Unmasking AIT

[dhu]

<!--QuoteBegin-->QUOTE<!--QuoteEBegin--><b>Preserving national identity</b>

Sandeep B (Pioneer 23 Jan 09)

As long as the Indian collective consciousness preserved the primacy of Vedic national unity, India could be invaded but not broken. And it is to this that we must return to keep India united

Last week, two seemingly unconnected articles appeared about India. They were unconnected in time but unified by theme. Rajiv Malhotra’s “We, the nation(s) of India” in Tehelka (17 January) was a dispassionate analysis of the dangers today’s India faces mostly from within but powerfully abetted by fissiparous forces from outside. The Belgian scholar, Koenraad Elst’s review of Shrikant Talageri’s latest book Rigveda and the Avesta: Final Evidence refocuses on one of the defining periods of pre-ancient India, which is still the subject of much controversy in Indological studies worldwide, and which has far-reaching effects both today and in future.

Rajiv Malhotra’s piece identifies the extent of divisiveness that, if left unchecked, will splinter India sooner than later. He calls into evidence an array of internal and external factors contributing to this phenomenon from such diverse fields as academia, media, white supremacy, pop Hindu gurus, history, politics, sports, and Bollywood. He concludes that today’s urgent need is for the ‘Indian genius’ to “improvise, innovate, and create a national identity worthy of its name.”

In other words, to wage a long, aggressive, and decisive battle to rediscover what India has lost. To abandon Jawaharlal Nehru’s ill-understood Discovery of India in favour of a true Rediscovery of India. To study why Alexander’s invasion was akin to an ant-bite to India but why India suffered massive casualties on all fronts at the hands of successive Muslim marauders. To that end, Shrikant Talageri’s book must be made mandatory reading to all Indians with the national interest at heart.

A polyglot, poet, scholar, a fierce proponent of Sanatana Dharma, and a warm friend, Shatavadhani R Ganesh terms Rig Vedic India as the ‘most romantic period’ in the entire history of this nation. A cursory reading of the literature about that period shows us that it was a very ‘happening’ era — from sweeping natural changes to revolutionary inventions in metallurgy, politics, town-planning to intense philosophical speculation, the India of 5,000-plus years past was an exciting time to live in. Most significantly, it was the womb that nurtured the defining seed of an entire civilisation and way of life sustained till today. That despite continual natural threats — of rivers drying up, of cattle dying and other unforeseen natural disasters — Rig Vedic India was able to produce such masterpieces of philosophy as the Nasadiya Sukta is verily a wonder.

All things were equal as long as the natives accepted the Aryan Invasion Theory. In a line, the AIT negates all achievements of ‘native’ Indians using the following concocted narrative: The 5,000-year-old Indian history is one unbroken tale of alien invasions, and thus, the credit for all achievements doesn’t really belong to them. In a stroke, this provided the logical premise for the imbecilic grand conclusion that India was never a nation. Our early home-grown Communists zealously championed this ‘theory’ for several decades.

However, it is now part of academic history that each new scholarly investigation in this area drawn from different disciplines — archeology, linguistics, and maritime studies — was an additional nail added to the coffin of the spurious AIT.

As Elst shows, Talageri’s new book draws evidence directly from the internal chronology of the Rig Veda. But Talageri’s masterstroke lies in paying the AIT proponents back in their own coin. He uses about two centuries’ worth of AIT scholarship and reaches precisely the opposite conclusion: No Aryans migrated into India. To quote Elst, “Talageri compares the contents of the oldest layer… books six, three and seven; of the middle layer, books two and four; and the youngest layer, comprising books one, five, eight, nine and 10. Covering every verse… and comparing the three periods, he finds a shifting focus in the names of animals, plants, rivers, landscape features, technology, ancestors, ethnic groups, and in personal name types and verse forms… the old layer was indubitably composed in the Yamuna/Saraswati region, which was to remain the centre of gravity of Vedic culture; the middle layer’s horizon expands westwards as far as the Indus; while the youngest parts are also familiar with Afghanistan. This is exactly the opposite of what the AIT predicts.”

This is where Indians need to trace their ‘national identity’ to. This also demolishes the dubious ‘Dravidian identity’ thereby razing the paper-thin foundation of Karunanidhi’s brand of politics. As long as the Indian collective consciousness preserved the primacy of this Vedic national unity, India could be invaded but not broken. And it is to what we must return to reunify India.<!--QuoteEnd--><!--QuoteEEnd-->