Essay:
The Aryan Invasion Theory and Hindu Politics
By David Frawley

That the Aryan invasion theory itself has been persistently used to promote anti-Hindu political agendas is similarly ignored. The invasion theory has been used like a stick to beat Hindus for the last two hundred years (some of these same scholars who are rasing the political bogey about the rejection of the theory have used it to attack Hinduism themselves). That Hindus might use the demise of the theory fortheir own benefit is only to be expected and is perhaps little more than getting even or restoring balance on these issues.

The British used the theory to discredit any indigenous civilization in the subcontinent, which was seen as succumbing to various waves of invaders from the West, making for a patchwork culture derived from outside influences. This made the British rule seem just another and perhaps necessary phase of a long invasionist saga.

The communists used the Aryan Invasion theory as the basis for their history of India, substituting the caste war of the Brahmin invaders from Central Asia for the European class war model. Dravidian nationalists used it to their advantage, claiming an older purer Dravidian culture that was different from that of the Aryan invaders fromthe north. The Dalits used it to identify themselves with the original inhabitants of the country enslaved by the invading Brahmin dominated Aryans. Christian and Islamic groups have used it to brand the Hindu Rishis as primitive poets leading nomadic hordes, making the Vedas, the scriptures of Hinduism, as withoutany real spirituality! In fact, there is probably no other theory of ancient history that has been used with such blatant political intent or missionary aggression. The theory has even been used by some scholars to make the Yoga tradition or such systems as Tantra, Shaivism, Samkhya, Buddhism and Jainism non-Aryan (though, for example, original Buddhism calls itself 'AryaDharma').

Given this scenario any group would use the demise of such a hostile theory to reclaim value for their own traditions. But to use any possible advantage that Hindus may derive from this historical revindication as a grounds to reject it is ridiculous.

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