A great article on Aryan Invasion Thory. A Must Read and Share.

AIT theory over last 2 centuries - how it got developed, - who contributed to it(AIT) and what were vested motives, if any?
The First Pioneers of Indology It may be surprising to learn that the first pioneer in indology was the 12th Century Pope, Honorius IV. The Holy Father encouraged the learning of oriental languages in order to preach Christianity amongst the pagans. AIT is a culmination of study of Indian culture by orientalists for over 100 years. For over 100 years the orientalists from Europe between the period 1700 to 1850 studied the texts and scriptures of Indian religions and interpreted it in thier own way and accroding to their understanding. Fredrich Max Mueller (1823-1900) was born in Dessau and educated in Leipzig, where he learned Sanskrit and translated the Hitopadesa of Pandita Visnu Sarma before coming to England in 1846. Mueller was first commissioned by the East India Company to translate the Rg Veda into English. The company agreed to pay the young Mueller 4 Shillings for each page that was ready to print. He later moved to Oxford where he translated a number of books on Eastern religion. His magnum opus was his series The Sacred Books of the East, a fifty volume work which he began editing in 1875. It goes without saying that by the end of his career, Mueller had amassed a comfortable sum of money. At the time of his death he was venerated by none other than Lokamanya Tilak as Veda-maharishi Moksha-mula Bhatta of Go-tirtha (Oxford). Although Mueller is on record as extoling India's ancient wisdom, his letters (printed in two volumes) tell an entirely different story. When Duke of Argyll was appointed Secretary of State for India in December 1868, Max Mueller wrote to him- "India has been conquered once, but India must be conquered again and that second conquest should be a conquest by education once the ancient religion of India is doomed, and if Christianity does not step in, whose fault will it be?" Mueller may also be credited with the popularization of the aryan racial theory, Writing for the Anthropological Review in 1870, Mueller classified the human race into seven categories on an ascending scale - with the Aborigines on the lowest rung and the "Aryan" type supreme. Max Mueller who, in 1853, introduced the word Arya into the English language as referring a particular race and language. He did this in order to give credibility to his Aryan race theory . AIT may not have been planned in the begining but colonial intellectuals have always wanted to create a class of natives who would look at the world as in the eyes of colonial rules. To rule a country they need an elite community among the natives who would have world view similar to them. To have a world view similar to them(rulers) they either have to be of the same religion/race or have a history which would be common among them. In India they have a difficulty due to unique race and history and they would not find anything common. The only thing that they found common is a caucasian features among natives in some parts of the country whom they found affinity with. After the discovery of Sanskrit in 1830s they figured out some common features with the European languages. From these two common features they have to create a common history which the natives would be able to identify with the white colonial rulers If one reads Tilak and other pre-indepedence authors we see that they identified themselves as 'aryans or causcasians who are long lost brothers and found each other again.' This social affinity towards the white rulers was very crucial to the colonial powers to get support and helped them in creating an elite among the native population. In 1863 the AIT was formed as historical narrative to 'explain' the various nature of the Indian subcontinent including the presence of various 'races' and their various religious customs. IT took from 20-30 years before an generation of native Indians started to beleive in it since it was the world view that the colonail masters looked at them. A system of research and scholarship was funded in Oxford/Cambridge and various universities in India ( 1850s -Madras/Bombay/Calcutta) which created scholars every decade who beleived in AIT. THis created an artifical academic world of AIT and indology who were looked upon as the intellectuals of Indian population and who could converse with the western elite with the same world view. This worldview was encouraged by the western powers also in their universities so that they had similar social group of people who had similar view of AIT and world and were in search of the homeland of Aryans. Indology departments are still funded in western capitals for more than 100-200 years. Germans got caught in this history creation to escape from their pre-aryan world view and made a mess of their adoption. In the process they discovered their nationhood. Indian National Congress party is a class of elite Indians who were educated in the British system and were mostly lawyers. THey wanted to ape the British in their lifestyles and formed an political social group which had similar world view and vision for the country. It was helped by the British to establish and grow as a native elite class which could be used for proxy political governance. They created a political view point which the colonial rulers could manipulate without even being part of that political party. From 1885 when it was created the party took until 1940s to ask for purna swaraj! INC is the party which continued even after independence with set of people who held the same view point about the world. After Independence the propogation of AIT is another story for later post. Education played an important part of the post independence control of the Indian elite along with media control. Conclusion.: AIT was a masterstroke in creating an alternate history for the European as well as a new class of Indian elite who could identify with this history and created a social group which could perpetuate indefinitely for more than 150 years. The original purpose of AIT may not have been what we see today among the academic circles Swami Vivekananda, who possessed both deep scholarship and true spirituality, said more than a century ago: Study Sanskrit, but along with it study Western sciences as well. Learn accuracy, ...study and labor so that the time will come when you can put our history on a scientific basis. ...Now it is for us to strike out an independent path of historical research for ourselves, to study the Vedas and Puranas and the ancient annals (Itihasas) of India, and from them make it your sadhana (disciplined endeavor) to write accurate, sympathetic and soul-inspiring history of India. It is for Indians to write Indian history ... you never cease to labour until you have revived the glorious past of India in the consciousness of the people. That will be the true national education, and with its advancement, a true national spirit will be awakened. More than a century later, this is yet to happen though a few tentative steps are being taken. It will happen only when Indian scholars shake off their inferiority complex and the last vestige of colonial 'scholarship' is rooted out. The sad fact is that after nearly two hundred years Western Indology has still failed to understand India, her culture, her soul or her history. It has progressed little beyond Eurocentric and missionary stereotypes, only adding Marxist, Freudian and other modern stereotypes to these, naively believing that these western ideologies are somehow dramatically enlightening to India and its profound spiritual culture, when they are usually irrelevant or inferior and have already failed in the West. Meanwhile it has discovered little more in the vast treasures of Vedic culture than any primitive culture. Western Indology does not understand the philosophy of India, its emphasis on dharma and karma, liberation and enlightenment, or its great traditions of Yoga and meditation. It does not acknowledge the value of its rishi/yogi culture and its Vedic origin. Nor does it recognize any such higher yogic spiritual tradition as behind any ancient civilizations or behind humanity as a whole. From its perspective, Indian spirituality is a self-serving fantasy hiding what is unscientific, inhumane or archaic. Western Indology and AIT has created a powerful political lobby in India and western country which do not want to leave their well funded domain and space forever.