There, in Europe, we really have an invasion of Aryans moving in from the east. And now that we know what a real Aryan invasion looks like, we note t… - Koenraad Elst

This type of gossip is very popular among illiterates who lack the habit of serious debate on issues, and of seasoned debaters who realize that in a given case, no argument ad rem will succeed, and who therefore resort to an argument ad hominem. A quotation that deserves repetition in almost every debate on the Aryan question, and many other debates besides, is: “Great minds discuss ideas, average minds discuss events, small minds discuss people.”

Rajaram’s remark that scholars often treat mere hypotheses (esp. those proposed by famous colleagues) as facts, as solid data capable of overruling other hypotheses and even inconvenient new data, is definitely valid for much of the humanities. But then, while some linguists have sometimes fallen short of the scientific standard by thus relying on authority, it doesn’t follow that linguistics is a pseudo- science.

On the one hand, there is the society that has continued the age-old civilization of this country. It has been badly bruised by centuries of foreign rule and oppression, with the moral losses more serious than the territorial and cultural ones : it suffers of self- forgetfulness and lack of self-respect. But it is still far better off than most of the cultures that have been overrun by the Muslim conquerors or the European colonizers. It has a real chance of coming through. On the other hand, there is a community, which is allowed to function within this larger society, but which has the roots of its separate identity outside this society's age-old civilization. These people's ancestors were in may cases pulled out of Hindu society and made members of the Muslim community under duress. Now, they would automatically evolve back into Hindu society, were it not for some politicians and theologians who instill a separate communal identity in them. The Ayodhya movement... is at the same time an invitation to the Muslim Indians to reintegrate themselves into the society and the culture from which their ancestors were cut off by fanatical rulers and their thought police, the theologians. It is thus an exercise in national integration.