Apathy, neglect and indifference

After partition in 1947, many of India's greatest heritage sites, went to new Born state of Pakistan. One of them was the capital of ancient Gandhara state, Purushpur, known in modern times as Peshawar. The second were the 5000 year old ruins of the Indus valley civilization: starting from Mohenjodaro in the south to Harappa in the north. Last but not the least, were the Buddhist rock carvings in beautiful Swat region of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan, the entire Jambil Valley, including Panr, Dangram, and Kokaria, is full of such rock-carvings, as is the Saidu valley and the valleys of Manglawar and Banjot.

I have always felt it a great loss that I can never visit these places in my life time. I am sure that thousands of Indians like me, who love our heritage, must also be sad for this loss. Unfortunately there is further bad news now from this lost heritage, which says that the heritage sites are now in such bad state that within few decades, most of them would be gone forever. Leave alone Indians like me, no one from Pakistan even would be able to visit them. 

 

The intricately carved Buddhist rock statues are located on isolated mountain faces, in scenic countryside of Swat and are the beautiful remnants of the Gandhara civilisation. One can find perfect solace, serenity, and isolation from the humdrum of life, even during a visit here. It is obvious that it is no ordinary art. Dr Luca Maria Olivieri, an Italian archaeologist and head of the Italian Archaeological Mission in Pakistan, believes that the rock-carved statues found in Swat, hold immense historical importance and says“These sculptures are typical of the late Vajrayana Buddhist schools active in Swat between 7th and 9th century CE.” The scenic Swat is a perfect home for the intricately carved rock statues.

Yet, despite their historic value and uniqueness, the statues are fading due to constant negligence, vandalism, and the lack of a preservation strategy. This great heritage of the country is gradually eroding, losing shape by the day. In addition, a lot of the residents are being misguided by the so-called mullahs to deface the statues. A recent visitor observes: “Without a grain of exaggeration, I can say that within a decade there will be no sign of them.”

Let us now turn to Peshavar. It was the ancient capital of Gandhara and part of Sikh kingdom of Ranjit Singh just about 200 years back. The British took control of the city in 1840. In 1849 they built a building here near the Tehsil office, to serve as records room. This now dilapidated building, even today contains files, carrying stamps with the signature of governor Abu Tabela (Paolo Avitable) from the period when Sikhs ruled Peshawar, and information on British governors and other high officials who served in the region. Apart from records of the district, old maps of all villages in Peshawar district are stored here, which can provide clear details of when the city was walled by the Sikhs.

The building consists of a record hall, which can be entered through two large wooden gates in the north and south of the building, and number of smaller rooms lined on the side. But cobwebs and years of dust on the walls and floor makes it impossible to navigate through the space. The documents and maps have been kept in sacks and are just rotting away. The condition of most of the documents is so bad that majority of the information has been lost. The print is either unreadable or the paper has become so fragile it cannot be opened without being ripped.An official at the tehsil office says: “The provincial government is planning to demolish this building. They think it is a burden because they neither care about the records nor about preserving the province’s heritage.”

Let us now turn to Pakistan's greatest heritage site, the surviving ruins of Mohenjodaro, which was a bronze Age metropolis from about 3000 CBE. Discovered in 1924 by the excavation teams led by Sir John Marshall, the director general of the Archaeological Survey of India, and his successors, Mohenjodaro was a major centre of the pre-Vedic Indus civilisation. It's estimated 40,000 inhabitants were contemporaries of civilisations in ancient Egypt, Mesopotamia, and the Yellow River settlements of China. Like all other cities of this civilisation, Mohenjodaro has evidence of a society that valued good roads, clean water and a system of law that proved that it was a perfectly planned city.

This greatest heritage monument is once again in danger of disappearing. It's clay wall houses, grid system roads, great granaries, baths and drainage systems are crumbling to dust, because of government neglect, public indifference and tourists’ fears of terrorism. Mohenjodaro's curator feel that unless some urgent action is taken this great monument would be lost for ever. He adds: “The ruins, are besieged by the area’s hostile elements. Summer temperatures of 124F (51C), winter frosts, torrential monsoon rains and humid air all combine to leave the sun-dried clay bricks with a dusting of salt crystals that dries them out and sucks them to dust. The site is in effect an island surrounded by flooded rice paddies and the Indus river.”

A small group of workers, archaeologists and helpers, makes an attempt to save the monument by spraying the walls and roads with a protective layer of “sweet”, salt-free mud, and re-point the crumbling mud mortar that holds the bricks together. But their efforts are proving just infinitesimal. A leading leading Pakistani archaeologist, says: “The way things are going, it will survive maybe only another 20 years.”

I feel sad even in describing the state of these heritage sites, which from all descriptions are in terrible state. It is obvious that most of the Pakistanis are either simply unaware about the fact that a legacy of last 5000 years, still exists in their land or are not bothered about it. Pakistani people should realise that these monuments are are not only their legacy but also of 1.2 Billion people of India and they are the trusties. If they are unable to fund the conserving operations, UNESCO or even Government of India would be willing to offer help. Pakistanis must do something and conserve the monuments.

16 October 2013

Solving the riddle of the Indus valley civilization!

Traces of the most ancient civilization in the Indian peninsula, were first found in 1920's, in the Indus valley. Since then, a vast amount archeological research has been carried out along with excavations in the Indus valley as well as in the basins of the tributary rivers of Punjab. It has been more or less confirmed now that the earliest village like human settlements were first established in this area around 4500-5000 BCE, near Mehrgarh in present day Pakistan. These settlements later morphed in the Indus valley urban centers and settlements like Mohenjodaro or Harrapa around 3900 BCE and continued to flourish till about 1500 BCE. 

 

It has been always a mystery and a riddle to the scientists, that this flourishing civilization suddenly collapsed around this time and disappeared from the history. Over the decades, many theories like Aryan invasions, huge earthquakes and shifting of riverbeds, have been put forward, explaining demise of the Indus civilizations. None of these theories have been proved in scientific investigations, carried out.

The ancient Indian scriptures known as the Vedas, composed over 3000 years ago, describe this region of the Indian peninsula, west of the Ganga basin as “Saptasindhu” or the land of seven rivers. Out of these 7 rivers, Indus and its five tributaries are easily recognizable. But the 7^th river known as Sarasvati and described in the Vedas as "surpassing in majesty and might all other waters" and "pure in her course from mountains to the ocean,” has not been discovered in known history. Scriptures describe that Sarswati river was fed by perennial glaciers in the Himalayas. The Ghaggar river in Punjab flows only in monsoons and dissipates into the desert along the dried course of Hakra valley, is today considered as the best approximate successor to Sarswati from the locations given in the scriptures. But its Himalayan origin still remains a controversy. The sudden demise of Indus civilization and disappearance of Sarswati river remain the biggest mysteries of the ancient history of the Indian Peninsula as yet.

A report of a study, published on 28^th May 2012 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and lead authored by Liviu Giosan, a geologist with Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) claims that they have found the answers to both these riddles. The study was done from 2003 to 2008 from the Arabian Sea coast to the fertile valleys of Punjab and the northern Thar Desert in Pakistan. Over this period, Liviu Giosan's team of 15 international experts, which Included Prof Ronojoy Adhikari of the Institute of Mathematical Sciences, Chennai, studied satellite photos and topographic data collected by the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission. From this data the team created digital maps of landforms in the basins of Indus and other rivers. This analytical work was then confirmed with help of field work in the area, consisting of drilling, taking core samples and digging deep trenches to study cross-sectional views.

With this data, it was possible for Giosan's team to reconstruct the landscape of the plains habitated by Indus civilization 5200 years ago (3100 BCE), how the great cities like Harrapa were built and the gradual disintegration of the plains that took place in a period 3900 to 3000 years ago (1800 BCE- 900 BCE). Armed with this information, Giosan's team was able to draw following conclusions.

Spread over 1 million square Km. From Arabian sea coast to Ganges, the Indus civilization was the largest but least known civilization of the first urban cultures of the world. This civilization, like other great civilizations of Egypt and Mesopotamia also flourished next to some great rivers. However, remains of this vast human settlement are found even in vast desert areas far from any rivers today. This south Asian culture, which might have contained one tenths of world's population in those days, was all forgotten till 1920. Subsequent archeological research has unearthed a sophisticated urban culture with myriad internal trade routes and well-established sea links with Mesopotamia, standards for building construction, sanitation systems, arts and crafts, and a yet-to-be deciphered writing system.

 

One of the co-authors of the report, Dorian Fuller, an archaeologist with University College London, says "Once we had this new information on the geological history, we could re-examine what we know about settlements, what crops people were planting and when, and how both agriculture and settlement patterns changed, This brought new insights into the process of eastward population shift, the change towards many more small farming communities, and the decline of cities during late Harappan times."

Before this massive human habitation had settled in, for previous ten thousand years, wildly flowing river Indus and its tributaries had deposited rich soil sediments on stretches between them. The research team led by Giosan has been able to discover a massive mega-ridge 10 to 20 meters high, over 100 kilometers wide, and running almost 1000 kilometers along the Indus, in this mounded plains. It has been named as "Indus mega-ridge," as it was constructed by the river itself with sediments deposited along it's entire lower course. Remains of Harappan settlements, which are found today are not buried underground in this ridge but rather lie at the surface of the ridge.

The monsoon rains that brought floods to the rivers, actually started declining with time. Weakened monsoon rains and reduced run-off from the mountains, helped in taming the wild Indus and its Himalayan tributaries, so that agriculture along their banks became possible. As a result, human settlements bloomed along the Indus and its tributaries from the coast to the foothills of the Himalayas. The weakened monsoon rains created a window of about 2000 years in which Harappans took advantage of the opportunity and a great civilization arose on the banks of Indus and tributaries. Indus civilization, was built on bumper crop surpluses along the Indus and the Ghaggar-Hakra rivers from this earlier wetter era and required a huge concentration of workforce. This workforce requirement developed into great urban centers like Mohenjodaro and Harrapa.

As monsoon weakened progressively, this window of prosperity began closing and widespread aridification of the lands, where plenty of water was available earlier, drove the Harappans eastwards east or towards Ganga river by 1500 BCE, where monsoon rains remained reliable. The economic structure in the east with local rain-fed farming and dwindling streams could only support smaller agricultural surpluses and could not support large cities of Indus civilization. The cities collapsed and with them the urban arts such as writing. The population in Ganga basin now dispersed in small agricultural communities, survived and even diversified.

The study also reports another major finding, which solves the riddle of Sarswati river. Archeological evidence suggests very intensive human settlements during Harappan times in the basin of Ghaggar-Hakra river, which is believed to be the long lost Sarswati of the Vedas. The geological evidence like presence of sediments, topography discovered in this study shows that these rivers were indeed sizable and highly active in this region, most likely due to strong monsoons, during Harappan period. However these rivers were not Himalaya fed rivers. There is no evidence of waters of nearby Himalayn rivers like Satlaj or Yamuna flowing in this river. The study therefore suggests that Sarswati or Ghaggar-Hakra river was a monsoon fed perennial watercourse and the aridification reduced it to short seasonal flows like at present. 

However some Indian scientists do not agree with this analysis. They feel that the Sarasvati river system can be considered as a separate entity and not as a part of the Indus basin. It dried up a few thousand years back, due to tectonic movements, tributary diversions and climate changes. This thesis is now well documented and accepted by almost all, barring a few skeptics. The dry courses of the main river and its tributaries are at present covered with sand, loam and silt, deposited by wind over last few thousand years. They could be discerned only after the advent of remote sensing techniques. (Sankaran, A.V., 1999; Roy and Jakhar, 2001). 

I would only like to add that whatever may be the actual reason, end result happens to be the same.  

This study also raises an issue of concern for the present day Indus river system in lower reaches. Giosan says that "Today the Indus system feeds the largest irrigation scheme in the world, immobilizing the river in channels and behind dams. If the monsoon were to increase in a warming world, as some predict, catastrophic floods such as the humanitarian disaster of 2010, would turn the current irrigation system, designed for a tamer river, obsolete." This is a warning for Pakistan.

5 June 2012