We are all Aryans now

Last year I contributed a chapter to a book soon to be published in India, Which of Us are Aryans? In answer to the question, the straightforward answer is that almost all of us are Aryans. That is, the thin but persistent layer of Indo-Aryan (“steppe”) ancestry is present across the subcontinent. In higher fractions among Brahmins and Kshatriyas than in Dalits, in the northwest than the southeast, and among Indo-European speakers than Dravidians. But this ancestral component and its cultural correlates are found across southern Asia.

Secondarily, there has been some discussion about the negative valence in the West about the term “Aryans.” In particular, its “cultural appropriation” by German Nazis by way of Theosophy and various spiritual and quasi-spiritual movements in the early 20th century.

As an American to see the word “Aryan” bandied about like this is strange and a bit uncomfortable. But there are now more than 1 billion Indians, so I don’t believe we in the West are a position dictate in terms of the lexicon that we borrowed from Indians in the first place, often without clear attribution (most Americans and Europeans would be surprised that “Aryan” is an Indian and Iranian term).

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Saurav
Saurav
5 years ago

“That is, the thin but persistent layer of Indo-Aryan (“steppe”) ancestry is present across the subcontinent. ”

Even in the Dravidians? Oh my Lemuria 😛

Saurav
Saurav
5 years ago
Reply to  Razib Khan

Periyar might be (literally) turning in his grave

Vijay
Vijay
5 years ago
Reply to  Saurav

This has been argued in a hundred fora with a million people, and the educated diaspora of india has not changed over the years….

Periyar was not the one who opposed mixing with lower castes, not against teaching the sudras, the women and everyone except the upper castes. The Aryas of his mind where those that excluded the others. In any event, a person who is more knowledgeable of Indian history writes

“When we assess our heritage, we often tend to downplay the fact that rationality and skepticism was very much a part of early Indian thought. This was not limited to Carvaka/Lokayata thinkers, but is also clear from other schools of philosophy, as indeed it is noticeable from Buddhist and Jain thought. We have inherited a tradition of questioning which was not limited to philosophical thought—-”

Questioning the established is the point here, not Periyar having R1A1a or not.

Vijay
Vijay
5 years ago
Reply to  Saurav

Oh, for god’s sake and for the millionth time, Dravidian represents languages; Aryan or Indo-european may or may not represent both the steppe wanderers and their languages they carried. The equivalent to Aryan-Iranian Farmer admixture is the Iranian Farmer-AASI admixture. There is no one who is purely AASI or Iranian farmer or Aryan left in India. The two admixtures happened 3500-4000 years ago, and expecting any one left that belong to the individual groups. Even before the whole genome genetics proved the point, archaeology, Y-DNA and linguistics pointed out the High Zagros Plateau- Mehrgarh-IVC-Neolithic deccan plateau Indian connections. It is not like whole genome studies came up everything. It just follows what Archaelogy and linguistics have guesstimated for 50 years. It was the whole genome studies that sealed all of this. Gimbutas, Mallory and Anthony laid out the IE expansion from some 50 years ago, albeit with errors.

Nobody in the south even talks Lemuria. Even the TN government is looking at relationship of Proto-Tamil with proto-Dravidian language; or remnants of IVC religious or symbols in Tamil.

Vijay
Vijay
5 years ago
Reply to  Saurav

Oh, for god’s sake and for the millionth time, Dravidian represents languages; Aryan or Indo-european may or may not represent both the steppe wanderers and their languages they carried. The equivalent to Aryan-Iranian Farmer admixture is the Iranian Farmer-AASI admixture. There is no one who is purely AASI or Iranian farmer or Aryan left in India. The two admixtures happened 3500-4000 years ago, and expecting any one left that belong to the individual groups. Even before the whole genome genetics proved the point, archaeology, Y-DNA and linguistics pointed out the High Zagros Plateau- Mehrgarh-IVC-Neolithic deccan plateau Indian connections. It is not like whole genome studies came up everything. It just follows what Archaelogy and linguistics have guesstimated for 50 years. It was the whole genome studies that sealed all of this. Gimbutas, Mallory and Anthony laid out the IE expansion from some 50 years ago, albeit with errors.

Nobody in the south even talks Lemuria. Even the TN government is looking at relationship of Proto-Tamil with proto-Dravidian language; or remnants of IVC religious or symbols in Tamil.

Saurav
Saurav
5 years ago
Reply to  Vijay

Yes of course Dravidian had never ever meant anything remotely related to ethnicity. Of course.

Vijay
Vijay
5 years ago
Reply to  Saurav

Har har. Inside humor. The leader of the DRAVIDA munnetra kazhagam, muthuvel karunanidhi, has to kill self, because he carries R1A. Which became apparent day before yesterday.

Karan
Karan
5 years ago
Reply to  Saurav

The modern term ‘Dravidian’ is not the same as the historical term ‘Dravida’. The Tamils called themselves Tamilar not Dravida in the pre-colonial period . In contrast, the term Arya was used as a self ethnonym historically.

VijayVan
5 years ago
Reply to  Saurav

Not true. In pre-modern period, the Pancha Dravida Brahmins comprised those from 4 southern states as well as from Maharashtra and Gujarat. This is the closest you can get to Dravidian ethnicity. Some Iyer sub castes are named Dravidas. Pancha Dravida in contrast to Pancha Gouda.

AnAn
AnAn
5 years ago
Reply to  Vijay

Many Hindus talk of Kumari Kandam. Is Kumari Kandam the same as Lemuria?

I find Tamil Nadu to be the most Hindu religious part of India.

VijayVan
5 years ago
Reply to  Vijay

\Nobody in the south even talks Lemuria. Even the TN government\
Let us not conflate Tamilnadu with `south` . Lemuria Tamil is at the heart of the ideology of DK and DMK. The man who promoted Lemurian Tamil , Gnanamuthu Devaneyan is a culture hero for dravidan movement, and he adorns an Indian stamp. If you say Lemuria is rubbish you can’t get ahead in Dravidian politics or even in Tamil academia.

M. Karunanidhi just before his death.
Mr. Karunanidhi said that though a proper history of the Dravidian race was not yet written, archaeologists and linguists of foreign countries opined that the Dravidian civilisation was at least 3,000 years old. “This is based on researches on Lemuria, the Indus Valley Civilization and the Tamil language

Mr. Karunanidhi also recalled his speech at Nagercoil in Kanyakumari district, stressing that Dravidians were descendants of a race that lived in Lemuria, lakhs of years ago.

He said the ancient Tamils’ origin could be traced to Lemuria..”

https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/tamil-nadu/ldquoRamarsquos-birthplace-traced-but-not-Raja-Rajarsquos-memorialrdquo/article15767781.ece

Lemuria may be embarrasing for Tamils to talk about in non-Tamil fora, but the fact is it is held as a core belief and any criticism of Lemuria or DEvaneyan invites wrath

VijayVan
5 years ago
Reply to  Vijay

Another Dravidian stalwart

https://www.rediff.com/news/1999/jan/28mdmk.htm

“He said historians and anthropologists the world over had concluded that the submerged continent Lemuria, the cradle of human race, had now been identified as Kanyakumari. The people inhabiting this landscape spoke Tamil.”

Dravidian movement has made a career promoting Lemuria and been in power for 60 years, why should they give up now?

VijayVan
5 years ago
Reply to  Vijay

/Dravidian represents languages/

True statement from modern linguistic point of view.

OTOH , political and social movements don´t care for scientific and linguistic niceties and mobilise peple under any word that can ‘sell’ .

And they inject people with strong ideas of `dravidian`.

Mayuresh Madhav Kelkar
Mayuresh Madhav Kelkar
5 years ago

Tony says we are ALL immigrants

Romu says we are ALL “arians”

I say I am getting too old for this.

उद्ररुहैन्वीय

Apologies for being a little pedantic, but “Arya” is not Iranic, but a Sanskrit word.

The Iranic term is airiia.

Mayuresh Madhav Kelkar
Mayuresh Madhav Kelkar
5 years ago

[no spamming my posts]

Mayuresh Madhav Kelkar
Mayuresh Madhav Kelkar
5 years ago

Not a problem boss.

Mayuresh Madhav Kelkar
Mayuresh Madhav Kelkar
5 years ago

Please let the list know that K. Elst is coming out with a new one too.

https://www.amazon.com/Still-Trace-Aryan-Invasion-Indo-European/dp/8173056048

It must be the election season. Its all too political now.
Best wishes.
Sincerely,

Mayuresh

Snake Charmer
Snake Charmer
5 years ago

I guess a counter argument can also be made that we are all Dalits. From whatever I have understood from these blogs on Indians genetics, the AASI component, which is supposedly the most important marker of Dalit/tribal ethnicity, is present in varying levels in all Hindu castes. The highest caste Brahmins, the bluest blooded Rajput royal, and everyone across the length and breadth of India carries it in their veins.

Just a question of how you look at the glass. Half filled or half empty.

And just when I thought we are done with the obsessive compulsive fetish with the bloodlines, here comes another article to take us back to square one.

AnAn
AnAn
5 years ago
Reply to  Razib Khan

Razib, is it possible that Arya culture derives from AASI? This is what many Indian scholars appear to believe.

As you are aware, carbon samples were taken from the Göbekli Tepe pyramid in Java Indonesia. The samples dated from between 13 K and 28 K years ago.

My hope is that the study of Göbekli Tepe might unlock what Arya culture was back then.

gringojay
gringojay
5 years ago
Reply to  AnAn

Hi AnAn, – Since I have seen you refer to Gobekli Tepe in several comment threads it should be known the site is in what is now south east Turkey. And the age may not be as old as most reports cite.

The C14 dating was done by testing 2 kinds of material. The scientist Schmidt tested fill dug from around the buried structures; he wrote of those C14 results: “… it has not yet been possible to show which building layer can be precisely dated.”

The other C14 was done on unearthed pillars; more specifically on plaster samples taken from those pillars. The plaster tested also had some loam in it, which can absorb carbon; meaning that while buried the pillar plaster was in direct contact with fill carbon (which creates the same issue as potential C14 fill contamination.)

If there has been more recent C14 dating than Schmidt’s (2000?) I do not know. My understanding is that most reports claim Gobekli Tepe ruins date back to 12,000 (12 K) to 10,000 (10K) years ago based on Schmidt’s plaster C14 dating.

AnAn
AnAn
5 years ago
Reply to  gringojay

gringajay I meant Gunung Padang in Java. An inversion of names 🙁

My understanding of Gobekli Tepe is it is post flood or circa 9,500 BC.

AnAn
AnAn
5 years ago
Reply to  Razib Khan

Are the Ashvins associated with the stars Pollux and Castor in ancient eastern texts? I don’t know, which is why I am asking.

The Ashvins, I thought, were a later addition according to the Vedic narratives.

gringojay
gringojay
5 years ago
Reply to  AnAn

Ashvin twins have a mortal father & a god of the sky father as I understand them. This is like the mortal Castor (he dies) whose father was the king Tyndareus (married to Leida) & the immortal Pollux whose father was the god Zeus (in the guise of a swan who impregnated Leida).

Castor & Pollux were fighters, horsemen, rescuers & protectors of sailors. There are stories of later persons prone to anger being nicknamed Castor, since he was the more rash/aggressive/warlike twin.

Castor & Pollux were said to be Argonaut crew members in the epic of Jason & the Golden Fleece. Their cult (Temple dates from ~2.1 K years ago) did include faith healing, although apparently less so than their fellow Argonaut voyager Asklepeios, the physician. Ashvins have more specific physician lore, as far as I have seen in translation.

AnAn
AnAn
5 years ago
Reply to  gringojay

I am not asking about the narrative stories which I have heard. But rather if the Ashwin twins are associated with these two particular stars.

Many Sanskrit names (sages, saints, forces of nature) are associated with specific stars.

When I try to understand Egyptian or Sumerian stories I try to link the particular stars for beings/deities between Egypt and Sumeria and Arya.

For example Jupitor (in Roman) = Brihaspati (in Arya) = Marduk (in Sumeria)

Astrology, stars, deities, beings, forces of nature and deeply linked across the ancient world.

Milan Todorovic
Milan Todorovic
5 years ago
Reply to  gringojay

Yavan is a Serbian god of the day, light. Later, Romans replicated him as Jupiter. Arion is the god of hunting (Aryans got their name from him). People from the East sometimes called Aryans also as Yavans. Indra is an old Serbian deity, Mitra (based on White and Black God) was brought to SA by Aryans and later returned to Europe with slightly changed meaning.

Snake Charmer
Snake Charmer
5 years ago
Reply to  Razib Khan

Actually it is in respect to culture that the rupture between India and the “Aryan” cousin nations of West is decidedly complete. Our Aryan cousins now follow a Semetic God and more likely to remember the myths of Adam and Eve than that of the Gemini twins.

And by the way, Hindu women in rural Sindh (Cholistan desert) still wear the full arm length bangles, like the girls in Mohendojaro did 5k years ago. So fashion has certainly survived 🙂

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PsVDmbjkGtk/T-DN6Zr51tI/AAAAAAAAAQ0/sOBWeKeS9qs/s1600/Dancing+Girl+.jpg

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sbarrkum
5 years ago
Reply to  Razib Khan

Razib says
some stuff that is south asian culturally probably does derive from AASI. but we don’t know what.

I would think there is much AASI cultural stuff still around.

The Eastern Coastal Belt around India, Southern Sri Lanka, Eastern India (Orissa), Kerala. The supposedly migratory route of the first wave out of africa.

So some cultural stuff (I think) are from AASI

a) Matriarchal and loose sexual attachments
b) Music and Dance

So to music and dance.

Traditional Sri Lankan music was only drums. So according to modern music theory, rhythm and no melody.

One example, Yak Natum.

Yak Natum. The English Translation is Yak (Devil) Natum (Dance).
Is it the dance of the Yaksha, the original peoples of Sri Lanka.

The similarity to African music (eg Mali) is just too coincidental
a) Dance steps
b) Music (just drums and breaks, not melodic).
Growing up the Buddhist Temple drums just sounded like noise.
I love those drums now (not at 11pm)
Like Cheese its an acquired taste.
c) The Shamanism much like Africa

http://sbarrkum.blogspot.com/2011/01/galle-heliwela-exorcism-and-yak-natum.html

http://sbarrkum.blogspot.com/2011/01/babalu-aye-deity-and-dance-cuba-and.html

AnAn
AnAn
5 years ago
Reply to  Snake Charmer

Snake Charmer, many Hindus think that Arya culture comes from the ancient AASI people. With R1 being a later infusion into Arya culture.

What are your thoughts on this possibility?

AnAn
AnAn
5 years ago
Reply to  Razib Khan

Munda = Adivasi?

Valmiki who wrote the Ramayana was Adivasi.

Do you think the Adivasi learned Arya philosophy from R1 people? [Versus the other way around?]

What is shanidar?

Saurav
Saurav
5 years ago
Reply to  Snake Charmer

“I guess a counter argument can also be made that we are all Dalits. ”

I propose we are all Dravidians. I mean why should Periyar have all the fun. 😛

Also feel that the small sliver of R1A1 in our pure lemurians must be from those impure punjabi girls (similar to current day Bollywood starlets), who must have come from the north and enticed them. Those cunning aryans who periyar warned us about.

Snake Charmer
Snake Charmer
5 years ago
Reply to  Razib Khan

“if you got R1a1a those aren’t “girls” bro….”

Punjabi girls are so hairy, I won’t be so sure that they don’t carry Y chromosome 🙂

Saurav
Saurav
5 years ago
Reply to  Razib Khan

Details! Details!
Come on don’t be a spoil sport. I have a good thing going here now. Just back me up will u

Milan Todorovic
Milan Todorovic
5 years ago

I love you all R1Ans brothers. And all XXXns. All browns. And yellow. And united benettons. Open up your mind. Why be obsessed with West, they have nothing to do with this. Slapsy is right, ‘Aryans’ is a Serbian word. Rethink taxonomy. What is Indo-European (formerly Indo-German)? Balto-Slavs? Anatolians? Polish? Indo-Aryans are Aryans who came to India. What about all other Aryans (China, Tibet, Turan…). Read Chinese. Although they call them ‘northern people’ they know that two dynasties were founded by them, they know that they brought horses and metallurgy. There is no consensus in India if Aryans existed at all, how can know what was the name of Aryan territory from Aral Sea to Serendib. Some count local horses’ ribs to prove that Aryans did not exist. For toponyms and tribes names no one wants to know. Language? Mythology? We are waiting for one brave brown (wo)man. He/she is maybe among BP readers right now.

Mayuresh Madhav Kelkar
Mayuresh Madhav Kelkar
5 years ago

Giving genetics a shot for the first time, so pardon any errors.

https://www.amphilsoc.org/sites/default/files/2018-08/attachments/Reich.pdf

“I (Reich) also wanted to speak a little bit more broadly on the question of
steppe-related ancestry in India. Steppe ancestry is confidently inferred
to exist in almost every Indian group of Indo-European speakers
without exception (Figure 16). It is higher in groups that speak
Indo-European languages consistent with the idea of a Yamnaya affinity
to Indo-European languages. ”

Looking at Figure 16, the Kalash do have the highest orange color but then the gradient does not hold up properly to conclude linguistic migrations. Gujaratis have higher orange than their northerly neighbors Punjabis . Similarly the Sindhis are more orange than the Baluchis to their north.

comment image

The Pakhtuns way up north are as orange as Sindhis by passing the Punjabis and the Baluchis in between.

The Burusho’s are unexpectedly QUITE orange speaking a language isolate and supposedly have been pushed by ORANGE colored Indo Aryans in an AIT/AMT scenario.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burusho_people

“Their language, Burushaski, has been classified as a language isolate.[7] Although their origins are unknown, it is likely that the Burusho people “were indigenous to northwestern India (current day Pakistan) and were pushed into their present homeland by the movements of the Indo-Aryans,” who migrated to the subcontinent in 1800 B.C.[8]”

If Burushos were indigenous to current day Pakistan so was orange (steppe ancestry) indigenous to Pakistan by extension?

Quoting Reich again:

“This shows that a large fraction of the male ancestry of India is related to that in Eastern Europe within the last 5,000–7,000 years. ”

Reich only says they are related without specifically referring to directional movements. Moreover, the lower date is 1500 year prior to the conventional IA migrations of 1500 BCE.

“And yet popular models of the steppe hypothesis of Indo-European
language origins also do NOT seem compatible with the data in some
ways, as shown in Figure 17 (emphasis added).”

So apparently genetics does not support the standard family model as drawn by Anthony and Ringe?

And about India specifically

“Often in the story told with the steppe
hypothesis, the Yamnaya give rise to later groups called the Sintashta
and Andronovo that then contributed to India. But genetic data from
those populations SO FAR CALL INTO QUESTION that model, as they do not
work statistically as sources of ancestry in India (emphasis added).”

BMAC is conspicuous only by its absence. Besides there is already a built in circularity in all this stuff. I just googled “what steppe ancestry means” and came up with the following:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-018-29914-5

“From around 4,000 to 2,000 BC the forest-steppe north-western Pontic region was occupied by people who shared a nomadic lifestyle, pastoral economy and barrow burial rituals. It has been shown that these groups, especially those associated with the Yamnaya culture, played an important role in shaping the gene pool of Bronze Age Europeans, which extends into present-day patterns of genetic variation in Europe. ”

Since there are no bronze documents from Europe at all, the orange color could theoretically be attributed to any of the six language families currently spoken in South Asia. Moreover, looking at Reich’s Figure 15 this steppe ancestry in bronze age Yamanya was itself PRECEDED by an earlier farming ancestry (EEF) coming out of somewhere in Iran or even Pakistan?

Mayuresh Madhav Kelkar
Mayuresh Madhav Kelkar
5 years ago

“you don’t know what you are talking about”

That is possible particularly with genetics stuff.

“don’t post another link-spam again”

That is not fair. It took more than an hour to write that post after reading the Reich ( a well known geneticists and your good friend or colleague? ) article in detail.

“In answer to the question, the straightforward answer is that almost all of us are Aryans. That is, the thin but persistent layer of Indo-Aryan (“steppe”) ancestry is present across the subcontinent.”

The sentiment is appreciated. There is so much backbiting in India today about this stuff. We are in agreement that the steppe ancestry should not incense some groups as it has in all these debates. Where we disagree is the steppe=Indo Aryan part. Thank you for allowing my posts to go through and running a very informative blog.

td
td
5 years ago

“In higher fractions among Brahmins and Kshatriyas” — IMO, The correct line would be between Brahmins and Rajputs(The so-called UP_Kshatriya samples in Chaubey/Metspalu papers are of UP Rajputs) . Kshatriya is a bit vague and many groups claimed(during the early censuses) and even today kshatriya-hood . I didn’t see this elevated Steppe ancestry in the so-called Kshatriya groups of Andhra (Anquila, Kapus ) in Narsimhan’s pre-print

Bharotshontan
Bharotshontan
5 years ago
Reply to  Razib Khan

I think this is a problem if you’re going to be speaking with the kind of authority you have on the topics of lining up genetics with subcontinent history and castes. It is also a problem that your problematic interpretations get massive space in Indian media as recently The Outlook paper did.

Santosh
Santosh
5 years ago
Reply to  td

Hello td,

There is only one caste in the Telugu regions that has a somewhat early claim to Kshatriyahood, which is the Rajus of Godavari districts. I don’t know much about them but they may be having landowning and peasant classes within their caste just like the other agriculturist castes of Telugu-speaking regions. All the non-Brahmin agriculturist castes other than the Rajus fall under the Shudra category only, even if some have been very very recently Sanskritising in that direction and claiming old Kshatriya origins (here also people are not that aware of history as to go claim Satavahanas or Andhra Ikshvakus for themselves; many of these landowning groups try to claim Kakatiyas who were most likely Shudras by their own admission). It is also to be pointed out that the matter of the Kshatriyahood of Rajus is also a current ongoing debate in academia. Regarding the remnants of old Kshatriya dynasties of Andhra like Satavahanas, Andhra Ikshvakus, Salankayanas, etc., it is my speculation that many of them might have merged with the Telugu Brahmins and also the Rajus and also possibly Reddy, Kamma, Kapu and other such Sat-Shudra, literally ‘true Shudra’ (‘better Shudra?’) groups.

AnAn
AnAn
5 years ago

A very dumb question for Razib that demonstrates my stupidity.

What is the earliest plausible date for R1 arriving in SAARC?

When did R1b come to north west SAARC?

Why is there so much opposition from many academics to theories linking R1 with Arya Jatis?

VijayVan
5 years ago

Arya is a cultural identity, not some scientific information . It’s close relative ‘airiiya’ in Old Persian is another cultural identity. Aryan in English means something else , which is what gets the goat in the west.

Vijay
Vijay
5 years ago
Reply to  VijayVan

We have spent the last 30-40 years studying gene culture co-evolution, suggesting that Aryans or indo-europeans developed the culture precisely because what they were. It is not like some random people who created the Indo-aryan culture. [Reference Anthony, Kristiansen, and others] Now you want to decouple the two.

The origins of indo-european in the steppe were the mobile people who developed lactase persistence around 3500 BP, who became pastoralists who adapted a herding economy based on ox-driven wagons, horses and rituals basef on the prestige of horses and livestock [Anthony] This allowed them to be led by a male-surplus emigration that allowed exogamy with females only, that causes the non-indo-Aryan male lineages to slowly die down. The culture worshiped the wind, fire, and had the thunder-carrying lord (whom Razib likes so much).

The Iranian farmer-AASI combination in Harappan civilization was a sedentary urban culture, which focused on urban planning, toilets in each houses, lotas for washing themselves, bangles, uniform weights and measures for designs, pottery styles of handi design, and other features that represent complete transition from a well developed agricultural to urban. They need not fear the wind, fire, water and thunder-carrying gods. Lactase persistance and horses were not essential, but wagons could have helped. As the Harappan dancing girl represents, this is not an Indo-Aryan people, and their genes are not from the steppe, yet. There is no warrior-based organization of the society with kings.

Indo-Aryan and the Indus farmer are not just culture or just genes. We spent the last decade probing these with archaelogy, lingusitics, genetics and other avenues of research such as paleobotany, climatology, etc.

old europe
old europe
5 years ago

One of the most striking thing about India is the fact that Hindu nationalists consider Christianity as an alien “thing” when in fact this is a religion fully born in Asia and at the same time they consider the IE Hindu religion as the root of their identity while in reality it was a way of thinking brought to SC asia by people that prevalently came from north eastern europe. And for the europeans the same thing is valid just (seen the other way round). We human being are strange indeed!

Santosh
Santosh
5 years ago

I debated a lot if I can write this but this is really stupid – no offense to anyone. Except for the hardcore rightwingers and leftwingers, nobody cares about Aryan migration theory in India – what people care about is the welfare of themselves and their caste people. In India, ethnolinguistic groups, castes and religions exist, not “Aryans” and “Dravidians”. I mean I am like a fairly dumb guy who likes the sound of his own voice and I like this topic to repetitively go on blabbering about it but even I feel quite bored this time lol

But anyway, what the post says is obviously true.

Snake Charmer
Snake Charmer
5 years ago

“Except for the hardcore rightwingers and leftwingers, nobody cares about Aryan migration theory in India – what people care about is the welfare of themselves and their caste people.”

100% true. The issues which bring people to streets, cause political upheavals and raise or fell the governments are day to day issues of livelihood.

Even now when the Internet pundits are painstakingly sifting thru SNP data and drawing PCA charts, Indians are rioting for much more mundane reasons. Gujjars in Rajasthan are busy uprooting railway tracks in demand for reservations. Assamese are asking Bengalis to leave their state. (They also don’t like BJP’s not-so-subtle classification of good Bengalis (read Hindu Bengalis) and bad Bengalis (read Muslim Bengalis). Tamils agitate for the rights to hold Jallikattu events. Marathas, Patels, Jats all are clamoring for job reservations. Who even has time for Aryan Dravidian debates, which sound so 20th century.

Snake Charmer
Snake Charmer
5 years ago

Here is a better topic to talk about.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-47168159

So next time when you see the ruins of ancient monuments in India, just don’t reflexively blame it on Khiljis and Tughlaqs. It could well be the crimes of local assholes.

Saurav
Saurav
5 years ago

“There is only one caste in the Telugu regions that has a somewhat early claim to Kshatriyahood, which is the Rajus of Godavari districts. ”

Anybody who has seen Venkatpathy raju bowl in cricket, can reflexively tell that the rajus are no Kshatriyas.

” Assamese are asking Bengalis to leave their state. (They also don’t like BJP’s not-so-subtle classification of good Bengalis (read Hindu Bengalis) and bad Bengalis (read Muslim Bengalis). ”

The Bengalis are probably the luckiest ethnicity in India, that a political party which they have never supported(the BJP) and have been in the fore front of opposing the party, is also helping them in expense of the Assamese who have supported the BJP. I mean it cant get better for the Bengali than this.

Brown Pundits