Bureaucratic archaeology : state, science and past in postcolonial India /
"Past has played a formidable role in the self-fashioning of the modern Indian nation-state. Along with historical narratives, archaeology materiality has significantly contributed to the reimagination of India as a contiguous entity spanning more than five thousand years. The institutional cor...
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| Format: | Book |
| Language: | English |
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Cambridge, United Kingdom ; New York, NY :
Cambridge University Press,
2021.
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| Series: | South Asia in the social sciences.
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| Subjects: |
| Summary: | "Past has played a formidable role in the self-fashioning of the modern Indian nation-state. Along with historical narratives, archaeology materiality has significantly contributed to the reimagination of India as a contiguous entity spanning more than five thousand years. The institutional core of the production of ancient materiality for the last hundred and fifty years has been the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI). The demolition of Babri Mosque in 1992, the subsequent communal violence and political machination of Hindu fundamentalists has pushed archaeology and its meaning into sharp focus in the Indian political universe. The 2003 Ayodhya excavation by the ASI and the 2010 judgment by the Allahabad High Court adjudicating the presence of a temple under the demolished medieval Mosque have put the archaeological practices of the ASI under severe scrutiny. The excavation practices of the ASI has been questioned, debated and disputed in the quagmire of Indian public sphere. This book steps into this contested world and provides a critical, theoretically nuanced, empirically rich insight into the making of past in contemporary India. It is an anthropological investigation of bureaucratic archaeology in the times of science, religion and politics. It negotiates the institutional world of ASI, now fraught with troubled colonial legacy, slow governmental machinery and entrenched disenchantment amongst its ranks and file. Bureaucratic Archaeology lays open this social universe of postcolonial archaeologists and demonstrates the impact of administrative structures on the daily practice of knowledge production"-- |
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| Physical Description: | xxxiv, 328 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm. |
| Bibliography: | Includes bibliographical references and index. |
| ISBN: | 9781316512395 1316512398 |