Talk:Indigenous Aryanism

This whole article is based on flawed and dated assumptions held by "mainstream scholarship"

First of all, there is no such thing as Aryan people or Aryan race. The article Aryan states:
Max Müller, who had himself inaugurated the racial interpretations of the Rigveda,[97] denounced in 1888 those who spoke of an "Aryan race, Aryan blood, Aryan eyes and hair" as a nonsense comparable to a linguist speaking of "a dolichocephalic dictionary or a brachycephalic grammar".[98] But for an increasing number of Western writers, especially among anthropologists and non-specialists influenced by Darwinist theories, the Aryans came to be seen as a "physical-genetic species" contrasting with the other human races rather than an ethnolinguistic category.[99][100]
Why are we holding to this dogmatic conviction that linguistics prove the existence of a fictitious race? "Mainstream scholarship" has maintained this 19th century assumption without challenge for nearly 150 years. This article outright dismisses any criticism of this fundamentally flawed assumption:
"linguistic dilettantes who either ignore the linguistic evidence completely, dismiss it as highly speculative and inconclusive,[note 10] or attempt to tackle it with hopelessly inadequate qualifications"
Nice gatekeeping! As if someone needs a PhD (ostensibly from a white Indology professor) to question a tenuous assumption tracing back to the era of colonialism and scientific racism. This is unacceptable in the 21st century, and it certainly wouldn't fly in the hard sciences. Why is the standard for scholarship so low in South Asian studies?2603:8001:1A07:2561:E5BE:3B76:35D6:1FC7 (talk) 19:57, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

The situation is that mainstream scholarship has determined that Hindi, Odia, etc. are part of the Indo-Aryan language family and that the latter is a branch of the Indo-European language family. The precise location of the Proto-Indo-European homeland is not yet known, but by far the most dominant hypothesis is the Kurgan hypothesis, followed distantly by the Anatolian hypothesis. The out-of-India hypothesis, which is the basis of this article, has been entirely discredited within mainstream scholarship.

When linguists, anthropologists, archaeologists etc. talk about Aryans, as you can see in the Aryan article, the term discusses the ethno-linguistic group of Indo-Iranians. They are not talking about the Nazi-era Aryanism, so any comparison there is irrelevant.

One may claim that it is due to colonialism that the Kurgan hypothesis is more popular in the mainstream scholarship when compared to the Out-of-India one. This is a claim which would need to be supported somehow, for it to gain any traction in mainstream academia. However, in the realm of politics within the context of nationalism, politicians can find success by using such arguments, regardless of their merit, so long as their voters "feel" that it must be right. Thus it is repeated endlessly, and it endlessly appears here on this Talk page. BirdValiant (talk) 18:33, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

For the record, I'm not saying that the "Out of India theory" is correct, but that the mainstream academia goes to great lengths to silence any indigenous voices that question the academics' base assumptions. Almost by default, mainstream academia dismisses outright the ideas put forth by modern Indian scholars and instead continue to promote ideas built on Victorian-era European scholars. We can construct as many ethnolinguistic groups as we want, but that tells us nothing of the mixing of cultures and genes that took place c. 2000 BCE. If anything, such an ethnolinguistic framework only biases the genetic and anthropological discussions in favor of a specific narrative (AIT). For example, the Cell and Science papers present genetic evidence for mixing among people across the subcontinent, beyond the north/south linguistic borders. This goes ignored by AIT proponents, who point to the north Indian genotype as coming from the Steppe (though the Science paper says it's no more than 20%). Because "Aryanism" is no more than a linguistic construct, the scope of this discussion should be restricted to language. For example, any discussion of Vedic culture is irrelevant due to the existence of non-Vedic cultures speaking Indo-Iranian languages (e.g., Zoroastrianism). 2603:8001:1A07:2561:E5BE:3B76:35D6:1FC7 (talk) 19:57, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

Regarding the mainstream academia goes to great lengths to silence any indigenous voices that question the academics' base assumptions: no, mainstream academia does not make such an effort; they just ignore obvious nonsense generated by people who are unable to operate within those scientific parameters. Science stimulates discussion, research, theories that can be falsified - not articles of faith, promoted by people who attack criticasters as 'leftist radicals' and 'Marxists'. Your rant is indeed yet another example of the vicious 'debate' carried by non-scholarly minded people. Cheers, Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 20:19, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

OIT is not the indigenous voice. It's the politically supported voice, and quite to the contrary, local (thus equally indigenous) scholars who do not embrace the OIT ideology are the ones who are silenced in the current repressive public discourse of India. –Austronesier (talk) 20:27, 2 August 2021 (UTC)

The basic thing that is missing from the data given, is that there are no mentions of 'Central Asian Horse' in Rigveda. The 'Ashva' mentioned in Rig veda has 17×2 ribs, which are absent in Central Asian horse. This 17×2 ribbed asva is also mentioned in Yajur Veda. This certainly means that till the late vedic times, the so called 'Aryans' were not aware of the central asian breed of Horses. Funnily, this 17×2 ribbed horse, is only found in Arabia since last 4500 or so years(Arabian Horse). Moreover, 'Mainstream scholars' have totally stonewalled and ignored the argument of Chronological gulf between new rig veda and older rigveda, as discovered by Shrikant Talageri through careful, efficient scholarly linguistic research. This is because once we acknowledge presence of new rigveda and old rigveda, and the words present in them, the System of this dumb imaginative myth of Aryan Migration will come crashing down the nonsensiscal pedestal it has been provided to retain the reliability of an inefficient Academia which also doesnt like dissenting voices with appropriate arguments. Once we realise that the presence of word 'Ratha' as chariots is only present in the new rig veda as well as the distinction between chariot(Ratha) and Cart(anas), the theory of aryan Migration starts to seem funny. Combined with that, the words 'ratha' is only present as an ambiguos term defining wheeled vehicles in Old rig veda. –Vizads Jha (talk) 08:59, 1 October 2021 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Vizads Jha (talk • contribs) 08:45, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

@Vizads Jha: "Academia which also doesnt like dissenting voices with appropriate arguments" See, that's where you're wrong. Academia is open to dissenting voices, and it's what drives science forward. The trouble is that with Indigenous Aryanism is that there are mountains of linguistic evidence which discredit the idea that the Indo-European languages originated in India, or that the Indo-Aryan languages are not Indo-European, etc. Meanwhile, whatever the Indigenous Aryan camp puts forward, it never even comes close to overcoming those mountains of evidence. This is without even mentioning the developing mountain of genetic evidence. Furthermore, the links between Indigenous Aryanism and religious/political ideology are well established, and so the whole effort cannot even be said to be scientific as it consciously tries to push a specific pre-defined conclusion.

Vizads Jha, I would additionally recommend that you stop using Wikipedia as a soapbox in the way you have for your 4 contributions. Please see What Wikipedia is Not. You are on the path to being a Single purpose account which is not allowed. BirdValiant (talk) 15:00, 1 October 2021 (UTC)

Crap source

@Vanamonde93: This[1] is a good rationale, thank you. I agree with it. It's definitely a better one than indiscriminate deletionism. What do you think, TrangaBellam. –Austronesier (talk) 21:12, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

Well, precisely. Using the deprecated source as an example to say in wiki voice that there was bad sourcing is prima facie WP:OR, which is against hard policy. Edit-warring in a deprecated source is really not how we do sourcing - David Gerard (talk) 22:29, 22 November 2021 (UTC)

I don't agree. WP:CONTEXTMATTERS. From WP:RSPUSE:

Context matters tremendously when determining the reliability of sources, and their appropriate use on Wikipedia. Sources which are generally unreliable may still be useful in some situations. For example, even extremely low-quality sources, such as social media, may sometimes be used as self-published sources for routine information about the subjects themselves.

Republic World's stance is not presented as a fact ('the IAmt has been proved wrong'); on the contrary, it is presented as an example of news-sources which misrepresented the Shinde-publication, a point which was brought up by several news outlets, and by a number of Sinde's co-authors. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 05:34, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, but did any other source note this misrepresentation? If not, we have no business doing so. That RepublicWorld publishes misinformation is not surprising; that's why we deprecated it as a source. Including incidents of misrepresentation here requires editors to be identifying them as such, which is contrary to WP:NOR. If a different source has analyzed this incident, we should be citing it instead. Either way, a citation to RW does not belong. Vanamonde (Talk) 17:43, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

Yes. The fact of a deprecated source saying something is literally beneath Wikipedia's notice, unless it was a noteworthy event per a reliable source - at which point we can just use the reliable source - David Gerard (talk) 20:09, 23 November 2021 (UTC)

How can you have a point of view and still be NPOV?

It is very loud and clear that this article considers only the so-called "mainstream" POV truthful, and the indigenous aryanism hypothesis a nationalist ideology claimed to be part of Hindutva. I cannot understand how that stand is NPOV. If this article is considered worthy of inclusion in Wikipedia, then by core tenets of policy, it must be NPOV. If that's not possible, remove the article. Sooku (talk) 08:53, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

Sooku, NPOV means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic.

BBC Trust's policy on science reporting (2011) quoted within our NPOV policy states, When there is a consensus of opinion on scientific matters, providing an opposite view without consideration of 'due weight' can lead to 'false balance', meaning that viewers might perceive an issue to be more controversial than it actually is [...] Including an opposite view may well be appropriate, but [we] must clearly communicate the degree of credibility that the view carries.

All emphases are mine. TrangaBellam (talk) 09:39, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

Totally agree. Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 11:25, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

Thank you both, I understand. Based on my reading, this article misrepresents the "degree of credibility". However I need to compose and submit for discussion specific and properly sourced edits to the text. Sooku (talk) 20:55, 28 November 2021 (UTC)

Sooku, such claims of "misrepresentation of the degree of credibility" are routine on this talk page. They were raised only six months back where I (and JJ) requested ten peer-reviewed sources, authored by specialist scholars and published by reputed academic presses within the last thirty years, which claim both OIT and IAM to be equally plausible or OIT to be more plausible. Please work towards such an end.

Time to throw this challenge to the FAQs. TrangaBellam (talk) 06:13, 3 December 2021 (UTC)

This whole article and the inherent biases are such a mess and so shoddy, it actually makes these so-called "mainstream scholars" seem unbiased.

"BBC Trust's policy on science reporting (2011)" - why on earth should we follow BBC's policy on anything? Again, a westerner's set of rules are being applied to merit the credibility of a western viewpoint! BBC is itself hypocritical in its application of balance - the recent reports of the Leicester violence against Hindu families being glaringly evident. When there is considerable opposition to a model, which relies on hyperbolic assumptions (migration = complete displacement of language, culture, and religion), it is not a "false balance". An example - proteins were considered the genetic material for the longest time, and those who considered DNA the biomolecules of inheritance were considered the "lunatic fringe". "Almost all" scholars thought proteins were indeed genetic units, but unlike western indologists and Wiki editors, they were willing to discuss the opposite view without ad-hominem attacks.

Wiki editors like JJ and Tranga continue to propound racist, elitist views by pitting Indian scholars vs "mainstream" scholars.

"Support for the IAT mostly exists among a subset of Indian scholars of Hindu religion and the history and archaeology of India, and plays a significant role in Hindutva politics. It has no relevance, let alone support, in mainstream scholarship." (emphasis mine).

I don't understand in what ignorant, self-righteous universe Tranga and JJ live that the quoted sentences above are not considered a racist framing of an ongoing area of research. Why even make the distinction of "Indian" scholars? Especially considering that Elst and Bryant question the AMT (at a minimum)? Aside from them, there are a considerable number of scholars opposed to AMT - Lavanya Vemsani and Vikram Sampath to name just a few. Somehow, they are not "mainstream". Their work is ignored or trivialized by this "mainstream". I had called out this divisive language earlier and JJ kept repeating his tired tropes of "mainstream scholars say so". JJ has also implied that Hinduism has historical been casteist, only to sloppily backtrack when called out.

This article then conflates IAT with Hindutva and its demonization of Muslims - siding with western and western-trained Indologists to discredit IAT. If anything, this article demonizes opponents of the AMT by giving undue weight to the slurs used by white colonialists Didn't it occur to anyone that IAT is attacked by western Indologists because a set of individuals use it for political purposes that don't align with western Indologists' political leanings. This is not a matter of "incompetence", having "similarities to intelligent design discourse" or being on the "lunatic fringe". These are all smoke screens for emboldening a political agenda. That Romila Thapar has political biases is not a secret. She denied Ram Janmabhoomi even though multiple Indian historians and the Archeological Survey of India showed evidence for ruins of a temple before Babri, which the Supreme Court upheld in favor of the temple.

How can we trust these "mainstream" scholars if they are not objective? Liberalvedantin (talk) 02:46, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

you'r crazy. you're another nationalist. get out of this website if you can't handle this article. 99.27.106.23 (talk) 02:54, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

@Doug Weller and RegentsPark: do we accept these accusations of racism by User:Liberalvedantin? Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 07:02, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

I don't know, do you accept accusations of me being a "crazy nationalist"? I have no intention of a Hindu nation-state. You guys are barking up the wrong tree. The truth is hard to swallow, so you can't accept that you are a racist. And Wikipedia being largely white in both demographic and thinking, will probably side with you. Have a good life. Liberalvedantin (talk) 07:50, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

IP and account blocked for 31 hours. Doug Weller talk 08:36, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

I don't understand [..] that the quoted sentences above are not considered a racist framing of an ongoing area of research. Why even make the distinction of "Indian" scholars?

You need to read up on culture. TL:DR: Different countries have different cultures.

When someone points out that scholars from one country currently tend to have a false point of view, they do not mean that people from that country are stupid (which would be racist), but that the false point of view is currently popular in that country. For example, Hindutva opinions are currently popular in India, leading to scholars there often having crazy ideas. --Hob Gadling (talk) 09:37, 15 February 2023 (UTC)

crazy ideas? its like saying there are more non indians in the world who historically hv been trying to either appropriate or undurmine indian culture since ages..latest prime example is hitler because of whom the holy symbol swastika became a terrifying symbol..made noble aryan people as germainic supremacists who thought themselves as aryans because og crazy european ideas of taking and appropiating things which dont belong to them.and please dont use term npov... u guys literally take bbc as reliable source for indian history..its crazy and scary..u people are scary 223.190.95.47 (talk) 20:28, 3 June 2023 (UTC)

So, because Hitler used the swastika as a symbol, all western views and ideas are biased, and Indian views are right? And, since modern scientific methodology was mostly developed by westerners, such methodology has to be rejected, in favour of a right not to be questioned about your beliefs? Joshua Jonathan -Let's talk! 05:09, 4 June 2023 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 8 December 2021

Please change the following in the section "Main arguments of the Indigenists":

"Identifying the Sarasvati River, described in the Rig Veda as a mighty river, with the Ghaggar-Hakra River, which had dried up c. 2000 BCE, arguing therefor for an earlier dating of the Rig Veda;"

to

"Identifying the Sarasvati River, described in the Rig Veda as a mighty river, with the Ghaggar-Hakra River, which had dried up c. 2000 BCE, arguing therefore for an earlier dating of the Rig Veda;"

since there is no word "therefor" in English. 98.179.127.59 (talk) 19:14, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

 Done –Austronesier (talk) 19:16, 8 December 2021 (UTC)

"Two new genetic studies upheld Indo-Aryan migration. So why did Indian media report the opposite?"

[2] Doug Weller talk 11:27, 30 October 2022 (UTC)

We have it among the web sources ([web 10] in the article's citation style). Btw, we have a collection of links ([web 8], [web 9]) to illustrate the point made in the Scroll article; another one got removed due to an over-stretched interpretation of our sourcing policies (s. Talk:Indigenous_Aryanism#Crap_source). –Austronesier (talk) 11:42, 30 October 2022 (UTC)