Book Review | The politics beneath the soil: The Dig shows why Keeladi still ignites Tamil pride

To say that Keeladi changed the way people in South India, particularly Tamil Nadu, view archaeological excavations isn’t an exaggeration. The Sangam Era site near Madurai did not merely rekindle ordinary Tamils’ interest in their past; it filled them with real pride too.

Until Keeladi’s discovery in 2014 by the Archaeological Survey of India’s K Amarnath Ramakrishna, historians believed large-scale urbanisation thrived only in the northern part of India, with the South lagging far behind.

But Keeladi disproved that long-held notion, as archaeologists unearthed an expanse of brick walls and ring wells from beneath the earth.

Over the past decade, nearly 20,000 artefacts have been unearthed from this site, making it contemporaneous with North India’s Gangetic civilisation. In 2019, the Tamil Nadu State Department of Archaeology (TNSDA) announced that the site is 2,600 years old, armed with AMS dating.

Journalist Sowmiya Ashok’s The Dig offers a fascinating account of the Keeladi excavations, the politics swirling around the site, and how political battles over science and history continue to shape our understanding of India’s past.

“In Tamil Nadu, Keeladi is no longer just a name; it has become an emotion,” Sowmiya writes. And she is right — Tamils, over the years, began referring to the archaeological site as nam thai madi (our mother’s lap), signifying the deep emotional connection the village evoked.

While exploring how politics has always played a key role in interpreting archaeological findings, Sowmiya lucidly explains how Keeladi got caught in the age-old Dravidian-versus-Aryan divide.

While Dravidian parties in Tamil Nadu took great pride in Keeladi, flaunting the absence of religious markers, the BJP government, which insists on a homogenous Hindu identity, still has problems accepting findings from Keeladi. She also subtly reveals why excavations in Tamil Nadu were drawn into politics.

Though she weaves the book around Keeladi, Sowmiya travelled extensively across India to share glimpses of the country’s rich and glorious past, how excavations are planned and executed, and the scientific study of cultural deposits buried deep underground.

From Sivagalai in Tamil Nadu’s Thoothukudi district — the earliest Iron Age site known anywhere in the world — to Keeladi, to Rakhigarhi (a major Harappan site), to the lost port of Muziris in Kerala, to Lucknow, and to Hyderabad, to meet archaeologists and scientists, she uses her journalistic brilliance to narrate the past with striking clarity.

She even gives a sneak peek at Harappan sites in Pakistan — hold your breath, she didn’t visit our neighbour — but virtually enjoyed exploring the magnificent urban life of Mohenjo-daro through a kind-hearted Pakistani tour guide. The author donned several hats on her journey, letting her inner foodie shine through.

It is delightful when Sowmiya admits she ate so much while researching in Madurai that she could piece together a whole goat from all the bits.

Aromatic biryani, suva roti (goat’s spleen), liver, parotta, kidney, uthappam, and venkaya kari — Sowmiya has savoured them all, capturing Madurai’s vibrant flavours and the city’s role in Tamil culture.

In a way, the author has written a travelogue, painting vivid scenes as she packed her bags to roam India. And her humour shines through in tales of travel and chats with a cross-section of people.

The book also explains in detail why Keeladi is still celebrated by Tamils, one of the reasons being that the archaeological findings validate the Sangam text, effectively busting the theory that they were mere poetic indulgences. To grasp this Tamil literary treasure, Sowmiya took a two-month crash course in Sangam poetry.

Many historians say history is not just about empires, kings, and their wars, but essentially about people. Sowmiya gets this, lending her ear to the ground and amplifying voices like those of archaeological officers, who rarely get noticed.

She also brings out the emotions and people behind the excavations — those central to the sites, like the archaeologists who painstakingly dig the ground and collect samples for scientific analyses, the lifestyle of the ancient inhabitants, and how they lived.

Be it Amarnath, the archaeologist who first excavated Keeladi and is now locked in a running battle with his employer, ASI; teacher Balasubramanian, who spotted the first potsherds in the village; Nathar Mohammed, whose family gave up land; or epigraphist Vedachalam — she spent enough time with them to draw out gripping stories.

Most strikingly, she spotlights the labourers who dug the trenches under archaeologists’ watch, revealing a distinct Tamil culture and their deep affinity for their language.

The book also probes whether Ramakrishna’s early comparison of Keeladi to the Indus Valley Civilisation, echoed in Tamil Nadu, fuelled the political tussle. She explains how teams scout sites, like Ramakrishna’s, who surveyed Madurai’s length, breadth, and the Vaigai riverbed to pinpoint Keeladi.

The Dig is not just one archaeological site’s story. It is about how excavations in India get filtered through politics, not pure science.