The recent controversy involving banning of Ambedkar – Periyar Student Group in IIT Madras has brought back the Indian society’s fault line into limelight - the line between Aryans and Dravidians, the line between Brahmins and Dalits. The root of the controversy was a pamphlet circulated by the Student Group which attacked on the religion of ‘Shrutis and Smritis’. Such controversies and agitations involving conflicts of Brahmin vs Dalits or Aryan vs Dravidians are not new. Periyar had run a Dravidian movement which had these conflicts in its core and this movement is still alive in Tamilnadu. What is the basis of such conflicts? Why do we have so called Aryan vs Dravidian divide?

Well apart from Dalit oppression (which to a large extent was a historical wrong which needs to be corrected), the biggest reason for such conflicts has been the ‘discovery’ of an Aryan invasion of once thriving Indus Valley civilisation. The invasion and pushing of aborigines (Dravidian) southward marked the beginning of a perennial Aryan vs Dravidian conflict. Aryans, being victors, supposed to have formed caste system and placed themselves in the upper echelons of this social system while keeping Dravidians in the lower levels. So Brahmins and Kshatriyas were Aryans, Vaishyas were probably mixed race and pure Dravidians were Dalits.

First time I heard about Indus Valley civilisation was in 9^th standard. The description of more than 6000 years’ old Mohenjo Daro and Harappa cities was enigmatic. While reading it, for first few pages, I was filled with pride. Pride of belonging to a nation which started civilisation much before any modern developed nation. Pride of being citizen of a country which was cradle of first civilisation. However this feeling was short-lived. In just few pages I came to the page describing a sudden demise of Indus Valley civilisation which was ‘attacked’ and ‘destroyed’ by Aryans! Having been taught few Sanskrit shlokas, I had come across the word “Aryan” and knew that we belonged to Aryan clan. The feeling of pride not only vanished after reading about Aryan invasion, it gave way to the feeling of wretchedness, that of a self loathing. Producing this precise feeling of self-loathing must have been the objective of our left leaning scholars, sometimes I suspect. Anyway the history chapter further read that Aryans invaded Indus Valley some 1800 BC or around 3800 years ago. I always wondered as to how exactly Aryans could have invaded such a great civilisation without having iron arms. Iron was not discovered yet. Also, as is claimed, Aryan’s were a nomadic race. Then how exactly they were able to develop copper smelters for arms? How did they developed warfare techniques? A developed civilisation would more likely have developed these means and skills of warfare than a nomadic race. But then my questions had no meaning as our prominent historians agreed the hypothesis given Europeans that Aryan did invade Indus Valley civilisation.

Later something unexpected happened. This Aryan theory which was well established with so called linguistic evidences got entangled into the vortices formed by a river some 6000 years ago! The river was called Sarasvati. It was forgotten by all but ‘Aryans’. Their Vedas and Puranas kept singing praise for this river. Then this river appeared again, as if giving life to ‘Aryans’ once again. Only difference was this time it did not flow but appeared into satellite pictures as a dry river system. This rekindled interests of scholars from various fields to explore the possibility of an erstwhile river system.  One of such team of explorers was from BARC, which analysed the water found in wells in the basin of Sarasvati. In this region one gets water in the wells at relatively lesser depth. This is surprising given the arid situation of the region today. The analysis done by SM Rao and KM Kulkarni of BARC, in 1995, showed that the water found in these wells was ancient. It was probably around 4400 years old. As per calibrated results, shown by scientists and archeologists, the drying up of this river system had started somewhere around 3700 BCE. Further archeologists have also concluded that by around 2000 BCE the river had been reduced to a just a small stream not reaching to Sea. Its flow was broken in many places.

Now if Aryans came to destroy Indus valley around 1800 BCE then how could have they known about Sarasvati river. Not only did they know about it, there are verses in Rig Veda which suggest Sarasvati was a mighty river flowing from Mountains to Ocean. Which clearly places Rig Veda before AT LEAST 2000 BCE when Sarasvati was flowing to Ocean. Then, Mahabharata talks about a Sarasvati which was already drying and had taken form of lake at various places. These places as per Mahabharata developed as“Tirtha”.  Mahabharata it self is 3000 BC as per astronomical calculations done by people like B G Tilak. This places Vedic India or Aryan India much before 3000 BC as Mahabharata talks about Veda as ancient texts. Even if we take 1000 years gap between Vedas and Mahabharata, Aryans were probably in India at around 4000 BC. This means Aryans were in India during Pre-Harappan and Mature-Harappan phase. This puts Aryan invasion theory into a great danger. Further archeological evidences from Indus Valley ruins suggest that there was no attack on these cities. This further strengthened the idea that the invasion theory could have been completely wrong.

Any self-respecting nation would have further explored these new findings and changed the old notions promptly. But what our left leaning historians did was both curious and abominable at the same time. Since existence of Sarasvati was proving to be biggest hurdle in sustaining Aryan invasion theory, they started finding ways to deny the very existence of Sarasvati. We will shortly talk about their claims and how those claims do not conform to various scientific proofs available. But in the meanwhile our scholars suppressed any mention of a historical Vedic Sarasvati in popular discourse. The schools continued with teaching Aryan invasion theory and the Aryan vs Dravidian conflict went on unobstructed.

Historians like Romila Thapar wrote as late as 2002 that Sarasvati’s identification was ‘controversial’ without really providing any proof. As Michel Danino writes in his book “The Lost River”, this ‘controversy’, if there is any, about Sarasvati’s identification is recent one. Eminent scholars like Aurel Stein or A. Ghosh never had much of a problem in accepting the archeological proofs available on Sarasvati’s location and it’s time period.

There have been attempts to use shallow research findings and hypothesis beyond logic to resist the fast changing views of Sarasvati and Aryan invasion theory. There have been many arguments used by opponents of existence of an “Aryan Sarasvati”.

The first argument is centred on denying the very existence of a mighty Sarasvati as described in Rig Veda. Some scholars like Rajesh Kochar say that if Sarasvati had existed it must have been a petty rain fed stream and not a mighty river. Some historians like Irfan Habib have gone a step further and declared that Sarasvati was just a figment of imagination of the Vedic Rishis. The basis of this is very flimsy. Based on the geographical and archeological records scholars have established that Sarasvati’s path coincided with that of today’s Ghaggar, especially outside today’s international borders of India. Also, part of Sutlej and Yamuna used to flow through Sarasvati. Scholars like Kochar and Habib state that Sutlej and Yamuna diverted before Vedic Era and Sarasvati was a separate small stream which never went through the Ghaggar’s river bed.

Given archeological evidences there are far greater number of cities excavated on the banks of Sarasvati than that of Indus. There are about 3781 sites in Sarasvati basin as compared to 835 in Indus basin. Also the number of late Harappan sites is 1378 in Sarasvati basin as against just 12 on Indus basin. Clearly showing that even in the late Harappan phase Sarasvati was a river big enough to support these settlements. Such large number of human settlements could not be on a small rain fed stream. Late Harappan cities in river basin are concentrated more towards origin of the river, indicating the drying up of downstream of the river around that time. This also means that Aryans must have been in India before late Harappan phase (during Mature Harappan phase) when Sarasvati used to still flow until ocean given their description of the river as such in Rig Veda. Diversion of Sutlej and Yamuna is not a sustainable argument given the amount of data to the contrary and the fact that Sutlej has changed its course many times in history.

Second argument given that Sarasvati was not in India but in Afghanistan and it was the Helmund River. This is said to be Haravati in Avestha and therefore it had to be Sarasvati. However, two points are enough to disapprove it. One, Helmund is a land locked river where as Sarasvati was supposed to flow into Ocean. Second, there are no rivers like Yamuna and Ganga in Afghanistan which form important part of Sarasvati system as per Rig Veda. This argument, therefore looks weak. Probably the Aryan settlers in Iran took the name of Sarasvati with them from India (similar to Asura or Ahura)

Third argument is about name of Sarasvati itself. Habib says that even if Sarasvati flew into Ghaggar’s river bed and was fed by Sutlej and Yamuna, why the entire river was named Sarasvati. The ancients would have more likely named it as Sutlej or Yamuna. This argument assumes a single stream flowing for each river. But we know that Yamuna and Sutlej were complex river systems with large beds and possibly multiple streams. It is in fact well established that the Sutlej fed Sarasvati through hundreds of small channels (as is also shown by satellite pictures). Given this, naming of river is not too big an issue which can possibly make one deny the very existence of Sarasvati.

In fact when Irfan Habib, in his paper, accuses the proponents of Sarasvati of ‘false patriotism’ his opposition to Sarasvati indicates something sinister. Habib goes on to say that accepting Sarasvati is taking away the Indus culture from Dravidians and non-Aryans. Here one understands what that ‘something sinister’ is. The entire research of Habib looks nothing more than an attempt to defend Aryan invasion theory and to keep alive the Aryan vs Dravidian divide. This is when even geneticists have rejected this theory of different Aryan and Dravidian races.

Any Indian historian today, trying to prove Sarasvati and disapprove Aryan invasion theory, is promptly categorised as right wing fanatic with heightened sense of nationalism. Anyone talking in favour of Aryan invasion theory is regarded as serious scholar.  

Recently government has started an attempt to resurrect Sarasvati. However, in the absence of any major tributary, this attempt will only yield a small rain fed river if anything. While the recent attempts of central government to make Sarasvati flow again is not going to bring back historical Sarasvati, the attempt to deny its historic existence is downright criminal. This denial of a Vedic Sarasvati has only ensured that one of the biggest divide in nation survives and denies a legacy to its people.

By Sagar Kinhekar