Nikolai Suvorov − An Example of the Illiterate Rubbish Published in IE Studies

 

Nikolai Suvorov − An Example of the Illiterate Rubbish Published in IE Studies

 Shrikant G. Talageri

 

There is an article published in Academia.edu, "The origin of the Aryans and their advance into India", by Nikolai Suvorov (Master of South Asian Studies at the University of Hamburg!), written/published in 2019, which can serve as an example of the kind of outdated and half-baked rubbish that is being written and published in academies all over the world in respect of Indo-European studies with particular respect to India:

https://www.academia.edu/39095040/The_origin_of_Aryans_and_their_advance_into_India

The writer starts out by telling us: "The origin of the Aryans generates so-called ‘Aryan problem’, i.e. when, where, from and in which ways the Aryans came to India. A dispute with respect to this matter has been waged by scholars for decades." After giving a very primary introduction to the history of IE studies with particular respect to India, this childish paper gives us the four theories or "predominant views on the original home of the Aryans" (meaning apparently the four views other than the Steppe theory): The Arctic Region; Central Asia and Kazakhstan; The Middle East; India.

The extremely outdated nature of this paper is demonstrated by:

a) the extensive way in which it writes about the Arctic Home,

b) the number of times it quotes the extremely outdated nonsense written by R.N.Dandekar,

c) the fact that the writer refers repeatedly to the Punjab as pañcanada (and even writes "the Vedas mention Panchanada"!) a word which is neither here nor there (na ghar kā, na ghāṭ kā), i.e. neither the present name for the Punjab nor the one used in the Vedic texts, but a late Sanskrit word especially used by early twentieth century writers (like Savarkar and Dandekar) on such topics, and

d) the fact that its section on India (i.e. on the view that India was the Homeland of the IEs), though it seems to have been written/published in 2019, seems totally in the dark about the OIT case presented by me, and while it refers to the "Out of India theory" (a phrase first used by Edwin Bryant, and made popular by the case presented by me), this academic "scholar" postulates "the book “The Vedic Age” the editor-in-chief of which was R. C. Majumdar. The book’s authors indicate that the Vedas mention Panchanada (contemporary Punjab region) as an original homeland of the Aryans (deva-kṛta-yoniḥ or devanirmita-deśaḥ)", a book written in 1951, as the main source book of the OIT! After a glorious battle with some elementary statements from this book which serves as a straw man to attack the OIT, with the aid of the antiquated fossil writings of Dandekar, and by quoting the most elementary and childish among the AIT postulates or arguments (too many to be detailed here: read the article in the original for these Gems of Illiteracy), this buffoonish "scholar" triumphantly concludes that "The possibility for the Aryans to be autochthonous for India is rejected":

Particularly noteworthy is the juvenile, polemical and illiterate way in which it refers to the OIT, and makes it clear that while the buffoon who wrote this article is completely blank about the data and facts, and about the state of the art about the debate, he is very clear in his political agenda: "Nowadays, some representatives of Indian science revealing their outright nationalist or extremist nature continue to consider the Indian peninsula to be the ancestral home of the Aryans. Often such conclusions are made without any evidence, only to mislead an Indian average man and sell him the idea that Indians are superior to the world’s population. The latter is especially beneficial to chauvinistic and outright fascist circles of India, like the Rashtriya Svayamsevak Sangh (RSS). Various attempts have been made to rewrite history."

This is the extremely low intellectual level of writings in the western Universities and academic circles when it comes to anything concerning India, its history and its culture.

Unfortunately, because of the sepoy mentality of most (though obviously not all) English-educated (or English-education-admiring) Indian writers, anything written by western academicians or written in western journals constitutes gospel truth and is swallowed wholesale by such Indians who are powerful in the Indian media and in internet cliques. And this is the reason why the most pathetic and oft-repeated objection to my writings amongst these zealots is that my books and articles are not "peer-reviewed" in western academic journals: in short, the only way in which my books and articles will become acceptable to them is if the "scholars" controlling these journals accept that they were wrong! The fact that my writings are completely stonewalled not because they are not worthy of consideration, but because they are unanswerable, is something these blind devotees of the West will never be able to understand, any more than a religious zealot would be able to understand that something written in his Holy Book could possibly be wrong.

 

Appendix added 11-8-2023:

The Bluster of the Terrified:

 

I received (not from Koenraad) a copy of the following twitter exchange illustrating the "clutch-at-any-straw-to avoid-facing-defeat-in-debate"-Bluster of the Terrified:

 

 

 

But they are right on one point: there is no basis for any kind of discussion with bigoted zealots, and I have repeatedly made it clear that I am not interested in discussing anything with people who have no scruples at all and are proud of it!

But, by "vitriol", "audacity" and "appalling language", perhaps they were referring to Suvorov's comments on "some representatives of Indian science" and the "Rashtriya Svayamsevak Sangh (RSS)"??