Can’t People (Jijith-Koenraad) Lie Without Naming Me In Their Lies?

 

Can’t People (Jijith-Koenraad) Lie Without Naming Me In Their Lies?

Shrikant G. Talageri 

Recently there has been a huge spate of tweets and articles and group-mails by Jijith and Koenraad slowly trying to, as I pointed out in an earlier article, cancel the role, and even existence, of my contributions from the OIT case. I could have observed it all with a smile (and indeed have been doing so by and large whenever these are reported to me) if they only refrained from deliberately taking my name in the process of their lies.

Yesterday, Jijith has put up a tweet claiming that he has provided the “explanation for the Steppe gene presence in 2000-1500 BCE” which I had not!:

https://x.com/Jijith_NR

“In contrast to Talageri's OIT, i gave an explanation for the Steppe gene presence in 2000-1500 BCE not through the book Rivers of Rgveda, but through the book Geography of Mahabharata - which indicates a post Kurukṣetra War invasion / migration of the Gandharas, Kambojas & Rishikas into Indo Gangatic Plains. Contemporary to Arjuna (1850-1750 BCE) they were around Kashmir Valley. Later texts note them present as South as Maharashtra! Ref. Khandesh = North West Maharashtra. Ref. Place names like Kambey and Gandhare in Gujarat & Maharashtra. This is followed by Shakas and Kushanas (Tusharas - Tukharas). All of them has Central Asian origin. Today the highest Steppe ancestry in India often associated with the Kambojs. This wasn't a language migration from Steppes to India but a genetic migration from Central Asians carrying Steppe genes to North India.”

6:26 PM · Jun 19, 2025

 

As expected, Koenraad chimes in:

 

https://x.com/ElstKoenraad

“Thanks for contributing more detail to the C-Asian immigration ca. 1800 BCE, already identified in the genetic record by David Reich, but wrongly identified as the incoming Vedic Aryans. They were one of a succession of Scythian, Huna, Kušana et al. groups leaving genes in India.”

Last edited 10:48 AM · Jun 20, 2025

 

I have already pointed out that there is a disinformation campaign trying to cancel out my contributions to the OIT case – in fact, actually no serious OIT case would even have existed today if not for my books and articles – but having alerted whomsoever it may concern to the steady rise of this campaign, I would have considered my duty done and not have not continued to bother to see what they are writing, and would have ignored them as they steadily progressed in their campaign (still in its initial stages) to claim credit one-by-one for every single thing I have written in the last 33 years, if they could have done so while resisting the itch to poke needles at me by naming me and specifically stating that I have not written anything on the subject.

 

But since Jijith has specifically named me as not having given any “explanation for the Steppe gene presence in 2000-1500 BCE”, and Koenraad has immediately endorsed his claim, here are some quotations from my own books and articles on the subject.

I have referred to the invasions of the Central Asian (or through-Central-Asia) invasions right from my first book in 1993, but the references to genetics is a more recent phenomenon, and therefore I will have to quote my most recent books and articles. Just one example each will suffice:

1. My 2019 Book (which was entirely about the alleged genetic influx into India):

 “But we know that there actually are, in the attested historical record, people from the Steppes who had indeed invaded or immigrated into India a millennium and more later: the Scythians, Kushans, Huns and others in the first millennium BCE. So it could well be that any Steppe DNA found in India could have been brought in by them rather than by any hypothetical "Aryans" in the second millennium BCE, whose presence in India is attested (as per this genetic report) by ancient DNA samples only from the Swat area in northernmost Pakistan (but not from any other place further in the interior of ancient South Asia).

To counter this, these ideologically committed "scientists" categorically rule out the possibility that any Steppe ancestry in present-day India could have come from later historically attested invasions. Telling us that the Steppe_MLBA samples from eastern Eurasia after 1500 BCE have ~25% of East Asian ancestry (the color purple in the chart), which should necessarily have brought purple ancestry into the DNA of modern Indians, the report claims that this "decreases the probability that populations in the 1st millennium BCE and 1st millennium BCE - including Scythians, Kushans and Huns, sometimes suggested as sources for the Steppe ancestry influences in India today - contributed to the majority of South Asians, which have negligible East Asian ancestry in our analysis" (REICH 2018:11-12).

That is: the Steppe people of the first millennium BCE (as per these scientists) had an additional Han Chinese ancestry (purple) while the Steppe people of the second millennium BCE did not. Since the Steppe DNA in modern Indians does not have this purple ancestry, it must have entered India in the second millennium BCE and not in the first millennium BCE. [So the argument goes, although we are not provided with color code charts of modern Indians to allow us to check or confirm this].

However  the simple logic that these scientists do not seem to understand is that instead of proving the AIT, their argument actually proves the OIT (or at least answers their objection to the OIT):

If the historically attested invasions/immigrations of actual Steppe people (the Scythians, Kushans and Huns) and their well-attested intermixing with native Indians in the first millennium BCE did not leave their genetic imprint (purple) in the Indian population, then no-one can demand that expansions of Indo-European languages beyond Central Asia from India should necessarily have to be attested by First Indian (yellow) ancestry among Indo-European speakers outside India.” (TALAGERI 2019:96-97).

 

2. My Blog Article dated 22 April 2018: “What is the Value of the New "Genomic Evidence" for the Aryan Invasion/Migration Theory versus the Out-of-India Theory?”

“It must be noted that genetic studies are as scientific as they are believed to be when it pertains to tracing genetic lines. Human beings have been migrating from every conceivable area to every other conceivable area and in every possible direction since the dawn of history. Certain areas, indeed, like Central Asia, are seething hotbeds of ethnic to-and-fro migrations, and India has seen countless migrations and invasions in the last many thousand years: we have Scythians, Greeks, Kushanas, Hunas, Arabs, Turks, Afghans, Ethiopian slave-soldiers and Persians invading, we have other Persians and Syrian Christians taking refuge in India, and none of them retained their language, and all of them assimilated into the local populations and adopted the local languages, but their foreign genes remain in the genetic record. As almost all the invasions and migrations took place from the northwest into northern India (although coastal areas also have their high share of foreign interactions), naturally any foreign genes are more likely to be found in greater proportions in the north than in the south; and as invaders are more likely to mix with the elites in the conquered societies, these genes are more likely to be found among "upper"-castes or ruling classes than among the "lower"-castes or isolated jungle or hill tribes. That this phenomenon is being invested with linguistic "Aryan" connotations and caste implications is testimony to the motives behind the whole enterprise. Needless to say, the real or alleged genetic compositions of present day Indians belonging to different castes or regions is irrelevant to the linguistic question.”

 

Soon, twitter (X) and the internet in general will be flooded by this duo with Jijith’s “new discoveries” and “new contributions” regarding the Mitanni evidence, the dāśarājña war, the Uralic evidence, the evidence of the Elephant, the evidence of the Isoglosses, and countless other topics, all of which, we will be told, completely escaped mention in my writings.

I had earlier alerted readers to not take anyone else’s words (other than my own) about what I have written in my books and articles (e.g. Manu-in-Ayodhya). Now I must add that should remain alert to anyone else’s words (other than my own) about what I have not written in my books and articles (e.g. the explanation for Central Asian genes in Indians). Of course, my books and articles are on record, but not everyone can possibly bother to remember everything about everything I have written!

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

TALAGERI 2019: Genetics and the Aryan Debate―"Early Indians", Tony Joseph's Latest Assault. Talageri, Shrikant G.  Voice of India, New Delhi, 2019.