Relevance of AIT

Michael Higgins asks, "Shouldn't Indians be thinking about the future, rather than be obsessed with past." ?

This , ofcourse is a question frequently asked ,often rhetorically. In my view this question is at best a diversionary tactics of people ignorant of history and dismissive of past (which means most of the educated, Indians or otherwise).

So what is the relevance of discussing AIT ?

People who oppose the very discussion argue in following way.

1) Discussion over AIT distracts from real issues like poverty, hunger, proliferation etc.
2) AIT is an academic issue and not worth wasting time upon
3) There have been numerous invasion on India, so AIT must be true.

Here is my rebuttal

1) arguments like first one set up false dichotomy. Discussion on AIT in particular and on History in general need not distract from discussion on any other issue. In fact, any society in general has to face a multitude of discussion at a given time, a successful society is one in which these discussion can be carried out simultaneously. Or to present another view even thought AIT was not as big a political debate during first five decades, poverty and hunger being the issue that were sought to be solved and yet the problems persist.

2)Academic in this sense means something which doesn't have any practical application, for example in airplane design, this is most certainly true for AIT. However the conclusion that anything which can not be used in practical application is useless is a dangerous and yet popular opinion in modern times, I will try to explain it why.
History is study to past, now the question is to what end ? The answer in my view is analyzing and understanding that past provides us with a perspective, sort of a big picture about the present, it gives us precedence and information for us to make judgment upon whether our current system will work or not.

Present civilization, in whatever aspect is not a disconnect from past. Instead every facet from science to philosophy, from religion to ethics and from governance to jurisprudence has its foundation on the past. Modern rationalism and atheism are results of a continuous progression in a particular school of philosophy. So is the independence of legislature and judiciary , or for that matter exclusion of state and church.

Here it is not as important as what the system is specifically about, it could be about philosophy , economics , governance , religion or politics. More important is that with past data we can critically test the robustness of our current system as well as the thought process.
For example we know high taxes will not work considering the example of Rome.
Or Why it is a bad idea to ask starving people to eat cake.
Or Why burning a city for artistic inspiration is not a good idea.
Or How is it possible to establish an empire, even if you are a ugly Brahmin.
Or What happens when a nation is disunited.
Or Why those who forget past repeat it.

I can give countless examples to show why studying history is a good idea.
Which brings us to the specific question of why discussion on AIT is important and will always be political in nature

For that I must introduce Aryan Invasion Theory.

According to AIT, Aryans which was particular kind * of group from particular place * at a particular period* of history invaded India riding on chariots and annihilated the existing civilization , supplanting fully culture, language of India, the vanquished group settled to south.

The new group had a different religion from the defeated group, this new religion and its pantheon replaced the older religion and pantheon to a large extent and was somehow modified /adapted to suit the warmer climes.

First point : AIT is not about invasion in general. It is about invasion by some specific group at some specific time.

Second Point : AIT was not any routine invasion either (if that is possible), AIT completely changed the civilization at that time.

There may be two ground to oppose AIT, on the basis of data, on its conclusions.
Both are related. Some people concentrate on the first , some on the second and some on both.

Veer Savarkar accepted AIT but rejected that Indic civilization was imported, instead he argued that it was organic.

Now here it is necessary to go into background.

Indologists like Max Mueller were deeply impressed by the ancient work of India and Sanskrit language. In addition similarities between Sanskrit and European language was noticed by Scholars (I don't know for myself, may be Jaffna or JK could write on it). As was the practice of the 19th century, when history was constructed through euro- centric and racial point of view, it was concluded that the Indic civilization could have been explained by invasion of Europe based group. The word Aryan (which indicated noble) was taken out of context to denote the attackers.
Similarly it was proposed that based on the difference of color pigmentation, Dravidian (again a word taken out of context) were the original inhabitant.

In the original AIT , it was proposed that Dravidian were tribal and it was Aryans who brought civilization. This piece of slopism was not unintentional, the intention was to establish a precedence for current colonialism as bringing civilizations to barbarians, as Guru Aurobindo remarked that AIT was conceived because European couldn't afford to be seen as rapacious horde, which as colonialist they were.

This precedence was later adapted by Islamic intellectuals to claim superiority over Hinduism .

In a most twisted fashion it was accepted by some Hindus to curry favour with their masters (Mahatma Gandhi one among them).

Intellectuals like Swami Vivekananda and Guru Aurobindo opposed this false notion of Aryans , but vested interest always ensured the objection was always buried

The purpose of this was to show Indians as the inferior race and Europeans as master race.
Also by establishing superiority a natural right on India was claimed by Europe.
Churchill said as much when he remarked that British has as much claim on India as any one else with the possible exception of original natives.

Unfortunately even though English has left the country, Indians remain shackled by this perceived inferiority.

There was a second thread which ran contrary to this, after Indus valley was excavated and a presence of civilization prior to AIT was established, it was proposed that Dravidian established the Indus valley civilization, which was destroyed by invading orders of barbarian Aryans.
It was alleged that Dravidian were pushed to south by Aryans and caste system instituted to sub ordinate original natives.

This was to establish a racial divide between upper and lower caste , as well as north Indian and south Indian. It was exploited by Communists/Dravidian politicians/Certain Dalit activists to occupy a moral highground against Hindu/Brahmin.

This antagonism persists to this date and is a impediment to national integration as well as any social reform.

A more articulate view is expressed in this article and this comment by Jaffna.

Now coming back to the post in question,

First, To claim AIT must be right as India has been invaded numerous times is an example of intellectual sloth. AIT makes specific claims about the timeframe and effect on civilization. Only if it is right then can it be said AIT is right.

Second Such claims are a reflection of colonialist mindset that Indian culture has always been a phoren import from North West. Here the commentator makes a departure to claim that although AIT is correct, Indic culture is by and large soil grown variety, but as I said while introducing AIT, AIT rejects any such claims.

Third. I could not understand why the commentator referred to Aryans as bread people, if it referred to dietary habit (that is rice versus wheat) that is easily one of the most asinine defense
(I apologize for saying this) of AIT. I will like to think that dietary habits are dictated by climate and staple available rather than AIT.


Considering the political and historical significance of AIT, I think present discussion on AIT is a good thing.

Past is never an established fact.