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There is one remote period of history, or prehistory, which, in spite of its remoteness, has come to acquire a major propaganda-value for communists and their ilk – the period of the so-called ‘Aryan Invasion of India’. A race of people, called the ‘Aryans’, is supposed to have invaded India somewhere around 2000-1500 BC from the north-west. These Aryans, after centuries of warfare and bloodshed, are supposed to have destroyed, or driven south-wards, or subjugated and absorbed (as lower castes) most of the natives in the north of the ‘subcontinent’, and then themselves occupied the northern areas. Originally formulated by European scholars, mainly for imperialistic reasons, this theory has been perfected by Indian Leftists into a powerful weapon to be used against Indian nationalism.

Any history of Khilafat -Non-co-operation movement which leaves out the role of the Moplahs in the horrible genocide of Hindus can never be taken as an authentic historical narrative. Thus, in the official historiography that we have since Nehru’s days, the dominant view is that India’s struggle for independence was primarily non-violent and it was thus entirely Gandhian

Daniel Pipes is the author of five books on the Middle East, including The Long Shadow: Culture and Politics in the Middle East and In the Path of God: Islam and Political Power. He has written over 80 magazine and journal pieces and is the editor of ORBIS, the Foreign Policy Research Institute’s quarterly journal of world affairs. He also served in three positions at the Department of State