SV: SV: Closing remarks to Dr. Vassilkov (& Mr. Agarwal) (II)

[Lars Martin Fosse]

Bharat Gupt [SMTP:abhinav at DEL3.VSNL.NET.IN] skrev 08. september 1999 14:17:

[LM Fosse wrote]> >
> > >From my readings in Indigenism, it would seem clear that the "Aryan-
> > >Dravidian"
> > divide plays a very important role in the history-writing of the
> > Indigenists.
> > In other words: because a certain interpretation of history seems to create
> > problems between the North and the South, it has to be rejected and
replaced
> > by
> > a less inconvenient theory.....
> > Their job is to manipulate history in the same manner as communist
> > and fascist historians manipulated *their* histories in order to use them
> > as
> > political tools. So is a debate meaningful at all?
>
[Bharat Gupta wrote:]

> This is not a fair remark:
> Fosse's argument against the credibility of Indigenists postulations could
> apply
> equally well to AIT or out of India origin of Aryans.

Much of the indigenist critique - as far as I can see - claims precisely that
the "invasion" theory is politically motivated. I would therefore like to point
out that both the Aryans and their geographical displacements have been
conspicuously absent from public debates in the West since the end of the
second world war. Apart from a lunatic fascist fringe and a few scholars who
specialise in this field, the Aryans and their origins have lost all interest
with the general public and the politicians. This is not the case in India. In
India the debate has a *specific* political function. In the West, it has no
function at all, and Western politicians do not need the Aryans and their
origins to justify anything. I don't think that my remark is unfair, I think it
is simply pragmatic.

It is easy for one say
> that the
> hidden agenda of all European and American whites, why fascists and
communists
> only, has
> been to uphold the hegemonic powers of  Aryans ancestors as conquerers and
> colonisers of
> Greece and India, two major ancient civilisations, and as modern European
> civilisation
> has nothing more solid to fall back upon except the Stonehenge, they
interpret
> the
> history of Greece and India as unoriginal.

It is not my impression that the history of Greece is regarded as unoriginal.
Quite to the contrary, the West owes the foundations of its intellectual
culture to the combined efforts of Greeks, Romans and Hebrews. And the Greek
role is extremely important. Nor would I personally claim that the culture of
India is unoriginal. Quite to the contrary, Indian culture has a number of
highly interesting and quite unique features which are not parallelled
elsewhere.

It could also be alleged that Euro-
> scepticism
> about Indian origin of Aryans is to perpetuate the North vs South disparity
in
> the
> political order.

This could certainly be claimed, but it does not make sense. Every modern
politician knows perfectly well that dominance in politics is a function of
economic and military power. As long as the majority of your population is well
fed and has enough brain-dead entertainment to keep it occupied, you don't
really have to produce a lot of justification. Using the Aryans in a Western
society that is increasingly loosing its sense of history has no meaning
whatsoever.

> Instead of imputing political motives let us remember the crucial drawbacks
of
> AIT as
> well as the Idigenists arguments.

The political motives of the indigenists are there for everyone to see. The
history of indigenism shows quite clearly that it mostly is the product of
political expediency. There are other motives as well, but politics are
important. And my point remains the same, although it can be generalized: In
all cases where ulterior motives, whether these are of a theological, a
political or an economic reason, play a part in determining people's views, an
academic debate quickly looses its meaning.

Contrary to what it may seem, I personally don't really give a damn about the
origin of the Indo-Europeans. For me, this debate is primarily about
professional method. If you can demonstrate with sufficient probability that
the Indo-Europeans came from India, that is fine with me. But so far, all I
have seen is a lot of bad scholarship where arguments ex silentio are given far
more weight than they should have under normal circumstances, and where
linguistic evidence is either ignored or treated incompetently.

On one hand there is no archeological
> evidence of an
> Aryan homeland in Europe of Central Asia on the other the Indus script is
> still unread.

I don't think this is correct at all. There is evidence that Indo-Europeans
have been in Europe for a very long time. And some would certainly claim, with
good specific arguments, that archaeological evidence from South Russia is
Indo-European.

> Language, equine zoology, ash layers and astrology, etc., have not combined
> still to be
> anything more than fluid and conjectural. AIT whether hard, soft or pulp,
> presumes a
> "balance of convenience" in favour of North to South movement and the
> Indigenists
> believe in vice-versa as they point out that Harappan civilisation could be
> Aryan as the
> only place where Aryan culture surives to this day is India.

Any attempt to reconstruct a general history for the oldest layers of
Indo-European culture will necessarily be partly conjectural. That is what
happens when you have no historical documents.It is important to realize from
the outset that a number of things cannot be *proven*, they can only be
regarded as possible or probable. However, the movements of the Indo-Iranians
and Indo-Aryans must be fitted into the general picture of Indo-European
dispersal, and so far the indigenists have not been  able to do this. The
reason why western scholars tend to hang on to the Eurasian origin of the I-E
is that the probability mass - all things considered - rests in favour of such
a solution.

Best regards,

Lars Martin Fosse



Dr. art. Lars Martin Fosse
Haugerudvn. 76, Leil. 114,
0674 Oslo
Norway
Phone/Fax: +47 22 32 12 19
Email: lmfosse at online.no