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Dravidian peoples

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For other usage of this term see the disambiguation page Dravidian

Dravidian people, Dravidian race or Dravidians are terms that are some times given to people of India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka who currently speak Dravidian languages or are historically assumed to have spoken Dravidian languages but no longer are.

Concept of the Dravidian race

The identification of the Dravidian people as a separate race arose from the realization by 19th-century Western scholars that there existed a group of languages spoken by people in the south of India, which were completely unrelated to the Indo-Aryan languages prevalent in the north of the country. Because of this, it was supposed that the generally darker-skinned Dravidian speakers constituted a genetically distinct race. Accordingly, Dravidians were envisaged as early inhabitants of India who had been partially displaced and assimilated by Aryan language speaking populations.

The term Dravidian is taken from the Sanskrit term Dravida. It was adopted following the publication of Robert Caldwell's Comparative grammar of the Dravidian or South-Indian family of languages (1856); a publication which established the language grouping as one of the major language groups of the world.

Racial classifications

Main article: Historically-defined racial groups in India

Classical anthropologists have long debated the racial classification of Indians, in particular Dravidians. One scheme labeled Dravidians as the Australoid or Weddoid race in about the 40 human races in that system. Indeed, southern Indians differ from northern Indians in many respects such as flat noses and dark skin. This is true only statistically; since one can come across any number of north Indian who are dark or who have Mongoloid features. Conversely one can have any number of south Indians who are of lighter skins.

Since skin color is subject to strong selective pressure, similar skin colors can result from convergent adaptation rather than from genetic relatedness. Sub-Saharan Africans, tribal populations from southern India, and Indigenous Australians have similar skin pigmentation, but genetically they are no more similar than are other widely separated groups. Furthermore, in some parts of the world in which people from different regions have mixed extensively, the connection between skin color and ancestry has been substantially weakened (Parra et al. 2004).

Genetic classifications

Main article: Indian genetic studies

The genetic views on race differ in their classification of Dravidians. Most modern anthropologists, however, reject the genetic existence of race, like Richard Lewontin who states that "every human genome differs from every other", showing the impossibility of using genetics to define races. (Biology as Ideology, page 68). According to population geneticist L.L. Cavalli-Sforza of Stanford, all Indians are genetically Caucasian, but geneticist Richard Lewontin considers the Indian Subcontinent to specifically not be Caucasian. Cavalli-Sforza found that Indians are about three times closer to West Europeans than to East Asians. Although genetic anthropologist Stanley Marion Garn and Richard Lewontin consider the entirety of the Indian Subcontinent to be genetically its own distinct race due to its distinct genetics Others such as Lynn B Jorde & Stephen P Wooding claim South Indians are genetic intermediaries between Europeans and East Asians. Recent studies of the distribution of alleles on the Y chromosome, microsatellite DNA, and mitochondrial DNA in India have cast overwhelmingly strong doubt upon any biological Dravidian "race" as distinct from non-Dravidians in the Indian subcontinent. This doubtfulness applies to both paternal and maternal descent.

Linguistic classifications

Main article: Dravidian languages

The best known of which are Kannada (ಕನ್ನಡ), Malayalam (മലയാളം), Tamil (தமிழ்), Telugu (తెలుగు), and Tulu (ತುಳು). Notably one Dravidian language, Brahui, is spoken in Pakistan as well minor tribal languages are used in Nepal and Bangladesh, perhaps hinting at the language family's wider distribution prior to the spread of the Indo-Aryan languages.

Spread of the language group

Some believe that Dravidian-speaking people were spread throughout the Indian subcontinent before the Aryans settled there. In this view the early Indus Valley civilization (Harappa and Mohenjo Daro) is often identified as having been Dravidian.

However it is now considered more likely that the collapse was caused by environmental change (drought). It was then this collapse that encouraged the migration of the nomadic Indo-Aryans into the area; a situation comparable with the decline of the Roman Empire and the incursions of North European tribes that followed during the Migrations Period. It is therefore more likely that the Dravidian speakers of South India were already living in the region, and were merely one of the groups little affected by the initial Indo-Aryan migration.

Late arrival theory

Some scholars like J. Bloch and M. Witzel believe that the Dravidians moved into an already Indo-Aryan speaking area after the oldest parts of the Rig Veda were already composed (see Bryant 2001: chapter 5).

This theory might be supported if a higher antiquity of the Indo-Aryan languages could be established. However, since this theory is mainly a linguistic hypothesis, the Dravidian influence on Aryan languages must not necessarily be equated to a movement of populations. A small number of individuals, rather than populations, could have influenced the Sanskrit language.

The influence of Sanskrit itself on the southern Dravidian languages was the result of individual Sanskrit speakers (and not of whole populations) migrating to South India.

Current views

It has been suggested that the proto-Dravidians of the Indian subcontinent arrived from the Middle East, and may have been related to the Elamites, whose language some propose be categorized along with the Dravidian languages as part of a larger Elamo-Dravidian language family. However, many linguists dispute the existence of an Elamo-Dravidian language family.

The Dravidians were preceded in the subcontinent by an Austro-Asiatic people, and followed by Indo-European-speaking migrants sometime later. The original inhabitants may be identified with the speakers of the Munda languages, which are unrelated to either Indo-Aryan or Dravidian languages. This view is put forward in geneticist Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza's book The History and Geography of Human Genes.

Mythical views

Tamil legends

Main article: Sangam literature

According to Tamil lore, the ancient Tamils originally came from submerged land Kumari Kandam in the south of India. Kumari Kandam has also been linked to Lemuria.

Vedic legends

Main article: Dravida § Manu Smriti and Dravida

According to the Puranas, the Dravidians are descendants of the Vedic Turvasha people. According to the Matsya Purana, Manu is considered as a south Indian king. In Hindu tradition the creation of the Tamil language is credited to the Rig Vedic sage Rishi Agastya.

Greek legends

Main article: Eastern Ethiopian

Herodotus, Homer and other Greek authors called the Dravidians the Eastern Ethiopians. Greek writers sometimes identified the "Western Aethiopians" of East Africa with the "Eastern Aethiopians" of South India. Also the African and Indian geography were sometimes compared or identified with each other: Arrian (vi. i.) mentions that the Indus River was thought by some ancient Greeks to be the source of the Nile. It is usually assumed that by 'Aethiopian' Herodotus simply means 'black person', so that the term really only functions to characterise southern Indians as Eastern black people.

  • Herodotus wrote about the Dravidians: They differed in nothing from the other Ethiopians, save in their language, and the character of their hair. For the Eastern Ethiopians have straight hair, while they of Libya are more woolly-haired than any other people in the world. (Herodotus: from The History of the Persian Wars, VII.70., c.430 BCE)

Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, however, took up this connection between Dravidians and Ethiopians in order to claim a direct racial and cultural link between the two people. She was attempting to show that Indian culture influenced Ancient Egypt via Ethiopia. She described many parallels between Egypt and India in her works.

After the discovery of the Indus Valley Civilisation Gottfried de Purucker remarked (referring to Secret Doctrine, vol.2, p.417):

A highly advanced urban civilization of Mohenjo Daro has been discovered on the Indus "between Attock and Sind," exactly the location mentioned in The Secret Doctrine as the abode of the Aethiopians.(Encyclopedic Theosophical Glossary)

However, modern genetic studies show any connection between Dravidian and African can only be attributed to common journey of Homo Sapiens. Even the darkest Dravidian with curly hair shared a common ancestor with Africans around 50,000 to 70,000 years ago just like his light skinned, straight haired compatriot. The male lineages, defined by Y-chromosome Haplogroups are exclusive between Indian and African populations.

Political ramifications

The concept of a Dravidian race has affected thinking in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh about racial and regional differences.

India

Main articles: Tamil Nadu § Politics, and Dravidian movement

It has informed aspects of Indian state of Tamil Nadu nationalistic politics, which has at times appropriated the claim that Dravidians are the earliest inhabitants of India in order to argue that other populations such as the locally ritually dominant Tamil brahmins and other North Indians were oppressive interlopers from which Dravidians should liberate themselves. The discovery of the Indus Valley Civilization in the 1920s, which is sometimes attributed to displaced or assimilated Dravidians of the north, further fuelled such Dravidianist ideas since it implied that the Indo-Aryans were uncivilised barbarians rather than a superior race as made to believe in Hindu myths.

British colonial ploy ?

Main article: Aryan Invasion Theory (history and controversies)

Into the 21st century, some Indians continue to accuse the British Raj of exaggerating differences between northern and southern Indians beyond linguistic differences to help sustain their control of India. The British Raj ended in 1947, yet all discussion of Aryan or Dravidian "races" remains highly controversial in India.

Pakistan & Bangladesh

Dravidian as a racial term is also used extensively by the government of Bangladesh to indicate a founding people of the country as well as by the government of Pakistan

Sri Lanka

In Sri Lanka, the current ethnic problem and the civil war are further complicated by the view that the majority Sinhalese and minority Tamils belong to two different races.

Prominent Dravidian linguistic groups

  • Malayalis : The people of Kerala belong to South-Dravidian linguistic family.

See also

References

  1. Maps of India. Nagaland. 2006. August 27, 2006. <http://www.mapsofindia.com/stateprofiles/nagaland/index.html>.
  2. ^ World Haplogroup Maps
  3. Bindon, Jim. University of Alabama. Department of Anthropology. August 23, 2006. <http://www.as.ua.edu/ant/bindon/ant275/presentations/POST_WWII.PDF#search=%22stanley%20marion%20garn%22>.
  4. Lewontin, R.C. Biology as Ideology The Doctrine of DNA. Ontario: HarperPerennial, 1991.
  5. Sailer, Steve. "Interesting India, Competitive China". xbiz. Retrieved 2006-09-12.
  6. Robert Jurmain, Lynn Kilgore, Wenda Trevathan, and Harry Nelson. Introduction to Physical Anthropology. 9th ed. (Canada: Thompson Learning, 2003)
  7. Garn SM. Coon. On the Number of Races of Mankind. In Garn S, editor. Readings on race. Springfield C.C. Thomas.
  8. Robert Jurmain, Lynn Kilgore, Wenda Trevathan, and Harry Nelson. Introduction to Physical Anthropology. 9th ed. (Canada: Thompson Learning, 2003)
  9. Jorde, Lynn B Wooding, Stephen P. Nature Genetics. Department of Human Genetics. 2004. <http://www.nature.com/ng/journal/v36/n11s/full/ng1435.html>.
  10. Bamshad, M.J. et al. Human population genetic structure and inference of group membership. Am. J. Hum. Genet. 72, 578−589 (2003).
  11. Rosenberg, N.A. et al. Genetic structure of human populations. Science 298, 2381−2385 (2002).
  12. Zvelebil, Kamil V. 1974. "Dravidian and Elamite - A Real Break-Through?", Journal of the American Oriental Society 94.3 (July-Sept.): 384-5.
  13. also e.g. Bhagavata Purana (VIII.24.13)

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