Oldest Harappan Sites are in the East not in the West

Oldest Harappan Sites are in the East not in the West

Shrikant G. Talageri

 

Someone sent me a tweet by Koenraad Elst:

https://x.com/ElstKoenraad

The AIT crowd jubilates that Baluchi agri-site Mehrgarh's later date than hitherto thought proves Harappa is later. No, it proves westernmost Mehrgarh isn't the oldest w/in Harappa; more easterly sites, like Bhirrāņa, are. No provenance from West Asia.

From nature.com

1.23 AM. May 14 2005

What a wonderful start to the day!

Typing “Bhirrana dates”, I get the following “AI Overview” on google:

“Bhirrana, in the Fatehabad district of Haryana, India, is considered one of the oldest Indus Valley Civilization sites, with estimated dates ranging from 7570-6200 BC. Radio-carbon dating, primarily used to determine the age of organic materials, is the method used to estimate the antiquity of Bhirrana. Based on charcoal samples, two different dates have been calculated for the site: 7570-7180 BCE and 6689-6201 BCE.”

Typing “Mehrgarh news”, I get the following “AI Overview” on google:

 “Recent news and updates regarding Mehrgarh primarily revolve around ongoing research and the site's historical significance. Recent radiocarbon studies have revised the age of Mehrgarh, a key site in the Indus Valley Civilization, from 8000 BCE to 5200 BCE. This discovery impacts understanding of the region's agricultural development. Additionally, Mehrgarh is being recognized for its role as one of the earliest sites with evidence of farming and herding in South Asia.”

So Bhirrana now dates to “7570-7180 BCE and 6689-6201 BCE” and Mehrgarh (in Baluchistan) to “5200 BCE”. So Haryana, center of the Rigveda and one of the easternmost sites of Harappan culture is older than Mehrgarh, one of the westernmost sites in India.

Of course, this does not downgrade Mehrgarh in a fundamental sphere (in matters of being the earliest site in respect of agricultural and pastoral origins in India). The news is still: “Mehrgarh is being recognized for its role as one of the earliest sites with evidence of farming and herding in South Asia.”

But, as Koenraad points out, western AIT fanatics like Witzel still don’t get the point: eastern Harappan sites are older than western ones.  

On a mail, Koenraad cites Michael Witzel crowing over the “chronological downgrading” of Mehrgarh, hitherto believed to be the oldest Indian site. This is the level of stupidity of these so called peer-reviewed top western academic scholars!

So thank you Koenraad for the news and Witzel for demonstrating your total lack of logic.

 

On an important side note, does this prove something which has been a subject of intense debate between myself and Jijith recently, that all other Indian people (e.g Ikṣvākus) migrated to their historic areas from Haryana? No. earliest dates of sites do not prove that everyone else from areas with later (or even much later) dated sites “migrated” from the area of the earlier dated site. Human beings do not come into existence on the basis of archaeological sites.

Typing “oldest dated Sumerian site” on google produces the following “AI Overview” on google:

“The oldest dated Sumerian site is Eridu, located on the coast of the Persian Gulf. Eridu is considered one of the oldest cities and is thought to have been founded around 5400 BC, during the early Ubaid period.”

Bhirrana, “7570-7180 BCE and 6689-6201 BCE”, is older than the oldest dated Sumerian site, “around 5400 BC”. But this does not mean that the Sumerians migrated to Eridu from Bhirrana.

A direct question on google, “Do recent carbon dating findings indicate that people from Bhirrana migrated to Mehrgarh” produces the following “AI Overview” on google:

“No, recent carbon dating findings do not indicate that people from Bhirrana migrated to Mehrgarh. In fact, Bhirrana has been identified as potentially older than Mehrgarh, with some evidence suggesting its origins date back to 7570 BCE to 6200 BCE. Mehrgarh is typically dated to around 7000 BCE. This means Mehrgarh may have followed the development of Bhirrana rather than the other way around.”

So let us be balanced and rational in drawing conclusions from facts.

Witzel’s Latest Presentation (2025) of “Peer-Reviewed” Western Academic Lies

 

Witzel’s Latest Presentation (2025) of “Peer-Reviewed” Western Academic Lies

Shrikant G. Talageri

 

Someone just sent me a copy of Witzel’s latest article, dated 30 February 2025, titled “The Realm of the Kuru – Origins and Development of the First State in India” in his “peer-reviewed” online Academic journal, EJVS (Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies), asking for my comments on it:

https://hasp.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/journals/ejvs/article/view/27845/27253 

I started going through the article, around 160 pages long, and, in the very first few paragraphs, I realized that this was nothing but just one more collection of the lies and pure rubbish that Witzel has been writing and publishing in “peer-reviewed” journals – a circumstance which awes zealous Indian sepoys into reverent genuflection, and into contemptuous dismissal of others, like myself, not featuring in these “peer-reviewed” journals – and it is not really worth my time. I have spent enough time in the past dealing with Witzel’s lies:

https://talageri.blogspot.com/2025/01/witzel-and-ait-vs-oit-linguistic-debate.html 

https://talageri.blogspot.com/2022/06/michael-witzel-perennial-compulsive-liar.html 

https://talageri.blogspot.com/2022/02/goebbelsian-repetition-of-witzels-lies.html 

https://talageri.blogspot.com/2021/09/michael-witzel-examination-of-his.html 

https://talageri.blogspot.com/2021/02/fake-allegation-about-my-insulting.html

and so on.

Recently, in a rather rough debate with another person, I wrote:

“discussing anything with you is like talking with a parrot. In many books (I think especially in PG Wodehouse books) there are situations where someone enters an empty house or room and suddenly hears a voice asking "who are you?". Startled, he tells his name and looks around to see who is speaking. He cannot see anyone, but again the voice asks "who are you?". He keeps answering in detail many times, getting more and more irritated, until suddenly he hears the voice giving a screeching laugh and saying something like "Polly wants a cracker". Then he suddenly realizes that he was talking to a parrot who never hears the answers and only keeps on repeating itself. Do you think he would continue the dialogue?

You keep repeating what you had said before without paying any attention to the replies. Talking to you is as useless as talking to a parrot.

And that too, a parrot which consistently tells blatant lies, and when caught or exposed, refuses to admit it.”

Actually, it is this kind of parrot-talk, which I have been facing from Witzel since the last 22 years or so, which has made me very intolerant of this kind of troll behavior in what one would expect to be an honest, rational and academic discussion based on the data and evidence.

 

While I will naturally read the full above article by Witzel, I may not bother to give a full review or “reply” to it at the moment (and maybe not later either), because frankly this is ridiculous and gets on my nerves. But let me point out why I realized in the very first few paragraphs that this was a “parrot-article”.

1. On page 5 (of around 160 pages) he tells us: “the language of the Indo-Aryan words in the Mitanni texts is actually slightly older than the language of the RV”.

2. Then, again, on page 95, he reiterates this completely exposed claim: “the language of the Indo-Aryan words in the Mitanni documents of N. Iraq/Syria (c. 1400 BCE) is slightly older than the language of the RV”.

3. And on the next page 96, he tells us the Mitanni texts “may precede the comparatively late date of the bulk of the RV text and its post-Mitanni linguistic form by a few centuries. A few of the earliest hymns of the RV could then date from before c. 1250 BCE, its bulk from the period between c. 1250 and c. 1000 BCE.”

After all the evidence that I have placed on record in the last 18 years (since my third book in 2008, and in so many articles after that) showing how the language of the Mitanni absolutely and completely post-dates the language of the Old Rigveda, if this purely fraudulent professor can still  in the year 2025 write the above, what does it say of the moral and academic integrity, the utter shamelessness and incorrigibility, and the reckless gall and arrogance  of this man. Not to mention, of the moral and academic integrity of the western “peer-reviewed” academic world that he represents?

Am I expected to repeat all that evidence here again in this article? And for whom?

 

Then, again, he describes Sudās’ activities and geographical movements as follows (just three quotes will suffice):

1. “the Ṛgvedic archetype of the Mahābhārata, the so-called "Ten Kings' Battle" (dāśarājña), took place much further west, on the Paruṣṇī (River Ravī). After to the victory of the Bharata chieftain Sudās in this battle, the Bharata tribe was able to secure the Kurukṣetra area” (page 3).

2. “By the end of the Ṛgvedic period, after Sudās' victory, the focus of the texts has shifted, from the Panjab to the Kurukṣetra area” (page 97).

3. “Kurukṣetra area was conceived as the "center of the world", a trait first visible after the victory of the Bharata king Sudās and his settling on the Sarasvatī (RV 3.53)” (page 136).

In short, Witzel is claiming here, in these three blatantly false statements, that the “Ten Kings' Battle" (dāśarājña)” preceded the presence of Sudās and the Bharatas in the Kurukṣetra area!

 

Can anything be more blatantly and fraudulently false? I have repeatedly shown, in my books and articles from 2000 onwards, the massive, overwhelming and uni-directional data and evidence in the Rigveda showing that Sudās and his Bharata ancestors were already settled in the Kurukṣetra area from so long before the period of Sudās that they are closely familiar with no other land beyond the area to the east of the Sarasvati river in Haryana and westernmost Uttar Pradesh. Sudās’ ancestors, as remote as Devavāta, Sṛñjaya and Divodāsa, were all living in the Kurukṣetra area, and the movement of the Bharatas westwards started after:

a) Sudās’ performance of the yajña under his priest Viśvāmitra in the Kurukṣetra area, after which he started expanding out in all directions.

b) Sudās’ crossing from east to west of the two easternmost rivers of the Punjab (the Vipāś and Śutudri, i.e. the Beas and Sutlej), still under his priest Viśvāmitra.

c) His battle on the Paruṣṇī river (i.e. the Ravi river) against the “people of the Asiknī” (i.e. the people living on the western side of the Paruṣṇī river, in the area between the Paruṣṇī and the Asiknī river, i.e. the Chenab river) in the "Ten Kings' Battle" (dāśarājña).

 

But wait. Do you really have to go through all the data and evidence presented by me to confirm this?

No, you don’t! You just have to go through Witzel’s own writings, and you will see very clearly how even he is fully aware that the "Ten Kings' Battle" (dāśarājña) took place long after the Bharatas can be seen as the native inhabitants of the Kurukṣetra area.

He very clearly knows that Viśvāmitra was Sudās’ priest before he was replaced by Vasiṣṭha, and that the yajña in the Kurukṣetra area was conducted under his  earlier priest Viśvāmitra, and that the victory in the "Ten Kings' Battle" (dāśarājña) took place under the later priest Vasiṣṭha. What geographical sequence does this show?

And in fact, Witzel is so emphatically aware that Viśvāmitra (in the Kurukṣetra area) represented an earlier period than Vasiṣṭha (in the "Ten Kings' Battle" in the Punjab area) that he actually supports the fallacious theory that it was Viśvāmitra, out of his resentment at having been replaced by Vasiṣṭha, who cobbled together the alliance of the Ten Kings against Sudās:

“the other tribes began to unite against them [the Bharatas], either due to the intrigues of the ousted Viśvāmitra, or simply because of intratribal resentment. This led to the famous battle of the ten kings which, however, is not mentioned by Book 3, as Viśvāmitra (its author) had by then been displaced by Vasiṣṭha as the purohita of Sudās. There is even the possibility that it was Viśvāmitra who ― in an act of revenge ― forged the alliance against his former chief. Whatever the reason, however, the alliance failed and the Pūrus were completely ousted (7.8.4 etc) along with Viśvāmitra (=Bhṛgu, 7.18.6)” (WITZEL 1995b:334)”.

Surely, the above quote in Witzel’s own words makes it clear whether it is Sudās and Viśvāmitra in Haryana who are chronologically earlier, or Sudās and Vasiṣṭha in the Punjab?

 

Obviously, life is short, and I cannot waste any more of my time reviewing or discussing again and again the wild ramblings of a lying parrot – it is now the year 2025, and it is already 22 years that this vaudeville cross-talk has been going on.

 

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

WITZEL 1995b: Rgvedic History: Poets, Chieftains and Politics. Witzel, Michael. pp. 307-352 in “The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia”, ed. by George Erdosy. Walter de Gruyter. Berlin.

The Ticking Time Bomb: Delimitation of Parliamentary Seats

The Ticking Time Bomb: Delimitation of Parliamentary Seats

Shrikant G. Talageri

  

Every regime which has ruled India has planted time bombs which are timed to explode at certain times in the future, to the detriment of a stupid, ignorant and indifferent Indian public and to cause bitter resentments, chaos and internal wars designed to keep the country weak, vulnerable and divided while the ruling (esp. the political) classes make hay in the electoral arena and eat “malai” and “mewa”.

The British are always accused by “patriotic” Indians of having planted countless such time bombs. But the pseudo-secularist Congress regimes which ruled India for most of the post-Independence period, and the pseudo-Hindutvite BJP regime have been no less irresponsible and guilty in this exercise. It was, and is, and perhaps always will be in the interests of all mercenary ruling regimes to keep the pots of internal injustices, inequalities, fissiparous tendencies and internal hatreds perennially boiling, and to hell with what happens to the country and its people! The country, of course, being an inanimate entity, has no say in whatever is done to it. But, at least in theory, the people should be having the right to have their say and to see that it (their say) is heard and correctly responded to by the mercenary politicians. But that is only in theory: in practice, the Indian public in general, and those members of the Indian public who have influence and control over the rest in particular, are so stupid, ignorant and indifferent – and yes, have their own mercenary interests as well – that expecting them to care and to do something concrete is the purest theory of all.

Which is why the pseudo-secularist politicians (with the assent of the pseudo-Hindutva politicians), and the pseudo-Hindutva politicians in their turn whenever in power, have been nurturing all earlier time bombs and planting new ones, and why the Indian public remains blissfully ignorant of, and indifferent to, everything: whether it is the grossly unequal laws which make Hindus eighth class citizens in their own country to an extent unparalleled in any other “democratic” country, or the caste-based time bombs which are designed to keep the country bitterly divided against itself for all time to come.

 

But now, it is almost time for another, and equally disruptive time bomb (nothing to do with religion or caste, but with regions or states) set off to be detonated in 2026: the time bomb of “statewise delimitation of Lok Sabha seats” is going to set off undying regional hatreds as never before:

And to be very frank and honest, if and when the Dravidianists take up cudgels against the India state after the said exercise – regardless of the extent of extremism to which their reactions may take them − they will be absolutely and utterly in the right and will be having Justice fully on their side!

Even today, Dravidianists and other regional chauvinists, and even perfectly objective people, from the southern states claim that South India is the step-child of the modern Indian state. They claim that the overwhelming domination of the North Indian and particularly the Hindi states in the Lok Sabha in the matter of the number of Lok Sabha seats, leaves them with little control of anything in the country. After this delimitation, it will leave them with absolutely no control of anything in the country.

Let us see why:

DRAVIDIAN SOUTH	Present Seats	Seats after 2026
Tamilnadu + Puducherry	40	50
Kerala	20	20
Andhra + Telangana	42	54
Karnataka	28	41
TOTAL	130	165

 

WEST	Present Seats	Seats after 2026
Maharashtra	48	76
Gujarat	26	43
Goa	2	2
TOTAL	76	121

 

EAST	Present Seats	Seats after 2026
Bengal	42	60
Odisha	21	28
Northeast + Sikkim	25	32
TOTAL	88	120

 

OTHERS	Present Seats	Seats after 2026
Punjab	13	18
Jammu-Kashmir-Ladakh	6	9
Andaman + Lakshadweep	2	2
Dadra NH + Daman Diu	2	2
TOTAL	23	31

 

SUMMARY	Present Seats and %	Seats after 2026 and %
HINDI STATES	226 = 41.62%	409 = 48.35%
DRAVIDIAN SOUTH	130 = 23.94%	165 = 19.50%
WEST	76 = 16.21%	121 = 14.18%
EAST	88 = 13.99%	120 = 14.30%
OTHERS	23 = 4.23%	31 = 3.66%
TOTAL	543	846

 

In  a country where Machiavellian trickery is considered something to be admired, Amit Shah makes an announcement which the title of the news item in the Indian Express announces as follows: “Amit Shah’s big announcement on delimitation: whatever increase (in seats) is there, Southern states will get a fair share…not one seat will be reduced”:

https://indianexpress.com/article/india/amit-shah-delimitation-lok-sabha-seats-tamil-nadu-stalin-9857226/ 

Naturally, not one seat will be reduced: Tamilnadu’s share (see the above tables) will not be reduced by a single seat: it will go up from 40 to 50 (or, not counting Puducherry, from 39 to 49), Amit Shah spoke the absolute truth: “aśvatthāma (the elephant)”!!

 

But why did he cleverly put it in that manner? See the full report:

“Addressing BJP workers at the inauguration of party offices in Coimbatore, Tiruvannamalai and Ramanathapuram, Shah said, “Today a meeting will be held to ensure the South does not suffer on account of delimitation. The public in Tamil Nadu is disturbed. This is why the Tamil Nadu CM (Stalin) and his son (Udhayanidhi) are trying to distract the public. Mr Stalin, the Modi government has made it clear in Lok Sabha that after delimitation, on pro rata basis, not a single seat will be reduced in any southern state. And I want to reassure the public of South India that Modi ji has kept your interest in mind to make sure that not even one seat is reduced pro rata. And whatever increase is there, southern states will get a fair share, there is no reason to doubt this.”

A day earlier, Stalin had warned that Tamil Nadu could lose up to eight of its 39 Lok Sabha constituencies due to the delimitation exercise, potentially reducing its seats to 31. He had described the process as a “sword hanging over the head of South India,” raising fears of diminished representation and rights for Tamil Nadu.”

 

Apparently, as per some other estimates of the statewise number of seats after 2026, it was estimated that the total number of seats would be the same (543) but redistributed among the states in new ratios and proportions: i.e. more or less the same ratio or proportion as in the above tables where the total number of seats would be 846! So, yes, “not one seat will be reduced” – but the statewise percentage of seats in the total number of seats would certainly be reduced drastically, especially in relation to that of the Hindi states!

So, will 2026 be the beginning of the end for the emotional unity of India? Given the fact of India’s mercenary politicians and the stupid, ignorant and indifferent (and actually little less mercenary) Indian masses, that is perfectly possible. But again − for who can predict the future – perhaps because of India’s mercenary politicians and the stupid, ignorant and indifferent (and actually little less mercenary) Indian masses, India may still continue limping ahead.

 

But some things can be predicted, and I am predicting them here for the record:

This Parliamentary Delimitation of Lok Sabha seats will go ahead as planned, because no party will want to disappoint or alienate voters from those states whose number of seats are scheduled to rise sharply.

A few years later, after the 2031 National Census of India records the caste of every citizen of India (as per the recent decision by the BJP government to introduce caste census within the National Census from 2031 onwards), there will be redistribution of Lok Sabha seats into reserved categories on the basis of caste.

A few years after that (if not before the 2031 census itself), politicians will realize that Muslim voters are increasing in numbers at even faster rates than the voters from any particular castes. Then there will be a decision to win over the Muslim voters by reserving population-wise numbers of Lok Sabha seats for Muslims.

No one may protest, and no-one may care. All these will be hailed as "masterstrokes". If anyone thinks of protesting or caring, Pakistan will lend its hand by launching attacks in Kashmir or elsewhere on the borders, leading to a massive wave of jingoism in which all other issues will fly out of the minds of the stupid, ignorant and indifferent (and actually little less mercenary) Indian masses. [In Orwell’s Animal Farm, the pigs were never the cause of the woes of the common animals: it was always Mr. Jones or Mr. Pilkington or Mr. Frederick, or, of course, Snowball!]

Any silver lining in the clouds? Yes: I may not be alive till then, to see all this happening.