of years before their
invention; imagine massive lost literatures filled with "scientific"
knowledge unimaginable anywhere in the ancient world; p roject the
Rigveda into impossibly distant eras, compiled in urban or maritime
settings suggested nowhere in the text; and imagine Vedic Sanskrit or
even Proto Indo-European rising in the Panjab or elsewhere in northern
India, ignoring 150 years of evide nce fixing their origins to the
northwest. Extreme "out-of-India" proponents even fanaticise an India
that is the cradle of all civilisation, angrily rejecting all
suggestions that peoples, languages, or technologies ever entered
prehistoric India from f oreign soil - as if modern concepts of
"foreign" had any meaning in prehistoric times.

Ironically, many of those expressing these anti-migrational views are
emigrants themselves, engineers or technocrats like N.S. Rajaram, S.
Kak, and S. Kalyanaraman, who ship their ideas to India from U.S.
shores. They find allies in a broader assortment of home-grown
nationalists including university professors, bank employees, and
politicians (S. S. Misra, S. Talageri, K.D. Sethna, S.P. Gupta, Bh.
Singh, M. Shendge, Bh. Gidwani, P. Chaudhuri, A. Shourie, S.R. Goel).
They have even gained a small but vo cal following in the West among
"New Age" writers or researchers outside mainstream scholarship,
including D. Frawley, G. Feuerstein, K. Klostermaier, and K. Elst.
Whole publishing firms, such as the Voice of India and Aditya
Prakashan, are devoted to pr opagating their ideas.

There are admittedly no universal standards for rewriting history. But
a few demands must be made of anyone expecting his or her scholarship
to be taken seriously. A short list might include: (1) openness in the
use of evidence; (2) a respect for well-es tablished facts; (3) a
willingness to confront data in all relevant fields; and (4)
independence in making conclusions from religious and political
agendas.

N.S. Rajaram typifies the worst of the "revisionist" movement, and
obviously fails on all counts. The Deciphered Indus Script is based on
blatantly fake data (the "horse seal," the free-form "decipherments");
disregards numerous well-known facts ( the dates of horses and
chariots, the uses of Harappan seals, etc.); rejects evidence from
whole scientific fields, including linguistics (a strange exclusion
for a would-be decipherer!); and is driven by obvious religious and
political motives in claimi ng impossible links between Harappan and
Vedic cultures.

Whatever their pretensions, Hindutva propagandists like Rajaram do not
belong to the realm of legitimate historical discourse. They
perpetuate, in twisted half-modern ways, medieval tendencies to use
every means possible to support the authority of relig ious texts. In
the political sphere, they falsify history to bolster national pride.
In the ethnic realm, they glorify one sector of India to the detriment
of others.

It is the responsibility of every serious researcher to oppose these
tendencies with the only sure weapon available - hard evidence. If
reactionary trends in Indian history find further political support,
we risk seeing violent repeats in the coming deca des of the fascist
extremes of the past.

The historical fantasies of writers like Rajaram must be exposed for
what they are: propaganda issuing from the ugliest corners of the pre-
scientific mind. The fact that many of the most unbelievable of these
fantasies are the product of highly trained e ngineers should give
Indian educational planners deep concern.

In a recent online exchange, Rajaram dismissed criticisms of his faked
"horse seal" and pointed to political friends in high places, boasting
that the Union government had recently "advised" the "National Book
Trust to bring out my popular book, From Sarasvati River to the Indus
Script, in English and thirteen other languages."

We fear for India and for objective scholarship. To quote Rajaram's
Harappan-Vedic one last time: "A great disgrace indeed!"

© Michael Witzel & Steve Farmer, 2000

Michael Witzel is Wales Professor of Sanskrit at Harvard University
and the author of many publications, including the recent monograph
Early Sources for South Asian Substrate Languages, Boston: ASLIP/
Mother Tongue 1999. A collecti on of his Vedic studies will be
published in India by Orient Longman later this year. He is also
editor of The Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies, accessible through
his home page at http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~witzel/mwpage.htm.

Steve Farmer, who received his doctorate from Stanford University, has
held a number of academic posts in premodern history and the history
of science. Among his recent works is his book Syncretism in the West,
which develops a cross-cultural m odel of the evolution of traditional
religious and philosophical systems. He is currently finishing a new
book on brain and the evolution of culture. He can be contacted at
***@safarmer.com.

For the UNI dispatch, see http://www.indiaserver.com/thehindu/1999/07/12/stories/0212000l.htm.
Typically enough, in light of what we show below, Rajaram
misidentified the early text discovered by Meadow, working o ff a
photo of a different potsherd published in error by a BBC reporter.
For the story of this Rajaram fiasco, with links, see
http://www.safarmer.com/meadow.html.
N. Jha and N.S. Rajaram, The Deciphered Indus Script: Methodology,
readings, interpretations, Aditya Prakashan, New Delhi, 2000; pages
xxvii + 269, Rs. 950.
See the comment by Meadow and Patel on Bknyi's work in South Asian
Studies 13, 1997, pp. 308-315.
For the original story of the debunking of the "horse seal," with
links to other evidence, see http://www.safarmer.com/horseseal/update.html.
For linguistic details, see M. Witzel, "Substrate Languages in Old
Indo-Aryan (Rigvedic, Middle and Late Vedic)," Electronic Journal of
Vedic Sanskrit, Vol. 5 (1999), Issue 1 (September), available in PDF
format from http://www1.shore.net/~india/ejvs/ejvs0501/ejvs0501article.pdf.
See also F. Staal in The Book Review, Vol. XXIV, Jan.-Feb., 2000, p.
17-20.

Graphics source credits:

Frontline and the authors thank Asko Parpola, Professor of Indology,
University of Helsinki, Finland, for permission to reproduce the
photographs of M-1034a, M-772A, M-595a, M-66a, H-103a in this
article.

M-1034a, Vol. 2 of A. Parpola's photographic corpus (**) = DK 5582,
Mohenjo Daro Museum 778, P 694; photographed by S.M. Ilyas. Courtesy
Department of Archaeology and Museums, Government of Pakistan.

M-772A, Vol. 2 (**), DK 6664, Mohenjo Daro Museum 742, JL 884;
photographed by Jyrki Lyytikk. Courtesy Department of Archaeology and
Museums, Government of Pakistan.

M-595a, Vol. 2 (**), HR 4601a, Lahore Museum, P-1815; photographed by
S.M. Ilyas. Courtesy Department of Archaeology and Museums, Government
of Pakistan.

M-66a, Vol. 1 ((sup)*(/sup), HR 5629, ASI 63.10.371, HU 441;
photographed by Erja Lahdenper. Courtesy ASI, Government of India.

H-103a, Vol. 1 (*), 2789, ASI 63.11.116, HU 601; photographed by Erja
Lahdenper. Courtesy ASI, Government of India.

(*) Jagat Pati Joshi & A. Parpola, Corpus of Indus Seals and
Inscriptions 1. Collections in India, Helsinki 1987.

(**) Sayid Ghulam Mustafa Shah & A. Parpola, Corpus of Indus Seals and
Inscriptions 2. Collections in Pakistan, Helsinki 1991.

All other photographs are from N. Jha and N.S. Rajaram, The Deciphered
Indus Script, cited earlier, except for the three animals on the right
in the photograph on page 10, which are taken from John Marshall,
Mohenjo-Daro and the Indus Civilization, Vol. III, plates cxvii-
cxviii, London 1931.

http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl1720/17200040.htm

http://bakulaji.typepad.com/blog/hindutva-horsing-around-sid-harth.html

...and I am Sid Harth

[cogitoergosum]

Hindutva Horsing Around: Sid Harth


Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The neutrality of this article is disputed. Please see the discussion
on the talk page. Please do not remove this message until the dispute
is resolved. (January 2010)

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh Founders Dr K B Hedgewar
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedgewar
Type Volunteer organisation
Founded 1925
Headquarters India
Members estimated at 2.5 to 6 million [1]
Website http://www.rss.org/

Sangh Prathana (Prayer) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:RSS_Sangh_Prarthana.ogg

Sangh Prarthana - Namaste Sada Vatsale Matrubhme

Problems listening to this file? See media help.

The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) (Hindi: राष्ट्रीय स्वयंसेवक संघ,
English: National Volunteers Organization), also known as the Sangh,
is a Hindu volunteer organization in India[2]. It was founded in 1925
by Dr. K. B. Hedgewar, a doctor from Nagpur, as a social and cultural
organisation in British India[2].

The volunteers of the RSS participated in various political and social
movements including the freedom movement[2]. The RSS volunteers are
also known for their role in the relief and rehabilitation work during
natural calamities[3] and for running more than 100,000 service
programs in education, health care, rural development, tribal
emancipation, village self-sufficiency, and the rehabilitation of
lepers and special needs children etc.[4].[5]

Some critics have referred to the RSS as a Hindu nationalist
organization.[1][6][7][8] Many have also accused it of supporting
militancy, which the RSS has vehemently denied and protested, often
going to the extent of suing the accusers in court.[9]. Accusations
have led to the RSS being banned thrice by the Government of India,
prominently in 1948 when it was accused of being involved in the
assassination of Mahatma Gandhi. But it has been acquitted of all
charges.[2].

History

Dr. Keshav Baliram Hedgewar founder of RSSRSS was founded in 1925 by
Dr. Keshav Baliram Hedgewar, who was a doctor in the central Indian
city of Nagpur[10]. Hedgewar as a medical student in Kolkata had been
a part of the revolutionary activities of the Anushilan Samiti and
Jugantar striving to free India from British rule[11][12]. He had been
charged with sedition in 1921 by the British Administration and was
imprisoned for a year[12]. After returning to Nagpur, he was briefly a
member of Indian National Congress[11] before he left it in 1925, to
form the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. After the formation of the RSS,
Hedgewar kept the organization from having any direct affiliation with
any of the political organisations then fighting British rule.[6] But
Hedgewar and teams of volunteers, took part in the Indian National
Congress, led movements against the British rule. Hedgewar was
arrested in the Jungle Satyagraha agitation in 1931 and served a
second term in prison.[11][12][13]

The RSS was established as a educational body whose objective was to
train a group of Hindus, who on the basis of their character would
work to unite the Hindu community so that India could become an
independent country and a creative society[2]. Encyclopedia Britannica
opines that "Hedgewar was heavily influenced by the writings of the
Hindu nationalist ideologue Vinayak Damodar Savarkar and adopted much
of his rhetoric concerning the need for the creation of a 'Hindu
nation'. Hedgewar formed the RSS as a disciplined cadre consisting
mostly of upper-caste Brahmins who were dedicated to independence and
the protection of Hindu political, cultural, and religious
interests."[14]

Activities during partition

A rare photograph taken at the RSS meeting in 1939. By that time RSS
had already gained an all India presence[citation needed]The Partition
of India was a very traumatic event in the young nation's history with
millions of Sikhs, Hindus and Muslims, attempting to escape the
violence and carnage that followed.[15].

RSS was involved in major attacks on minority groups [16]. in which
1,000 individuals were killed in the incident at Garmukteswar on
November 1946[17]. These types of major attacks and counterattacks by
RSS, Sikh and Muslim organizations cemented the public perception
regarding the Two-Nation theory[16].

Noted Gandhian and recipient of the highest civilian award in India,
Bharat Ratna, Dr. Bhagwan Das commended the role of the "high-spirited
and self-sacrificing boys" of the RSS in protecting the newly formed
Republic of India, from a planned coup to topple the Jawaharlal Nehru
Administration in Delhi[18][19]

Gandhi's assassination, the ban and the acquittal

Main article: Assassination of Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Mohandas_Karamchand_Gandhi

Following Mahatma Gandhi's assassination in 1948 by former member of
the RSS Nathuram Godse,[20] many prominent leaders of the RSS were
arrested and RSS as an organization was banned on February 4, 1948.
Godse's connection with the RSS was investigated.[21] Justice Kapur
Commission[21] setup to look into the conspiracy to murder Mahatma
Gandhi noted the following

"...RSS as such were not responsible for the murder of Mahatma Gandhi,
meaning thereby that one could not name the organization as such as
being responsible for that most diabolical crime, the murder of the
apostle of peace". "It has not been proved that they (the accused)
were members of the RSS which shows that they (the accused) were
believers in a more violent form of activities..."

– Kapur Commission Report, Vol. 1, Page 165

“As a final result of the poison, the country had to suffer the
sacrifice of the invaluable life of Gandhiji. Even an iota of the
sympathy of the Government or of the people no more remained for the
RSS. In fact, opposition grew. Opposition turned more severe when the
RSS men expressed joy and distributed sweets after Gandhiji's death.”

– Sardar Patel - freedom fighter, first Home Minister and Deputy Prime
Minister of India [22][23]

Sardar Patel also pointed out that members of RSS have indulged in
attacking "innocent and helpless men, women and children"[22].

RSS Leaders were acquitted of the conspiracy charge by the Supreme
Court of India and following an intervention by the Court, the Indian
Government agreed to lift the ban with condition that the RSS adopt a
formal constitution. The second Sarsanghachalak, Golwalkar drafted the
constitution for the RSS which he sent to the government in March
1949. In July of the same year, after many negotiations over the
constitution and its acceptance, the ban on RSS was lifted.[10]

On January 15, 2000, a daily, The Statesman, carried a story about the
RSS by A G Noorani, which depicted the RSS as the killer of
Gandhi[24]. Subsequently the Delhi unit of the RSS filed a criminal
case of defamation against author of the article A G Noorani along
with the cartoonist and the Managing Director of the publishing house.
When two of the accused did not respond to the Court summons, non-
bailable warrants were issued in their name by the Court[9]. On
February 25, 2002, Noorani wrote an unconditional apology to the court
in which he regretted writing the defamatory article against the RSS.
On March 3, 2002, 'The Statesman' also published an apology regretting
the publication of the said article.[25]

Liberation of Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Goa

Main article: Liberation of Dadra and Nagar Haveli
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberation_of_Dadra_and_Nagar_Haveli

After the Independence of India, many organizations including the RSS
aspired to liberate Dadra and Nagar Haveli from Portuguese occupation.
In early 1954, volunteers Raja Wakankar and Nana Kajrekar of the RSS
visited the area round about Dadra and Nagar Haveli and Daman several
times to study the topography and also to get acquainted with the
local workers who were agitating for the liberation. In April 1954,
the RSS formed a coalition with the National Movement Liberation
Organization (NMLO), the and Azad Gomantak Dal (AGD) for the
liberation of Dadra and Nagar Haveli[26]. On the night of 21 July,
United front of Goans, a group, working independently of the
coalition, captured the Portuguese police station at Dadra and
declared Dadra as free. Subsequently on 28 July, volunteer teams of
the RSS and AGD captured the territories of Naroli and Phiparia and
ultimately the capital of Silvassa. The Portuguese forces which
escaped and moved towards Nagar Haveli, were assaulted at Khandvel and
were forced to retreat till they surrendered to the Indian border
police at Udava on 11 August 1954. A native administration was setup
with Appasaheb Karmalkar of NMLO as the Administrator of Dadra and
Nagar Haveli on 11 August 1954[27].

The liberation of Dadra and Nagar Haveli gave a boost to the freedom
movement against the Portuguese in Goa[27]. In 1955, RSS leaders
demanded the end of Portuguese rule in Goa and its integration into
India. When Prime Minister of India, Jawaharlal Nehru refused to
obtain it by armed intervention, RSS leader Jagannath Rao Joshi led
the satyagraha agitation straight into Goa itself. He was imprisoned
with his followers by the Portuguese police. The peaceful protests
continued but met with severe repressions. On 15 August 1955, the
Portuguese police opened fire on the satyagrahis, killing thirty or so
people[28].

Role during the 1962 Sino-Indian War

The RSS which had been keeping low profile after the lifting of the
ban, earned recognition based on its volunteer work during the Sino-
Indian War in 1962[29]. RSS was invited by Prime Minister Jawaharlal
Nehru to take part in the Indian Republic day parade of 1963[30]. It
along with several other civilian organizations took part in the
parade[31]. This event helped the RSS increase its popularity and its
patriotic image.[32][33][34]

Later in 1965 and 1971 Indo-Pak wars too, the RSS volunteers offered
their services to maintain law and order of the country and were
apparently the first to donate blood.[35]

Movement for the restoration of democracy

In 1975, the Indian Government under the Prime Minister Mrs. Indira
Gandhi, proclaimed emergency rule in India, thereby suspending the
fundamental rights and curtailing the rights of the press.[36] This
extreme step was taken after the Supreme Court of India, cancelled her
election to the Indian Parliament on charges of malpractices in the
election[36]. The democratic institutions were kept under suspended
animation and prominent opposition leaders including Gandhian
Jayaprakash Narayan, were arrested and thousands of people were
detained without any charges being framed against them.[37] RSS, which
was seen close to opposition leaders, and with its large
organizational base was seen to have potential of organizing protests
against the Government, was also banned.[38] Police clamped down on
the organization and thousands of its workers were imprisoned.[11]

The RSS defied the ban and thousands participated in Satyagraha
(peaceful protests) against the ban and against the curtailment of
fundamental rights. Later, when there was no letup, the volunteers of
the RSS formed underground movements for the restoration of democracy.
Literature that was censored in the media was clandestinely published
and distributed on a large scale and funds were collected for the
movement. Networks were established between leaders of different
political parties in the jail and outside for the coordination of the
movement[39]. 'The Economist', London, described the movement as "the
only non-left revolutionary force in the world". It said that the
movement was "dominated by tens of thousands of RSS cadres, though
more and more young recruits are coming". Talking about its objectives
it said "its platform at the moment has only one plank: to bring
democracy back to India"[40]. The Emergency was lifted in 1977 and as
a consequence the ban on the RSS too was lifted.

Participation in land reforms

It has been noted that the RSS volunteers participated in the Bhoodan
movement organized by Gandhian leader Vinobha Bhave. Vinobha Bhave had
met the RSS leader M. S. Golwalkar in Meerut in November 1951.
Golwalkar had been inspired by the movement that encouraged land
reforms through voluntary means. He pledged the support of the RSS for
this movement[41]. Consequently, many RSS volunteers led by Nanaji
Deshmukh participated in the movement.[2]. But Golwalkar has also been
critical of the Bhoodan movement, on other occasions for being
reactionary and for working "merely with a view to counteracting
Communism". He believed that the movement should inculcate a right and
positive faith in the masses that can make them rise above the base
appeal of Communism[42].

Organization

Although the RSS claims not to keep membership records, it is
estimated that the organization has between 2.5–6 million members.[1]

Sarsanghchalaks

The Sarsanghchalak (Sanskrit: राष्ट्रीय स्वयंसेवक संघ) is the head of
the RSS organization. The individuals who have been Sarsanghchalaks
are:

Dr. Keshav Baliram Hedgewar (founder), also known as Doctorji (1925 -
1930 & 1931 - 1940)
Dr. Laxman Vaman Paranjpe (1930–1931) (when Dr. Hedgewar was in jail
during Forest Satyagraha)
Shri Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar, also known as, Guruji (1940–1973)
Shri. Madhukar Dattatraya Deoras, also known as, Balasaheb (1973–
1993)
Prof. Rajendra Singh, also known as, Rajjubhaiya (1993–2000)
Kuppahalli Sitaramayya Sudarshan (2000–2009)
Dr. Mohan Madhukar Bhagwat (21 March 2009 - till date)
The position is decided by nomination by predecessor. The current
Sarsanghachalak of RSS is Dr. Mohan Madhukar Bhagwat.

Shakha

"Shakha" is Hindi for "branch". Most of the organizational work of the
RSS is done through the coordination of shakhas or branches. These
shakhas are run for 1 hour in public places. In 2004, more than 60,000
shakhas were run throughout India.[43].

The shakhas conduct various activities for its volunteers which
include physical fitness activities through yoga, exercises and games.
It has other activities which emphasize on qualities like civic sense,
social service, community living and patriotism.[44] The volunteers
are trained in first aid and in rescue and rehabilitation operations.
The volunteers are also encouraged to get involved in the
developmental activities of the village or locality[44][45].

IT Milan

For swayamsevaks who work in IT(Information Technology) related
sectors another form of Shakha is set, called as "IT Milan". These are
weekly meetings unlike the regular Shakhas which run daily. IT Milans
are observed in many IT cities in India - Bangalore, Chennai, Delhi,
Hyderabad, Pune. There are as many as 3,000 techies in Bangalore who
meet regularly this way. This 60–90 minutes weekly gathering includes
a Prayer, Surya Namaskara, Yoga, games, song and sermon. IT Milans are
user friendly; the prayer is available as a printout, usually everyone
is addressed in English, and there are enough people to aid newcomers
on the Surya Namaskara and seven yoga asanas. These exercises have
been designed for IT professionals who suffer from chronic lower
backache due to long hours at computers. It also helps that their
employers respect their RSS links. Games are played during the Milan
to relieve tension in the minds of IT Swayamsevaks and foster team
spirit. An IT Milan also serves as a forum for discussion on various
issues of national and international importance like the Copenhagen
Summit and West Bengal government's decision to grant religion based
reservation to Muslims.[46]

Mission

The mission of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh has been described as the
revitalization of Indian value system based on universalism and peace
and prosperity to all[42]. Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam, the worldview that
the whole world is one family, propounded by the ancient thinkers of
India, is considered as the ultimate mission of the organization[47].

But the immediate focus, the leaders believe, is on the Hindu
renaissance, which would build an egalitarian society and a strong
India that could propound this philosophy. Hence, the focus is on
social reform, economic upliftment of the downtrodden and the
protection of cultural diversity of the natives in India.[47] The
organization says, it aspires to unite all Hindus and build a strong
India, which could contribute to the welfare of the world. In the
words of RSS ideologue and the second head of the RSS, M S Golwalkar,
"in order to be able to contribute our unique knowledge to mankind, in
order to be able to live and strive for the unity and welfare of the
world, we stand before the world as a self-confident, resurgent and
mighty nation".[42]

In Vichardhara (English: "Bunch of Thoughts"), M S Golwalkar, affirms
the RSS mission of integration as:[42]

"Realising the national character of Hindu People, the RSS has been
making determined efforts to inculcate in them burning devotion for
Bharat and its national ethos; kindle in them the spirit of dedication
and sterling qualities and character; rouse social consciousness,
mutual good-will, love and cooperation among them all; to make them
realise that casts, creeds and languages are secondary and that
service to the nation is the supreme end and to mold their behaviour
accordingly; instill in them a sense of true humility and discipline
and train their bodies to be strong and robust so as to shoulder any
social responsibility; and thus to create all-round Anushasana in all
walks of life and build together all our people into a unified
harmonious national whole, extending from Himalayas to Kanyakumari."

– M S Golwalkar, Bunch of Thoughts

Golwalkar also explains that RSS does not intend to compete in
electioneering politics or share power. He asserts that there is no
place in RSS for any hatred or opposition towards any particular
caste, creed or party.

Christopher Jaffrelot opines that RSS's objective has been the
establishment of a Hindu nation in India and that its two-fold
objective was to propagate the Hindutva ideology and infuse physical
strength to the Hindu community[48].

Sangh Parivar

Main article: Sangh Parivar http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sangh_Parivar

Organizations which are inspired by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh's
ideology refer themselves as the members of the Sangh Parivar.[1] In
most of the cases, pracharaks (full-time volunteers of the RSS) were
deputed to start and manage these organizations. The organizations
within the Sangh include the Vishwa Hindu Parishad, Rashtriya Sevika
Samiti, Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad, Vanavasi Kalyan Ashram,
Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh, Vidya Bharati, Sewa Bharati and many others
spread in all parts of society.[49] Numerous other Hindutva
organizations take inspiration from the RSS's philosophy.

RSS has never directly contested elections, but supports parties that
are ideologically similar. Although RSS generally endorses the
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), yet at times had refused to do so due to
difference of opinion with the party. Also, RSS is open to support any
political party that subscribes to its views.[50][51].

Of late, the volunteers of the RSS have also held prominent political
and administrative positions in India including the Prime Minister of
India, the Vice President of India, the Home Minister and Ministers in
the Central Government, Governors and Chief Ministers of various
states and the members of elected bodies at the state and the national
level and also the Indian ambassador to the US[52][53][54]

Social reform

The RSS has advocated the training of Dalits and other backward
classes as temple high priests (a position traditionally reserved for
Caste Brahmins and denied to lower castes). They argue that the social
divisiveness of the Caste system is responsible for the lack of
adherence to Hindu values and traditions and reaching out to the lower
castes in this manner will be a remedy to the problem[55]. The RSS has
also condemned 'upper' caste Hindus for preventing Dalits from
worshipping at temples, saying that "even God will desert the temple
in which Dalits cannot enter"[56]

Christophe Jaffrelot finds that "there is insuficient data available
to carry out a statistical analysis of social origins of the early RSS
leaders" but goes on to conclude, based on some known profiles that
most of the RSS founders and its leading organisers, with exceptions
were Maharashtrian Brahmins from middle or lower class[57] and argues
that the pervasiveness of the Brahminical ethic in the organisation
was probably the main reason why it failed to attract support from the
low castes. He argues that the "RSS resorted to instrumentalist
techniques of ethno-religious mobilisation – in which its Brahminism
was diluted – to overcome this handicap."[58] However Anderson and
Damle 1987, find that members of all castes have been welcomed into
the organisation and are treated as equals[2].

During M. K. Gandhi's visit to RSS Camp accompanied by Mahadev Desai
and Mirabehn at Wardha in 1934, he was surprised by the discipline and
the absence of untouchability in RSS and commented "When i visited the
RSS Camp. I was very much surprised by your discipline and absence of
untouchablity ". He personally inquired to Swayamsevaks and found that
they were living and eating together in the camp without bothering to
know their castes.[59]

Dr Bhimrao Ambedkar while visiting the RSS camp at Pune in 1939
observed that Swayamsevaks were moving in absolute equality and
brotherhood without even caring to know the cast of others.[60] In his
address to the Swayamsevaks, he said that " This is the first time
that I am visiting the camp of Sangh volunters. I am happy to find
absolute equality between Savarniyas (Upper cast) and Harijans (Lower
cast) without any one being aware of such difference existing." When
he asked Dr Hedgewar whether there were any untouchables in the camp,
he replied that there are neither "touchables" nor "untouchables" but
only Hindus[61].

Relief and rehabilitation

Main article: Seva Bharati http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seva_Bharati

Natural calamities

RSS has participated in many relief activities during natural
calamities. For instance, in the 2001 Gujarat earthquake, Indian
newsmagazine Outlook's reporter Saba Naqvi Bhaumik reported that:

"Literally within minutes RSS volunteers were at the scenes of
distress. Across Gujarat, the (RSS) cadres were the saviors. Even as
the state machinery went comatose in the first two days after the
quake, the cadre-based machinery of the Sangh fanned out throughout
the state. Approximately 35,000 RSS members in uniform were pressed
into service."

– Saba Naqvi Bhaumik, Outlook, Feb 12, 2001

"This is an old tradition in the RSS. To be the first at any disaster
strike: floods, cyclone, drought and now quake. In Kutch, too, the RSS
was the first to reach the affected areas. At Anjar, a town in ruins,
the RSS was present much before the Army took the lead in finding
survivors and fishing out the dead."

– K. Srinivas, District collector of Ahmedabad

India-Today, reported in its Feb. 12, 2001 issue that

"It is conceded by even their worst detractors that the RSS has been
in the forefront of the non- official rescue and relief (operations).
This has led to an upsurge of goodwill for the Sangh"

– India Today

The RSS assisted in relief efforts quite extensively during the 2001
Gujarat earthquake. They helped rebuild villages.[62] They "earned
kudos" from many varied agencies and sources for their actions.[63]

This is a long and continuous tradition with the RSS. The RSS was
instrumental in relief efforts after the 1971 Orissa Cyclone and the
1977 Andhra Pradesh Cyclone.[63]

An RSS-affiliated NGO, Seva Bharati, has adopted 57 children (38
Muslims and 19 Hindus) from militancy affected areas of Jammu and
Kashmir to provide them education at least up to Higher Secondary
level[64][65]. They have also taken care of many victims of the Kargil
War of 1999.[66]

Seva Bharati conducted relief operations in the aftermath of the 2004
Indian Ocean earthquake. Activities included building shelters for the
victims, providing food, clothes and medical necessities.[67]. The RSS
assisted relief efforts during the 2004 Sumatra-Andaman earthquake and
the subsequent tsunami.[68].

In 2006, RSS participated in relief efforts to provide basic
necessities such as food, milk and potable water to the people of
Surat, Gujarat who were affected by massive floods in the region[69].

The RSS volunteers carried out massive relief and rehabilitation work
after the floods ravaged North Karnataka and some districts of the
state of Andhra Pradesh.[70]

Protection of Sikhs during the 1984 anti-Sikh riots

Sikh intellectual and author of A History of the Sikhs Khushwant
Singh, credits members of the RSS with helping and protecting Sikhs
who were being targeted by members of the Congress(I) political party
during the 1984 Anti-Sikh Riots.[71] Singh who otherwise has been
critical of the RSS and believes that it is a " communal organization
and dangerous to the country's secular fabric"[72] has said:

"RSS has played an honorable role in maintaining Hindu-Sikh unity
before and after the murder of Indira Gandhi in Delhi and in other
places"
"It was the Congress (I) leaders who instigated mobs in 1984 and got
more than 3000 people killed. I must give due credit to RSS and the
BJP for showing courage and protecting helpless Sikhs during those
difficult days"[71]

– Kushwant Singh

Discrimination against RSS volunteers

Many cases have been reported in post-independence India where RSS
volunteers have been discriminated against by the government due to
their allegiance to the RSS and its ideology.[73] In a court case of a
teacher who was dismissed from service due to his past links with the
RSS, the Supreme Court labeled the government's action as
"McCarthyism" and a "violation of fundamental rights".[74][75][76][77]
[78][79]

A municipal school teacher, Ramshanker Raghuvanshi, was dismissed by
the Congress government of Madhya Pradesh in 1974, which stated that
he had taken "part in the RSS" activities and hence was "not a fit
person to be entertained in Government service". The Supreme Court
dismissed the arguments of the government and said that the government
had not adhered to the provisions of the Indian Constitution. The
Supreme Court bench consisting of Justice Syed Murtuza Fazalali and
Justice O. Chinnappa Reddy observed that "India is not a police state"
and pleaded that the "promise of fundamental rights enshrined in the
Indian Constitution not become a forgotten chapter of history".
Delivering the landmark judgment, the Court observed that "seeking a
police report on person's political faith", in the first place,
"amounted to the violation of fundamental rights". The Supreme Court
ruled in favor of the municipal teacher and ordered his reinstatement.
[74][75][76][77][78][79]

Similar observations were made by the High courts of different
provinces of India in different cases of political persecution of RSS
volunteers.[73] One case involved Ranganathacharya Agnihotri, who was
selected for the post of Munsiff but was not absorbed into service as
he had been a volunteer of the RSS in his past. When Agnihotri
approached the High Court of Mysore, he was reinstated. The Court
observed:

"Prima facie the RSS is a non-political cultural organization without
any hatred or ill will towards non-Hindus and that many eminent and
respected persons in the country have not hesitated to preside over
the functions or appreciate the work of its volunteers. In a country
like ours which has accepted the democratic way of life (as ensured by
the Constitution), it would not be within reason to accept the
proposition that mere membership of such peaceful or non-violent
association and participation in activities thereof, will render a
person (in whose character and antecedents there are no other defects)
unsuitable to be appointed to the post of a Munsiff."

– High Court of Mysore, The State of Karnataka Vs Ranganathacharya
Agnihotri, writ No. 588/1966

The RSS also has been banned in India thrice, during periods in which
the government of the time claimed that they were a threat to the
state: in 1948 after Mahatma Gandhi's assassination, during the
Emergency (1975–77), and after the 1992 Babri Masjid demolition. The
bans were subsequently lifted, in 1949 after the RSS was absolved of
charges in the Gandhi murder case, in 1977 as a result of the
Emergency being revoked, and in 1993 when no evidence of any unlawful
activities was found against it by the tribunal constituted under the
Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.[80]

Reception

Field Marshal Cariappa in his speech to RSS volunteers said "RSS is my
heart's work. My dear young men, don't be disturbed by uncharitable
comments of interested persons. Look ahead! Go ahead! The country is
standing in need of your services" [81]

Dr Zakir Hussain the former President of India once told to Milad
Mehfil in Monghyar on November 20, 1949 "The allegations against RSS
of violence and hatred against Muslims are wholly false. Muslims
should learn the lesson of mutual love, cooperation and organization
from RSS.[82][83]

Noted Gandhian leader and the leader of Sarvoday movement, Jayaprakash
Narayan, who earlier was a vocal opponent of RSS had the following to
say about it in 1977 "RSS is a revolutionary organization. No other
organization in the country comes anywhere near it. It alone has the
capacity to transform society, end casteism and wipe the tears from
the eyes of the poor." He further added "I have great expectations
from this revolutionary organization which has taken up the challenge
of creating a new India" [84]

Criticisms and accusations

This section may be too long and overly detailed.

Please consider summarizing the material while citing sources as
needed.
An editor has expressed a concern that this article lends undue
weight to certain ideas relative to the article as a whole. Please
help to discuss and resolve the dispute before removing this message.
(February 2010)

The RSS on one hand has been accused of being a reactionary group of
"Hindu fanatics" with "fascist tendencies; on the other hand has been
seen as a cultural organisation dedicated to the revitalising of the
moral and spiritual traditions of India"[10].Hindu biased[85][86] The
New York Times, Encyclopedia Britannica and The Times UK call the RSS
an extremist[87] and militant [88][89] Hindu organization. Other
allegations have been that it is a "right-wing religious movement"[20]
and that it is the core of a family of militant Hindu nationalist
organizations.[90].

Christopher Jaffrelot, the director of the Center for Studies and
Research (CERI) observes that although the RSS with its paramilitary
style of functioning and its emphasis on discipline has sometimes been
seen by some as "an Indian version of fascism."[91], he believes that
the characteristic of the RSS's ideology has been to down-play the
role of the state and hence it cannot be classified as a fascist
movement. He further argues that RSS's ideology treats society as an
organism with a secular spirit, which is implanted not so much in the
race as in a socio-cultural system and which will be regenerated over
the course of time by patient work at the grassroots. He writes that
ideology of the RSS did not develop a theory of the state and the
race, a crucial elements in European nationalisms; Nazism and
Fascism"[91] and that the RSS leaders were interested in cultural
unity rather than racial homogeneity[92].

The likening of Sangh Parivar to "fascism" by Western critics has been
critiqued by Jyotirmaya Sharma as an "attempt by them to make sense"
of the growth of extremist politics and intolerance within their
society. And that such "simplistic transference" has done great
injustice to our knowledge of Hindu nationalist politics.[93]. Belgian
scholar Dr Koenraad Elst, points out that such accusations have come
mainly from the Marxist academia in India and abroad and that they are
less driven by facts than by their ideological zeal. He also
criticises the Hindu organisations for being "piecemeal" in their
replies to such "polemical" accusations[94].

The RSS has been censured for its involvement in communal riots in at
least six reports by judges who presided over commissions of inquiry:

Jaganmohan Reddy report on the Ahmedabad riots 1969
D.P. Madon report on the Bhiwandi riots in 1970
Vithayathil report on the Tellicherry riots in 1971
Jitendra Narain report on the Jamshedpur riots in 1979
P. Venugopal report on the Kanyakumari riots of 1982
report on the Bhagalpur riots in 1989[95]
"After giving careful and serious consideration to all the materials
that are on record,the Commission is of the view that the RSS with its
extensive organisation in jamshedpur and which had close links with
the Bharatiya Janata Party and the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh had a
positive hand in creating a climate which was most propitious for the
outbreak of communal disturbances." "In the first instance, the speech
of Shri Deoras (deliverd just five days before the Ram Navami
festival) tended to encourage the Hindu extremists to be unyielding in
their demands regarding Road No. 14. Secondly, his speech amounted to
communal propaganda. Thirdly,the shakhas and the camps that were held
during the divisional conference presented a militant atmosphere to
the Hindu public. In the circumstances, the commission cannot but hold
the RSS responsible for creating a climate for the disturbances that
took place on the 11th of April, 1979"[96][97]

– Jidendra Narayan commission inquired on 1979 Jamshadpur communal
violence

I have no doubt that the RSS had taken an active part in rousing up
anti-muslim feeling among the Hindus of Tellicherry and in preparing
the background for the disturbances. The same can be said about the
Jan Sang also. Although there may not be any official connection
between the Jan Sang and The RSS, the RSS is generally regarded as the
military wing of Jan Sang and the Jan Sang The political wing of
RSS"[98][99]

– Justice Vithayithil inquiry commission

Alleged involvement in Babri mosque disputed structure demolition
The Liberhan Commission report accused the RSS of being the chief
architect of Babari Masjid demolition [100][101]. The Commission
observes, "The blame or the credit for the entire temple construction
movement at Ayodhya must necessarily be attributed to the Sangh
Parivar"[102]. It noted that the Sangh Parivar is an "extensive and
widespread organic body", which encompasses organizations, which
address and assimilate just about every type of social, professional
and other demographic grouping of individuals. "Each time, a new
demographic group has emerged, the Sangh Parivar has hived off some of
its RSS inner-core leadership to harness that group and bring it
within the fold, enhancing the voter base of the Parivar."[103]

The RSS has disputed the reliability and objectivity of the report.
Former RSS chief K S Sudarshan said the mosque was demolished by the
government men and not by the Karsevaks, and that the commission
reports are fabricated and motivated primarily by anti-Indian
sentiment than any objective desire to seek justice. Sudarshan placed
the blame on the then government's ineptness as the primary reason why
the demolition could not be halted.[104]

“We all went there with a mission to demolish the masjid and
succeeded”[105]

– Madan Mohan Sarkar, an RSS activist who took part in Babri mosque
demolition

On the other hand, the Government of India's white paper dismisses
that demolition of the disputed structure was preplanned.[106]

Everything was normal, the karseva was proceeding ‘as per the plan’ of
the organisers; but ‘in a sudden development’ the karsevaks broke the
police cordon and entered the structure in large numbers and then the
demolition took place.

– The white paper released by the Government of India on the Ayodhya
events

Opposition leader Arun Jaitley, whose party's name was mentioned in
the report[107] described the Liberhan Commission report as a ‘tragedy
of errors’ and a ‘national joke’.[108]. Further, Asian Tribune's J N
Raina calls the Liberhan Commission's report as 'absurd' and compares
it to the fictional tale Alif Laila.[109]

Alleged involvement in Gujarat Violence

Main article: 2002 Gujarat violence http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2002_Gujarat_violence

The Human Rights Watch group has accused Vishwa Hindu Parishad (World
Hindu Council, VHP), Bajrang Dal, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and
Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to have been directly involved in
violence against Muslims which erupted after 56 Hindus were burnt
alive in a coach of Sabarmati Express train at Godhra station. Local
VHP, BJP and BD leaders have been named in many police reports filed
by eyewitnesses.[110] Contrary to the accusations made by Human Rights
Watch, RSS and VHP made appeals to put an end to the violence. They
asked their volunteers, sympathizers and friends to prevent any
activity that might disrupt peace.[111]

Exchange of charges with Christian missionaries

This article or section may contain previously unpublished synthesis
of published material that conveys ideas not attributable to the
original sources. See the talk page for details. (February 2010)

Main article: Religious violence in Orissa
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_violence_in_Orissa

RSS along with its offshoot organizations Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP),
Bajrang Dal (BD) and Hindu Jagaran Sammukhya (HJS) stand accused of
orchestrating the August 2008 anti-Christian riots in Orissa.[87][112]
[not in citation given] [113][not in citation given] A US-based
Christian charity working in Orissa claimed that Hindu extremists were
offering money, food and alcohol to mobs to kill Christians and
destroy their homes. It also alleges that these extremists had put a
price tag of $250 on the head of every pastor[improper synthesis?]
[87]. RSS denied these allegations calling them "absolutely false" and
in turn blamed Congress for the pogrom.[87][114]

The violence was triggered by the murder of a senior VHP member Swami
Lakshamananda Saraswati [115]. VHP blamed Christians and called for
revenge, even though Maoist militants claimed responsibility for the
killing.[87]

RSS/HJS blamed Mr. Radha Kanta Nayak, a member of Congress party of
being responsible for the killing and accused his NGO, World Vision of
being involved in religious conversions.[114]

Call for 'altering the Constitution completely'
In 2007, RSS chief said that the Constitution of India was “based on
the Government of India Act of 1935, a tool of capitalist expansion of
the British Raj”, and even went as far as calling it “the root cause
of India’s ills”. The chief went on to say "We need not fight shy of
altering the constitution completely, having already amended it a
hundred times". To support his views, he quoted Mahatma Gandhi as
saying that he didn't like the constitution as it was based on a relic
of the British Raj and B.R. Ambedkar, the architect of the
constitution, as saying that he would have burnt it if he had his way.

Senior advocate K.H. Deshpande criticized RSS saying “A unitary state
that RSS wants is neither desirable nor feasible in the land of myriad
diversities that is India”. A former chief justice of Bombay High
Court denied that the constitution was a mere patchwork or that it did
not reflect the Indian ethos. He said "It reflects the collective
aspirations of the Indian freedom fighters".

As for B.R. Ambedkar's remarks, an eminent economist has pointed out
that he was taken out of context and was referring to "illusive
economic equality and freedom of opportunities 10 years after India
won political freedom". [116] [117]

Allegations of Anti-Sikhism

In January 2010, Sikh leaders demanded an unconditional apology from
RSS after its official website carried an article which called for the
removal of prayers (bani) by Muslim poets from the Sikh holy book Guru
Granth Sahib[118][119] and a stop to displays of controversial Sikh
leader Bhindranwale’s portrait[119].

The article also contained phrases such as [119]

"No Muslim faquir (saint) had been a true faquir"
"Your (referring to Sikhs) roots are in Hinduism. Your holy hymns are
all about Ram, Govinda and Shiva. Then, how could you think of
surviving or flourishing without Hindus?"
"Sikhs have no right to even think about surviving in a Hindu
country."
So far no apology has been rendered by RSS.[119]

RSS has also supported the mixing of Nanakshahi and Bikrami
calendars[119][118].

Notes

^ a b c d Bhatt, Chetan (2001). Hindu Nationalism: Origins, Ideologies
and Modern Myths. New York: Berg Publishers. p. 113. ISBN
1-85973-348-4.
^ a b c d e f g Andersen, Walter K.; Shridhar D. Damle (1987). The
Brotherhood in Saffron: The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Hindu
Revivalism. Boulder: Westview ress. p. 111. ISBN 0813373581.
^ Outlook, Feb 12, 2001
^ http://www.rediff.com/news/2009/jul/25who-says-rss-is-a-dying-institution.htm
^ RSS service projects multiply ten-fold,
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/nagpur/RSS-service-projectsmultiply-ten-fold/articleshow/5194113.cms
^ a b BBC NEWS | South Asia | Analysis: RSS aims for a Hindu nation
^ Jaffrelot, Christophe (1998). The Hindu Nationalist Movement in
India. New York: Columbia University Press. p. 35. ISBN
0-231-10334-4.
^ Dossani, Rafiq; Henry S. Rowen (2005). Prospects for peace in South
Asia. Stanford: Stanford University Press. p. 186. ISBN
0-8047-5085-8.
^ a b Times of India, November 19, 2001
^ a b c Curran, Jean A. Jr. The RSS: Militant Hinduism Far Eastern
Survey, Vol. 19, No. 10. (May 17, 1950), pp. 93-98.
^ a b c d Chitkara M G, Hindutva, Published by APH Publishing, 1997
ISBN 8170247985, 9788170247982
^ a b c Chetan Bhatt, Hindu nationalism: origins, ideologies and
modern myths, Published by Berg Publishers, 2001
^ L. Joshi, Political Ideas and Leadership in Vidarbha, Nagpur
University. Dept. of Political Science & Public Administration.
Published by Silver Jubilee Committee, Dept. of Political Science &
Public Administration, Nagpur University, 1980
^ http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/919613/Rashtriya-Swayamsevak-Sangh
^ #India
^ a b http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/conflicts/india_pakistan/partition
^ http://www.massviolence.org/India-from-1900-to-1947?artpage=3-5
^ Anthony Elenjimittam, Philosophy and action of the R. S. S for the
Hind Swaraj, Published by Laxmi Publications, 1951, page 172
^ Om Prakash Ralhan, Encyclopedia of political parties, Published by
Anmol Publications PVT. LTD., 2002 ISBN 8174888659, page 224
^ a b Gerald James Larson (1995). India's Agony Over Religion. State
University of New York Press. pp. 132. ISBN 079142412X.
^ a b Report of Commission of Inquiry into Conspiracy to Murder
Mahatma Gandhi, By India (Republic). Commission of Inquiry into
Conspiracy to Murder Mahatma Gandhi, Jeevan Lal Kapur, Published by
Ministry of Home affairs, 1970
^ a b http://books.google.com/books?id=sI_I-jk8YWsC&pg=PA279 | By
Jawaharlal Nehru
^ http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl2701/stories/20100115270105200.htm
| The Hindu
^ The Statesman, January 15, 2000
^ The Statesman, March 3, 2002
^ Purushottam Shripad Lele, Dadra and Nagar Haveli: past and present,
Published by Usha P. Lele,1987
^ a b Purushottam Shripad Lele, Dadra and Nagar Haveli: past and
present, Published by Usha P. Lele, 1987
^ Christophe Jaffrelot, The Hindu Nationalist Movement in India,
Published by Columbia University Press, 1998
^ Koenraad Elst, Decolonizing the Hindu Mind, Rupa Co, 2001
^ M. G. Chitkara, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh: National Upsurge, Page
275
^ Srirupa Roy, Beyond belief: India and the Politics of Postcolonial
Nationalism, Page 83
^ Christophe Jaffrelot, Hindu nationalism: a reader, Published by
Princeton University Press, 2007
^ Pralay Kanungo, RSS's tryst with politics: from Hedgewar to
Sudarshan, p. 58. Published by Manohar Publishers and Distributors,
2002
^ Koenraad Elst, Decolonizing the Hindu mind: ideological development
of Hindu revivalism, Published by Rupa & Co., 2001
^ Jaffrelot Christophe, Hindu nationalist movement and the Indian
politics, page 243
^ a b Emma Tarlo, Unsettling Memories: Narratives of India's
"emergency", Published by Orient Blackswan, 2003, ISBN 8178240661,
9788178240664
^ Martha Craven Nussbaum, The Clash Within: Democracy, Religious
Violence, and India's Future, Published by Harvard University Press,
2007 ISBN 0674024826, 9780674024823
^ Jaffrelot Christophe, Hindu Nationalism, 1987, 297, Princeton
University Press, ISBN 0691130981, ISBN 9780691130989
^ Post Independence India, Encyclopedia of Political Parties, 2002,
published by Anmol Publications PVT. LTD, ISBN 8174888659,
9788174888655
^ page 238, Encyclopedia of Political parties, Volumes 33-50
http://books.google.co.in/books?id=QCh_yd357iIC&pg=PA238
^ Suresh Ramabhai, Vinoba and his mission, Published by Akhil Bharat
Sarv Seva Sangh, 1954
^ a b c d M S Golwalkar, Bunch of Thoughts, Publishers: Sahitya Sindhu
Prakashana
^ RSS might get trendy uniform next year Rediff - July 23, 2004
^ a b K. R. Malkani, The RSS story, Published by Impex India, 1980
^ M. G. Chitkara, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh: national upsurge,
Published by APH Publishing, 2004, ISBN 8176484652, 9788176484657
^ Sangh's e-Sevaks http://www.openthemagazine.com/article/nation/sangh-s-e-sevaks
^ a b H. V. Seshadri, Hindu renaissance under way, Published in 1984,
Jagarana Prakashana, Distributors, Rashtrotthana Sahitya (Bangalore)
^ Jaffrelot, Christophe. Hindu Nationalism: a Reader.
^ Bhatt, p. 114.
^ RSS unhappy with infighting in Guj BJP ~ Ahmedabad News| Info|
History| Guide about Ahmedabad, Gujarat India
^ Toe swadeshi line or lose support, RSS warns BJP
^ I will always be a swayamsevak: PM
^ Shekhawat a non-partisan candidate, says Vajpayee
^ Haniffa, Aziz, Agnihotri's appointment aimed at boosting US ties,
India Abroad, 08-31-2001
^ RSS for Dalit head priests in temples,Times of India
^ RSS rips into ban on Dalits entering temples Times of India -
January 9, 2007
^ Jaffrelot Christophe, The Hindu Nationalist Movement and Indian
Politics: 1925 to the 1990s, 1996, 45, C Hurst & Co Publishers Ltd,
ISBN 1850651701, ISBN 978-1850651703
^ Jaffrelot, p. 50.
^ K S Bharati, Encyclopedia of Eminent Thinkers, Volume 7, 1998
^ Om Prakash Ralhan, Encyclopedia of Political Parties,1998
^ M. G. Chitkara, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh" national upsurge, 2004
^ Goa rebuilds quake-hit Gujarat village Times of India - June 19,
2002
^ a b Ensuring transparency The Hindu - February 18, 2001
^ Jammu kids get home away from guns, IBN live, Wed, Jun 28, 2006
^ JK: RSS adopts militancy hit Muslim children, Sunday, June 25, 2006
^ Fund of Controversy Times of India - December 14, 2002
^ Relief missions from Delhi, The Hindu
^ Tsunami toll in TN, Pondy touches 7,000 Rediff - December 29, 2004
^ RSS joins relief operation in flood-hit Surat,Organiser.org
^
http://www.expressbuzz.com/edition/story.aspx?Title=RSS+volunteers+fan+out+to+do+relief+work&artid=sqA5DxtEE5w=&SectionID=e7uPP4|pSiw=&MainSectionID=fyV9T2jIa4A=&SectionName=EH8HilNJ2uYAot5nzqumeA==&SEO=
The New Indian Express:RSS volunteers fan out to do relief work
^ a b K. Singh: “Congress (I) is the Most Communal Party”, Publik
Asia, 16-11-1989.
^ http://www.sikhtimes.com/bios_021503a.html
^ a b High Courts on RSS, Sahitya Sindhu publishers, 1983,
ISBN818659518X
^ a b Supreme Court of India. Civil Appellate Jurisdiction, The State
of Madhya Pradesh Vs Ramshanker Raghuvanshi, case no 4679, 1980, High
Courts on RSS, Sahitya Sindhu publishers, 1983, ISBN818659518X
^ a b The Supreme Court Millennium Digest, V. R. Manohar, Chitaley W.
W., 2000 Published by All India Reporter, 2000, Published by All India
Reporter, page 842
^ a b A. G. Noorani, Political past of Public Servants, Economic and
Political Weekly, Vol. 18, No. 29 (Jul. 16, 1983), p. 1265
^ a b Indian Factories & Labour Reports, By India Supreme Court,
Published by Law Publishing House, 1988,Item notes: v. 57, page 27
^ a b Labour Law Journal, By India Courts, India Supreme Court,
Published by R. Krishnaswami, 1983, page 301
^ a b R. Venkataramani, Judgements by O. Chinnappa Reddy, a Humanist,
1989, page 8
^ Noorani, A.G. (2000). The RSS and the BJP: A Division of Labor. New
Delhi.
^ Damle, Shridhar D (1987). The Brotherhood in Saffron. The Rashtriya
Swayamsevak Sangh and Hindu Revivalism. New Delhi: Vistaar
Publications. p. 56.
^
http://books.google.co.in/books?id=QCh_yd357iIC&pg=PA229&lpg=PA229&dq=zakir+hussain+on+sangh&source=bl&ots=C-uIxwQO69&sig=-0aCNkUnVtr3U3hqk2fW0Xk7acI&hl=en&ei=MpmSSruSEdL-kAXvx-DCAg&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=10#v=onepage&q=&f=false
^ http://www.rediff.com/news/mar/28varsha.htm
^ Jaffrelot, Christophe (1987). Hindu Nationalism. Princeton
University Press, ISBN 0691130981, 9780691130989. p. 297.
^ http://www.rediff.com/news/2003/mar/11franc.htm
^ http://www.blogs.ivarta.com/Defaming-Hinduism/blog-4.htm
^ a b c d e http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article5186703.ece
^ http://www.nytimes.com/1993/08/09/world/india-bomb-kills-10-in-offices-of-group-of-militant-hindus.html?pagewanted=1
^ http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/254649/Hanuman
^ Brass, Paul R. (2003). The Production of Hindu-Muslim Violence in
Contemporary India. Seattle: University of Washington Press. p. 6.
ISBN 0-295-98506-2.
^ a b Jaffrelot, p. 51.
^ Jaffrelot, p. 57-58.
^ Hindu Nationalist Politics The Hindu - September 24, 2005
^ Elst Koenraad, Saffron Swastika, Voice of India publication
^ The Hindu book page 19
^ Communal Riots in Post-Independence India-Sangam Books 1984, 1991,
1997-Asgar ali engineer
^ "Communal riots in India" By N. L. Gupta pg20 ISBN 8121206448
^ The RSS and The BJP:A division of labour-by A.G Noorani
^ "Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh" By D. R. Goyal (University of
Michigan) pg 231
^ http://www.hindustantimes.com/rssfeed/india/Excerpts-from-the-Liberhan-Commission-report/Article1-479907.aspx
^ http://www.indianexpress.com/news/how-the-bjp-rss-mobilised-kar-sevaks/545911/
^ http://news.rediff.com/report/2009/nov/24/liberhan-comes-down-heavily-on-advani-and-vajpayee.htm
^ http://www.dnaindia.com/india/report_vajpayee-advani-severely-indicted-by-liberhan-commission_1315927
^ http://indiatoday.intoday.in/site/Story/72219/India/Sudarshan+contests+Liberhan%27s+claim.html
^ http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kolkata-/New-Article/articleshow/5265781.cms
^ http://www.expressbuzz.com/edition/story.aspx?title=Suspicions+as+proof&artid=sdzdQjyZ2rM=
^ http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/india/Kalyan-govt-executed-demolition-plan-Liberhan-Commission/articleshow/5265687.cms
^ http://www.ndtv.com/news/india/liberhan_report_a_fraud_says_bjps_arun_jaitly.php
^ http://www.asiantribune.com/news/2010/01/01/kashmiri-hindus-exodus-led-babri-demolition%E2%80%A6
^ http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2002/04/29/india-gujarat-officials-took-part-anti-muslim-violence
^ RSS, VHP appeal for peace in Gujarat http://www.rediff.com/news/2002/mar/02train10.htm
^ http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSDEL352926
^
http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/southasia/features/article_1434632.php/Radical_Hindus_attack_Christians_over_&quotforced_conversions&quot__News_Feature__
- Deutsche Presse-Agentur
^ a b http://www.dailypioneer.com/61677/RSS-wing-blames-Cong-MP-for-triggering-communal-tension-in-Kandhamal.html
^ http://www.indianexpress.com/news/slain-vhp-man-was-conversion-king/353136/
^ http://www.encyclopedia.com/doc/1P3-1285298261.html - Hindustan
Times - June 9, 2007
^ http://www.monstersandcritics.com/news/india/news/article_1315394.php/Constitution_is_root_cause_of_country_s_ills_RSS_chief
- IANS
^ a b >http://www.indianexpress.com/news/Dal-Khalsa-accuses-Sangh-of-
anti-Sikh-designs/571352
^ a b c d e
http://worldsikhnews.com/27%20January%202010/RSS%20wants%20Sikhs%20to%20make%20changes%20in%20Guru%20Granth%20Sahib.htm

Bibliography

Publications

"Panchajanya" (in Hindi). RSS weekly publication. http://www.panchjanya.com/.
"Organiser". RSS weekly publication. http://www.organiser.org/.
Bunch of Thoughts. Banglore, India: Sahitya Sindhu Prakashana. 1966.
ISBN 81-86595-19-8. - Collection of Speeches by Golwalkar.
http://www.golwalkarguruji.org/shri-guruji/thoughts/bunch-of-thoughts-book
Weekly Swastika The Nationalist Bengali News Weekly http://www.eswastika.com/
(in Hindi and English) Biographies of Dr. Hedgewar.
http://archivesofrss.org/index.php?option=com_biographies&Itemid=37/.

Books

Anderson, Walter K.; Damle, Sridhar D. (1987). The Brotherhood in
Saffron. Delhi, India: Vistaar Publishers.
Anand, Adeesh (2007). Shree Guruji And His R.S.S.. Delhi, India: MD
Publication Pvt. Ltd..

See also

v • d • e

Sangh Parivar

Organisations

Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh · http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rashtriya_Swayamsevak_Sangh
Rashtra Sevika Samiti · http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rashtra_Sevika_Samiti
Bharatiya Janata Party · http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bharatiya_Janata_Party
Vishwa Hindu Parishad · http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vishwa_Hindu_Parishad
Bajrang Dal · http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bajrang_Dal
Muslim Rashtriya Manch · http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_Rashtriya_Manch
Rashtriya Sikh Sangat · http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rashtriya_Sikh_Sangat
Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad · http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akhil_Bharatiya_Vidyarthi_Parishad
Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh · http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bharatiya_Mazdoor_Sangh
Hindu Munnani · http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu_Munnani
Hindu Swayamsevak Sangh · http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu_Swayamsevak_Sangh
Swadeshi Jagaran Manch · http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swadeshi_Jagaran_Manch
Durga Vahini · http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Durga_Vahini
Seva Bharathi · http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seva_Bharathi
Bharatiya Kisan Sangh · http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bharatiya_Kisan_Sangh
Balagokulam · http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balagokulam
Vidya Bharati · http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vidya_Bharati
Vanavasi Kalyan Ashram · http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanavasi_Kalyan_Ashram
Hindu Vivek Kendra . http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu_Vivek_Kendra
Bharat Vikas Parishad . http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bharat_Vikas_Parishad

Major figures

K.B. Hedgewar · http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K._B._Hedgewar
Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar · http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madhav_Sadashiv_Golwalkar
Shyama Prasad Mookerjee · http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shyama_Prasad_Mookerjee
Deendayal Upadhyaya · http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deendayal_Upadhyaya
Madhukar Dattatraya Deoras · http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madhukar_Dattatraya_Deoras
Atal Bihari Vajpayee · http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atal_Bihari_Vajpayee
Lal Krishna Advani · http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lal_Krishna_Advani
Rajendra Singh · http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rajendra_Singh_(RSS)
Ashok Singhal · http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ashok_Singhal
K.S. Sudarshan · http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K._S._Sudarshan
Praveen Togadia · http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Praveen_Togadia
Mohan Bhagwat · http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohan_Bhagwat


Philosophy

Hindu nationalism (Hindu Rashtra) · http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindutva
Hindutva · http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindutva
Integral humanism · http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Integral_humanism_(Hindu_nationalism)
Ram Janmabhoomi · http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram_Janmabhoomi
Undivided India (Akhand Bharat) · http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Undivided_India
Uniform civil code . http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uniform_civil_code

v • d • e

Hindu reform movements

Ayyavazhi · http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ayyavazhi
Arya Samaj · http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arya_Samaj
Divine Life Society · http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_Life_Society
Hindutva · http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindutva
ISKCON · http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Society_for_Krishna_Consciousness
Ramakrishna Mission · http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramakrishna_Mission
Sri Aurobindo Ashram · http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sri_Aurobindo_Ashram
Swadhyay Parivar · http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swadhyay_Parivar

Topics

Bhakti · http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bhakti
Caste · http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_caste_system
Persecution of Hindus · http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Hindus
Shuddhi · http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shuddhi
Women in Hinduism . http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Women_in_Hinduism

Reformers

Sri Aurobindo · http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sri_Aurobindo
Sita Ram Goel · http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sita_Ram_Goel
M.S. Golwalkar · http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madhav_Sadashiv_Golwalkar
Mahatma Gandhi · http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohandas_Karamchand_Gandhi
Harsh Narain · http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harsh_Narain
The Mother · http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mother_(yogini)
Prabhupada · http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._C._Bhaktivedanta_Swami_Prabhupada
Raja Ram Mohun Roy · http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram_Mohan_Roy
Pandurang Shastri Athavale · http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pandurang_Shastri_Athavale
Ramakrishna · http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ramakrishna
Dayananda Saraswati · http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dayananda_Saraswati
Satsvarupa Das Goswami · http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satsvarupa_Das_Goswami
V.D. Savarkar · http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Satsvarupa_Das_Goswami
Swami Sivananda · http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vinayak_Damodar_Savarkar
Arun Shourie · http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arun_Shourie
Ram Swarup · http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram_Swarup
B.G. Tilak · http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bal_Gangadhar_Tilak
Swami Vivekananda · http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swami_Vivekananda
Yogananda · http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yogananda
Swami Vipulananda · http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swami_Vipulananda
Arumuga Navalar · http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arumuga_Navalar

more . http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Hindu_revivalists


1993 Chennai bombing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1993_Chennai_bombing

External links

RSS - official website http://www.rss.org/
Youtube Channel Of Videos on RSS http://www.youtube.com/RSSOwner
Another Website of RSS http://www.sanghparivar.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rashtriya_Swayamsevak_Sangh

Categories:

Sangh Parivar | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Sangh_Parivar
Hindutva | http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Hindutva
Organizations established in 1925 |
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Organizations_established_in_1925

Hidden categories: Wikipedia pages semi-protected against vandalism |
NPOV disputes from January 2010 | All NPOV disputes | Articles with
hAudio microformats | Articles containing Hindi language text |
Articles containing explicitly cited English language text | All
articles with unsourced statements | Articles with unsourced
statements from February 2010 | Articles containing Sanskrit language
text | NPOV disputes from February 2010 | Articles that may contain
original research from February 2010 | All pages needing cleanup

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rashtriya_Swayamsevak_Sangh

Akhil Bharatiya Pratinidhi Sabha 2010
Kurukshetra 26 - 28 March 2010

A glimpse of the mammoth rally of Kerala state: 24 February 2010:
courtsey Asianet news TV

http://www.rss.org/

...and I am Sid Harth