There were two extremely interesting articles completely unrelated to business and economics in recent editions of Mint. The first one, 'A Battle About History' was written by T R Ramaswami who according to Mint is a "former commercial and investment banker" on the 23rd of May. Ramaswami examines one of the most debated phases in Ancient Indian History - the arrival of the Aryans and the decline of the Indus Valley Civilization. This is an issue that has puzzled historians and archaeologists to a great extent. Why did the Indus Valley Civilization die out? Who were the Aryans? Where did they come from? Were they involved in the decline of the Indus Valley cultures? These are questions that have either no answers or hotly debated ones. Opinions abound on who the Aryans were and where they originated from.
Ramaswami is undoubtedly an 'Invasion Theory' supporter. The entire theme of his article can be summed up in his last few lines "Was Ram a Cossack, the most famed of all horse-people? Doesn’t “Valmiki” sound Russian, perhaps a corruption of Vladmikhailovich, who lived in the present Russian town named Sverdlovsk, formerly perhaps Swargalok?". He goes on to say that even if the Invasion Theory is incorrect, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata occurred outside India (possibly in Russia) and were then carried to India by the 'horse-people' where they became a part of folklore.
I may sound elitist over here, but I do believe there is a certain way in which articles ought to be written, especially those that deal with ambiguous issues such as this. Unfortunately, Mr. Ramaswami has not followed this path. There is an inherently I-know-everything attitude to the whole article that tends to sharply divide the readers into either enthusiastic supporters or angry rejectors. Sentences like "Here's what happened..." immediately invokes a "How does he know?" reaction from lots of readers including me. It's no small wonder that a brief glance at the comments section shows one a number of angry replies including some who advise Ramaswami to stick to being an investment banker and not venture into areas beyond his expertise.
The following week, there was a reply by a certain Jaykrishnan Nair who, according to Mint, maintains a history blog and "hosts the Indian History Carnival at Desipundit.com". The article is called 'Genetic Data Refutes Theory'. The difference between Nair's article and that of Ramaswami is starkly apparent. While Ramaswami's article was loud and declarative, Nair maintains a more subdued tone, being more analytical and technical in nature. Nair doesn't support the Invasion Theory and unlike Ramaswami, most of his statements don't appear to be speculative but rather backed by scientific data (more specifically DNA testing). To sum up the differences between the two, Ramaswami, seems to be shouting into a microphone while standing on a stage while Nair seems to be giving a quiet lecture in a small room. And I have noticed, that it is usually these personalized lectures that connect more easily with the audience than a massive congregation.
I am an Invasion Theory supporter myself (though not as over-the-top as Ramaswami) for a number of reasons but Nair's article has certainly made me re-examine my beliefs about history. It will take more than one newspaper article to change a fundamental part of my theories about Indian history but if confronted with enough convincing evidence, I may change my theories in the future.
Which brings me to another small point. It's all very well to criticize Ramaswami for inadequate research, tall claims and (in my case) bad writing but one thing I was offended about was how some comments on his article were directed at his occupation and why he "ought not to meddle in areas beyond his expertise". Please, for the sake of humanity, don't disbelieve someone's theory just because he's not an expert on them. Experts are not always correct and amateurs are not always wrong. And sometimes, it's good to bring in amateur theories because it cleans out years of clutter accumulated through experience. On that note, I'm signing off.
Ramaswami is undoubtedly an 'Invasion Theory' supporter. The entire theme of his article can be summed up in his last few lines "Was Ram a Cossack, the most famed of all horse-people? Doesn’t “Valmiki” sound Russian, perhaps a corruption of Vladmikhailovich, who lived in the present Russian town named Sverdlovsk, formerly perhaps Swargalok?". He goes on to say that even if the Invasion Theory is incorrect, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata occurred outside India (possibly in Russia) and were then carried to India by the 'horse-people' where they became a part of folklore.
I may sound elitist over here, but I do believe there is a certain way in which articles ought to be written, especially those that deal with ambiguous issues such as this. Unfortunately, Mr. Ramaswami has not followed this path. There is an inherently I-know-everything attitude to the whole article that tends to sharply divide the readers into either enthusiastic supporters or angry rejectors. Sentences like "Here's what happened..." immediately invokes a "How does he know?" reaction from lots of readers including me. It's no small wonder that a brief glance at the comments section shows one a number of angry replies including some who advise Ramaswami to stick to being an investment banker and not venture into areas beyond his expertise.
The following week, there was a reply by a certain Jaykrishnan Nair who, according to Mint, maintains a history blog and "hosts the Indian History Carnival at Desipundit.com". The article is called 'Genetic Data Refutes Theory'. The difference between Nair's article and that of Ramaswami is starkly apparent. While Ramaswami's article was loud and declarative, Nair maintains a more subdued tone, being more analytical and technical in nature. Nair doesn't support the Invasion Theory and unlike Ramaswami, most of his statements don't appear to be speculative but rather backed by scientific data (more specifically DNA testing). To sum up the differences between the two, Ramaswami, seems to be shouting into a microphone while standing on a stage while Nair seems to be giving a quiet lecture in a small room. And I have noticed, that it is usually these personalized lectures that connect more easily with the audience than a massive congregation.
I am an Invasion Theory supporter myself (though not as over-the-top as Ramaswami) for a number of reasons but Nair's article has certainly made me re-examine my beliefs about history. It will take more than one newspaper article to change a fundamental part of my theories about Indian history but if confronted with enough convincing evidence, I may change my theories in the future.
Which brings me to another small point. It's all very well to criticize Ramaswami for inadequate research, tall claims and (in my case) bad writing but one thing I was offended about was how some comments on his article were directed at his occupation and why he "ought not to meddle in areas beyond his expertise". Please, for the sake of humanity, don't disbelieve someone's theory just because he's not an expert on them. Experts are not always correct and amateurs are not always wrong. And sometimes, it's good to bring in amateur theories because it cleans out years of clutter accumulated through experience. On that note, I'm signing off.
6 comments:
Have you read the debates on the Aryan invasion theory in The Hindu Open Page section about 10 years ago, between N S Rajaram-David Frawley, and Michael Witzel on the other side. Boy were they something!
No I'm afraid not...sounds interesting...have they been put up online?
http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/op/2002/01/22/stories/2002012200020100.htm and
http://www.hinduonnet.com/thehindu/op/2002/01/29/stories/2002012900080100.htm
Google for related terms, there are quite a few more. I vaguely remember Romila Thapar getting into the act as well.
I am indeed grateful to the response to my article on the Mahabharata in Live Mint. First – if my language sounded like “I know everything” or even “standing on a stage and shouting into the mike” let me state that it was deliberate. Incidentally the response by Mr. Jayakrishnan Nair was followed by a response by me which Live Mint declined to print. It can be found on his blog varnam.org/blog. Here is my original article which had to be cut down to fit. There is also an interesting piece on the linguistics aspect which is also given below. My object is only the date. And the date will ensure which theory is correct. The reluctance to get a fix on the date and the reluctance to hunt for archaeological evidence suggests that there is something inconvenient. However the article on the Mahabharata is only part of the effort of our tendency to camouflage history. I am also giving below an article on the 1857 Mutiny which takes a different view of the event and its aftermath. I have only one question that no one has been able to answer: Give me a date and place where Nehru did anything that can be rationally considered as “fighting for independence.” No one has been able to do so.
The Mahabharatha Artlce in full:
The first accurately recorded battle in history is the Battle of Megiddo in 1469 BCE, between the Egyptian Pharaoh, Thutmosis III and the Hyskos. Accuracy means that there is no doubt about the details regarding site, strengths of the armies, strategy employed etc all known. Question – when exactly did India’s most famous battle – Kurukshetra - take place?
No two historians are agreed about the date of the battle. The range commences from around 3200 BCE to 900 BCE – ie a period of 2200 years! But curiously all the historians are surprisingly unanimous about one thing – that Kurukshetra did NOT take place between 2450 BCE and 1450 BCE. Here are the range of dates and the historians:
3201 – D.R. Mankad – Puranic Chronology
3137 - MM Krishnamachari – History of Classical Sanskrit Literature
3127 – A.N. Chandra – The Date of the Kurukshetra War
3110 – As per the age of Manu Vaivaswatha
3102 – Brhmagupta. Also C.V. Vaidya – History of Sanskrit Literature in the Vedic Period
3101 – As per Aihole inscriptions of Raja Pulakeshin II based on astronomical calculations
of Aryabhatta
3067 – By application of modern astronomical applications based on data in the
Mahabharatha
3016 – V.B.Athawale
2449 – Probodh Chandra in Indian Chronology
2448 – Varahamihira : Brihat Samhita
THIS IS THE BIG GAP
1450 – Meghnad Saha
1432 – Tarakeswar Bhattacharya
1424 – Alexander Cunningham. This year is the one accepted by most historians.
1416 – Giridhar Sekhar Basu in Purana Pravesha
1400 – Many – Bankim Chandra Chattpadhyaya, Bal Gangadhar Tilak, AD Pusalkar, HC
Deb and Jogesh Chandra Vidyanidhi
1267 – BB Ketkar
1197 - KL Daphthary in Astronomical Chronology of Ancient India
1191- Sri Aurobindo in his book Vyasa and Valmiki
1151 - Sitanath Pradhan in Chronology of Ancient India
1000 - LD Burnett
950 - FE Pargiter
900 - Hem Chandra Roy Chowdhary
We are told that the Mahabharatha has been dated based on the Surya Siddhantha. Evidently they also relied on the same astronomy and position of the stars. So why this colossal difference of opinion?
Little more snooping into history reveals that this gap is the period when the Indus Valley civilization “collapsed”. However there is more to this “collapse” as we shall see. The civilisation was invaded and the original people displaced. History reveals that around 2000-1800 BCE, all along the Euro-Asian west-east axis, a horde of invaders, from above the 50*N latitudes called the horse-people pushed down. Every civilization - China, India, Mesopotamia, Anatolia, Greece, was overcome because they had the most powerful weapon then known to man - the horse-chariot. Faced with an opponent who could travel at 10-20 times the speed of man, they just crumbled under the onslaught. Who were the invaders and who were the displaced? And why is this history not acceptable?
Now you can work out why no one wants to place the Kurukshetra battle in that gap of 1000 years. That would be tantamount to admitting that either of them, the Pandavas or the Kauravas, or perhaps both, were the “invaders” or “outsiders”- the Aryans who displaced the then flourishing Indus-Valley civilization and pushed it south to become the Dravidian culture. This aspect unfortunately is not just historical but has assumed political overtones and hence the denials and silence over it. However history is like a bulb, which when it breaks, leaves several microscopic pieces that cannot be completely swept away. The Aryan invasion has also left several such pieces.
This is what happened. There was an Indus-Valley civilization which belonged to the Vedic culture. The Aryans, the horse-chariot people, displaced this civilisation and pushed it south where it became the Dravidian culture. Some Dravidians, as it happens in all such displacements, remained back. The horse-people with no culture of their own adopted the Vedic culture, with modifications, and the Vedic Indus-Valley civilisation had a second innings.
Let’s start with some facts. In both the epics, Ramayana and Mahabharatha, we are told of battles that involved horses and chariots. There is no evidence of any horse in present day India and Pakistan till 2000-1800 BCE. The horse came from the more northern latitudes carrying the invaders. Next, get hold of a globe of reasonable size. Put your thumb at the point where the 55* East longitude and 55* North latitude intersect. This will be just south of the Urals, above the mid-point between the Caspian and Aral Seas, north of Kazhakstan. With your thumb as the fulcrum and your little finger on Gujarat draw an arc. It will end in Spain. This entire swath of land is one big family and shares something common – we all speak the Indo-European group of languages. Of course there are exceptions – Arabic, Basque, Turkish, etc.
But the most startling exception lies in the Kalat region of Baluchistan, Pakistan, and its border with Afghanistan. Nestled there today are more than 2 million people who speak Brahui. And Brahui belongs to the Dravidian group of languages! How did these people get there? Helicopter? They did not “get” there. They were ALREADY there and became the typical “pocket” when invasions sweep the majority away. That’s why Tamil is the oldest of all present Indian languages and Tamilians were perhaps the first Sindhis! After all they drank jhalam (Tamil for water) from the river that has this name. Will someone explain this paradox – if the Indus-Valley civilization is the oldest in India then how is Tamil the oldest language? Unless of course the Dravidian civilization predates the Indus Valley. Ironically it is the Dravidians today who are more adept in picking up any of the Indo-European languages.
Look down from the 55E-55N point and take a look at the routes by which you can reach the extremities of your arc. Every point can be reached by continuing along rivers or shores of lakes – ie the invasion-cum-migration had the most important ingredient necessary to travel such vast distances – water. This perspective is best appreciated on a globe, not a map. Note that the most famous rivers in Central Asia are the Syr Darya and Amu Darya! The ‘oldest’ DNA found in an Indian is in Tamilnadu, near Madurai. How about a DNA survey of those in north/north-west India, the present inhabitants of the steppes and those living between 25*-45* North latitudes in the Middle East and Europe?
The biggest give-away is the “18-day” war. Let’s take some facts about wars in general. The first accurately recorded war is the Battle of Meggido in 1469 BCE. The largest chariot battle in history is the battle of Kadesh in 1294 BCE. The Mahabharatha states that on each day every general on both sides had an army equal to one akshouini. One akshouini was equal to:
1, 09,350 foot soldiers
65,610 horses
21,870 elephants
21,870 chariots
Since a horse has one soldier, an elephant can take four and a chariot needs a minimum of two, the total of an akshouini is more than 2,00,000 soldiers – far more than any army commander has under him in the Indian Army today! Also compare this number with the armies put up in all the battles in history upto the US Civil War. How was such a big army mobilized? Easy – only possible in 3000 BCE if there was a migration-cum-invasion. Military historians will also tell you that man’s ability to sustain a battle proper (sieges are not battles) for more than a day, came only when railways made logistics feasible. Waterloo (1815 CE), probably the last big battle before railways, took just one day. The “day” in the Kurukshetra battle is evidently metaphorical. After all it was oral history. It was more likely to have been 18 months or even 18 years – just the time required for a migration-cum-invasion to displace a culture and a civilisation 3500 years ago.
The entire Mahabharatha main story from Shanthanu to Parikshit is just six generations. That is about 200-250 years. The war, which took place sometime during the end of the dynasty, and chronicled like no war of that antiquity, is of 18 days duration. But look at the absurdity of the range of dates given by “eminent” historians as– more than 2200 years! An 18-day war relating to a dynasty of 200 years has a 2000 year range? Every time I select one date I have to shift the entire dynasty forward or backward? Not only the dynasty but also the rest of history! Is this history? Or fiction?
The startling fact is the remarkable accuracy of every event, name and sequence – except the date!
Compare this absurdity with the certainty and the evidence found in other civilisations/events of equal antiquity – the Egyptian and the Mesopotamian. Next – the Indus Valley civilization was excavated sometime in 1920s. What effort has been made to excavate Kurukshetra and Ayodhya to validate these epics? After all we have found evidence relating to the dinosaurs going back to the Jurassic period about 100 million years back. Are the Ramayana and Mahabharatha older than the dinosaurs? If you were the Indian government would you not dig up these places right down to the centre of the earth if necessary? What we done and what have we found? Let me tell you the answers. If at all they have dug they have found nothing or found something to the contrary. After all if there was any evidence it would have made headlines all over the world. The correct answer is that no excavation has been done because everyone knows that nothing will be found because it did not happen. The status quo is preferable because these epics are no longer just stories – they are a powerful tool for spiritual, temporal, political and social control. That is why today we hear in India’s legislatures that this was said or happened in the Ramayana or Mahabharatha etc – ie if you question them, then you are not a true desh vasi. The control is enabled because India has the two most important ingredients – poverty and illiteracy. It is only then that the philosophy of ‘karma’, invented by the haves to provide explanations to the have nots, can survive.
1857 – AN ALTERNATE PERSPECTIVE
There are several related events and questions relating to the 1857 mutiny that have not been highlighted in any of our history books or even the media. Why did it fail and why no Second War of Independence? Given the communications technology, it was difficult for the mutineers to gather a critical mass and the British were able to shut it down fast. The fact that six big maharajas - Scindia of Gwalior, the Maharaja of Patiala, the Begum of Bhopal, the Nizam of Hyderabad, the Sikh Chiefs of Punjab and Gulab Singh of Kashmir – did not join the mutiny and some even helped the British made things easier. In fact Patiala even supplied a force to the British. Scindia refused refuge to the Rani of Jhansi. In 1861 the Indian Councils Act enlarged the Central Legislative Council and the first three Indians rewarded for the “help” in 1857 were included – the Maharaja of Patiala, Raja Dinkar Rao, the PM of Gwalior and Raja Deo Narain Singh. The British also ceded Jhansi to the Scindias. It is a historical truism that many princes were against independence, including India’s first Test player – the Jam Saheb of Nawanagar – Ranjitsinjhi.
Why no second war of independence? That’s because the British moved fast and smartly. They adopted a strategy that had a global impact and still has a national impact. First they hastened the construction of the Suez Canal, which changed the geo-political character of Euro-Asia. This cut the travel time from England to India from 4-6 months to 4-6 weeks. They then constructed railways all over India that facilitated quick movement of troops. India was linked to England via Europe telegraphically in 1866. Thus the strategic “external lines” as propounded by General Helmut von Moltke, the then German Army Chief and master military strategist-cum-tactician, were firmly secured. Our leadership had no inkling whatsoever of all this. In fact they were totally lost as far as strategy was concerned right upto 1962. The British also realized that the main reason why the mutiny failed was because it had no central intellectual leadership or strategy. To ensure that the educated intellectuals did not get any further ideas, the British opened the Indian Civil Service to Indians thus making them a part of the administration.
But the biggest master stroke was the formation of the Indian National Congress. Recollect that it was a British civil servant, Allen Octavian Hume, who founded it. Soon the educated and intellectuals joined the INC and for years it was nothing but a large annual “talk-shop”, with each speaker trying to out-vocabularise the other. The British achieved what they wanted. The Indians were kept busy talking and the creation of various political and non-political constituencies and interests on the basis of religion, caste and language ensured that Indians spent more time in fighting amongst themselves than the British. We still do this. The British used the Congress to widen the Hindu-Muslim rift. Whitehall must have had a good laugh. Only leaders like Tilak, Rashbihari Bose, Subhash Chandra Bose, Bipin Chandra Pal and Lala Lajpatrai saw through this ingenious plan. But they were a minority and it is because their methods were a danger, they were hounded by the British. Tilak died too soon, Bose was hounded out of the country and Lala Lajpat Rai was arrested and virtually beaten to death in police custody.
What do we make of all this? That the British used the INC as an instrument not only to prevent any further uprisings but also to delay independence. They left when it suited them and even 90 years after 1857, the INC was grossly unprepared as reflected by the fact that till 1958, at least one Britisher was the Chief of one branch of our armed forces. Can the INC honestly say that they “fought” for independence when the opposition lends you its men to lead your armed forces AFTER ‘independence’?! Naturally this view did not and still does not suit the political dispensation of ‘the family’. Can the Congress give just one date and place where Nehru did anything that can be rationally called as fighting? Even history books are unable to give any details of Nehru having done anything that can be termed as fighting. Waving your finger vigorously and saying that you have sent another reminder to the Viceroy is not “fighting”.
And if Nehru was such a great fighter why was he not sent to the Andamans where the real freedom fighters were imprisoned? The British knew who the real freedom fighters were and they were either hounded out of the country (Bose) virtually murdered (Lala Lajpat Rai) or deported to the Andamans. Nehru, and other false ‘fighters’ of independence were sent to prisons like Naini Tal, Pune and Aurangabad where he could write letters to his daughter, which later became a book! The fact is that those who really fought for our freedom never became our leaders after independence and those who became leaders after independence never really fought for independence. Their so called “independence fight” was written by their chamchas/ sycophants for history books. And what about the fact that the Mahatma wanted the Congress to be dissolved after independence? Its existence today is testimony to the fact that the Mahatma was forgotten soon after independence, his assassination was probably a relief to some and the Congress has become a political vehicle for just one family, without whom the rest of the party virtually admits that they are headless chickens. Today even Godse will admit that he shot the wrong man.
Many don’t know that the clans, communities, and families and descendants of those leaders who participated in that event are nowhere in current society. The British decimated them and encouraged a new class that licked the white man’s boots. One of them bought an entire present Indian state for Rs.75 lakhs, hardly 180 years ago. It is the descendants of these boot-lickers who are ruling the roost now. That’s why the 150th. anniversary fizzled out without a whimper. Those who participated did not leave VVIP descendants and the ancestors of present day VVIPs were on the side of the British. Here is a final irony – guess who was on the Committee for the celebrations – Jyothiraditya Scindia – whose great-great-grandfather was on the side of the goras during the mutiny.
Time for a Second War of Independence?
However let us not be too harsh on the six princes. Look at the events another way. Let us assume that the six princes joined the mutiny and the British were forced to leave India. Would India have become independent? No. About 500 motley princely states, each with an ego of an elephant would have declared themselves to be independent and we would back to the situation that prevailed in 1000 AD. That situation helped Muhammad Ghazni and perhaps another Ghazni would have found it convenient to exploit the situation in the 19th. century. So maybe we must thank the six for having ensured that the mutiny did not succeed. In the next 90 years it was the British who really united India and the political concept of a nation underwent a tremendous change. So kudos to them for having retained the British a little longer? What if World War II had not happened and what if Churchill had not lost the elections soon after the war? What if the British had continued even longer say till 1960s?
Pramod, thanks a lot for the links...will check them out as soon as possible
Mr Ramaswami, thank you so much for posting your articles over here...it's great to interact with you
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