Review: Aryans by Charles Allen
Hindustan TimesWhen I received Charles Allen’s posthumously published book, Aryans; The Search for a People, a Place and a Myth. 400pp, Rs799; Hachette He “came out” more openly in his book on south India, Coromandel, A Personal History of South India, in 2017, with the astounding observation that “The ocean effectively marks the limits of Hinduism, which may explain why India was never a seafaring nation or, indeed, why India was never – apart from one brief but significant foray into South East Asia by the Imperial Cholas in the eleventh century – colonizers”. Allen critiques the 19th C European love of Sanskrit as “infatuation” and disagrees with Indian thinkers like Swami Dayanand Saraswati, Swami Vivekananda and Sri Aurobindo, who contested the “Aryan invasion” theory. But an Indian reader will be struck by the fact that while modern Indians refute “Aryanism”, Allen forces it on them with “Aryanism is inextricably linked to their identity as Hindus and the Vedic roots of their religion, with connotations of supremacy and a sense of entitlement.” This completely ignores the Upanishadic view that all human beings are equal parts of a whole and the fact that central Hindu figures like Mahavishnu and his avatars, Rama and Krishna, and Draupadi, were all very dark, and their beauty is highly praised, far removed from the blond, white “master race” of Aryanism. Charles Allen In sum, no really clear picture of the “Aryans” emerges from Allen’s book beyond the history of “Aryanism”, a recap of various arguable theories about it and that the “Aryans” may be said to have drunk milk and ridden horses.
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