There’s no denying that archaeologist-historian Professor Makhan Lal is jittery, fielding attacks for writing the history and social science textbooks for NCERT that misses out on Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination, criminalises cow slaughter in ancient times, merges the Harappan-Vedic civilization and nearly names the Aryans an indigenous race of the subcontinent. Even before the interview begins, Prof Lal pulls out Ancient India: Land of Mystery (the Lost Civilization series, TimeLife) and Jonathan Mark Kenoyer’s Ancient Cities of the Indus Valley Civilization to prove he is not alone in claiming that women in Harappa wore red pigments (sindoor) in their hair parting. A votary of the Ayodhya temple theory (it got him into trouble during the World Archaeology Congress in Delhi), Lal taught at Aligarh Muslim University for 12 years before shifting to set up the Delhi Institute of Heritage Management. He spoke to Santwana Bhattacharya.The NCERT has been extremely secretive about the authors writing the new social science and history textbooks. It didn’t even disclose their names to Parliament.THE way an unnecessary controversy was created over the NCERT’s National Curriculum Framework, (J S) Rajput (the NCERT director) was right in not disclosing the names. We, the authors, would have been hounded by the media. Self-appointed critics dissected the books even before they were written. It was a perfectly wise decision not to make the names known till the draft was approved.Was it necessary to altogether reject the earlier textbooks and authors and have a completely new set?THE presentation of the earlier books is wrong. Parliament approved the review and the need to have a new curriculum framework. Restructuring was done to give the students a composite book merging geography, civics and history. A new book had to be written—history was part of it. I have great respect for Romila Thapar, R S Sharma and Bipin Chandra. But the books they wrote 30 years ago had lost relevance. Archaeology and history have changed. But they refused to accept recent theories, they’ve stopped being open to the latest research and hold on to 50-year-old theories as dogmas!It’s alleged that your (Class VI and IX) Social Science books distort facts to subtly introduce a concept of Hindu superiority which would not accomplish any upgradation of knowledge.IF Thapar, Sharma or Chandra is chosen to update books, there would be nothing wrong! But if Makhan Lal is called, it becomes comparable to Nazi Germany. It was left to the NCERT to choose the writers. I was chosen because of my reputation as an archaeologist and historian who is abreast of the latest findings.Did your association with the Ayodhya theory help in your selection?I AM amazed that I am being bracketed with the Ayodhya movement. I have neither written for nor against Ayodhya, though I have always kept myself abreast of (archaeological) developments on Ayodhya. I’ve taught at the Aligarh Muslim University for 12 years. Apart from vague allegations, nobody has linked me with the VHP’s Ayodhya movement. I’m neither associated with Devendra Swarup/S P Gupta (pro-Sangh historians) nor am I associated with the likes of R S Sharma/Irfan Habib. I have maintained a safe distance from both (camps).Are you denying all association with Gupta and Lal? Does this mean you withdraw the archaeological credence you were lending to the Ayodhya movement?I DON’T deny my personal friendship or regard for them. But it should not be confused with academic work or my archaeological research since 1978. As for the Ayodhya movement, the matter is in court. Some two months ago, the court pronounced that anybody who talks on the Ayodhya issue will be served contempt notices. Three of my books and 80-odd articles are there in the public realm and I stick to them.What position are you taking on the Aryan invasion theory in the Class XI textbooks?WHAT I am saying is: let’s have a free and fair debate. I am not saying they have come or not come. The Aryan race theory was, and remains, a political issue. A great number of books—secret private files of British civil servants, missionaries, Western historians and Sanskritists—are available in published form. There is hardly anything academic about the current debate.Your view and analysis of historical events has often described as Brahminical.THIS is a motivated campaign, without any evidence. I am not a cook that I will produce new recipes. I am not here to praise Hinduism and denigrate Islam or vice versa. Evidence is what I go by.But historians and experts of ancient Indian literature and society are refuting your claim that cow slaughter was a punishable offence?I HAVE written in the Class VI and XI books that cattle was eaten, it was classified into buffalo, bulls and calves but not cows. It is important to differentiate between the meat of any other cattle and the cow. It is not that the entire cow family was held sacred, it was only the cow. Exactly the way not every woman is a mother. We have different relations in society. A cow was clearly given a special status—that of Aghnya—in Hindu society. Which means it cannot be injured or killed. I say this with authority. The original reading of the Vedas back me, especially the Rig and Atharva Vedas. The Atharva Veda very clearly says death penalty. Those who can’t read Sanskrit can check with the English translations.You have given a new twist to the concept of zero, saying it was fully developed in a mathematical sense in the early Vedic age.IN the Rig Veda, it is mentioned that the price of a small statue of Indra is 10 cows or 100 Nishks (a denomination in coins). Then further, it is said the sabha (hall) of Indra had 1,000 pillars. Now the point is, how can the concept of one, ten and thousand be imagined without a concept of zero?How could you blank out Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination (and its perpetrator)?I DIDN’T write it. Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination was certainly one of the most important events in the history of the nation. It should not have been overlooked even by mistake. It was not intentional.
