BBC proves vivekananda right
BBC proves Vivekananda right after a century...
- S. Gurumurthy
''Do not believe such silly things as there was a race of mankind in
South India called Dravidians differing widely from another race in
northern India called the Aryans. This is entirely unfounded.'' This is
not from a saffron scholar of the 21st century. But Swami Vivekananda
said it before an audience in the then Madras city as the 19th century
was drawing to a close.
Not knowing where the bright Aryans came from, ''of late, there was an
attempt made to prove,'' he laughed and said: ''Aryans lived on the
Swiss lakes.'' Yet the theory trotted out by F.Max Mueller in 1848
tracing the history of Hinduism to the invasion of indigenous people by
Aryans around 1500 BC has obsessed India since then.
It is now well known that the scholarly work of Max Mueller, once
considered independent, was bought by the East India Company, and was
thus a colonial view. Even as Swami Vivekananda dismissed Max Mueller's
theory as silly, he lauded Mueller's work on Indian scriptures as next
only to that of Sayanacharya.
Max Mueller's theory dominated the Indian academic and intellectual
debate and politics of the 20th century and wrought havoc in the
national psyche since then. It divided and disturbed the national mind;
even threatened to sever southern India from the rest. Any dissent
towards this view is even now castigated and isolated, as a sort of
intellectual terrorism holds sway. But sustained and strenuous work by
dedicated scholars has decimated this silly theory over the last
hundred years.
Yet, billions of pages of instruction in schools and colleges have,
since Max Mueller expounded this view, enduringly poisoned and damaged
the Indian psyche. And here comes a confession from a source linked to
the very perpetrators of this intellectual crime, the ex-colonisers,
that the theory, which Swami Vivekananda dismissed as silly, seems
silly after all!
Weeks back the BBC website came out with the startling disclosure that
''there is now ample evidence to show that Max Mueller and those who
followed him were wrong.'' Answering ''why the theory is no longer
accepted,'' the BBC says that ''the Aryan invasion theory was based on
archaeological, linguistic and ethnological evidence' and ''later
research has either discredited this evidence or provided new evidence
that combined with the earlier evidence makes other explanations
likely.''
More important, the BBC admits that ''modern historians of the area no
longer believe that such invasions had such great influence on Indian
history.'' Even more important, it says that ''it is generally accepted
that the Indian history shows a continuity of progress from the
earliest times to today.'' More, ''the changes brought to India by
other cultures'' are no longer thought to be a major ingredient of the
development of Hinduism.
The confession is an honest one. For the BBC does not only agree with
Swami Vivekananda, it also points to the 'dangers' of the theory. It
says that the theory ''denies the Indian origin of India's predominant
culture''; ''gives credit for the Indian culture to the invaders from
elsewhere.'' It ''teaches that the most revered Hindu scriptures are
not actually Indian'' and ''devalues India's culture by portraying it
as less ancient than it actually is.''
It goes further and says that the 'theory was not just wrong', but
'included unacceptably racist ideas.' It suggested or asserted that
Indian culture was not a culture in its own right but a synthesis of
elements from other cultures; that Hinduism was not authentically
Indian in origin, but the result of cultural imperialism; that Indian
culture was static and only changed under outside influence; that the
Dravidians were a nobody and got their faith from the Aryan invaders;
that the indigenous people could acquire new ideas only from invaders
or other races; that race was a biological, not a social, concept and
thus rationalised ranking people in a hierarchy and the caste system;
that the north Indian people descended from invaders from Europe, and
so socially were closer to the British, thus rationalising colonialist
presence; that the British were reforming India like the Aryans did
thousands of years ago, thus justifying the role and the status of the
Raj. Finally it says, ''it downgraded the intellectual status of India
and its people by giving falsely a later date to the elements of Indian
science and culture.'' Believe it?
This confession of wrong done to India and high praise for India's
endogamous antiquity from an unlikely source approves of not just what
Swami Vivekananda said over a century ago, but validates the 'saffron'
view. This endangers the 'secular' scholarship whose bread and butter
is now under threat. How will they continue to assert that India is
more a khichadi than a continuity of undated antiquity?
How will they go on asserting that there is nothing Indian about India;
that there was never anything called India at all; that there is today
an India courtesy the invaders - the Aryans, Turks, Moghuls or the
British; that thanks to the British we are a nation....
Yes, the secular scholarship is in deep trouble. But they have a solid
reason to feel assured that it will take decades for this truth to
overcome the billions of pages of falsehood printed and circulated so
far. For the grains of truth to emerge from this mountain of falsehood
will take a life's time.
check out http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/
http://youtu.be/s5R9yVIOpnk
http://youtu.be/EFUfZUhXVF8
http://youtu.be/7c4e0oE1GuI
http://youtu.be/QJqQ8XFqpHY
http://youtu.be/FytdS2vMJfU
http://youtu.be/PcNDlU0LyJk
BBC proves Vivekananda right after a century...
- S. Gurumurthy
''Do not believe such silly things as there was a race of mankind in
South India called Dravidians differing widely from another race in
northern India called the Aryans. This is entirely unfounded.'' This is
not from a saffron scholar of the 21st century. But Swami Vivekananda
said it before an audience in the then Madras city as the 19th century
was drawing to a close.
Not knowing where the bright Aryans came from, ''of late, there was an
attempt made to prove,'' he laughed and said: ''Aryans lived on the
Swiss lakes.'' Yet the theory trotted out by F.Max Mueller in 1848
tracing the history of Hinduism to the invasion of indigenous people by
Aryans around 1500 BC has obsessed India since then.
It is now well known that the scholarly work of Max Mueller, once
considered independent, was bought by the East India Company, and was
thus a colonial view. Even as Swami Vivekananda dismissed Max Mueller's
theory as silly, he lauded Mueller's work on Indian scriptures as next
only to that of Sayanacharya.
Max Mueller's theory dominated the Indian academic and intellectual
debate and politics of the 20th century and wrought havoc in the
national psyche since then. It divided and disturbed the national mind;
even threatened to sever southern India from the rest. Any dissent
towards this view is even now castigated and isolated, as a sort of
intellectual terrorism holds sway. But sustained and strenuous work by
dedicated scholars has decimated this silly theory over the last
hundred years.
Yet, billions of pages of instruction in schools and colleges have,
since Max Mueller expounded this view, enduringly poisoned and damaged
the Indian psyche. And here comes a confession from a source linked to
the very perpetrators of this intellectual crime, the ex-colonisers,
that the theory, which Swami Vivekananda dismissed as silly, seems
silly after all!
Weeks back the BBC website came out with the startling disclosure that
''there is now ample evidence to show that Max Mueller and those who
followed him were wrong.'' Answering ''why the theory is no longer
accepted,'' the BBC says that ''the Aryan invasion theory was based on
archaeological, linguistic and ethnological evidence' and ''later
research has either discredited this evidence or provided new evidence
that combined with the earlier evidence makes other explanations
likely.''
More important, the BBC admits that ''modern historians of the area no
longer believe that such invasions had such great influence on Indian
history.'' Even more important, it says that ''it is generally accepted
that the Indian history shows a continuity of progress from the
earliest times to today.'' More, ''the changes brought to India by
other cultures'' are no longer thought to be a major ingredient of the
development of Hinduism.
The confession is an honest one. For the BBC does not only agree with
Swami Vivekananda, it also points to the 'dangers' of the theory. It
says that the theory ''denies the Indian origin of India's predominant
culture''; ''gives credit for the Indian culture to the invaders from
elsewhere.'' It ''teaches that the most revered Hindu scriptures are
not actually Indian'' and ''devalues India's culture by portraying it
as less ancient than it actually is.''
It goes further and says that the 'theory was not just wrong', but
'included unacceptably racist ideas.' It suggested or asserted that
Indian culture was not a culture in its own right but a synthesis of
elements from other cultures; that Hinduism was not authentically
Indian in origin, but the result of cultural imperialism; that Indian
culture was static and only changed under outside influence; that the
Dravidians were a nobody and got their faith from the Aryan invaders;
that the indigenous people could acquire new ideas only from invaders
or other races; that race was a biological, not a social, concept and
thus rationalised ranking people in a hierarchy and the caste system;
that the north Indian people descended from invaders from Europe, and
so socially were closer to the British, thus rationalising colonialist
presence; that the British were reforming India like the Aryans did
thousands of years ago, thus justifying the role and the status of the
Raj. Finally it says, ''it downgraded the intellectual status of India
and its people by giving falsely a later date to the elements of Indian
science and culture.'' Believe it?
This confession of wrong done to India and high praise for India's
endogamous antiquity from an unlikely source approves of not just what
Swami Vivekananda said over a century ago, but validates the 'saffron'
view. This endangers the 'secular' scholarship whose bread and butter
is now under threat. How will they continue to assert that India is
more a khichadi than a continuity of undated antiquity?
How will they go on asserting that there is nothing Indian about India;
that there was never anything called India at all; that there is today
an India courtesy the invaders - the Aryans, Turks, Moghuls or the
British; that thanks to the British we are a nation....
Yes, the secular scholarship is in deep trouble. But they have a solid
reason to feel assured that it will take decades for this truth to
overcome the billions of pages of falsehood printed and circulated so
far. For the grains of truth to emerge from this mountain of falsehood
will take a life's time.
check out http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/
http://youtu.be/s5R9yVIOpnk
http://youtu.be/EFUfZUhXVF8
http://youtu.be/7c4e0oE1GuI
http://youtu.be/QJqQ8XFqpHY
http://youtu.be/FytdS2vMJfU
http://youtu.be/PcNDlU0LyJk
