Site of Deceit

THE DELHI OFFICE of the Archaeological Survey of India was thrown into a frenzy on 21 July 2023. A district court in Varanasi had ordered the director general of the ASI to put together a team to carry out a “scientific investigation/ survey/ excavation” at the Gyanvapi Masjid site and submit a report in two weeks. Things had to move fast. “It was overnight—it was that hurried,” an ASI official who was present in the office that day told me, on condition of anonymity. The ASI began immediately, but appeals to the court’s decision led the survey to be paused for a few days. Meanwhile, ASI staff began to discuss who would lead the project when it began again.

KK Basa, an anthropologist, was filling in as director general at the time. Basa consulted various senior ASI officials, including its additional director generals and several directors. One of the names under consideration was Alok Tripathi. But, the ASI official told me, another senior employee was not comfortable with the choice. A second ASI official said that Tripathi was not qualified to lead such projects, as he had “not done excavations.”

Tripathi was appointed an ADG of the ASI in 2021, after serving as a professor of history at Assam University in Silchar for several years. He had previously led underwater archaeology projects for the ASI at locations such as Lakshadweep. According to the first ASI official, Basa, too, was not keen to appoint Tripathi. The acting DG felt that it might be better for a director-level official to lead such a controversial project. Basa wanted to maintain a “buffer zone”—in case anything were to go wrong, the senior functionaries would not have to take the fall themselves.

Eventually, however, Tripathi was given charge of the Gyanvapi project. His appointment was covered widely in mainstream media, especially in Hindi newspapers. The reports were nearly identical—all of them spoke highly of Tripathi’s prowess as an archaeologist, complete with moving anecdotes about his love for the field.