Indigenous Indians?

The contradictory narratives surrounding the two near-simultaneously published studies, based on the DNA analysis of human skeletons found at the Harappan site of Rakhigarhi in Haryana, have reignited the debate on the Aryan migration theory. The findings of the two studies, published in Cell and Science, did not reveal any major new information but gave ammunition to both migrant and nativist camps to fire fresh volleys.

Though sitting on the fence, I’m looking at the nativists. The only reason: We have already read about the Aryan migration theory in our schools, and it’s time we heard the other side.

The idea of home-grown Aryans goes entirely against what I studied in school that they were migrants from Central Asia and perhaps invaded the population of the Indus Valley Civilisation, which ultimately led to its decline. Also, that Vedic culture was brought to India by these immigrants.

The commonality between Sanskrit and European languages, and the similarity in genetic makeup (the presence of R1a1 gene, also dubbed the Aryan gene) across Europe, Central Asia, and the Indian subcontinent are often cited as the proof of Aryan immigration around 2000-1500 BC. Other findings, too, strongly support this theory — like the presumed similarities between the religious practices mentioned in the Rigveda and the Avesta, the religious text of Zoroastrianism.

However, Aryan immigration (or invasion) is still a theory. The other side, too, has strong theories and arguments.

First, the theory of Aryan invasion currently has few takers. The decline of the Indus Valley Civilisation during the period of the widely believed Aryan migration appeared to have had supported the theory of invasion, which was proposed by Mortimer Wheeler. He had interpreted the presence of many unburied corpses found in Mohenjodaro as the victims of the conquest, and famously stated Indra “stood accused” of the destruction. However, there was little to support this idea and later Wheeler himself nuanced his stance (and those unburied dead were found to be the victims of floods); many western archaeologists abandoned this theory.

The term “invasion” nowadays is mostly used by the opponents of IndoAryan migration theory, who claimed it to be the brainchild of colonial rulers.

Even Sir John Marshall, the director-general of the Archaeological Survey of India from 1902 to 1928 and who oversaw the excavations of Harappa and Mohenjo-daro before Wheeler took over, suggested the Indus civilisation represented an indigenous culture that set the foundation for later Vedic, Buddhist, and Hindu civilisations ( Mohenjo -Daro and the Indus Civilization Volume I).

According to the supporters of the nativist movement, the ancient Indian civilisation should be traced back to the glory days of the Harappan culture (3500 BC-1700 BC), when both Sanskrit and the Vedic culture originated.

Subhash Kak’s On the Chronological Framework for Indian Culture noted the Sapta Sindhu region, the region that called the heartland of Vedic texts, is associated with a cultural tradition that has been traced back to at least 8000 BC without any break. The term “Aryan” in Indian literature has no racial or linguistic connotations.

Many studies have also pointed out the Rigveda speaks of no external homeland or migration from Central Asia. Besides, geological studies have determined the Sarasvati dried up around 1900 BC. Since the river is mentioned in the Rigvedic hymns, the inference is the Rigveda was written much earlier, and not around 1500 BC.

Also, according to Cornell University’s Kenneth Kennedy work, there is no evidence of demographic discontinuity in the archaeological remains from the 4500-800 BC period and that there was no significant influx of people into India during this period; the recent Cell study, too, found “no evidence of large-scale movements of people into South Asia”. However, the it said India had a heterogeneous population right from the beginning of settled life.

About the language link, Kak said: “… population increase, greater contacts and trade with the emergence of agriculture, coupled with large-scale political integration, led to extinction of languages and also to a transfer of languages across ethnic groups. In such a complex evolutionary process, it is meaningless to pin a specific language on any racial type. In the Indian linguistic area itself there exist deep structural relationships between the north Indian and the Dravidian languages.”

On the ‘Aryan’ gene, a research, conducted by Swarkar Sharma et al and published in Journal of Human Genetics in 2009, concluded: “The observation of R1a* in high frequency for the first time... resolved the controversy of the origin of R1a1*, supporting its origin in the Indian subcontinent.”

Still, I would like to point out that the western and north-western ends of the Indian subcontinent were not much far away from either Mesopotamia or Central Asia, and sharing of culture and population through trade, marriages, wars and other means was bound to happen. Even if there was no mass migration, there was movement of population, and in thousands of years, all add up.

Neither can we rule out foreign influence on Vedic culture, nor can we call it an import entirely.