The Aryan - Dravidian controversy

      The British ruled India by the divide and rule policy. They promoted religious, ethnic and cultural divisions among their colonies to keep them under control. Unfortunately some of these policies also entered in to the intellectual realm. These divisive ideas were used for interpreting the culture and history of India. Many Hindus have come to believe these ideas, even though a deeper examination reveals they may have no real objective or scientific basis

   One of these ideas is that India is a land of two races – The lighter – skinned Aryans and the darker – skinned Dravidians – and that the Dravidians were the original inhabitants of India whom the invading Aryans conquered and dominated.  So the Hindu culture was in fact Dravidian and later the Aryans borrowed it. This idea has been used to turn the people of South India against the people of North India. The 19h century was the era of European imperialism. Many Europeans did in fact believe that they belong to a superior race and that there religion, Christianity, was a superior religion and all other religions were barbaric, especially a religion like Hinduism which used many idols. European thinkers of the era were dominated by a racial theory of man which was interpreted primarily in term of colour. They saw themselves as belonging to a superior ‘white’ or Caucasian race. They had enslaved the Negroid or ‘black’ race. As Hindus were also dark or ‘coloured’, they were similarly deemed inferior. The British thus, not surprisingly, looked up on the culture of India in a similar way as having been a land of light skinned or Aryan race (the North Indians ), ruling a dark or Dravidian race (the South Indians). During the colonial period the British considered India as a land of light skinned or Aryan race (the North Indians), ruling a dark or Dravidian race (the South Indians). About his time in history the similarities between indo – European languages also became evident. Sanskrit and the languages of North India were found to be relatives of the language of Europe, while the Dravidian languages of South India were found to be another language family. By the racial theory Europeans naturally felt that the original speakers of any root Indo – European language must have been ‘white’, as they were not prepared to recognise that their languages could have been derived from the dark skinned Hindus. As all Hindus were dark compared to the Europeans, it was assumed that the original white Indo –  European invaders of India must have been assimilated by the dark indigenous population, though they left their mark more on North India where people have a lighter complexion. 

    The Indo – European languages and the Dravidian do have important differences. Their ways of developing words and grammar are different. This difference does not mean that Aryan and Dravidian are differ in culture, race or religion. The Hungarians and Finns of Europe are of a different language group than the other Europeans, but there is no separate race called Finnish race or they are not regarded as non – Europeans.

Racial interpretation of Vedas

European Vedic interpreters used this same racial idea to explain the Vedas. The Vedas speak of a battle between light and darkness (which is the symbolic conflict between truth and false hood). This was interpreted as a war between light skinned Aryans and dark skinned Dravidians. In short, the Europeans projected racism in the history of India, and accused the Hindus of the very racism that they themselves were using to dominate the Hindus. Europeans scholars also pointed out that cast in India was originally defined by colour. Brahmins were said to be white, Khastriyas red, Vaishyas yellow and Shudras black. Hence the Brahmins were said to have been originally the white Aryans and the dark Dravidians, the dark Shudras. To turn this in to races is incorrect because there are no yellow and red races in India. The racial idea reached much more ridiculous proportions. Vedic passages speaking of their enemies as with out nose were interpreted as a racial slur against the snub – nosed Dravidians. But Dravidians are not sub – nosed or low nosed people. The racial idea was taken further and Hindu Gods like Krishna, whose name means dark, or Siva who is portrayed as dark, were said to have originally been Dravidian Gods taken over by the invading Aryans. Yet Krishna and Siva are not black but dark blue. Where is such a dark blue race? Similarly, the Goddess Lakshmi is portrayed as pink, Saraswati as white, Kali as blue- black, Yama as green. There are no such races in India. Some people say that Siva is a Dravidian God because Shaivism is more prominent in South than in North India. However, the most sacred sites of Siva are Kailash in Tibet, Kashmir and the city of Varanasi in the North. There never was any limitation of the worship of Siva to one part of India. Similarly, some hold that Shaivism is a South Indian religion and the Vedic religion is North Indian. However, the greatest supporter of Vedanta, Shankaracharya, was a Dravidian Shaivite from Kerala. Mean while many South Indian kings have been Vaishnavites or worshipers of Vishnu. In short, there is no real division of India in to such rigid compartments as North and South Indian religions, though naturally regional variations do exists

         The idea of Aryan and Dravidian races is the product of an unscientific, culturally biased form of thinking that saw race in term of colour. The three primary races are Caucasian, the Mongolian and the Negroid. Both the Aryans and the Dravidians are related branches of the Caucasian race. A number of Europeans scholars of the 19^th century such as Max Muller, did state that Aryan is not a racial term and there is no evidence that it ever was so used in the Vedas. The evidence of science now points to two basic conclusions: first, there was no Aryan invasion and second, the Rig Vedic people were already established India no later than 4000 B.C.

                      N.S Rajaram in his book, The Politics of History explodes or belief in the age – old theory of the Aryan invasion and shatters the myth about the origins of the Vedic civilisation. The book offers a clearer and deeper insight in to our ancient past, Vedas and Puranas. Rajaram’s book is the most systematic and thorough study of the Aryan invasion theory presented to date. He traces the origin and development of this ugly theory which, according to him, is “a colossal intellectual blunder” of the 19^th century European scholars. He points out that Indian History was created by men who were neither Indians nor historians but European linguists. Ignorance of the scientific method and lack of archaeological data coupled with European politics and missionary interest were the main forces behind this mythical creation. The Vedic civilisation dates back to 7000 B.C, were as the Harappan civilisation represents nothing but the continuation of the early Vedic civilisation. The Indus civilisation has been interpreted as Dravidian or non Aryan culture. Though this has never been proved it has been taken by many people to be fact. It was indeed the “twilight of the Vedic civilisation” and belonged to the Sutra period of the Vedic literature. This vast civilisation came to an end because of ecological reasons; particularly the drying up of the mighty Sarasvati River and its language was also related to Sanskrit.