POLITICAL ORGANISATION

POLITICAL ORGANISATION

There is no clear idea about the political organisation o~ Indus Valley people. Unlike the Mesopotamians ~dl Egyptians they have not left behind any inscription desq ing their system of administration. Perhaps the Indus va1 people were more concerned with commerce and they w ruled by a class of merchants. But it can be safely sta that there was an organisation like a municipal corporat to look after the civic amenities of the people.

DECLINE
The Harappan culture flourished until about 1800 BC Afterwards, its urban phase marked by systematic to\i planning, extensive brick-work, art of writing, stand, weights and measures, distinction between the citadel a the lower. town, use of bronze tools, and red wan! pottE painted with black designs practically disappeared.

stylistic homogeneity disappeared, and the post-urban Harappan stage was marked by sharp stylistic diverss Some traits of the post-urban Harappan culture are fow in Pakistan, and in central and western India, in Punjab, Rajasthan, Haryana, Jammu and Kashmir, Delhi and w ern U.P. They broadly cover the period from 1800 BC to 1 ­
BC. The post-urban phase of the Harappan culture is known as the sub-Indus culture and is more popularly known as the late Harappan culture.


The late Harappan cultures are primarily Chalcolithic in which tools of stone and copper are used. The Chalcolithic people in the later Harappan phase lived in villages subsisting on agriculture, stock-raising, hunting and fishing. Some places such as Prabhas Patan (Somnath) and Rangpur, both in Gujarat, are the direct descendants of the Harappan culture.

have been found in conjunction with some late Harappan pottery dated around 1200 Be. But we have no archaeologi­cal evidence of any mass-scale confrontation between the mature Harappans and the Aryans.

There is not enough evidence to say with certainty that the destroyers of the Indus cities were members of the group of related tribes whose priests composed the Rigveda, but probably the fall of this great civilisation was partly due to the widespread migratory movement of charioteering peoples which alt~red the face of the whole civilised world in the second millenium Be.

Scholars like Fairservis tried to explain the decay of the Harappan civilisation in terms of the problems of ecology. He computed the population of the Harappan cities and worked out the food requirements of the towns folk. He also computed that the villages in these areas consume about 80 per cent of their produce leaving about 20 per cent for the market. If similar patterns of agriculture existed in the past, a city like Mohenjo-daro, with a population of about 35,000, would require very large numbers of villages producing food. Fairservis calculated that the delicate eco­logical balance of these semi-arid areas was being disturbed because the human and cattle population in these areas was fast depleting the scanty forests, food and fuel resources. The combined needs of the Harappans, peasants and pastoralists exceeded the limited production capacities of these areas. Thus, a growing population of men and animals confronted by scanty resources wore out the landscape.

With the forests and grass cover gradually disappear­ing, there were more floods and droughts. This depletion of the subsistence base caused strain on the entire economy. There seems to have been a gradual movement away to areas which offered better subsistence possibilities. That is why the Harappan communities moved towards Gujaratand the eastern areas, away from the Indus.

The Fairservis theory of environmental disaster appears to be the most plausible in explaining the decline. The gradual deterioration in the town planning and the living standards was a reflection of the depleting subsistence base of the Harappans. This process of decline was completed by the raids and attacks of the surrounding communities.

Scholars have assigned several possible reasons for the decline of the civilisation. The floods in the Indus river might have caused its destruction. It is also supposed that the Indus might have changed its course, thus rendering the valley infertile. The river valley might have lost its charm and the inhabitants might bave left it for good. Or perhaps, due to deficient rainfall and deforestation there might have appeared desert conditions in the valley. It is even suggested that an earthquake might have caused its destruction, as in Quetta.


Some exotic tools and pottery indicate the slow per­colation of new peoples in the Indus Valley during the later phases of the Harappan culture. A few signs of insecurity and violence appear in the last phase of Mohenjo-daro. Hoards of jewellery were buried at places, and skulls huddled together at one place. New types of axes, daggers, knives with mid-ribs and flat tangs appear in the upper levels of Mohenjo-daro. They seem to betray some foreign intrusion. At several sites in Punjab and Haryana, Painted Grey Ware (generally associated with the Vedic people)