UP GOVT. INCITING HATRED BY REWRITING HISTORY BOOKS
The education minister of the BJP government in UP said the Aryans were the original inhabitants of the country. The theory that Aryans were foreigners who had entered north-western India through the passes in the Hindu Kush was the work of motivated historians, he said. (DV Sept.1 92, p.20 Anti- Muslim brainwashing in UP).
By rewriting textbooks, the BJP hopes to make a twofold gain.
First, it plans institutionalising its much propagated but fallacious theory that Muslims were the first invaders who settled down in this country and who showed no reverence to its customs and norms.
Second, by polarising Hindus and Muslims genetically, the BJP will contend that Indian culture is not syncretic and that India is not a community of communities.
The BJP’s new, queer history will be taught in schools from next year. Little children will learn an erroneous version of history, written not by an objective academician but in accordance with the dictates of fascist political party.
That the distortion of Aryan history will, ultimately, belittle the Hindu religion itself does not sem to bother the BJP.
If the BJP tries presenting the Aryan invasion of India as fiction masquerading as fact, then it will have to repudiate the basic Indo- European character of Hinduism. This is not possible as certain rituals and beliefs of the faith bear affinity to those of the Greeks, Romans, Celts, Germans, Scandinavians and Slavs.
European origin of Aryans: Further, there is no evidence to prove that Aryans went to Europe from India. Therefore, the historical testimony which suggests that Aryans migrated to India has also been used to support the notion that Indo-Europeans emerged from the region near the Caspian Sea and the southern Russian Steppes.
From their original homeland, the Indo-European tribes spread out in search of pasture. Some went to Greece, others to Asia Minor, to Iran and to India. By the time the · Indo- Europeans reached India, they had acquired the name “Aryan”.
To date, no scholar has challenged Georges Dumezil who has established the common religious heritage of the Indo-European peoples. The historicity of the assertion that the quintessential religion of the Aryans was not rooted in India is quite unquestionable.
The Aryan Hindu religious vocabulary did not have analogues in the Dravidian languages of the Indian aborigines. However, they did and do in the European and Indo- European languages.
For example, the word for god in Sanskrit is deva. This is derived from the Indo-European deiw (to shine) or the corresponding noun deiwos (those who shine). The Latin equivalent is deus. Similarly, the word sharaddha can be compared to the Avestan zrazda or the Latin credere.
Apart from language, the Indo- European character of the Vedic Aryans was visible in their lifestyle, culture and institutions. Light was the embodient of the most basic religious sentiment of the Aryans. This bears comparison with the Latin concept of aurora and the Greek one of eos.
The attitude of the ancient Hindus towards agni (fire) personified and deified by Aryans in the Rig Veda-is akin to that of the Romans and Persians .,, Agni, ignis (Latin) and ognji (Slavic) are all reconstructions of the Indo-European egnis.
The yajna, a major rite of the Aryan Hindus, can be regarded a variant of the Roman sacrificium. Moreover, the Vedic santramani sacrifice, which. is dedicated to the deity Indra, bears a striking resemblance to the Roman. suovetaurilia.
It is clear from the annals of Heredotus that the Aryan practice of deifying natural phenomena was also a feature of Greek and Persian society. This is in keeping with the primordial Indo-European trait of regarding all natural phenomena as divine.
Even smaller natural phenomena, like rivers and streams, were deified. An old Syracusan gold coin depicts the river Arethusa as a goddess. The Aryans did the same to Indian rivers, with the Yamuna and the Ganga being prime examples.
Aryans were original invaders: Anthropological studies show that the shift from the non- anthropomorphic to the anthropomorphic was smooth but gradual. Indra, the god of fire, and Agni are products of this process which is analogical to the mythology of the Greeks and Romans. The Vedic pantheon presents a parallel to the Greek, Roman and Nordic.
Further evidence that the Aryans were not an indigenous people comes from the fact that no Indian evidence has ever been cited as the basis of their ethic identity. The indigenous Indians, described in Vedic literature as panis or dasas were held as inferior because of their dark complexion and flat features which bore contrast to the fair skins and sharp features of Aryans.
The language and social habits of the locals were totally alien to the invaders. This bred contempt and racism. Subsequently, the word dasa came to mean slave. Therefore, at best, the Aryanisation of India can be regarded as its original colonisation.
The settlements of the Aryans were initially confined to Punjab. Later, as they advanced along the Ganga, Aryans spread eastward across uninhabited territory. After the entire north had been claimed, the Aryans began the colonisation of the Deccan.
Subjugation of the south: The subjugation of the south remained incomplete because the Aryans who settled there failed utterly in their attempt to impose their language and ways on the locals.
The aborigines in the north were, however, reduced to servitude. (Later they declined to the level of Untouchables). The original Aryan social structure comprised three classes; it now came to include a fourth. The Sudras were given the status of the fourth caste under Hindu law.
Why is the BJP keen on portraying the Aryans as non-immigrants? Why is it attempting to prove that Indian culture has not derived from the Indo- European stock?
The reason is the party is bent upon making the genetic principle absolutely binding so that heredity is viewed as a principle of ordering not only race relations but all kinds of relations and functions within Hindu society.
Why Nazis worship Ram? By seeking to bind Hinduism in a straitjacket and preclude any change in its hierarchy, the BJP has proved that it is the representative of solely upper caste Hindus (i.e ., the descendants of the Aryans). Its obsession with Ram is not surprising as the para-historical Ram is regarded as the supreme Aryan warrior-king in India and the leader of the southern compaign.
That the BJP is not interested in the betterment of the lot of non-upper caste Hindus is apparent. It has not debunked Vedic orthodoxy which declares it sacrilegious for a Sudra to even hear, let alone read, the Vedas. During any caste riot the bloodletting in Rajasthan’s Kumher town earlier this year is a case in point – the BJP champions the upper caste cause and encourages lower caste oppression.
Why Bengal is an exception? That the politics of the BJP has not found much acceptance in Bengal is also due to its casteist overtone. Bengal witnessed an intellectual clash between conservative and liberal Hindus, in the last century, over the very issue. The conservative argument, equating Hindu pride with Aryan superiority, was dismissed by the liberals who argued that since Bengalis were not Aryan a good deal of Hinduism was clearly non- Aryan.
Such thought crystallised into the popular credo of Bengal and ensured the absence of the caste consciousness which characterises modern Aryavarta.
It is from this credo that must arise the challenge to the insidious BJP bid to codify Hinduism. The BJP’s reinterpretations of history is indeed harmful for Indian Muslims,
it is even more dangerous for 75 per cent of the Hindu population of this country. (Telegraph Setp.3)
