RULING classes and power seeking groups have always used history for their political interest. This subsequently leads distortion, omission, and misinterpretation of history. On one hand, disputes, discussions and debates make history a dynamic subject, but on the other hand it becomes a tool in the hands of those who wield power and manipulate it for their hidden or open agenda.
The Aryan factor in the history of India is an example in which the interested groups are involved to present it in the interests of their political motives. The British were the first who, in the nineteenth century, propounded the myth of the Aryan invasion in which fair-skinned invaders defeated the dark-skinned Dravidians. The Aryans, according to this theory, emerged as conquerors and racially more superior to the aborigine inhabitants. Supporting it, W.W.Hunter writes in the Imperial Gazetteer of India (1881) that, “Our earliest glimpses of India disclose two races struggling for the soil: one was fair-skinned people, which had lately entered by the north-western passes; a people of Aryan, literally of ‘noble’ lineage. The other were a race of lower type, who had long dwelt in the land, whom the lordly new comers drove back before them into the mountains, or reduced to servitude on the plain.”
This interpretation suited not only to the British but the upper caste Hindus. In case of the British, they legitimized their claim to rule over India as belonging to the Indo-Aryan race. The upper castes, believing the veracity of this theory, asserted that India was the original cradle of human civilization. Based on this assumption, B.G. Tilak assigned Vedas to the third millennium while A.C.Das placed some of the hymns to the geological epoch.
The whole myth of the Aryan invasion is challenged by some of the historians. Firstly, it is pointed out that the clash was not between superior or inferior races as historical evidence show that the Dravidian people were more civilized than the Aryans as they produced Harrapa, a highly advanced civilization. On the contrary, the Aryans were pastoral people and culturally far behind the Dravidians. Secondly, it is too simple to say that the Aryan conquerors, after defeating their adversaries, pushed them to the south and as such there was no integration or interaction between these two groups of people and both remained separate, socially and culturally. Indian historians, including Romila Thapar, challenge the whole concept of the invasion and proved that instead of invasion, the language Indo-Aryan had come with a series of migrations “and therefore involving multiple avenues of the acculturation of peoples.”
Debiprasad Chattopadhyaya, the author of ‘Lokayata’ refutes the myth of Aryanization of India on hard historical facts. According to him, the majority of the Indian people were non-Aryan. He quotes numerous examples in which he has proved that India was not always ruled by the upper castes belonging to Aryans. In the process of history, the low caste people assumed power and acquired the status of rulers. However, such was the cultural and psychological domination of the Aryans that: “The rulers would try to establish pure Aryan decent for themselves.”
For example, the Maurays were not Aryan. But to get legitimacy and recognition, they Aryanized themselves. The recent example is of Shivaji who belonged to sudra caste, but at the time of his coronation, he had to change his caste and for this purpose “a very learned pandit of Banaras, but of Maratha descent, was invited to give an opinion that Shivaji was a varatya-kstriya (Fallen kstriya) and that if he was purified acceding to the injunctions of sastras, the ceremony of coronation might be performed. For fifteen days poor Shivaji had to undergo all sorts of purificatory rites and then he as anointed king.”
A.C.Dutta in his book ‘Peasantry of Bengal’ (1874) proves that the majority of the Bengalis were not Aryan: “The Aryan conquerors of Bengal, after spreading their religion throughout the region did not and could not exterminate the aboriginal tillers of the soil. It stands to reason to suppose that, while the brave and the fierce aborigines retired to the wild and fastness of Bengal the weaker population accepted the religion of the conquerors and maintained, as they were before, the cultivation of the soil.”
On the basis of 1871-72 census, Chattophyaya proves that the majority of the tribal population is non-Aryan. In the ancient past attempts were made to integrate these tribes to the Aryan fold. For example, Kautilya, in Arthasastra, suggests using all methods such as woman, wine and poison to bring these tribes under the empire. However, successive empires were not able to subdue these tribes and failed to bring them under their control. They persistently continued to retain their independence. The existence of vast number of tribes clearly proves that it is nothing but a myth to say that whole India was Aryanized.
The recent interpretation about the Aryans is based on the Hindutva ideology which rejects invasion as well as migration theories and claims that in fact the Aryans were the original inhabitants of India and from there they migrated to different parts of world and spread the Indian civilization. This theory suits the followers of Hindutva who exclude the Muslims and Christians from their fold as foreigners. This leads them to distort history and manipulate facts to prove their point of view. As BJP is in power, they are trying to use political power to change history by rewriting history textbooks.
The attempt to use history for political agenda is not new. For example, in Nazi Germany, the myth of Aryan superiority was built officially but it collapsed with the fall of their government. In South Africa, history was written with racial point of view that has changed after the end of white supremacy. India and Pakistan must realize that distortion of history to suit their political designs would be disastrous for both. Time has come to liberate history from ideologies and set it free to play its healthy role.
RULING classes and power seeking groups have always used history for their political interest. This subsequently leads distortion, omission, and misinterpretation of history. On one hand, disputes, discussions and debates make history a dynamic subject, but on the other hand it becomes a tool in the hands of those who wield power and manipulate it for their hidden or open agenda.
