Why There Can be no Meaningful AIT-OIT Debate

 

Why There Can be no Meaningful AIT-OIT Debate

Shrikant G. Talageri

 

Can there be a really meaningful debate between proponents of the AIT and proponents of the OIT? I have frequently pointed out that the only solution for resolving the issue is for a truly honest, neutral, genuinely scholarly and objective-minded panel of judges to be set up to examine the issue, in the same manner as the Ayodhya ("was-there-a-temple-underneath-the Babri-structure") issue could ultimately only be resolved when the matter was placed in the hands of a judicial commission which undertook to examine the full case of both the sides objectively before arriving at the final judgment − a judgment which no self-respecting person today would dare to seriously doubt or question. When one powerful side, holding all the reins of media and academic power, is determined to stonewall and sabotage impartial inquiry into any issue, meaningful debate is impossible:

1. Ever since the real AIT-OIT debate  started in the early nineteen-nineties, the harried proponents of the AIT have had a single-point agenda: Stonewall the OIT case!

2. But as things got hotter, and it became apparent that the OIT side was also (apart from the original research of OIT proponents) increasingly using the papers and writings of AIT-supporting western academic scholars whose research revealed facts which unwittingly disproved the postulates of the AIT and supported the OIT case, a second corollary point was added to the agenda: Backtrack and Stonewall Inconvenient AIT research!

3. Now, increasingly, when it is becoming apparent that the OIT case is becoming more and more unanswerable and the unavoidability of a debate is becoming more and more clear, a third point is being added to the agenda: Stonewall the main and real OIT case, divert discussions to irrelevant issues or minor corollary OIT points, and use them to Stonewall Actual Debate on the Real OIT Evidence!

 

1. Stonewall the OIT case has been the most constant and tactically effective tactic of the AIT lobby since the early nineteen nineties. Apart from ignoring the real OIT case, and hyping extraneous issues (e.g. Witzel's widely publicized media hype on NS Rajaram's "horse seal"), there was a great deal of fraudulent academic linguistic scholarship, of which the so-called "Uralic evidence" is the most glaring example: it is absolutely incredible that for more than a century (and right up to and including the recent paper by Heggarty et al, after nearly two decades of having the correct interpretation pointed out to them), western scholars (and their Indian sepoys) in the field of Linguistics have been citing the massive evidence of the Indo-Iranian words borrowed by the Uralic languages as an argument for the Steppe theory, when anyone with the slightest ground experience in Linguistic phenomena (and in fact with the barest minimum of common sense) should have realized that it was in fact an irrefutable piece of evidence for "Indo-Iranian" migrations from the South of Central Asia which took these words to the Uralic languages!

An example of the way in which some rare western scholars who tried to engage me in debate, thinking I would make a fool of myself, swiftly backed out and rejoined the Stonewall Gang as soon as they found out that my writings were not the kind of Indian writings which could be easily ridiculed, is when a western scholar Christophe Vielle, a member of the Indology List, sent me two papers by (an earlier French Indologist) P.E.Dumont and asked me to write my views on those papers so that we could have a discussion on those papers as a prelude to discussing the AIT/OIT. Koenraad Elst had introduced us, after telling me that some members on the Indology List (whose members had carefully avoided any debate with me till then) were interested in having a debate on the AIT/OIT. However, after I sent the article, there was a deafening silence, and Vielle backed out of any further contact. Later, Koenraad told me in a mail that they were expecting me to make some glaring mistakes in my article which they could use against me, but after reading the article they wisely beat a retreat. I suspect they expected a different reaction to the paper on the Babylonian rituals, where I would "expose" myself. However, they found the article unanswerable and decided that Stonewalling was the only solution.

 

2. Backtrack and Stonewall Inconvenient AIT research became an important tactic as soon as they realized that inconvenient conclusions from the research of  some (mostly AIT-supporting) western academic scholars, which stood out against the AIT and for the OIT, was being stonewalled by the mainstream AIT scholars but was being picked up by some OIT supporters (immodestly speaking, primarily by myself). This realization led to a massive undercover campaign to try to avoid making public any such inconvenient conclusions:

2a)  In this process, numerous important linguistic papers were stonewalled, but some papers, which were too academically solid in western circles and at the same time lethal to the AIT, required stronger measures. A prominent one was the research by Johanna Nichols which indicated that the locus of the IE language spread westwards was from Central Asia (NICHOLS 1997:137). Her research proved so inconvenient to the AIT, and so perfectly fitting in with the OIT case (and therefore regularly quoted by OIT supporters), that peer pressure forced her to post a very reluctantly worded mea-culpa along with the posting of her articles on academia-edu.

"PARTIAL RETRACTION:

The theory of an east Caspian center of the IE spread argued for here is untenable and with much regret I retract it. It's a beautiful theory that accounts elegantly for a great deal of the dynamic and linguistic geography of the IE spread, but it conflicts with essential archaeological and etymological facts. The paper that convinced me to abandon it is:

Darden, Bill J. 2001. On the question of the Anatolian origin of Indo-Hittite, Robert Drews, ed., Greater Anatolia and the Indo-Hittite Language Family, 184-228. Washington, DC: Institute for the Study of Man.

The rest of both chapters still stands, but the east Caspian locus is post-PIE. The PIE homeland was on the western steppe." 

https://www.academia.edu/18306905/The_Eurasian_spread_zone_and_the_Indo-European_dispersal

Incredible but true. The scholar who had presented such detailed data and definite conclusions in 1997 and 1998 ("The locus of the IE spread was therefore somewhere in the vicinity of ancient Bactria-Sogdiana", NICHOLS 1997:137), is now (after her conclusions were profusely quoted by opponents of the AIT) forced by academic and "peer" pressure to state (without detailed explanation in the form of any data or logistics which would negate the original thesis) that "the east Caspian locus is post-PIE. The PIE homeland was on the western steppe", even as she still insists that the "rest" of what she had written "still stands"!  She fails to point out the details of the "archaeological or etymological facts" which now overturn the original "beautiful theory that accounts elegantly for a great deal of the dynamic and linguistic geography of the IE spread" and in fact now show that the Homeland was in the Steppes! Or to point out which part of her own original theory "still stands" as opposed to the part which does not, and why she is now compelled to create this new division of her own original thesis into one part which "still stands" and another part which does not!

2b) Even more blatant is the open appeal by the eminent western Indologist and linguist Hans H. Hock to western scholars to self-censor their research to avoid giving public exposure to any conclusions which could be used by OIT writers.

Hock, Professor Emeritus of Linguistics and Sanskrit at the University of Illinois, and a prolific speaker and crusader for certain points of view on various forums, including the internet and particularly Youtube, spoke at the Lucy Ellis Lounge of the University on 9/9/2013. A summary of the gist of his talk will be found at the following site:

http://illinois.edu/calendar/detail/2617/29850521

After making all kinds of unwarranted comments (see my article "Hans Henrich Hock − A "Scholar" Lying Through His Teeth" 22/7/2017), he cautions or advises all scholars studying the Indo-European question (or perhaps any historical question involving India) to suppress facts and self-censor their own studies and conclusions so as not to provide any quotable material favourable to any "Indian nationalist" agenda: "Indo-Europeanists must exercise caution, lest they unwittingly support ideologically motivated agendas"!

 

3. Stonewall the main and real OIT case, divert discussions to irrelevant issues or minor corollary OIT points, and use them to Stonewall Actual Debate on the Real OIT Evidence is the latest guideline in this Smash-the-OIT toolkit to try to deal with the OIT cyclone.

Right from the beginning of the time that a few western academics and their Indian sepoys found that they could no more turn a complete blind eye to the OIT (and particularly my OIT case), and that some kind of response was required from them, the "responses" have covered "criticism" on any and every topic under the sun other than the issues relevant to the debate (i.e. other than the actual data, evidence and logic presented by the OIT side): thus their concentration is on my profession (a mere "bank employee"); my qualifications or lack of them; the languages that I know or don't know; the size and range of the bibliographies in my books and articles; my political views and opinions; etc. etc. Once an issue was even made about my allegedly "insulting" Witzel's wife: see my article "False Allegation About My Insulting Witzel's Wife" 17/2/2021.

One joker (Arnaud Fournet) wrote a long review of my third book "The Rigveda and the Avesta―The Final Evidence" (2008). This man, by his own testimony, received my book for review from Koenraad Elst on 18/5/2009. Within four days, he had "read" the whole book, written and completed a long, cheap and abusive "review" of the book, consulted with Elst, and then posted it on the internet on 22/5/2009. In the review, he even admits that most aspects of the subjects in my book were previously totally unknown to him: he had never ever heard of the Battle of Ten Kings or even of the Puranic tribes; not read my first two books; is not a specialist on Vedic or Indo-Iranian studies; and so on. Yet in four days he wrote a review which he claimed devastated my book. He does not examine a single fact, or piece of evidence (the few he refers to, he dismisses with derision and contempt as not worth replying to), and concentrates on issues like the smell and color of my book; the mental trauma he underwent on skimming through it; his detailed dissatisfaction with minor aspects of the presentation and layout of my book (in respect of bibliography, preface, textual organization, fonts, maps and index); the exact years of publication of the various books quoted by me (these being either too old or too recent); some printing or publication errors; his intuitive perception of the things I assume but do not write; my use of countless particular words rather than countless other ones that he feels I should have used instead; his (completely incorrect) counts of the number of times I have used various particular words in my book (and his criticism of this); his various psycho-analyses of my character on the basis of different criteria; his long-winded criticism of my uses of the word "development" (and even of the phrase "AIT" and the word "isogloss"); his long monologue on the term and concept of "Indo-Iranian" (in spite of stating elsewhere that he is not an expert on Indo-Iranian studies); his objections to (according to him) irrelevant details, which he calls "frequent interruptions of the text, in the form of references, data and statistics given by me; etc. etc. In short, he examines and gives a detailed criticism (in four days) of everything but the data, facts and evidence given in my books, which are irrelevant to him.

Fournet's incredible "review" of my third book (see my article "A Detailed Reply to a Joker’ (Arnaud Fournet)'s “Review” of my Book" 6/5/2020, for the gory and sordid details) is perhaps the best example of the multiple ways in which a "reviewer" can "review" a book by bringing in all possible and impossible kinds of angles of irrelevant and pedestrian criticism while leaving the basic data, facts and evidence totally untouched. But, even without going to that rather psychopathic extent, Stonewalling remains the most reliable straw at which any AIT "scholar" clutches to avoid serious discussion on the Real OIT case. The two primary excuses to justify this shady Stonewalling (apart from the various tactics mentioned above) are:

a) That my books and articles are not "peer-reviewed" in academic journals acceptable to the western AIT scholars and their Indian sepoys. The fact that, in the last decade or so, I have spoken at certain official Seminars within India and have had my articles published in their official journals is irrelevant to these carpers − not that I think being officially "peer-reviewed" by the controllers-of-discourse, or being published in journals, makes anyone's work more scholarly. According to them my writings have value only if they appear in journals controlled by AIT supporters who have expressed AIT-supporting views in papers and articles all their lives long and who are in the forefront of the Stonewalling campaign. In short, I become a legitimate scholar only if I receive certificates of approval from my self-declared adversaries, with or without an accompanying mea culpa!

b) That I use "ad hominem" and (as in the tweet below, a view expressed in various different words and ways) "appalling language". The rule is apparently that those who stonewall the OIT case, on the few occasions that they condescend to take notice of the existence of my writings (or the writings of any other OIT supporter), are free to say whatever they want in whatever kind of "language" they want, about me (or even about Indians or Hindus in general) without bothering to actually deal with the data, facts and evidence given by me. But I (as also other OIT writers) should be extremely circumspect and humble in my responses, and think a hundred times before saying anything which our opponents may decide to find politically incorrect or unacceptable, even if our "personal" criticisms are backed by detailed analysis and refutation of every single point made by the ones we are criticizing.

This, in fact, is the state, every time, of whatever "debate" has ever taken place to this day between myself and any AIT supporter: I pick up every single point made by the person I am criticizing and demolish it with data, facts and evidence; while the AIT supporter merely makes personal remarks and comments, completely ignoring both, my own case as well as my criticism of theirs, on every single point made by me (including the data, facts and evidence behind every point). And after all this, I am the one accused of ad hominem and "appalling language" by the self-righteous opponent! I consider it impossible to find such comments worthy of any consideration or respect.

My two latest articles on the subject ("Nikolai Suvorov − An Example of the Illiterate Rubbish Published in IE Studies", and "The New Paper By Heggarty et al on the Original location of the Proto-Indo European Homeland") have again unleashed a minor spate of these maneuvers of Stonewalling + Diverting, at least on certain internet sites like Twitter. Two western academicians (at least I am assuming they are that) have hastened to give excuses for avoiding discussion of any factual or data-related issues:

The long and short of the logic behind their attitude is: "whatever happens, we will grab at every straw that we can in order to avoid entering into a debate which we know we are definitely going to lose"!

But, as this goes on, they will be compelled to go one step ahead (or is it backwards?): by trying to start picking up tiny points from my books and articles which they think are chinks in my armor. That these are minor points and not part of my own research but citations by me from the research and articles of others will not deter them. Since I have cited these points (from the research articles of western academics which have not yet been categorically analyzed and conclusively refuted by other western academics), it will be taken to mean they are an inalienable part of my case and that by "demolishing" or at least ridiculing these points, my entire thesis will also stand "demolished" or ridiculed! One such case being raised by some people is the point about the Mongoloid racial features of Hittites as depicted in their own sculptures and in the sculptures of other West Asian cultures. All this is so farcical as to defy sense according to any definition of scholarship.

 

My OIT case (to name only the most vital points) consists of the following main aspects, which these crooked and unscrupulous "scholars" would die before even dreaming of daring to discuss in an open and honest debate:

1. The division of the Rigveda into two chronological divisions (an Old Rigveda and a New Rigveda; with a transitory area of Redacted Old Hymns as identified by western scholars like Oldenberg and endorsed by Witzel). This fundamental chronological division of the Rigveda into two distinct chronological periods separated from each other by a number of centuries, which was a very vital part of my OIT case right from my book "The Rigveda - A historical Analysis" (2000), and which provides the most fundamental criteria for unraveling and analyzing any and every aspect of Vedic, Indo-Aryan, Iranian and Indo-European history, has been buttressed, to an extent which I will insist on calling unassailable and irrefutable, in my article "Final version of the Chronological Gulf Between the Old Rigveda and the New Rigveda" 23/8/2022.

2. The identification of a massive section of "Indo-Iranian" vocabulary and meters, common to the Rigveda and the Avesta and (keeping in mind the more limited data available) the Mitanni records of West Asia which are securely dated by scientific means at 1500 BCE and earlier, as being found only in the New Rigveda and completely missing in the Old Rigveda. This automatically shows the common vocabulary to have been taken to western areas by emigrations from an original eastern area (the area of the New Rigveda) stretching from westernmost U.P. in the east to Afghanistan in the west. This further automatically proves that the emigrations from this eastern area must have taken place well before 2000 BCE, since the common vocabulary was already (well before 1500 BCE) part of what western scholars like Witzel and Mallory call "remnants" of Indo-Aryan in the Hurrite/Hurrian language of the Mitanni (WITZEL 2005:361); and "little more than the residue of a dead language in Hurrian", with "the symbiosis that produced the Mitanni" having "taken place centuries earlier" (MALLORY 1989:42). If the New Rigveda was already being composed well before 2000 BCE, the period of the Old Rigveda, centuries earlier than the New Rigveda, must go back well before 2500 BCE.

While the geography of the New Rigveda stretches from westernmost U.P. in the east to Afghanistan in the west, the original area of the Old Rigveda is restricted to the area of westernmost U.P and Haryana, and the westward expansion of the Rigvedic people from this eastern area to the larger area of the New Rigveda is graphically described in the Old Rigveda. So, well before 2500 BCE, the Old Rigveda was composed in this eastern area, which (from the total absence of references to any non-IE-speaking people in this area, and the fact that this area has purely Indo-Aryan river-names) was clearly the ancestral land of the composers of the Old Rigveda.

3. During the westward expansions of the Rigvedic (Indo-Aryan) people in the period of the Old Rigveda, the text records an epic battle which took place in the Central Punjab, the dāśarājña battle, where the tribes who were defeated and driven out further westwards and out of India are very clearly, by identifiable tribal names, the proto-Iranian, proto-Armenian, proto-Greek and proto-Albanian people, who, as per the Late Isoglosses which unite these five branches as a distinct group from the other seven IE branches, were the last to remain in any hypothetical Homeland. For details, see my following articles:

a) "The Identity of the Enemies of Sudās in the Dāśarājña Battle in the Rigveda" 20/4/2020,

b) "The Vārṣāgira Battle in the Rigveda" 9/5/2020.

c) "The Dāśarājña Battle or the Battle of Ten Kings" 22/5/2021.

d) "Kavi Cāyamāna in the Dāśarājña Battle" 1/9/2022.

e) "The Pṛthu-Parśu in the Dāśarājña Hymn" 9/10/2022.

 

There are also a very large number of rock-solid pieces of linguistic (and other) evidence which show that emigrations took place from India to the west, taking the other (than Indo-Aryan) eleven branches of IE languages into their historical habitats, and all these have been repeatedly detailed by me in my books and articles, but, for starters, any AIT proponent, who makes any pretence of being ready to debate issues, should understand that he/she will first and foremost have to try to deal with the three very basic and vital bodies of evidence detailed above. Needless to say, this does not apply to those who gutlessly clutch at straws in order to avoid open and honest debate. Merely making personal remarks about me (i.e. my qualifications, academic status, motivations, style of writing, character, etc.) is not a valid way to escape facing cold hard facts, and only shows desperation, cowardliness and an unprincipled attitude, and deserves only contempt and not a serious answer.

I have always found that when any critic makes a data-based point of criticism of my OIT case, an examination of his point − or rather, a more particular examination of the data on which his point is based − has always led to the strengthening of my case,  whether it was about the "BMAC" words, the spoked wheel, the Mitanni Indo-Aryan vocabulary, or individual words (like pṛthu-parśu, cāyamāna, bṛbu, etc.); so genuine and serious criticism or debate, based on the data and not on personalities, is always not just welcome but very much desired.

But unless there is honesty and willingness to accept the truth, there can be no meaningful debate between the AIT and OIT sides. And if the AIT side chooses to flee the field giving lame excuses, nothing can be done about it. Only Time will pass judgment.