Please refer,

http://murugan.org/research/valluvan.htm

Thanks & Regards,

N.S.VALLUVAN.

Blacks 1st to inhabit India. In fact, we're still there!



'






THE GLOBAL AFRICAN COMMUNITY

L E C T U R E N O T E S


Head of a Black man from Mohenjo-Daro


THE AFRICAN PRESENCE IN INDIA: A PHOTO ESSAY

By RUNOKO RASHIDI


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PART 1

AN HISTORICAL OVERVIEW

One of the foremost tasks for contemporary African centered scholars is to provide an historical overview of the global African community. This is a critical task that must be completed in its entirety. This includes the history, culture and present condition of African people both at home and abroad. We are already aware, it should be pointed out, based on recent scientific studies of DNA, that modern humanity originated in Africa, that African people are the world's aboriginal people and that all modern humans can ultimately trace their ancestral roots back to Africa. If not for the primordial migrations of early African people, humanity would have remained physically Africoid, and the rest of the world outside of the African continent absent of human life. This is our starting point.

Since the first modern humans (Homo sapiens sapiens) were of African birth, the African presence globally can be demonstrated through the history of the Black populations that have inhabited the world within the span of recent humanity. Not only are African people the aboriginal people of the planet, however, there is abundant evidence to show that Black people created and sustained many of the world's earliest and most enduring civilizations. Such was the case in India.

The questions we pose here are simply these: Who are the African people of India? What is their significance in the annals of history? Precisely what have they done and what are they doing now? These are extremely serious questions that warrant serious and fundamental answers. This series of articles, "The African Presence in India: An Historical Overview," is designed to provide some of those answers.


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PART 2


Africoid figurine from the Indus Valley
photo credit: K.L.Kamat
Copyright © 1996-2002, Kamat's Potpourri.
All Rights Reserved


ANCIENT AFRICA AND EARLY INDIA

Exceptionally valuable writings reflecting close relationships between Africa and early India have existed for more than two thousand years. In the first century B.C.E., for example, the famous Greek historian Diodorus Siculus penned that, "From Ethiopia he (Osiris) passed through Arabia, bordering upon the Red Sea as far as India.... He built many cities in India, one of which he called Nysa, willing to have remembrance of that (Nysa) in Egypt, where he was brought up."

Another important writer from antiquity, Apollonius of Tyana, who is said to have visited India near the end of the first century C.E., was convinced that "The Ethiopians are colonists sent from India, who follow their forefathers in matters of wisdom." The literary work of the early Christian writer Eusebius preserves the tradition that, "In the reign of Amenophis III [the mighty Dynasty XVIII Egyptian king] a body of Ethiopians migrated from the country about the Indus, and settled in the valley of the Nile." And still another document from ancient times, the Itinerarium Alexandri, says that "India, taken as a whole, beginning from the north and embracing what of it is subject to Persia, is a continuation of Egypt and the Ethiopians."

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PART 3





INDIA'S EARLIEST CIVILIZATION

In Greater India, more than a thousand years before the foundations of Greece and Rome, proud and industrious Black men and women known as Dravidians erected a powerful civilization. We are referring here to the Indus Valley civilization- -India's earliest high-culture, with major cities spread out along the course of the Indus River. The Indus Valley civilization was at its height from about 2200 B.C.E. to 1700 B.C.E. This phase of its history is called the Harappan, the name being derived from Harappa, one of the earliest known Indus Valley cities.

In 1922, about 350 miles northeast of Harappa, another large Indus city, Mohenjo-daro (the Mound of the Dead) was identified. Mohenjo-daro and Harappa were apparently the chief administrative centers of the Indus Valley complex, and since their identification, several additional cities, including Chanhu-daro, Kalibangan, Quetta and Lothal have been excavated.

The Indus cities possessed multiple level houses enhanced by sophisticated wells, drainage systems and bathrooms with flushing toilets. A recognized scholar on the Indus Valley civilization, Dr. Walter Fairservis, states that the "Harappans cultivated cotton and perhaps rice, domesticated the chicken and may have invented the game of chess and one of the two great early sources of nonmuscle power: the windmill."

The decline and fall of the Indus Valley civilization has been linked to several factors, the most important of which were the increasingly frequent incursions of the White people known in history as Aryans--violent Indo-European tribes initially from central Eurasia and later Iran. Indeed, the name Iran means the "land of the Aryan."
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PART 4


Durga Temple


DRAVIDIAN KINGDOMS OF SOUTH INDIA


It is safe to say that when we speak of the Dravidians as a people we are speaking of the living descendants of the Harappan people of the ancient Indus Valley who were pushed into South India as the result of the Aryan invasions. This is certainly consistent with Dravidian traditions which recall flourishing cities that were either lost or destroyed in antiquity. The term "Dravidian," however, encompasses both an ethnic group and a linguistic group. The ethnic group is characterized by straight to wavy hair textures, combined with Africoid physical features. In reference to this Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop stated that:

"There are two well-defined Black races: one has a black skin and woolly hair; the other also has black skin, often exceptionally black, with straight hair, aquiline nose, thin lips, an acute cheekbone angle. We find a prototype of this race in India: the Dravidian. It is also known that certain Nubians likewise belong to the same Negro type...Thus, it is inexact, anti-scientific, to do anthropological research, encounter a Dravidian type, and then conclude that the Negro type is absent."

Dravidian, in addition to its ethnic component, however, is an important family of languages spoken by more than a hundred million people, primarily in South India. These languages include Tamil (the largest element), Kannada, Malayalam (from which the name of the Asian country Malaya is derived), Telegu and Tulu. The term "Dravidian" itself is apparently an Aryan corruption of Tamil.

From at least the third century C.E. three major Dravidian kingdoms existed in South India: the kingdoms of Pandya, Chera and Chola. Pandya was the southernmost Dravidian kingdom. The major city of Pandya was Madurai, the location of the famous chapel of the Tamil Sangam (Academy). The Sangam, of which there were three, was initiated by a body of forty-eight exceptionally learned scholars who established standards over all literary productions. The Pandyan rulers received these intellectuals with lavish honors.

It is also important to note that in the kingdom of the Pandyas women seem to have enjoyed a high status. This is the exact opposite of the regions of India where the Whites ruled. In these lands of Aryan domination it is said that a woman was never independent. "When she is a child she belongs to her father. As an adult when she marries she belongs to her husband. If she outlives her husband she belongs to her sons." An early queen of the Pandyas, on the other hand, for example, is credited with controlling an army of 500 elephants, 4,000 cavalry and 13,000 infantry.

In 1288 and again in 1293 the Venetian traveler Marco Polo visited the Pandyan kingdom and left a vivid description of the land and its people. Polo exclaimed that:

"The darkest man is here the most highly esteemed and considered better than the others who are not so dark. Let me add that in very truth these people portray and depict their gods and their idols black and their devils white as snow. For they say that God and all the saints are black and the devils are all white. That is why they portray them as I have described."

To the northwest of Pandya was the kingdom of Chera (present-day Kerala). Northwest of Pandya lay the kingdom of Chola, said to be the place where Saint Thomas the Apostle was buried. The same Marco Polo who visited Pandya referred to Chola as "the best province and the most refined in all India."

The Dravidians were an unusually advanced seafaring people, with the Cholas, in particular, distinguishing themselves amongst the dominant maritime powers of their era. Through its ports, the great kings of Chola traded with Ethiopia and Somalia, Iran and Arabia, Combodia and China, Sumatra and Sri Lanka, exporting spices and camphor, ebony and ivory, quality textiles and precious jewels.

It seems readily apparent that the Dravidian kingdoms and the Dravidian people were quite well known internationally. When Augustus became head of the Roman world, for example, the Dravidian kingdoms sent him a congratulatory embassy. Dravidian poets describe Roman ships, which carried bodyguards of archers to ward off pirates, while the Dravidian kings themselves employed bodyguards of Roman soldiers. In respect to the ancient East, at least one author has identified a Dravidian presence in the Philippines, noting that: "From India came civilized Indians, the Dravidians from whom the savage Aryans learned. They began at least 500 BC and soon controlled the coast."

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Insha Allah more, later...

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PART 5


Panya Woman in South India
Kanikar tribal man in South India

photos submitted by Shimul Akhanjee


APARTHEID IN INDIA

The White tribes that invaded India and disrupted Black civilization there are known as Aryans. The Aryans were not necessarily superior warriors to the Blacks but they were aggressive, developed sophisticated military technologies and glorified military virtues. After hundreds of years of intense martial conflict the Aryans succeeded in subjugating most of northern India. Throughout the vanquished territories a rigid, caste-segmented social order was established with the masses of conquered Blacks (called Shudras) essentially reduced to slaves to the Whites and imposed upon for service in any capacity required by their White conquerors. This vicious new world order was cold-bloodily racist, with the Whites on top, the mixed races in the middle, and the overwhelming majority of Black people on the very bottom. In fact, the Aryan term varna, denoting one's societal status and used interchangeably with caste, literally means color or complexion and reflects a prevalent racial hierarchy. Truly, India is still a racist country. White supremacist David Duke claimed "that his 1970's visit to India was a turning point in his views on the superiority of the White race."

Caste law in India, based originally on race, regulated all aspects of life, including marriage, diet, education, place of residence and occupation. This is not to deny that there were certain elements of the Black aristocracy that managed to gain prominence in the dominant White social structure. The masses of conquered Black people, however, were regarded by the Whites as Untruth itself. The Whites claimed to have emerged from the mouth of God; the Blacks, on the other hand, were said to have emerged from the feet of God. This was the ugly reality for the Black masses in conquered India. It was written that:

"A Sudra [Black] who intentionally reviles twice-born men [Whites] by criminal abuse, or criminally assaults them with blows, shall be deprived of the limb with which he offends. If he has criminal intercourse with an Aryan woman, his organ shall be cut off, and all his property confiscated. If the woman has a protector, the Sudra shall be executed. If he listens intentionally to a recitation of the Veda [a traditional Hindu religious text], his tongue shall be cut out. If he commits them to memory his body shall be split in half."
Servitude to Whites became the basis of the lives of the Black people of India for generation after generation after generation. With the passage of time, this brutally harsh, color-oriented, racially-based caste system became the foundation of the religion that is now practiced throughout all India. This is the religion known as Hinduism.
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PART 6

THE BLACK UNTOUCHABLES OF INDIA: THE WORLD'S MOST OPPRESSED PEOPLE



The greatest victims of Hinduism have been the Untouchables. Indeed, probably the most substantial percentage of all the Black people of Asia can be identified among India's 160 million Untouchables. These people are the long-suffering descendants of Aryan-Sudra unions and native Black populations who retreated into the hinterlands of India in their efforts to escape the advancing Aryan sphere of influence to which they ultimately succumbed. India's Untouchables number more than the combined populations of England, France, Belgium and Spain.

The existence of Untouchability has been justified within the context of Hindu religious thought as the ultimate and logical extensions of Karma and rebirth. Indus believe that persons are born Untouchables because of the accumulation of sins in previous lives. Hindu texts describe these people as foul and loathsome, and any physical contact with them was regarded as polluting.

Untouchables were usually forced to live in pitiful little settlements on the outskirts of Hindu communities. During certain periods in Indian history Untouchables were only allowed to enter the adjoining Hindu communities at night. Indeed, the Untouchables' very shadows were considered polluting, and they were required to beat drums and make loud noises to announce their approach. Untouchables had to attach brooms to their backs to erase any evidence of their presence. Cups were tied around their necks to capture any spittle that might escape their lips and contaminate roads and streets. Their meals were taken from broken dishes. Their clothing was taking from corpses. They were forbidden to learn to read and write, and were prohibited from listening to any of the traditional Hindu texts. Untouchables were denied access to public wells. They could not use ornaments and were not allowed to enter Hindu temples. The primary work of Untouchables included scavenging and street sweeping, emptying toilets, the public execution of criminals, the disposal of dead animals and human corpses, and the clean-up of cremation grounds. The daily life of the Untouchable was filled with degradation, deprivation and humiliation.
The basis status of India's Untouchables has changed little since ancient times, and it has recently been observed that "Caste Hindus do not allow Untouchables to wear shoes, ride bicycles, use umbrellas or hold their heads up while walking in the street." Untouchables in urban India are crowded together in squalid slums, while in rural India, where the vast majority of Untouchables live, they are exploited as landless agricultural laborers and ruled by terror and intimidation. As evidence of this, several cases from 1991 can be cited: On June 23, 1991 fourteen Untouchables were slaughtered in the eastern state of Bihar. On August 10, 1991 six Untouchables were shot to death in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh. On August 16, 1991, an Untouchable woman was stripped in public and savagely beaten in the southern state of Andra Pradesh. On September 6, 1991, in the western state of Maharastra, an Untouchable policeman was killed for entering a Hindu temple. Official Indian figures on violent crimes by caste Hindus against Untouchables have averaged more than 10,000 cases per year, with the figures continuing to rise. The Indian government listed 14,269 cases of atrocities by caste Hindus against Untouchables in 1989 alone. However, Indian human rights workers report that a large number of atrocities against Untouchables, including beatings, gang-rapes, arson and murders, are never recorded. Even when charges are formally filed, justice for Untouchables is rarely dispensed.
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more later, insha Allah

I often times feel sorry for the "Dalits" or Tamil untouchables of India because they are an oppressed Black people at the hands of a racist government also; but many of THEM are just as racist against those of African descent as their Aryan oppressors.

You try to talk to one of them smooth dark skinned sisters from Ceylon or southern India and she'll look at you like you're crazy.

They're just as in love with white skin as their Northern lighter counter-parts so I leave them alone.

The Sudrology Research Society is an Organisation devoted to researching the Origins, History, Culture, Language and Civilization of the Sudra (ie. Dalit and Dravidian) populations of South Asia. All articles are copyright of the Sudrology Research Society (Ranchi, Jharkhand) and may presently not be reproduced. Responsibility for all articles rests with the Sudrology Research Society.









Greek Travellers on the Negroid Origin of Sudras
The distinction between the black-skinned Sudroid races of southern India and the fair-skinned Aryan races of northern India is not an invention of English colonialist historians; it is a feature mentioned by the earliest Greek travellers who visited south Asia centuries before the advent of Robert Clive.
The ancient Greeks considered the Africans and Sudras (modern Dalits and Dravidians) as belonging to the same `Ethiopian' stock. `Ethiopian' was the Greek word for `Negro', and Greek authors referred to the African Negroes as `Western Ethiopians' and to the Sudroids as `Eastern Ethiopians' (ie. Eastern Negroes) [ cf. Herodotus.VI.70]. Witness the following citation from Herodotus -





Herodotus.VII.70

" The Eastern Ethiopians, [ ie. Sudras] differed in nothing from the other Ethiopians, save in their language, and the character of their hair. For the Eastern Ethiopians have straight hair, while they of Libya are more woolly-haired than any other people in the world. "
The Greek authors always referred to [highlight= yellow]" the distinction between the inhabitants of the north and south " of India [ Elphinstone, Vol.I, p.287]. The southern Indians are universally described as [highlight= yellow]" black " , and [highlight= yellow]" not unlike Ethiopians "; the northern ones are described as fairer, and [highlight= yellow]" like Egyptians " [ Arrian, Indica chap.vi; Strabo, lib.xv, chap.6 cited in Elphinstone]. Arrian explicitly mentions the North-South difference -






Arrian.VIII.6



" n other respects India is not unlike Ethiopia, and the Indian rivers have crocodiles like the Ethiopian and Egyptian Nile; and some of the Indian rivers have fish and other large water animals like those of the Nile, save the river-horse: though Onesicritus states that they do have the river-horse also. The appearance of the inhabitants, too, is not so far different in India and Ethiopia; the southern Indians resemble the Ethiopians a good deal, and, are black of countenance, and their hair black also, only they are not as snub-nosed or so woolly-haired as the Ethiopians; but the northern Indians are most like the Egyptians in appearance. "



Arrian, `Anabasis Alexandri, Book VIII (Indica),' Chapter 6, tr. E. Iliff Robson (1933)

This statement is confirmed by Strabo -





Strabo.XV.13

" I might almost say that the same animals are to be found in India as in Aethiopia and Egypt, and that the Indian rivers have all the other river animals except the hippopotamus, although Onesicritus says that the hippopotamus is also to be found in India. As for the people of India, those in the south are like the Aethiopians in colour, although they are like the rest in respect to countenance and hair (for on account of the humidity of the air their hair does not curl), whereas those in the north are like the Egyptians. "
It is sometimes alleged that these eminent historians are not referring to the Sudras in general, but only to the Pygmies of the Andamans. This theory is refuted by the following statement of the Periplus, which no doubt describes the tall and black Malabari Dravidians -





Periplus.41

" Beyond the gulf of Baraca is that of Barygaza and the coast of the country of Ariaca, which is the beginning of the Kingdom of Nambanus and of all India. That part of it lying inland and adjoining Scythia is called Abiria, but the coast is called Syrastrene. It is a fertile country, yielding wheat and rice and sesame oil and clarified butter, cotton and the Indian cloths made therefrom, of the coarser sorts. Very many cattle are pastured there, and the men are of great stature and black in color. The metropolis of this country is Minnagara, from which much cotton cloth is brought down to Barygaza. In these places there remain even to the present time signs of the expedition of Alexander, such as ancient shrines, walls of forts and great wells. The sailing course along this coast, from Barbaricum to the promontory called Papica opposite Barygaza, and before Astacampra, is of three thousand stadia. "
The Makran was referred to by the Greeks as `Gedrosia', ie. the land of the black people. Black Sudroids form a sizeable portion of the population in this region to this day, and formed one of the groups referred to as `East Ethiopians' [ Kondratov, p.145]. Indeed, several geographers considered India merely another extension of Ethiopia or Abyssinia -





Itinerarium Alexandri.49 (cx)

" India as a whole originates from the north, embraces all the area which is Persian, and continues as far as Egypt and the lands of Ethiopia. "


References

• `Anabasis Alexandri, Book VIII (Indica) ' by Arrian, tr. E. Iliff Robson (1933)
  
• <i>`Herodotus, The History'

• , trans. George Rawlinson, Dutton & Co., N.York, 1862
• `Itinerarium Alexandri,' Anonymous, 4th century AD, `Alexander's Itinerary, An English Translation' by Iolo Davies, The Ancient History Bulletin 12.1-2 (1998) 29-54
  
• <i>`The Periplus of the Erythraean Sea: Travel and Trade in the Indian Ocean by a Merchant of the First Century,'[/i] W.H. Schoff (tr. & ed.), London, Bombay & Calcutta 1912.
  
• <i>`History of India'[/i], Mountstuart Elphinstone, J.Murray, Albemarle Street, London 1841, reprinted 1988, Atlantic Publishers New Delhi 1988.
• `Geography,', Strabo, translated by H. L. Jones (ed.), http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/

Dravidians...



[img]http://rds.yahoo.com/S=96062883/K=dravidian+boy/v=2/SID=e/l=IVI/SIG=12qneftrt/EXP=1127068095/*-http%3A//www.sacredelements.com/archives/india/images/hampi-004-copy.jpg[/img]

[img]http://rds.yahoo.com/S=96062883/K=dravidian/v=2/SID=e/l=IVI/SIG=11sodnjs7/EXP=1127068196/*-http%3A//www.cwo.com/~lucumi/dravidian.jpg[/img]

[img]http://rds.yahoo.com/S=96062883/K=dravidian/v=2/SID=e/l=IVI/SIG=12edbuo5p/EXP=1127068240/*-http%3A//squarecircles.com/images/anditearyan/dravidian2.jpg[/img]

The Sudroid (Indo-African) Race
The Sudran, or Sudroid, race refers to the aboriginal populations of India. Formerly widepread over all of India, they were displaced from most of Hindustan (North India) and virtually all of the Deccan by invading Aryans. Sudroid includes the following peoples:

Sudroid

• Untouchables or Avarans
  • Adivasis/ST
• Vedic Shudrs (Aryanized and enslaved blacks)

They are a black race, closely related to the Africans and Australoids, as evident from -

• Linguistically, all the languages are related.
• Genetically they are closely related

[line]

This ends the basic section. The advanced section is below.

[line]


[color=#ff00ff]1. Physiognomic Similarities

• 1.2 Nose Width (Nasal Index)
• 1.3 Wavy-Curly Hair and Thick Lips
• 1.4 Prognathism
• 1.5 Skeletal Similarities

[*]2. Ethnographic Evidence

• 2.2 Theological
• 2.3 Burial & Funerary Customs
• 2.4 Circumcision & Initiation Rites
• 2.5 Agricultural
• 2.6 Building Construction & Ship-Building
• 2.7 Inheritance
• 2.8 Calendar

[*]3. Archaeological

• 3.2 Pottery : Red-and-Black Ware

[*]4. Linguistic [*]5. Genetic [*]6. Zoological & Botanical

• 6.2 Mammals
• 6.3 Botanical

[/list]

1. Physiognomy



1.1 Black Skin The most evident similarity between Africans and Sudroids is their black skin colour. It often approaches deep black, and when shiny resemble tar. The Adi Dravidas (true Dravidians) of South India are black like the Africans with a slightly different hair texture [ Win.gen].



1.2 Nasal Index The nose of Sudroids closely resembles that of Negroids and Australoids, being very broad. In both pure black African and pure Sudroid it is often as wide as it is broad, ie. the nasal index (ratio of width to height) is 100. By contrast Caucasians are fine-nosed. The Indo-Aryan is thus very similar to the European, possessing a fine nose, while the Sudroid is related to the Africans -

Code:

Race Nasal Index Nasal Type 
Arya (Indo-Aryan) 
Brahman (Bengal) 70.3 fine-nosed sub-leptorrhine 
Rajput 71.6 fine-nosed sub-leptorrhine 
Vaisya (Jat) 68.8 fine-nosed leptorrhine 
Vaisya (Bania) 79.6 medium-nosed mesorrhine 

Sudroid 
Dravidian (Kadian) 89.8 broad-nosed platyrrhine 
Dalit (Chamar) 86.0 broad-nosed platyrrhine 
Adivasi (Munda) 89.9 broad-nosed platyrrhine 
Vedic Shudrs (Dom) 83.0 broad-nosed sub-platyrrhine 

-- [ Ris App. III p.395 ff ]

By comparison, the French of Paris average 69.4 [ Ris 28-9], while pure Africans average between 90 and 100.

1.3 Wavy-Curly Hair & Thick Lips The hair of Sudroids is wavy and often curly, with imported Africans ( eg. the Makranis, the Siddis of Sind and the Dakhin ) it is frizzy. It is a common misconception to asume all Africoids have frizzy hair; it is often curly and wavy in Nubia and Abyssinia.


Curly Hair -
Friedrich Mueller classified black races according to hair texture, classing them under the tufted-haired peoples ( Bushmen, Hottentots and Papuans ), fleece-haired peoples ( Bantu and Negro ) and wavy-haired peoples ( Hamitic, Semitic and Nuba-Fulla ).
-- [ EB `Languages of the World']

Another trait in common is the thick everted lips [ Arav.neg] .


1.4 Prognathism Pronounced prognathism is characteristic of all black races from Africa to southern India and Oceania - Australia. In addition, the teeth are relatively larger in case of Australoids and Kolarians, as well as Dravidians.



1.5 Skeletal Similarities Long Fore