The 2022 calendar published by the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur, has kicked up a storm that shows no signs of abating.
Titled "Recovery of the Foundation of Indian Knowledge Systems", it basically argues for the indigenous nature of India's Vedic culture, and further provides "twelve evidences" for the "recognition of the secret of the Vedas", "reinterpretation of the Indus Valley Civilisation", and "rebuttal of the Aryan invasion myth."
The calendar was released by IIT Kharagpur's Centre of Excellence for Indian Knowledge System.
Dr Joy Sen, who is the chairperson of the Centre, argues that the calendar challenging two things – "the idea that knowledge and information flow was a one-way arrow from outside into India", and "the concept of western supremacy over Asian civilisations," as quoted by The Telegraph.
Critics have reacted strongly to the chronology of Indian civilisation presented by the calendar.
Tony Joseph, a writer who has extensively written on the subject says that multi-disciplinary evidence suggests "the 'migration' of Central Asian Steppe pastoralists into the Indian subcontinent between 2000 and 1500 BCE."
Additionally, an online petition started by an alumni of the institute, Ashis Ranjan, claims that the calendar is "filled with conjectures about the antiquity and authorship of the Vedas without any hard evidence in support", The Wire reported.
The petition "strongly condemn[s] this effort by IIT Kharagpur to pass off dubious conjecture as established science in this calendar."
What exactly lies in the heart of the controversy? What are the arguments from both sides of the debate?
The 'Aryan Invasion' Debate
The dominant theory that exists today says that a race of European or Central Asian "Aryans" migrated to the Indian subcontinent and replaced the Indus Valley Civilisation that existed (but was depleting) at the time.
The theory further asserts that these Aryans brought with them those elements of Indian culture that are misguidedly believed to be already present, for example, the Sanskrit language.
These cultural elements that were brought to the subcontinent by the Aryan migration created the Indo-Aryan branch of languages spoken all over India today and also gave rise to the Vedas, as explained by Shoaib Daniyal of Scroll.
It's not as if there is no academic dispute on the theory.
Vasant Shinde, a researcher of archaeology and genetic studies has argued that "new data 'completely sets aside the Aryan Migration/Invasion Theory' and also proves that the 'Harappans were the Vedic people.'"
On the other hand, Razib Khan, another expert on genetics, disagreed with the above argument, and said that "research points strongly to the fact that Aryans migrated to the Indian subcontinent. Steppe ancestry is found in almost every group in India. And Steppe ancestry maps to the spread of Indo-Aryan language migration."
His point about Steppe migration is echoed by expert Tony Joseph, who argues that past research has "recorded massive population movement from the Steppe into Europe early in the 3rd millennium BCE, likely spreading Indo-European languages. We reveal a parallel series of events leading to the spread of Steppe ancestry to South Asia, thereby documenting movements of people that were likely conduits for the spread of Indo-European languages."
The argument that the Indian people have origins that are far from homogeneous in nature, is what the 2022 calendar is trying to disprove.
The Calendar's Claims
The IIT-K calendar tries to contradict what has been a widely accepted theory for decades, that is, that India witnessed an Aryan migration from Central Asia and accompanying it was the Vedic culture that the calendar claims is indigenous to India.
In one particular example, the calendar points at the presence of Shiva in Vedic culture and Indus Valley archaeology, thereby arguing that Vedic Culture and the Indus Valley Civilisation co-existed.
Therefore, the calendar claims, "the very foundation of the Aryan invasion" gets refuted.
Different pages for different months try to debunk the Aryan migration theory in separate ways.
The page for February for instance, talks about how even if there was an Aryan migration, the Aryans had nothing to do with the development of Indian civilisation and cosmology.
It highlights the "the cyclic and non-linear patterns of 'swastika'" and the "arrow of time" of the Arya Rishis (that is, forward arrow denotes future, backward arrow denotes past), arguing that the presence of these patterns "in Indus valley seals" indicates that the "invading Aryans, if any, had nothing to offer to the development of Indian cosmology."
Dr Joy Sen is also insisting on the difference in the definition of the word "Aryan", in order to disprove the migration theory.
"In the Vedas", he says, "the term 'Aryan' means someone with a heart of assimilation and altruism. But, in colonial terms, ‘Aryan’ means one with racial superiority and aggression."
Since the two definitions do not match, Sen says critics have carefully avoided this piece of evidence, and redirects us to the 12 pieces of evidence provided in the calendar.
"As the calendar has pointed out with 12 pieces of evidence... the fallacy of the Aryan Invasion Myth is a matter for disapproval and rejection now. It is the need of the hour and that is what the 2022 IIT Kharagpur calendar does."
Finally, Sen says that critics of the calendar have to get rid of what he calls their colonial hangover.
He asserted that "western teachings have for a long time misinterpreted and corrupted the teachings of our Vedas" and that "the content presented in the calendar hit right at the core of the colonial mindset that has been coded into our minds through Western ideas presented in textbooks."
'Invasion Theory Has Long Been Dead'
Experts on the topic have expressed shock over the claims of the calendar.
One such expert, Aniket Sule, who is also the professor at the Homi Bhabha Centre for Science Education, admitted his predicament about whether he and others should respond to the calendar.
"We’re asking ourselves – do we really need to respond to something as ludicrous as this?" he said.
"But if the scientific community remains silent, there is a risk that the general public will believe such content, and especially so as it is from an IIT," he added, as quoted in The Telegraph.
He further went on to say that the "Aryan invasion theory has long been dead."
In a response to questions posed by The Quint, Tony Joseph said that the "only place where the 'Aryan Invasion Theory' has existed for about half a century is in the imagination of polemicists," and that "they keep it alive because it is good to have a handy strawman to bring out whenever the need arises."
He adds that "the Harappan Civilisation, the largest civilisation of its time (as big as the Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilisations put together both in terms of area and in terms of people), precedes the arrival of the ‘Arya’ by far."
You can read his detailed opinions here.
(With inputs from Scroll, The Wire, and The Telegraph)
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