The High Priestess Speaks Again!
Tuesday, 23. March 2004 - 12:09 PM
The High Priestess of Indian Marxism has spoken again! This time however, she speaks in a different language, but the meaning is the same. She leads us to believe that she is moving–surprise, surprise!–towards an honest examination of the infamous Aryan Invasion Theory.
But first, let me thank JK for providing this link.
All right, now to business.
The High Priestess (err…have I told that her name is Romila Thapar?) speaks in a language that is analogous to the twisting alleys of the slums of any large city: you think an alley will lead you to your destination, but it only opens up further alleys, and so you go on in a maze until you find it impossible to trace back the road where you originally started.
She bandied about the Aryan Invasion Theory for decades, unopposed, when she was in command of the ICHR despite facing overwhelming evidence to the contrary. When she could no longer defend it, she tried to quickly cover her tracks by changing her script: the Aryan Invasion Theory (AIT) changed to the Aryan Migration Theory (AMT)!
The AIT states that a group of white-skinned, ferocious tribals called Aryans came into North-Western India from Central Asia (Iran and surrounding areas), destroyed the existing civilization and imposed its own. They are said to have used chariots for transporation, and iron for carrying out warfare.
A summary of how this theory is untenable is given below (courtesy, Dr.David Frawley):
The Vedic culture was thus said to be that of primitive nomads who came out of Central Asia with their horse-drawn chariots and iron weapons and overthrew the cities of the more advanced Indus valley culture, with their superior battle tactics. It was pointed out that no horses, chariots or iron was discovered in Indus valley sites.Moreover, the whole idea of nomads with chariots has been challenged. Chariots are not the vehicles of nomads. Their usage occured only in ancient urban cultures with much flat land, of which the river plain of north India was the most suitable. Chariots are totally unsuitable for crossing mountains and deserts, as the so-called Aryan invasion required.
Frawley also cites several factual observations pertaining to anthropology, evidence from racial studies and metallurgy to disprove the AIT.
After this demolition, the High Priestess spoke as follows. I’ve reproduced the following from Romila Thapar’s Archaeology and Language at the Roots of Ancient India, published by the Journal of Asiatic Society, Bombay.
I did support the idea of a graduated migration of Aryan-speaking peoples from the Indo-Iranian borderlands into north-western India. This resulted in an interface of various cultures and this interface needs to be explored — and many of us have done so, as would be apparent from our other publications on the subject.
The change in Thapar’s script is noted well, again, by Frawley:
From the ferocious Aryan hordes we have come down to mild pastoral migrants coming not with iron and chariots but only herds of cattle. This Aryan migration theory I call the “fourth birth of the Aryan invasion theory.”
How small groups of pastoral migrants can accomplish changing the language of a subcontinent – which already had given birth to its own great civilization and imposing their own culture and social system upon it, is highly improbable and almost absurd. An existent complex cultural order such as ancient India indicates can easily assimilate a few cattle herders moving in, but such groups cannot be given the credit to assimilate the whole culture of a subcontinent.
But wait, her doublespeak doesn’t end here. She vindicates the “truth” of her “reasoning” by shifting stances again: and whom does she pick? The RSS, of course!
The mentors of the RSS spoke of race and the race spirit with reference to the Aryans in the 1920s and 1930s. If the RSS has now decided, as Dr. Swamy asserts, that Aryan is a language label and not a racial category, they are stating what many of us have been saying for some decades now.
So there! The founders of the RSS never spoke of Aryans in terms of race. It was Savarkar who briefly mentioned about the Aryan spirit, not in terms of racial superiority, but as a noble spirit that has made valuable contributions to human thought and evolution. And it was Hedgewar who founded the RSS, not Savarkar. But it is the same Romila Thapar who when she earlier supported the AIT, spoke of Aryans as primitive barbaric tribes who roughshod over the “indigenous” Indian people: by indigenous Indian people she means the tribals, and the Dalits (Dravidians if you will).
Sadly, no one except her pinko friends is willing to buy her theories anymore.
24. March 2004 - 2:21 PM
Sandeep, she is O SO Secular, that you can not question her on this issue. I remember when Talibans were bombing Bamiyan Buddha, her O SO Secular voice was saying that those were not the images of Buddha at all. There was no historical evidence to prove that those images were of Buddha!
Therefore her secular credentials are quite high! And she is quite high on intelligence. One day she will prove that Talibans derive inspiration from Aryan invasion. And they suffered in the hands of Aryans, hence this organisation called Al Kaida.
24. March 2004 - 2:49 PM
LOL Alka
Well said. Incidentally, do you know that the High Priestess of Marxist History is now appointed to the Kluge Chair? I suspect she accepted it because she now know her beans don’t boil in India any longer.
21. September 2005 - 12:56 PM
Have are your opinions now – on pseudo secularism as well as pseudo hindutva – in the last 18 months.
30. July 2007 - 2:27 PM
sandeep do not gorget people like her belong to a secular brigade yaar.They are allergic to hindu,hinduism so on and so forth so do not trouble her if people like you will expose her with facts she wont be able to face it so give her time to relax…
4. October 2007 - 1:48 AM
As history is past, what is Romila Thapar’s past.She belongs to a
Panjabi community.She hence can be a Punjabi Historian only.She can not be a world historian or Indian historian.The reason for her mania towards ancient Indian History like untrue aryan-invasion is the community to which she belongs has no reliable and known history.
It always begins and ends with nothing; it simply reproduces the history of ancient Hindu culture. This has created an inferiority complex in her and that is exhibited by way of writing jealousy history. So, her writings are encouraged by those who are equally placed like her in Indian society. Comrades are the chief-ones, because, they need to pay respects to their step-mother, living from India. Giving out-side support is always handy for them
22. December 2007 - 3:05 AM
Your comments attempting to discredit the academic standing of Professor Thapar are embarassingly ridiculous and indicative of the hindu chauvinism that plagues your countries “academic” institutions. Romila Thapar is probably the most prolific and incisive Historian to emerge from India (with perhaps Partha Chatterjee or Ranajit Guha as competition) you should be celebrating her rather than criticising her. As a historian, Prof. Thapar is entitled to alter her views over the past 50 years if any of you have read her other contributions to the historiography of the subcontinent I am sure that you will be suprised and withdraw your shameful remarks. Few of your comments are coherent or written in university standard English, consequently I think it is rather ironic that you dare to challenge the authority of so articulate a writer.
25. February 2008 - 4:45 AM
Could you please give some references where Romila Thapar supported or propogated the Aryan Invasion Theory?
22. March 2008 - 1:08 PM
Thank you Sandeep.
With people like you around, who needs Romila Thapar ?
We just need you and a bit of intellectual narcotics to die before seeing our beloved country become a nuthouse.
6. June 2008 - 3:39 PM
@chris
It is clear that your subaltern sensitivities have been hurt. Failed scholars like you are the chief reason why the tentacles of Islamic terrorism are enveloping the world. Moreover, we see no reason to celebrate a doctrine that has killed more civilians in a century than in the entire history of mankind. It is Romila Thapar and her communist comrades like R S Sharma and D N Jha who have dubbed an entire generation of Indian scholars as ‘nationalist’ whose stirring contributions to Indian History are practically unknown to the likes of you whose scholarship is restricted to a few standard entry level texts bereft of reading of even the primary sources. Practicing academic apartheid and witch hunts which the pinkies of JNU indulge in are only signs of a stalinist savagery.
The problem is if amateur historians like me can dismantle the substructure of her thought, then it speaks volumes on the absymmal quality of her works….
Two instances can be found here;
http://azygos.sulekha.com/blog/post/2007/06/sins-against-hinduism.htm
http://azygos.sulekha.com/blog/post/2007/06/the-marxization-of-the-upanishads.htm
Regards,
Dr. Saurav Basu
25. August 2008 - 10:16 PM
@saurav basu
Have you heard of peer-review. Have you ever wondered why the results of research work are not published in personal webpages but in research journals. Do you have any idea of the review a research output is subjected to by experts in the respective areas before it is finally published in a journal. You are an amateur historian as you have said, and you have hardly any capacity to question the quality of Romila Thapar’s work. Why don’t you try to get your work peer-reviewed and published in a journal of international repute before tarnishing the image a respected academic scholar.
5. August 2009 - 8:13 AM
“Have you heard of peer-review. Have you ever wondered why the results of research work are not published in personal webpages but in research journals. Do you have any idea of the review a research output is subjected to by experts in the respective areas before it is finally published in a journal.”
Have you ever heard of “you scratch my back-I’ll scratch yours” which is so common in the academic world? Ask some of your friends enrolled in PhD programs if they are willing to be honest and truthful about the process. Peer-review when it comes to social studies is akin to people looking out for each other and advancing each other’s careers – it has little to do with the actual merit of papers. Not saying that all of peer-review is bunkum, but I wouldn’t be quick to put peer-review above any and all criticism, or stop using my brains whenever I encounter the two words – “peer review”.
5. August 2009 - 9:51 AM
Ah, the timing couldn’t have been better!!
Here you go, Random Surfer – your “peer review” at work:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/05/health/research/05ghost.html?hp
17. February 2010 - 11:55 PM
Romilla Thapper agrees that the Aryans were called because of the language that they spoke which is of Indo-Aryan origin, the term was shortened to Indo-Ayrans and later to simply Aryans. These Indo-Aryan language speaking people who came to India were not aryans by race, but had a mixed heritage.
How can you disagree to the finding in the research
Quote from the paper
“In the most recent of these waves, Indo-European-speaking people from West Eurasia entered India from the Northwest and diffused throughout the subcontinent. They purportedly admixed with or displaced indigenous Dravidic-speaking populations. Subsequently they may have established the Hindu caste system and placed themselves primarily in castes of higher rank. …..
For maternally inherited mtDNA, each caste is most similar to Asians. However, 20%–30% of Indian mtDNA haplotypes belong to West Eurasian haplogroups, and the frequency of these haplotypes is proportional to caste rank, the highest frequency of West Eurasian haplotypes being found in the upper castes. In contrast, for paternally inherited Y-chromosome variation each caste is more similar to Europeans than to Asians. Moreover, the affinity to Europeans is proportionate to caste rank, the upper castes being most similar to Europeans, particularly East Europeans. These findings are consistent with greater West Eurasian male admixture with castes of higher rank.”
18. February 2010 - 1:10 AM
Anil, Romila Thapar knows diddly squat and as she is a marxist fanatic, whether she agrees or disagrees is the least of my concern. You are quoting from Michael Bamshad’s Genetic Evidence on the Origins of Indian Caste Populations. Read GENETICS ON MIGRATIONS IN HISTORY by Shri NS Rajaram,
http://hindurenaissance.com/index.php/2007100231/articles/history/genetics-on-migrations-in-history/menu-id-1.html
18. February 2010 - 2:17 AM
Anil,
I did not read Rajaram’s paper, but genetic research in this area is summed up in very simple and concise way here:
http://www.archaeologyonline.net/artifacts/genetics-aryan-debate.html
“However, 20%–30% of Indian mtDNA haplotypes belong to West Eurasian haplogroups, and the frequency of these haplotypes is proportional to caste rank, the highest frequency of West Eurasian haplotypes being found in the upper castes.”
This conforms to the bloody imperialist myth that genetic research has blown to the pieces. There is no caste wise pattern that can be derived from any genetic research. Read the article. Instead of we accusing Thappar of being a Marxists or Thappar’s clan accusing us of being fanatic, the research says it all. Besides does that paper of yours cite the genetic research papers that found the caste wise co-relation?
18. February 2010 - 1:40 PM
@Anil ,
Seems the research you quote contradicts the statements you make.
The Bamshad paper is explicit in alleging that caste divisions reflect social stratification reminiscent of ancient indo-aryan ingress into India.
However both Michael Witzel & Romila Thapar using “complex diffusion models” now contend that only language and culture and not genes got transferred. There is no mention of “mixed heritage” in these models.
By the way diffusion model renders the IE-ingress hypothesis unfalsifiable by making the model self-contained within linguistics with no chance of proving or disproving it using other disciplines.
Also the Bamshad paper has been superseded by studies by Kivisild (who co-authored the paper), and more recent research. It would be instructive to keep an open mind on these issues and read relevant research publications – other than the ones that seem to corroborate your point of view. Kivisild is an evolutionary geneticist of international renown, his studies followed by those of Oppenhiemer suggest that Indian subcontinent could be the population from which all non-African people draw ancestry.