The Aryan Invasion
Theory and Hindu Politics
By Frank Morales
http://www.sit.wisc.edu/~fmorale1/main.htm
A recent Western academic paper argues that the Aryan invasion
theory is wrong and that there is an indigenous development of civilization in India going
back to at least 6000 BCE (Mehrgarh). It proposes that the great Harappan or Indus Valley
urban culture (2600 - 1900 BCE), which it notes was centered on the Sarasvati river of
Vedic fame, had much in common with Vedic literary accounts. It states that the Harappan
culture came to an end not because of outside invaders but owing to environmental changes,
most important of which was the drying up of the Sarasvati. It argues further that the
movement of populations away from the Sarasvati to the Ganges, after the Sarasvati dried
up (c. 1900 - 1300 BCE), was also reflected in the literature. It thereby proposes a
complete continuity of cultural development in India revealed both through archaeology and
through ancient Indian literature.
Perhaps more shockingly, the article states that the Aryan invasion theory reflects
colonialism and Eurocentrism and is quite out of date. Such statements echo those about
ancient India that various Hindus have been making since Sri Aurobindo nearly a century
ago. Note the conclusion of the long article. The ie. notes and emphases were added by me.
"That the archaeological record and ancient oral and
literate traditions of South Asia (ie. the Vedic tradition) are now converging has
significant implications for regional cultural history. A few scholars have proposed that
there is nothing in the 'literature' firmly placing the Indo-Aryans, the generally
perceived founders of the modern South Asian cultural tradition(s), outside of South Asia,
and now the archaeological record is confirming this. Within the context of cultural
continuity described here, an archaeologically significant indigenous discontinuity occurs
due to ecological factors (ie. the drying up of the Sarasvati river). This cultural
discontinuity was a regional population shift from the Indus Valley, in the west, to
locations east and southeast, a phenomenon also recorded in ancient oral (ie. Vedic)
traditions. As data accumulates to support cultural continuity in South Asian prehistoric
and historic periods, a considerable restructuring of existing interpretive paradigms must
take place. We reject most strongly the simplistic historical interpretations, which
date back to the eighteenth century, that continue to be imposed on South Asian culture
history. These still prevailing interpretations are significantly diminished by European
ethnocentrism, colonialism, racism, and anti semitism. Surely, as South Asian studies
approaches the twenty-first century, it is time to describe emerging data objectively
rather than perpetuate interpretations without regard to the data archaeologists have
worked so hard to reveal."
Is this the statement of a Hindu political ideologue? No, it is by a noted Western
archaeologist specializing in ancient India, James Schaffer of Case Western University,
who has nothing to do with Hindutva or even Hindu spirituality. It is part of his new
article Migration, Philology and South Asian Archaeology soon to appear in
Aryan
and Non-Aryan in South Asia: Evidence, Interpretation and History, edited by J.
Bronkhorst and M. Deshpande, University of Michigan Press 1998.
This article doesn't mean that Schaffer accepts a
Hindu interpretation of history as a whole or that he is even aware of the political
implications of this issue in India. He is simply stating his objective position based
upon the evidence he sees as an archaeologist. It doesn't mean that all Western
archaeologists have come to this conclusion, though most archaeologists in India like
B. B.
Lal, S.P. Gupta or S. R.Rao have argued similar points for several years now. But it does
mean that views are changing and one can no longer reject those who question the Aryan
invasion theory as academically unsound or politically motivated Hindus.
The archaeological record shows nothing like an Aryan invasion
but rather an indigenous urban based culture on the Sarasvati that shifted to the Ganga
after the Sarasvati dried up. This reflects the shift from theSarasvati based Vedic
literature to the Ganga based Puranas.
The
Aryan invasion theory, as Schaffer notes, arose from a Eurocentric view that was hostile
to an Indic basis for Western civilization or peoples. The discovery of close affinities
between the Indo-European languages in the eighteenth century required an explanation. By
placing the original Aryans in Europe, who later migrated to India where they got absorbed
by the indigenous population, it took away any need to connect the ancient Europeans with
India, which was not pleasing to the colonial mindset of the time. The theory eventually
developed an anti semetic tone. It was used to trace Western culture not to the Jews and
their Biblical accounts but to an proposed European homeland dominated by Nordic peoples.
Thus the invasion theory eventually became one of the pillars for Nazi historians (yet
strangely the communists in India have become strong supporters of the theory and accuse
those who question it of being fascists!).
Unfortunately some scholars today, particularly Indian leftists,
argue that the rejection of the Aryan invasion theory is just a political ploy of Hindu
fanatics. They point out how Hindu texts like the Vedas and Puranas, though
mentioning different regions and rulers, contain many fanciful and unscientific ideas. How
therefore can we take their history seriously? They fail to note that all ancient accounts
like the Bible, Egyptian, Greek, or Sumerian records have their mythic and legendary
elements and this is not used to so completely reject them. They similarly argue that
Hindus today have many fanciful ideas about history, like placing the events of the Ramayana
over a million years ago, as if this barred any Hindus from ever having valid historical
notions.
Such scholars, who clearly
have as much modern political as ancient historical concerns themselves, highlight how
important Hindu nationalists like Savarkar and Golwalkar argued against the invasion
theory. They are afraid that the rejection of the Aryan invasion theory will help
pro-Hindu forces to stress the indigenous nature of Hinduism in India, which could be used
to brand other religious groups as foreign and anti-national. Particularly they are afraid
that it could be used to make Islam an intrusive invader religion and become a pretext to
oppress the Islamic minority in the country.
Since some Hindu nationalists like Golwalkar who argued against
the invasion theory (though he never claimed to be an historian) had strange ideas like
trying to place the north pole in India in the early Aryan period, these Hindu
phobic
scholars would like us to believe that anyone who rejects the Aryan invasion must have
similar unsound ideas about history, as well as a political bias, and therefore must be
without credibility. They also project the idea that the Aryan invasion theory has somehow
proved itself, though there is as yet no real archaeological evidence for it and all such
proposed evidence, like Wheeler's massacre at Mohenjodaro, have themselves been disproved
as fanciful.
That
the Aryan invasion theory itself has been persistently used to promote anti-Hindu
political agendas is similarly ignored. The invasion theory has been used like a stick to
beat Hindus for the last two hundred years (some of these same scholars who are
raising the
political bogey about the rejection of the theory have used it to attack Hinduism
themselves). That Hindus might use the demise of the theory for their own benefit is only
to be expected and is perhaps little more than getting even or restoring balance on these
issues.
The British used the theory to discredit any indigenous
civilization in the subcontinent, which was seen as succumbing to various waves of
invaders from the West, making for a patchwork culture derived from outside influences.
This made the British rule seem just another and perhaps necessary phase of a long
invasionist saga.
The communists used the Aryan Invasion theory as the basis for
their history of India, substituting the caste war of the Brahmin invaders from Central
Asia for the European class war model. Dravidian nationalists used it to their advantage,
claiming an older purer Dravidian culture that was different from that of the Aryan
invaders from the north. The Dalits used it to identify themselves with the original
inhabitants of the country enslaved by the invading Brahmin dominated Aryans. Christian
and Islamic groups have used it to brand the Hindu Rishis as primitive poets leading
nomadic hordes, making the Vedas, the scriptures of Hinduism, as without any real
spirituality!
In fact, there is probably no other theory of ancient history that has been
used with such blatant political intent or missionary aggression. The theory has even been
used by some scholars to make the Yoga tradition or such systems as Tantra, Shaivism,
Samkhya, Buddhism and Jainism non-Aryan (though, for example, original Buddhism calls
itself 'AryaDharma').
Given this scenario any group would use the demise of such a
hostile theory to reclaim value for their own traditions. But to use any possible
advantage that Hindus may derive from this historical re indication as a grounds to reject
it is ridiculous.
The recent ICHR (Indian Council of Historical Research) controversy comes in to play here.
The new BJP (Bharatiya Janata Party) government, which has pro-Hindu sympathies, dismissed
the old council members whose term was up, which was dominated by leftists and communists
(including a number of self-proclaimed Stalinists). In their place it appointed scholars
whose academic credentials were sound but who did not subscribe to leftist views and
generally did not accept the Aryan invasion theory. The leftists cried foul and protested
about a possible Hindu rewriting or distorting of history for political ends. They
attacked senior scholars like B.B. Lal and branded his scholarship defective because he
rejected the Aryan invasion theory, dismissing his forty years of work in the field as
without basis. They projected anyone who questioned the invasionist scenario as a Hindu
fundamentalist and academically suspect.
By the same logic they ought to put Schaffer in this category.
That some Indian archaeologists may be Hindus and find pride in discoveries that give
antiquity to Hindu culture in India is not an adequate basis to reject their archeological
work. Western archaeologists have long used their discoveries to find pride or
justification for their Greek, Christian or Judaic traditions. They are not banned from
archeology for doing so.
Hindus might abuse the new historical scenario, just as other groups have already long
abused the old idea. But this is no reason to reject the new data of history. The fact is
that we use history to reflect or promote various cultural, political or religious views.
History as a human factor cannot be viewed in a totally neutral cultural light. The very
importance of history is that it provides information on which we can build various
interpretations of civilization not only relative to the past but to the present and
future as well. Of course, we must be aware of the viewpoint, which may be a bias, of the
historian and try to separate that from historical facts, which may have other possible
interpretations.
Certainly Hindus can find much consolation in the new
archaeological data. It corroborates the Vedic historical record and shows a great urban
culture, the Harappan, to go along with this magnificent literary tradition of the Vedas.
The looming demise of the Aryan invasion theory is not a Hindu political ploy. There is
much archaeological and literary evidence against it which continues to grow on a daily
basis and has moved far behind the sphere of faithful Hindus. Schaffer's work shows this
quite clearly.
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