Evidence against the Aryan Invasion Theory (AIT)
Since the theory was first postulated, its legitimacy has been hotly contested. Many arguments, both in favor and against, have been the staple fodder for thousands of books, research papers, newspapers, and magazine articles. Many of these arguments are too esoteric to be discussed here and In any case, they have failed to settle the matter.full-width

However, recent advances in genetics and satellite imagery have brought forth new evidence which goes a long way to settle the case against AIT:

1. Refutation of AIT’s dating of Rig Veda
   Rig Veda, Bharat’s foundational scriptural text, contains numerous references to the Sarasvati River, which is variously described as the “greatest of rivers,” “glorious,” “loud roaring,” and “mother of floods.”

Rig Veda, Bharat’s foundational scriptural text, contains numerous references to the Sarasvati River, which is variously described as the “greatest of rivers,” “glorious,” “loud roaring,” and “mother of floods.”

However, the Sarasvati River was nowhere to be found until recently, when modern satellite imagery was able to locate the dry bed that once was this mighty river ⁷Footnote 7 Danino M. The Lost River: On the Trail of the Sarasvati; Penguin Books (2010)

Studies have also shown that monsoon declined monotonically after 5,000 BCE,
gradually weakening the Sarasvati, leading to its virtual extinction by
around 1,500 BCE. ⁸Footnote 8 Sarkar A. et al., Oxygen isotope in archaeological bioapatites from India: Implications to climate change and decline of Bronze Age Harappan civilization; Sci. Rep. 6, 26555; DOI: 10.1038/srep26555 (2016).

This completely debunks the AIT account that Rig Veda was composed after the purported Aryan invasion/migration circa 1,500 BCE and indicates that it was composed closer to 5,000 BCE when the river was in its prime⁹ Footnote 9 A.L. Chavda, Aryan Invasion Myth: How 21st Century Science Debunks 19th Century Indology.

2. Archeological evidence supports Bharat’s cultural and civilizational continuity¹⁰Footnote 10: Lal B. B., The Rigvedic People: Invaders? Immigrants? or Indigenous? Aryan Books International First Edition (2015) .Extensive archeological studies provide no evidence that the Harrapan civilization, the presumed ancient home of the Dravidians, was destroyed by warfare. The evidence, instead, suggests a slow eastward migration of the population due to a shift in the climatic patterns resulting in sustained loss of water resources.

The evidence further shows that many of the traditions and customs prevalent in the Harrapan civilization continue to exist in modern Bharat, indicating that the Harrapan and Aryan cultures are facets of the same civilization.

3. Genetic evidence
   Recent research shows the absence of any significant outside genetic influence in Bharat in the past 10,000 – 15,000 years $={11}. Another research study excludes any significant patrilineal gene flow from East Europe to Asia, including India, in the last 5,000 to 7,000 years $={12}.

A third research paper concludes that Bharat’s populations are genetically
unique $={13}.

Yet another study demonstrates that most Bharatiyas are genetically alike,
thus debunking one of the central postulates of the AIT, namely the
Aryan-Dravidian divide $={14}.

On the contrary, there is strong evidence to support an Out of India Theory ¹⁵ Footnote 15: Sharma S. et al., The Indian origin of paternal haplogroup R1a1* substantiates the autochthonous origin of Brahmins and the caste system. Journal of Human Genetics 54, 47–55; doi:10.1038/jhg.2008.2 (2009),¹⁶ Footnote 16: Lucotte G., The Major Y-Chromosome Haplotype XI – Haplogroup R1a in Eurasia. Hereditary Genet, 4:150. DOI: 10.4172/2161-1041.1000150 (2015). While some genetic research purports to support AIT, it has not been able to refute the large body of genetic evidence that has been found against AIT.

Many other pieces of data lend further support to the anti-AIT argument. Two
such examples should suffice to make the point:

The Vedic literature – supposedly written by the invading Aryans – contains
extensive references to prominent landmarks of Bharat but makes no mention
of a former homeland. This collective amnesia of the alleged Aryan race
concerning their ancestral home is highly unusual for migrant
populations.

The number of Sanskrit manuscripts in existence today is roughly 1000 times
the number of manuscripts available in Greek, Latin, and other ancient
European languages combined. Such an overwhelming disparity in the literary
outputs between the Aryans and the Europeans is difficult to reconcile with
the AIT postulation of their shared heritage $={17}.

What keeps AIT alive?

According to Prof. Klaus Klosermaier, a well-known scholar of ancient
Bharatiya history, “The AIT (Aryan Invasion Theory) is based purely on
linguistic conjectures which are unsubstantiated.” $={18}

However, with nearly 175 years of the constant drumbeat from the
progenitors, purveyors, and pushers of the AIT hypothesis, there is far too
much academic reputation and obduracy at stake to let the beast die in
peace. Many of these self-annointed scholars, as Michel Danino’s 2018 paper
$={19} suggests, have even resorted to blatant dishonesty
to shore up their arguments. Here is a direct quote from Danino’s paper:
“This collection highlights how eminent historians and linguists, apart from
miscellaneous other writers, have indulged in such scholarly malpractice,
some of which qualify as fabrication.” Examples of deliberate distortions
and misrepresentations examined in Danino’s paper include:

Invention of nonexistent texts.
Deliberate mistranslations of texts.
The invention of nonexistent archaeological evidence.
Distortion of archaeological evidence.
Fundamental methodological flaws include circular reasoning,
oversimplification, etc.
Recycling of long-discarded theories such as racial ones.

Misquoting, blanking out or demonizing of scholars opposing the Aryan
paradigm.

Psychological and socio-political impacts of AIT $={20}

AIT gives credit for Bharatiya culture to invaders from elsewhere while
denying its Bharatiya origin.

It devalues Bharat’s culture by portraying it as a “gift” from outsiders.

It suggested that Bharatiya culture was not a culture in its own right but a
synthesis of other cultures.

It implies that Hindu Dharma was not an authentically Bharatiya religion but
a result of cultural imperialism.

It suggested that Bharatiya culture was static and only changed under
external influences.

It implies that indigenous people were incapable of creatively developing
their faith and could only acquire new ideas from other races by invasion or
other processes.

It downgrades the intellectual status of Bharat and its people by giving a
falsely late date to elements of Bharatiya science and culture.

It promotes the idea that race is a biologically based concept.

It suggested that the light-skinned Aryan invaders forced the dark-skinned
Dravidian people of the South of Bharat to convert to the Aryan faith.

It creates an artificial fault-line among the Bharatiya people, giving the
appearance that North Indians are foreigners and Dravidians are native
Indians.

It provided a basis for racism in the Imperial context by suggesting that
the peoples of Northern Bharat were descended from invaders from Europe and
so racially closer to the British colonizers.

It gave a historical precedent to justify the role and status of the British
colonizers, who could argue that they were transforming Bharat for the
better in the same way that the Aryans had done thousands of years
earlier.

Conclusions
There is now a mountain of evidence that shows that the Aryan Invasion
Theory or its migration version is a myth. It is a deeply flawed and
dangerous relic of a racially motivated colonial enterprise. It is about
time that civilized societies did what is right, i.e., to put it in the only
place where it belongs – the trash bin of history.

Footnotes
.

Footnote 11: Sengupta S. et al., Polarity and temporality of
high-resolution Y-chromosome distributions in India identify both
indigenous and exogenous expansions and reveal minor genetic influence
of Central Asian pastoralists, Am J Hum Genet. 78:202–21 (2006).

[Footnote 12]Underhill P. A. et al., Separating the post-Glacial
coancestry of European and Asian Y chromosomes within haplogroup R1a,
Eur J Hum Genet. 2010; 18:479–84. DOI: 10.1038/ejhg.2009.194.

[Footnote 13] Tamang R., Thangaraj K., Genomic view on the
peopling of India, Investig. Genet., 3, 20. (2012).

[Footnote 14] Dolgin E., Indian ancestry revealed,
doi:10.1038/news.2009.935 (2009)

[Footnote 15] Sharma S. et al., The Indian origin of paternal
haplogroup R1a1* substantiates the autochthonous origin of Brahmins and
the caste system. Journal of Human Genetics 54, 47–55;
doi:10.1038/jhg.2008.2 (2009)

[Footnote 16] Lucotte G., The Major Y-Chromosome Haplotype XI –
Haplogroup R1a in Eurasia. Hereditary Genet, 4:150. DOI:
10.4172/2161-1041.1000150 (2015)

[Footnote 17] A Google query with the search string “How many
Sanskrit manuscripts are there” returned 30 million as the top answer;
the same query with “How many Latin, Greek, and ancient European
manuscripts are there” brought up less than 30,000 manuscripts.

[Footnote 18] Klostermaier, A Survey of Hinduism, p. 21 (2007)

[Footnote 19] Danino, “Fabricating Evidence in Support of the
Aryan Invasion / Migration Theory,” (2018); https://www.academia.edu/39599444/Fabricating_Evidence_in_Support_of_the_Aryan_Invasion_Migration_Theory

[Footnote 20] Many of the points here were taken from Frawley,
D., Aryan Invasion Theory – Part 1,
http://www.hinduonline.co/DigitalLibrary/SmallBooks/MythofAryanInvasioninIndiaDavidFrawleyEng.pdf