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Dravidian people refers to populations who speak languages belonging to the Dravidian language family. Populations of speakers are found mostly in Southern India and some minor populations are found in Brahui-speaking parts of Pakistan, Kurukh-speaking parts of Bangladesh, and Tamil-speaking parts of Sri Lanka.

Concept of the Dravidian people

The term Dravidian is taken from the Sanskrit term "Dravida". It was adopted following the publication of Robert Caldwell's Comparative grammar of the Dravidian or South-Indian family of languages (1856); a publication which established the language grouping as one of the major language groups of the world. Robert Caldwell was a Catholic missionary and used the term Dravidian to refer to the Caucasians of South India.

However over seventy three languages are presently listed as Dravidian in the study. Further the languages are spread out and cover parts of India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka as is indicated in the study.

The Vedic legends speak of battle between Asuras and Devas. It is generally assumed that this was a reflection of actual battle for supremacy that took place when Aryans started entering the Indian sub-continent. However the Asuras are actually the Iranians and the Devas are the Indo-Aryans. The Dasarajna war has been completely misunderstood as some racial violence from Aryans to non-Aryans. It was the Indo-Aryans who declared that they are the true Aryans while the Iranians were not. This battles eventually ended with Aryans, led by King Sudas (a Sudra king) establishing supremacy all over India and the Iranians moving onto what today is the Iranian Subcontinent.

Historical evidence does not point to the fact that Dravidians were the race who had created the Indus Valley Civilization. It remained unanswered why there were Aryan symbols that appear on the Indus Valley seals (e.g. swastika.) However, even though the Aryan languages are said to belong to the Indo-European family and not of the Dravidian family, the root words are almost all the same. For example, 'land' is des, 'language' is basa and 'bread' is chapaati.

The identification of the Dravidian people as a separate race arose from the realization by 19th-century Western scholars that there existed a group of languages spoken by people in the south of India, which very different to the Indo-Aryan languages prevalent in the north of the country. Because of this, it was said by Western researchers in India that the generally darker-skinned Dravidian speakers constituted a genetically distinct race even though they posess Caucasoid skull-structure. perhaps to enforce the British "divide and conquer", Dravidians were envisaged as early inhabitants of India who had been partially displaced and assimilated by Aryan language speaking populations.

Legends

According to the Puranas, the Dravida people are descendants of the Vedic Turvasha people. According to the Matsya Purana, Manu is considered as a south Indian king. Ikshvaku is also the son of Manu in legend and the Andhra Ikshvakus or the Ikshvaku dynasty were a Telugu dynasty. In Hindu tradition the creation of the Tamil language is credited to the Rig Vedic sage Rishi Agastya.

The proponents of the now-obsolete theory identifying Kumari Kandam with Lemuria used the term "Dravidian civilization" to describe the civilization of the hypothetical "Lemuria" continent. According to ancient Tamil legends, Kumari Kandam was a landmass that became submerged by the successive floods. Some Tamil writers, such as Devaneya Pavanar and T. R. Sesha Iyengar, identified Kumari Kandam with the hypothetical Lemuria continent, and claimed that in ancient times, there was a highly developed Tamil civilization in Lemuria, which was the cradle of civilization. In When the Sky Fell: In Search of Atlantis by Rand Flem-Ath and Rose Flem-Ath, the authors argue that Kumari Kandam is Lumeria and is at the same time Airyanem Vaejah.

Racial classifications

In 1898, ethnographer Friedrich Ratzel remarked about the "Mongolian features" of "Dravidians", resulting in his "hypothesis of their close connection with the population of Tibet" whom he adds "Tibetans may be decidedly reckoned in the Mongol race"

In 1899, anthropologist Paul Topinard "divides the population of the Indian peninsula into three strata, (viz) the Black, Mongolian, and the Aryan. The remnants of the first are the Yenadis and Kurumbas... The remnants of the first invasion are seen in the Dravidian or Tamil tribes" In addition to the black racial composition of Dravidians, Topinard said, "assing to the yellow races... we find them divided into groups... the Dravidians of India,'"

In 1900, anthropologist Joseph Deniker said, "the Dravidian race is connected with both the Indonesian and Australian... he Dravidian race, which it would be better to call South Indian, is prevalent among the peoples of Southern India speaking the Dravidian tongues, and also among the Kols and other people of India... The Veddhas... come much nearer to the Dravidian type, which moreover also penetrates among the populations of India, even into the middle valley of the Ganges.". Deniker groups "Dravidians" as a "subrace" under the group of "Curly or Wavy Hair Dark Skin" in which he also includes the "Ethiopian" and "Australian".

In 1907, anthropologist William Crooke described the "Dravidians" as being the "black" part of the "three distinct strains" of India. He described Dravidians as being " allied to the Oceanic Negritos in whom are included the aboriginees of Australia and Tasmania,-- some authorities proposing to regard the Dravidians as a cross with a negroid race, and the alleged discovery of frizzy haired Dravidians lends some support to this view." Crooke hypothesizes a second theory which he thinks may be true but is not as "probable". "The second hypothesis assumes that the Dravidians were divided into two branches: the Kolarians speaking Mundari, and the Dravidians proper, whose languages are of a family represented by the Tamil of Madras. The former are supposed to have entered India from the north-east, while the latter migrated from the direction of the Euphrates-Tigris valley. The two streams of foreigners converged in Central India. The pure Dravidians proved the stronger and thrust aside the Kolarians, after which they occupied the south of the Peninsula."

In 1910, Hugh Chrisholm of the 1910 Encyclopedia Britannica cited, "The census report of 1901 divided the population of India into seven distinct racial types:... the Scytho-Dravidian type of western India, comprising the Mahrattas; the Kunbis and the Coorgs, probably formed by a mixture of Scythian and Dravidian elements; the Aryo-Dravidian type found in the United Provinces, in parts of Rajputana, and in Behar, represnted in the upper strata by the Hindustani Brahman (sic), and in its lower by the Chamar. This type is probably the result of intermixture, in varying proportions, of the Indo-Aryan and Dravidian types, the former element predominating in higher groups and the latter in the lower. The fifth type is the Mongolo-Dravidian of Bengal and Orissa, comprising the Bengal Brahmans (sic) and Kayasths, the Mahommedans of Eastern Bengal, and other groups peculiar to this part of India. It is probably a blend of Dravidian and Mongoloid elements with a strain of Indo-Aryan blood in the higher groups. Seventh and last comes the Dravidian type, extending from Ceylon to the valley fo the Ganges, and pervading the whole of Madras and Mysore and most of Hyderabad, the Central Provinces, Central India and Chota Nagpur. Its most characteristic representatives are the Paniyans of the south Indian hills and the Santals of Chota Nagpur. This is probably the original type of the population of India, now modified to varying extent by admixture of Aryan, Scythian and Mongoloid elements."

In 1915, De Quatrefages considered "ll the so-called Dravidian population, and many others known by different names, indicate, by their physical characters, the black ethnological element. Documents of all sorts, photographs and skulls, testify that this element is almost completely Negrito." In the same time period, Flowers and Lydekker when referring to "Dravidians" state, "in Southern India they are largely mixed up with the Negro element." Also in the same time period, Dr. Keane hypothesized that the "Negroid traits" in "present Dravidian and Kolarian low castes" resulted from a "blend of diverse proportions of Asiatic intruders with the true black indigenes of the Peninsula" Again in the same time perid, Professor R. Semon said, "Dravidian aborginees of India, types which remind us forcibly of Australians in their anthropological characters." In 1915, Edgar Thurston considered "Brahmans(sic) of the south are not pure Aryans but are a mix of the Aryan and Dravidian race." Thurston said, "pre-Dravidians are ethnically related to the Veddas of Ceylon and the Sakais of the Malay peninsula."

In 1937, Bertram Thomas, a scientist who practiced craniofacial anthropometry, claimed that Dravidians are descended from a protonegroid belt that spanned from Africa, the Arabian peninsula and South India. Later, through the evolutionary process, this protonegroid belt gave rise to the "Hamitic race" in Africa, an intermediate people in the Arabian peninsula and Dravidians in India.

20th century athropologist Carleton Coon said that within the Caucasoid race there is a "third division ... included... southern India" but remarked this group had "facial features of a Veddoid character which in some instances suggest Australoid affinities." He further elaborated that in India there are "Veddoids... individuals who are to all extents and purposes Australoid" Over the exact racial composition of India Coon admitted, "he racial history of southern Asia has not yet been thoroughly worked out, and it is too early to postulate what these relationships may be... shall leave the problems of Indian physical anthropology in the competent hands of Guha and of Bowles."

In 1972, W. E. B. Du Bois, a sociologist and historian, explained the Dravidians as mixture of races: "...pre-Dravidians, a taller larger type of Negro; then the Dravidians, Negroes with some mixture of Mongoloid and later Caucasoid stocks."

In 1985, Wayne B. Chandler, anthropologist and historian, explained that orignally there were two constituents of the "Black race" in India which populated the whole region: the "Ethiopian Negrito" and the "Proto-Australoid". The Ethiopian Negrito was the first migratory group that once inhabited all of India, Second, the Proto-Australoid migrated into India and mixed with the Negritos. Later, there was "a mix of Black and Mongoloid races, which occur in Kannada, Tamil and Malayan regions". After this an invading party of multiracials who were a "mix of Black and Caucasian races" mixed with the previous Mongoloid and Negroid multiracials. The combination of these mixes "formed the Dravidians".

In 1999, Professor Uthaya Naidu, an Indian historian, classified the "Sudroid race" as including Dravidians, Kolarians, Dalits and Adivasis. He described Sudroids, specifically Dravidians, as "Negroid" and "black".

In 2003, Kethesh Loganathan, a sociologist specializing in developing countries, stated that the "black Dravidian sub-race is the same as the black East African sub-race".

In 2004, K. Le Than claims, "he Africans first entered India by the Soan River during the Pleistocene were probably the Melanesians or Veddo-Australoids. They mixed with the Malays in India and produced the Dravidians. As of today, the majority of Malay-Dravidians live in lower Bengal, Orissa, Assam, Bhutan, Sikkim, Nepal, Tibet, Kashmir , Indochina, Nagaland and Burma."

In 2007, Richard McCulloch whose "college major was history, with anthropology my second area of study" divided Indian people into following "races". "Within a few thousand years India was repopulated from the east by proto-Australoids". Under the "Australoid Subspecies" McCulloch places the "Veddoid race (remnant Australoid population in central and southern India)" while under the "Caucasoid or Europid Subspecies" McCulloch places the "Indic or Nordindid race (Pakistan and northern India)" and the "Dravidic race (India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka ; ancient stabilized Indic-Veddoid blend)" "The Dravidic race of India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, created by the intermixture of the local Caucasoid (Indic or Nordindid) and Australoid (Veddoid) populations... very ancient racial clines which have stabilized into distinct races of intermediate type."

Genetic classifications

The genetic views on race differ in their classification of Dravidians. Most modern anthropologists, however, reject the genetic existence of race, like Richard Lewontin who states that "every human genome differs from every other", showing the impossibility of using genetics to define races. (Biology as Ideology, page 68). According to population geneticist L.L. Cavalli-Sforza of Stanford, whose work was done in the 1980s almost all Indians are genetically Caucasian, but Lewontin rejects the label Caucasian. Cavalli-Sforza found that Indians are about three times closer to West Europeans than to East Asians. Dr. Eduardas Valaitis, in 2006, found that India is genetically closest to East and Southeast Asians with little genetic similarity to Europeans; that said he also found that India could be considered very distinct from other regions. Genetic anthropologist Stanley Marion Garn considered in the 1960s that the entirety of the Indian Subcontinent to be a "race" genetically distinct from other populations. Others, such as Lynn B. Jorde and Stephen P. Wooding, claim South Indians are genetic intermediaries between Europeans and East Asians.

Recent studies of the distribution of alleles on the Y chromosome, microsatellite DNA, and mitochondrial DNA in India have cast overwhelmingly strong doubt for a biological Dravidian "race" distinct from non-Dravidians in the Indian subcontinent.

This doubtfulness applies to both paternal and maternal descent; however, it does not preclude the possibility of distinctive South Indian ancestries associated with Dravidian languages.

Linguistic classifications

The best known Dravidian languages are: Tamil (தமிழ்),Kannada (ಕನ್ನಡ), Malayalam (മലയാളം), Telugu (తెలుగు), and Tulu (ತುಳು). Notably one Dravidian language, Brahui (بروہی), is spoken in Pakistan and minor tribal languages are used in Nepal and Bangladesh, perhaps hinting at the language family's wider distribution prior to the spread of the Indo-Aryan languages, though relatively recent migrations of populations have also been proposed.

Early arrival theory

Kamil V. Zvelebil has suggested that the proto-Dravidians of the Indian subcontinent arrived from the Middle East, and may have been related to the Elamites, whose language some propose be categorized along with the Dravidian languages as part of a larger Elamo-Dravidian language family. However, S.A. Starostin has disputed the existence of an Elamo-Dravidian language family.

According to a view put forward by geneticist Luigi Luca Cavalli-Sforza in the book The History and Geography of Human Genes, the Dravidians were preceded in the subcontinent by an Austro-Asiatic people, and followed by Indo-European-speaking migrants sometime later. The original inhabitants may be identified with the speakers of the Munda languages, which are unrelated to either Indo-Aryan or Dravidian languages. However, the Munda languages, as a subgroup of the larger Austro-Asiatic language family, are known to have arrived in the Indian subcontinent from the east, possibly from the area that is now southwestern China, so any genetic similarity between the present-day speakers of the Munda languages and the "original inhabitants" of India is likely to be due to assimilation of the natives by Southeast Asian immigrants speaking a proto-Munda language.

Some linguists believe that Dravidian-speaking people were spread throughout the Indian subcontinent before the Aryans settled there. In this view the early Indus Valley civilization (Harappa and Mohenjo Daro) is often identified as having been Dravidian. According to them it is now considered likely that the collapse of Indus Valley civilization was caused by environmental change (drought) which then encouraged the migration of the nomadic Indo-Aryans into the area. In that perspective it is therefore more likely that the Dravidian speakers of South India were already living in the region and were merely one of the groups little affected by the initial Indo-Aryan migration.

Late arrival theory

Some scholars like J. Bloch and M. Witzel believe that the Dravidians moved into an already Indo-Aryan speaking area after the oldest parts of the Rig Veda were already composed (see Bryant 2001: chapter 5)

This theory might be supported if a higher antiquity of the Indo-Aryan languages could be established. However, since this theory is mainly a linguistic hypothesis, the Dravidian influence on Aryan languages must not necessarily be equated to a movement of populations.

Prominent Dravidian linguistic subgroups

There are three subgroups within the Dravidian linguistic family: North Dravidian, Central Dravidian and South Dravidian matching for the most part the corresponding regions in the Indian subcontinent.

• Brahui : Brahuis belong to North-Dravidian subgroup. They are found in Balochistan province of Pakistan.
• Gonds: A prominent group of Dravidian speaking Tribal people the Central region of India.
• Kannadiga : These people belong to South-Dravidian subgroup. Mostly found in Karnataka , Tamil nadu and Maharashtra.
• Kurukh : These people belong to North-Dravidian subgroup. Found in India and Bangladesh. It is the only Dravidian language indigenous in Bangladesh.
• Malayali : The people of Kerala belong to South-Dravidian linguistic subgroup.
• Tamil : These people belong to South-Dravidian linguistic subgroup. Mostly found in Tamil Nadu, Sri Lanka, Singapore and Malaysia.
• Telugu : These people belong to South Dravidian subgroup (formerly classified with the Central Dravidian but now more specifically in the South Dravidian II or South Central Dravidian inner branch of the South Dravidian (Krishnamurti 2003:p19)). Mostly found in Andhra Pradesh also in Orissa and Tamil Nadu.

Geographic distribution

Political ramifications

The concept of a Dravidian race has affected thinking in India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh about racial and regional differences.

India

Some Indians believe that the British Raj exaggerated differences between northern and southern Indians beyond linguistic differences to help sustain their control of India. The British Raj ended in 1947, yet all discussion of Aryan or Dravidian "races" remains highly controversial in India. It is now widely believed that the British only used this as their 'Divide and rule' blueprint for taking over the region.The British also used this "theory" of perceived differences between so-called "Aryans" and "Dravidians" to propagate racist beliefs concerning the inherent "inferiority" of the Dravidians when compared to the "Aryans", thus justifying their colonization of South Asia (since the British identified themselves as "Aryans")

It has also informed aspects of radical politics (e.g. Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam, DK, VC,etc.) in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu atheistic nationalistic politics, which has at times appropriated the claim that Dravidians are the earliest inhabitants of India in order to argue that other populations such as the locally ritually dominant were oppressive interlopers from which Dravidians should liberate themselves. The discovery of the Indus Valley Civilization in the 1920s, which is sometimes attributed to displacedor assimilated Dravidians of the north, further fuelled such atheistic Dravidianist ideassince it implied that the Indo-Aryans were uncivilised barbarians rather than a superior race.

Sri Lanka

In Sri Lanka, the current ethnic conflict and the civil war are further complicated by the view that the majority Sinhalese and minority Tamils belong to two different ethnic and linguistic families. Sinhalese (like Dhivehi) is an Indo-Aryan language that exists in the southern part of South Asia.

"Enthusiastic supporters of the LTTE like Tamil Nadu political leader Vaiko was quoted in the Indian media as having told Home Minister LK Advani 'the second Hindu Rashtra is emerging in the region'." Also, "Since the Sinhala Buddhist Government in Sri Lanka took control of the island after Britain left, said the statement, it has systematically destroyed Hinduism and its culture in the island," the LTTE release stated.

See also

• Vedic culture in South India The prevalence of Vedic cultural influence in South India
• Dravida - The Sanskrit term for South Indians specifically Tamils
• Aryan race - Discussion about the concept of Aryan race

External links

• Dolmens, Hero Stones and the Dravidian People
• Harappa.com Glimpses of South Asia before 1947
• Peoples and Languages in pre-Islamic Indus valley
• India and Egypt

References

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• Krishnamurti, B., The Dravidian Languages, Cambridge University Press, 2003. ISBN 0-521-77111-0, p19.

• Dravidian people
• Race
• Race (historical definitions)
• Ancient peoples
• Dravidians