Indian Instincts

by Miniya Chatterji

  The genetic mutation in the DNA of the San bushmen in Africa—who are considered the direct descendants of early man—was discovered in the blood of the Aborigines of Australia as well. This meant that the Australian Aborigines had inherited the ancient genetic mutation NRY HG C-M130, which can be traced back around 60,000 years ago to the African bushmen. The bushmen, though, have no trace of the Australian aboriginal mutations in their blood, which indicates that the migration was one way only: from Africa to Australia. While this discovery was spectacular, we still did not know how they got there. There was no evidence—archaeological or through DNA—of this human journey.

  Professor Pitchappan agreed to help Wells with the DNA research. Immediately, he flew down to meet him in Madurai, and that was the starting point of the laborious process of sampling the blood of thousands of Indians across autochthonous communities in India.

  After two years of arduous research, the genetic mutation NRY HG C-M130 appeared in the DNA of Virumandi, a man in his late twenties who lived in the Jothimanickam village of Tamil Nadu. This discovery completely turned on its head our earlier understanding of the origins of man. It demonstrated that the earliest man had arrived in India and expanded his family line in the Indian subcontinent thousands of years before setting foot in Europe, the Americas, or Central and East Asia. Virumandi was a direct descendant of the earliest man who had left Africa 60,000 years ago. Even more mind-boggling was the subsequent discovery that Virumandi’s entire community carried the NRY HG C-M130 mutation.

  This discovery is fascinating, as much for its unexpectedness as for the feat of the survival of the strain. This smallest and most ancient marker of human existence could have been eradicated by an endless number of events—migrations, caste wars, invasions. How could its continuation be explained, that too in a land that has consistently received as many travellers and traders as invaders, more than anywhere else in the world?

  The fascinating survival stories of communities in the subcontinent are as compelling as the endurance of the idea of India itself. Is it by providence that the political boundaries of Chandragupta Maurya’s India of 300 BC are remarkably much the same as that of modern India? Several stories that some Indians wanted to tell were composed into the 24,000 verses of the Ramayana and the 200,000 verses of the Mahabharata around 500 BC, and both epics don’t just exist today; they are best-sellers. Ancient religions like Hinduism and Buddhism were born in this land and did not die—instead, they are the world’s third and fourth largest religions today. I studied various accounts of the Indian subcontinent written by ancient travellers. Even the most ancient travelogues contain a glimpse of India as it is today.12

  The character of India is a mix of the various cultures of the people who landed here. Over 3000 years ago, the Aryans, Turks, Afghans and Mughals arrived from the north to conquer the land. Despite the loot and plunder, they became part of our diversity, creating a hybrid Indo-Islamic civilization with languages such as Deccani and Urdu, which mixed the Sanskrit-derived vernaculars with Turkish, Persian and Arabic. The Europeans, meanwhile, started arriving in India from the end of the fifteenth century, and did not mingle with us. Instead, they remained aloof, ruled ruthlessly and prospered immensely. Subsequently, India’s long and painful freedom struggle was as much about ousting the last of the imperial powers—the British and the Portuguese—as it was about ensuring that each of the disparate historical and cultural influences on the subcontinent would be part of the nation that was born in 1947.

  So, at the time of Independence, there were an estimated 554 kingdoms in all that had to be integrated into a country. Each Indian kingdom was different, with its own unique social, ethnic and religious community. Opposers of Independence like Winston Churchill and supporters like Franklin D. Roosevelt had both been sceptical that a nation as fissiparous as India would be able to adopt a universal franchise.13 But they were proved wrong.

  Even in August 1947, when the British finally left after 200 years in India, it was decided that the subcontinent would be partitioned into two independent nation states—Hindu-majority India and Muslim-majority Pakistan. But the complication still continued (as it does even today) with Kashmir. The consequentially rough partition left everyone unhappy, and the Indian subcontinent imploded in violence caused by religious differences. Thereafter began one of the goriest migrations in human history, as Muslims trekked west and east, while Hindus and Sikhs headed in the opposite direction. In the process, villages were set afire and around 75,000 women were raped, kidnapped, abducted and forcibly impregnated.14

  By 1948, between one and two million were dead.15 Soon after, the nation was swayed by movements based on language. When this was sorted out by separating distinct linguistic groups into administrative units or states, India’s unity was once again endangered by the Naga insurgency. In the 1960s, there were anti-Hindi protests in Tamil Nadu, while Naxal violence began in West Bengal and Andhra Pradesh. In the 1970s, India had to deal with the Emergency, followed by separatist movements in Assam and Punjab. In the 1990s, there were conflicts and bloodshed over caste and religious identities, which still continue. In the next decade, the bloodbath in Gujarat occurred, along with a rise in right-wing nationalist and religious sentiment, which grew in many other parts of the country as well. Perhaps it would take a miracle for the idea of India to survive and remain undisturbed.

  The conflicts in India’s history have thus brought about a violent need to ensure the survival of our ‘identity’, but at the same time, it made clear that our sense of belonging is accompanied by more volatility than is seen in most other parts of the world.

  Much of this conflict, which has threatened to tear contemporary India apart, is located along the cracks separating the enormous number of communities that live here.

  ‘Unscrupulous politicians make use of these cracks based on bogey theories of race, fanning whimsical thoughts in the minds of novice citizens and whipping up mass frenzy and fanaticism of various kinds,’ Professor Pitchappan once angrily wrote to me.

  This does not come as a surprise because the complex layers in our sense of belonging—to a place, a community or an idea—are more fraught than anywhere else in the world. We belong to several communities, to some more than to others depending on context and time, with a few occasionally overlapping or colliding among themselves. Identity is not static anywhere in the world, but in India, where the different aspects of identity often lead to fires being lit and doused, the friction can spark off a blazing inferno. The fascinating fact is that yet we hold together, with all our diversity, within this unlikely democracy that still survives.

  India has been witness to much bloodshed over convictions about the superiority of one community over the other, and the belief that the inferior one must be driven out of certain political boundaries. The naive belief that each community has different bodily compositions because of race or ethnicity has been stretched to such an extent that we are ready to kill in its defence. But genetic science shows us that everyone—regardless of religion, region, caste or tribe—has originated from the same woman in Africa. The origin of the human population across all the communities in the world is the same. However, each of us has different characteristics, and for this reason we must accept that our characteristics or identities are by no means a derivative of our origins. This is the single most important truth that can stop a large amount of conflict in our country. ‘Race’, in fact, is a political concept that has been created by constructs of power and knowledge. Who determines what counts as knowledge? Who decides whose voice will be heard, whose stories will be remembered? If we agree that we are all born of the same woman in Africa, we must see clearly that the entire issue of race is about the way history has been written and validated by society, through violent conflicts as well as silent negotiations, over generations. Our identity thus has little to do with our origins—which are the same for all—but is a product of the cumulative experiences of a lifetime that change accor
ding to context. This is perhaps the reason that despite being a Bengali who has never lived in Bengal, I am unlikely to display many of the characteristics that my community would have expected to naturally just be ‘in my blood’.

  I had known Professor Pitchappan for several months but I finally got the chance to meet him when he invited me to the wedding of his granddaughter. I was surprised and grateful at his generous gesture.

  The rational, clear-headed and patient man I had become acquainted with was as passionate about his family responsibilities as he was about his research. He had mentioned his family to me in several conversations. He told me he had grown up with two sisters in a village and that he now had three children, from whom he had two grandchildren each. His eldest granddaughter, Valli, was a medical doctor, he proudly announced. She was to get married in his native village about 200 kilometres away from Madurai to another medical doctor. He also told me that it was Virumandi who would receive me when I arrived in Madurai for the wedding.

  Virumandi arrived with his cousin Ganesha, both dressed in loose trousers and checked cotton shirts. He was fairly broad, with a receding hairline that stretched his forehead further above his small eyes and large flat nose. While Virumandi had a calm demeanour and seemed eager to help, Ganesha spoke enthusiastically in Tamil—a language I had already told him I did not understand a word of. We sat down for some tea in the veranda of my hotel.

  ‘In 2001, I was working as a laboratory assistant at Madurai Kamaraj University,’ said Virumandi as soon as we sat down on a cane sofa. ‘I was a regular blood donor anyway and had volunteered my blood to be sampled for Professor Pitchappan’s gene project. I did not know the professor, and my blood sample was one of thousands that the professor was collecting from all over India for his research. One day, while I was away, my parents told me that the professor had come to my home in my village looking for me. I was perplexed. The next day, I went to his office at the university. Initially, his assistants would not let me in, but then the professor happened to see me. He took me to his chamber and explained that my genes matched the genes of the first man out of Africa.’

  ‘At that time, did you know anything about genetic science?’ I inquired.

  ‘No. But within weeks, Spencer Wells from the US came home to meet me to confirm this discovery, and then he explained everything to me. Do you know Spencer Wells?’ he paused to ask.

  ‘Yes, I have heard of him,’ I replied.

  ‘When I first met him, I had many questions. He told me that we are all brothers, with a common ancestor born in Africa. He said that the whole world—Chinese, Americans, Europeans, Indians—is one family. I told him that what he was saying was correct, but I had a doubt because I was black and he was very fair. How is it possible that we are part of the same family?’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘He said that his last few ancestors lived in cold climatic conditions, so his genes had mutated further and the colour of his skin had changed from mine.’

  ‘So generations and climate changes affect gene composition?’

  ‘Yes, that is correct. But I had more questions for him,’ Virumandi continued. ‘I had read different things in different books. In some, I had read that humans were first born in India, and then they went from here to Africa. In some other books, I read that humans were first born in Australia. I asked Wells what the truth was.’

  ‘Without scientific evidence, there can be many claims,’ I remarked, to which Virumandi quickly nodded in agreement, and said, ‘Yes, yes, Wells told me that people can write anything they want in general books, but scientific research has to be accurate.’

  Virumandi continued, ‘But then I asked Wells why this M130 was found in me. He explained that it was because firstly, mixed marriage was strictly forbidden in my community; secondly, all generations of my community had always lived in the same area; and three, the place we lived had a climate very similar to that of Africa, where man originated.’

  We sat crammed, all three of us, on the back seat of a local taxi on our way to Virumandi’s village, Jothimanickam, located about 25 kilometres from Madurai. En route, Virumandi explained that he and Ganesha both belonged to the autochthonous Piramalai Kallar tribe, which consisted of no more than fifty families, all of them living in the same village to which we were going.

  Talking about personal affairs, he said that inspired by his association with Professor Pitchappan and all the scientists who were interested in his genes, Virumandi had been the first in his ancestral history to complete university education. In fact, he had submitted his PhD thesis a year ago at Madurai Kamaraj University, in which he had researched the possibilities of incorporating new technologies within the university’s library documentation procedures. On the other hand, Virumandi’s cousin Ganesha earned his livelihood through farming, the traditional practice of the tribe.

  After reaching the village, we carried on the conversation in Virumandi’s home, surrounded by his mother, his wife, his children and Ganesha. We were later joined by Virumandi’s father. The family lived in a three-room shack with mud walls that were painted bright blue on the inside.

  I found out that my two friends from the Piramalai Kallar tribe were both about the same age. However, while Virumandi had twins who were barely three years old, Ganesha’s son was married. Virumandi explained to me that the tribe was so close-knit that even his young children knew every tribe member.

  ‘How is that possible?’ I asked.

  ‘We have not mingled with other communities, so we remain very small. In ancient times—much before the caste system was established in India—the Piramalai Kallar tribe was isolated physically and culturally. Later, it was considered “dangerous” by the British, so much so that every male member was to appear at the police station at 6 p.m. each evening, submit a thumbprint, and sleep behind bars all night in police custody. In present times, our tribe, much like many other communities in the south of India, allows marriage only among cousins.’

  ‘Is this to keep your community closed to any outside influence?’

  ‘No, it is because we have a system,’ Virumandi explained. ‘We first look among the mother’s side of the family for a cousin who is the same age as the prospective groom or bride. The community then comes together and discusses the match. If the community feels that their temperaments do not match, we look at the next in line on the mother’s side of the family in order of age. If we find no one, then we look on the father’s side.’

  ‘Does the couple have to accept the marriage arranged by the community?’ I asked.

  ‘If a person refuses to marry the son or daughter of a maternal uncle as proposed by the community, there is a fine of Rs 1 lakh that this person has to pay to the rejected candidate,’ Virumandi explained.

  ‘Does anyone marry outside the tribe?’

  ‘It has happened twice as far as I can remember. One time the couple soon committed suicide, and the other time they escaped from Tamil Nadu,’ he said.

  ‘How would you react if your son wished to marry a girl outside the tribe?’ I asked Virumandi.

  ‘I would not encourage it, but I would accept his choice. We have to change with the times,’ he replied.

  ‘How about you?’ I turned to Ganesha, who had told me about his still unmarried younger son.

  ‘I will not allow it,’ he said in Tamil, which was translated for me by Virumandi.

  ‘Why?’ I asked. I had gathered by then that Ganesha could understand English, but could not speak it.

  ‘Marriage for love fails. Just look around you. A young couple needs the support of the family to guide them during the ups and downs of life. If my son marries outside the community, he loses his tribe. This is the tradition,’ Ganesha replied.

  ‘So are there no divorces in your system?’ I asked Virumandi.

  ‘If the couple quarrels, the community comes together to counsel them both. If the quarrels continue and no mediation is possible, the community decides that
the couple must separate. The court is never involved in the separation. A divorce is not recorded in the court,’ he explained.

  ‘What about remarriage?’ I inquired. ‘Does that happen?’

  ‘Yes, of course. The community again looks for suitable partners for the separated girl and boy.’

  ‘Is there a minimum age for marriage?’ I asked.

  ‘No. The community prefers to wait and find the right match rather than marry a person off in a hurry. We want to make sure that our children are handed over to good companions who will care for them after the parents die,’ Virumandi replied.

  The traditions by which life must be led in a community are different all over the world. But in India, thousands of diverse communities coexist—more than anywhere else—with distinct traditions and practices dating back thousands of years, and often passed down from generation to generation. The genetic analysis of India’s population sheds some light on the reason for its social diversity. Many shared behaviours and physical characteristics, like the colour of one’s skin, as well as the culture and traditions of members of a community, can be scientifically traced back to the variations produced not by separate origins, but ironically by the intermixing of genetic compositions, as well as local conditions such as weather and food. Let us see how.

  Virumandi’s ancestors first arrived in India (on their way to Australia) during the first coastal migration 60,000 years ago. This was a small group, and their progeny is still found in some parts of the Western Ghats, the eastern plains, and in some places across north-east and central India.