Harappan ‘Dancing Girl’ featured in NCERT’s new textbook

WHY IN NEWS ? 

iconic Harappan bronze figurine known as the “Dancing Girl” has been shown in a revised form in the latest NCERT textbook, with the illustration depicting her torso / धड़ as covered. 

The change has drawn attention to one of the most recognisable artefacts of the Indus Valley Civilisation, first excavated nearly a century ago.

The “Dancing Girl” in history  

was one of two bronze female figurines found at Mohenjo-Daro, discovered in a small house in the south-western quarter of the city during the 1926–27 excavations. 

POSITION 

The 10.8 cm figurine depicts / shown a slender / slim woman standing with 

• her right hand on the back of her hip 
• and her left hand resting on her left thigh, just above the knee.
• Her head is tilted back, 
• and she has a defiant, nonchalant air about her.  विद्रोही, बेपरवाह सा भाव है।
• Her hair is swept back into a low, loose bun at the nape of her neck.  

• उसके बाल पीछे की ओर कंघी करके गर्दन के पिछले हिस्से पर एक ढीला जूड़ा बनाया गया है।

In A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India (2009),

historian and academic Upinder Singh writes, “She may have once held some object in this hand. She is naked. She wears a necklace and has 24-25 of bangles on her left arm and just 4 on her right arm.”

Singh notes in her work that archaeologist John Marshall named her the “Dancing Girl” because he thought she had the air of a semi-impudent “nautch girl.” 

‘Most celebrated representative’

For one thing, writes John Keay in India: A History (2010),  

her features, including her full lips and broad nose, “are distinctly proto-Australoid, a type not usually associated with the Central Asian culture of Namazga.”

Keay argues that skeletons unearthed in the Indus Valley 

 

 attest to the Harappan people belonging to several racial types, among them one related to Australia’s Indigenous peoples and still represented in parts of India: the proto-Australoid type.

Furthermore, although most of the surviving Harappan stone sculptures were found at Harappa itself, where contacts with Namazga appear to have been closest, the “Dancing Girl” was found at Mohenjodaro, whose external trade was more oriented toward the Persian Gulf and Mesopotamia.

A better case will need to be made before the Harappans are robbed of their most celebrated representative,” says Keay.

Lost-wax method 

According to Singh, the figurine was made using the lost-wax method. “The lost-wax method,” she writes, “involves first making a wax model and then covering it with a clay coating, leaving some holes as passageways.

When the clay-covered moulds are heated in ovens, the wax melts out.” Singh notes that once the mould cools, the outer clay envelope is chipped off, and the craftsperson can then put the finishing touches on the solid bronze statue.

Admired even after 4,000 years 

“But the ‘dancing girl’ may not have been dancing at all, and even if she was, she may not represent a professional dancer,” writes Singh.

Keay agrees that, although she was probably not dancing, “the ‘Dancing Girl’ is unquestionably “a pleasing little thing.”

Naked except for a chunky necklace and an assortment of bangles, this figurine, according to Keay, is not the usual Indian sex symbol. 

He suggests that she could be absent-mindedly surveying her wardrobe, were it not for the way her head is thrown back, as if challenging a suitor.

“Decidedly, she wants to be admired”, and, 4,000 years later, she still is.

Source IE

• This is despite the fact  

that at an earlier discussion related to the famous bronze figurine, one of the Government’s own experts had pushed back, and prevailed, over objections raised by some members of NCERT over what they said was the nude depiction.

•

The retouched photograph now features in the opening chapter, “History of Arts”, of Madhurima — the new arts education textbook for Class 9. 

In the image, the figurine’s torso has been shaded over from the shoulders down, obscuring anatomical details visible in photographs of the original and giving the impression that she is clothed.

• The depiction is significant because the “Dancing Girl” has appeared in NCERT textbooks for at least 25 years, including during the NDA government when Murli Manohar Joshi was in charge of Education 

as Minister of the then Human Resource Development ministry. 

A review by this newspaper of earlier editions shows that while the figurine has long featured in school textbooks, its torso had never previously been covered.

• The retouched image appears in a textbook that is part of NCERT’s first-ever arts education series

introduced from Classes 1 to 10 under the National Education Policy (NEP) and the National Curriculum Framework (NCF) to integrate arts into mainstream education. Textbooks from Classes 1 to 9 have been released so far.

• The approximately four-inch-high “Dancing Girl”, 

discovered at Mohenjo-daro, depicts a young girl with her hair tied in a bun, adorned with bangles, a bracelet and a necklace. Her confident posture and the sophistication of her craftsmanship have made her one of the defining symbols of the Harappan civilisation.

• Archaeologists have long viewed the figurine as evidence of the civilisation’s advanced metallurgical knowledge. The original is housed in the National Museum in New Delhi. 

• In an interview with The Indian Express published on May 27, historian Michel Danino

, who headed the textbook development committee for NCERT’s new Class 6 Social Science books, had disclosed that the NCERT objected to placing the “Dancing Girl” on the opening page of a chapter on Indus Valley Civilisation because the figurine was nude and could become “controversial”.

• “I even told NCERT that if the Dancing Girl is not age-appropriate, then perhaps children of that age should not be allowed into the National Museum either because the figurine is displayed there,” Danino had said. 

While he initially resisted the suggestion, he eventually agreed to move the image from the chapter opener to an inside page and reduce its size. The image, however, was retained in the textbook.

• Asked whether the masking of the torso was linked to concerns over nudity, NCERT Director Dinesh Prasad Saklani told The Indian Express: “No, I don’t think there is any specific reason. 

In Grade 6 SST (Social Science Textbook), the Dancing Girl is very much there along with many other findings related to Harappan civilisation as it is one of them. For art textbooks you may also contact the related TDT (Textbook Development Team) members.”

Do You Know:

• The Indus Civilisation (3300-1300 BC with its mature stage dated to 2600-1900 BC), also known as the Harappa-Mohenjodaro Civilisation, had been long forgotten till its discovery was announced in 1924. 

While sites and artefacts from the civilisation were in discussion since the early 19th century, it was not until the 1920s that they were correctly dated and recognised as part of a full-fledged ancient civilisation, much like the ones in Mesopotamia and Egypt.

• After the initial recognition as an ancient civilisation, a spate of excavations were conducted in the two major sites that were known till then – Harappa and Mohenjodaro. 

The Dancing Girl was discovered in one such excavation in 1926, by British archaeologist Ernest McKay in a ruined house in the ‘ninth lane’ of the ‘HR area’ of Mohenjodaro’s citadel.

• Even though Mohenjodaro and Harappa became part of Pakistani territory after the Partition, the Dancing Girl remained in India as part of an agreement. 

Today, the bronze figurine sits in the National Museum of India as artefact no. HR- 5721/195, enthralling visitors in the museum’s famous Indus Civilisation gallery, often referred to as its “star object”.

• Over the years, the Dancing Girl has been an object of fascination for archaeologists and historians. Of particular interest has been the pose the woman strikes and what that means.

The figurine has “the pleasing stance of a young and spirited woman”, historian Romila Thapar wrote in The Penguin History of Early India: From Origins to AD 1300 (2002). “This young woman has an air of lively pertness, quite unlike anything in the work of other ancient civilisations,” historian AL Basham wrote in his classic The Wonder that was India (1954).

• Mortimer Wheeler, director of the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) between 1944 and 1948, described the figurine as his favourite. “A girl perfectly, for the moment, perfectly confident of herself and the world. 

There’s nothing like her, I think, in the world,” Wheeler wrote. John Marshall, Director-General of the ASI from 1902 to 1928 who oversaw the initial excavations in Harappa and Mohenjodaro, described the figurine as “a young girl, her hand on her hip in a half-impudent posture, and legs slightly forward as she beats time to the music with her legs and feet”.

• What can be inferred from the bronze statuette, though, is the degree of sophistication of Harappan artistry and metallurgy. The Dancing Girl is evidence of the civilisation’s knowledge of metal blending and lost-wax casting – a complicated process by which a duplicate sculpture is cast from an original sculpture to create highly detailed metallic artefacts.

• Moreover, the very existence of a figurine such as the Dancing Girl, indicates the presence of high art in Harappan society. While art has probably been around since the very beginning of human existence, the degree of its sophistication indicates a society’s advancement. 

The Dancing Girl by all appearances is not an object built for some utilitarian purpose – artists took great time to create an artefact of purely symbolic, aesthetic value.