What is the definition of a foreigner
Hello,
Just a few points to add to some of the points above. There is a project called the genographic project that is undertaken by the National Geographic in collabaration with IBM in mapping the human genome and tracing the history of human migration.
This project has been going on for years and supported by several reputed researchers across the world. One can even get ones DNA tested for about 100 US $. The results show exactly which gene marker that one belongs to. This project is the most scientific approach so far ever adopted by scientists, because they have actually taken thousands of gene samples from the world and have analysed the human races, using well known genetic theories and mathematical/statistical methods.
https://www3.nationalgeographic.com/genographic/index.html
The whole human population has been dividied into several genetic markers, and the whole of all India is supposed to contain a few markers only , and the entire indian population is technically classifed as belonging to the same genetic marker as the central asians/iranians etc. Of course the presence of some other markers is also there in varying proportions.
I read a book about this project and in the discussions on the results of this project , one of the trends the authors have pointed out, is that any sub groups ( like castes ) seem to resemble more the local population. In other words, a caste, say tamil brahmins, tend to genetically cluster with a tamil non-brahmin ( of any caste ). This also means that they will be more similar to their non-brahmin counterparts than they are to a north indian brahmin. This is true for European jews, Russian Jews, southern italians.
This is definitely not to say that, there are no north indian genes in TB. It is possible some sections of Tb were from the north, but the predominant genes in TBs must be from the local population.
The most fairest among southindians are found in the west coast of india, along the kerala and karnataka coast. The kodavas in coorg district are fairer than any other south indian caste I know and in fact they look fairer than an average person north indian ( except may be punjabis ). And TBs , definitely look very south indian and tamil to me.
More than the genetic differences , it does seem the cultural differences are more sharper between TBs and other tamils, but then again when compared to a North Indian brahmin, TB are more closer to tamils. This is true for Kannada Brahmins and Telugu brahmins as well. And again, within non-brahmins tamils, different castes have different customs, a farming caste follows rituals little different than that of a trading caste.
And i also remember reading somewhere that the Pallava dynasty was started somewhere in the 4-6 centuries in TN by Bactrian tribes from the Iranian region, who obviously got integrated into Tamil society with time.
http://www.iranchamber.com/history/articles/india_parthian_colony1.php . and mind you, this article is not from an indian web site , but from the Iranian web site by an Iranian author.
Of course this is only speculation, and if true, means that the numerically small ruling class must have been of foreign origin , but the numerically large local population must have been genetically tamil and the invaders must have got mixed with locals over time. If this is true, some of their blood must be present in many non-brahmins in TN.
All this will definitely put a question mark on who is of foreign origin and who is indigenous in TN. One thing is for sure, detailed and scientific research like the genographic project will reveal much more than quoting barely educated demagogues like Periyar.
Things to ponder , huh?
- Krishnamoorthy