Regarding Changing the Name of Indus Valley Civilisation as Sarasvati Valley Civilization – Laid

Dated: 04.03.2020

Dr. T. Sumathy (a) ThamizhachiThangapandian (Chennai South): Our Finance Minister in her budget speech had claimed the Indus Valley Civilization to be Sarasvati Civilization which the present government seems to have been claiming for years now. Clearly, historians and archaeologists from time to time have been resistant to such claims due to politicizing of history. The defenders argue that the river was a big, majestic river and quote evidence of the existence of so many Harappan period sites. But the noted historian Prof. Satish Chandra says that the civilization grew on the banks of small rivers. Traditionally, people did not use water from the river but wells and baolis (step wells) and the argument of having a big river does not hint at civilisation.

The whole proposal of renaming the Indus Valley Civilization as Sarasvati Valley Civilization or Sarasvati Civilization intensified in pace when the Haryana Sarasvati Heritage Development Board was established. Hon’ble Speaker, I would like to quickly elaborate on the geography of the Indus Valley Civilisation (IVC) which extended from Pakistan’s Balochistan in the west to India’s western Uttar Pradesh in the east, from north-eastern Afghanistan in the north to India’s Gujarat state in the south. The proposal from the Haryana Board also stated that there are less than a hundred sites in Pakistan dating back to the so-called Indus Valley Civilisation while there are nearly a thousand sites in Haryana. The largest Harappan site Rakhigarhi and the oldest Bhirrana are both in Haryana. Hon’ble Speaker, India is known for its unity in diversity. I request the Union Government not to rename the Indus Valley Civilization.