Rediscovery of India

A SENSATIONAL INSIDE STORY BY TSI

Sutanu guru and Dhrutikam Mohanty go on a journey of discovery of the first free market economy and 'modern' urban city in the world amidst the ruins of ancient orissa

Just about five kilometres out of Bhubaneswar on the Puri highway, our car turns left on a semi pucca road and enters the village of Sisupalgarh. The word village may be a misnomer as concrete structures, ads for Reliance and Airtel, two wheelers and even some cars are scattered here and there. We have a rendezvous with Dr R.K. Mohanty, archaeologist at Deccan College, Pune and Monica L. Smith, anthropologist at the University of California, Los Angeles. Since 2001, the duo and their team have been painstakingly digging in a 1.2 square kilometre area. There is a slight drizzle as we walk towards them and we see a cluster of forlorn looking pillars standing tall and a few pits and artifacts covered with tarpaulin to protect them from the rain. Clad in a colourful salwar-kameez and wearing a hat, Monica Smith's intense blue eyes are sparkling with excitement and a sense of wonder. And why not? The team is steadily uncovering some of the most sensational and startling archaeological finds that will turn history on its head. “This is truly significant. It will change many historical perceptions about India and South Asia”. Both Smith and Mohanty confirm that carbon dating reveals that the site is at least 2,500 years old and was a flourishing urban centre beginning about 5th century BC. As the drizzle intensifies and the assistants and researchers scatter like lambs, Mohanty whispers in a voice filled with awe, “Who knows? There is much more digging to be done; the site might turn out to be much older.” You might well ask: In a world filled with archaeological finds that come dime a dozen, why is Sisupalgarh so important? Here are a few starling conclusions that can excite even the sceptic: Adam Smith and subsequent economists were wrong in saying that capitalism and free market economy started in Europe only after the industrial revolution. Sisupalgarh – and at least 45 other urban centres scattered over every corner of South Asia – simultaneously displayed all signs of a free market economy and capitalism with mass production replacing household manufacturing. The entire sub-continent of South Asia – ranging from Kandhar (now in Afghanistan) to the deep interiors of Tamil Nadu – had startlingly similar social, economic and cultural identities with constant interaction between these 45 or more cities. This completely nails the insidious Marxist historical propaganda that India was never one nation but a conglomeration of feuding regional entities. In fact, there are clear signs of a loosely structured federal United States of India in existence 2,500 years ago.
No other ancient civilisation pre-dating Christ (except perhaps China, to an extent) had the geographical spread and reach of South Asia. The Biblical tales that some of you might have read about the ancient lands of Judaea, Sumeria, Mesopotamia and the Egypt of the Pharaohs were tiny in comparison to the ancient civilisation that flourished all over South Asia. The excavations and subsequent research at Sisupalgarh clearly reveal that the city resembled a modern city in almost every way. About 25,000 citizens lived 2,500 years ago in the city and not a single one of them was a farmer. There are no huge storage spaces for food that are common to all ancient sites excavated across the world. According to Smith, not storing large quantities of food is the most significant sign of an advanced urban civilisation. Adds Mohanty, “Do you or I worry about where our next meal will come from?” The conclusion: South Asia had a stable market economy at least 2,500 years ago, with enough social cohesion and political stability to enable citizens not worry about food supplies. There are clear indicators of a voluntary social contract, clear signs of individuality and an administrative and managerial process that is the hall mark of a modern nation state. During the excavations, the researchers have found each house to be built in an invidualistic manner. And yet, the public monuments indicate managerial control. Though both Mohanty and Smith refuse to speculate on the kind of political structure that marked ancient cities like Sisupalgarh, they do agree that there was some authority that exercised some kind of control over the citizens. And there are clear records of trade and economic activities being monitored and taxes an tithes being imposed on citizens. There is no evidence if the city was ruled by a monarchy or had a democratic set-up like Athens – the Greek city that came into being much after Sisupalgarh and other South Asian cities. Yet, the absence of excavated evidence of palaces does provide tantalising hints that some kind of democracy was at work here.
Sisupalgarh is living testimony to another startling fact that wars did not always lead to the sacking and destruction of cities as many historians and ideologues would have us believe. Just about 2 kilometres from Sisupalgarh is the magnificent monument to Buddha called Dhaulgiri. It is here, on the banks of the river Daya in BC 269 – exactly 2078 years ago – that Emperor Ashoka decisively defeated the army of Kalinga. Local folklore even today talks about the river Daya running red with the blood of fallen Kalinga warriors. And yet, here was Sisupalgarh, a flourishing city of 25,000 citizens just 2 kilometres away from the scene of a blood-thirsty battle. Almost certainly, citizens of Sisupalgargh either participated in the war or witnessed it from close quarters. Yet, the city managed to survive. Sisupalgarh is testimony to another historical fact that is now being accepted as conventional wisdom. Cities and urban centres have invariably outlasted dynasties and empires. Patna (Pataliputra, once upon a time) has had rulers ranging from the Nandas, to the Mauryas, to the modern day Lalu Prasad Yadav. Yet, the city goes on. Rome has seen rulers like Julius Ceasar, Augustus, Caligula, to the modern day Silvio Berlusconi. And yet, despite the truth behind this historical fact, Sisupalgarh also symbolises a mystery that baffles historians and haunts India. Starting sometime in the 5th century AD – Sisupalgargh and almost every other of the 45 major ancient cities found in South Asia were gradually abandoned and left in ruins. Nobody knows why it happened. Intriguingly, it was around this time that India intensified its trade with South East Asia and Islam came to India. And nothing was the same ever again.
As we get drenched in the downpour, we can’t but help marvel at the complexity of the ancient urban civilisation. You look down the excavated pits and see clear signs of individual households and wonder about the family that lived here 2,500 years ago. Did social pressure encourage a young couple to keep pushing for a son to be born to them? Did dowry exist? Was the man a craftsman and a voluntary member of a guild or was he a trader who braved the choppy seas of the Bay of Bengal and the mighty Indian Ocean to go to Bali, Java and Sumatra (all part of modern Indonesia) for trade? Did his wife and daughter spend anxious weeks and months waiting for him to come back, never sure if his ship had been lost in a storm? Was the husband jealous or suspicious of his wife becoming very friendly with a neighbour in his absence? Did extra-marital affairs exist? These are some mundane questions that haunt us even as our photographer takes advantage of a lull in the rain to furiously click as many pictures as he can. As we stroll back towards our car through slush and mud, we are accompanied by Tosabanta Pradhan and Aruna Panda – both residents of Orissa and doctoral students who are eagerly looking forward to a career in archaeology. Flush with excitement, both pipe up simultaneously, “Participating in any archaeological dig is exciting. But this one is very special for us because we now realise that our now poor state of Orissa was once an advanced civilisation”. Such ethnic identity and affinity is great and you smile at their youthful enthusiasm. And yet, you can’t help wondering about how citizens of ancient South Asia dealt with their differing ethnic identities and languages. Did they inter mingle and create the wonderful melting pot that is India? Or did the citizens of Sisupalgarh follow a populist and dangerous leader touting ethnic pride and attack migrants from neighboring Bihar for not respecting Oriya culture? Was it petty politicians and populists pushing ethnic separatism who were culturally responsible for the 45-odd ancient cities of India eventually being abandoned as protecting regional and linguistic identities became more important than trade and exchange of ideas with other identities? Back in Bhubaneswar, we hit Google Search and our mobile phones and start finding out more about how the whole exciting journey of Rediscovery of India started…It is 1948 and a newly independent India is in mourning. The Father of the Nation Mahatma Gandhi has been assassinated and there are widespread anti-Bramhin riots. A young and enthusiastic archaeologist B.B. Lal ignores the turmoil and reaches Bhubaneswar and starts digging up a few sites at Sisupalgarh even as bemused locals indulgently watch the young man and his team act in what they think is a very funny manner.

Lal did not have access to the modern technology. And yet, in a speculative leap of faith, after two excavations in 1948 and 1950 – Lal put forth a then startling hypothesis that Sisupalgarh was actually a ‘modern’ urban centre that flourished about 2,500 years ago. Archaeologists and historians dealt with Lal and his claims according to their ideological leanings. Proponents of Hindutva tried to hijack the Lal hypothesis to trigger visions of ‘Akhand Bharat’ while Marxist historians were content to snigger at Lal and ignore him. Soon after, the Indian academic establishment was completely taken over by the Marxists and their fellow travellers and anything contrary to their deeply held perceptions and beliefs about the history of India was dismissed as heresy and communal canard. Tales of the even more ancient Indus Valley civilisation held sway and Indian history books too largely ignored Sisupalgarh and the 45 odd other cities that flourished 2,500 years ago. Without proper archival records, the period between the 5th century BC and the 5th century AD became a blank, except mention of dynasties like the Mauryas and the Guptas.

And yet, history has a way of coming full circle. To the dismay of Marxist ideologues and their fellow travellers, the Iron Curtain was ripped apart and the ‘Marxist’ regimes of East Europe and the Soviet Union collapsed into the rubble of history. To their further dismay, India adopted liberal economic policies – a decision that propelled India towards a high growth trajectory that has made it an economic powerhouse that no major nation of the world can ignore any more. Like the residents of Sisupalgarh, thousands of Indians are trading with Malaysia, Singapore and Indonesia at a frenetic pace. And a happy coincidence brought Monica Smith and Dr R. Mohanty together to launch this exciting journey of Rediscovery of India. The next morning, even I was lazing and sipping tea, my Editor-in-Chief called and said that some newspapers had already carried the story. He was worried that our story would lose its ‘exclusive’ character and was thinking of dropping the coverstory. I invoked the God of salesmen and persuaded him to stick with this story. In any case, most of the newspaper reports that breathlessly tom-tommed the discovery were misleading. Most headlines screamed that it was the oldest city in the world; something totally incorrect. Fortunately for us, the newspapers moved on to other stories. When I was flying back to Delhi, I thought about the mundane-looking and yet haunting ruins of Sisupalgarh and wondered what lessons the citizens of this once flourishing city had for 21st century Indians. The lesson – to me – is very clear. Sisupalgarh – and the 45-odd cities that co-existed together for more than 1,000 years – celebrated their diversities, their different languages and their ethnic identities. And yet, they inter-mingled, were open to each other in terms of cultural and economic exchanges and revelled in the exchange of ideas. That is the lesson for regional politicians peddling ethnic, caste and regional identities to alleged vote banks, resulting even in Kannadigas and Tamils warring over water. If regional identies become more important and you trash the opinions of other identities, there is a danger of India relapsing into anarchy and chaos that characterised the nation in the 5th and 6th centuries AD. A fragmented India then lost its sovereignty for more than 1,200 years as successive imperial powers from West Asia and Europe controlled India and its citizens. If the politicians refuse to learn this lesson, it is time we citizens taught them. As I recall Sisupalgarh 37,000 feet above the ground in a flight, I shiver with excitement and tremble with apprehension. Who said you can ignore history and not live to regret it?.