How India’s Aryans Really Arrived
Since the seminal 1987 paper by geneticist Rebecca Cann and colleagues establishing the African origins of Homo sapiens, evidence of our singular ancestry has multiplied. But some aren’t buying it, certainly not Hindu nationalists, now in power in India. For them, Sanskrit-speaking Aryans were indigenous to India, and creators of the 6,000-year-old Indus Valley civilization. That neither linguistic nor archaeological evidence exists seems not to matter.
Journalist Tony Joseph’s impressive study, Early Indians, based on genetic research and linguistic and archaeological evidence, demolishes the pet Hindutva theory. He cites a plethora of scientific research (a bit much for lay readers) to show the Indian subcontinent was first populated by humans trudging from Africa from about 60,000 years ago.
(My own DNA showed my ancestors arrived in India 40,000 years ago).
What the Hindu “scholars” find hard is that a new group of immigrants calling themselves Aryans and speaking an Indo-european language arrived in India around 4,000 years ago. To them, Sanskrit or Vedic culture is synonymous with Indian culture. So to ask when the Aryans arrived is to ask: “when did we import our culture?” For the proud nationalist, this is a gross insult. Given the urge of India’s ruling party to rewrite history to further exalt India’s civilization, Joseph’s well-documented book is a valuable counter.
To the Hindu ‘scholars,’ Sanskrit or Vedic culture is synonymous with Indian culture.