A review of the book 'Aryans: The Search for a People, a Place and a Myth' written by Charles Allen and edited by David Loyn.
This is Charles Allen's definitive account of the Aryans, offering a grand sweep of language, mythology, contested histories and conflict.
Product of a great investigation and meticulous scholarship, 'Aryans: The Search for a People, a Place and a Myth,' Allen's last book, is his crowning achievement and marks the end of an illustrious career.
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Coming up: A review of the book 'Aryans: The Search for a People, a Place and a Myth' written by Charles Allen and edited by David Loyn.
Namaste Friends. My name is 'Shinil Subramanian Payamal' and you are listening to the Historylogy podcast.
Before I proceed, a full disclosure: This book was bought with my own money and not been provided to me by the publisher.
Little bit about the author:
Charles Allen is the author of a number of bestselling books about India, including Plain Tales from the Raj, Kipling Sahib, Ashoka and Coromandel. A traveller, historian and master storyteller, his books, which draw on detailed research, are a testament to a life spent uncovering the stories of the land of his birth. His lasting legacy lies in a series of books about British involvement in India, and the people whose scholarship helped trace the past of the subcontinent and discovered the common root of Indian and European languages. He died in 2020, leaving Aryans, close to completion, with his dear friend David Loyn, who has edited the book.
Let me read what is written on the inside flap of the cover of the book:
Few themes in history have had as strong a hold on people's imagination. Fewer still have managed to alter the course of civilization.
This is Charles Allen's definitive account of the Aryans, offering a grand sweep of language, mythology, contested histories and conflict. Spanning continents, cultures and societies: from the Russian steppe to the Indus valley, the Iliad to the Mahabharata, Greek to Sanskrit, Putin to Trump, and Müller to Vivekananda, Aryans astonishes with its scope. Allen, true to a style that has endeared him to a legion of admirers, weaves a narrative that is startling and illuminating.
Product of a great investigation and meticulous scholarship, Aryans, Allen's last book, is his crowning achievement and marks the end of an illustrious career.
Now, coming to the review, on page 5, the editor has stated that Charles Allen was driven to write ‘Aryans: The Search for a People, a Place and a Myth’ by three compulsions.
The first was sorrow at the way professional historical research has been hijacked in modern India by some in the politico-religious Hindutva movement who are politically ascendant and have been looking for a founding narrative for a newly emerging power on the world stage.
The second motivation for this book was to unpack how the word ‘Aryan’ became so twisted in the West.
Thirdly, Charles was driven to write Aryans by his love of archaeology, which began when he spent a summer working on digs in Athens while at the British School at the age of 18.
It was his long association with India that drew Charles to the challenge of unpacking the story of the Aryans in this, his 26th book, written across a more ambitious canvas than others, both geographically and in terms of time scale.
He was born in India in 1940, the latest generation in a family with Indian roots going back to the eighteenth century.
The book is divided into four parts:
Part One ─ The Myth of the Aryan Race
Part Two ─ The Search for European Origins
Part Three ─ India and the Aryans
Part Four ─ Ancient Genomes
Some of the things covered in this book are:
1. The rise of the Nazi Party in Germany
2. The Aryan Invasion Theory (i.e. the AIT)
3. The Out of India Theory
4. The history of Zoroastrianism
5. Theories for collapse of the Indus Valley civilisation
6. The findings of the Daimabad Charioteer, Sanauli and Rakhigarhi
7. The founding of the Arya Samaj and the Brahmo Samaj
8. The works of Bal Gangadhar Tilak, Swami Vivekananda and Vinayak Damodar Savarkar
9. The origins of Iran
And much more…
Personally speaking, I have problems with some of the things mentioned by the author.
1st ─ On page 279, the author has given a sample of a brief period of the many outrages committed against minority groups in India’s central and northern states where the crime of cow slaughter is an offence punishable by a minimum of three years in jail and a 5,000-Rupee fine. This surge in cow vigilante attacks is often attributed to the rise of the Bharatiya Janata Party and its coming to power in government in 2014. However, the unhappy reality is that intolerance of the ‘other’ and the persecution of minorities have been a feature of Indian society not just for centuries but for millennia.
For me, just this one paragraph is enough to ask for a refund! Nothing comes close in human history to the Hindu genocide committed by various Islamic invaders through the ages. From Muhammad Ghori to Mahmud of Ghazni, from the Mughals to Ahmad Shah Abdali and the likes of Nader Shah, there is no dearth of documentary evidence of the atrocities done by them. How can anyone deny this is beyond comprehension.
2nd ─ On page 304, there is this paragraph on the RSS and Golwalkar. I quote:
“Despite the best efforts of Golwalkar and the RSS, it was an India modelled on Nehru’s secular model that came through with Independence in 1947. The RSS saw itself as a casteless pan-Hindu movement but had continued to be seen by many Hindus as essentially a higher-caste movement. This has allowed it to be politically outflanked by the combination of the Congress Party and the Muslim League, who, even if they failed to see eye to eye with each other, nevertheless won Indian hearts and minds by opposing the British Government in India through policies centered on non-violence.”
UNQUOTE
I don’t know whether I should cry or roll on the floor laughing after reading this. Muslim League and non-violence?!?
3rd ─ On page 310, the author has called Romila Thapar, the most distinguished historian!
The book concludes with this quote by David Reich. I quote:
“We may be the barbarians coming late to the study of the human past, but it is always a bad idea to ignore barbarians.”
The book is just under 350 pages and it has enough material to keep both parties i.e. the ones who believe that the Aryans came into the Indian Subcontinent from the Russian Steppe and also those who believe in the Out of India theory. A bit like a historical version of Kurusowa’s Rashomon. I give it a rating of 2/5.
The book is available for around Rs. 625/- on Amazon India and for around the same price on Flipkart. And it is available for about $10.50 USD on Amazon USA but only in Kindle format. I will provide all the respective buy links in the show notes. Please check them out for the latest prices.
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