 India is a land of great diversity, more
heterogeneous than any other country in the
world.
Four major racial groups have met and merged in
India resulting in a complex demographic
profile. The pale-skinned Europoid entered from
the western mountain passes, encountering
settled populations of Dasyu, the dark skinned
ones of Rig Vedic description.
The Aryans established a dominant presence in
the northwest and the Gangetic plain, but the
people of Mongoloid descent remained undisturbed
in the Himalayan region and the highlands of the
northeast. Their affinity with the southeast
Asian world is remarkable and is reflected in
the motifs used in the crafts. Though the
Mongoloid people influenced the racial pattern
of tribes in the eastern provinces of Orissa and
Bihar, by and large, they stayed within central
India. Southerners in peninsular India might
have had a link with Negroid racial elements, as
deduced from contemporary populations with dark
skins and tightly curled hair. But the only true
Negrito are isolated in the Andaman Islands.
The ethnic diversity is reflected in the variety
of languages and dialects used in India - 17
major languages and 900 dialects or closely
related subsidiary languages. The Indo-European
group, particularly the sub-branch of the Indic
languages, concentrated as dialects of northwest
India and the Gangetic plains, share a
linguistic pool with modern French, English,
Greek and Persian, indicative of migrations of
Europoid people. The Dravidian language family
alone consists of 23 languages. Tamil is spoken
in TamilNadu, Telugu in Andhra Pradesh, Kannada
in Karnataka and Malayalam in Kerala.
Tribal groups of Oraon, Munda and Santhal
scattered through the highlands of eastern and
central India use the languages of the
Austro-Asiatic family, but many of the dialects
with only oral traditions have lost.
Less than one per cent of modern India's
population - comprising the Mizo, Naga, Lushai
and Khasi , to name a few tribes - is inheritor
to the languages of the Tibeto-Burman family.
Secluded by geography and, later, protected by
policy, their ethnological and linguistic
identity has survived. Christian missionaries
have contributed to the standardization of some
of these languages. |
People Of India
