Abstract: The present talk emphasizes the relation between the development of social theories during colonial period - such as Orientalism, romanticism, utilitarianism and Hegelian idealism as well as universal history - and interpretation on Indian antiquities from late eighteenth and early nineteenth century to 1947. As a reaction to the colonial discourses in varied forms, nationalism grew in the late nineteenth century, but whose influence was most felt during 1920s- 40s. An important aspect is to evaluate to what extent nationalist archaeology in India was a derivative of the colonial discourse, and yet became a different discourse. Discussion on the nationalist interpretation of Indian archaeology would remain incomplete unless one emphasizes the Indian nationalist writings on Southeast Asian archaeology for two reasons. Firstly, the Indians of the nationalist school considered Southeast Asia as a part of Greater India. Secondly, Indian nationalist writings on Southeast Asia provide the best example of the contradiction in nationalist historiography as a case of the colonized behaving as a colonizer.
About Speaker : Professor Kishore Basa, has made landmark contributions to the study of early trade networks, material culture, and South and Southeast Asian archaeology and has steered numerous Indian cultural institutions as a distinguished archaeologist and anthropologist. A former Head of the Department of Anthropology and Coordinator of the Centre for Advanced Study in Anthropology at Utkal University, Professor Basa has served as Chairman of the National Monuments Authority, Director General of the Archaeological Survey of India, Director of the Indira Gandhi Rashtriya Manav Sangrahalaya (Bhopal), Director of the Indian Museum (Kolkata), and Director of the Anthropological Survey of India. He has also been Vice Chancellor of Maharaja Sriram Chandra Bhanja Deo University (Baripada) and Fakir Mohan University (Balasore). He earned his Ph.D. in 1991 in Archaeology from the University of London for his dissertation titled "Early Westerly Trade of Southeast Asia with Special Reference to Glass Beads." Professor Basa has been a Tagore National Fellow under the Ministry of Culture, Government of India. Under the Indo-French Cultural Exchange Programme in Paris he had worked on ‘Indian Writings on Early History and Archaeology of Southeast Asia: A Historiographical Study’.