"Aryan" Race Fight Continues in India

I've been reading about this endless fight for years. Here's more fuel to add to the fire: From SahilOnline.com (Reflection of the Truth) [Hmmm....] Aryan race did not exist, claims Suryanath Kamath S.O. News service, Monday, 14 July 2008: Bangalore: “Indus Valley civilisation and Vedic civilisation are not two different civilisations but the former was only an urbanised version of the latter,” historian Suryanath U. Kamath said here on Sunday. Dr. Kamath, former Director of Karnataka State Gazetteer, was speaking on “Ancient India: Overseas Connections” organised as a part of Mythic Society's centenary year celebrations. Refuting the existence of Aryan race or an invasion by them, he said: “The Vedas speak of a war between light and darkness which was wrongly interpreted by European scholars as a war between light-skinned and dark-skinned people. The term Dravida means 'inhabitants of Tamil Nadu' and not a race, and the term Aryan means 'noble'.” On the Indus Valley civilisation, he said: “There are factual evidences of a river that ran parallel to the west of the Sindhu and this was home to the Vedic civilisation but [river] dried up around 1900 BC which brought an end to the civilisation.” Dr. Kamat spoke extensively about the Indian trade connections with Persia and Rome during the Indus Valley civilisation. “There is a Roman settlement in Puducherry, established for commercial activities around 2,000 years ago. Romans had a penchant for Indian perfumes, diamonds and garments and in return, there was a constant flow of gold into India,” Dr. Kamat said. [Yes - but 2000 years old is a far cry from 4000 years old - the point is - what, exactly? Does a pattern of later trade across a wide area presuppose that the same was true 2000 years before? This may very well be the case, but it certainly isn't stated in the article and cannot be implied from what IS stated there]. He said: “Indian seamen had knowledge of sea routes much before the Western sailors could have, and [they] were also well versed in ship building as we can find description of ships in the Rig Veda. “This is proved by the fact that various artefacts of Harappan civilisation were found in countries as far as Rome and Mexico,” Dr. Kamat said. [No evidence cited to support artifacts in Mexico and Rome; Rome, I can believe but Mexico? When and where?] Dr. Kamat said that the Indian connection with foreign lands was not just limited to trade but also extended to culture. “South-East Asian countries such as Cambodia, Indonesia and the Philippines are largely influenced by Indian culture and we can see such influence in Buddhist Stupas and Hindu temples in these countries,” Dr. Kamath said. [Harappan civilisation existed, according to conventional dating, from about 2600 BCE to about 1900 BCE, and collapsed on itself for reasons that are still in dispute; those people went - somewhere, they didn't all just die off, there's no evidence for massive deaths and burials of the remains as far as I'm aware. That suggests that the surviving Indus/Harrapans migrated out of the areas where the rivers dried up. However, what is the relative timing of the civilizations in these neighboring countries? And does the author mean to imply that those civilizations are a direct result of a supposed mass exodus from a collapsed Indus/Harrapan civilizations?] *********************************************************************************** If you think race relations in the United States are a sticky wicket, you should spend some time reading about race relations in India under the guise of this "Aryan invasion" stuff. As far as I am aware, generally speaking, lighter skinned peoples populated and continue to populate the northern part of the Indian continent; darker skinned peoples populated and continue to populate the southern part of India. And never the twain shall meet...