It is a serious blow to the Dravidian stock that has been pushing Aryan and Dravidian race theory in school education in Tamil Nadu. Madras High Court’s today’s order would nail a false narrative of Dravidian stocks’ repeated Aryan invasion and Dravidian race theory to fool the public. It has directed NCERT, Tamil Nadu school education, and TNSCRET to review the school curriculum and resolve the matter within 12 weeks.
Balaji Mahalingam moved Madras High Court seeking issuance of a Writ of Mandamus directing the respondents to stop propagating the Aryan/Dravidian race theory, particularly among the student community, and tender an apology to the general public. He said currently, textbooks are teaching Aryan Dravidian race theory, which causes division among citizens.
Chief Justice KR Shriram and Justice Senthil Kumar Ramamoorthy, after hearing both sides, delivered an order on October 24. In the seven-page order, the court said, “the petitioner canvasses a grievance that educational authorities are propagating the false theory that there are two races, i.e., Aryan and Dravidian, and that this is promoting divisiveness among the people. The party-in-person relies upon the writings of various scholars to contend that this two-race theory is false and would cause substantial harm to impressionable minds”.
The bench said, “the court is not an expert in history or the origin of races. The relief requested for by the petitioner cannot be granted by this court without examining and deciding whether the two-race theory, which the petitioner claims to be false, is valid or invalid. It is appropriate that this determination be made by experts in the field and not by the court”.
The court said,´Consequently, without examining or making any observations on the merits of the assertions made in the petition, we direct respondents 2 and 5, Director, NCERT and Director State Council of Education Research and Training (SCERT), to treat the writ petition as a representation sent to them. Respondents 2 and 5 shall consider the grievance ventilated by the petitioner in the writ petition and dispose of the same within 12 weeks, after providing a reasonable opportunity to the petitioner, including by way of personal hearing.
The bench said with this order, “writ petition is disposed of accordingly. There shall be no order as to costs”. Let us see what Historians say about this so-called Aryan Dravidian theory: In an article titled “Colonial Roots of the Aryan Invasion/Migration Theory and the Contemporary Archaeological Evidence in Western Sources” , the authors mention quoting William Jones, who said, ” With the rise in the imperial power of Europe over India, the cradle of civilisation began to shift outside India and ultimately landed in Europe. Simultaneously, the idea of invasion of India by the ‘Aryan race’, or the Aryan invasion theory (AIT), was promoted. Since then, however, one archaeological find over another has consistently refuted the AIT, proving it as false. As flawed as it remains, this theory has persisted and morphed in its current form as the Aryan migration theory (AMT) and continues to find mention and favour in contemporary academic discourse. In mainstream academia, today, whether in grade-school texts or in texts meant for undergraduate and graduate study, whenever India and Hinduism are mentioned, the coming of Aryans from outside of India and establishing Hinduism and civilisation in India are discussed as veritable facts. By examining the theory in ant-colonial and post-colonial contexts, we show that despite considerable archaeological evidence refuting the theories of the invasion or migration of Aryans into India, its colonial embeddedness in the notion of the racial superiority of the Europeans or people with European ancestry that the theory does not fade into oblivion.
Swarajya, in an article written in January last year by Ashok Guha, Prof. Emeritus, JNU, says, “The Aryan migration debate is not about whether the steppe people migrated into India or not. No one doubts the occurrence of innumerable migrations into India from innumerable sources, including the steppes. The question really is about the timing of the steppe migrations and whether Sanskrit and the Rig-Vedic culture were part of the baggage of these migrants. The Aryan Migration Theory AMT (the new edition of the older Aryan Invasion Theory AIT), postulates that the Harappans were pre-Aryan with a culture in terminal decline by 1900 BC, well before the Aryans entered India. The Aryans must also have appeared on the scene well before the onset of the Iron Age around 1200 BC, as attested by their Bronze Age artefacts and by the Rig-Veda, which they are supposed to have composed in India.
It also says “The ancient DNA discovered in India proper is limited to that extracted from a single female buried around 2600 BC at Rakhigarhi on the banks of the ancient Drishadvati. This woman’s DNA resembles that of 11 roughly contemporary individuals disinterred not in India, but well outside, 8 at Shahr-i-Sokhta in Iran and 3 at Gonur in the Bactria-Mar giana Archaeological Complex (BMAC). The geneticists Reich et al speculate that these 11 were travellers from the Indus-Saraswati region and that all 12 represent the genotype of the Harappans. None of the 12 show any traces of steppe lineage; so if they were Harappans, the latter must have differed sharply from the steppe pastoralists”.
American archaeologists like George Dales and Richard Meadow said “there is no evidence to support claims of armed conquest or destruction by Aryans”. Scholar JM Kenoyer, who is still pursuing excavation at Harappa, says, “There is no archaeological or biological evidence for invasions or mass migrations into the Indus Valley between the end of the Harappa phase about 1900 BC and the beginning of the early historic period around 600 BC”.
Scholars and Historians are of the learned opinion that Aryan migration or invasion theory is nothing but a speculative narrative devoid of empirical support”.
DR Ambedkar also rejected the Aryan invasion theory outright as lacking a scientific basis. But, the Dravidian stock is repeatedly spreading this canard to further its political gain. It was Bishop Robert Caldwell who came out with this theory only to mislead the public as part of Britain’s divide-and-rule agenda and to go on with conversion and racial division objectives.
