via The Telegraph, 14 August 2020: An opinion piece of the Indian Telegraph, about neo-colonial attitudes of foreign teams working in Angkor in the 1980s. Here the Indian writer talks about the Indian archaeologists commenting on the errors made by the French, and I am sure the criticisms go both ways.
Under these circumstances, a request was made to India for assistance in the maintenance of Angkor Wat. For most in India this was no more than in the order of things. For those who had visited the Angkor temple complex or knew about it, it was natural that India should be undertaking its restoration. For the ASI embarking on the restoration was a landmark event — testimony to not only India’s international standing and to India-Cambodia relations but also a testimonial to its professional expertise in excavation, restoration and maintenance of Hindu, Buddhist and Islamic structures. In 1981, the ASI’s annual publication, Indian Archaeology: A Review, had the majestic Angkor Wat on its cover. By 1986, an ASI team was at work and would continue for the next seven years.
The ASI alone in Angkor Wat, as a result of an agreement between India and Cambodia, created, in the words of one observer, “an uproar in the small worlds of archeology and stone conservation”. The French were the most aggrieved. Angkor was their domain. A Frenchman had ‘discovered’ the complex in the mid-19th century and in the period thereafter French scholarship had set the pace and the standards for the history and the archaeology of Indo-China. They had been, after all, the colonial power and had overseen conservation and research in Angkor for over a century till the conflict in the 1970s forced them out. The École Française d’Extrême Orient or the EFFO had been at the centre of scholarship and conservation from the early 20th century and had maintained this premier position through the Japanese occupation in the 1940s and even after decolonization in the mid 1950s. Thus, the Indian presence and the absence of the French were taken badly and a barrage of criticism of the ASI followed over construction techniques. Most of it was misdirected and did not take into account the situation on the ground that a small team of archaeologists faced on account of the Khmer Rouge insurgency that had not fully died out, landmines and so on. In ASI reports of the period, we also find adverse comments on the errors made by French conservationists in the past and how these were now being set right by the Indian team.
Source: Etched on stone: Archaeology and geopolitics – Telegraph India
