Historical definitions of races in India Quotes

“The image of the "dark-skinned savage" is only imposed on the Vedic evidence with a considerable amount of text-torturing.”

“Wikipedia: Historical definitions of races in India”

“The distinction between Aryan and un-Aryan on which so much has been built seems on the mass of evidence to indicate a cultural rather than a racial difference.”

“The whole edifice of the “racial Aryan”, notorious through its Nazi application but equally popular in British colonial discourse and its Indian copycats, was based on a simple mistranslation.”

“In general, the assumption of racial self- and external identification, as well as the alleged parallel with the English conquest of India for the time of the alleged Indo-Aryan immigration to India, is extremely questionable.”

“The racial theory of Indian civilization was formed in a period after the ending of slavery in Europe and the United States, in the aftermath of which there grew up a racialized division of labour, combined with social segregation on the basis of race.”

“The systematic mistranslation of “dark people” etc. as “the dark-skinned aboriginals subdued by the white Aryan invaders and their caste Apartheid” for almost two centuries is one of the grossest mistakes in scholarship, and extremely rich in consequences.”

“The projection of 19th-century colonialism and of the earlier subjection of the Amerindians by European invaders onto ancient Indian history has provided an illustration or justification to an array of modern political ideologies, all of a more or less sinister or destructive character.”

“That the racial theory of Indian civilization still lingers is a miracle of faith. Is it not time we did away with it?
The first effort to find direct evidence of the physical features of the Indian aborigines in the Sanskrit texts dating from the time of the Big Bang that brought Indian civilization into existence... boiled down to a matter of noses.”

“The racial interpretation of the of the notions light/white and dark/black... must be considered dubious. Where there is sufficient context for interpretation, we find that the notions can at least equally well be read as an ‘ideological’ distinction between the ‘dark/black’ world of the dāsas/dasyus and the ‘light/white’ world of the āryas.””

“The Brahmin… claims to be a representative of the Aryan race and he regards the rest of the Hindus as descendants of the non-Aryans. The theory helps him to establish his kinship with the European races and share their arrogance and their superiority. He likes particularly that part of the theory which makes the Aryan an invader and a conqueror of the non-Aryan races. For it helps him to maintain his overlordship over the non-Brahmins.”

“The fact that racial interpretations arose in the 19th century is not surprising , given the prevalence at the time of quasi-scientific attempts to provide a justification for racially based European imperialism , and the well known scramble of the European powers to divide up the non-European world. Moreover, the British take-over of India seemed to provide a perfect parallel to the assumed take-over of prehistoric India by the invading ‘Aryans’.”

“The theory of the Aryan race set up by Western writers falls to the ground at every point… the theory is based on nothing but pleasing assumptions and inferences based on such assumptions… Not one of these assumptions is borne out by facts… The originators of the Aryan race theory are so eager to establish their case that they have no patience to see what absurdities they land themselves in… The Aryan race theory is so absurd that it ought to have been dead long ago.”

“It is not far-fetched to perceive a metaphorical intention behind the use of words like “black”, similar to that in other languages... When it is said that Agni, the fire, “puts the dark demons to flight”, one should keep in mind that the darkness was thought to be filled with ghosts or ghouls, so that making light frees the atmosphere of their presence. And when Usha, the dawn, is said to chase the “dark skin” or “the black monster” away, it obviously refers to the cover of nightly darkness over the surface of the earth.”

“[R]ace theories conquered the intellectual scene, fitting neatly with the Europe-to-India scenario for the spread of Indo-European. It all fell into place: the Aryans had been white Nordic people who, with their inborn superiority, had developed a culture and technology which allowed them to subdue less advanced races: dark-haired Mediterraneans and West-Asians, and dark-skinned Indians. The linguistic "aryanization" of India by white Aryan invaders from Europe formed a complete case study of all that the upcoming racist worldview stood for.”

“There are a whole series of standard opinions in the Indological literature, which are regarded as expressions of proven research results and are adopted in this capacity from one book to another to this day, without anyone believing that they need to be checked again against the source material and/or in the context of newer research and hypotheses. One of these standard opinions is the view that the population that the Arya encountered when they immigrated to India was radically different from them, especially in terms of their external appearance.”

“These premises developed in response to the colonial need to manipulate the Indians’ perception of their past. The need was felt most strongly from the middle of the nineteenth century onwards, and an elaborate racist framework, in which the interrelationship between race, language and culture was a key element, slowly emerged as an explanation of the ancient Indian historical universe. The measure of its success is obvious from the fact that the Indian nationalist historians left this framework unchallenged, preferring to dispute it only in some comparatively minor matters of detail.”

“Nevertheless a time must come when the Indian mind will shake off the darkness that has fallen upon it, cease to think or hold opinions at second and third hand and reassert its right to judge and enquire in a perfect freedom into the meaning of its own Scriptures. When that day comes we shall, I think, discover that the imposing fabric of Vedic theory is based upon nothing more sound or true than a foundation of loosely massed conjectures. We shall question many established philological myths,—the legend, for instance, of an Aryan invasion of India from the north, the artificial and inimical distinction of Aryan and Dravidian which an erroneous philology has driven like a wedge into the unity of the homogenous Indo-Afghan race; the strange dogma of a “henotheistic” Vedic naturalism; the ingenious and brilliant extravagances of the modern sun and star myth weavers.
Western Philology has converted it [the word arya] into a racial term, an unknown ethnological quantity on which different speculations fix different values....”