Indian archaeology found itself in the eye of a storm largely as a consequence of the global geopolitical shifts of 1979. The year was a consequential one for India. Its first non-Congress government since independence was tottering, and the country headed for a mid-term general election, which largely coincided with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan at the end of December 1979.
This capped an extraordinary year of change, beginning with the U.S. and China establishing diplomatic relations, then a revolution in Iran which overthrew its Shah and proclaimed the Islamic Republic. In Pakistan, a military dictator ensured the execution of an elected prime minister, and Islamic extremists stormed and occupied the great mosque in Mecca. Britain experienced unprecedented violence as Irish Republican Army (IRA) bombings intensified and claimed Lord Mountbatten of Burma as its most high-profile victim.
To India’s east, the Khmer Rouge had come to power in 1972 in Cambodia, and its systematic re-engineering of a traditional agrarian way of life turned into a genocide. Vietnam invaded Cambodia in 1978, igniting another decade-long civil war. Vietnam faced a retaliatory Chinese invasion in February 1979, leading to an intense but brief border war. Vietnam’s entry into Cambodia halted an ongoing genocide by the Khmer Rouge with the Pol Pot regime at its head, but it was also the beginning of a new chapter in the old Cold War. Although backed by the USSR and the communist bloc, Vietnam faced isolation and condemnation, as did the government it established in Cambodia – the People’s Republic of Kampuchea. This was not recognised by any neighbouring Southeast Asian countries nor by the United Nations. Instead, the Pol Pot regime, although now a band of guerrillas in the hills, was voted as being the only legitimate representative of the Cambodian people. Cambodia had become a small part of a larger geopolitical contest between the United States and the Soviet Union, with China and Vietnam in concert with each of the two adversaries.
