Partition, Ownership of the Harappan Civilisation, Sibling Feud and National Identity Construction of India and Pakistan

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This article discusses the political roots of the ongoing complex historical debates about the Ghaggar-Saraswati (or Vedic-Harappan) theory in India and its impact on national identity construction in India and Pakistan. Following the partition of British India in 1947, then known ancient sites of Harappan civilisation were mainly located in Pakistan, which promptly claimed exclusive ownership of this civilisation to trouble India. Clearly upset, a section of Indian scholar-bureaucrats challenged Pakistan’s claims over the Harappan civilisation by rebranding it as the Ghaggar-Saraswati (Vedic-Harappan) civilisation. The ensuing debates and actions are usually explained as an ideological conflict of anxieties, juxtaposing Hindu communalists and left-liberal secularists in Indian academia. However, this article presents a novel argument, showing that the existing academic discourses miss important points. It identifies that the conflicting claims of India and Pakistan on ownership of the Harappan civilisation contain elements of a typical struggle between two estranged siblings fighting over their ancestral inheritance. While squabbling over the shared Harappan heritage, however, neither nation seems fully at ease with the geopolitical consequences of the partition, which divided not only their ancestral lands, but also affected their shared ancient cultural history. Both successor nations of British India, engaged in their respective anxious processes of national identity construction, have focused not only on ‘the other’, but also grapple with ambivalent elements of their cherished ancient heritage. The article also shows that, in India, anger over Pakistan’s claims has fed some nationalist excesses, which need to be critically re-examined.