Durga Puja is celebrated with great jest not only among Bengalis but among majority of Hindus ranging across north to south and east to west. These are the nine days of festivities. It is a social event as much as a religious one. The music, dancing, and art displayed and performed during the puja play an integral part in connecting people in Bengal and across India.
Mantras are accompanied by the drumbeats, fragrance of incense sticks and flowers. The ten-armed goddess Durga riding a majestic lion slaying Mahishasur with her trident. It is the festival which marks the victory of good over evil.
But there is a breed of “so-called intellectuals” those who give Durga Puja a twist for their vicious gains. For them, it is a symbol of oppression. The narrative is that Mahishasura was a just and valiant defender of a buffalo rearing tribe, which is equated with the Yadavs of today. The Aryans were unable to defeat him so they hired Durga to seduce and kill Mahishasura through treachery. The Aryans committed a large scale massacre on the tenth day which is known as Vijayadashami. There is ‘Mahishasur martyrdom day’ that is celebrated in Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi dedicated to death of Mahishasur. There is not one or two instances where left has displayed Hindu phobia. It’s hatred for Hindus, and their narrative must be challenged.
Aryan Invasion – a myth
Left often uses Aryan invasion to project that the Aryans were foreigners who enslaved the indigenous people. It’s a bullet that these intellectuals fire each time whatever may be the cause. Aryan invasion theory is a sword and shield of the left parties. This is evident in case of Durga Puja also in which Mahishasur is projected as the tribal and goddess Durga who assists the Aryans in defeating the tribals.
The narrative on which these intellectuals build up their case is a lie. The fact of the matter is that Aryan Invasion probably never happened and there are reasons behind this. One main reason is that there is no primary evidence. No monuments to any heroes of such invasions have been excavated, no related cemeteries unearthed, no battle fields identified in relation to the theory. It is important to examine the social political implication of Aryan Invasion theory.
First, it keeps the Hindus divided into Northern Aryan and southern Dravidian. Therefore, preventing them to unite and still acts as a lubricant for social tensions.
Second, it gave the British an excuse in their conquest of India. They could claim to be doing only what the Aryan ancestors of the Hindus had previously done millennia ago.
Third, it served to make Vedic culture later than and possibly derived from Middle Eastern cultures. With the proximity and relationship of the latter with the Bible and Christianity, this kept the Hindu religion as a sidelight to the development of religion and civilization to the West.
Fourth, it allowed the sciences of India to be given a Greek basis, as any Vedic basis was largely disqualified by the primitive nature of the Vedic culture.
This served a social, political and economical purpose of domination, proving the superiority of Western culture and religion. It made the Hindus feel that their culture was not the great thing that their sages and ancestors had said it was. It made Hindus feel ashamed of their culture – that its basis was neither historical nor scientific. It made them feel that the main line of civilization was developed first in the Middle East and then in Europe and that the culture of India was peripheral and secondary to the real development of world culture.
In other words, the reasons of Aryan Invasion theory were neither literary nor archaeological but political to divide and discredit the Hindus. This political tool is now used by the left intellectuals and pseudo-liberals.
Who is Durga?
No other religion has a feminine godhead as Hinduism have. The Goddess is celebrated in every form, aspect and quality, through music, art, ritual, mantra and meditation. She is honoured in women, the Earth, nature and the transcendent beyond all expression. Her worship is full of splendour, delight, mystery and wonder. Durga means she who takes us beyond all difficulties. India as a sublime culture and profound civilization is the gift of Ma Durga.
Durga is the Goddess who personifies India as a whole and its incredible vitality, from her presence in village shrines to her representation of the highest yogic spirituality. Bharat Mata is Durga with her imperious lion. She was the image behind India’s independence movement, which worked through her inspiration, such as Sri Aurobindo so eloquently lauded.
As Mahishasura Mardini, Durga slays Mahishasura, the personification of ignorance, darkness and tamas. Vijayadashami is her glorious tenth day of victory, after displaying her nine magnificent forms, ending with Siddhidatri, her highest blessing aspect who grants all boons and accomplishments. This nine day dynamic display of Shakti takes us to a new vision and unlimited horizon on the culminating tenth day.
Ma Durga as the divine mother can guide humanity into a new era of peace and happiness. But she does so by first eliminating the powers of darkness, not by compromising with them, much less by consoling or appeasing them. Ma Kali arises as her martial aspect, dissolving entrenched old karmas, compulsions and attachments that bind us to adharma, to unfold a new creation.
The left liberals project dalits, tribals, backwards as dark skinned ugly people and Aryans as fair, strong-built majestic who use force to oppress the former. When Durga transforms to Kali she is dark skinned and not fair. So does she convert from Aryan to tribal? Does she becomes a victim of Aryan invasion? Such baseless is the logic of these so called intellectuals.
Karl Marx once said religion is the opium for masses. The hypocrisy is that in the name of communism the left intellectuals use this ‘opium’ with adulteration for their selfish gains. In India they use different narratives to degrade Hinduism and promote Hindu phobia in the name of Brahmanism. Such narratives must not go unchallenged and must be reprimanded with logic and reason which is scarce in the pseudo-liberals/left intellectuals.
Source: The myth of Aryan Invasion by David Frawley
