The whole thing about genetics has been very oriented around “whiteness.” Just as we had the historical supposition that most cultures were created by vigorous Northern races that degenerated after mixture with decadent Southern ones (which conveniently was appropriated by Euro-colonialists).
I do think in simple language. While the AASI seem to be related to the initial Negrito coastal waves that spread across Yemen, Southern Indo-Pak, parts of Malaysia, Melanesia, Papua New Guinea and the Aboriginals (hints of these genes are said to be in the Amazon); it’s important to realise that we are “brown” because of these ancestors.
The Aryans were fair & lovely; the Eastern Anatolian/ Elamitic (Iranian farmers is a misnomer) were probably olive & tanned (related to J2 population sort of look like modern day Caucasians; fair skinned but darkish colourings) but it was the AASI (the Dalit/untouchable) who gave us our swarthier complexions.
Maybe the race movement/ black lives movement in the US is needed in South Asia so that we can love our black ancestors.
It’s interesting Hollywood has an amazing and vibrant black Afram entertainment community. None of the cinemas in Latam and/or South Asian put darker skinned/Dalits front and centre.
color in west was a local adaptation there. Here we are brown, Our local adaptation.
We are brown because of the AASI?
But we aren’t just “brown”. We are all varieties of shades, from European-white to African-black and everything in between. How would a climatic adaptation make us so diverse?
if climate in India would have been like in europe, our color would have been different too.
Forget about the greatest concentration of Aryans in the world; South Asia has the greatest number of indigenous. Whereas these natives peoples’ were pretty much swamped elsewhere in the Subcontinent they had an overwhelming impact on the gene pool. Something to be celebrated!!
Wow, I’m sorry if I helped open some sort of can of worms, in which case, let me try and make some amends to the situation also. I think that while most of the factual elements such as the phenotypic features of AASI, Iran_N, etc. in your post may be somewhat accurate (I’m not knowledgeable enough to evaluate the accuracy systematically), it’s perhaps not correct to draw any ideas of prescriptive importance for the current day based solely on that, and also to compare the situation of India which is quite old with the United States of America which is a very young country. The mixing in both the cases may have happened with similar sorts of source populations (crudely solely going by phenotype), but it happened in India in a very distant past and is more thorough than the case in America. The populations with the highest AASI have Indus_Periphery and/or Steppe_MLBA too. Many Dalit groups seem to have much higher non-AASI proportions than far southern tribal populations and some central Indian tribal populations. Also, in India, there is already positive discrimination in place and mighty figures have risen from Dalit groups like none other than B. R. Ambedkar who was one of the great personalities who drafted the Constitution of India, K. R. Narayanan, an erstwhile President of the Republic of India, Chief Ministers of states like Mayawati Das, etc. India has always been going with the flow (and mostly right kind of it in my personal view) and the goal in my mind is to reduce the differences rather than to create new ones like separate movie traditions, etc.- the large Indian middle class to which I also belong is I think one way to decrease the differences; not to say that Dalits’ or others’ traditions have to be subsumed altogether into some larger entities, just that there has to be some mishmash of all these with new traditions originating from somewhere else taken up also. And even after all these, there is a good amount of chance the differences don’t come down to absolute zero (such as food habits like predominant-vegetarianism vs. predominant-non-vegetarianism along the lines of caste, etc. (I don’t know if this is a certainty but it appears likely that it is a thing))- in which case, tolerance of plurality and absolute penalising of discriminatory tendencies and violence on the basis of caste, etc. should be there. Basically, simple aim and effort towards approaching the basic ideals enshrined in the Constitution of India, and strict adherence to Rule of Law, at least for the time being is what I think is ideal.
Also, it is not even required to mention that it is not at all problematic that movies with all-Dalit or all-Brahmin or all-whatever characters and such are made and enjoyed; it is perhaps not also problematic that movie traditions emerge somewhat organically that deal with separate sections of societies in some way too (the likelihood of such things happening the most organically I doubt- the strongest divisions in Indian cinema for example are along the language and movement (majorly commercial, parallel) lines and not at all along caste or some such lines) but it is not highly desirable in my view that entire movie traditions are purposefully created along caste/ “race” or such lines just for some kind of supposed vengeance or comeuppance or re-assertion, etc. etc. But if happened, that should also be tolerated and subjected to Rule of Law of the country and further steps taken accordingly. Also, I remember reading somewhere that there are some literary traditions in some regional languages that emerged along caste lines (majorly Dalits), so things of the kind already appear to exist (again, as I noted above, too much of a split of anything along the caste, etc. lines is not desirable to me personally). Indian cinema does not have them as far as I know.
Yes but I think the good thing about one drop rule is that African American culture has been hugely influential and reverberating around the world. Had India been a hegemonic hyperpower like the US; would Dalit culture have had as much an impact as Afram culture??
I don’t know; perhaps not. But I doubt a separate Brahmin or a feudal landholder or some such type of subculture culture would have been popular either. I think a popular devotional Hindu type of culture with a penchant for saving a lot of money, some tendency towards engaging in financial corruption, tendency towards exchanging financial gifts when inappropriate, love towards movies and cricket, language-based fanaticism, etc. would have been popular, just as in many other places. One-drop rule has historically not been a very natural thing for India- there are many R1as, R2s, L1s, J2s, etc. in tribal populations as well as Dalits, etc. also and their paternal ancestors have always been staying in those communities for some while. (One-drop rule examples also seem to exist like the Sambandham system of Kerala (if I understood this all correctly) but they appear to be quite rare.)
“One-drop rule has historically not been a very natural thing for India- there are many R1as, R2s, L1s, J2s, etc. in tribal populations as well as Dalits, etc. also and their paternal ancestors have always been staying in those communities for some while.”
That does not make sense, does it? LOL my brain is not working properly. I should stop writing now. Enough embarrassment and awkwardness is enough already lol.
But why should reduce the differences? Why not create parallel ones; why try to play a white man’s/Brahmin’s game..
I guess we are reprising the Booker T Washington and the Dubois debate about the masses versus the talented tenth..
Parallel is perhaps very fine. But it appears to be slightly dangerous in India in that “parallel” may be perceived with the usual higher-than-my-caste-lower-than-my-caste mental distinctions applied on the part of the consumers. In any case, parallel traditions are very fine, I think. One of the major goals, I think, is to strive for complete equality before law, both in action and thought.
There is no brahmins game or any other game, there is truth. That is it.
Zachary Latif I am a big fan of Booker T Washington and to a lesser degree Dubois. Can I write an article about them and post modernism and how post modernism has insulted and delegitimized the great elders of the African American community and done great harm to the African American community.
And perhaps why because of this other “darkies” and faiths should be very careful about allowing post modernism to do this damage to their own people?
Do you think Dubois was right about the talented tenth? Dubois’ writings appears from my point of view to make a case for Varnas.
I don’t even know about post modernism lol so write whatever you want bud
@Mr. Latif
“The Aryans were fair & lovely; the Eastern Anatolian/ Elamitic (Iranian farmers is a misnomer) were probably olive & tanned (related to J2 population sort of look like modern day Caucasians; fair skinned but darkish colourings) but it was the AASI (the Dalit/untouchable) who gave us our swarthier complexions.”
With all due respect, there are some factual inaccuraces in this statement.
You are right about the Aryans. 35-25% Aryan genetic ancestry is why many Nuristanis, Kalasha, and Pathan individuals are so fair-skinned and European-looking. Like these Nuristani-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qL8DjyRuFs4
But, you are very much wrong about the Elamitic farmers. No modern population of the Caucasus was even remotely close to being as dark as them.
We have Elamitic farmer dna samples (“Iran_N”), and we have their data at genes involved in skin-color. Long story short, they were a very dark bunch.
Certainly not as dark as AASI, who must have been “black”, but Elamitic farmers were definitely medium to dark brown.
If more evidence is needed, the modern populations genetically closest to Elamitic are Brahui and Balochi from Pakistan. Even they have Aryan ancestry, and the AASI element is extremely weak. But despite some minor Aryan admixture, and so little AASI that it has zero effect on their physical appearance, we all know that Balochi are very dark skinned.
Have a look at this guy
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cwi-xFBiaI4
He is Iranian Baloch, but he looks Indian.
In fact, forget Baloch. Even many Persian Iranians look vaguely Indian and “Brown”, even though they have no AASI. In the video, the Persian Iranian standing up looks kinda South Asian.
Basically, a huge part of the swarthy South Asian phenotype is owed to Elamitic farmers, not to AASI, and this swarthy Indian phenotype overlaps with the Caucasoid phenotype of Iran.
Also, AASI are related to East Asians, even if they superficially resemble Africans. South Indians are almost 50/50 Caucasoid and AASI.
Also, just a thought I had. You don’t look Indian, at all. You look like an Iranian. Many Iranians I’ve seen in real life are much darker and more Indian-looking then you.
Oh sorry my mistake – yes I succumbed to Persian psychosis in my phenotypical mischaracterisation..
Great handle btw!
I would argue that the last outpost of a remnant AASI culture is Sri Lanka.
One of the main reasons being that crossing the sea was loss of caste. So no real Brahamin/Kshatriya/Vaisya communities.
Society and culture does not really resemble even South India, its more egalitarian and less structured.
Our music is drums and many of them. Dance is linked to Yak (as in Yakkha) Thovil.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QOrVQBjrj9o
The Max Muller generation were ardent fans of Sinhala Arya antecedents. Thats contrary to all evidence from the Mahavamsa/Culvamsa, one of the longest continuous histories (note continuous). The Culvamasa does state the Arya as the enemy.
The younger generation (non westernized) is more prone to embrace the black and ancient roots and incorporate the old old drums and dance.
Interesting – yes Sri Lankan Tamils abroad have so much more swag than anywhere else..
But the Singhalese speak a language close to Gujarati?
Grammatical Sinhalese is derived from Pali.
Spoken Sinhala is mix of many words, Tamil, Portuguese and other languages.
Gujarati/ Marathi is incidental, Pali/Sanskrit words.
The Tamil swag is from War refugee, and living in council estates in the US ( e.g. MIA the singer). Plus the LTTE operated gangs in Canada and the UK.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sinhalese_language