British Archaeological Department of Burma (then part of British India)
and the re-Xotation in 1902 of the Archaeological Survey of India,
which had stagnated after James Burgess’s retirement from tenure in 1885
(Paddayya 1995: 133). The Dutch would follow suit, reacting to the other
colonial powers’ initiatives by creating the Indonesian Antiquities Commission
(Oudheidkundige Commissie) in 1901 (Anderson 1991: 179–80, n. 30). This
Xurry of institution-creation shows the impact of international competition on
the dynamics of colonial development. Importantly, it also demonstrates that by
the turn of the century the signiWcance of antiquities had been overwhelmingly
accepted, and the funding of their study was justiWable. Interestingly, when
compared with the date at which similar institutions in the metropolis were
created in most cases it becomes clear that the colonies took the lead. This shows
dynamism among the diaspora as well as the possibilities created in the colonies
through the lack of existing long-established institutions with vested interests,
which in parts of Europe—Britain being the best example of this—prevented
the formation of the heritage oYce—institutions dealing with antiquities—as a
novel and more eYcient administrative machine until much later (but see
Chapter 11, page 336).
Research undertaken by colonial archaeologists in South and Southeast
Asia did not fall into a vacuum. On the one hand, it was used by the wider
scholarly community, and so processes occurring in the colonies had an actual
inXuence on the development of science back in Europe (Ballantyne 2002: 32–
41; Cherry 2004a). The debate about the links between race and language
cannot, for example, be understood without making any reference to India.
On the other hand, research was also used by the locals, and in particular by
an emergent opposition against colonial rule. An example of this was the
appropriation of the discourse concerning the past and the role of the Aryans
by the newly emergent nationalism, which crystallized in the creation of the
Indian National Congress in 1885, a party formed by the Indian upper class
(Bryan 2001: ch. 2; Chakrabarti 2000: 669; Leopold 1974).
The Western discourse of the past became hegemonic, not only among
colonialists, but also among local scholars. In this chapter the scarcity or sheer
absence of native archaeologists working on their countries’ antiquities has
been noted several times. ‘Indian archaeology’, said the Dutch archaeologist
Vogel while working in British India, ‘is decidedly a European science started
by European scholars’. He thought that ‘the prospects of Indian scholars
taking a larger share in archaeological research would be very encouraging’
but expressed pessimism regarding the chances of training young Indians for
archaeological work. This was because of the absence of historical awareness
among the Indians; the underdeveloped state of their artistic and aesthetic
senses and their consequent inability to appreciate beautiful specimens of
South and South East Asia 243