Aryans who never invaded

Before i begin, i must confess that i have not been a very good student of biology. I almost hated that subject in my schooling days; so much so that after my Xth grade the moment i got a choice of excluding it from my courseware, i gladly took that option.

Hence when i read a paper by Dr. Chandrakant Panse titled - "DNA, genetics and population dynamics", i kinda found it tough in relating to the excruciatingly difficult jargons and "chromosomal" language so to speak.

But what really intrigued me about his paper - (which i found from Rajeev Srinivasan's blog) was the title. The relationship between genetics and population dynamics.

Since our childhood we have been taught the 'Aryan Invasion Theory'. Lets call it AIT. Lot of proponents of AIT use the colour of skin analogy to back their argument. It is often claimed that people who reside in the North of the country and are "fairer" in complexion than their southern counterparts have Aryans as their ancestors. Also we have been made to believe by the proponents of AIT that the people from south who are a little darker in complexion have their roots in their Dravidian legacy.

Obviously this theory was first proposed by the British historians (for their own reasons) and later lapped up by their Indian counter-parts without much ado. This AIT theory went unchallenged for so long that it became a part of the regular history syllabus in our school books. (Ramola Thapar and her ilk and the other "famous" historians of our country still continue to breathe this theory down our necks)

One of the important thing to note of AIT was that it was never a theory based on any scientific finding. It was never really backed up by any concrete evidence. It was more of a hypothesis and conclusions were loosely based on the probability of some Europeans having travelled to India thousands of years ago via the north gate.

I have read three papers in recent past which debunk the Aryan theory. If not categorically; atleast provide a counter argument and much more rational argument against the AIT.

Thankfully bio-technology has made great strides in the human DNA and genetics to come up with some really solid propositions on population dynamics.

The first paper/article on this subject that caught my eyes was the one by Subash Kak on rediff.com. (Subhash Kak is a professor at Louisiana State University. He is also a commentator par excellence and his columns routinely appear on rediff.com)

http://us.rediff.com/news/2005/mar/08kak.htm

Professor Kak goes on to say in this article ...

[..] in recent years, the work of archaeologists and historians of science concluded that there is no material evidence for any large scale migrations into India over the period of 4500 to 800 BC [..]

...thus debunking the Aryan theory at the very root. But more importantly he refers to Oxford University scholar Stephen Oppenheimer's theory and book - The Real Eve: Modern Man's Journey out of Africa (New York: Carroll and Graf Publishers, 2003),

[..]recent advances in studies of mitochondrial DNA, inherited through the mother, and Y chromosomes, inherited by males from the father; Oppenheimer makes the case that whereas Africa is the cradle of all mankind; India is the cradle of all non-African peoples. [..]

Oppenheimer makes some "extraordinary conclusions" according to the author that are more interesting when you read the article completely.

In author's own words... [..] This synthesis of genetic evidence makes it possible to understand the divide between the north and the south Indian languages. It appears that the Dravidian languages are more ancient, and the Aryan languages evolved in India over thousands of years before migrations took them to central Asia and westward to Europe. The proto-Dravidian languages had also, through the ocean route, reached northeast Asia, explaining the connections between the Dravidian family and the Korean and the Japanese [..]

There was a second article that i read that again threw some light on this subject, and the link to which i lost. It appeared in NYTimes recently. I still have the link but it does not work. (It is lost in the NYTimes archive)

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/13/science/13migrate.html?adxnnl=1&adxnnlx=1116180255-HCwNSux1xetEdoSaH/eLpA&pagewanted=print

Basically this is what the article wrote...

[..]The geneticists say there was only one migration of modern humans out of Africa; that it took a southern route to India,Southeast Asia [..]

[..]
Because these events occurred in the last Ice Age, when Europe was at first too cold for human habitation, the researchers say, it was populated only later, not directly from Africa but as an offshoot of the southern migration. The people of this offshoot would presumably have trekked back through the lands that are now India and Iran to reach the Near East and Europe.
The findings depend on analysis of mitochondrial DNA, a type of genetic material inherited solely through the female line.

They are reported today in Science by a team of geneticists led by Dr. Vincent Macaulay of the University of Glasgow.
[..]

In effect telling us that the reverse of Aryan theory was true and more likely.

And finally Dr. Chandrakant Panse's paper recently presented at the Third Annual Human Empowerment Conference at Houston, Texas between Sept. 16 to 18, 2005

Dr. Panse says "Science now conclusively rejects any notion of any Aryan invasion of the Indian subcontinent."

He goes on to say that.."Extensive sequencing and statistical analysis of a part of mtDNA which has sustained mutations (the mitochondrial hypervariable region I, HVR I), from reasonable sample sizes, has shown that certain sequences dominant in Europe are uncommon in India, and when found, are almost equally divided amongst the North and South Indians. Conversely,there are sequences common to both the North and South Indians which are uncommon in Europe"

He concludes with this.

"The stark lack of similarities in the gene pools of the Indian subcontinent and Europe, vividly evident in the mtDNA and the MHC complex, destroys any Aryan invasion notions, and confirms the genetic uniformity of peoples of the Indian subcontinent."

His presentation is based yet again on the mtDNA based research referred earlier and the full text of that research can be found at http://www.genome.org/cgi/content/full/13/7/1607

All the three articles comprehensively undermine the AIT. All the three are based on pure science and very limited probability.

It will take time for Indians to grown on this new concept; soaked as we are in the Aryan Invasion Theory.

As for the colour of the skin, well, I have seen some very fair coloured south Indians and some very dark coloured North Indians. And as they say color is only skin deep.It should certainly be. The "skin colour" argument for backing the Aryan Theory is really very fickle, even idiotic so to say.

Whenever a new theory gains currency the people who follow old school get a little uncomfortable. A classic example being that of Galelio.Galileo was put under house arrest for coming up with the Copernican System (Sun is at the center and other planets revolve around it) more than five centuries ago.

The great progress being made in Bio-Technologies will certainly go a long way in once and for all shutting up the Romila Thapar factory of lies.