"invasion"?

[rohan.oberoi at CORNELL.EDU]

Dominik,

The expression "Aryan Invasion Theory" is now broadly used (and has
been for at least a decade) by political polemicists on the Indian
right wing (these include Elst, though he is not Indian) to refer to
all scholarly thinking on ancient Indian origins which does _not_
hold, at a minimum, that the Sanskrit and related languages originated
wholly within the Indian subcontinent, and that the builders of the
Indus Valley Civilisation spoke some form of Vedic Sanskrit.

This designation is political, not descriptive, in nature, and has
nothing to do with real "invasion" (vs. migration) theories like those
of Mortimer Wheeler.  The use of the word "invasion" is probably
motivated by analogy with the historical Islamic invasions of India,
since the goal of these polemics is to strengthen the political
argument that the Hindu tradition (not brought to India by "invaders")
has a nativist historical claim to legitimacy in India which other
religious and cultural traditions like Islam and Christianity (brought
to India by "invaders") do not.

The "debate" Elst refers to is the entirely one-sided one that Elst,
Talageri, Kak, Frawley, etc. have carried on through their books (many
funded by the BJP/RSS publishing house Voice of India).

Regards,
Rohan



>I noticed a new book by Elst which has the title "Update on the Aryan
>Invasion Debate".  I'm unaware that there exists such a debate.  Am I
>alone in thinking this?  I thought that any idea of an invasion as such
>was discredited thirty years ago.
>
>I'm not being disingenuous about this; I'm not madly interested in all the
>arguments about aryans and so forth, so I can easily believe that I've
>missed some major point.
>
>--
>Dominik Wujastyk
>Founder, INDOLOGY list.