Indic civilization has continued here for millenniums. Unlike the Greek, Egyptian, Mesopotamian, Mayan, Aztec, Sumerian etc., civilizations of other areas, which were destroyed by western imperialistic onslaught, and broken pieces have been patched together by later academicians to draw conclusions about the destroyed peoples, Indic civilization is a living civilization that can be lived and experienced in the present.

The western approach, which they practiced on the destroyed civilizations, of patching up pieces and drawing conclusions about the past, in the absence of continuum, is inappropriate in Indic context.

The paper titled “Crocodile in the Indus Civilization and later South Asian traditions” by Asko Parpola talks about various ways of engagement with crocodiles in India, stressing on worshipful practices. However, in his title the author has chosen to use the words "Indus civilization and later South Asian traditions" instead of India, for his own reasons. Diluting Indic identity into disparate elements has been a western Indological project for long, probably with the aim of preventing consolidation and strengthening of Indic identity that go beyond linguistic/regional identities. Their fear of consolidation of Indic identity is misplaced, as Indic worldview has been always benevolent, even to divergent viewpoints, and offer them space. However, based on their inherent exclusivist approach to diverse viewpoints, western position has been, and is, antagonistic towards Indic identity.

It is well known that people in India worship almost everything, including plants (for eg.,tulasi), trees(banyan etc), birds, animals, mountains,  rivers, even earth, sun, moon, air, fire, water, there is almost nothing that is left out. That is because Indic civilization recognizes divinity in everything, unlike earlier western view point that creator and creation are separate, and its later mutation denying any creator at all. Without going into a debate of which of the viewpoint is correct, it can be evidentially concluded that the two worldviews are different.

It is also noteworthy that 'vasudhaiva kutumbakam' worldview of viewing all as one family, praying "sarvesham swastir bhavatu- may all be healthy", "lokah samasta sukhino bhavantu- may whole world be comfortable" etc., is in sharp contrast to western worldview that are largely in terms of binaries- science vs superstition, modern vs primitive, progressive vs conservative, tribal vs civil/evolved, us vs them- which naturally derives from a deracinated position.

It is also relevant to note that the distinction brought out between the western approach and Indic approach as discussed above is not an example of the binary western approach itself, because, interestingly, Indic worldview also provides for existence of the apparently dichotomous approaches. That is to say, the western approach of viewing things in binary is a subset of the Indic worldview that allows for the diversity to exist. 

This particular article by Asko Parpola takes a western approach of viewing the subject as an outsider, attempts to patch up disparate pieces of knowledge from within the narrow confine of deracinated western experience, heavily leaning on colonialist atrocity literature (whose objective was to denigrate the natives and provide justification for colonial rule), and comes to an inconclusive conclusion in the end.

The initial one-third of the paper touches upon various linguistic expressions regarding crocodile in various parts of India, and is informative.

However, when the author launches into colonialist literature of Crooke and others, he gets swamped in inaccuracies and unauthentic characterizations, and the value of the paper diminishes. For example, a practice related to Pir Mungo is misattributed to Indic tradition.

Narratives of some people offering their first born child to crocodile, some people willingly drowning themselves to become feed for crocodiles, and benevolent British sending their sepoys to stop such nonsense, in Bengal, comes from colonialist writers.

The 'benevolent' British actually engineered multiple famines in Bengal and starved to death 5 lakh people.

If at all anybody threw their child into water, or went into water to drown themself, it may be because they had no food to eat and preferred a sudden death to lingering death, suffering continued pangs of hunger daily. Skeleton like forms of Indians during Bengal famines available on net are beyond measure. It is as if the entire land was one concentration camp. Yet the British colonialist writer has temerity to paint those hapless people as heartless, intellect-less and what is more, cruel!

Crooke's narrative is suspect.

The article speculates about Indus tablet as depicting a woman upside down, giving birth to plant, or is it a crab, a scorpion, or fertilized by crocodile!

Such speculations reminds of  the story of five blind men who touch various parts of an elephant and come to diverging conclusion about what an elephant is.

The author concludes based on a Sunahsepa reference that "practice of human sacrifice once existed in ancient India".

Instances of human sacrifice are attributed as feature of native societies condemned as primitive by west. However, the humongous number of genocides done by same westerner of whole native communities across the world, wiping out millions of people, is not viewed as primitive or barbaric by the 'evolved' westerner, ironically.

Yes, human sacrifices have happened in Bharat. Indic worldview provided space for those practices too.

The overriding feature of Indic worldview, while allowing all the diverse ways of living and being, has been dharma- loosely defined as 'sustainability' of society.

Image source: Harappa.com