Context

• Archaeology, as a scientific discipline, aims to reconstruct the past through material evidence and objective analysis.
• Yet in India, it has often become a contested field, where historical narratives are shaped as much by politics as by empirical findings.
• The recent controversy surrounding the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) and the Keeladi excavations highlights not only the struggle between scientific inquiry and political agendas, but also the institutional limitations of the ASI in sustaining credibility and scholarly integrity.

The Keeladi Excavations: A Challenge to Established Narratives

• The Objective of Keeladi Excavations
  • The Keeladi excavations in Tamil Nadu, initiated in 2014, quickly emerged as one of the most significant archaeological projects in India.
  • With over 7,500 artefacts unearthed in its early phases, the findings pointed to the existence of a literate, urban, and secular society in South India during the Early Historic Period.
  • By potentially bridging the historical gap between the Iron Age (12th–6th century BCE) and the Early Historic period (6th–4th century BCE), Keeladi questioned the prevailing narrative of India’s second urbanisation being centred solely around the Gangetic plains.
• The Politicisation of Keeladi
  • The project’s trajectory, however, was disrupted when its lead archaeologist, K. Amarnath Ramakrishna, was abruptly transferred in 2017.
  • The ASI simultaneously dismissed the site’s significance and halted further excavation, fuelling suspicion that institutional decisions were motivated by political sensitivities rather than scientific considerations.
  • This intervention provoked both scholarly criticism and political confrontation between the Tamil Nadu and Union governments.
• Intervention of Madras High Court
  • The Madras High Court eventually transferred the project to the Tamil Nadu State Department of Archaeology, which expanded the scope of discovery by unearthing over 18,000 artefacts.
  • The handling of Keeladi underscores a central issue: archaeology in India is not merely about uncovering the past, but about negotiating which versions of the past are permitted recognition.
  • By downplaying Keeladi’s implications for Dravidian antiquity, the ASI demonstrated how state institutions can constrain alternative historical narratives, even in the face of rigorous scientific evidence such as stratigraphic sequencing and Accelerator Mass Spectrometry dating.

Challenges Faced by the ASI

• Methodological Inconsistency and Selective Rigor
  • The Union government has argued that isolated findings cannot substantiate sweeping historical revisions without broader validation.
  • While such caution ostensibly reflects methodological rigour, the ASI’s track record reveals glaring inconsistency.
  • At Adichanallur, one of the earliest archaeological sites in Tamil Nadu, the rediscovery of Iron Age artefacts in 2004 was met with prolonged neglect.
  • Despite evidence suggesting a 3,000-year-old civilisation, the ASI delayed publication of results for over 15 years, requiring court intervention.
• Selective Caution
  • This selective embrace of caution or speculation suggests that the ASI’s commitment to rigour is often subordinate to ideological or political considerations.
  • On one hand, findings that complicate dominant narratives (such as Keeladi’s evidence of Dravidian urbanism) are dismissed as inconclusive; on the other hand, sites that reinforce mytho-historical or nationalist narratives are promoted with little hesitation.
  • Such double standards weaken the ASI’s credibility and reveal what scholars describe as methodological nationalism, an approach that privileges a singular, state-sanctioned vision of India’s past.

Institutional and Structural Weaknesses

• Scholars have long criticised the agency for arbitrary personnel decisions, reliance on outdated methods like the Wheeler system, and absence of comprehensive research frameworks.
• These factors contribute to the production of fragmented, poorly contextualised data, rather than coherent historical interpretations.
• Equally troubling is the ASI’s insularity.
• Unlike global counterparts such as the Deutsches Archäologisches Institut in Germany or the Institut National de Recherches Archéologiques Préventives in France, the ASI rarely publishes findings in peer-reviewed academic journals.
• Instead, it circulates knowledge internally through monographs and bulletins, limiting scholarly scrutiny and international engagement.
• This lack of transparency fuels suspicion, stifles debate, and prevents Indian archaeology from contributing fully to global scholarship.

The Way Forward: Toward Reform and Renewal

• To restore its credibility, the ASI must undergo comprehensive reform.
• First, structural changes are needed to reduce bureaucratic interference and ensure financial and intellectual autonomy.
• Second, methodological innovation must replace outdated excavation techniques, accompanied by robust peer review and international collaboration.
• Third, transparency in publishing findings should become a priority, enabling global scrutiny and engagement.
• Finally, archaeology in India must embrace a plural epistemic framework, one that acknowledges the diversity of the subcontinent’s past rather than subsuming it into a monolithic national narrative.

Conclusion

• The controversies surrounding the ASI and the Keeladi excavations are symptomatic of larger tensions within Indian archaeology.
• Unless the ASI reorients itself toward openness, rigour, and inclusivity, it risks further eroding its legitimacy and credibility as the custodian of India’s archaeological heritage.
• At stake is not just the fate of individual excavation sites, but the very possibility of reconstructing India’s past in all its complexity and plurality.