Found and Lost

It was in November 1954 that teams led by ASI archeologist S R Rao stumbled upon Lothal after a village to village survey of the Sabarmati valley. The excavations were carried out till 1962.

This was an impressive discovery but it’s obviously impressed the country little. Why else would none of the agencies concerned have no plans to mark its golden jubilee? ‘‘There’s no proposal for any programme,’’ says ASI joint director-general, R K Sharma in Delhi.

The Tourism Corporation of Gujarat Limited (TCGL) shrugs off its responsibility by transferring it to the ASI. ‘‘Lothal is under ASI so they have to organise any event,’’ says TCGL Managing Director, Arvind Agrawal. Agrawal agrees that facilities for tourists need to be improved, but adds that as part of new tourism policy TCGL can only act as a facilitator.

‘‘It’s unfortunate that at such an important place there is no proper arrangement even for a cup of tea for visitors. We have been thinking of it but it’s not remunerative with the low number of visitors. We can provide all help to the private sector, even low cost land, but someone has to take the initiative,’’ says Agrawal.

FIFTY years is a long time but not long enough to have resolved the controversy over Lothal’s identity. Historians agree that initiating new studies on this would be a fitting tribute to Lothal in its golden jubilee year.

In his Bangalore home, Rao—the man who stumbled upon Lothal—still swears by the ‘dockyard’ theory. ‘‘I feel proud that it has become an indexed site for study of IVC all over the world,’’ says 83-year-old Rao. He maintains that Lothal added a maritime province to IVC and gave a larger exploratory framework for archaeologists and historians.

On the ‘dockyard-water tank’ controversy, first raised by British archaeologist L S Leshnik in 1968, Rao says: ‘‘Leshnik has not completely studied the basin. There are certain evidences that are conclusive and leave little scope for second opinion.’’

Those who differ with Rao cite the presence of three wells in the basin of the dockyard as a proof that it’s just a water tank. M S University of Baroda professor, V H Sonawane, who favours the water tank theory, says new studies are needed. ‘‘To mark 50 years, maybe trenching can be done of the channel that connected the river with the dock. If the channel is found, the width and other dimensions of it would help us know if at all maritime activities were possible through it,’’ he says.

But the establishment prefers the status quo. ‘‘Even if as a student of archaeology I feel that it can not be a dockyard, we would rather let it be like this,’’ says a senior ASI official.