The age of historical disagreements

India Today

2 days ago

(NOTE: This article was originally published in the India Today issue dated June 9, 2025)In times when historical controversies can raise enough dust to bury entire civilisations, the ancient Tamil site of Keezhadi has re-emerged as a flashpoint. The Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) has asked the site's lead archaeologist to revise his final report of January 2023—essentially, to locate the site on a much later timeline than the 6th-8th century BC originally suggested by the evidence.advertisementThis has sparked fresh allegations of political interference in historical research. 'Post-dating' the site would take away all the excitement from a discovery that had conferred greater civilisational depth to Tamil Nadu, pushing back its Sangam era by three centuries.Archaeologist K. Amarnath Ramakrishna, who led the early phases of excavation, has rejected the ASI's demand, stating that he stands by his 982-page report. His conclusions, he says, were based on unimpeachable scientific methods like stratigraphy and accelerator mass spectrometry. The state of the art in radiocarbon dating, the latter method has a precision of 40 years for recent antiquity.
A MATTER OF TIMETo be sure, Keezhadi still awaits full scholarly consensus, specifically on whether the prime evidence for antiquity—potsherds with early Tamil inscriptions—are coeval with the carbon-dated charcoal layers. Also, whether its ceramic style accords with ancient Tamil Nadu's pottery chronology. But the ASI's May 2025 letter doesn't just seek corroboration. It calls for 'necessary corrections' and insists the earliest layer not be dated before 300 BC. Ramakrishna isn't the only one who spies a prejudicial edge in the ASI adopting such an approach to 'well-reasoned findings'. For many in the South, it's part of a broader pattern—one where 'science is subordinated to ideology, and archaeological evidence inconvenient to the dominant historical narrative is sidelined'.advertisement
Keezhadi offers signs of a literate, urban Tamil civilisation along the Vaigai river dating back over 2,600 years. Nearby sites like Agaram and Konthagai buttress that idea, with some lines of inquiry even suggesting possible evolutionary links of early Tamil-Brahmi to the Indus script. The trouble this runs into, of course, is that it challenges the Centre's Vedic-centred view of antiquity. Hence, the ASI missive is seen by many experts less as pure academic scrutiny, more as a formal curb on the kind of story Keezhadi can tell. If fully unfurled, that narrative can subvert the privileged space conferred on the Vedic/Sanskritic lineage, suggesting a parallel civilisational track in the South—with its own language, script and cultural norms. A putative continuum with Harappa would deepen that further.Just as Keezhadi's findings were gaining national and international attention, Ramakrishna was abruptly transferred from Tamil Nadu to Assam in 2017 and ASI-led excavations slowed, later declaring no significant discoveries. In response, the state archaeology department took over Keezhadi work. Over time, that unearthed over 7,500 artefacts that buttressed Ramakrishna's conclusion.advertisementThat hasn't been enough, it seems, to persuade New Delhi. 'The ASI has never been eager to acknowledge Keezhadi's truths,' says CPI(M) MP and writer S. Venkatesan, who has written extensively on Keezhadi. 'The BJP pushes mythology as history, but it works just as hard to erase our real past. But Tamil antiquity cannot be erased by government order.'BJP leader Tamilisai Soundararajan counters that the Centre had funded the initial excavation. 'The report was likely returned for administrative reasons, perhaps to avoid future questions,' she says. In response, Venkatesan asks: 'Why did you stop funding? If an excavation yields nothing, you may stop. But Keezhadi yielded everything. You stopped because what was discovered unsettled the very history you have been narrating.'Subscribe to India Today Magazine