Simply put, what the Aryan Invasion/Migration/Trickling-in Theory (AIT) claims is this: After 2000 BC, a tribe or tribes of Indo-European language speakers invaded/migrated into India, bringing with them the precursors to Saṃskṛta and the Vedic culture. This claim has a number of implications attached to it. One, it implies that there exists an indigenous vs. invader divide in India, such that some of us are ādivāsi (original inhabitant) while others are not. Two, it implies that there exists a Dravidian vs. Aryan divide, roughly dividing India into a north and a south. Three, it implies that Vedic culture and religion are derived from foreign imports, meaning we should not begrudge overmuch the ravages of later foreign cultures, nor claim nativity to our own traditions.
Refuting such a theory and its claims is not an act of nationalistic chauvinism. One should have no aversion to accepting this theory and necessary implications, if but they were true. Any attempts to refute the theory are labelled ‘indigenist’ or ‘revisionist,’ implying that such attempts are agenda-driven from the outset and further- that the existing paradigm is the result of objective, non-dogmatic...
