D. P. Agrawal



D. P. Agrawal (Dharma Pal Agrawal), born on 15 March 1933, is a historian of Indian science and technology, archaeologist, and author. He has published works on Indian archaeology, metallurgy, the history of science, and palaeoclimate.

Quotes

 * The Indus civilization is still alive today.
 * As quoted in Bernard Sergent: Genèse de l’Inde, p.128. The quoted phrase, which Sergent dismisses in footnote (p.425, n.146) as “a Hindu nationalist myth”, is from Dharma Pal Agrawal: L’Archéologie de l’Inde, CNRS, Paris 1986, p.2., quoted in Elst, Koenraad (1999). Update on the Aryan invasion debate New Delhi: Aditya Prakashan.

Quotes about D. P. Agrawal

 * The modern situation is no less intriguing. After the first crop of radiocarbon dates from the Indus sites, D P Agrawal, who, as the Secretary of the Radiocarbon Committee of the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, had a hand in obtaining some of them, argued that these dates, could not suggest anything earlier than 2400 BC as the date of the beginning of the mature Indus civilization. He believed that this tallied with Wheeler’s opinion that the Indus- Mesopotamia contact did not date before Sargon, forgetting that radiocarbon dates are not historical dates. Agrawal represents some Indian archaeologists of the 1960s and 1970s, who considered it unsafe to go beyond the hitherto accepted framework of Indian archaeology. The premise was that any argument in favour of an earlier Indian past would not be ‘scientific’ and would, more damagingly be termed ‘nationalistic’.
 * Chakrabarti, D. K. (2009). Who Owns the Indian Past?: The Case of the Indus Civilization.