One of the biggest blunders done in Independent India was to have played vote-bank politics on Muslims and segregated them from the mainstream India. Studies in Genetics affirm the historical fact that Indian Muslims are originally sons of the soil who have been converted into Islam by invaders. Almost all the Muslims throughout India retained the painful memory of conversion under duress that happened a few generations before them. Census records of the British period shows that they were still doing pitru ceremonies and some form of worship of the Hindu way. This memory was completely wiped out in the first generation of 1900s when Muslim League gained prominence.
This wipe-out was sustained by the Congress party after Independence. Today things have come to such a pass that Muslims of whom a considerable numbers were once Brahmins who converted out of fear for life, think of themselves as a separate entities in their own ancestral land and expect themselves to be treated as separate and special entities and what more, allow themselves to be used by corrupt politicians who grow their dynasties on the ignorance of Muslims of their past.
In this background, young Muslims wishing join the mainstream is a positive sign. The article by Mr Arvind Lavakare details how these Muslim youth rallying behind the Muslim wing of the RSS no longer see through the prism of congress vote bank. His inference was that this would help Modi to win Muslim votes.
In this context I think it would be appropriate to quote some genetic studies and a note from Sangam literature on a currently Muslim dominated town of Tamil nadu, namely Ambur!
Brief note from genetic studies on Indian Muslims:-
The inference of genetic study is that almost all Muslims of India were native to India and the conversion was cultural and not genetic, meaning to say that the so-called outsider Moghal or Persian genes are not there in our Muslims. The Muslim Youth must note this study to know who they are.
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From
Arab forces conquered the Indus Delta region in 711 A.D. and, although a Muslim state was established there, their influence was barely felt in the rest of South Asia at that time. By the end of the tenth century, Central Asian Muslims moved into India from the northwest and expanded throughout the subcontinent. Muslim communities are now the largest minority religion in India, comprising more than 138 million people in a predominantly Hindu population of over one billion. It is unclear whether the Muslim expansion in India was a purely cultural phenomenon or had a genetic impact on the local population. To address this question from a male perspective, we typed eight microsatellite loci and 16 binary markers from the Y chromosome in 246 Muslims from Andhra Pradesh, and compared them to published data on 4,204 males from China, Central Asia, other parts of India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Iran, the Middle East, Turkey, Egypt and Morocco. We find that the Muslim populations in general are genetically closer to their non-Muslim geographical neighbors than to other Muslims in India, and that there is a highly significant correlation between genetics and geography (but not religion). Our findings indicate that, despite the documented practice of marriage between Muslim men and Hindu women, Islamization in India did not involve large-scale replacement of Hindu Y chromosomes. The Muslim expansion in India was predominantly a cultural change and was not accompanied by significant gene flow, as seen in other places, such as China and Central Asia.
(another quote from the same study on Muslims of South India including Tamilnadu)
At least at the Y-chromosomal level, the origin of Muslim isolates in south India is predominantly from local populations rather than from other Muslims of other parts of India, or outside the country. Some Indian Muslim families can trace their ancestry back to sources outside India >1,000 years ago, and our findings do not conflict with this fact, but do show that the largest minority religious group in India arose in the main from a cultural change among Hindus who started to follow and spread the precepts of Islam. The Y-chromosomal variation among Indian populations reflects geographical and prehistorical factors rather than the practices of Hinduism or Islam.
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Quote from the genetics of Pakistani Muslims.
This is given here to show that even Pakistanis come from mainstream Indian / Bharatheeya population. Only exception is the Parsis. The Kalash people which the wiki article connect with Indo-Iranian roots on the pretext that Iran was the home of Vedic people (!) can be traced to Sthree rajya which is near Moscow (read my article here) based on the cultural practices of the people of Kalash like, marriage by eloping etc. They too are different from Indians genetically. It must be remembered that Sthree rajya was in existence even in Mahabharata times.
The Baloch and Brauhi populations may have closer affinity genetically with Tamils of Chola nadu – particularly in Pumpukar, Tanjore, Kumbakonam etc. The Cholistan and Sarukkai of Pakistan are there in Tamilnadu too. The migration happened 8000 years ago when Cholavarman in the lineage of Sibi who was located at today's Pakistan shifted to Pumpukar to set up his kingdom. Sibi had earlier genetic connection with Muchukunda of Ikshwaku dynasty from Gangetic plain. All these people have moved around India which included Pakistan and Afghanistan. More in my future posts.
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From
Abstract
The human leukocyte antigen (HLA) system, present on chromosome 6 is one of the most extensively studied regions of the human genome. The most striking feature of the HLA system is the extreme polymorphism found at some of its loci. This characteristic of the HLA system has made it an invaluable tool for population genetics analyses. Different populations exhibit characteristic allele and haplotype frequencies, which provide information about their history, migration patterns, evolution, genetics, disease susceptibility and resistance. In this study the genetic polymorphism of seven Pakistani ethnic groups was investigated at the HLA-A, -B, -C, -DRB and DQB1 loci using polymerase chain reaction with sequence specific primers (PCR-SSP). The groups included in this study are the Baloch, Brahui, Sindhi and Parsi from the south and the Burusho, Kalash and Pathan from the north of Pakistan. The allele frequencies, three-locus haplotype frequencies for HLA-A, -C, -B and HLA-A, -B, -DRBl and two locus haplotype frequencies for HLA-A, -B, HLA-B, -C, HLA-B, -DRBl and HLA-DRBl, -DQBl along with linkage disequilibrium, relative linkage disequilibrium and their significance (p-value as determined by -l-test) were calculated. Neighbor joining trees based on allele frequencies were constructed and correspondence analysis was carried out. Variation in the allele and haplotype distribution between the seven Pakistani ethnic groups was observed. A phylogenetic tree and correspondence analysis based on HLA- A, -B, -C, -DRBl and -DQBl allele frequencies revealed the Kalash and Parsi populations to be distinct from each other and the remaining Pakistani populations.
The Baloch and Brahui were closely related to one another. The Sindhi were closer to the Pathan and Burusho populations than to the neighboring Baloch and Brahui populations indicating admixture between the northern and southern populations of Pakistan. The three- and two- locus haplotypes reveal a large amount of admixture in the Pakistani populations. The haplotypes found in the Pakistani populations suggest an influence of Caucasian and Oriental populations. A phylogenetic tree and correspondence analysis comparing the Pakistani populations to various other world populations (HLA- A, -B and -C allele frequency data from the 11th and 12th International Histocompatibility Workshops) showed that the Pakistani ethnic groups, with the exception of the Parsi, lie within the cluster of the European and Asian Indian populations. The Parsi populations show a striking affinity to the Iraqi Jews, which is in accordance with historical records placing the origin of the Parsi in ancient Persia. These results not only help in studying the origins of the various Pakistani populations but also provide a background for a variety of applications including tissue typing and HLA and disease association studies in Pakistan.
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Now some info from a Sangam literature called Siru PaaNaaRRup padai (சிà®±ு பாணாà®±்à®±ுப் படை) It is about a VeL king called Nalliyak kOdan (நல்லியக் கோடன்) who came in Ovi vamsam. Ovis are artists (oviyar ஓவியர்) who also made carvings or inscriptions on metal. The writer of the Thiruvalangadu copper plates had written his name at the end of that inscription and mentioned that he belonged to Ovi Kulam.
NalliyakkOdan's country is described in this sangam text. It starts somewhere in the eastern sea shore of Bay of Bengal passes through Vellore. The name cause of Vellore is explained in this text. Nalliyak kodan was a Muruga devotee. Once he prayed to Lord Muruga for victory in a war and used the flowers that grew in a well of the shape of the leaf like tip of the spear (vEl வேல்), to decorate his spear. Using this spear he fought the war and won. From then onwards, this place came to be called as VElur ( வேலூà®°் ).' The so-called leaf like tip of the spear is nothing but peepal leaf. It must be recalled here that such leaf- like wells were there in Mohenjadaro
Nalliyak kodan comes in the lineage of Vels who migrated from Dwaraka to Tamilnadu about 3500 yrs ago when the then Dwaraka (Byt Dwaraka) was submerged. Nalliyakkodan's ancestors settled in Krishnagiri – Ambur – Vellore stretch while Adhyaman lineage settled in Dharmapuri.
The sangam text further describes that after Vellore, the next main township is Amoor! This must be Ambur of today. The text says that Amoor was populated by Vedic Brahmins who were engaged in Vedic rituals. This town was a Marudha nilam – meaning, a plain conducive for agriculture. There were many water tanks in this region. The text describes the scenes in the tanks and the agricultural activities there.
From there one can reach the capital city of Nalliyakkodan which was located on a hill and filled with elephants. The name given is "Kidangil" – a name that is found among keralites today. It is not a surprise because the Vels and others who left Dwaraka 3500 yrs ago spread to Kerala, Palani, nagarkoil, kanyakumari, Mysore, Hosur, and further towards Dharmapuri stretch where Nalliyakodan was located. Another group called as Aruvalas, who were stone cutters settled in Kancheepuram (read my article here). They were overpowered by Karikal cholan about 2000 yrs ago. Another sangam text speaks of this which I will detail in another article. Many commonalities can be found among all these migrants from Dwaraka.