Harappa Then, Harappa Now
If there was one defining event of 2020, what would it be? The Collins Word of the Year title went to Single-Use and Climate Strike for the years 2018 and 2019. (Collins Dictionary 2019) And it’s highly probable that it would go to ‘coronavirus’ or ‘pandemic’ or even ‘mask’ for 2020. But what interests me is that all three words are in some way or the other related to the decline and fall of the Harappan Civilization.
Single use refers to things like plastic straws. They can only be used once and then thrown away in landfills. The Harappans were one of the relatively advanced bronze age civilizations and one could even call them foresighted.[1] However, their civilization sat on a tower of Jenga — pieces from the bottom were taken out so quickly and put on the top that the whole civilization collapsed. Why? For any civilization to thrive it needs resources. Harappa used burned bricks [2] to make their structures which still hold strong today. And to burn these bricks we need fuel, and the only available source of fuel at that time was wood. As society became more advanced, deforestation was rampant until there were very few trees left. (htt) The trees could only be used once, before turning in to ashes.
The next word is climate strike. No, ancient Harappans didn’t have a climate strike or a Greta Thunberg-esque figure from what we know about them. But they did face climate change and they did try to do something about it. Perhaps because of the deforestation, the rains came less frequently, leading to higher temperatures. There is evidence to show that the Harappans did try to change their crops from more water-consuming ones like rice to less water-consuming ones like millet and barley. (Shastri 2019) However, it didn’t help and they might have migrated elsewhere to escape the tyranny of climate change.
Finally we come to the pandemic. Although there is little popularity of this theory, there is a possibility that ‘cholera’ might have originated from Harappan Civilization and spread out from there. But isn’t Harappa known for it’s advanced sanitation systems? Historians who back this theory say that water borne diseases had not been mutated to in humans. Also, the population of the civilization had begun increasing and the drainage system couldn’t sustain it.[3]
Before I continue, let me make it clear. All these theories are a mix of evidence and speculation. We don’t know if all three were the reasons of the decline or only one or two. And no, 2020 is not going to be the last year of our civilization. It’s likely that it took a long time for the decline and by taking immediate steps we can stop the gradual decline.
Plastic straws are just one of the hundreds of single use items we use everything. Most of us never think twice before throwing anything in the dustbin. A single piece of used paper that has been put in the recycling bin can have a significant impact. Yes, a single piece of paper. Changing crop patterns didn’t help for the Harappans because they never dug out the possible root causes of the problem. They could have grown more trees and have saved their precious civilization. We are quite lucky to know the root cause of the problem and can stop it now.
As for COVID — 19, we didn’t quite learn from history. Mumbai (then Bombay) was the epicentre in India for the influenza pandemic of 1918 and it is still the epicentre of the 2020 pandemic. What we can learn from the Harappan’s experience is that population could be the problem and that we must expand our capacity. We also learn is that solving present problems isn’t enough. We also need to think about the future and what problems it may present.
As the adage goes, history always repeats itself. Because we never learn from it. And when we are given a chance, we never seize it.
[1] They had streets rounded off with carts
[2] This process of brickmaking has long since been lost since the Harappan civilization.
[3] Evidence includes the discovery of mass burial grounds with no signs of external injuries on most of the bodies
Works Cited
Collins Dictionary. 2019. Word of the Year. Accessed June 22, 2020. https://www.collinsdictionary.com/woty.
Shastri, Parth. 2019. Climate Change forced migration from Kutch area during Post-Harappan period. November 25. Accessed June 2020. https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/ahmedabad/climate-change-forced-migration-from-kutch-area-during-post-harappan-period/articleshow/72215992.cms.
