Opinion - Letters to the Editor

Beating a dead horse

Sir — Ever since the book "The Deciphered Indus Script'' by N. Jha and N. S. Rajaram was published, Michael Witzel of Harvard University has been waging a relentless propaganda campaign against us through articles and personal allegations in the Indian media.

His main charge of "fabricating the Harappan horse'' is both baseless and irrelevant; baseless because we have rebutted his charge with the help of the original photograph (Frontline, November 24, 2000), and irrelevant because his claim of "no horse at Harappa'' has been shown to be false.

More fundamentally, he fails to note that our book is about the decipherment and not the horse. In a book running to nearly 300 large-sized pages, there are just two partial footnotes to the Harappan horse, which also makes it trivial. So, literally and figuratively, Mr. Witzel is beating a dead horse. Readers can judge for themselves when the second volume of our book containing the decipherment of a thousand more seals with explanations is published.

I would like to point out other anomalies in his campaign. In his recent article "Horses, logic and evidence'' (May 21), Mr. Witzel justifies his attacks on me on the ground that I was appointed a member of the Indian Council of Historical Research, and that I declined the offer.

His claim that I declined to serve because of strong media pressure is presumptuous to say the least, for he has no way of knowing my mind. As I made clear in my letter to the HRD Minister, my present commitments, which include foreign travel and lecture tours, do not allow me to accept such positions.

N.S. Rajaram,

Bangalore

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