• DOI:10.1177/001946460103800201
• Corpus ID: 145756604

Remains of the race: Archaeology, nationalism, and the yearning for civilisation in the Indus valley

@article{Ramaswamy2001RemainsOT,
  title={Remains of the race: Archaeology, nationalism, and the yearning for civilisation in the Indus valley},
  author={Sumathi Ramaswamy},
  journal={Indian Economic \& Social History Review},
  year={2001},
  volume={38},
  pages={105 - 145}
}

• S. Ramaswamy
• Published 1 June 2001
• Sociology, History
• Indian Economic & Social History Review

This article explores the impact of a single event-the announcement in September 1924 of the ’discovery&dquo; of pre-historic ruins in the Indus valley-on three divergent intellectual circles in colonial India. I consider the manner in which the language and conceptual tools of pre-historic archaeology, a relatively new knowledgepractice in the early decades of the twentieth century in India, were negotiated by the subcontinent’s intellectuals who stood outside the professional ambit of that discipline. I also examine how the discovery of the Indus valley ruins and the archaeological framework within which it was presented were re-visioned through the lens of the emergent nation(s). I do so in order to suggest that while archaeology opened up new possibilities through which India’s intellectuals could now materially substantiate their claims about its much contested pre-history, it also complicated what they could-and could no longer-say about their (nationalised) pasts.