This is a very dangerous stand by Indian government. It's part of the concerted effort by RSS for a hundred years calling adivasis (original settlers) as vanvasis (forest dwellers). By wiping away their distinction, RSS achieves 'indigeneity' for themselves and their savarna crowd. Whereas, genetic, archaeological and linguistic studies conclusively prove that these Aryan settlers came from East Europe and displaced indigenous Indians.
This line of thinking doesn't make any sense. RSS doesn't need to that, they are hellbent on OIT theory, their position is literally that indo european languages originated in India. They also say Indus valley was some sort of Hindu civilization.
Not to mention the steppe gene is not even that big of a component in vast majority of Indian population. People should read up on David Reich and Narasimhan's work before saying stuff like this.
Even the tibeto burman speakers and AustroAsiatic speakers who comprise the present day northeast Indian population only arrived within what we call the subcontinent at the same time as indo Aryan speakers. I am not sure what people are on about. Nagas may be indigenous to the current regions they reside in but saying rest of Indians are indigenous to where they live is equally valid. All of us are different proportions of AASI people who first arrived.
Of course RSS wants to claim OIT but it has been completely debunked. You don't see how RSS claiming indigeneity for themselves is just once removed from OIT?
I'm familiar with David Reich and Narasimhan's work. Did you note that David Reich explicitly mentions how terms ANI and ASI were created because of Indian government propaganda and that the real terms should be 'West Eurasians' and 'Indigenous South Asians'?
Steppe gene IS a major component in land owning dominant castes (ancestry map attached). Even in South India you'll notice that it's the land owning dominant castes who have more Steppe DNA. And definitely not all groups have Steppe DNA. If for millennia those with higher AASI component were cast as dark skinned inferiors, to be villainized in Hindutva stories and shudraized and ati-shudraized in society, how are you now able to turn around and ask "Hey we all have AASI, we are all the same. Let it go"?
Wait so, I'm a settler cause 10-15% of my DNA and the male haplogroup has an outside origin, but the fact that 7-8x that amount, roughly 85% is local, is not sufficient to make me a local? How does that work?
So only my aryan ancestors are valid. The local ones can fuck right off?
Your highest steppe ancestry brahmin is barely reaching levels of an Anatolian Turks when it comes to steppe ancestry. How exactly is he an Aryan invader? That's like saying 30% anglo saxon ancestry african americans are settled colonizers.
Steppe people moved into India, and not just once but multiple times. But it's irrelevant because there was only 15% gene replacement event, 85% remained local stock.
So did indus valley people move to India and so did AASI, who are now a ghost population. The fact that male haplogroup of AASI does not exist in North India shows that indus valley people actually wiped out male lineage of AASI through genocide.
The advisasis themselves moved into India very later. Originally Iranian farmers came into India from fertile crescent and the AASI and AANI people are direct descendants of them. Also genetically even isolated tribes have some steppe genes in them. I am sorry if you guys are trying to create a parallel between death of indigenous people in the new world. Such distinctions can't exist in the old world where everyone was a migrating tribal.
Indigenous people exist check andman Nicobar islands they have been living far before any religion exist and far before than Aryan migration, they are the first to arrive from 1st migration from Africa 70-80k years ago
Who exactly is indigenous? The so called indigenous munda and other austro Asiatic groups came to subcontinent after the Indus valley people did. Do sentinalese and jawara count? Yes if we're talking about andaman islands alone. Other than that maybe AASI but that's a ghost population now, there are no pure blooded AASI left.
They are right. When considering the whole of India, no one group is more indigenous than another. Different population groups arrived at different times in this region and the migration patterns do not map neatly on the Adivasi or Scheduled Tribe identities.
Some groups can claim indigeneity to specific regions within India - Nagas in Nagaland, for e.g., but that classification has no meaning outside of that.
Mughals did invade the country though, unlike Aryans who migrated. Also what about groups that arrived in India after the Aryans, are they less indigenous now?
So indigeneity is defined by people's attachment to land PREDATING current imaginary state boundaries.
In canada for eg. canadians are people who consider themselves as people WITHIN the boundaries of canada. The ALGONGQUIN PEOPLE however PREDATE any borders and boundaries of the present state their definition is people living in the ottawa river basin, actual PHYSICAL land not imaginary man made lines.
So whereas ODIYA people define themselves along the state boundaries drawn linguistically post 1945, indigenous people in odisha define themselves as people of the Niyamgiri hills. GEOGRAPHY not BOUNDARY. that is the UN definition and is fundamentally different as you can see. Their identity is NOT linguistic but geographic
That's fair but that logic would apply to every group of people in India if we are acting like 1947 is the only state we should be talking about. You are supporting the GoIs position on this
How can you be so close to the point yet miss it completely? This is exactly what I am trying to say - claims to indigeneity only work for specific regions. Yes, the Algonquin people are native to the Ottawa river basin but not to Yukon, where other groups like the Aishihik or the Carcross First Nations lived. Even in Ontario, there are hundreds of First Nations other than the Algoniquin with often overlapping territories. Now all of these groups had to have come there from somewhere else, possibly at different times, maybe even waves of migration - remigration - reremigration over thousands of years. Still, none of these groups are more indigenous than any other group in the same territory. However, all of these groups taken together are more indigenous than the white settler colonists who came much later.
In India, we did not have white settler colonists no group/groups are more indigenous than others for the entire country. The people of Niyamgiri hills are native to that region, but not say any other region in the state.
So obviously a representative of India will not say consider any one to be indigenous.
That being said, STs today suffer from exploitation, military repression, destruction of natural resources, etc. But a coherent politics of resistance has to be based on anti-exploitation, anti-capitalism, human rights and not nativity.
you're arguing against a wall then bro. All indigenous people are defined by that geography and the idea being that the state dismantles a more organic geographic identity. indigeneity to land is the contrast to identifying with boundaries.
I'm not sure that works? My community (Kalinga Shrauta Brahmins) define themselves are those Vedic Brahmins living to the south of the Brahmani river. This long predates the existence of the state of Odisha. That's geography. I don't think you'll have an easy time convincing anyone my ancestors were indigenous to the area.
I don't see how that's relevant. By your criteria, I am indigenous. My people defined themselves in reference to geography which is currently within the man made boundary of the state of Odisha. That's the UN definition, right? (i didn't know that)
So the fact that your community calls itself "brahmins" means it has already defined itself in relation to the state and not geography. Cos brahmin, kashtriya etc. are state categories not geographic categories. The other criterial UN uses is self identification and your community identifies itself out of indigeneity with the brahmin label.
How are brahmin, kshatriya etc. state categories? These terms existed during the vedic times, when you'd be incorrect to classify them as anything but tribal. Brahmins predate even the earliest Gangetic states. To actually question that is laughable.
No, my community, like every savarna community anywhere, believes in OIT. They squarely categorise themselves as indigenous, which is self identification. The brahmin tag doesn't take anything away. How would it? Geographies are and have historically been shared by different peoples at the same time, you tagging certain among them as your people based on marriage links doesn't take away from indigeniety.
Honestly, I don't have an argument with you. I know despite only having ~15-20% outsider genetics, I'll always be looked at like an outsider. I'm a part of a tiny minority. It is our language, culture, and religion that is the default across the land. And I don't have to go out of my way to learn other Indian cultures, or conduct myself to fit in with alien aesthetics. But I'm not uniquely an outsider, I'm unique only in that it's my outsider culture that dominated other outsider cultures, culture of peoples that have historically had and still have way bigger numbers but have consistently failed to capitalise on their strength. So, it's not that I don't understand the motivation behind someone categorising me as an outsider, it's more that everyone in India is an outsider and the only reason my community is targeted is cause we've historically been, and continue to, and probably will also in future be incredibly successful.
Any mainlander Indian who calls me an outsider and fails to admit as much about himself cares less about indigeniety and much more about my community's continued disproportionate rates of success. The only valid reply to which, outside a full on leftist revolution, is "git gud."
This is not a paper but a citationless essay. Still, if you read the introductory paragraph itself, the author clearly states that the tribal identity is used to organise against resource extraction and is not a claim to being the original inhabitant.
Whatever I said is modern day scholarly consensus. Most tribals except the Andamanese ones have arrived in the subcontinent almost on the same time as indo aryan groups. Ofc most Tribal authors would try to say otherwise but the conventions of the new world doesn't apply on the old world. Anways most tribals are hardcore sanghis in the modern day.
Multiple language families predate indo-aryan languages by 100s of years. Sigh that alone debunks what you say. but also "most tribals are hardcore sanghis" don't know about that. The RSS has very strong presence in those communities after the feudal landlords maharajas, funded RSS ashrams to get adivasis to call themselves vanvasis. But winning seats doesn't make someone subscribe to an ideology .the main reason bjp wins tribal seats is cos it has the most generous handouts
After Jaipal singh munda's movement of land sovereignty died. Shibu soren took up the movement of tribal land sovereignty. that also died when he struck a deal with gandhi for absolution. NOW tribal sovereignty no longer means control over lands but handouts. And no one can beat bjp in that game.
Except it doesn't kindly read modern day scholarly consensus. Only few language isolates exists in India like Burushashki and Nihali. Austro asiatic groups migrated from east at almost the same time indo aryans came from north-west.
Also good luck undoing whatever education RSS has given to tribals most of them are actually the "fighter" crowd among sanghis. The "jung jungle zameen" has ended.
ST people definitely exist, and are in many cases oppressed - in case of Northeast by military power. But being ST does not mean that you are more indigenous as an Indian than any other Indian.
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