The Politics of the Aryan Invasion Debate

Dr. Koenraad Elst

A number of participants in the Aryan invasion debate as relayed in the fall/winter 2002 issue of the Journal for Indo-European Studies have alluded to the role of political predilections in influencing and distorting the argument. In particular, Aryan invasion skepticism, presented there by Prof. Nikolas Kazanas, is painted by some of its critics as essentially a political ploy by Hindu nationalist (or "Hindutva") forces. In India, apolitical scholars known to have crossed over to this position, most notably archaeologist B.B. Lal, have been accused of political motives for doing so. Questioning the Aryan Invasion Theory (AIT) is now widely presented as a part of the alleged hinduization or "saffronization" of history by the BJP-led government in India.

This much is true, that in its tentative and clumsy manner, the BJP (Indian People's Party) and the nationalist movement behind it, the RSS (National Volunteer Corps), have been trying to effect glasnost in the Marxist-dominated history establishment. Through the media, the West has vaguely heard an echo of the commotion about this development among Indian Marxist historians trying to hold on to their power positions. The focus has mostly been on deplorable gaffes like the planned introduction of astrology as an academic subject and the attempt to weed out reference to cow-slaughter in the Vedic age, not on the serious and perfectly valid reasons for the attempted reform, esp. the entrenched distortions of history imposed by the Marxists. It is a pity that the BJP doesn't have the resources and the competent people to achieve a proper and satisfactory overhaul of the textbooks (the Marxists having blocked Hindu-minded young historians from access to academic careers for decades), so that its reforms have been less than adequate and in a few cases downright laughable. Fortunately, however, AIT skepticism is a trend far older and wider than the recent politics of "saffronization", and should be dealt with on its own terms.

European political uses of the Aryan invasion theory:

Anyone familiar with the uncertainties inherent in historical research will be amazed to notice the immense self-assuredness with which most spokesmen for either side in the Aryan invasion debate are making their case. In reality, a lot in this question of ancient history is undecided: the Harappan script remains undeciphered and the archaeological findings (e.g. Lal 2002) are open to interpretation. Analysis of the historical data in the Rg-Veda fails to find any trace of an Aryan invasion (pace Witzel 1995:321, as shown by Elst 1999:164-166, Talageri 2000:425-476), though along with the Puranas it alludes to episodes of Aryan emigration (Renu 1994:26-33, Talageri 1993:359-370, 2000:140, 256-265), but these textual findings cannot be deemed conclusive. Even if they are accepted as solid historical data, scenarios of immigration at an earlier date than hitherto assumed remain compatible with them. So the claim by linguists that the genealogy of the Indo-European language family is best explained by an (as yet not firmly dated) invasion scenario should not be dismissed lightly. We are faced here with an open and undecided question, a fit object for intense but open-minded research.

One of the reasons for the absolutist rhetoric bedevilling the Aryan invasion debate is the enormous investment of various political messages in the competing theories. Their political use in India will be discussed below; but the Western scholar may be expected to know about their political uses in the West, which predate the Hindu nationalist involvement by at least a century. The Out-of-India Theory (OIT) was briefly popular in Europe in the Romantic age as part of the Orientomanic fashion, but the AIT had many more political uses. By relating an ancient instance of white colonization in a dark subcontinent, it confirmed the colonial worldview.

The AIT specifically justified the presence of the British among their "Aryan cousins" in India, being merely the second wave of Aryan settlement there. It supported the British view of India as merely a geographical region without historical unity, a legitimate prey for any invader capable of imposing himself. It provided the master illustration to the rising racialist worldview:

(1) the dynamic whites entered the land of the indolent dark natives;

(2) being superior, the whites established their dominance and imparted their language to the natives;

(3) being race-conscious, they established the caste system to preserve their racial separateness;

(4) but being insufficiently fanatical about their race purity, some miscegenation with the natives took place anyway, making the Indian Aryans darker than their European cousins and correspondingly less intelligent and less dynamic;

(5) hence, for their own benefit they were susceptible to an uplifting intervention by a new wave of purer Aryan colonizers.

The AIT was consequently a must in all Nazi textbooks on race (e.g. G�nther 1932, 1934). In this controversy, the AIT camp happens to be Hitler's camp. I would like to caution those who expect to trump the indigenist argument by insinuating political motives: you have no chance of winning that game, for no ugly name, not even "Hindu chauvinism", can trump "Hitler" in branding an opponent with guilt by association and blowing him out of the arena.

Contemporary Euro-nationalists uphold the pro-invasionist tradition, e.g. Meerbosch 1992, Van den Haute 1993. Certain rightist circles, vaguely known on the Continent as the Nouvelle Droite, devote particular attention to the Indo-European heritage, invariably claiming a European homeland, e.g. Schuon 1979; de Benoist 1997, 2000; Beno�t 2001:13; or Venner 2002:63. This trend has enlisted the contributions of eminent scholars, and their political views need not detract from the validity of their argumentation, but the political dimension is undeniably and explicitly present, e.g. AIT supporters Varenne (1967:25) and Haudry (1985, 1987, 1997, 2000) are, or were members of the Scientific Committee of the French nationalist party Front National. Conversely, the French Left has tried to delegitimize any research into the "tainted" topic of Indo-European ("Aryan"!) culture and origins, leading to the closure of the Institut d'Etudes Indo-Europ�ennes in Lyons. Likewise in the US, the Journal for Indo-European Studies has been under attack for alleged rightist connections.