Talk:Historical definitions of races in India/Dumping ground

Specific racial theories

See also: Scientific racism

In the turn of the 19th century, various authors and members of the physical anthropology school, began to attempt to classify the human species into various "races." These theories, which remained popular until World War II, are now often labelled as "scientific racism." Modern scientists have defined the Homo Sapiens Sapiens as monotypic (i.e. comprising only one "race" without sub-species). The scientific support for terms such as Caucasoid, Negroid, Mongoloid used widely in these earlier theories has fallen steadily. Where 78 percent of the articles in the 1931 Journal of Physical Anthropology employed these or similar synonymous terms reflecting a bio-race paradigm, only 36 percent did so in 1965, and just 28 percent did in 1996.

Johann Blumenbach (1750)

Blumenbach distinguished one race, the Caucasian, "Asia this side of the Ganges" and the "second, [the Mongolian race] includes that part of Asia beyond the Ganges and below the river Amoor [Amur], which looks toward the south, together with the islands and the greater part of these countries which is now called Australian.

He believed that most Indians are Caucasoid.

James Prichard (1813)

"James Cowles Prichard, MD (1786-1848)... [was] described as one of the founders of the science of anthropology... he [postulated that the] existence of tribes of wooly-haired blacks from the Andaman Islands east to the South Pacific suggested the early diffusion of a black race over a much wider area...[he] acknowledged that for a long time, both physically and culturally, the dominant people in ancient India were Black. In support he cites, for example, the observations of well-known classical (Greek and Roman) authors. He points first to Herodotus (ca. 450 BCE) and notes that It is remarkable that Herodotus, in his enumeration of the forces of Xerxes, mentions a tribe of Ethiopians from the eastern parts of Asia, who were drawn out in the same division of the army with the Indians. Another historical source was the Greek historian Arrian (ca. 150 BCE). In his work called Indica, Arrian said of the people of India that, Those farther to the south are somewhat more like the Ethiopians, and they are black in their complexion, and their hair is black, but they are not likewise flat nosed, nor is their hair wooly; but those who live farther northward most resemble Egyptians in their persons. In more recent times, Prichard cites one of his contemporaries, Francis Wilford, an officer in the Indian Army, whose writings appeared in the monumental, twenty volume Asiatick Researches, first published in Calcutta from 1788 to 1839. The initial twelve volumes of Asiatick Researches were reprinted in London from 1806 to 1812. A widely recognized scholar during his day, Wilford ultimately concluded that it cannot reasonably be doubted, that a race of Negroes formally had pre-eminance in India. And then, after examining the art of early India, Prichard himself concluded that, There can be no doubt that the prototypes from which they were designed, were either Negroes properly so called, or that they were possessed of physical characteristics similar to those of the natives of Africa."

Dr. Hunter

Dr. Hunter Classifies the Indians into the "copper coloured" race.

Louis Agassiz (1851)

Louis Agassiz classified all Indians as "Tropical Asiatic race" which also included Southeast Asians..

Arthur Gobineau (1853-1855)

The French aristocrat Count Arthur de Gobineau wrote, "The Indian civilization... It arose from a branch of white people, the Aryans." With regard to the original domain of the Aryans, Gobineau said, "the most ancient Sanskrit peoples were founding their empire, and be means of religion and the sword were covering Northern India." In reflection over ancient India, Gobineau wrote, "The Brahmans (sic) of primitive India...the glorious shades of noble races that have disappeared-- give us a higher and more brilliant idea of humanity... than the peoples, hybrid a hundred times over, of the present day [India]." "[T]he picture I'm presenting which in certain features is that of the Hindus... facts appear to stand out... [t]he second fact is that a picked race of men, a sovereign people, with the usual strong propensities of such a people to cross its blood with another's, finds itself henceforth in close contact with a race whose inferiority is shown, not only by defeat, but also the lack of attributes which may be seen in its conquerors. From the very day that the conquest is accomplished and the fusion begins, there appears a noticeable change in the blood quality of the masters. If there were no other modifying influence at work, then-- at the end of a number of years... we should be confronted with a new race, less powerful certaintly than the better of its two ancestors... After a short time, we might truly say that a distinction of castes takes place of the original distinction of races." With regards to present day India, Gobineau wrote, "''Those who are most akin to us come nearest to beauty; such are the degenerate Aryan stocks of India and Persia, and the Semitic peoples who are at least infected by contact with the black race. As these races recede from the white type, their features and limbs become incorrect in form; they acquire defects in proportion which, in the races that are completely foreign to us [whites], end up producing an extreme ugliness." In regards to India's black constituents, Gobineau said, "negroes have always perpetuated the original forms of their race, such as the prognathous type with wooly hair, the Hindu type of the Kamaun and Deccan..."

He characterized all Indians, along with Semitic peoples, Persians and most other Asians as the "Degenerative" race.

Thomas Huxley (1865)

Huxley's map of racial categories from On the Geographical Distribution of the Chief Modifications of Mankind. Australioids, marked in blue, are identified as occupants of Australia and India

In 1865, anthropologist Thomas Huxley said, "The so-called Dravidian populations of Southern Hindostan lead us back, physically as well as geographically, towards the Australians while the diminutive Mincopies of the Andaman islands lie between the Negro and Negrito races, and, as Mr. Busk has pointed out, occasionally present the rare combination of brachycephaly, or short-headedness, with wooly hair." "the Hindoos of the Valley of the Ganges and the Indus, who there is every reason to believe result from the intermixture of distinct stocks... Aryan invaders were white men. It is hardly doubted that they intermixed with the dark Dravidian aborginees and that the high-caste Hindoos are what they are in virtue of the Aryan blood they inherited... I do not know any good reason for the physical differences between a high-caste Hindoo and a Dravidian, except the Aryan blood in the veins of the former"

He claimed that while some are more Austric than others, all Indians still are members of the Austric race

Friedrich Ratzel (1898)

In 1898, ethnographer Friedrich Ratzel remarked about the "Mongolian features" of "Dravidians", resulting in his "hypothesis of their [Dravidians] close connection with the population of Tibet" whom he adds "Tibetans may be decidedly reckoned in the Mongol race" In 1899, a journal called "Science" summarized Ratzel's findings over India with, "India is for the author [of the History of Mankind, Ratzel], a region where races have been broken up pulverized, kneaded by conquerors. Doubtless a pre-Dravidian negroid type came first, of low stature and mean physique, though these same are, in India, the result of poor social and economic conditions. Dravidians succeeded negroids, and there may have been Malay intrusions, but Australian affinities are denied. Then succeeded Aryan and Mongol, forming the present pot porri through conquest and blending."

Paul Topinard (1899)

In 1899, 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 second has spread over the plateaux of Central India by two lines of way one on the north-east and the other on the north-west. The remnants of the first invasion are seen in the Dravidian or Tamil tribes, and those of the second in the jhats. The third was the Aryan." In regard to the racial composition of Dravidians, Topinard added, "[p]assing to the yellow races... we find them divided into groups... [such as] the Dravidians of India,'" Regarding the Aryans, Topinard said, "[t]he white races remain... [t]he second [subrace of the white race], also brown, but of relatively high stature, embraces the conquerors of the Vedic epoch in India, the Persians and certain others."

William Ripley (1899)

William Ripley said, "the present distribution of long-headedness points to a common derivation of the African and the Australian and the Melanesian races, between whom stand as a connecting link the Dravidian or aboriginal inhabitants of India. We have reached the confines of India. Here we meet the first traces of the aboriginal population underlying the Hindoos. It includes all the native Indian hill tribes and extends away off overseas into Melanesia... At its eastern end along the Himalayas, it divides the pure Mongols in Thibet (sic) from the Hindoos and the negroid hill tribes of India. South of the Hindoo-Kush extends the eastern branch of the Mediterranean race, among the Afghans and Hindoos.

He and Haddon further believed that a great brown race spread from Indo-China, as far as the Mediterranean, passing through India, Arabia and Egypt.

Joseph Deniker (1900)

In 1900, anthropologist Joseph Deniker said, "the Dravidian race is connected with both the Indonesian and Australian... [t]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". Also, Deniker mentions that the "Indo-Afghan race has its typical representatives among the Afghans, the Rajputs, and in the caste of the Brahmins, but it has undergone numerous alterations as a consequence with crosses with Assyriod, Dravidian, Mongol, Turkish, Arab and other elements." Deniker places the "Indo-Afghan" as a "subrace" of "Wavey Brown or Black Hair Dark Eyes" which includes "Arab or Semite", "Berber", "Littoral European", "Ibero-Insular", "Western European" and "Adriatic"

Herbert Risely (1901)

British anthropologist and physiognomist Herbert Hope Risley was the Census Commissioner for India in 1901. He stated that the population of India consisted of seven basic types: "Mongoloid", "Dravidian", "Indo-Aryans", "Turko-Iranian", "Mongolo-Dravidian", "Aryo-Dravidian" and "Scytho-Dravidian".

Risley's classification was subsequently revised and published as a separate volume in 1908 under the title The People of India (edited by W. Crooke, ISBN 81-206-1265-5). Risley believed that the "Mongoloid" and "Dravidian races" were the original inhabitants of North-East India and South India respectively. He stated that the Scythians arrived from Central Asia "sometime in the 2nd millennium, sweeping down the west coast", and the Aryans arrived shortly after. Risley also believed that the basic linguistic divisions of the Indian subcontinent could be traced back to racial origins.

Risley believed in biological determinism which would explain, according to him, social distinctions (including the caste system). Thus, he thought their causes ultimately resided in physiognomy, skin colour or bone structure. His classification was criticized by his contemporaries for taking into consideration only a limited number of characteristics, using linguistic terminology in a racial classification (a cultural factor which proponents of scientific racism attempted to get rid of), and ignoring important tribal groups . Max Müller (1823-1900) denounced his theory as "unholy alliance" between comparative philology and ethnology that laid behind Risley's ethnographic survey .

Census of India (1901)

"The [Indian] census report of 1901 divided the population of India into seven distinct racial types: the Turko-Iranian type, represented by the Baluch, Brahui and Afghans of the Baluchistan Agency and the North-West Frontier Province; the Indo-Aryan type, occupying the Punjab, Rajputana and Kashmir, and having as its characteristic members the Rajputs, Khatris and Jats: 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. The sixth type is the Mongoloid of the Himalayas, Nepal, Assam and Burma, represented by the Kanets of Lahoul and Kulu, the Lephcas of Darjeeling, the Limbus, Murmis and Gurungs of Nepal, the Bodo of Assam, and the Burmese. 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."

William Crooke (1907)

In 1907, anthropologist William Crooke described "three distinct [racial] strains--the white, the yellow, the black" of "Northern India". With regards to the black strain, 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." With regards to the white strain, he said, "[w]ith us it [the term Aryan] is merely a convenient term to express the white type of man, of whom the best specimens are to be found among some of the races of Punjab. All that we really know about this so-called Aryan race is that they came into India from the north or west and when literary evidence-- that of the Vedic hymns --begins, we find them settled in the Holy Land of the Hindus in the south-western Punjab. Thence they gradually advanced down the rivvalleys to the east and south... Here [the Punjab] the Aryans did not intermarry with the dark daughters of Heth." With regards to the yellow strain, he said, that the "Mongoloid", "[t]he original seats of this race lie north of the Himālayan range. It is only in the region of Bengal, Assam, Burma that the strain has affected the present population to any considerable extent."

Somerset Playne (1915)

In 1915, Somerset Playne compiled an anthropological anthology of the people of Southern India where he presented the views of multiple anthropologists. Playne included "Mr. Rea"." "Parts of human skulls traced by Mr. Rea have been assigned to the Iron Age... Genuine historic sites have so far yielded human skeletons... Recent research has led to the general conclusion that the non-Aryan population of Southern India is made up of at least two different racial stocks, which have been called pre-Dravidian or Arche-Dravidian and Dravidian." If, as is believed, that the Dravidian reprsents Neolithic man, is it not possible, at least, that the pre-Dravidian represents in part Paleolithic man?" Playne included De Quatrefages who considered "[a]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." Playne includes Flowers and Lydekker who when referring to "Dravidians" state, "in Southern India they are largely mixed up with the Negro element." Playne included Dr. Keane who 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" Playne included Professor R. Semon who said, "Dravidian aborginees of India, types which remind us forcibly of Australians in their anthropological characters." Playne included Edgar Thurston who considered "Brahmans(sic) of the south [of India] are not pure Aryans but are a mix of the Aryan and Dravidian race." Playne included Thurston who said, "pre-Dravidians are ethnically related to the Veddas of Ceylon [Sri Lanka] and the Sakais of the Malay peninsula."

Thomas Hodson (1931)

In Analysis of the 1931 Census of India (Government of India Press, 1937), Thomas Callan Hodson (1871-1953), the William Wyse Professor of Social Anthropology and Fellow of St Catharine's College, Cambridge, analysed the physical types in India, in great detail, adopting the models dominant in his day. This analysis was independent of the castes, and Brahmins and Dalits were classified in the same "racial groups". For example, Telugu Brahmins and Chamars were classified as "Racial Element A". In total, he distinguished seven "racial elements", from A to G.

Hodson used the classical "brachycephalic" and "dolichocephalic" terminology in force in racial discourses of the day. This was a typology constructed from the so-called "cephalic index" (the ratio of the maximum width of the head to its maximum length) and to classify human populations according to this purported scientific measure. Invented by the anatomist Anders Retzius (1796-1860), the cephalic index classification was disputed by Franz Boas's anthropological works, and Boas's criticisms are widely accepted today. Hodson also typically associates racial categories with supposed stages of economic and linguistic development, implying a hierarchy of racially defined cultures, a view characteristic of scientific racism.

Hodson believed that the earliest occupants of India were probably of the "Negrito race", followed by the "proto-Australoids". Later, an early stock probably of the Mediterranean race, came to India and mingled with the proto-Australoids. He believed that these people spoke an agglutinative language from which the present Austro-Asiatic languages are derived. They had a rudimentary knowledge of agriculture, building stone monuments, and primitive navigation. This migration was followed by an immigration of more civilised Mediterraneans from the Persian Gulf (ultimately from eastern Europe). These people had the knowledge of the metals, but not of iron. They were followed by later waves of immigrants who developed the Indus valley civilization. All these immigrants were of the dolichocephalic type, but the Indus valley people had a mixed brachycephalic element coming from the Anatolian plateau, in the form of the Armenoid branch of the Alpine race. These people probably spoke the Dravidian languages. Later, a brachycephalic race speaking perhaps an Indo-European language of the "Pisacha or Dardic family", migrated to India from the Iranian plateau and the Pamirs. During about 1500 B.C., the Indo-Aryans migrated into Northern India.

Biraja Guha (1931)

The Census Commissioner for the 1931 Census of India enlisted the services of Biraja Sankar Guha (1894-1961), the first Director of the Anthropological Survey of India. Guha carried out a survey in Indian subcontinent on the basis of anthropometric and somatoscopic observations, measuring 3,771 persons belonging to 51 "racial strains". He took measurements on 18 different characteristics, besides recording a number of somatoscopic observations on skin, eye and hair colours for isolating the "racial types". Guha claimed that the population of India was derived from six main ethnic groups: "Negritos", which he also called "Brachycephalic" ("broad headed"), "Pro-Australoids" or "Austrics", "Mongoloids", "Dravidians", "Western Brachycephalic", "Indo-Aryans".

Bertram Thomas (1937)

In 1937, Bertram Thomas, a scientist who practiced craniofacial anthropometry, claimed that, "according to Sir Arthur Keith, one of the world's greatest living anthropologists, who has made a study of Arab skeletal remains, ancient and modern, were not the familiar Arabs of our time, but a very much darker people. A protonegroid belt of mankind stretched across the ancient world from Africa to Malaya. This belt, by environmental and other evolutionary process, became in parts transformed, giving rise to the Hamitic peoples of Africa, to the Dravidian peoples of India and to an intermediate dark people inhabiting the Arabian peninsula."

Eugen Fischer (1938)

Eugen Fischer said, the "Mediterranean race... This race spread out toward the west as well as toward the east, over the Near East and as far as western India. Further, remains of a Negritic population in the prehistoric and historic Near East have been conjectured which are alleged to be connected with the Negritic strata of India (i.e., not African Negroes). These people would have been of small build, dark, strongly curly-haired and with fleshy, thick upper lips.

Leonard Buxton (1938)

Leonard Halford Dudley Buxton wrote, "this type [Mediterranean] is widely spread throughout the whole region and extends from the Mediterranean to India." MK Bhasin said that "Buxton suggests that the Pareoean [the racial group which originated the Cambodians ] element extends to Southern India".

John G. Jackson (1939)

John G. Jackson, in his book Ethiopia and the Origin of Civilization, stated that the early inhabitants of India were "an Ethiopic ethnic type",. which were described by Dr. Will Durant as "a dark-skinned, broad-nosed people". Durant didn't about the origin or the language of these "early Hindus", but he termed them "Dravidians".

DuBois (1947)

In 1947, W.E.B. DuBois, sociologist and historian, said, "[t]he final word of science, so far, is that we have at least two perhaps three, great families of human beings -- the whites and Negroes, possibly the yellow race [he calls this "Mongolian" later]. The other races have arisen from the intermingling of the blood of these two." Later, there was a "change in his anthropological view", where he postulated "Negroids and Mongoloids are primary, with Caucasoids listed as a type between these, possibly formed by their union, with bleached skin and intermediate hair." DuBois identifies "first a prehistoric susbtratum of Negrillos; then the pre-Dravidians, a taller, larger type of Negro; then the Dravdians, Negroes with some mixture of Mongoloid and later Caucasian stocks. The Dravdian negroes laid the basis of Indian culture thousands of years before the Christian era. We find upon us today in the world's stage eight distinctly differentiated races, in the sense that History tells us the word must be used... the Hindoos of Central Asia... among the Hindoos are traces of widely differing nations."

Thus DuBois believed that the Dravidians are a mixture of races including that of the Caucasoid stock.

Edward Said

Edward Said claimed that the Indians are members of the "Hindoo Branch" of the "Brown Race". The Hindoo Branch was divided into 2 subgroups; "Hindoo Family" (consisting of mainly North Indians) and "Malabar" (consisting of South Indians).

Stanley Garn (1961)

Stanley M. Garn classified all of India as the "Indian race".

Carleton Coon (1972)

20th century athropologist Carleton Coon said that within the Caucasoid race there is a "third division [Mediterraneans which]... included... southern India" due to a "Caucasoid skull structure" 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, "[t]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...[I] shall leave the problems of Indian physical anthropology in the competent hands of Guha and of Bowles."

In his book he published in 1969, "The Living Races of Man," he said, "India is the easternmost outpost of the Caucasian racial region."

Wayne Chandler (1985)

In 1985, "Wayne B. Chandler is an anthrophotojournalist with a background in anthropology, history and photography... Mr. Chandler is an historian and lecturer", explained that "the original layer consisted of Ethiopian Blacks known as Negritos. The second element, later introduced, was that of the Proto-Australoid. Bharatiya describes these people as Black and platyrrhine... With the Negritos, this race may once have covered the whole of India; a genealogical offshoot would later generate the aboriginees of Australia. The merging of these two culturally diverse but monoracial groups-- the Ethiopian Negrito and the Proto-Australoid-- produced the people of the Indus Valley civilization... The third element, a mongoloid race. The first or Paleo-mongoloid category is further divided into two groups. The first was characterized... thought to be the earliest mongoloid type, formed a dominant element in the tribes living in the Assam and Indo-Burmese frontiers. The second Paleo-mongoloid subgroup... examples of this racial type can be found today among the primitive tribes of Burma and Bangladesh. The second Mongoloid group is that of the Tibetan mongoloids... found today in Sikkim and Bhutum. The fourth racial strata... represented a mix of Black and Mongoloid races, occurs in Kannada, Tamil and Malayan regions... [the] Mediterranean, which resulted from a mix of Black and Caucasian races, can be found in the Punjab and the Valley of the Upper Ganges... [t]he Mediterranean element spread throughout the subcontinent and,... mixing with the indigenous peoples, formed the Dravidians... the fifth element or racial influence. The Armenoids... represent a specialized offshoot of Alpine or European stock.... the sixth racial stratum... The Vedic Aryans, or Nordics, introduced the Sanskrit language to India and created a dynamic cultural synthesis between themselves and the indigenous people. The Aryans represent the latest racial influence on India. "

Cavalli-Sforza (1995)

Geneticist Cavalli-Sforza wrote, "[t]he Caucasoids are mainly fair-skinned peoples, but this group also includes the southern Indians, who live in tropical areas and show signs of a marked darkening in skin pigmentation, although their facial and body traits are Caucasoid rather than African or Australian."

Edgar Thurston (1995)

Similarly, Edgar Thurston identified a "Homo Dravida" who had more in common with the Australian aboriginals than their Indo-Aryan or high-caste neighbors. As evidence, he adduced the use of the boomerang by Kallan and Marawan warriors and the proficiency at tree-climbing among both the Kadirs of the Anamalai hills and the Dayaks of Borneo.. Interestingly, the idea was embraced by national mysticist Tamil activists, and in 1966 Devaneya Pavanar would endorse the separate identity of Thurston's "Homo Dravida" as the purest descendant of the people of the sunken continent of Kumari Kandam.

LeThan (2004)

K. LeThan's vanity press book "Meru to Cancún - An Ethno-Historical Journey" claims, "The Africans who 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. From the middle Pleistocene to the fourth millennium B.P., the blacks are predominant in Asia and there was no physical difference between Africans, Melanesians, Dravidians, Adites or Cassites. They entered India by the Soan River flowing from the Himalayas to the Indus. The Himalayas or mountain of the Malays became Sumeru after the intermarriage between the East Africans and Malays. The original Malays are short with lanky hair, flat nose, small corpulence, but their eyes are not slanted like those of Mongoloids north of the Yellow River. Issued from the African and Malay mixture, the Dravidians or Tamils have dark complexion and curly but not wooly hair. Western anthropologists classified the Nagas, Assamese, Burmese and Mon-Khmers under the same Dravidian family. Archaeological diggings in Indochina by the French before World War II, however, reveal that the oldest inhabitants of Southeast Asia are Negritoid Malays, Melanesians, Papuans and Dravidians."

Donald A. Mackenzie (2004)

Donald A. Mackenzie said, the "Indian civilization known as Aryan and those numerous inheritors of Aryan traditions, the Hindus, who exceed two hundred and seven millions of the population of India. Modern Hinduism embraces a number of cults which are connected with the early religious doctrines of the Aryanized or Brahmanized India of the past; it recognizes, among other things, the ancient caste system which includes distinct racial types varying from what is known as the Aryan to the pre-Dravidian stocks.

Though be believes that there are racial differences amongst the caste system, he believes that most Indians are still members of one race. Donald A. Mackenzie considers Indians members of the Brown or Mediterranean race.

Egon Eickstedt (1934)

Egon Freiherr von Eickstedt classified all Indians, along with Middle Easterners and many southern Europeans as belonging to the Mediterranean Race.

He claims that within the Mediterranean race, the Indians are members of the "Indid subrace."

Robert Caldwell (1856)

Bishop Robert Caldwell, first coined the word Dravidian. He considered them as Caucasian. He wrote, "...did not materially differ in physiognomy or personal appearance from the northern Hindus;..."

William Ripley

William Z. Ripley believed that all Indians, along with Middle Easterners are members of the Mediterranean Race

Carolus Linnaeus (1735)

He included all of the Indians, along with most Asians as "Asiatics".

Max Muller (1847)

Indologists researchers Max Muller, Chevalier Bunsen, and Charles Meyer wrote in their text, Three Linguistic Dissertations: Read at the Meeting of the British (P. 138) that while the South Indians are darker, they, along with the North Indians are members of the Caucasian race.

Sir George Campbell (19 century)

He believed that the Dravidians are members of the Caucasian race.

Flower and Lydekker

Flower and Lydkker both believed that the Dravidians are Caucasians.

Dutt and Noble

Both Dutt and Noble have written that both the Aryans and Dravidians are of the Caucasoid race.

N. M. Khilnani (1993)

The writer N. M. Khilnani believes that the Aryans and the Dravidians are of the Caucasoid race although the Dravidians were responsible for the Indus Valley Civilization and the Aryans came later.

Excerpta Medica Foundation (1969)

Excerpta Medica (P. 338) published by the Excerpta Medica Foundation propose that there are 4 major racial groups "Aryan (Caucasoid)", "Dravidian (Caucasoid)", Australoid and Mongoloid, meaning that the Aryans and the Dravidians majority of India are of the same race (although different branches.)

Walter Yust (1952)

Walter Yust in his Encyclopaedia Britannica: A New Survey of Universal Knowledge (P. 532) says that the Dravidians are Caucasoid.

William Boyd (1956)

According to William Henry Boyd, the Indians along with Middle Easterners, North Africans and Europeans as well are a part of the European race.

François Bernier

François Bernier in his racial categorization of the world, included Indians, Middle Easterners, North Africans, Europeans, North Americans and Australians into the same race.

John Hunter (1775)

Dr. John Hunter passed the Indians as the "copper race."

Zimmerman

Zimmerman places the Indians along with the people of the Indian archipelago as "Arabians."

Immanuel Kant (1775)

Immanuel Kant a celebrated German psychologist categorized the Indians into the "olive-colored."

Georges Cuvier

French naturalist Georges Leopold Cuvier wrote that the Indians are Caucasians.

Samuel Morton

Dr. Samuel George Morton included Indians amongst the Caucasian race.

James Martin

James Ranald Martin believed that Indians are of the Caucasoid race.

Latham

Dr. Latham believed that the Indians masses were of the "Mongolian" race (meaning both Aryans and Dravidians belong to the same larger stock).

Horace Wilson

Horace Hayman Wilson wrote that Indians are, "one great branch of the Caucasian race, differening from each other branches of the same race merely by its darker complexion."

Robert Pennak (1964)

Robert William Pennak wrote that the Dravidians are, "Race of short caucasoids living in southern India;..."

James Fisher (1995)

James Samuel Fisher says of the Dravidians,"One of the earliest inhabitants of India; referring to dark-skinned Caucasoids of peninsular India;..."

Wilfred Neill (1973)

Wilfred T. Neill says that the early Dravidians were probably "brunet Caucasoid"

William Benton

Benton writes that both the Dravidians and Aryans are of the Caucasoids race.

Rinn-Sup Shinn

Rinn-Sup Shinn believes that the Dravidians are Caucasoid

Winchell

Dr. Winchell wrote that the Dravidians were the first Caucasians.

George Buffon

The French naturalist George Leclerc comte de Buffon assigned Indians as the "South Asian" race.

Census of Modern India

Main article: Demographics of India

India's population is not divided into various "races" today. The concept of "race" itself has been strongly disputed, many scientists agreeing that the human being can not be usefully divided into various "sub-groups" according to biological factors. This concept has widely been replaced by "ethnic groups," which take into account cultural traits (language, religion, customs, etc.).