North-South polarity, like Harappan-Aryan divide, is a figment of imagination

The so-called Harappan-Aryan divide, and by implication the North-South polarity, is a figment of the imagination, and is much more a cultural continuum. PTI photo

These days there is increasing discussion on the difference between the North and South of India. There is acrimony with regard to the varying interpretations of Sanatan Dharma. There is resentment in the South that the North is trying to impose Hindi. There is also a kind of political divide, where the BJP is more predominant in the North, whereas in the South regional parties like the DMK, the AIADMK, the Telugu Desam or the Bharatiya Rashtra Samithi have held far more prominence. In fact, there is a growing feeling that the ‘Aryan’ North, and the ‘Dravidian’ South are two cultural entities, with different traditions, evolution and origins.

Frankly, all this is rubbish. Indian civilisation is beyond doubt a unified entity, with a thousand threads that bind all parts of Bharat Varsha. Of course, within this unity there is great diversity, and this must be fully respected. But the so-called North-South divide is a deliberate myth, whose origins lay in a completely false and distorted interpretation of history.

For a long time, the considered view was that the Aryans invaded India sometime around 1500 BCE, overran the pre-existing Harappan civilisation, and settled largely along the Gangetic plains. As a result of this invasion, the Harappans, who spoke Dravidian, were driven towards south India, and the Sanskrit speaking Aryans established their hegemony in the north. This was a theory long-favoured by the British. The Aryans were presumed to be of European origin. Hence, they were migrants from the West, thus allowing the British to claim ownership, indirectly, of many aspects of the legacy and achievements of ancient India, while denying at the same time the indigenous roots of Indian history. The theory then said that, in time, the Western origin Aryans, by mixing with the indigenous population, lost their civilisational vitality, and it was for the British, millennia later, to resurrect that original civilisation by the benediction of colonial rule.

It was a convenient theory, except that it has been dismissed by almost every serious historian. The Aryan Invasion Theory (AIT) has now been consigned to the historical dustbin. As the noted historian, Dr. Upinder Singh, writes: ‘One of the most popular explanations of one of the declines of the Harappan civilisation is one for which there is least evidence. There is, actually, no evidence of any kind of military assault or conflict at any Harappan site.’

What has been overwhelmingly accepted is that the Indian Aryans were migrants who came to the subcontinent over a period of time. The period of migration took place in batches, and has now been predated—thanks to new and incontrovertible research, especially with regard to the Saraswati river (for which, due to shortage of space, I will have to write another column)—to anytime between 4000 BCE to 3500 BCE.

If therefore, the Aryans were in the subcontinent more than a millennium earlier, then they were part of Indian soil coterminous with the Harappan civilisation. What was the interface between the two? Until recently, conventional history was divided between ‘pre-Aryan’ and ‘post-Aryan’. The two phases were seen as an irreconcilable binary, with almost nothing in common. However, recent research is radically changing this mechanically polarised view, and now points to an active interface between the Aryan and Harappan people as part of a process that was both assimilative and transformative.

Evidence that there was such an interface is overwhelming. Later cities like Mathura, Kaushambi and Vaishali reproduce, almost identically, the architectural features of moats and fortresses found in Harappan cities; the remarkable Harappan weights system clearly inspired the weight system described in the Arthashastra; the bronze casting method, also known as ‘lost wax casting’, used by the Harappans to make, for instance, the famous dancing girl statue, was subsequently used throughout the sub-continent, including the famous Chola bronzes in the 13th century CE.

The scholar, Michael Danino writes that ‘even the married Hindu woman’s custom of applying vermilion at the parting of the hair has Harappan origins: figurines found at Nausharo, (a Harappan site), shows traces of red pigment at the same spot; many Hindu men continue to wear an amulet tied to the upper right arm, exactly where the “priest king” (as seen in Harappan seals) displays one’.

Intangible heritage also shows some striking overlapping. Thus, common Harappan forms such as the swastika, the pipal leaf and the fire-worshipping altars are common symbols that persist even today. The Pashupati seal, which shows a dominant figure seated in a yogic posture with a tricorn headdress, and surrounded by animals, is strikingly reminiscent of Shiva. The many Harappan seals dedicated to a mother goddess is a direct progenitor of the Devi cult. The historian, John Marshall, thus categorically concludes: ‘Taken as a whole (the Harappan civilisation) is so characteristically Indian as hardly to be distinguished from still living Hinduism’.

Quite explicitly, the so-called Harappan-Aryan divide, and by implication the North-South polarity, is a figment of the imagination, and is much more a cultural continuum. There are local and regional differences, including in language in the case of Tamil, but these localised variations are part of the enriching diversity of our civilisational heritage.

Let transient politics not divide what is foundationally one.

The author is a former diplomat, an author and a politician. Views expressed in the above piece are personal and solely that of the author. They do not necessarily reflect Firstpost’s views.