Unmasking AIT

[Guest]

THE EVOLUTION OF AN ETHNIC IDENTITY
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--> Traditional histories have portrayed the two ethnic communities, Tamil and Sinhalese, forever at war. Indrapala locates the origins of such invidious history writing to colonial historiography, which was based mostly on narrow interpretations of Sinhala chronicles that fed the theory of `Aryan' invasion.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[ramana]

Book Review in Pioneer, 18 March 2007

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->This asterisk has no fine prints

NS Rajaram

Asterisk in Bharopiyasthan, Koenraad Elst, Voice of India, Rs 325

Return of the Swastika, Koenraad Elst, Voice of India, Rs 400

Koenraad Elst's 'new' books, Asterisk in Bharopiyasthan and Return of the Swastika, are filled with reproductions of extensive quotes from his own earlier writings and opinions, which in turn might themselves be quotations of still earlier quotations. <b>Sadly, I could not find anything new and pathbreaking in either of the two books.</b>

The first book deals with the Aryan invasion theory, which is now a dead issue. The second, on the other hand, is a collection of commentaries (vyakhyanas) on miscellaneous issues, including personal disputes. The result of his approach is "commentaries multiplied beyond necessity to the point of opacity".

Elst's Asterik... is supposed to be an updated version of his earlier Update on the Aryan Invasion Debate. <b>It is somewhat idiosyncratic and excludes major developments like: (a) maritime symbolism in the Vedas, now supported by marine archaeology; (b) the impact of findings in natural history and genetics on prehistory; and, © the Vedic-Harappan relationship of which Harappan language and script are a part.

Those unfamiliar with the field may believe that Asterisk... represents the latest research on the subject. It is, however, not the case. The book is a commentary mainly on topics that engaged researchers some 50 years ago. Part of Elst's agenda seems to be to rescue philology (or IE linguistics) from oblivion. This puts him squarely in the Witzel-Farmer camp.</b>

This agenda is doomed to fail. <b>First, Elst must answer the question raised by statisticians Kruskal, Dyen and Black in their 1978 paper that demolished the classification scheme used by Witzel-like linguists. (See my book Saraswati River and the Vedic Civilisation, 2006, Aditya Prakashan, for a brief discussion. The just released book, Hidden Horizons, by David Frawley and Rajaram, has more on natural history.)</b>

What we need today is a "natural history" of the evolution of language and not just rehashing of old IDEAS with new terminology and clever rhetorical flourishes. This cannot come from soft fields like linguistics and IE Studies with their pseudo-discipline called historical linguistics.

Again, I want to highlight the fact that despite its tone, Asterisk... skirts important questions while discussing issues that have been either demolished or made irrelevant. <b>For those interested in a more scholarly discussion of these issues by workers actively engaged in research, I recommend the two-volume Early Harappans and the Indus-Saraswati Civilisation. (Kaveri Books, New Delhi.) It was sponsored by the National Museum, New Delhi, and edited by DP Sharma, head of the Harappan Gallery in the National Museum. It has articles by a wide range of experts approaching from different angles.</b>

Since Asterisk... is concerned with the Aryan invasion question, it is surprising that Elst has completely missed <b>the main point that the subject now is no longer the invasion but the Vedic-Harappan relationship. This has been the subject of several conferences and the two-volume work referred to earlier. Natural history and genetics have shed a great deal of light on the pre-Harappan and even pre-Vedic periods, going back to the Ice Age, but there is no hint of it in Elst's writing.</b>
 
With this blind spot, Elst has also completely missed the obvious - that <b>the Harappan language and script question is part of the Vedic-Harappan relationship. If Harappan archaeology is part of the Vedic milieu, how can the language be something totally unrelated to each other?</b> Elst's comment that he finds the readings in our book (The Deciphered Indus Script, Jha and Rajaram) "too solemn" to be convincing, is little more than prejudice. By this I suppose he means it is too full of religious symbolism. The same is true of the Harappan iconography, which invariably accompanies the writing on the seals.

<b>In the face of this preposterous position, the writer's views on the language and script are worth nothing. Not that it matters, for he has no competence in the field.</b> Several eminent individuals and organisations are taking our account of the evolution of writing, and not just the decipherment, more seriously. (In addition to the two-volume work mentioned earlier, one can refer to Peter Watson's book, IDEAS.)

Strangely, Elst has little substantive to say on the Vedic-Harappan relationship, to which we devoted three full chapters in our book. This makes me suspect that he has only selectively scanned a few words and sections of that book that he can use to support his preconceived positions. This too puts Elst squarely in Witzel's camp, though I have to admit that Steve Farmer is more thorough, despite being stubborn at times and often taking wrong stand on important issues.

<b>The two books will appeal to those who like Elst's discursive and polemical style of writing, but one must not expect anything new in them. Repeating old IDEAS and arguments, he is generally out of depth when it comes to primary sources and new data.</b>

At the same time, this takes nothing away from Elst's earlier work on Ayodhya and negationism. They remain valid and valuable.

-- The reviewer, a scientist and historian, has recently written, along with David Frawley, a book, Hidden Horizons: 10,000 Years of Indian Civilisation

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So there is a falling out of the anti AIT guys. What is Elst agenda? We know Witzel and Farmer's agenda. Where is Elst coming from? Is he a Trojan Horse?

[acharya]

<!--QuoteBegin-ramana+Mar 19 2007, 03:53 AM-->QUOTE(ramana @ Mar 19 2007, 03:53 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->

So there is a falling out of the anti AIT guys. What is Elst agenda? We know Witzel and Farmer's agenda. Where is Elst coming from? Is he a Trojan Horse?
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Yes there is an agenda.
Think Opus Dei

[ramana]

I want a more detailed answer. <!--emo&--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/sad.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='sad.gif' /><!--endemo--> I would rather have some one read his works and critique them the way NSR has done to identify the strands of thoughts. From what NSR is saying Konrard Elst is another version of Witzel et al posing as a Indo centric scholar.

What do the forum stalwarts think of this? Is this for real or a squabble on the methods?

[dhu]

Dr. Elst has a materialistic bent of mind. His recent harangues about man made Vedas (versus their apaurusheya character) have been difficult to bear; it is a non-issue for Hindus while for westerners it is a centrally important because they tend to view indian traditions as theology. Elst also has a tendency to fall for propaganda about the monotheist nature of vaisnav"ism", etc, which has considerably reduced his sympathies for Hindus. In my opinion, Elst would do well to read 'the heathen' to disabuse himself of these western frameworks.

There has also been some undisciplined speculation in the past about Dr. Elst's forthcoming "U-turn" as well as some shameless blacklistling. I don't think there is any reason to doubt Dr. Elst's sincerity.

Lastly, there is also a traitorous class of arrogant brahminist scholars who are thoroughly brainwashed with western methods. They have their eyes trained on all developing fronts, including "heathen". their agenda is to further their power over the sources. Elst has merely taken their bait that they are impartial. This last class believes that "philological conclusions" should impact Hindu practices. In this they are essentially western agents.

[Hauma Hamiddha]

<!--QuoteBegin-dhu+Mar 19 2007, 06:37 PM-->QUOTE(dhu @ Mar 19 2007, 06:37 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->Lastly, there is also a traitorous class of arrogant brahminist scholars who are thoroughly brainwashed with western methods.  They have their eyes trained on all developing fronts, including "heathen".  their agenda is to further their power over the sources.  Elst has merely taken their bait that they are impartial.  This last class believes that "philological conclusions" should impact Hindu practices.  In this they are essentially western agents.
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Who are these Brahminist scholars? Hindu traitors definitely have many of *brahmin origin* (e.g. D.N. Jha) in their midst, but perhaps you are aware of the dharma rule that the brAhmaNa who does not perform his saMdhya is not a brAhmaNa. So these of brahminical origin are not considered brAhmaNas by practicing ones and do nothing good for the brAhmaNas in particular or Hindus in general.

Or is that brahmins have been there behind all problems ? I puzzled by the need to bring in brAhmaNa-s here.

[Guest]

http://www.gandirea.ro/linguistic_history_errors.php

There are few philologists that do not realize that linguistics is now in a deadlock. For 200 years now, since William Jones first had an inkling of and made his statements concerning the origin of San­
skrit, Old Greek and Latin from a mother-tongue (1786), many a brilliant mind have tried to reconstruct this extinct source-lan­ guage starting from its assumed offspring.

All such effort has proved useless: this mother-tongue is as little known now as it was 200 years ago, just as if nobody had ever even attempted to look for it.

1.2 The "Getica" magazine is meant to bring to the public eye obvious facts that have resulted from researches that cannot be denied as far as science goes, demon­ strating that the intuition of the revered
"Indo-European" scholars in the 18th and 19 th centuries was wholly unreal, that there was no need at all for the "Indo-European" language to be reconstructed. But, such as the Bible puts it: Having eyes see ye not (Mark 8/18).

The "Indo-European" is a logical con­cept, by no means a language and as-such it has no functional worth, i.e. no com-municational value; it is an assumption, a wish nobody has yet or will ever fulfill by means of the methods linguistics uses for reconstruction.

This is the reason why we find it utterly unfortunate that there are "specialists" who ignore this elementary fact: that "there is no such thing like the "Indo-Eu­ropean", that this is only a ghost invented from the need for some certainty, just a name thrown back upon some people and events 4000-5000 years old; the least we can say is that it is not wise to refer to this assumption as to some reality (also ref.to ref. 2 and other papers, both Romanian and foreign).

1.3 One should not overlook the fact that, given the way it has been treated up to now, linguistics has never been and can­ not possibly be a science proper, mainly because it has no law of its own, no scien­tific means and methods that are univocal, generally valid, its matter has random developments and is impossible to order by laws, etc.

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-Hauma Hamiddha+Mar 20 2007, 12:43 AM-->QUOTE(Hauma Hamiddha @ Mar 20 2007, 12:43 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->Who are these Brahminist scholars? Hindu traitors definitely have many of *brahmin origin* (e.g. D.N. Jha) in their midst, but perhaps you are aware of the dharma rule that the brAhmaNa who does not perform his saMdhya is not a brAhmaNa. So these of brahminical origin  are not considered brAhmaNas by practicing ones and do nothing good for the brAhmaNas in particular or Hindus in general.
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I am tempted to quote this for such so-called 'brahmins'. In Adhyatma Ramayanam, Sri Sukadeva relates this dialogue between Maharshi Narad and Brahma:

विप्रा लोभग्रहग्रस्ता वेदविक्रयजीविनः
धनार्जनार्थनभ्यस्तविद्यामतविमोहिताः
...
तद्वच्छूद्राश्च ये केचिद्ब्राह्मणाचारतत्पराः

(Narad disappointedly laments to Brahma that he foresees in Kaliyuga that -) Fallen to the planets of greed, Brahmins will not be short of selling the Vedas, even if just for eaning a living. Only motivation left for learning will be wealth. And some, who will actually be Sudras, will pose and be ready to imitate as Brahmins.

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-Bodhi+Mar 21 2007, 08:53 AM-->QUOTE(Bodhi @ Mar 21 2007, 08:53 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->(Narad disappointedly laments to Brahma that he foresees in Kaliyuga that -) Fallen to the planets of greed, Brahmins will not be short of selling the Vedas, even if just for eaning a living.  Only motivation left for learning will be wealth. And some, who will actually be Sudras, will pose and be ready to imitate as Brahmins.[right][snapback]65927[/snapback][/right]<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->Very true: some non-Indian people calling themselves Vedic Reconstructionists or 'Vedics' on a site I came across earlier, were referring to themselves as brahmins. <!--emo&:roll--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/ROTFL.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='ROTFL.gif' /><!--endemo-->
All thanks to the AIT, other people think Hinduism and pretending they are practising a Hindu occupation (mangling the Vedas with mispronunciations, no doubt) is <i>their</i> heritage. It's because of the Oryan connection.
But they don't call it Hinduism, mind. They stress it's 'Vedic Reconstructionism', which supposedly tries to extricate Hinduism (which they think is 'Dravidian' religion) from some imaginary Oryan thing they call 'Vedic religion'. <!--emo&:blink:--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/blink.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='blink.gif' /><!--endemo-->
In reality, the only place the Oryans and Dravidoids wander about is in their minds.

[Guest]

http://www.theoccidentalquarterly.com/vol2...-europeans.html

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Does this brief survey of pigmentation in ancient Ireland, Rome, Greece, Iran, India, and Xinjiang tell us anything?  I think it clearly does.  Light-haired and light-eyed types were found all over the ancient Indo-European world, even in lands which at present are overwhelmingly dark in pigmentation, such as Rome and India.  And traces of these northern European types occurred especially among the warriors who comprised each society's ruling class.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

The most interesting piece of evidence being offered is.. <!--emo&:guitar--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/guitar.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='guitar.gif' /><!--endemo-->

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->These Caucasoid mummies have typically northern European faces, with prominent noses, unslanted eyes, and hair that is usually fair or light brown.36  Although the mummies' eyes have long since perished, we know that two infants were buried with stones placed over their eyes, one with green stones and one with blue, colors perhaps representing their irises<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[Guest]

<!--QuoteBegin-rajesh_g+Apr 8 2007, 01:48 PM-->QUOTE(rajesh_g @ Apr 8 2007, 01:48 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->http://www.theoccidentalquarterly.com/vol2...-europeans.html

<!--QuoteBegin--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Does this brief survey of pigmentation in ancient Ireland, Rome, Greece, Iran, India, and Xinjiang tell us anything?  I think it clearly does.  Light-haired and light-eyed types were found all over the ancient Indo-European world, even in lands which at present are overwhelmingly dark in pigmentation, such as Rome and India.  And traces of these northern European types occurred especially among the warriors who comprised each society's ruling class.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

The most interesting piece of evidence being offered is.. <!--emo&:guitar--><img src='style_emoticons/<#EMO_DIR#>/guitar.gif' border='0' style='vertical-align:middle' alt='guitar.gif' /><!--endemo-->

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->These Caucasoid mummies have typically northern European faces, with prominent noses, unslanted eyes, and hair that is usually fair or light brown.36  Although the mummies' eyes have long since perished, we know that two infants were buried with stones placed over their eyes, one with green stones and one with blue, colors perhaps representing their irises<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->
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Did you heard of "blonde hair belt" of ice age ,streching from Spain ,southern Europe,central Asia till China? If this theory is true then that blond guys from China are native and didnt came from Europe.
They couldnt be from Skandinavia because it was under the ice cap.

[ramana]

<!--QuoteBegin-acharya+Nov 3 2006, 05:20 PM-->QUOTE(acharya @ Nov 3 2006, 05:20 PM)<!--QuoteEBegin--><span style='color:red'>They want to connect Sanskrit the pure language with  Adam, the Origin of Bible and Noah to create the new history of Christianity which will make the religion perfect.</span>


There is only one obstacle for this.  They need to destroy the link between Sanskrit,  Indus valley civilization and Hindus and the Indian sub continent.

THUS ARYAN INVASION THEORY WAS CONCOCTED

The speculation of the language and history is millennium years old.  This will not go away if anybody thinks so since the full history of the Christianity is still incomplete.
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Looks like there is way to do this by making Jesus the Kalki avatar to redeem the world. From all directions the Pauline Christian religion is facing threats of uncovering the truth. One way to get out of Hebrew and the Bible is to adopt a new paradigm.

And WMI(Welloff Modern Indian) and DIE(Deracinated Indian Elite) dont care for ancient India anyway.

[dhu]

<!--QuoteBegin-rajesh_g+Dec 27 2006, 06:43 AM-->QUOTE(rajesh_g @ Dec 27 2006, 06:43 AM)<!--QuoteEBegin-->http://ia.rediff.com/news/2006/dec/26guest...?q=sp&file=.htm

<!--QuoteBegin--><div class='quotetop'>QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Stephen P Cohen of The Brooking Institution has in the past stated that India is a civilizational state and would not be subordinate to others.

In the euphoria following President Bush's visit to India, The Times of India on its front-page carried the headline "Ind-Us Civilization." The reference -- if a bit over the top -- to the Indus civilization is revealing.

It alluded to an ancient bond. Today, English connects India and America and the UK -- the language of the call centers, outsourcing enterprises and the academia.

And yesterday, Sanskrit and its derivatives connected the Indo-Europeans. Language and culture being deeply related, much can be said about the consanguinity between the civilizations of India and the West.

Does India even belong in Asia?

Some decades ago, when I first went to America, a girl from Communist China abruptly told me at a students' meeting that I was not from Asia. I felt greatly insulted.

She may have been right after all.
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Confirmation of this viewpoint: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14i0XqQQRsg%20
these jokers are actually claiming ownership of Buddhism. "Buddhism is the West that went to the East"

[acharya]

Unending Aryan immigration debate
By R. Narayanan

Asterisk in Bharopiyasthan: Minor Writings on the Aryan Invasion Debate: Koenraad Elst; Voice of India; pp 207; Rs. 325.00

On June 24, 2006, The Hindu reported that the Indian Council of Historical Research (ICHR) has appealed to the Vice Chancellor of Bangalore University to encourage research through genetics on the subject of Aryan Invasion theory, after Deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) tests of blood samples from people in the Indian subcontinent confirmed that the people in North and South India as belonging to one gene pool, and not different ethnic groups such as Aryans and Dravidians; and the human race had its origins in Africa and not Europe or Central Asia as claimed by a few historians. The ICHR Chairman, D.N. Tripathy claimed, “The conclusion of some historians that Aryans came here 15,000 years before Christ does not hold water.” This might be one of the first genetics based study, but among academicians and scholars, the debate on Aryan invasion has been going on for the last six decades based on archaeological facts, evidences, myths and conjectures as well as based on linguistic studies equating Aryan race with Aryan language.

According to conventional “Aryan Invasion Theory” Aryan migrated to South Asia, or to put in historical analysis, invaded South Asia. Among other evidences, the most prominent one supporting the theory is the close relationship of Sanskrit to languages widely spoken in Iran and Europe.

While for academicians and researchers, the issue may be merely of scoring points over one another, the theory has always been subject to political interpretation. The theory has widely been used to unite as well as to divide people. As early as in 1935, Winston Churchill used Aryan invasion to justify the British conquest in the following words, “We have as much right to be in India as anyone there, except perhaps for the Depressed Classes, who are the native stock.” The terms such as dalits and panchamas (for subdued lower castes), adivasis (aboriginals), dasas (Dravidians) owe their existence to this theory, and these are the terms that have become very prominent in political vocabulary for mobilising people for political agenda.
<b>
It is in this context that the book, under review, is very significant. The author, Koenraad Elst, is among the researchers, who have been contributing to the discourse for the last two decades, arguing that “the theory of an Aryan invasion of India has not been proven by prevalent standards and that all relevant facts can just as well be explained with alternative models”.</b>

The book has seven chapters. The first two are book reviews of two interesting books by J. Bronkhorst and M.M.Deshpande, and Rajesh Kochhar respectively. Chapters three, four, five and seven are reproduction of papers/articles already published by the author in other journals/newspapers. The chapter six collates a series of response by the author to academic attacks by Prof. Michael Witzel on the Aryan invasion theory.

The Chapter one is aimed at taking the AIT theorists head on. It takes into consideration all the pro-invasion arguments and attempts a critique on them. The interesting part of the chapter is the distinction between invasion and immigration, in respect of Aryans, racist interpretation of Aryan invasion and the horse evidence. The author cites later excavation by archaeologists that prove the presence of “horse”like figures/images in Harappan sites. The author fairly succeeds in providing counterpoints to each of the evidences given in support of Aryan invasion theory. Incidentally, the review was excellent enough to enthuse the readers to read the original book by Bronkhorst et al. Similarly, the second chapter is also an excellent critique through a book review of pro-AIT book by astro-phycist Prof Rajesh Kochhar. This chapter will not be understood unless the original chapter is read. The author has taken the arguments head-on.

Most of the readers who come under the definition of Amartya Sen’s “argumentative Indian” will look forward to read the chapter three. It is the most interesting of all for it explores the real implication of the Aryan invasion debate. The article provides how the Aryan invasion debate <span style='color:red'>has influenced the political movements such as Dravidian movement, Dalit neo Ambedkarism, Tribal separatism, Christian Mission, Indian Islam, Indo Anglian snobbery, Indian Marxism and Hindu Nationalism.</span>

In respect of chapter four on the Harappan Script Controversy, I must admit, the author has taken a lot of pains and efforts not only to bring together multiple evidences and viewpoints on deciphering Indus scripts. It details all the hypotheses that link Indus scripts to Dravidian language, the Munda script, the Easter island connection, and also the hypothesis of the illiterate Harappans.

Nevertheless, the book will be a useful document for many students and scholars conducting work on this issue; and also for the common people who despite being silent participant in the discourse, and who despite having ‘conditioned’ opinion on the issue do not have time and opportunity to look into diverse resources available on the issue.

(Voice of India, 2/18, Ansari Road, New Delhi-110 002.)

[acharya]

<b><span style='color:blue'>
"Scholars from Sir William Jones to the PRESENT imagined this group
(Aryans aka Indo-Europeans) as their most ancient ancestors and
created for them an account of origins that, in its many variants,
carried biblical, colonialist, racist, Orientalist, anti-Semitic,
anti-Christian, and militarist valences at one time or another
(Lincoln 1999, pp. 211-212, parenthesis and emphasis added).</b></span>

[dhu]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->Marianne Keppens

My research starts from a general heuristic of our research programme: to understand the western culture one has to examine the way in which this culture has described other cultures. More specifically, it focuses on nineteenth-century European descriptions of India such as travel accounts, missionary reports and Indological texts. The main question is how the ‘caste system’ and ‘Brahmanism’ came into being as descriptive entities that structured and made sense of the European experience of India. What was the nature of the cultural background of nineteenth-century Europeans so that they experienced and understood Indian society in terms of a corrupt socio-religious organisation called ‘the caste system’? So far, research results have shown that this image of Indian culture and society has its origins in the Christian theological framework that structured the European experience of India.

The notion of an Aryan invasion has been an important element in the development of the concepts of ‘caste system’ and ‘Brahmanism’. Aryan Invasion Theory (AIT) tells us that a Sanskrit-speaking people invaded India around 1500 BCE and not only introduced their language, but also their religion (Vedism) and their social structure (the caste system). This theory is supposed to explain both how the caste system came into being and how the religion of the Vedas degenerated. It allowed for the classification of the historical evolution of the Indian religion into three main phases, viz. Vedism, Brahmanism and Hinduism.

Today the AIT is still accepted as the historical framework for the understanding of the Indian culture. Since the last few decades, however, this theory has also been the subject of a fierce and controversial debate. Peculiarly, it is completely unclear what the controversy is actually about. The arguments and claims that are given on both sides only tell us that India has known a long history of co-existence and cross-fertilization of different groups of people, cultural traditions and languages. In other words, this heated debate about India seems to lack any controversial problem at its core.

My research approaches the issue from a different angle: the problem in the AIT is not whether Sanskrit was indigenous to India or not, but that this theory did not emerge as an explanation of empirical or other scientific facts. Instead, it seems to have developed as an answer to a puzzle intrinsic to the European understanding of ‘the caste system’ and ‘the degeneration of religion’. Apparently, Europeans could make sense of what they experienced only in terms of the caste system, the domination of the Brahmin priests and the corrupting force of the Brahmanical religion. This European experience, rather than the linguistic or archaeological observations, were the ‘facts’ accounted for by the Aryan invasion theory. My questions then are the following: How can we account for the ‘caste system’ and ‘Brahmanism’ as experiential entities of the European culture? How, in the absence of any kind of evidence, was it possible that the Aryan invasion became a ‘self-evident’ explanation of these entities? To answer these questions I will look into the dominant understanding in nineteenth-century Europe of how societies come into being, of the role of religion in this process, of the relation between religion and law, etc. <!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->

[dhu]

VS Naipaul in Tehelka:

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin-->“Was it always so?”

“I think there is a difference between what the universities produced up to the 1940s and after 1950. In America for instance, a strange academic language has evolved.

What is even more strange is that some Indians want jobs at these universities and so they develop this mimic language, this hollow language and they become monkeys. The influence of all Western universities on India is bad. It imposes an idea of what thought is, of what history is, for instance. <b>This idea of history doesn’t deal with India. There is an Indian history waiting to be written, a big view rather than these monographs that people write. </b>The monograph method and form doesn’t serve the need. India should have and could have a Gibbon.”

“What about historians like Pannikar? He had a larger view, surely?”

“What I admired about Pannikar was his book Asia and Western Dominance.

It was about how Java and Sumatra, islands which were turned by the Dutch from nations into plantations, preserved their soul. He says they preserved their soul because of their religion and this is true, but he mistakes the religion. He thinks it is Islam. The Javanese and the Sumatrans were animists, Hindus, Buddhists and Islam was an imposition, destroying the soul of these nations. Islam is a proselytising religion.

It explains the need for fundamentalism. People have to be constantly told to give up their old evil ways and sprinkle themselves with the sands of Arabia.
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[ramana]

Even Bharat Karnad says that the monograph or essay/op-ed method is very shallow as there is no continuity of thought process -a world view that can be traced to the author.

I agree with Naipaul about Pannikar's book. it is referred to in many threads.

dhu, In #205 I wrote that we need to write a new history of India from the vedic, epic, post-vedic to the Mauryan times. And account for the "out of India' migrations.

[dhu]

What's interesting is that he says that the idea of history does not deal with India. This is the converse/inverse of what Indians usually say: that Indians do not have a sense of history.

Oppenheimer includes C Asia/S Asia as one unit while Europe is subsumed with ME under Western Eurasia. These are major paradigm shifts/reversals.

[ramana]

Op-ed in Pioneer, 9 June 2007
<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--> Naipaul's take

The Pioneer Edit Desk

He now sees India fractioning

Sir VS Naipaul's idea of India has not always found universal approbation in this country. Yet, he, the eternal outsider, is of Indian origin, which explains his passionate interest in India, and draws him to it, possibly in a quest for identity. This may be a good enough reason for this Nobel Prize winner's views on India - sometimes controversial - to be of interest to Indians. In an interview he once described his work as snapshots of cultures in difficult stages. He may have loaded his camera one more time for he has looked again at India through his viewfinder. <b>In a lecture at the Royal Society of Arts in London on the theme, 'The challenge of India', he has offered his perspective on the social churning currently on within our country. Mr Naipaul's views have evolved with time since he wrote his first book on India - An Area of Darkness - and certainly the country is a very different place from what it was then, which he has admitted subsequently. It is, therefore, not surprising that what he essentially notes are changes, some positive, others not quite so.</b>

For instance, he remarks that India has begun to question itself - a departure from his early views of a stagnant, intellectually sterile nation steeped in custom and tradition on the one hand and in slavish imitation of the West on the other. <b>If there is any truth in his current observation, then perhaps one may revel in the implication that India has begun to emerge from its mind-numbing colonial apathy and is on a path towards a self-confident exploration and assertion of its identity. Maybe this positive development is linked to the success of the Indian economy, and Mr Naipaul, without drawing this linkage, does explore the impact of success and money. While noting that money gave Iran the idea of revolution and the Arab world the idea of religious radicalism, he sees an equal but different impact on India. According to him, money is "fractioning India", causing it to drift apart from the idea of oneness given by Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru. This observation of Mr Naipaul, not free from difficulties, certainly deserves contemplation for India has definitively moved away from monolithic concepts of unity in politics and society. Whether this undermines a more fundamental historic unity and whether this is a cause to celebrate or will prove to be ultimately divisive, only time will tell. Some of the changes that Mr Naipaul postulates, such as the trend towards atomisation, are probably inevitable. While drawing attention to the conflict between faith and reason in India, he has congratulated it for not rejecting the mind. Presumably, this should protect India from extremes of any kind.</b> While one may dispute with some of Mr Naipaul's views, they must also be respected as those of a sensitive writer. Perhaps we should await their greater exposition in another book.
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Challenge of India

Naipaul interview with Farrukh Dhondy