“Decolonisation of Indian minds should not lead to hatred. We need to detoxify our minds,” said well-known scholar K. Paddayya while speaking during an online lecture organised by Pleach Foundation.
He spoke on two centuries of Indian archaeology, and sketched out how a systematic study of Indian history began only with the foundation of Asiatic Society by William Jones and how it is still continuing with Indian scholars discovering agro-pastoral sites across the country.
Mr. Paddayya is known in archaeological circles for his research on palaeolithic and neolithic sites in Deccan.
“Colin Mackenzie aided by Kavali brothers carried out an antiquarian study of the region. His site map of Amaravati is the first one in the world that was prepared according to cartographic principles,” informed Mr. Paddayya.
He also listed out other scholars and officials like Robert White who began a systematic study of Dravidian family of languages in 1816. “We should have celebrated 2016 as bicentenary of the event but we didn’t. We can still do something about it,” said Mr. Padayya as he spoke about stratigraphic sequence first used by Philip Meadows Taylor in Gulbarga region.
“Some of the past is there in every Indian. We all have a sense of our past which is innate. We need an understanding of the past for sustainable development,” he said.
