‘Indian history was distorted by the British’

[INDIC]

caste is present in MB and it was composed from around 600 BC to 400 AD roughly.

Mahabharata is older than 600BC, around 800BC Bimbisara founded Empire of Magadh while legend of Jarasandh is even older than this.

 

[Azazel]

Yes and no.

We don't have historical accounts of our own, so the sources of Indian history are:

1. Foreign accounts;
2. Reconstructions from Indian literature and religious texts;
3. Epigraphy and numismatics;
4. Archaeology.

In each of these, the lead was taken by Europeans, largely the British, although the contributions of the French, the Germans, and other races, down to the Swedish, the Russian and the Hungarian, are significant. However, that was the lead. That was then.

Indian history today is firmly in the hands of Indians. We have a sufficient body of solid historical writing to dispense with the hyper-patriotic effusions of Hindu-centric revisionists. We can do without the excesses of Indian versions of Icewolf, like one of the posters above. And there is certainly no lack of self-confidence among contemporary Indian historians about the writings of the Europeans, or there would have been no Subaltern School.

The lunatic fringe belongs to the fringe.

The point I am trying to make the foreign accounts we use in our history are often biased and inaccurate.They are essentially what we now call colonial historiography historians who were or are characterised by a colonialist ideology.Many of the front rank colonial historians were British officials.

One good example of such case is James Mill.Between 1806 and 1818, James Mill wrote a series of volumes on the history of India and this work had a formative influence on British imagination about India. The book was titled History of British India, but the first three volumes included a survey of ancient and medieval India while the last three volumes were specifically about British rule in India. This book became a great success, it was reprinted in 1820, 1826 and 1840 and it became a basic textbook for the British Indian Civil Service officers undergoing training at the East India's college at Hailey burg.

How ever the funny thing is Mill in his entire life had never been to India and the entire work was written on the basis of his limited readings in books by English authors on India. It contained a collection of the prejudices about India and the natives of India which many British officers acquired in the course of their stay in India.Later on this book became the single most important source of British Indophobia and hostility to Orientalism.

Their are plenty of examples like him.The Aryan Invasion Theory(Indo-Aryan migration As it is now called) was used to justify European Colonialism in India.There has many evidences emerged that British promotion of AIT was motivated by a political agenda.It was created to make it appear that Indian culture and philosophy was dependent on the previous developments in Europe, thereby justifying the need for colonial rule and Christian expansion in India.in essence, the British used the theory of the Aryan invasion to further their divide and conquer policy. With civil unrest and regional cultural tensions created by the British through designations and divisions among the Indian society, it gave a reason and purpose for the British to continue and increase their control over India.Our historians often don't realize when they quote the work of these European historians.

Their are often people who make revisionist histories to further their political agenda and I am totally against but in the name of that we must not shy away from revisiting the works of this European historians and the circumstances and their political views.

 

[True pakistani 22]

India does not have Proud History
if Indian member here want to prove thay have Proud History
Phir indian awam kia kuch nahi ho skate

 

[Azazel]

More right wing nonsense.
These people would also be convinced that gravity does not exist if it was part of their mantra.
No point arguing with them

Read the contents of the thread before you make such idiotic posts.

 

[Rusty]

Read the contents of the thread before you make such idiotic posts.

why?
So you guys can say stupid things like "genetic analysis has proven that it is impossible to learn a language that is not your native"

I know all your arguments and your "proves", which just amounts to "there is a conspiracy against Indians and this book, who no one knows the author or even exactly when it was written, says so and therefor it's 100000% true"
Like I said, no point in arguing with lemmings.

 

[Azazel]

why?
So you guys can say stupid things like "genetic analysis has proven that it is impossible to learn a language that is not your native"

I know all your arguments and your "proves", which just amounts to "there is a conspiracy against Indians and this book, who no one knows the author or even exactly when it was written, says so and therefor it's 100000% true"
Like I said, no point in arguing with lemmings.

Okay,Why don't you really read the topic and understand the content before making any more stupid comments.Still you want to make stupid comments go do it in stupid and funny section.

 

[Joe Shearer]

The point I am trying to make the foreign accounts we use in our history are often biased and inaccurate.They are essentially what we now call colonial historiography historians who were or are characterised by a colonialist ideology.Many of the front rank colonial historians were British officials.

One good example of such case is James Mill.Between 1806 and 1818, James Mill wrote a series of volumes on the history of India and this work had a formative influence on British imagination about India. The book was titled History of British India, but the first three volumes included a survey of ancient and medieval India while the last three volumes were specifically about British rule in India. This book became a great success, it was reprinted in 1820, 1826 and 1840 and it became a basic textbook for the British Indian Civil Service officers undergoing training at the East India's college at Hailey burg.

How ever the funny thing is Mill in his entire life had never been to India and the entire work was written on the basis of his limited readings in books by English authors on India. It contained a collection of the prejudices about India and the natives of India which many British officers acquired in the course of their stay in India.Later on this book became the single most important source of British Indophobia and hostility to Orientalism.

Their are plenty of examples like him.

To repeat once again, these patently propagandistic versions were among the first to be discarded; only the lunatic fringe among the colonisers took any notice of them after the first flush of enthusiasm. It was far too apparent that such histories were biased and filled with prejudice, and written to establish useful facts to be used by the administration.

The Aryan Invasion Theory(Indo-Aryan migration As it is now called) was used to justify European Colonialism in India.There has many evidences emerged that British promotion of AIT was motivated by a political agenda.It was created to make it appear that Indian culture and philosophy was dependent on the previous developments in Europe, thereby justifying the need for colonial rule and Christian expansion in India.

Why on earth should this be so? Let us consider this argument piece-meal, beginning with the mention of Europe, which seems to be essential in the alleged attempt to use the AIT for colonial purposes.

First, what gives anyone the impression that these aspects of culture or philosophy had any links with Europe? Europe was another destination for another, different section of the Aryan speaking melange on the steppes, and their culture and philosophy developed far later than the Indian sections, even according to those early scholars who developed the Aryan Invasion Theory to account for the sudden appearance of a member of the Indo-European language family in India. Greece was the earliest to develop a philosophical body of thought, and that happened geographically far away, temporally later than the period of the Upanishads. That being so, where was there any question of Europe influencing India?

Second, it was the incursion of external rulers who were not Hindu which was used to justify colonial rule: if Turks, Afghans and Turkicised Mongols could invade, conquer and rule with perfect legitimacy and the acceptance of their rule by the people whom they ruled, so could the British invade, conquer and rule. The Aryan Invasion Theory hardly came into it.

Third, the reference to Christian expansion in India is mysterious. There was a school of thought among the colonial administrators that denigrated Indian thought systems and philosophy, and religion as well, and it was this school of thought that felt that missionary activity would be positive and wholesome. This was not the unified policy of the administration in general at all; that policy fluctuated between banning missionary activity to permitting it freely. Dozens, scores of the administrators in question were at the same time translating and dwelling with great regard and fondness over the fruits of the philosophy that they were supposed to be uprooting with the help of Christian missionaries. Certainly the possibility of the invasion of India by a mythical Aryan race had no bearing on the policy towards missionaries and missionary activity, not until towards the end of British rule in general.

in essence, the British used the theory of the Aryan invasion to further their divide and conquer policy. With civil unrest and regional cultural tensions created by the British through designations and divisions among the Indian society, it gave a reason and purpose for the British to continue and increase their control over India.Our historians often don't realize when they quote the work of these European historians.

While the first part is increasingly revealed to be true, ironically in great part by European historians such as Dalrymple, the second part is a bizarre statement. Our historians are not as stupid as the statement above seems to imply. They had the discretion and the judgmental capacity to sift through the histories concerned and to eliminate obvious distortions and propaganda elements.

It is sometimes baffling to read laymen write with great authority about how trained Indian historians get taken in by European propaganda, when these laymen can see right through the conspiracies with their penetrating vision. Does this seem likely, even to the blithe exegetes who come out with these breath-taking statements?

Their are often people who make revisionist histories to further their political agenda and I am totally against but in the name of that we must not shy away from revisiting the works of this European historians and the circumstances and their political views.

Ask any Indian historian. The answer you will get will be short and to the point: "Been there, done that."

 

[Icewolf]

India is a place that is so easy to defend...

Natural barrier of mountains uptop, and two huge, raging rivers(Indus, Brahamaputra) on both sides, surrounded by a unforgiving sea.

So why did India always get the brunt of foreign conquest?

 

[Bang Galore]

India is a place that is so easy to defend...

Natural barrier of mountains uptop, and two huge, raging rivers(Indus, Brahamaputra) on both sides, surrounded by a unforgiving sea.

So why did India always get the brunt of foreign conquest?

One possible explanation would be that its Northwest was filled with many people (a good example given above) who were big on talk & not big on...err.. anything else!

 

[Icewolf]

One possible explanation would be that its Northwest was filled with many people (a good example given above) who were big on talk & not big on...err.. anything else!

Oh please.

Northwest (Us) had nothing to do with it.

I think it was the warring Hindu kingdoms of India, who had weakened India greatly. Invaders saw this as a good idea to conquest.

You brought your own misery.

 

[rcrmj]

all the reputitive Indian 'history' researches and books were done by whites, what does this say? it says India has no proper written history but loads of legends and fairytales``

a frenchman's conspiracy gives such hype to those ego thursty indians``

 

[Bang Galore]

Fact, it appears, is stranger than fiction.

It is difficult to believe that in this day and age, there are still among us imbeciles who confuse language groups with ethnicity.

Ever since fascist and National Socialist theories of race and racial purity were subjected to close examination, and shown to be nonsense, nobody has confused the Aryan language group with any hypothetical race called Aryan; nobody, conversely, has confused the Dravidian language group with any hypothetical race called Dravidian. Nobody in knowledgeable circles, nobody resorting to aimless trawling for words and phrases that they believe are important.

What a waste of time!

The problem is that many in the "knowledgeable" circles could be accused of intellectual dishonesty in the way they have approached this. They still rely on the original arguments of the AIT when they try & read into the Rg veda a conflict of races (Aryan, Dasa, Dasyu...)and argue that it indicates a militaristic suppression of indigenous races and have, elsewhere, for complete lack of evidence, changed their tack from invasion to migration. The two arguments are used while arguing against separate individual arguments but essential contradicting their argument made elsewhere. The same argument is also made on the presence of Dravidian languages in Pakistan (even AIT scholars including Witzel agree that they are later introductions) as somehow being proof of an earlier Dravidian presence in the North/NW which would be not really relevant if the argument has now changed to a slow gradual migration from the earlier belief of a cataclysmic invasion.

 

[Bang Galore]

.So it can be said the Rigvedic People (I would not call them 'Aryans' because they never used this name for their population) came to the subcontinent in around 2200-2000 BC .

True ! Rigveda knows from helmand river to bihar But date is not pushed back on the contrary it has come down to 1700-1800 BCE(earliest parts).

You simply cannot pick random dates for an Aryan invasion/migration/foreign presence in India. There is a reason why AIT supporters try & stick with 1500 BCE and later (Sarasvati be damned), it is because the whole theory is in danger of falling apart if Aryan presence in India is accepted as being earlier than that. It is simply difficult to accommodate other linguistic members of the Indo-European language family into any argument that could garner even the slightest credibility at dates before that(the argument is that the Indo-Iranian family, alomg with the Greeks & the Armenians were the last to leave the "original homeland", with the Greeks separating first followed by the Armenians & then the Indo-Iranians arriving to their respective homelands).

 

[darkhero]

whatever your theory is, please give us a timeline of what happened, with evidence support.

 

[Joe Shearer]

The problem is that many in the "knowledgeable" circles could be accused of intellectual dishonesty in the way they have approached this. They still rely on the original arguments of the AIT when they try & read into the Rg veda a conflict of races (Aryan, Dasa, Dasyu...)and argue that it indicates a militaristic suppression of indigenous races and have, elsewhere, for complete lack of evidence, changed their tack from invasion to migration. The two arguments are used while arguing against separate individual arguments but essential contradicting their argument made elsewhere. The same argument is also made on the presence of Dravidian languages in Pakistan (even AIT scholars including Witzel agree that they are later introductions) as somehow being proof of an earlier Dravidian presence in the North/NW which would be not really relevant if the argument has now changed to a slow gradual migration from the earlier belief of a cataclysmic invasion.

True at one plane, the original plane, O knowledgeable one! But I put it to you that even a mixed ethnicity could produce a ruling class, and without resorting to the final solutions that racial conflicts seemed to depict, it is possible to construct a picture of a steppe-descended elite, using its language as a social advantage, gradually seeping through upper India over the centuries, until it finally lost steam and petered out against the older languages still being spoken in the Deccan plateau.

This is not an argument for militaristic suppression, but of gradual social acceptance and dominance. Sharper and even more incisive incidents have happened in parallel circumstances, in Greece, for instance, and the older languages have survived under the onslaught for centuries, again, like Greece and the Pelasgian languages, for example. Migration is not necessarily always a peaceful process; it is arguable that at the outset, near the north-western passes at least, the encounter might well have been bloody. It is reasonable to assume that with increasing intermingling with autochthonous populations, the process of spreading of the Aryan language would have carried in its wake some degree of adoption of social and religious practices.

Therefore, it is possible that what happened was a mixture of two things: initial sharp encounters, gradually morphing into social and religious absorption of the older society, and its domination by the new way of doing things. There might have been increasing modification of the original social and religious customs, until what emerged was a composite, differing in its nature from one end to the other. Which is what actually seems to have been the case, between the Punjab and the foothills of the north-western mountains at one end to the Gangetic delta at the other end.

A mixture of initially warlike encounters and subsequent more measured and peaceful social domination is not necessarily a contradiction but more a reflection of the changes forced on an intruding system by the existent norms. Was that not what happened in numerous other examples of subsequent incursions?