North Indians vs South Indians???

[Prahalad]

Can someone explain the BS of North Indians vs South Indians that so many PIO's seem to believe in? According to them, NI's are a different more European like race comared to the SI's.

Well I come from a Brahmin Gujarati family and my wife is from a SC Tamil family, and I know for a fact that me and my family do not look like Europeans compared to my wife and her family.

Also the majority of PIO's in western countries who are Punjabi or Gujarati and upper caste Hindu's/Sikhs do not look like Europeans/Caucasians. They look like other South Asians compared to the local whites, just like PIO's who are Bengali, Tamil, lower caste/non Sikh, etc.

[arvindiyer]

While interposing a versus between 'North India' and 'South India' is neither desirable nor particularly instructive, a lot of misunderstanding can perhaps be forestalled with mindfulness of geographically and historically inherited heterogeneity, such as the estimated ethnic composition of early settlers in these different regions (a topic which is subject to much revisionism and hijacking by supremacists), agrarian conditions (fertility of the Gangetic plain and the relative aridity of the south) , differences in how immigrant cultures were first encountered (via traders in the southern coasts and largely via invaders in the northern plains.) and differing post-colonial visions of how a composite culture can be accommodated in a federal structure.

These episodes from the series India Invented make instructive viewing on the above topics:
Episode 2: Dawn of Civilization
Episode 6: Spice of life

Episode 4, Ages of Gold, in Michael Wood's Story of India series surveys instances of what some commentators sanguinely view as cultural continuity of the North and South, and others as instances of a sometimes invasive and sometimes insidious cultural hegemony.

As for differing notions and in some ways the still ongoing dialectic on how the federal republic should accommodate a composite culture, the book-chapter The Southern Challenge from India After Gandhi by Ramachandra Guha (Incidentally, someone from a Tamil-speaking household often mistaken for a Bengali-speaker ) is a useful read.

On a lighter note, this informal NDTV poll commissioned to ask " Who are India's nicest people?" seems to suggest that the so-called North-South divide isn't taken too much to heart by the good people of India.

http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/ndtv-m...ple-260298

Video: http://www.ndtv.com/video/player/news/nd...topstories

Edit : 24 Aug 2013 Fixed broken links to India Invented episodes

[kick buttowski]

while its no good putting north vs south..(it should rather be north+south),..we cant deny that there are are obvious differences in physical features and the cultural practices and behavior.in cities we usually encounter people with rather homogeneous bent of mind.it is in remote rural areas where older traditions still survive that we truly see the difference.
as a few instances that caught my eye are(i'll be talking of the community i know best-jats of haryana)-1.a gene has been found for glucoma of eyes that is found in jats and nowhere else in india which is also found in people of ukraine and other few other countries.(i'm not giving the link but you can google it)
2.in jat people i see more than a few people in rural population that have clear eyes and light color even after toiling in fields under harsh sun for whole days..this adaptation makes no sense biologically for such a sunny territory ..it is most likely these genes survive of people that lived in colder less sunny areas.
3.the brahiminic literature of ancient times have mentioned them living in a place where it snowed in winters and then traveling through hindu -kush mountains to settle in gangetic plains.(again,you have to google it yourself)
.
as of today most populations are mixed enough to make it difficult to recognise diferences ,so we have to look in isolated pockets which resisted change.but on the question of mindset it is even more difficult as india seem more homogenous in the way they think and behave.

[Cityboy]

Most Indians descend from a mixture of races. Let me explain why.

Genetic mutations to color of skin are not caused by exposure to sunlight. If a group of white europeans settled in India and remained endogoamous, their children today would continue to be as white as europeans. Most Indians are brown or black of various shades and that is evidence of a mixture.

Many people do not understand Darwinian evolution properly. Phrases like survival of the fittest and adaptation are potentially misleading. If I lift weights to strengthen my biceps and twenty successive generations of my descendents do the same, the 21st generation descendent will not be born with strong biceps. Lifting weights can strengthen my biceps, but it cannot mutate my genes - and genes are what are passed on to the next generation.

Similarly, while exposure to sun can tan a person, it cannot mutate the genes of the person.

[LordPlaguies]

Well frankly speaking we... are kind of bastard race. Don't blame me, that is why I said frankly.
And one more thing. What precisely one means when he/she says : *Indian* ?
Hmm? That is nonsensical -- mostly. We do not have a locked gene-pool , to qualify or even categorise ourselves
from the rest of the world.

Lets see what Anthropology says about it it is here, kind of.



We are not Aryans, or not Dravids. We are mixed. Does that solve the problem?
If you disagree, then please read [1] book on Anthropology [2] book on Evolution.
If you still disagree, then ... sorry I can not help you further.

[arvindiyer]

Media profiles of the women and men behind Mangalyaan/MOM online have perhaps surprisingly led to cross-border bonhomie like in this comment-trail, but have also, perhaps unsurprisingly, led to some within-border acrimony like in this comment trail. Regionalism aside, here is the BBC's coverage of how Team ISRO is at least in some ways undermining age-old stereotypes and doing justice to diversity in scientific establishments.