Koenraad Elst

Koenraad Elst (born 7 August 1959) is a Belgian orientalist and Indologist known for his writings on comparative religion, Hindu-Muslim relations and Indian history.

Elst was born to a Flemish Catholic family. Some of his family members were Christian missionaries. He graduated in Indology, Sinology and Philosophy at the Catholic University of Leuven. Around that time, Elst became interested in Flemish nationalism. Between 1988 and 1992, Elst was at the Banaras Hindu University. In 1999, he received a Ph.D. from the Catholic University of Leuven. His doctoral dissertation on Hindu revivalism was published as Decolonizing the Hindu Mind.

Elst, known for his support for the Out of India theory related to Indo-Aryan migration, has also written about multiculturalism, language policy issues, ancient Chinese philosophy and history, and comparative religion. Elst became identified with Hindutva politics during the 1990s, following his support for the Bharatiya Janata Party's position on the Ram Janmabhoomi temple in Ayodhya and in parallel with the BJP's rise to prominence on the national stage.

In two books, Update on the Aryan Invasion Debate (1999) and Asterisk in Bhāropīyasthān (2007), Elst has written in support of Out of India, a fringe theory that argues against the academically accepted view that Indo-Aryan migrations into India in the second millennium BCE brought a proto-Indo-European language with them. Elst argues that the migration went the other way and that Aryans indigenous to India migrated out of India, taking Indo-European languages to the middle east and Europe. Elst is one of the few supporters of that theory who uses paleolinguistics in support of the Out of India theory. The Out of India theory is considered to be an extreme view of the origin of the Indo-European family of languages and Elst is thought to be one of its leading proponents.

According to Elst, the linguistic data are a soft type of evidence and are compatible with a variety of scenarios, and the dominant linguistic theories turn out to be compatible with an out-of-India scenario for Indo-European expansion. He notes that the substratum data are not in conflict with an Indo-European homeland in India.

Elst is known to be sympathetic to Hindutva, a Hindu nationalist movement. In Ram Janmabhoomi vs Babri Masjid, Elst makes the case for an enduring historical tradition associating the Ram Janmabhoomi site with the birthplace of Rama, the Hindu god/king. The book, which was published by Voice of India, a publication house devoted to furthering the Hindu cause, brought attention and praise for Elst from L. K. Advani, the leader of the Bharatiya Janata Party.

Elst's work has drawn both praise and criticism. David Frawley called his work on Ayodhya "definitive", K. D. Sethna regarded it as "absolutely the last word". Paul Beliën described him as "one of Belgium's best orientalists", while the anthropologist Thomas Blom Hansen described Elst as a "Belgian Catholic of a radical anti-Muslim persuasion who tries to make himself useful as a 'fellow traveller' of the Hindu nationalist movement", while the historian Sarvepalli Gopal called Elst "a Catholic practitioner of polemics" who "fights the Crusades all over again on Indian soil". The social theorist Ashis Nandy criticized the alleged dishonesty and moral vacuity of Elst.

Books

(Sorted chronologically)

• Ram Janmabhoomi vs. Babri Masjid. A Case Study in Hindu-Muslim Conflict. Voice of India, Delhi 1990. (A large part of this book is included in Vinay Chandra Mishra and Parmanand Singh, eds.: Ram Janmabhoomi Babri Masjid, Historical Documents, Legal Opinions & Judgments, Bar Council of India Trust, Delhi 1991.)
• Ayodhya and After: Issues Before Hindu Society, 1991.
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• Update on the Aryan Invasion Debate Aditya Prakashan (1999) ISBN 81-86471-77-4
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• The Saffron Swastika - The Notion of Hindu Fascism. (2001) ISBN 81-85990-69-7
•   (transl: Pourquoi j’ai tué Gandhi, examen critique de la défense de Nathuram Godse par Koenraad Elst, Les Belles Lettres)
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• Ayodhya, The Finale - Science versus Secularism the Excavations Debate (2003). Voice of India. ISBN 81-85990-77-8
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• The Problem with Secularism (Voice of India 2007)
• The Argumentative Hindu. Essays by an Unaffiliated Orientalist (Aditya Prakashan 2012)

In Dutch

• Het boek bij het Boek (“The companion book to the Book”, Waregem 2009)
• The India chapter in Wim Van Rooy & Sam Van Rooy, eds.: De islam. Kritische essays over een politieke religie (“Islam: Critical Essays on a Political Religion”), ASP, Brussels 2010.
• De donkere zijde van het boeddhisme (“The Dark Side of Buddhism”, Mens & Cultuur, Ghent 2010)
• Heidendom in India: hindoeïsme en christendom, dialoog tussen vreemden (“Paganism in India: Hindus and Christians, Dialogue between Strangers”, Mens & Cultuur, Ghent 2014):