The Personality of India: Pre- and Proto-historic Foundation of India and Pakistan c5.1

c5.1

This essay on Indian archaeology was the outcome of my election to the Presidency of the Archaeology section of the XVIII All-India Oriental Conference held at Annamalainagar in December 1955. The concept of the geographic personality of India as a homogeneous unit has been so deeply imprinted in the mind of an average Indian, that it has led to a good deal of loose thinking. One can easily notice a tendency to expect a uniform development of culture throughout the Sub-continent in space and time. Opposed to this concept, there has developed, particularly outside India, an equally unwarranted assumption on the basis of the survival of certain tribes and other backward communities and the consequent differential development. This takes for granted a late development and the result of it has been a fashion to push down the dates to later periods by mixing up the evidence from the progressive and backward areas. These contradictory hypotheses were brought home to the author during his visit to London in 1954. This essay was formulated and its first draft was prepared there. It attempts a rational and objective approach to the problem of the development of material culture in India, with the object of clearing the decks for further study.