River Dog

Title: River Dog – A Journey Down the Brahmaputra

Author: Mark Shand

Publisher: Abacus, 2012 (First published 2002)

ISBN: 978-0-349-11514-6

Pages: 332

 
Another travel story by a foreigner through India, another nice piece of travelogue that is a tribute to the country. Even with shortfalls and want of infrastructure, mother India attracts visitors from far and wide to her bosom. Mark Shand is diehard traveler – he has spent much of his life travelling. He has ridden through the Andes on horseback, completed the London – Sydney motor race, been shipwrecked in the Pacific while attempting to sail around the world and made a tour of Bengal on an elephant. He is a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society and associates with many conservation groups worldwide. This book presents the story of Shand’s travels through the Brahmaputra river where it flows through India and Bangladesh. The mighty river is known by many names, Tsangpo in Tibet where it originates, Siang in Arunachal Pradesh and Jamuna, Padma and Meghna in Bangladesh where it flows into the Bay of Bengal. The author was unable to obtain permission for travelling through Tibet and he made up for the shortfall with a truly memorable journey through the Indian and Bangladeshi territory. To add a curious detail to the arrangements, Shand was accompanied by a street dog from Assam, christened Bhaiti. The end result is an unforgettable account of a trip through the artery of Assam. Traversing the entire length of the Brahmaputra is remarked upon the last great adventure in Asia, but judging from the truncated passage described in the book, it may seem that the author got fed up by roadblocks raised by the authorities at every step of the voyage.

A travel of this sort needs a wide network to arrange things and material. Apart from commercial establishments, Shand’s extensive friend network is also mobilized at times. This is an aspect of Indian nature that is at odds with its proud remembrance of heritage. Whenever we Indians see a white foreigner, we shed all our inhibitions and scramble to provide help to him or her. This peculiar reaction may be a remnant of the servility some of our ancestors displayed to the British. This knows no boundaries between the common man, the rich or highly placed bureaucrats. We listen to anecdotes when Shand obtained what he sought, with a song, to say. Maybe that is one of the reasons why accounts of cross country travel come from European or American authors alone. Foreigners have an unfair advantage in getting help from Indians. Likewise Shand had a smooth way of things at Delhi and Guwahati and even with the military zonal headquarters at Kolkata which easily ratified the author’s itinerary even though the army was not informed of his travel through Arunachal Pradesh, which is declared as a sensitive area. The author reported at the army post in Gelling and told the problem. He had to stay put at the army base till his case got cleared from Kolkata and with full hospitality too! One would wonder what terrible hardship an Indian would have to undergo in a similar situation. 

The story is lucidly told with a streak of humour running prominent as the spine of the narrative. In fact, the travelogue is not at all great, by any stretch of the imagination, but the story told by Shand is so appealing and immersible that we would demur to put the book down. The author is so straightforward in his descriptions and his respect to India, her religion and customs is credit worthy. He wasted no opportunity to have a dip in the holy water whenever a chance presented itself. He visited temples, fairs and holy places with great respect to the pilgrims thronged at these places. However, such considerations do not prevent him from consuming non-vegetarian delicacies while on the trip. But here, we must all allow for the hardship and the harsh climate in order to grant pardon to him on this count.

Journey through Arunachal Pradesh along the banks of the Siang river (as Brahmaputra is called here) is very tough and filled with perils at every step in the form of bridges about to collapse, venomous snakes and poisonous beetles which he had to swallow alive. Maybe to relieve the rigor of the journey, Shand embarks on childish ventures like searching for the remains of wooden plates used for signaling by an ill-fated survey party in the 19^th century. Naturally, none was collected, but that was evident to the readers, right from the announcement of his intention to do so. Shand’s obsession with his street dog companion is also sure to elicit amused disdain from most Indian readers.         
     

The story also comes out with the pathetic conditions prevailing in Bangladesh in terms of poverty, overpopulation and lack of infrastructure. Not that India is exemplary on this front, but when compared to her neighbor, India seems to be far better. All travelers through Bangladesh have remarked about the country’s large population which has become literally unmanageable. Agriculture has not kept pace with it, partly due to severe annual flooding of the Brahmaputra which affects the whole nation.

The book is very appealing and is a page turner. This should be kept on one’s side for pleasant reading.

The book is highly recommended.

Rating: 3 Star

Debt – The First 5000 Years

Title: Debt – The First 5000 Years

Author: David Graeber

Publisher: Allen Lane, 2012 (First published 2011)

ISBN: 978-0-670-08652-8

Pages: 391

Debt is something we normally avoid, if at all possible. All moral and religious teachings exhort people to shun debt and promptly repay what we have borrowed. If they don’t, the creditors have the force of law behind them to seize and imprison the debtor or to forcefully take his possessions away. David Graeber examines the origins of this custom right from among the misty mornings of recorded history to its growth and development as witnessed in post-2008 financial markets of the United States. In this process, the book gives us a glimpse of world history, theories of economic development and anthropological case studies. The author’s selection of Greece, China and India for studies on ancient societies make the book appealing to serious readers interested in the social and economic development of Asia. Graeber teaches anthropology at the University of London and has authored several books on it and anarchy. In the summer of 2011, he worked with a small group of activists to plan Occupy Wall Street. Perhaps this rebellious trait is only too visible in the book’s story line, as he has wasted no opportunity to counter established wisdom – even the most basic parameter itself. His negation of the existence of barter as a mode of economic exchange ever, in societies is shocking, to put it mildly. But the book is very tedious to read. Graeber’s style is perhaps a bit too scholarly in that it puts off many readers due to unattractive content. It was sheer hard work, to finish reading the book!

The book begins by challenging the dictum of economics that before money was invented for commercial transactions, a system of barter existed in primitive societies. Adam Smith’s assertion on the existence of barter is accepted as received wisdom by scholars ever since his epochal ‘Wealth of Nations’ was published in 1776. But Graeber contests the postulate with his cleverly crafted argument that barter, in its pure sense, never existed in any society. Laden with the rich storehouse of anthropological studies, he goes on to provide many examples and logic to link all the parables he could muster, about primitive societies living in far-flung corners of the world that didn’t resort to barter. Money preceded barter, that is, barter was practiced in populations which had previous experience with money in the form of cowry shells, heads of cattle, number of slaves or precious metals even. When money is involved, debt also originated and the distinction between debt and obligation is spelt out. What makes debt different is that, it could be quantized, while obligation is more or less a moral concept. Graeber  gives a concise analysis of debt originating at three levels in ancient societies – primitive communism, hierarchy and exchange. All religious morals start with the assumption that men are equal, at least in spirit. Debt involves a temporary loss of that equality. Only when the debtor returns the favor does the original state of equality is redeemed. The author also notes a slew of commercial terms like debt, redeem, creditor, and such appearing in religious discourses often designed to heap scorn on the materialistic nature of these same commercial transactions. Becoming a debtor is treated like turning a criminal or a guilty person. The etymological origin of the term ‘debt’ in all European languages is from words reflecting on such grave ideas like ‘sin’ or ‘guilt’.

Graeber puts forward an analysis of world history through the perspective of debt. This effort is scholarly and the power of intuition and rationalization deserves acclaim. He divides history into four periods – First Agrarian Empires (3500-800 BCE), Axial Age (800 BCE – 600 CE), Middle Ages (600 – 1450 CE) and Great Capitalist Empires (1450-1971 CE), and then narrates how money played varied roles in each phase depending upon availability of precious metals for circulation. We may wonder why he has selected 1971 as the end of the age of Capitalist Empires. It was in this year when the United States brought its currency out of the gold standard. All relations between the currency and precious metals died at that point and the currency became valuable only upon the assurance of the government issuing it and guaranteed by its military prowess. Age of virtual credit dawned around this period and only a cursory narrative is given by Graeber.

Development of money as a medium of exchange occurred for the first time when trained professional soldiers took up positions in ancient armies. They were paid in kind, in the form of coinage made from loot of gold and silver acquired through wars. The kings then demanded that their taxes on the populace be paid through the medium of these coins. Naturally, for the lay people to get hold of the coins, they would have to render services and supply goods for the soldiers who possessed the currency. Keeping upon his track of rebellious tirades against established concepts, Graeber rubbishes the claim that the Middle Age was a period of darkness, by arguing that shortage of supply of money due to hoarding it up in Cathedrals, monasteries and temples had the salutary effect of the rise of virtual credit systems again.

The iconoclastic beginning of the book that, or at least claim to, shatter the roots of modern economic thinking originated from Adam Smith’s magnum opus makes the whole argument to be examined with a touch of skepticism.  I am not familiar with anthropology, to which genre this book belongs. But if such a work originated from science and its first principles and then went on to rubbish them, it would be relegated to the category of pseudo science and that would be the end of it, as far as readership is concerned. So, in that sense, can this book be classified as ‘pseudo economics’? I can’t say, that’s for experts to decide. But, when we learn of the author’s attacks on stock markets, venture capitalism and the established canons of international finance, we genuinely get compelled to keep the tome at arm’s length.

Even though India inherits the legacy of a great and ancient civilization, much of its development through the Bronze Age could not be studied, as the script is still not deciphered.  As a result, western authors more or less bypass the stream of knowledge from India and rarely look east of Greece. Some Orientals may cast a glance on China, which would be all about ancient civilization. Graeber proves a delightful contrast on this point. He had obviously read a great deal about India and her past. When presenting evidence for his theories as examples from historical societies, India is always included to prove convincingly that our own country, though different in many respects, invariably followed the universal trend in matters of slavery, coinage and warfare, to mention a few. This makes the arguments relevant to all parts of the globe.

As for the reading experience, this book is a sheer waste of time for most classes of readers. In fact, I am at a loss to point out any category of people who would find this book appealing. The title and layout are really eye catching, but that must be recognized as a trap. At the end of it all, we still doubt what the author had intended to convey. A lot of data is there; a great chunk of world history is there; a bit of anthropology too; but to what purpose? It is neither an economic history of money nor an anthropological chronicle of debt. The language is terse and rhetorical in most places, the only relief appearing occasionally as quotes from Nasiruddin Hodja’s stories. No amount of persuasion would prompt me (at least) to read the book again.

Even with all these pit falls, the author has produced some very nice generalizations, such as ‘Honour is Surplus Dignity’, ‘Wage labour is renting of one’s freedom, slavery is the selling,’ and the like. The book is endowed with a huge section of Notes, Bibliography and Index, which constitutes almost a quarter of the total volume. May be this is an indicator of the appeal of the book to general readers, whereas it is invaluable for serious readers and reference –seekers.

The book is not recommended.

Rating: 2 Star

God's Terrorists

Title: God’s Terrorists – The Wahhabi Cult and the Hidden Roots of Modern Jihad

Author: Charles Allen

Publisher: Little, Brown, 2006 (First)

ISBN: 978-0-316-72997-0

Pages: 349

Terrorism has been the most critical factor on global agenda, ever since the destruction of the World Trade Center in 2001. Almost the entire TV-viewing world knows who Osama bin Laden was and a few even know about the Wahhabi cult to which the master terrorist belonged. But the origin and development of the sect which envelops the whole of Saudi Arabia under its umbrella and protects the holy cities of Islam is a tale not told before in a popularly accessible book. Charles Allen does all this, in addition to linking it to the political unrest in India during the 19^th century and goes on to provide a sequel to that all, in the post-Soviet resurgence of Islamic terrorism. By a long stretch of logic and narration of events, Allen has succeeded in making an impression of presenting a credible history. But to an observant eye, the link turns out to be tenuous and the message implicit in the text is that the Indian Mutiny of 1857, or the First War of Independence, is nothing but a battle stimulated by calls of jihad (holy war) and the rebellion may be compared to acts of sabotage and terrorism indulged by the fidayeen (suicide) warriors exploding themselves in the crowded streets of Baghdad or Peshawar. This is utterly illogical and the author has completely missed the thread of religious unity which bound the nation together for a brief moment in 1857 before being frayed out again towards the disastrous partition of the country in 1947. Basically, the book is structured into three parts – origin and growth of Wahhabi cult in Arabia during the 18^th century, origin, growth and battles of fundamentalist and violent Islamic cults in India encouraged by the Wahhabi concept in 19^th century, and the origin and growth of international terrorism in the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union. All of these phenomena is presented as the direct effects of Wahhabi influence in terms of religious sanction, fighting men and petro-dollars. However, when the last page was turned, it was felt that this book is a byproduct of the research which he had for his earlier work Soldier Sahibs and that Allen had found a conveniently attractive theme of Wahhabism to join them.

The book presents a succinct picture of the origins and spread of Wahhabism in Arabia during the 18^th century and how the house of Saud, rulers of the land later, came to be associated with them. Mohammed ibn Abd al-Wahhab was born in 1702 in Nejd, in the hinterland of Arabian Peninsula where Riyadh is situated. He believed in a thoroughly bigoted and violent form of religion, taking inspiration directly from the Koran and the prophet’s deeds. His preaching was directed against his own Muslim fellows, whose corrupt practices Wahhab could not approve of. His ambitions touched a crucial stage in 1744 when he married off his daughter to the tribe of Mohammed ibn Saud, and forged an alliance with him with Wahhab as the Imam and Saud as the Amir. The Wahhabi cult, thus fortified, invaded other neighboring tribes and even annexed the holy cities of Mecca and Medina by 1804. By this time, the titles of temporal head and spiritual leader had been merged into the person of Abd al-Aziz ibn Saud, son of Mohamed, under whose banners Wahhabism turned into powerful military force. But, upon occupying holy cities, they chose to enforce their exclusivist religious ideals and stopped the Hajj pilgrimage and desecrating the tombs of Islam’s holiest men, situated in the city. This blatant act galvanized Islamic society into action by sending a strong Egyptian force under the aegis of the Ottoman Sultan, under whose jurisdiction the cities lay. Wahhabis were trounced and forced back to their desert homes. In the mean time, they had preached their first brand account of religion to pilgrims assembled from all parts of the globe. The Wahhabis came back to occupy their lost territories in the early part of 20^th century, which is the story of the ascendancy of the House of Saud as the rulers of present day Saudi Arabia.  

Charles Allen makes the connection between the spread of fanaticism in India with the short term fluorescence of Wahhabism in Arabia. Syed Ahemd, a preacher himself from Patna got converted to the new precept while doing Hajj. He recruited several followers and wanted to fight Jihad against the British and the Hindus. According to Islam, a Jihad is to be waged from a country where Islamic ideals are enshrined. So, the staging post has to be somewhere outside the British domains, or at least somewhere in the periphery. He established camp in Yusufzai hill country of Sittana on the north of Peshawar. Here, he defied the authorities, but was summarily defeated and killed by the Sikh army at Balakot in 1831. The first lighting up of Wahhabism was thus extinguished.

A rather detailed account of the 1857 mutiny is given in the book. Even though Allen tries his best to link Wahhabi fundamentalism to the outbreak of hostilities against the British, the evidence don’t support the farfetched conclusion. The entire native war effort is painted in the cold light of religious fanaticism without any supporting facts. By the author’s own account, Wahhabis failed to evoke any reaction among the public at Patna, where their head quarters was situated. This was achieved allegedly by keeping three senior clerics of the movement under preventive detention till the upset was extinguished. By this argument, the Wahhabis didn’t take part in the outrage. Then the author brings out a new point that there were two factions in the sect, called Delhi-ites and Patna-ites and that the former took active part in the uprising. Even if this aspect is factually correct, it does not in any way reflect upon the protagonists’ fanaticism as the real course of their joining the battle against the British. The same weak thread joins the Wahabis to the assassination of Lord Mayo, the Viceroy, while he was visiting the prison complex in the Andaman Islands. A Pathan, who was transported for life to the islands, stabbed the viceroy under cover of darkness. The government couldn’t establish any connection with the Wahhabis and the assassin’s intentions were not clearly understood. Even with this scant evidence, Allen spins a yarn about secret involvement of the fanatics in this gruesome murder. The latter part of the book deals with the punitive and disciplinary expeditions that were carried out by army against the restless Pathans in the North West Frontier province and the as yet unmarked boundary with Afghanistan. Here too, Allen presents a feeble case. The so called Hindustani fanatics, who were the Wahhabis, played only a minor role as evidenced by descriptions of the battles. The tribesmen, who were equally or more fanatic, and who considered outsiders to be not worthy of life engaged in brutal acts, which caused the British to intervene militarily. This seems to be the real thing, in a nutshell.  

But this counter argument is not at all intended to exonerate the Wahhabis and a large section of 19^th century Indian Muslims from the charge of bigotry. Many were fanatics who desperately wanted to hoist the green flag of Islam over India once again, after a gap of 150 years since the death of Aurangzeb. The Mughal dynasty’s loss of real power after 1707 resulted in the erosion of large swathes of territories, wealth and power from Muslim hands. The aristocracy entrenched in hereditary manners and some hardliners found this difficult to digest. To crown it all, we also read about the trenchant individualism and strict moral chores of the Pathan bound by tribal ethics, which treated all the insiders as brothers and the outsiders as mortal enemies.  

The book ends with a message on how to rein in growth of fundamentalism in Islamic nations. He exhorts the west to remove some of the issues that cause grievances in the Muslim world such as establishment of a viable state in Palestine and withdrawal of American forces from Iraq. This advice seems to be a product born out of pure naiveté. The hardliners among Muslims are doubtless few, but they exert an influence disproportionate to their numerical size, as the moderates don’t dare to speak out against them. These hardliners are now fully occupied at these two locations. It strife is removed from there, they will look at other places of struggle, and if they don’t find it, they will happily oblige to make them! Of course Palestine and Iraq need to be resolved in a way congenial to Palestines and Iraqis, but believing that Islamic fundamentalism will vanish with that is sheer folly.

This book may better be understood as a byproduct of the author’s research for his earlier work, ‘Soldier Sahibs’ reviewed earlier in this blog. As he confesses at one point, he failed to take cognizance of fanaticism as a factor in the strife going relentlessly on, in the North West. So, with the material already collected for the earlier work, Allen links the origin and spread of Wahhabism in Arabia as a plausible reason. However, as explained earlier, the connection is tenuous, or at least, Charles Allen failed to convincingly establish the connection.

The book is very well researched and is a starting ground for further research for interested readers. The excellent index and an impressive bibliography help a big deal in this regard. The book contains a few monochromatic illustrations, most of them water colour paintings which have not done justice to the content owing to poor clarity and appeal. A good glossary is also included to help the reader find out the meaning of Arab words used throughout.     

The book is recommended.

Rating: 3 Star

Finding Forgotten Cities

Title: Finding Forgotten Cities – How the Indus Civilization Was Discovered

Author: Nayanjot Lahiri

Publisher: Hachette India, 2011 (First published 2005)

ISBN: 978-93-5009-260-6

Pages: 436

Even a school child in India today knows about the first stirrings of his or her own civilization thousands of years on the shores of the Indus River. But how do we learn about the cultural and architectural details of ancient societies? Archeology is not a glamorous course of study for students of any generation, but more books of this genre is sure to kindle interest in many young minds to find out about the past societies, their achievements and how much we have borrowed (inherited, would be a better word) from them. Nayanjot Lahiri tells us about the exciting tale of how the Indus Civilization was discovered through painstaking work from a few dedicated men toiling on a shoestring budget and the culmination of it all in a scholarly article by Sir John Marshall in a prominent London weekly in September 1924. The book covers the background of archeological research in India, the major players it spawned, great cultural changes put forward by a visionary viceroy, Lord Curzon, and how major work came to be put on the shoulders of capable Indian scholars by the turn of the 20^th century. Being a professor of Archeology in the History Department of the University of Delhi and having made a thorough research on the annals of the Archeological Survey of India, the book exudes an air of authority about the conscientious work that went behind the discovery of India’s ancient civilization. Coincidentally, this book seems to be a sequel to the immediately earlier work reviewed in this blog – Charles Allen’s Ashoka – the Search for India’s Lost Emperor.

The first part of the book establishes the background of Marshall’s arrival in India and the decisive part played by Lord Curzon, viceroy, between 1895 and 1905. Curzon is vilified by Indian historians for his shrewd policies calculated to sow dissension among Indians, like his partition of Bengal on virtually communal lines. But he was a liberator of archeology from the clutches of bureaucrats who were bent on axing its funding whenever a financial trouble reared its head. In fact, Curzon was so fond of India so as to declare that “the sacredness of India haunts me like a passion” and had high opinions about Indian monuments so as to remark that they were “the most beautiful and perfect collection of monuments in the world”. So, when he re-established the post of Director General, he desired a young and energetic scholar on the post. Curzon overlooked the claim of Vincent Smith, who was a renowned author of a historical book on Ashoka on the ground that he was not sufficiently knowledgeable in archeology. John Marshall was very young – 25 years old, to be precise – but had a distinguished academic track record by his splendid work in excavating remnants of Cretan civilization in Greece. Probably Curzon wanted a pliant official who would bend to the overbearing diktats of the viceroy. The agenda and activities of the survey were charted by the viceroy himself and Marshall initially had nothing better to do than carrying out his master’s instructions to the letter. Curzon’s incursions didn’t end in suggestions. When Marshall decided to do an excavation in Bahrain, in the hope of turning up some artifacts linked to maritime trade, the viceroy vetoed the move at the last minute, causing much embarrassment and resentment to him. The chiding included a stark reminder that the Survey’s funds are not to be spent on idiosyncratic projects on foreign shores. Even after retirement, Curzon intervened on the Survey’s behalf. The book presents a benevolent picture of him as far as archeology is concerned.

Harappa garnered the attention of scholars from 1830 onwards, when Charles Masson visited the site and noted its mounds. In 1852 Alexander Cunningham made some diggings in his capacity as the director general of the Survey. Marshall came to know about seals obtained from the site that were kept in London’s British museum. In the early years, Marshall was not interested in Harappa and the archeological work there was undertaken by his assistants and only for namesake. While this lukewarm state of things was existing there, a tragic episode was being unfurled towards the east in Rajasthan. Lahiri devotes three chapters to narrate the life story of an unfortunate Italian scholar Luigi Pio Tessitori, who came to excavate the site at Kalibangan in Bikaner state. Tessitori’s work is the first comprehensive description of an Indus site. However, he hesitated to publish the results when he was confused by the seals obtained from the digs. Instead, he continued to gather opinion from experts. He then suddenly died in an attack of Spanish Influenza in 1919 while sailing to India from Italy. The information on the Kalibangan seals also died with him.

Lahiri describes the story of the discovery, or rather, the recognition that what was obtained from Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro had been the relics of a single overarching civilization that flourished along the river valleys of Indus and her tributaries. Antiquities like terracotta seals, pottery, clay bangles and toys were regularly found from those places, but it took unusually long – of course, with hindsight – to deduce the similarity, the common thread that joins the finds. The excavations of these sites were held under Indians, Harappa by Daya Ram Sahni and Mohenjo-Daro by Rakheldas Banerji who were among the first generation native scholars incubated under the careful wings of the Survey. It seems that archeology also was not free from the pathetic work culture of the government. We came to understand that these two scions of Indian archeology were ignorant of the works of each other, and as a result, it fell upon their English Boss, Sir John Marshall to work out the spirit that underlay the findings of his juniors. Even then, the deduction was not truly independent. Madho Sarup Vats, another Indian official who was deputed for excavation at Mohenjo-Daro in place of an ailing Banerji first thought of a connection between what he was digging up in Sindh with that of Harappa,  a couple of hundreds of miles distant in the Punjab. Lahiri illustrates a classic tale of how the credit is appropriated to the boss, in a department strictly following rules of hierarchy. Marshall is no doubt a good scholar, but his first hand information on the Indian cities was rather limited. He completely delegated the field trials to his subordinates. In fact, the author wonders at the lack of the impulse seen among archeology professionals – that of setting foot on the place of an important find, just for the pleasure of it. When Marshall declared to the world of the Survey’s findings of civilization that remained in the dark till 1924, the simple fact was that he had not visited the places in the near past, and the material were summoned to Shimla, where Marshall’s office was situated.

One of the points to be argued in favor of the book is that it describes the damages done to ancient monuments by ordinary people and scholars alike. Normally foreign authors miss this point and heaps scorn on the former, being the ignorant subjects of a colony. But Lahiri describes the damages done by scholars too, especially that of Alexander Cunningham, a former director general of the survey at Sanchi when he drove a shaft through the remains of a stupa there.

As a curious aside, the book also brings to light the incongruent character of R D Banerji, who was pivotal in the development of the story. We come to know of an insubordinate person who was a constant thorn in the flesh of his superiors, particularly when financial transactions were involved. Lahiri paints him with a cloud of suspicion by giving occasion for doubt while listing out instances when the authorities turned against him for his trumped up transportation expenses, exaggerated prices while buying archeological curiosities from private vendors and also, while failing to provide proper accounts for the expenditure. Banerji also tried to appear that he had recognized the link between Indus cities while personally excavating in Sindh. This is described as recognition in retrospect. In addition to this he jumped to conclusions regarding the racial characteristics of the people who authored the city in the ancient past. His conclusion that they were Dravidians were not based on any evidence and Lahiri admonishes him for confusing a concept based on language with that of race. Altogether, R D Banerji is portrayed in a non-flattering light and may be the author was trying to expose an ugly face of archeology that hitherto stayed in darkness.

The book is embellished with a good section on Notes and further reading. Also, the index is really nice for a book of this sort. The book includes some photographs and illustrations, but a few more of these would do no harm to the feel of the book.

The book is recommended.

Rating: 3 Star