Shrikant G. Talageri Quotes

The totality of the alleged transformation itself is clearly unparalleled and unprecedented, and in every way contrary to the normal: Witzel himself, see above, repeatedly describes different aspects of it as "surprising", "relatively rare" and against what "one would have expected" in such cases. The case becomes impossible when we consider all the aspects together: (a) the transformation was total, (b) the people who brought about this transformation were illiterate, pastoral nomadic tribes "on the move" who "trickled" into the area in miniscule numbers, (c) the people who were transformed were the inhabitants of the most densely populated urban civilization of the time, covering a larger area, and having a relatively longer continuity without much change, than any other contemporary civilization, (d) the change took place within a few hundred years, and (e) it left absolutely no traces in the archaeological record, either of the conflicts and struggles involved or the necessarily resultant changes in ethnic and material composition of the areas after the transformation. It requires extraordinary "special pleading" to advocate such a case.

The Vedic Aryans were the Purus of the ancient texts. And in fact, the particular Vedic Aryans of the Rigveda were one section among these Purus, who called themselves Bharatas.

Finally, in the same above summary, he advises all scholars studying the Indo-European question (or perhaps any historical question involving India) to suppress facts and self-censor their own studies and conclusions so as not to provide any quotable material favorable to any “Indian nationalist” agenda: “Indo-Europeanists must exercise caution, lest they unwittingly support ideologically motivated agendas”

A detailed and path-breaking analysis (HOPKINS 1896a) shows large categories of words found in the Late books (1,8,9,10, and often 5), but missing in the Early (6,3,7) and Middle books (4,2) except in a few stray hymns classified by the western academic scholars as Late or interpolated hymns within these books. These include such categories as words pertaining to ploughing or to other paraphernalia of agriculture, words associated with certain occupations and technologies (and even with what could be interpreted as the earliest references to the castes), words where the r is replaced by l (playoga and pulu for prayoga and puru), a very large number of personal names (not having to do with the name types, common to the Rigveda, Avesta and Mitanni records, analyzed by me), various suffixes and prefixes used in the formation of compound words, certain mythical or socio-religious concepts (Sūrya as an Āditya, Indra identified with the Sun, the discus as a weapon of Indra and the three-edged or three-pointed form of this weapon, etc), various grammatical forms (cases of the resolution of the vowel in the genitive plural of ā stems, some transition forms common in later literature, the Epic weakening of the perfect stem, the adverb adas, etc.), particular categories of words (Soma epithets like madacyuta, madintara/madintama, the names of the most prominent meters used in the Rigveda, etc.), certain stylistic peculiarities (the use of reduplicated compounds like mahāmaha, calācala, the use of alliteration, the excessive use of comparatives and superlatives, etc.), and many, many more.

In short, if powerful and super rich foreign missionaries enter into the interior heartland of India, and mass-convert large sections of tribals to their foreign religion by telling them that the religions, gods, beliefs and practices of their ancestors are “satanic” and will take them to hell, and that the only way to escape hell and attain heaven is to accept Christ and convert to their alien religion, this does not amount to “baiting” or provoking anyone, such as the tribals in particular or Hindus in general, or violating their civil rights. In fact, it amounts to turning the tribals “into proud men and women”! But if Hindu organisations (automatically “diehard communal”, since Hindu, in opposition to the presumably “tolerant and secular”, since Christian, missionaries!) enter these areas within their own country, and appeal to the local people in the name of their ancestral religions, and actually have the gall to “organize Hindu festivals”, it naturally amounts to gross “baiting” and provocation of the foreign missionaries and violation of their civil rights. And if there is any “retaliation” by the missionaries to this “baiting”, it is of course excusable as a perfectly natural and justifiable “reaction” to these gross provocations by the communalists. And of course civil rights organisations have to rush to the protection and defence of these poor, helpless and oppressed missionaries, and the hapless plight to which they have been reduced by “minority baiters” from the RSS has to be propagated in our secular press! ... Another example from a second leading national newspaper: (...) Doesn’t this sound like a description of Christian missionaries, who claim to have a “monopoly over spiritual knowledge” since their religion and God are the only true ones (all others being false religions and Gods who can only lead to hell), who “move into” different areas of the world to spread this message, who compel people to leave their “age-old ways” of worship and religion because these are “‘corrupt’, ‘evil’, or simply ‘wrong’”, and seek to obliterate everywhere “the uniqueness of the local culture” by trying to paint the whole world in one international imperialistic “fundamentalist” colour? Wrong! This is a description (in an Indian Express article, 11/10/98, “Converting History”, by Rajesh Sinha, describing the situation in certain parts of Rajasthan) condemning the VHP and other Hindu organisations for having “started competing with Christian missionaries in establishing schools [etc.]”, thereby leading to “most Christian converts now returning to the Hindu fold”. The writer, with a straight face, tells us: “In the process, the saffron hawks are changing the face of Rajasthan, where once communal identity was a matter of little importance”. Is this some kind of incurably perverted mental sickness, or is it the power of the dollar?

The reader is struck by Witzel’s repeated disparaging remarks against the Puranas and their utility in the derivation of Indian history. Scholars who have read Witzel’s publications in detail inform me that there is nothing in them that betrays even a faint understanding and first-hand knowledge of this genre of literature on his part. Thus, Witzel’s repeated attempts to downgrade Puranas as a valid source of history (which, albeit should be used with caution) merely reflect his attempt to hide his own ignorance.

After chapter 9 (etc) of my book, his unfruitful “offer”, and our rather acrimonious e-mail debate, and now this “review article” that he was compelled to write as a natural sequel to all this, Witzel cannot easily admit that he finds my analysis and conclusions acceptable.... To sum up: when it comes to indulging in “inane accusations and outright slander”, even under cover of writing a “review article” of a book, Witzel is second to none! .... Throughout the whole debate, Witzel epitomizes the kind of scholar described by Max Muller (in his book “India – what it can teach us”) as being very rare in India, but not so rare in the west (a generalization which need not be true in general, but is definitely true in this case): the scholar who indulges in “rudeness of speech … quibbling….. special pleading ….. (and) untruthfulness” and who “writes down what he knows perfectly well to be false, and snaps his fingers at those who still value truth…”

“I have shown in my books that the ten books of the Rigveda were composed in the following order: 6,3,7,4,2,5,8,9,10 (with parts of book 1 spanning the periods of composition of books 4,2,5,8,9,10); and that they were composed as follows: books 6,3,7 in the Early Rigvedic period, books 4,2 in the Middle Rigvedic period, and books 5,1,8,9,10 in the Late Rigvedic period (the hymns of book 1 having been given their final form in the Late Rigvedic period, this book must be included in that period).
To begin with, the western academic scholars themselves (see TALAGERI 2008:132-135 for details) have classified the books of the Rigveda into two groups: the family books (2-7) and the non-family books (1, 8-10), and testified, on the basis of their own analyses, that the family books were composed and compiled before the non-family books. Further, they have detached book 5 from the other family books and concluded that it agrees with the non-family books rather than with the other family books. By their analysis, the books of the Rigveda can be classified into three categories: the earlier family books (2-4, 6-7), the later family book (5), and the later non-family books (1, 8-10). This fully agrees with my own classification into Early books (6,3,7), Middle (4,2) and Late books (5,1,8,9,10); except that the Early and Middle books are clubbed together in one category in the western classification, and the internal order within the groups is not analyzed. [In sum, we get four categories: Early family books 6,3,7; Middle family books 4,2; Late family book 5; and Late non-family books 1,8,9,10]

The rise has been most phenomenal in Arunachal Pradesh, where the Christian percentage has grown from 0.79% in 1971 to 18.72% in 2001: this does not include the figures for crypto-Christians who are many in number in this state due to strong opposition from local tribals opposed to this massive proselytization... It can be seen that there is a complete sweep of conversion to Christianity among the tribal populations of Manipur, Nagaland and Mizoram: 96.8%, 98.5% and 90.5% respectively (the Chakma tribe of Mizoram alone representing a Buddhist survival of 8.3% in that state)... In Arunachal Pradesh, there is an even bigger survival of the original tribal religion: Here we have the traditional Donyi Polo religion followed by almost 47.2% of the tribal population of the state, or 30.3% of the total population of the state. In Manipur, as we saw, there is a clean sweep of conversion to Christianity as in the case of Nagaland and Mizoram, with 96.8% of the tribals converted to Christianity... There are other miniscule populations among the tribes of these five states of the North East still practicing their ancestral religious or belief systems, but they have been reduced to a micro-minority by the time of the 2001 census itself, and may by now be almost completely decimated... The facts are crystal clear: except for followers of these five religions, all the tribal population of India (except converts to Christianity) consists overwhelmingly of Hindu Category One tribals. As the religious population figures of the 2011 Indian Census are still undisclosed, we do not know what the situation is today (2013) and what it will be at some point of time in the future. We do not know how far the efforts to break off the tribals from Hindu society, by converting them to Christianity or trying to convince them even otherwise that they are not Hindus, will be successful. But the fact is that as of the data now available, they are full-fledged Hindus, self-declared, and any change in the situation can only be a change brought about by Goebbelsian and diabolical machinations, and can not represent the original situation... Yet the billion-dollar funded political and academic campaign to cut off the tribal population of India from the non-tribal population by branding the tribals as non-Hindu, often branding them with innocuous names like “animists”, is in full flow... And these figures are faithfully reported in the data provided by the Joshua Project, whose aim is to give the genuine religious population figures for all the ethnic peoples of the world, so as to enable missionaries to formulate their strategies accordingly. The Wikipedia article, like articles in the Indian media or in books meant for consumption in India, obviously have different aims: the primary one being the old policy of “Divide and Conquer”.

"The first stage, the primary stage, is represented by the familiar "Hindu-Muslim-Isai" syndrome. According to this, the Arabic-West-Asian culture of Islam, the Palestinian-European culture of Christianity, and the Indian culture of Hinduism, represent the three components of our "composite" Indian culture. (The introduction of the "Sikh" as a fourth angle to this triangle, was a side-development, intended to firmly separate Sikhs from other Hindus, and bring them closer to Muslims. That this part of the conspiracy has been a roaring success needs no elaboration here)….
The "Amar-Akbar-Anthony" brand of film propaganda has always been an indispensable feature of our Film industry. It has served to highlight this "composite" culture, by presenting stereotypes of blatantly West-Asianized Muslims and blatantly Europeanized Christians, insisting all the time on the "Indianness" of these stereotypes….
In this second stage, the "Amar" aspect of the "composite" culture is slowly diluted and downgraded, and the "Akbar" aspect is glorified and upgraded; hence, the propaganda must, necessarily, be more subtle than the "Amar-Akbar-Anthony" brand of propaganda.
When two persons meet, in a Hindi film, and one is a Hindu and the other a Muslim, they do not greet one another with namaste or Ram Ram: nor does one say namaste and the other assalam 'aleykum (nor in fact, do they refrain altogether from formal greetings); both greet each other with adab arz hai or assalam 'aleykum. When a Hindu, in a Hindi film, is faced with some great affliction, he starts doing the rounds, turn by turn, of a temple, a mosque, and a church, but a Muslim or Christian is never shown finding it necessary to approach other shrines. These are just two of many examples—each subtle by itself, perhaps not even consciously noticed in spite of their repeated occurrence—which, in the cumulative effect, serve to create the intended psychological environment.
The entertainment media have played no mean role in carrying on this brand of propaganda. The calculated glorification of Urdu, of Lucknow tehzib, of the Mughals, of gazals and qawwalis, etc., and the subtle ridicule of Sanskritized Hindi, has been a basic feature of the Hindi film industry…
The third stage is the final stage. This is the highest and most refined stage of all. At this stage, every aspect of India's mainstream culture, which existed in India prior to the arrival of Islamic culture from West Asia, represents "communalism".
Thus, it is perfectly secular for Indian politicians to don fez caps, visit mosques, perform namāz to clicking cameras, etc. But it is "communal", for them to visit temples, or bow down before Hindu holy men, or to wave ārtīs or break coconuts while inaugurating a function, since the customs of visiting temples, bowing before holy men, waving ārtīs, and breaking coconuts, all existed in India before the arrival of Islam from West Asia.
This last, and ultimate stage of "secularism" and "national integration based on a composite culture", can be fully comprehended only by the ideologically most advanced sections of Indians — the Leftists.

And, on this principle, Witzel’s papers themselves are “devoid of scholarly value”, since he is also “motivated” by the desire to counter the Indian homeland theory. Erdosy testifies that “the principal concern” of scholars (like Witzel) studying South Asian linguistics is to find “evidence for the external origins - and likely arrival in the 2nd millennium BC - of Indo-Aryan languages”; and Witzel himself admits that his historical analysis of the Rigveda is motivated by the desire to counter “recent attempts (Biswas 1990, Shaffer 1984) to deny that any movement of Indo-European into South Asia has occured.”

The compulsions of India's vote-bank politics make it necessary to divide Hindu society into mutually antagonistic segments and, at the same time, to keep the Muslim vote-bank united. This can only be done by promoting the concept of a "composite" nation-hood. denying India's ancient Hindu Nationhood, and following a policy of "cynical 'secularism".

The primary concern of Hindu Nationalist socio-economic ideology should be to evolve an ideal model of economic development: one which benefits all sections of society, but which gives particular importance to the concerns and interests of the poorer, weaker and more vulnerable sections; and which does everything to encourage initiative and activity among all sections, but does not give unfair leeway to the rich and the powerful to loot the public, or to loot public funds.... To sum up: we must evolve a nationalist socio-economic ideology which will try to (1) make India a rich, prosperous, peaceful and happy nation; and (2) see that, basically, for every Indian, regardless of race, religion, caste, sex, profession, or any other mark of identity, India truly becomes a land “where the mind is without fear, and the head is held high”, in every sense of the term. The primary guiding principle should be sarve bhavantu sukhinah, sarve santu niramayah, sarve bhadrani pashyantu, ma kashchid duhkha bhag bhavet: “may all be contented and happy, may all be free of pain and disease, may all ever see auspicious times, may no-one be unhappy”.

When the Ramayana was being shown as a serial on TV, Leftist and progressive artists, led by doughty warriors like A.K. Hangal and Dina Pathak, organized a march in Bombay to protest against this "communal" act of Doordarshan (Rama being a pre-Islamic Indian hero, any serial on him would obviously be a "communal" one). Addressing a rally at the conclusion of the march, Dina Pathak bitterly castigated Doordarshan for showing another "communal" item on its network—a report of the archaeological discovery, by Dr. S.R. Rao, of the remains of ancient Dwarka, under the sea, off the coast of Gujarat (Dwarka, having sunk under the sea long before the birth of Islam, any report on it would obviously be a "communal" one). Need we say more?" (TALAGERI 1993:32-34).

It is clear, from his complete dependence on abuse, innuendo, misleading statements and lies in his “review article”, that Witzel has no logical argument to offer against my theory, analysis and conclusions. .... Far from launching a crusade against 19th century colonialism (Witzel’s review article is a typical specimen of how a crusading article sounds), I in fact point out at some length why I cannot subscribe to any view which holds the 19th century “colonial” scholars more than superficially guilty for the AIT or its present-day ramifications.