Shereen Ratnagar

#40/100 in #100extraordinarywomen

Back in the days when archaeology was a developing discipline, it was – like so many things – dominated by men. Or so you would think if you only looked at Wikipedia’s archaeology page. In fact, some of the discipline’s most significant early developments were forged by women. Jane Dieulafoy, Gertrude Bell, Harriet Boyd Hawes, Kathleen Kenyon, Tatiana Proskouriakoff and Jacquetta Hawkes are just a handful of some of the boldest women from the early days of archaeology who were determined to push things forward in new and important ways. In the modern times, one such name that stands out in this excessively male dominated field is that of Shereen Ratnagar.

In the early days of nation building the past was used as a nation-building force. Many notions of Indian civilization had already been projected by the colonial administration and the early Indologists. The Harappan past was then seen through this lens. But how “Indian” was the Indus Valley Civilization, was a question often asked. Could it have been organized on the lines of caste, and could it have been an age without war, as has often been suggested? Shereen Ratnagar, a noted scholar investigating aspects of the Indus Civilization, has tried to answer these very pressing questions through her works. 

Shereen was educated at Deccan College, Pune, University of Pune. She studied Mesopotamian archaeology at the Institute of Archaeology, University College London. She was a professor of archaeology and ancient history at the Centre for Historical Studies at the Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi. Shereen gave up her Professorship in Archaeology when “it ceased to be fun” and has since been researching and teaching in various places. Her interests include the bronze age, trade, urbanism, pastoralism, and, recently, the social dimensions of early technology. She writes extensively and authoritatively on archaeological matters. Her books are widely read by students, teachers and scholars, of course, but also by the general reader. Her style of writing is friendly and accessible, which makes reading her a pleasure. She retired in 2000, and is currently an independent researcher living in Mumbai. She is noted for work on investigating the factors contributing to the end of the Indus Valley Civilization. She is the author of several texts and her books include ‘Understanding Harappa’ (Tulika, 2006), ‘The End of the Great Harappan Tradition’ (Manohar, 2002), ‘Trading Encounters from the Euphrates to the Indus in the Bronze Age’ (Delhi: Oxford 2004), ‘The Other Indians’ (Delhi: Three Essays 2006) and ‘Makers and Shapers: Early Indian Technology in the Household, Village and Urban Workshop’ (Delhi: Tulika 2007). 

Usually keeping a low profile and fiercely guarding her private life, Shereen came into limelight thanks to the Ayodhya controversy. Shereen along with archaeologist D. Mandal had spent a day, in 2003, examining the excavations conducted by the Archaeological Society of India (ASI) at the site of the Babri Masjid on behalf of the Sunni Waqf Board. Subsequently, the two researchers wrote a highly critical appraisal of the excavations by the ASI titled ‘Ayodhya: Archaeology after Excavation’. In 2010, they appeared as expert witnesses for the Sunni Waqf Board in the Ram Janmabhoomi-Babri Masjid case in the Allahabad High Court. In its judgement on the Ayodhya dispute, the High Court flayed the role played by several witnesses including her, who was forced to admit under oath that she had no field experience in archeological excavations in India. Shereen and her supporters defend her record by stating that she has participated in some archaeological digs at sites outside India, such as Tell al-Rimah, Iraq, in 1971, as well as in Turkey and the Gulf. Earlier in the case, Shereen was also served a contempt notice for violating a court order restraining witnesses in the ongoing case from airing their views in public.

Once again, she recently came into the limelight when Ashutosh Gowarikar’s movie, ‘Mohenjo Daro’, was released and was shrouded in controversy regarding historically inaccurate and politically controversial flashing of horses and the use of heavily Sanskritised dialogues in the film. When the film revived the age-old debate around the Harappan civilization, many journalists reached out to Shereen to gather her views on the controversial issues surrounding the civilisation.

However, controversies or no controversies, it cannot be denied that Shereen is by far an authority on the Harappan civilization and her immense contribution to its study cannot be underestimated. 

Source: Wikipedia and Google search.