Su Venkatesan, well-known Tamil author and MP from Madurai, speaking in the Lok Sabha on the narrowly-constituted panel to study Indian culture
Partial, approximate translation:
"The committee has not a single member from South India, Northeast India, Minorities, Dalits or Women. All are upper caste Hindu men. It has no linguistic expert from southern classical languages, but has caste organization heads as members!"
"Is there no India below the Vindhyas? Is there no other civilization apart from the Vedic? Are there no ancient languages other than Sanskrit?"
"You cant see the roots that reach deep into the soil by flying overhead in a plane. Likewise, the true culture of this soil cant be written by people who are placed at the top of the caste hierarchy. So I submit that this committee be dissolved."
@RShivshankar The layers of ignorance and misreading/misleading embedded into the tweet above should not be surprising for anyone who has observed Indian television news media. But for the sake of verity, let us unpeel them one by one...
@RShivshankar 1. The interview RSS has attached to his tweet is over five years old, and was published on September 9, 2019. So let us first put to bed the idea that RSS has suddenly discovered a new revelation...
@RShivshankar 1. ‘Aryan Invasion Theory' has lived on only in the imagination of Rightwing polemicists for about half a century now. What actually exists is multi-disciplinary evidence for migration (not invasion) of Central Asian Steppe pastoralists to South Asia between 2000 and 1500 BCE...
Many do not understand that Indian languages fall into 4 different families: Indo-European, Dravidian, Austro-Asiatic & Sino-Tibetan. These are not dialectal differences, meaning the differences go to the root & are structural, even if there are many shared words.
It is generally, though not always, easier for speakers of one language family - say Malayalam, Tamil and Telugu speakers - to pick up each other's languages than it is for speakers of two different language families to do so.
Therefore, if you are moving into a region whose language belongs to a different family altogether, the onus is on YOU to make a special effort to learn it. The effort needed is much less otherwise. This understanding comes naturally to some, but not to others. Sadly.
A fascinating new ancient DNA study is just out, titled “The Genetic Origin of The Indo-Europeans”. Among the co-authors are Iosif Lazaridis, Nick Patterson, David Anthony & David Reich. It brings greater detail and clarity to our understanding. Here goes: biorxiv.org/content/10.110…
“We thus propose that the final unity of the speakers of the 'Proto-Indo-Anatolian' ancestral language of both Anatolian and Indo-European languages can be traced to Caucuses-Lower-Volga (CVC) cline people sometime between 440 and 4000 BCE.”
“The Yamnaya culture stands as the unifying factor of all attested Indo-European languages.”
"The only place where 'Aryan Invasion Theory' has existed for about half a century is the imagination of polemicists. And they keep it alive because it's good to have a handy strawman... It is surprising to see IIT Kharagpur giving them company."
My piece: thequint.com/voices/opinion…
What does exist in the real world is strong, multi-disciplinary evidence for the ‘migration’ of Central Asian Steppe pastoralists into the Indian subcontinent between 2000 and 1500 BCE, bringing Indo-European languages with them to this region.
The remarkable and unique Harappan civilization, the largest civilization of its time (as big as Mesopotamian & Egyptian civilizations put together), precedes the arrival of the Indo-European language speaking people who called themselves 'Arya', by far.
Starting a long-term thread on questions that need answers. Perhaps when media has free time after covering Kangana Ranaut, they could tackle these:
1. WHY is it that no other Asian economy has cratered like ours? 2. HOW did our neighbours manage a far lower Covid death rate?
3. WHY is it that India's richest have increased their wealth dramatically (35%) during a time of devastation that has seen GDP contracting & hundreds millions thrown into poverty? What does it imply in terms of wealth concentration, monopolies/oligopolies & creation of jobs?
4. WHY is India the only democracy in the world where ruling party politicians have made it a practice to come on to the streets to protect and defend rapist-murderers and to
terrorize the families of their victims - from Kathua to Unnao to Hathras?
The main driving force behind the Indian Rightwing movement is upper class resentment over ancient privileges diluted by democracy. Its objective is a hierarchical future similar to what tradition dictates. The hate you see is the necessary force to create the new hierarchy.
Does that mean that is the only force? Of course not. There are other forces too, but they are not formative or creative forces that shape policy in any way. They are mostly for show. For example, the movement gained from the anti-corruption sentiment built up between 2010 & 2014
And think for yourself, what was the result of that ‘sentimental force’?😀The biggest electoral funding scam anywhere in the world that legalised opaque & unlimited funding of politicians by cronies, called ‘Electoral Bonds’!! 🥲