The non believers in Aryan Invasion Theory as well the Indus Valley Civilization deluded lot of Murli Manohar Joshi & Co. are rightfully compared to RASTAFARIANISM..a mythological race produced just as imaginatively as the Sanghi hINDUTVA,but by the British for the Jamaican & Bob Marley ....he he he
Counterpoint: No history, no cry
Vir Sanghvi
Most of us have heard I Shot the Sherrif or danced to No Woman No Cry. And many of us know that both songs were written by the Jamaican singer Bob Marley. (Though of course, the hit version of I Shot the Sherrif was recorded by Eric Clapton.)
But I would imagine, few of us know very much more about Bob Marley. When I was at school in England in the 1970s, however, Marley was much more than a mere singer of hit tunes. He was the most visible figure in the Rastafarian movement, consisting of Jamaicans who wore their hair in braids (?dreadlocks?), treated the smoking of marijuana (?weed?) as a religious act and venerated the memory of Haile Selassie, Ethiopia?s deposed king.
Partly because I liked the music, I was curious about the roots of Rastafarianism. Why did these people talk about a return to Africa? Why did they keep talking about Africa as ?the mother of all cultures?? Where was the ?Babylon? that they sing about? And most of all: why did young West Indians venerate Haile Selassie?
I didn?t find an answer for a decade. And then, I got it from the unlikeliest of sources: VS Naipaul.
In one of his famously sneering essays on the West Indies, Naipaul wrote about the bizarre phenomenon of Jamaican Rastafarianism. His explanation for its origin was straightforward.
Apparently, during World War II, the British administrators of Jamaica had wanted to motivate young blacks to be part of the war effort. The problem was that the Jamaicans simply did not care. How did it matter to them if their colonial masters were themselves colonised by another lot of white colonists?
Sensing their reluctance, the canny Brits hatched a scheme to awaken their interest. When the Axis powers invaded Abyssinia, the Brits told Jamaicans that this was a war of vital interest to them. Did they not know that they were all Abyssinians? That they had been brought to Jamaica from Abyssinia? That they would one day go back to Abyssinia? And that, therefore, they must fight for its freedom?
According to Naipaul, they bought this rubbish, hook, line and sinker. Jamaicans signed up by the thousands and many passed on this belief in their Abyssinian origins to their children. Out of this war-time propaganda came the Rastafarians. Abyssinia, of course, became Ethiopia, so they were all Ethiopians. And if they were Ethiopians then Selassie was their Emperor.
The Back to Africa movement had another advantage. We all know that civilisation began in Egypt. And Egypt is in Africa. So Africa is the mother of all civilisations. And the Rastafarians, as Africans, are inheritors of that tradition.
I?ve often thought about this story (though, in all fairness, I must add that when I did ask Naipaul where he got it from, he was vague) because it tells us something about the power of myth. Most of the Jamaicans who took to reggae were lazy, ill-educated and permanently stoned. But Rastafarianism transformed them from junkies to soldiers in the service of the Emperor; to upholders of a civilisational tradition that was thousands of years older than British civilisation.
The point, of course, was that it was all a load of rubbish. None of it was true. Bob Marley had as much connection to Cleopatra and the ancient Egyptians as you and I have to the man in the moon. Heile Selassie was a pompous tyrant (the ?Lion of Judeah?, he liked to call himself) who would have given Marley a hair cut and then thrown him into jail if he ever met him.
And sure enough, Rastafarianism soon collapsed in a series of gang wars and killings. Today, Kingston, Jamaica, where Marley?s Rastas live, is one of the world?s most unsafe cities. Far from being inheritors of any great civilisational tradition, the Rastafarians have been shown up for the lazy, stoned delinquents they always were.
Myths may motivate. But only truth can take you forward. These days, I am often reminded of Bob Marley, his Rastafarians and their myth-making as I watch Dr Murli Manohar Joshi and his relatives in the Sangh Parivar enjoying a little myth-making of their own.
I wrote last week of their desire to apply to history the same tests that Erich Von Daniken applied to his thesis that God was an astronaut. But, of course, it goes beyond textbook terrorism. What we are seeking now is the creation of an India of myth that rivals old Bob Marley?s Ethiopian Babylon.
History tells us that most great countries and all great civilisations emerge out of decades (if not centuries) of migrations, invasions, battles and conflicts. Eventually, all these influences continue to produce a great society.
The US, for instance, was created by wave after wave of immigration. Each migrant community brought its racial stock, its religion, its strength and its talents to the melting pot and emerged as proud Americans. All of Europe is the result of invasions, religious wars and migrations. Who, for instance, are the real inhabitants of England? The Saxons? The Normans? Later arrivals?
India is no exception. Archaeology has shown us that even before 1500 BC, the Indus Valley was settled by an advanced people who built great cities. Later, there were probably some migrations which brought Indo-European people with their beliefs and their languages. Great religions like Buddhism were created within India and then exported to the world. Muslims came as traders and invaders; stayed on to become Indians. Among the world?s first Christians were Malayalis. Legend has it that St. Thomas (the ?doubting Thomas? of the Bible) journeyed to Kerala after the crucifixion of Christ and founded the community we know as Syrian Christians. At some stage, the tribes that inhabited Burma moved into what we now call north east India and made it their home.
The India we know and love today is an amalgam of all those influences. Like America, it has seen multi-ethnic migration. Like Europe, it has been forged in the heat of battles over religion and territory. Our rejection of MA Jinnah?s two nation theory, of his assertion that Muslims are a separate nation (and that the Kashmir Valley, which has a Muslim majority, is part of that nation) stems from our recognition that India is a mosaic which combines every strand and every influence.
Much of the credit for our survival as a civilisation must go to Hinduism, one of the world?s great religions, which encouraged tolerance, gave us the temperament for democracy and which absorbed the best of such religions as Buddhism and Jainism (even treating the Buddha and Mahavir as avatars of Vishnu).
It is this view of India that the myth-makers of the Parivar now want to challenge. In their retelling of history, India is not a creation of influences, conflicts and cultures. Their view is that there always was an India peopled by more or less exactly the same kind of Hindus who went on the rath yatra. Anybody else who ever came to India was an invader and must, therefore, remain a foreigner or a visitor (the Christian, for instance) who can remain if he recognises that he?s really a Hindu (hence the famous Parivar formulation: ?All Indians are Hindus?).
The problem with this view is that it is about as historically accurate as Bob Marley?s desire to go back to Ethiopia and serve his old master, Emperor Haile Selassie.
So, history must be rewritten.
Start with the Indus Valley Civilisation. There is still no historical consensus on the nature of that civilisation. It does not appear to be Dravidian but perhaps it was pre-Aryan. Alas, the myth does not allow for this possibility. According to the Parivar?s myth-makers, the Aryans were always Hindus, and were always here.
If you accept that there was an India before the Aryans, then you accept that there could have been an India before Hinduism. And then, Hindus also became invaders or migrants. And that destroys the myth.
Hence, the obsession of Sangh Parivar historians with proving that the Indus Valley Civilisation was not pre-Aryan. It was, in fact, the completely Aryan, Saraswati Civilisation. When the historical facts do not fit this interpretation, they are twisted. For instance, it seems likely that the language may not have had links with Sanskrit. So, furious efforts are made to prove that previous interpretations were wrong and that it had an Indo-European origin.
Another problem: The Aryans used horses. But there is little evidence of horses in the Indus Valley Civilisation. Never mind. Some ?historian? will use a computer to manipulate a seal so that it shows a horse. Sadly, this effort will be exposed by genuine historians for the fraud that it is.
Once it can be ?established? that the Aryans were here before 1500 BC, then the next step is to prove that they were also Hindus in the 21st century sense. Are there references to beef-eating in ancient texts? So what? These must have been mistranslated by dirty Communists. Today?s Hindus don?t eat beef. So it is important to prove that dietary practices were exactly the same 3,000 years ago.
Having now ?proved? that nothing has changed for thousands of years, we must now ?establish? that even 4,000 years ago, we knew everything. The aeroplane? Oh yes, we knew how to make it thousands of years ago. The atom bomb? Oh, that?s an ancient Indian weapon. And so on.
When serious historians object to this nonsense, they are told: ?Why are you always running down India? Don?t you accept that we are a great civilisation??
But that, alas, is exactly the point. We are and were a great civilisation; so great, in fact, that we don?t need these Rastafarian lies to boost our egos. There would be no modern mathematics without India: we gave the world the zero. Of the world?s five great religions, two were invented in India and all five are practised here. Judging by Mohenjodaro and Harappa, we built the world?s first great cities.
The problem with the Parivar?s myth-making is that it obscures this glorious heritage. Its pseudo-history (to adopt LK Advani?s favourite phrase) is predicated on denying the greatness of India?s pluralistic past and on telling lies where none is necessary; on boasting when the truth would be enough.
The Rastafarians needed to invent a history for themselves. So too did the Nazis with their perversion of Aryan heritage and of such symbols as the swastika. The tragedy of today?s pseudo-history is that it belittles our real history; it demeans the central truth of Hinduism with lies; and that it is used by small men to impose their pathetically bogus view of religion and history on your and my heritage.
The Rastafarians needed Bob Marley. But do we deserve Murli Manohar Joshi?
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