The library-cum-office room used by Prof Ramesh C Bhardwaj is testimony of one man’s love for a language. The room has a number of well-used steel almirahs that store hundreds of wornout texts on Sanskrit, grammar, literature and other such.The tall, soft-spoken professor with his greying hair neatly parted at the middle fits in with the ambience of the room. Bhardwaj heads the Sanskrit department at the Delhi University and has spent decades trying to unravel, amongst other things, the linguistics of the Panchatantra.The love of the language must have been the prime reason for the academic deciding to tread the unknown territory of history as well. The Sanskrit professor is heading a team of researchers that has taken it upon itself to correct distortions about the most controversial debate in the framework of ancient India: the Aryan Migration Theory (AMT).The AMT suggests that around 3,500 years ago fair-skinned people called Aryans migrated from central Asia into north India and invaded the darkskinned people known as Dravidians and pushed them down the territory that is modern India.The theory has been opposed for years especially by right-wing groups who say that the idea of an invasion by the Aryans was invented by European scholars such as Max Mueller. Similarly, the professor also says that the Dravidian identity was also conjured up as a counter to the Aryan construct.That the Aryan-Dravidian conflict is a myth has been validated by recent genetic studies as well.But then the Sanskrit expert makes some troublesome claims by asserting that the set of people referred to as Aryans by the European scholars were “indigenous” Sanskrit speakers whose texts date back to 8,000 BC. The professor makes these claims though he does not have any archaeological evidence or other such to back him in terms of historicity.The professor also is not hassled by the idea that over 10,000 years ago, borders would have been shaped and reshaped many a time, making the point about “indigenous” people in terms of the modern nation-state rather problematic.Bhardwaj’s narrative is another instance of identifying ancient India with a Sanskritic narrative and that too without evidence.The idea becomes a bit fuzzy considering that in recent times genetic studies have established and proved beyond doubt that there are tribal communities in India that are 65,000 years old.So even though he has not taken into account the evidence provided by genetic scientists about the antiquity of tribal communities in India, the Sanskrit professor and his team plan to compare available material on the Aryan theory in school textbooks with Sanskrit texts. The team will also make recommendations to the education ministry on correcting the distortions.“We are only trying to correct the wrong history fabricated by the European scholars. The people referred to as Aryans are indigenous people and in fact India has contributed to European culture,” he said.Although Bhardwaj insists that he is not driven by any right-wing ideology, the line adopted by him is popular with most Hindutva groups who blatantly back the existence of an Aryan identity and also say that the Aryans are “indigenous” people.Such debates about Aryans and Dravidians have been doing the rounds incessantly for over the last decade and was a regular feature during the NDA regime which was in power till 2004.However, for all his dedication towards Sanskrit and even the daredevilry shown by Bhardwaj in deciding to play the role of a historian, recent findings in genetics have provided new insights about the subject and now there is better understanding of what antiquity is all about.The Centre for Cellular & Molecular Biology (CCMB), Hyderabad undertook a genetic research project in 2009, which proved that there are tribal settlements in India that are much more ancient than the Sanskrit-speakers as suggested by Bhardwaj. In order to find out about the ancestry of modern Indians, the lab had taken DNA samples from hundreds of volunteers from across 13 states.The genetic research project established that the most ancient settlement of humans in India was about 65,000 years ago. They were people from Africa who had left the continent on account of water shortage. These people who had settled down in Andamans and parts of south India are the present-day tribals such as the Jarawas.So why is the professor putting up unverifiable claims about a Vedic community that’s about 10,000 years old whereas there is clear scientific evidence of tribal communities that are more than six times older?When researchers in India continue to keep the focus on the Aryan-Dravidian problem, they also contribute to the existing negligence and the lack of understanding about the most ancient people of India.Asked why he did not focus on ancient India in terms of tribal communities that were proven to be much older than the said Vedic Age, Bhardwaj said he had not studied genetics and therefore did not understand the said research project by the Hyderabad Laboratory.The Aryan narrative, over the years, also led to an India-centric narrative whereas genetic experts had already established that the story of mankind essentially began with the distress migration off-Africa around 90,000 years ago. Their first stopover was the Andamans and parts of south India.Geneticist Stephen Oppenheimer in his book The Real Eve: Modern Man’s Journey Out of Africa says that all mankind originally came from that continent.Oppenheimer’s research and arguments — backed by genetics — essentially provides an entirely new prism for modern nations to look at their own evolution. Essentially, genetic research suggests that the history of the Indian nation state or any other nation is deeply connected with the first migrations and the basic narrative has to focus on tribal populations and early migrations.The search for the roots would essentially then have to begin with the earliest inhabitants, who naturally are of African origin and are tribals.But the repeated debates over the Aryan-Dravidian theory have only helped maintain a nationalistic narrative and appear rather cut off from the story of mankind. “Now that genetics has established the migration off-Africa, it would be important to understand that those sometimes referred to as primitive and savage are the earliest inhabitants of this geographical territory. Therefore, there has to be some shift in focus when it comes to understanding ancient India and attention should be paid to what the Jarawas and the Sentinelese [tribals] are about,” says Subhadeepta Ray, a sociologist who has specialised in connecting genetics with understanding Indian society.Ray is an assistant professor with the department of sociology, Tezpur University. He has authored a paper ‘Cast(e)ing the Genome: A Sociological Study of Caste in Research Practices of Human Genetics’.According to Ray, the Aryan-Dravidian theory becomes a much lesser idea because modern genetics has provided an entirely new narrative through which history needs to be viewed.“You cannot ignore genetics anymore. But the problem is that historians have not started really getting involved with genetics and though I do see some genetic scientists study history, they too have not become involved with contemporary sociological problems [which would provide better historical insights],” says Ray, adding that this has meant that the narrative of ancient India ignored its most ancient people.“When we start studying the tribal societies closer, we may also need to revisit the word ‘civilisation’ because they have a rich heritage and culture that has remained under-exposed for centuries,” he said.Romila Thapar — one of the foremost historians on ancient India — agreed that contemporary historians and researchers interested in the subject needed to take into account every kind of available evidence before forming their narrative.“Anybody who wants to examine history has to take into account the available texts, linguistics, archaeology, environmental research and genetics.As a historian, you can conduct your own research but you have to factor in evidence provided by all these fields of academics before you arrive at any conclusion. You definitely cannot ignore genetics anymore,” said Thapar.