Page 10 Mail Today, Sunday, June 14, 2009

COMMENT
There is nothing new
Apply scientific
in PC’s J-K comment
WE must confess to a sense of bafflement
at Union Home Minister P Chi-
dambaram’s remarks that the army will
play a reduced role in Jammu & Kashmir.
The minister has been cited as saying
stress test to the
study of history
that the responsibilities of the army will
be limited to counter-insurgency and that
too “in areas away from towns and along
borders.” Leave aside, for the moment,
the wisdom of thinking that the army’s
role can be reduced. What we are puzzled
by is the fact that the army already plays
that role in the Valley. ARYA PRAHARAJ

I
Either Mr Chidambaram was not well- N JANUARY 2009, US evidence.
briefed, or he said what he did for effect, network PBS telecast a Politicians too can be
activists. In Kerala, there
that is, to put on a friendly face to the documentary titled The was a controversy last year
people of the strife-torn state. Barring the Story of India. Hosted by over textbooks which high-
very onset of insurgency in January 1990, Michael Wood, this six- lighted communist strug-
the Army has not played any kind of a role part series narrated a gles over the freedom
in any Kashmiri city. Despite its lack of compressed history of India struggle and ignored non-
training, the Border Security Force was communist social leaders.
from pre-historic times till When it was suspected
sent in to do that task and it did so with Independence. The first that the Communists were
considerable bravery and some brutality. episode — Beginnings — dis- trying to teach atheism,
In 2005, as part of the recommendations cussed one of the most contro- Hindus, Muslims and
of the Group of Ministers report on Christians united in oppo-
defence management, the BSF was asked
versial topics in Indian history: sition. The Opposition
to return to its role of guarding India’s the origin of the Aryans. staged walkouts. Finally
In this episode Mr Wood did three the curriculum committee
frontiers with Pakistan and Bangladesh. things. Standing at Khyber Pass, look-
The Central Reserve Police Force was agreed to modify the text.
ing down at the valley of Kabul river, Such activism, from the
sent and took over the counter-terrorism he quoted the translation of a verse media, from parents, from
and security duties in Srinagar in 2005 from Baudhayana Srautasutra which opposition politicians, is
itself. Beginning March 2007, and within reads, “some went east..but some missing when it comes to
six months, the CRPF had taken over stayed at home in the west”. This balancing the distortions in
these duties from the BSF. The army con- verse, Wood opined, suggests an Aryan existing textbooks.
migration from Afghanistan into India. Lawsuits, protests,
tinued to do, what it had done till then — Second, he went to Turk-
handle the counter-infiltration duties on activism — these can be
menistan to meet Viktor effective tools, but there is
the Line of Control and its immediate hin-
terland, as well as the tough counter-ter-
Sarianidi, the legendary
Russian archaeologist,
by Jayakrishnan Nair also a need to popularise
the discourse. Stephen
rorist operations in the mountainous and who besides unearthing Ambrose, David McCul-
forested areas of north Kashmir and the Bactrian gold in northern lough are masters of the
Afghanistan, found horses, the Dravidian and Indo- of history oscillates
Pir Panjal. European speakers. between saffron and red. popular history genre in
wheeled vehicles and the West. Barring a few
mud-brick fire altars in Another study compared In such an atmosphere, honourable exceptions, in
Do something Gonur Tepe, Turk-
menistan. According to Dr
the genes of Brahmins and
tribals and found autochth-
nous origins for Brahmins
when the government is a
partner in identity politics,
the Indian context this
genre consists of writing
THE continuing spate of Maoist attacks Sarianidi, the Aryans promoting one version of more biographies of Nehru
on the police is as clear an indicator as we arrived there around 2000 and the caste system. Also, history and silencing oth-
there was no evidence for a and Gandhi.
can get that the time has come to deliver BC and left in 1800 BC ers, the chips are not
massive migration in the allowed to fall where it There is a need to add
an effective response to the armed insur- towards Afghanistan. more voices to this dis-
Third, Mr Wood men- 1500-1200 BC period. should. When a historian,
gency which has at various times been If so where did the Aryans who identifies himself with course — to explain how
tioned a 1786 discovery by the invasion theory evolved
described as India’s biggest security the polyglot Sir William originate? In the accompa- a label — Orientalist, Marx-
headache. While it is true that the Maoists nying book, Mr Wood men- ist or Nationalist — con- to migration theory to
Jones on the similarities Aryan trickle down theory
exploit lack of development and poor gov- between Sanskrit and vari- tions that many Indian trols the debate, history is
scholars and polemicists a prisoner of dogma. Such — because this Aryan-Dra-
ernance to spread their political message ous European languages vidian race theory still has
which indicated that the believe that Aryans were labelled historians silence
in the backward areas of the country, it is indigenous to India. Gavin serious social and political
ancestors of the Aryans unpopular ideas, keep
also patently obvious that they have cho- Flood, of the University of inconvenient facts in the implications in India.
were part of a language
sen completely unacceptable means of group which spread from Stirling, Scotland, is nei- dark and display intellec-
delivering that message. So far this year
they have killed more than 180 police per-
the area between Caspian ther an Indian nor a
polemicist. In his book
tual cowardice.
In this acerbic debate,
Objectivity
Sea and the Aral mountains
sonnel and despite this, the various 4000 years ago. As per this Introduction to Hinduism, anyone who opposes the In 1915, Justice Mahadeo
Maoist-affected states have done little to theory, these Sanskrit he mentions the Aryan Aryan migration theory is Govind Ranade lamented
speaking newcomers subju- migration theory, but also branded a Hindu national- that the Aryan Brahmins
help the central paramilitary forces estab- the alternate: the cultural
gated the natives — Dravid- ist out to eliminate other were too few in number to
lish bases from which they can effectively transformation thesis. minorities from India. But make any influence on the
ians and tribals — and
take on the challenge. established themselves at According to this view, the Edwin Bryant, in his book, aboriginal races in the
Besides doing little to assist the police to the top of the caste Aryan culture was an The Quest for the Origins of South. Opponents claimed
confront the Maoists, our politicians send hierarchy. indigenous development in Vedic Culture, notes that that aboriginals were
confusing messages to them. In his June 9 the Indus valley, uninflu- there are a number of West- robbed by the Aryan
enced by invaders or
response to the President’s Address to Par-
liament, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh
Theories migrants. Thus Hinduism
ern scholars too who don't
believe in the external ori-
invaders of their culture.
Periyar E V Ramaswami
evolved with the Aryan cul- gins of Aryans. Among the Naicker, went one step fur-
spoke of the need for “zero tolerance” for Sounds logical, but Mr ture interacting with non- Indian scholars who he met ther: he despised Hin-
terrorism, but in the same breath noted Wood's claims are contro- Aryan and tribal cultures. during his research, “one duism, asked Tamils to lib-
that “we have to convince our misguided vertible. According to B B This cultural transforma- erate themselves from the
prominent Indigenous
youth that the gun is no way of solving any Lal, who was the Director tion thesis works well with Aryan yoke and claimed
General of the Archaeo- Aryanist turned out to be
problems.” The PM may be right in empha- the Out of India theory an atheist and very irrever- Ravana was the Dravidian
logical Survey of India, the according to which India is
sising that the problem has two facets — correct translation of ent Marxist.” hero, not Rama.
military and political — but we have no evi- the Indo-European home- Recently, Dravidar
Baudhayana Srautasutra land from where some
dence to show that the union and state says that while some
Aryan tribes went east the
groups migrated to Central Activism Kazhagam leader K Veera-
mani called for people to
governments have begun to address any and West Asia and Europe. reject “Aryan” leaders. The
one of them with any degree of seriousness. others went west from The media can play an
some intermediary point. Fuelling the debate over politicians who promote a
In the meantime, our hapless policemen Aryans and their origins activist role here. In 1993, a
This intermediary point decision by Mexico's educa- ideology of caste hatred
are being killed every day. for Dr Lal is not the valley are various schools — the
tion minister not to publish should not be able to get
of the Kabul river, but that Orientalist, the Nationalist new history books as they away with their fundamen-
and the Marxist — with dif- talist agenda.
Accountability? of the Indus.
Dr Lal also analysed Dr
Sarianidi's evidence — fire-
ferent positions. This
seems perfect since the
did not conform to the
“preferred version” resulted
in considerable outrage.
We need to evolve from
Stalinised history and saf-
IT is remarkable that it took the Maha- bias of each of these fronised history to objec-
worship, soma rituals, ash- The Mexican media pur-
rashtra government some seven months to vamedha — and in the schools will get corrected tive history—on Aryan the-
sued the story and critically
replace Mr Hasan Gafoor as the Police case of fire worship he by opinions from other evaluated the textbooks ory, on Hindu-Muslim
Commissioner of Mumbai. Many systems proved that the direction schools. Unfortunately in the same way the Indian relations, on Independence
and institutions failed when terrorists of movement was from Indian historiography, media panned Murli struggle — by weeding out
struck Mumbai last November and politi- India to Central Asia. He some schools are more Manohar Joshi's revisions. absurd ‘nationalist’ claims
also showed that there equal than the others. and distortions written for
cians like then Union Home Minister Shiv- Parents too can be
religious appeasement.
was no soma in Gonur Blessed by the Indian gov- activists. In California,
raj Patil and then state Chief Minister Tepe, and the skeleton of ernment and aided by a list Theories on the origins of
Vilasrao Deshmukh paid the price. But not upset by the representa-
the horse was unrelated to of approved scholars, only tion of Hinduism in school Indian civilisation must
a single bureaucratic head rolled. asvamedha. certain versions of history textbooks, Indian-Ameri- correlate with archaeologi-
The failure of the Police Commissioner to Now genetic studies too get into school textbooks. cans filed a lawsuit against cal, linguistic and genetic
provide any kind of leadership was evident are challenging the Aryan One state government — the Board of Education evidence.
through the traumatic 60 hours of the ter- migration theory, the suc- West Bengal — even goes demanding edits. One of The standard for accept-
cessor of the discredited so far as to publicly declare the disputes was about the ance of theories and
rorist attack. That it took a number of hypotheses must not be
Aryan invasion theory. what is shuddho and what Aryan theory and during
leaks to the media to persuade the govern- Some studies have government approval, reli-
is ashuddo. Thus depend- the hearing, a California
ment to transfer him tells us a great deal revealed that Southern ing on the clerisy running curriculum commissioner, gious sanction or secular
about accountability in our system. Actu- castes and tribes are simi- the Indian Council of His- Stan Metzenberg, came ideological compliance,
ally you can learn even more from the story lar to each other and their torical Studies, the colour out in support of the DNA but rather ability to with-
of Mr Johny Joseph, the Chief Secretary of gene pool is related to the stand the scientific stress
the state who was in-charge of the entire castes of North India. It test in a level playing field.
crisis management system. He was
nowhere to be seen in this crisis period. But
was not possible to con-
firm any difference SMS YOUR by typing MTO <space> your full
name<space> your opinion and
The writer, an engineer
based in the United
last month he was actually rewarded by a
six month extension by Chief Minister
between the caste and
tribal pools and find any
clean delineation between
OPINION sending it to 52424 States, blogs on history,
current affairs and books
at varnam.org/blogs
Ashok Chavan.