The Aryan theory is supported because the North wants to feel they conquered
the south. Its true that most major leaders of India has been from the North.
But I feel more that the people who live in South and North of India are
different in the sense that south Indians are a
mix of Africa and chinese whereas the people are a mix of the arabs and
africans. Thats more probable from the Geography of the place.
Maya
--- On Tue, 1/13/09, Jogesh Motwani <jogeshmotw...@gmail.com> wrote:
From: Jogesh Motwani <jogeshmotw...@gmail.com>
Subject: [ZESTAlternative] Hindu group in America objects to ‘The Story of
India’
To: "zest" <zestalternative@yahoogroups.com>
Date: Tuesday, January 13, 2009, 4:19 AM
One would have thought these migratory high-caste twerps would have welcomed
the theory - and absolved themselves of the origins of the caste system. But
no, apparently they're proud of it.
-Zestalternative desk
Hindu group in America objects to 'The Story of India'
Agencies Posted online: Jan 13, 2009 at 1456 hrs
New York : A US-based Hindu
advocacy group has taken strong objection to historian Michael Wood's
documentary 'The Story of India,' being telecast on public television,
describing its presentation of the Aryan Migration Theory (AMT) as
'agenda driven.'
Rejecting the theory, the Hindu American Foundation (HAF) said
India has always been the cradle of Hindu civilization and there is no
debate about it.
"Michael Wood clearly admires India and its people, and this
shows through in his passionate depiction of India," said Sheetal Shah,
HAF's Director of Development and Outreach.
"We are not seeking to discredit the 'Story of India' in its
entirety, but viewers should be aware that a major error was made in
the documentary that fails scrutiny and should be corrected," she said.
The Hindu advocacy group said it has received a deluge of phone
calls protesting the presentation of the 'now discredited' theory,
currently being shown on television.
The AMT theorises that in 1500 BCE pastoral tribes that came to
be known as Aryans, migrated from Central Europe to Northwest India
eventually dispersing indigenous people and imposing their own culture.
"This theory, that is not supported by archaeological evidence,
was first posited by European Indologists and British colonialists,
eventually finding support from a section of India's politically
motivated linguists and historians such as Romila Thapar, and famously,
controversial Harvard linguist, Michael Witzel," she said.
This theory, the HAF believes, is 'agenda-driven'.
In his documentary, HAF says, Wood holds that the early Hindu
practice of worshipping devas, or demigods representing elements,
'somehow implies that these practices were imported from Central Asia.'
While referring 'obliquely' to the Aryan Migration Theory as
controversial, HAF said, Wood fails to present contrary evidence that
many scientists believe refutes the claim that the progenitors of Hindu
civilisation came from west of the Hindu Kush mountains of Afghanistan.
"There is no debate that India was always the cradle of Hindu
civilisation, and the Vedas, the Hindu's holiest scriptures, are the
recorded history of our ancestors," said Suhag Shukla, HAF's Managing
Director.
"We strongly oppose the insulting theory--advanced by
agenda-driven activist historians -- that our rishis, the great sages
who composed the Vedas, were foreign to India, and Wood does viewers a
disservice in not presenting both sides of the coin, in an otherwise
admirable work," he said.
The AMT is reviled by many Hindus, he said, due to its implicit
proposition that a tribe of 'Aryans' migrated into the Indian
subcontinent, subjugated an indigenous people dispersing them to South
India and established a caste system where the highest castes are
comprised of 'Aryans' in an ethno-religious apartheid system.
This 'explosive theory' that narrates that Aryans were only the
first colonizers -- followed by Greeks, Mongols, Turks, Persians -- was
used by European historians to justify the last foreign claim on India,
the British Raj, he added.
However, he asserted, it is the latest genetic evidence, based
on chromosomal and DNA analysis, that scientists believe definitively
discredits the AMT.
