Why I Have Basically Decided To Stop Writing On THE OIT and on Politics
Shrikant G. Talageri
When Mulayam Singh Yadav, who got karsewaks in Ayodhya shot dead (a la General Dyer) can become a Hindutva icon and receive the Padma Vibhushan award from the BJP government (when let alone any karsewak martyr, but even Veer Savarkar, is yet to receive even a Padma Shri), it is not surprising that the election-based "Saffron Brigade" is now up to attacking any and every Hindu idea and belief, whether correct or incorrect.
The following tweet by Kushal Mehra indicates that the OIT (after the karsewaks) is next in line to face the election-based "Saffron" axe:
Yes, this is the same Kushal Mehra who took so many interviews with me and Koenraad Elst among others and claimed to be convinced by the OIT. Now he suddenly claims that some "Southern Arc Papers" have convinced him that the OIT is as "unlikely" as the Steppe Hypothesis, and that the evidence from the Rigveda has "nothing to do with the PIE Homeland".
I was already aware that this particular BJP bhakt would go to any extent to take forward any of the BJP's anti-Hindu programs, or to discard any and every Hindu cause or hypothesis which is irrelevant to the BJP's political game, when, after the public button was switched off after one of our last interviews and we spoke personally on zoom, the topic being the BJP, he argued forcefully (giving the naivest possible pretexts) that extending articles 25-30 to Hindu temples and institutions was not in the interests of Hindus and it was better that the situation remained unchanged.
Even so, (although he had shown his strong disapproval of the anti-BJP articles written by me, even while superciliously telling me that he never bothered to read such stuff and was not affected by it) I did not expect such a brazen volte-face from him. When someone sent me the above tweet, I was stunned. But, as I said, after the Mulayam Singh Padma Vibhushan, nothing should really "stun" or even "surprise". Now, he finds that the OIT is as "unlikely" as the Steppe Hypothesis, and that the evidence from the Rigveda has "nothing to do with the PIE Homeland", on the basis of some "Southern Arc Papers", without explaining how those "Papers" explain away all the linguistic textual and chronological evidence presented by me. I am too bored even to repeat the list of all the different evidence, each irrefutable and final in itself, let alone all the evidence itself. I have already written anything and everything on the subject, and unless and until someone actually manages to present any point which seems to disprove the major points made by me, I see no need to keep repeating myself like a parrot. In fact, I have basically written whatever I had to say on political matters as well as Vedic matters, and do not see how repeating myself is going to convince the doubters, let alone the neo-doubters.
I can now confidently expect to be targeted by all the legions of bhakts, both in the matter of the OIT as well as perhaps in my personal life, and I can only repeat what I have said many times in the past: the Truth will come out after many decades when (or if) all these political brigades have quietened down, histoical studies have become more objective and honest, and new evidence comes forth to corroborate the OIT. For the present, I am now merely waiting to see Witzel or Romila Thapar being fawningly interviewed by Kushal Mehra (all three being finally in complete agreement that "the Rigveda is written in India. But that has nothing to do with the PIE Homeland" ─ the linguistic, textual and chronological evidence be damned) and being given the Padma Vibhushan by the Indian government.
I have written everything that had to be written on Indo-European and Rigvedic history. From now on, I will not respond to subjective opinions and conclusions by anyone, however "scholarly" or personally abusive, and will only respond when someone really points out some point in my work which requires further or more detailed explanation (such as the ones which led to my articles on Rigvedic phrases like bṛbu, vadhryaśva, pṛthu-parśava, etc.) except in the unlikely circumstance that I feel impelled to go into some new uncharted field of evidence and present it for the future.
Genetically, even the Anatolian homeland theory is crap because there's no Anatolian DNA in Rakhigarhi female sample and even in the outliner samples its negligible. There's just one Harappan related skeleton found miles away from the vicinity of the Indus-Saraswati Civilization having hardly 5% or lesser Anatolia DNA.
ReplyDeleteFor OIT there's indeed a strong Genetic case of the migration of IranN type ancestry entering Steppe eneolithic and later the Yamnaya culture. Then Indian dog DNA in Corded Ware Culture and Zebu genes in Ukranian cattle after the Yamnaya invasion (as per the research of Jones et al. and Haak et al. (2015)). Sir I feel you should also consider these genetic studies in order to counter anti-OITists.
I've written 3 Twitter threads on the Out of India migrations of
1) Ānavas
2) Druhyus
3) Anatolians
based on your work, some more Linguistic studies and genetic evidence.
Sir, ever since the southern Arc papers came out, some people have been claiming that this has effectively ruled out indian Homeland. @Agenetics has written about this in detail (you had once praised him for his knowledge in genetics in the comment section of one of your blogs!).
ReplyDeleteI think what they're trying to say is an Armenian source of ancestry is actually present in bronze Age samples near IVC & IVC became IIr homeland only after 4500BC or so. Hence, Although Rig Veda was written in India, the rest of the brances don't have nay connection with India. I don't think it has anything to do with the BJP.
Sorry if I haven't conveyed things properly.
I don't recall about @Agenetics, since I have always refuted genetics itself as a criterion for discussing the IE question. I don't know how genetics can disprove the evidence of the isoglosses, the Dasarajna and the other two battles, the Mitanni dated evidence which takes the prehistory of the Rigveda in the Old Rigveda deeper into India, etc.
DeleteAbout Armenia, it fails to explain a single linguistic isogloss or fit in with any of the recorded data in any IE language. Even the place names and river names in Armenia show non-IE origins to this day, unlike the river names in the Old Rigveda in pre-2000 BCE.
I am sorry, but if you follow the news, you will see how BJP bhakts are shooting down one Hindutva idea after another. As Anand Ranganathan has put it in a recent talk, they want to keep anti-Hindu issues smouldering: aag lagi rehni chahiye:
https://newsum.media/bjp-politician-told-me-hindus-should-not-come-to-know-that-modi-has-done-more-for-muslims-anand-ranganathan/?amp=1
Also, Rahul Gandhi has cditicised Modi for calling Adivasi as Vanavasi! You should check out the video as you had written about this topic in "Are Indian tribals Hindus"
ReplyDeleteGuru Ji, Kushal is not just anti-OIT, he even refutes the idea that India needs to seriously de-colonize! He thinks that anybody who claims that we need to de-colonize is playing a victim card. He is openly against the likes of you, J Sai Deepak, Ami Ganatra, and everybody else who actually does original research with a Bharatiya lens.
ReplyDeleteI have been following his podcasts for a while, and every time it is the same pattern: First he will invite guests to his podcasts like you, J Sai Deepak, Ami Ganatra, etc. Then, in subsequent podcasts where they are no longer present, he will continuously badmouth their research (basically say that only the West's research is "factual" and can be taken seriously, and all original Indian research is "based on fantasy" and is useless), and claim that he disbelieves everything they said.
According to me, Kushal is just one of those armchair intellectuals who only believes what the Westerners say. Today he refutes your research, but once your research is accepted by American and European Universities, he will quicky change is stance.
ReplyDeleteI don't know about all this, but he certainly has made a bit of money monetizing his podcasts and getting people to pay to even listen to his "discussions" on, or "explanations" of, my books. Even I could not view these podcasts, "explanations" or whatever, of my own books, because I did not pay for them! He even, like many of these people, sells t-shirts and other "products". My writings are always free to air and can be reproduced anywhere by anyone, and I have never received and definitely never wanted payment at any time for any of my talks all over India (except that the organizers obviously had to pay the air fare and the lodging and boarding) except once when Rajiv Malhotra had forcibly given an honorarium for chairing a session at his Seminar in Chennai. But I have never resented others doing what they wanted as long as I could spread my work.
DeleteIn the case of Kushal, I always found it funny when, while endorsing my work, he used to claim that he had personally checked the correctness of my conclusions from his own "reading" of the whole Rigveda. Now I wonder what he has "read" so thoroughly that he sweepingly declares that the OIT is as "unlikely" as the Steppe theory. No-one requires testimony from him that the Rigveda was written in India, as no-one disputes that at all except a few crank writers.
Well what Kushal is saying (I assume), is that IA was spoken during IVC period but doesn't mean PIE originated there. That is only IA and to some extent Iranic languages have its roots in NW India but this doesn't automatically assume that all the other branches also have their roots in NW India. Furthermore the genetic evidence, as it stands from the point of view of Kushal, does not show any signicant migration of South Asian ancestry into Western Eurasia. Your OIT model does indicate large scale migration of tribes migrating from India westwards. Unfortunately nothing shows up on the radar for such migrations. You can't say genetics has nothing (or have very little to) do with it because your OIT model is taking about mass migrations out of India by having different tribes (mentioned in RV) that appears in Western Eurasia.
DeleteI subscribed to Kushal Mehra's Charvaka Podcast only because of your super informative videos.
ReplyDeleteI continue to maintain, sir, that when the dust on this settles, it'll still be you having the last laugh.
ReplyDeleteHi Shrikant,
ReplyDeleteWhat about publishing a book on the history of Vedic India upto the Kurukshetra war within the OIT paradigm?
Please dont give up the good cause of promoting the OIT. What is required now, is a proper historical narrative of the Pre-Vedic/Vedic period of Ancient Indian history positioned within the paradigm of the OIT.
ReplyDeleteAre you planning to write such a book?
The opposition to OIT will be permanently stopped when the actual history of the Vedic period is properly brought out within the OIT framework.
ReplyDeleteSir please debunk this.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.newsclick.in/history-myth-busting-series-i-no-evidence-indigenous-aryans
There is nothing to debunk in that short opinionated article, because the article has nothing at all to say except give woke-leftist opinions from an armchair. The writer is clearly one of the more opinionated and more illiterate of the anti-OIT gang. See he last paragraph:
Delete"By claiming a singular ancestry, that of the Aryans, we are depriving ourselves of a more holistic understanding of our origins. There is a diversity in terms of the cultures, societies and even DNA present across India which cannot be ignored. However, the narratives, as woven by the Hindu Right, seek to establish their culture as the dominant and superior one. This series seeks to combat such narratives by developing a holistic understanding of the history of India."
No-one who has read even a page of my OIT case would write such rubbish. I neither claim any culture to be superior, nor do I say anything which could be interpreted as saying that all india culture has "a single ancestry" (in Vedic or Harappan or anything else)> I have pointed out that the Vedic culture was the culture of the Purus, the Harappan culture the joint-culture of the Anus-Purus-Druhyus and Yadus (all of whose cultures were distinct), and that there were other "Indo-Aryan" cultures to the east (even the Ikshvakus were not "Vedic") and also many other Dravidian, Austric and other language-speaking cultures in other parts of India, all of which are jointly "ancestral" to present-day Hindu culture. I hold the culture of the distinctly different Andamanese people, and the pre-Christian Pagan Nagas, as very much a part of our rich and diverse Hindu heritage.
Why should I continue to answer such utterly illiterate people?
Kaushal and likes of him are simply riding the Hindutva wave. I bet when there is no Hindutva wave, people like him will roll back to their original selves.
ReplyDeleteI think in his recent podcast he said that he thinks Indo-European homeland is in Iran. Whenever he makes such outlandish claims he never gives evidence or try to prove his point. He simply claims it just to sound intellectual and distinct from others.
Unrelated question - how does the Hittite Anitta text fit into all of this? Hittite is supposed to be an Indo-European language. The Anitta text is said to date from 1700 BC.
ReplyDeletehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anitta_(king)
https://lrc.la.utexas.edu/eieol/hitol/10