As an alum of the IITs (BTech - IIT Madras, MTech - IIT Kanpur), I was embarrassed and dismayed to see a calendar from IIT Kharagpur (for 2022) that was riddled with pseudo-science, bad arguments, blatantly ideological narratives and unprofessional polemic.
Let me take a deep breath and find a suitable starting point.
There is a "Centre of Excellence for Indian Knowledge Systems (IKS)" at IIT Kharagpur.
Under normal circumstances, I would welcome the establishment of such a department or organisation, since I believe there are many rough diamonds in Indian culture that are waiting to be investigated, tested, refined and given the respectability they deserve in the modern world. An external example of the kind of development I would like to see is the Nobel Prize-winning work of the Chinese pharmaceutical chemist Tu Youyou in 2015. Dr Tu rigorously investigated an ancient Chinese remedy for malaria and proved its efficacy through clinical trials. There are without doubt innumerable such elements within Indian culture, not just in Ayurveda, but also in other streams of thought, and so I would love to see an establishment like this Centre of Excellence for Indian Knowledge Systems do the same for India.
Unfortunately, the stewardship of "Indian Knowledge Systems" seems to have been commandeered by right-wing Hindutva ideologists, who are doing great damage to the reputation of Indian Knowledge Systems by their unscientific and ideologically biased initiatives. Far from India getting the respect it deserves for its various intellectual contributions to the world, it is being reduced to a laughing stock thanks to the ham-fisted way in which these culture warriors are approaching this endeavour.
The calendar I am about to dissect takes up one aspect of this culture war, where it attempts to refute a bugbear of the Hindu right, i.e., the Aryan Invasion Theory.
[The calendar has not gone unnoticed, by the way. A number of people from scientific disciplines have poured scorn over it, including my good friend Seshadri Kumar in a brilliant and incisive post.]
As I have posted before, the reason why the Aryan Invasion Theory is anathema to the Hindu Right is that if it is proven that Hindu "Vedic" culture owes significant elements to sources external to India, then the ideological narrative of Muslims and Christians being cultural outsiders to a Hindu India is effectively torpedoed. It's nothing less than an existential battle for the Hindu Right, and the recent genetic findings establishing the basic validity of the Aryan Invasion Theory have put them in an extremely difficult position.
The calendar from IIT-KGP goes hammer and tongs against the Aryan Invasion Theory with a series of "evidences". [Although the word "evidence" is normally uncountable like "furniture", "evidences" is evidently an acceptable plural form in academic English. I'm still getting used to it, though.]
At the risk of providing further oxygen to this forgettable document, let me point out what is wrong with it. Sunlight is the best disinfectant, and bad ideas are best defeated by good arguments, not by Cancel culture, so here goes.
Let me first deal with the things the calendar does well (from the perspective of its proponents):
- It's visually arresting, with lots of colourful images;
- It is superficially well-structured, and appears to build up a coherent argument based on "initial", "intermediate" and "final" evidences;
- It uses a lot of scientific-sounding jargon in conjunction with Sanskritic terms, providing an impression that Hindu religious thought is based on science;
- It carries the IIT brand, which should awe a lay reader who may lack the intellectual wherewithal to challenge its arguments.
Being an alum of the IITs myself, I am not awed, merely dismayed that one of these highly respected institutes could stoop to producing such pathetic drivel. So let's dive in.
Before I delve into the calendar page-by-page to address each of its flaws in detail, let me provide a high-level framework to understand the thrust of this document.
Here's my one-page critique of the calendar. Feel free to download and circulate this chart. I have released it under a Creative Commons Attribution Share-Alike licence.
Now let's go through it, page by page. It's painful, but also entertaining in its own way.
1. Initial Evidences
The first page engages in circular reasoning, by starting with an unproven accusation that the history of India's "Vedic" civilisation has been unfairly distorted by historians. "It must have taken a few 1000 years to achieve [a long evolutionary sequence of literature, and cultural and spiritual texts]". No proof is offered, just an appeal to the reader's sympathy that "it must have taken longer than what is credited". A number of emotive words are used - suppression, compromises, compressions, distortions, faults and biases.
The simplest explanation, of course, is that Vedic culture and literature indeed had much longer antecedents than 2000 years, but outside the Indian subcontinent. This is a possibility that the Hindu Right refuses to entertain.
Such an explanation would of course close the argument before it could even begin, hence the need for circular reasoning.
2. January (India's Sacred Space)
This page makes an important point that the Southern side of the Himalayas had not one but three riverine systems - the Indus valley, the Ganga-Gomati-Ghaghara valley, and the Brahmaputra (Sanpo) valley. There is a distinct possibility that the civilisational history of India prior to 2000 BCE included not just the famous Indus Valley Civilisation, but these two valleys as well.
However, while this is an important point, it is not a fatal flaw in the Aryan Invasion Theory. The references in the Rig Veda to the Gomati river are not dated. It is entirely possible that the Aryans swept through the Indo-Gangetic plain after overrunning the Indus Valley Civilisation, and that the references in the Rig Veda to these areas date from that period onward. Geographically, once the Hindukush mountains are crossed, there are few barriers to an invading army, and India's plains lie open and exposed. All three indigenous valley civilisations could have succumbed to an invader at about the same time.
3. February (Cyclic Time and Reincarnation)
This page is filled with such woo that it deserves to be dismissed with utter contempt.
"The constructs of space, time and causation is the bedrock of Vedic religious ideals."
This might impress some people, but it's a transparently pathetic attempt to make Hinduism appear like a "scientific" religion by throwing in some scientific-sounding terms.
"The law of causation is based on a chain of interdependence further based on subtle actions and reactions of the flow and value of work (Karma-vada) observed by an individual. The resultant is a chain of reincarnation, through transmigration and metempsychosis (Janmantar-vada) of souls at the cosmic level."
Souls, reincarnation, karma? This belongs in the realm of religion, not science. [Hello IITs, is this really you behind this calendar, or has your soul been possessed by some reincarnated demon? You're earning bad karma by violating your dharma as an institute devoted to science and technology, you know.]
"Rig Veda confirms that the life-principle of Agni as a chain (Vayu or Sutra-atman) over many lives (Jataveda) carrying its subtle repository of experiences (3rd Mandala 26.2-7)"
Oh, the Rig Veda "confirms" this, does it? An unimpeachable authority, no doubt. Is this meant to be a serious proof? A bit like Muslims claiming the Quran speaks the truth because it itself says so! [Dear IITs, if I had provided such a "proof" in one of my exam answer papers when I was studying within your hallowed portals, would you have given me anything other than a zero?]
"The science of Palingenesis constitute the essence and practice of Indian spirituality."
Palingenesis is a concept, not a science. It is a concept in theology and philosophy. In the science of biology, this concept (also called recapitulation) has been discredited.
Indian "spirituality" is emphatically not a science, just a set of unproven beliefs.
"The gnostic foundations of Indian spirituality is an alien or unknown element to civilizations in Europe, whether from the Caucasus Eurasia or from the Steppes. It is also missing in the Semitic foundations of religions practiced in the West and in the Middle East. Therefore, the invading Aryans, if any, had nothing to offer to the development of Indian Cosmology !"
First, a minor point. "Gnostic" sounds like a respectable term, but it is the very opposite of scientific. The Sanskrit term for gnosticism is "adhyatma vidya", or "knowledge from within". I.e., instead of observing a phenomenon and doing evidence-based research, one retreats into navel-gazing meditation and comes up with insights. It isn't very different from the Pope retreating to commune with God about important moral issues and re-emerging with a "divine" revelation over what needs to be done. Gnosticism is hardly a scientific approach, and should not be elevated to such a pedestal.
The important point here though, is that the prior existence of a gnostic tradition in India, even if true, does not refute the notion of an Aryan invasion, since the Aryan Invasion Theory only states that a fusion of cultures took place, not that Aryan culture replaced Dravidian culture and gave rise to Vedic thought all by by itself. [This is the strawman argument I referred to at the beginning.]
4. March (Law of Space-Time Causation)
This is again a repetition of the previous argument, that the Aryans did not have the concepts of "Yoga" or "gnostic foundations", and hence could not have been the progenitors of the Vedic culture.
But this is not a refutation of the Aryan Invasion Theory, because the theory postulates a fusion of Aryan and Dravidian cultures to form the Vedic culture. It is entirely possible that the Vedic culture draws its gnostic elements from the Dravidian culture, and other elements from the Aryan. [The strawman argument again.]
5. April (Non-linear Flow and Changes)
"The parable of the flow of seasons; an iteration of cycles of summer and winter, or spring and autumn are various allegories or metaphors. Chinese philosopher Confucius and Lao-Tzu have also used these parables."
The calendar seems to be arguing against itself here. If the concept of cyclical flow also exists in China, then there is nothing uniquely Indian about it.
"The cycle of the six seasons is the epitome of the wheel of life in the Vedas, and stands for the steadfast parable of a Eka-sringa (Unicorn) Rhinoceros in Buddhism, evident again and again in the Indus Valley seals."
This is a highly confused and confusing set of statements. What is the proof that the cycle of six seasons is the "epitome of the wheel of life in the Vedas"? Second, would the notion of cyclical seasons not be an obvious one to any culture? Third, what is the connection between a cycle and a unicorned rhinoceros? Fourth, how does the existence of a unicorned rhinoceros in the Indus Valley seals and the concept of an Eka-sringa rhinoceros in Buddhism together refute the Aryan Invasion Theory?
"The invading Aryans, if any, had no idea of these subtle constructs. It fulfills the disapproval of the invasion myth."
What "subtle constructs"? Any culture would know of the cycle of seasons. It is blindingly obvious and not subtle at all. And if the concept of the unicorned rhinoceros persisted from the Indus Valley civilisation through to post-Vedic Buddhism, then it simply means that this strand of Indian culture was contributed by the Dravidians rather than by the Aryans when the two cultures fused. It doesn't refute the influx of the Aryans. [Strawman argument again.]
6. Intermediate Evidences
The quote from Swami Vivekananda is an opinion, not a proof of any sort. He would say what he said, wouldn't he? My earlier blog post analyses the difficult conditions of his youth, which caused him to evolve his particular worldview.
"In what Veda, in what Sukta, do you find that the Aryans came into India from a foreign country?"
Genetics is stronger evidence than any Veda or Sukta, my dear Swami. I agree it's unfair to expect you to know about this, since these findings occurred after your time.
"The object of the peoples of Europe is to exterminate all in order to live themselves. The aim of the Aryans is to raise all up to their own level, nay, even to a higher level than themselves."
A self-congratulatory statement with zero evidence. And the Swami is using the term "Aryans" here to refer to what he believes to be an unbroken Indian civilisation. How confusing.
"In Europe, it is everywhere victory to the strong and death to the weak. In the land of Bhârata, every social rule is for the protection of the weak."
Which may explain the treatment of Dalits in Hindu society? Some protection!
7. May (Sacred Feminine - The Matrix)
"This tradition [of representing the nation as mother] is unknown to the West, where nations are hailed as fatherlands."
This assertion is easily refuted by counter-example. Russia, as a steppes culture that is most closely associated with the Aryans (there is a strong relationship between Russian and Sanskrit, both in vocabulary and in grammar), refers to the nation as a motherland, as do many other Western cultures. [There is also the tradition of referring to "Mother Earth" in the West, which is an inconvenient fact the calendar glosses over.]
Hence there is nothing unique about the concept of a Bharat-mata ("Mother India"). Russia has an exactly analogous concept of "Rodina-mat" (nation-mother). One could argue that this fact proves that the concept of the nation as mother came to India from the steppes pastoralists (Aryans)!
"Rig Veda (1.164.46) forwards the sovereign sutra of the unity in diversity, either as the principle of death i.e., YAMA, and that of Resurrection of life, earmarked as MATARISVAN."
It is not at all clear what "unity in diversity" or the "principle of death and resurrection" have to do with the "sacred feminine", or why this is somehow unique to Indian thought.
"E Pluribus Unum" ("Out of many, one") is a well-known Latin phrase, and the phoenix is a mythical bird from Greek mythology that symbolises death and resurrection. [Dear IITs, what are you trying to say here? If I had used such logic in my exam proofs, wouldn't you have given me a zero?]
8. June (Unicorn - The Eka-Sringa Rishi)
So much confusion on just one page!
Unicorn-as-horse versus unicorned rhinoceros referred to on the April page - Make up your minds!
A "spinal column of light" "Neuro-physiologically, it is the spinal chord, the inner trunk of Yoga shoots above the eyebrow." There is nothing "neuro-physiological" about a "spinal column of light". The concept is just woo. [Dear IITs, you are making me cringe!]
"In Epic Ramayana and Early Buddhism, he is identified as Sage RisyaSringa."
As Seshadri Kumar has pointed out, sage Risyasringa was supposed to have the horns of a deer, and this had nothing to do with a unicorn!
9. July (Column of Cosmic Light & Aeons Of Time)
"The Colonial rules forged a different and skewed history, suppressing or misinterpreting Shiva as a Pre-Aryan Dravidian godhead isolated from portions of the Vedas."
Again, this assumes a manichean view of Aryan culture supplanting Dravidian culture to form Vedic culture, whereas the Aryan Invasion Theory postulates the fusion of the two, in which case all these "evidences" are hardly a refutation. [The strawman argument again.]
10. August (Cosmic Symmetry: The Septuplet Chord)
A number of different arguments are made here, which are not provably connected.
Duality is a common concept to many cultures. It is not unique to India.
The concept of seven elements (colours of the rainbow, musical notes, etc.) are again not unique to India but are found in other cultures too.
"They are portrayed as the giver of Madhu, the elixir of immortality, the very secret of inter-connectedness of consciousness in this universe. Thus Vedic Cosmology is a direct clue to philanthropy and altruism as against dialectics of racial superiority and inferiority, as promoted by Colonial historians."
This is drawing a long bow. The notion of givers of the elixir of immortality is not a proof that Vedic Cosmology is philanthropic and altruistic. On the contrary, the Hindu myth of the samudra-manthan that gave rise to amrit is marked by the deception of the asura race and their denial of this elixir in favour of the deva race. Does this not prove exactly what this calendar is trying to disprove, that the Vedic story of amrit represents the "dialectics of racial superiority and inferiority"?
"But the objectives of the Aryan Invasion is one of aggression, genetic superiority by race and skin color. The gospel of the Vedas is based on principles of adaptation, acceptance and assimilation; where as the Aryan invasion myth is
based on aggression, invasion and extermination of other races ! They do not match."
This is a weak argument based on appeal to emotion. Why can a period of aggression not be followed by a philosophical period where assimilation and acceptance are emphasised? This is hardly an "evidence".
11. Final Evidences
After the damp squib of the initial and intermediate "evidences", there isn't much hope that the final evidences are going to be any better. And as we look at the last four months of the calendar, the set of "final evidences" turns out to be nothing more than an exercise in conspiracy theorising about why the colonialists came up with the Aryan Invasion Theory. [Sneak preview: The colonialists were culturally insecure, unlike us proud Hindus!]
12. September (Why An Aryan Invasion Myth Was Forged)
"The colonial invaders, from the Portuguese to the British, were shaken by the striking similarity between millions of words evident in Indian languages and others in the European Tree of Linguistics. So they had to forge an Indo-European Language system, and further design a history of invading in-migration prior to the Buddha, Plato and Lao-Tzu. They proposed that the superior Colonial rulers invaded the inferior India the second time in 17th century! What an audacity and arrogance!"
Why is this "audacity and arrogance"? Isn't linguistic similarity a sufficient basis for postulating a migration in one direction or another? Since you accept that there is a "striking similarity between millions of words [...] in Indian languages and [...] the European Tree of Linguistics", what alternative explanation would you offer for this phenomenon? Given that the "Out of India Theory" has been comprehensively discredited by genetics, the only plausible theory that remains is a migration into India from outside. Isn't it logical? Sorry, but I fail to see any "audacity and arrogance" here. I only see your cultural insecurity on display.
13. October (Equivalence in Semantics and Semiotics)
"The colonial invaders were also shaken and shocked by the extent of similarities. They had to quickly maneuver and recast a story of Asiatic Invasion via the Caucasus and Central Steppes to prove a one-way flow of culture and sciences from the West to the East."
This reads like a thriller novel. The colonial invaders were "shaken and shocked", not merely intrigued. They had to "quickly maneuver". To avoid what catastrophic outcome exactly?
If the Hindu revivalists wanted to paint a picture of an insecure culture, they could have just used a mirror instead. The desperation in their "evidences" comes across, exclamation marks and all.
14. November (Aggression and Imperialism - An Invasion)
"From a system of philology and linguistics to racial primacy"
The calendar takes issue with Western academics drawing unwarranted conclusions from linguistics to postulate theories about race, especially concepts of racial superiority.
In a generic context, one could of course critique the drawing of racial inferences from mere linguistic similarities, but with modern genetic research having established the existence of separate genetic groups that migrated into India in several waves, the hypothesis of distinct racial groups has been vindicated. Even if the motives of the colonialists in postulating an Aryan Invasion were self-serving, that theory, for better or worse, has now been proven. Those who believe in evidence-based research [Hello, IITs!] should accept evidence even if they personally hate it.
And just so we're clear, accepting the fact of an Aryan Invasion of India does not equate to an acknowledgement of the superiority or inferiority of any group, so you can get that chip off your shoulder.
15. December (Aryan Fallacy and The Two World Wars)
The calendar blames racial theories behind both world wars whereas it is only true of the Second World War, as Seshadri Kumar has pointed out. The causes of the First World War have been well researched and established, and these had nothing to do with racial theories. Even with the Second World War, race was not the only casus belli. Resentment over the harsh terms of the Treaty of Versailles was probably a bigger contributor. The calendar is drawing a really long bow here in its attempt to gather supporting evidences.
16. Epilogue (The Story of Civilisation)
The page features a collection of books dealing with much later periods than the time of the Aryan Invasion (2000 BCE). It is not clear what purpose this serves apart from furthering the polemic about "East versus West".
The poetic quote by Swami Vivekananda is a hopeful statement about the resurgence of Eastern civilisations. It is not a proof of the superiority of "Indian Knowledge Systems".
16. Centre of Excellence for Indian Knowledge Systems (IKS)
The term "Indian Knowledge Systems" is itself vague and non-rigorous, and not at all what I had hoped it would mean. As this calendar disappointingly demonstrates, a lot of its elements are in the realm of belief and philosophy, not evidence-based science. Any superstition can be defended as a "knowledge system" using this logic.
The page lists the rogue's gallery of all those responsible for this execration. I'm surprised they couldn't coopt Deepak Chopra. I suspect he's a fraud of a much higher league who doesn't want to be associated with relative amateurs.
Sanjeev Sanyal is unfortunately part of this cabal. I had great respect for him at one time as an author of several important books on Indian history. Alas, he has compromised his intellectual integrity and crossed over to the side of the culture warriors.
I suspect that Rajiv Malhotra is the eminence grise behind this centre. He's probably staying in the shadows and advising them on how to take on the Western academics using their own tools of the trade. I remember him psychoanalysing Wendy Doniger using "Chakra hermeneutics", which was a good example of setting a fraud to catch a fraud. The verbal diarrhoea of important-sounding nonsense words on every page of this calendar bears his stamp.
"Induction of an advanced scientific methods of exploration and investigation – GPR based exploration; Laser induced breakdown spectroscopies and Photo-luminescence dating; Paleo radiology, CT computer tomography and micro-CT scans and Kirlian imagery; Paleo-botany and advanced geo-hydrological exploration studies; Decoding NLP and allied methods of language sciences using Sanskrit based on HMI and Natural language Processing algorithms; Advanced satellite imagery studies in landscape exploration; Image processing and advance visual software driven decoding of Iconographic exploration (semantics and semiotics); Exploration of advanced electrical sciences in health, healing, therapeutic and noetic science driven techniques; and many more."
Such a long list of technologies! So impressive! Wait a minute, did you just say "Kirlian imagery"? [Ah IITs, you were doing fine until that point. Mixing pseudo-science with science is never a good idea.]
To sum up, if this sort of nonsense goes on for much longer, I might have to hide the fact that I'm a double graduate of the IITs. I never thought this day would come.
Peninsular India as an unsinkable aircraft carrier. With a sixth of the world’s population and a commensurate share of the world economy, India’s strategic geographical location dictates that it be the pre-eminent Indian Ocean power and the flagship nation-state among the countries of the Indic civilisation
The basic tool used by the calendar is a false "strawman" model, i.e., a dishonest representation of the Aryan Invasion Theory, which it then proceeds to demolish with "evidences".
It's ironical that the calendar would choose to highlight the giving of the elixir of immortality (amrit) as an example of non-racial altruism. The well-known story is that amrit was given only to one racial group (the fair-skinned and clean-shaven devas) and denied to another (the swarthy and hirsute asuras). Even the physical portrayal of the two groups in popular art is telling.
