Mr Chairman and delegates,
This year 1961 has been a year of centenaries. Centenaries of the birth of great people and the beginning of many great undertakings. I have come here today for this particular centenary with pleasure and yet, with a certain reluctance — pleasure, because I am interested in archaeological work, and reluctance because I don’t know much about it. And I didn’t quite know what I am supposed to say on this occasion. We have just listened to Mr Humayun Kabir’s — a kind of a report of the Archaeological Survey, past history of the Archaeological Survey of India. It is an interesting history. And I suppose most of those present here are archaeologists or are greatly interested in this work, and do not require to be told how important the subject is from many points of view.
In a country like India, there are of course, any number of places which deserve careful working out from the archaeological point of view. And yet, sometimes I think how much utter destruction there has been in India, either deliberate or careless, otherwise it will be the richest. I remember when first I heard of Mohenjodaro, how tremendously excited I was, just as when I first read of the Indians who went out of India in the early years of this era, the beginning of the Christian era, to South-East Asia, and put up great buildings there, which even today are among the famous monuments of the world, how excited I was then. Why was I so excited? Partly because, I suppose, a certain pride in our nation’s past and what great things they did there. But apart from that it was a sense of a disclosure, a disclosure allowing us to peep into the past and filling in a large number of vacant spaces in history.
Now, how exactly does one justify archaeology? It is all very well for us to be interested in it and it is a most interesting subject, fascinating subject. But in this highly utilitarian age, how does one justify archaeology? I have no clear answer to that except that I am quite sure that it is very important. Many things that you cannot justify from this utilitarian point of view are of the greatest importance. I am yet to know how one justifies mathematically or otherwise the importance of beauty, the importance of any aesthetic appreciation of things, of goodness, of art and so on. And yet, we all know that they are of the highest importance, and more important than apparently many utilitarian objects that we have. And so archaeology, though we may not immediately be able to justify it from the point of view of the demands of today, yet has an essential, and very great importance.
I remember some years ago when we had a difficult task almost, where a matter of conscience arose before us when we were considering what we should do about Nagarjunakonda in the South. There was this buried city gradually coming out and there was the proposal to erect a dam there and create a big reservoir which would give water to irrigation and other things all round. Here was a direct conflict between the claims of today in the sense of practical utility and the claims of the past, and we were much troubled by it. Because, whether we were archaeologists or not, Indians as a rule are good deal tied up with the past. They live to some extent, far too much in the past. And so, I did not quite know for sometime what to do. Oddly enough, some of the persons who felt most deeply about this, about our not taking any step which might spoil the old remains of this ancient city, where some people who one would have thought will attach no value to the past at all, there were even some communists.
But ultimately, it was I suppose inevitable that we decided in favour of the present, even at the cost somewhat of the past. Although when we look more deeply into this matter, that turned out to be the best way of preserving the past also, because these the old relics of Nagarjunakonda were just gradually fading out, not gradually, very rapidly crumbling into dust and ashes. We decided that they should be removed bodily and placed on a little island which will be above the middle of the lake, which will not be submerged, and preserve them in such a way as really to prevent their decay. Probably that was a better way of even preserving them apart from the other aspect of looking to the irrigation needs of the present. But I mention this story because it troubled us with all our attachment to the past and our desire to preserve its finer monuments as they are. The present impinged upon us and ultimately forced us to give preference to a great irrigation project. So, I suppose we have to make these choices often enough, and ultimately, the present is likely to win. Though it does not necessarily follow, this should be so everywhere.
The past in India surrounds us everywhere. If you go for a drive in Delhi it comes up before you in the shape of odd little buildings, a hunting lodge somewhere, a mausoleum partly in ruin etc., which are constantly reminding one of the past. I rather like these old ruins, not for the architecture that may or may not be good, but generally this reminds us of the past so that we may not forget it. So, from the point of view, from various points of view — aesthetic, artistic, historical and psychological — the archaeological work which one carries on is, I think, of the highest importance. We have our roots of the long past in India, most countries have theirs of course, their roots in the long past. This is no special feature for India. But perhaps in other countries, a definite historical past started later than in India, and if we have those roots, we are going to know about them as much as possible, both for the joy of knowing about them and because that explains sometimes even our present to us.
Now, Indians on the whole are said to be, in the past anyway, were said to be, not a historically conscious people, like let us say the Arabs, like the Chinese. I am leaving out the modern period. I am talking about old history. Our sense of history came out, not in that precise form of history, but in mythology, in epics, in monuments, tremendous monuments, although naturally history, precise history, is very important. I am not so sure that the method that developed in India was not more powerful in influencing the minds of the masses of the people. I doubt if anywhere in the world people’s minds have been affected so much, the masses I mean, as let us say by the Ramayana story as it has affected in India every village and given it a cultural background.
The average peasant who is supposed to be very illiterate and who is illiterate has a certain degree of culture. Because he is steeped in the old mythology and stories of India, Ramayana, Mahabharata, and all that, and the way he tries to enact it. And so our old buildings too, they were records of a period and records not meant for the members of learned societies, but records for the public, for the masses of people who saw them. Just like nowadays we talk, let us say, of a great mural painting as opposed to the fine little work which you may display in your private drawing room. There is something public, there is something public about the appreciation of the past, in the mass mind in India. It is not a precise appreciation, it has little to do with the dates or names of great people, but some names do come in. But it is an impress on the mind of the average peasant even in India, which I rather doubt if you will find in many other countries, who were much more historically inclined. I don’t know whether what I say is completely true or not. That is a question I have.
But why I mention this fact is this, that because of the nature of the past in India, it becomes very important, more important perhaps here than elsewhere, to find out what this past was through archaeological work. And we have very few books on history in Sanskrit, in precise history more or less, unlike I said the Chinese and the Arabs in this area; but we have a multitude of material which throw some light and sometimes very interesting light on the past. And all this, if properly inquired into helps us greatly to understand that past; and history begins to unravel itself in our minds, a past history.
You know that even in my boyhood, Indian history was divided up, the ancient period, a brief chapter; the Muslim period, the medieval period, a bigger chapter; and broadly speaking, the British period, which was a main concern of the book. It seems very odd to me. First of all, I have always been unable to understand or to appreciate this division of Hindu India and Muslim India, historically I mean. Or you might call it Christian India, you might say because the British rulers were Christian, but few people would call it Christian India. I think it is very unhistorical, unscientific to divide up history like this. You may say, of course, in a certain period Muslim influences were strong here; even then it would be truer to say that Persian or Arab influences were stronger than Muslim influences. And so, apart from that, the whole of the past thousands of years of Indian history were shown in those books, written about in the early years of this century and before, as a kind of prelude to the final culmination of Indian history as British rule, which of course even now seems very odd to us. That is a very important part, of course, British dominion in India, in the history of India, that is an important part.
But the thousands of years of Indian history are important because it brought India in touch with the modern world. Now we get a truer perspective by looking at these ancient records and ancient deeds of the people in India and the great men of India; and therefore greater understanding of the growth of our people. And I am venturing to suggest that because of the lack of the precise historical approach to things in India in the past, the other material available which is fairly rich is more important than these historical records. Of course, if you go back really to the old, very old period, there are no historical records anywhere. I don’t know if the Mohenjodaro scripts have been deciphered yet or not. I believe they have not, but I am not sure. You may know something if they are deciphered.
Anyhow, from the practical point of view, there are many important matters which archaeology brings to us. But most of all it is, it gives a certain balance, a certain perspective to our minds in looking into the past and makes us, I hope, a little more humble than we otherwise would be, in this mechanical civilisation, thinking that we are scaling great heights of human development. Of course, the mechanical civilisation of today is a magnificent achievement, and yet doubt creeps into my mind often enough whether many of those achievements are important as they are or have their deeper significance which we attach to human progress. In one sense they have; and in other ways somehow they have not; but the human beings who are influenced by them become more and more trivial. So this look into the past gives us a certain, I hope, a certain depth of feeling, understanding, a certain humility.
Of course, we see us not as standing on a peak of human endeavour, but perhaps I hope a rising plane, and as much has happened in the past which may be said to be even beyond our reach today — not in technology of course, but in other ways. Anyhow to understand the present it is necessary to understand the past and even to build for the future it is necessary to understand both the past and the present; and archaeology gives us that understanding to some extent and in the process of doing so, it makes life much more interesting and exciting. Then this, the Indian Archaeological Survey, has been functioning now for a hundred years and has done good work under some very able leaders and I should like to congratulate them on the work they are doing today. We are happy to welcome here one of the great builders of archaeology in India, Sir Mortimer Wheeler. And so in your celebrations and discussions on this fascinating subject, I wish you success.
This is part of ThePrint’s Great Speeches series. It features speeches and debates that shaped modern India.