Aryan Invasion Theory - Publication - Vivekananda Kendra

VIVEKANANDA KENDRA PATRIKA
4
ARYAN INVASION THEORY
a hypothesis by facts is not much mourned in scientific circles and in fact it is even
an occasion of joy for that heralds the birth of a new discovery.
The same is not true in politics or organized religion. Here a religious or political
dogma is cherished and held to the hearts with umpteen apologist arguments rather
than changing it. Swami Vivekananda declared bravely that religion should submit
itself to the test of reason and science. And he said that what emerges after such an
act of purification shall be the real religion and the rest have been always useless
superstition.
If even such a subjective inner phenomenon like religion needs scientific
methodology then how much more scientific temper do disciplines like history and
archeology need? Unfortunately in India the visions of the past have become hostage
to socio-political vested interests. Dogmas dictate history writing. What else can
explain the fact that Aryan invasion theory, which does not even merit the word
theory, still survives after almost every study in every discipline has proved this
‘theory’ to be false and baseless. The idea of ‘Aryan race’ which has no basis in
reality has been responsible for the Second World War and holocaust. The variants
of the theory, propagated in African colonies by white missionaries and colonists,
have resulted in genocides.
Yet the ‘theory’ lives in academic circles. But it is a strange life that this ‘theory’
lives. In Europe after the West witnessed the destructive powers of the theory,
extraordinary efforts were taken to exorcize the Western psyche of the notions of
Aryan race. Today only a fringe ring of rightwing crackpots, believes in ideas such
as ‘Aryan race’. But in the case of India, speculations based on Aryan race/invasion
form the academic framework for understanding every aspect of Indian society.
The danger in this is that, such a tendency converts the whole range of intercommunity
relations that exist in India as racial connections and conflicts. This in
turn can result in violent internal conflicts ending in civil wars and genocides.
Our savants have warned us against the non-factual distorted nature of the Aryan
race theory. Swami Vivekananda thundered, “There is not one word in our
scriptures, not one, to prove that the Aryans ever came from anywhere outside
India.... The whole of India is Aryan, nothing else.” He further stated very clearly:
“Such words as Aryans and Dravidians are only of philological import, the so-called
craniological differentiation finding no solid ground to work upon.” Any theory
worth its salt should provide clarity of vision. But not so the Aryan race concepts.
Swami Vivekananda correctly pointed out that they instead provide only “a lot of
haze, created by a too adventurous Western philology”,
Our savants have warned us against the non-factual distorted nature of the Aryan
race theory. Swami Vivekananda thundered, “There is not one word in our