Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M.K. Stalin has announced a cash prize of $1 million for successfully decoding the Indus Valley script, which has puzzled researchers for over a century.
During the inauguration of a three-day international conference marking the centenary of the Indus Valley Civilisation (IVC) discovery, Stalin stated, "We are still unable to clearly understand the written script of the once prosperous Indus Valley Civilisation despite Herculean efforts by archaeologists, linguists, anthropologists, Tamil scholars and other researchers, including computer experts." He emphasized that any individual or organization that provides a solution accepted by archaeologists would receive the award.
The conference was organized by the state department of archaeology and the Indus Research Centre of the Roja Muthiah Research Library in Chennai. Scholars, including Iravatham Mahadevan and Asko Parpola, have studied the IVC and proposed hypotheses regarding its language, suggesting possible Dravidian or proto-Dravidian origins.
Mahadevan produced a "Concordance Table" in 1977, which listed graffiti from excavation sites that resemble IVC signs. He also identified marks on Neolithic axes in Tamil Nadu that correspond to the Indus Valley script.
In addition to the cash prize, Stalin announced a grant of ₹2 crore to establish a chair in Mahadevan's memory at the Roja Muthiah Library and laid the foundation stone for a statue of Sir John Marshall, who announced the discovery of the IVC in The Illustrated London News on September 20, 1924.
Stalin noted that many IVC symbols and seals share similarities with those uncovered in Tamil Nadu, suggesting trade connections, with up to 90 percent of graffiti marks identified in southern India aligning with IVC signs.
Historian Romila Thapar remarked that discoveries related to the IVC have shifted perceptions of early Indian history, which was previously thought to begin with Vedic culture. She stated, "We need to stop thinking of cultures as isolated and start thinking in terms of interactions between diverse groups of people."