Most Indians have read about Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro, the later has been made more popular by the Bollywood film which features Hrithik Roshan in leading role. These are the two major cities from the ancient Indus Valley Civilisation.
It is rather unfortunate that not many are aware of the vast expanse of the spread of the Indus Valley Civilisation, which included many more sites which are now in India;
Rakhigarhi is one of them.
Around 150 kms north-west of Delhi, Rakhigarhi is located in Hisar district of Haryana. The Nehru Science Centre, Mumbai, that is closed for public because of COVID-19 lockdown, is holding a virtual lecture-cum-presentation by Prof Vasant Shinde, former Vice Chancellor, Deccan College, Pune.
Prof Shinde has lead the excavation team at Rakhigarhi, which has been in the news for quite some time particularly for their findings on the “Out of India”, migration theory which in a way also has suggested that there is a flaw in the Aryan or Steppe migration theory, which has been the established norm until now.
It is in this sense that the lecture on the excavation and findings from the Rakhigarhi site by the team leader Prof Vasant Shinde, has evinced a lot of interest and buzz. Nehru Science Centre, which has a huge following from school students, feels that this lecture will give students a new insight and perspectives to the Harappan civilisation that the students learn in their classes.
Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro were just two cities of the Indus Civilisation. The civilisation has revealed that there are several other major excavation sites, which belonged to this civilisation, that are as fascinating as the Harappa and Mohenjo-Daro, are now in India.
These include among other sites, Dholavira, Lothal and many more including Rakhigarhi, which was excavated by Prof Shinde and his team, the scientific paper on the DNA analysis of the Harappan skeleton from Rakhigarhi claims that there was no Aryan invasion and no Aryan migration and that all the developments right from the hunting-gathering stage to modern times in South Asia were done by indigenous people. This has created a lot of discussion and interest in this new finding.
The lecture on 9 May by Prof Shinde will address some of these issues.
"During the lockdown period, the centre has been vibrantly active on the digital platform organising programmes which range from live sky observation, to webinar lecture, panel discussions, fancy dress contest to quizzes, to quest and various other programmes," said Shivaprasad Khened, Director Nehru Science Centre, Mumbai.
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