It is marvellous what genetic science can do, enabling us ‘to look at the history of time’ without distorting the truth (‘Ground Zero’ page – “How genetics is settling the Aryan migration debate”, June 17). Irrefutable genetic findings should discredit the long-held right-wing stance on Aryan migration. That birth-based social hierarchy was brought into being by the Aryans is of particular significance. It is time we recognise that we are all migrants. As we are all earthlings, and children of “Mitochondrial Eve”, the time of migration need not matter much or divide us in any manner. Planet Earth is our common home.
G. David Milton,
Maruthancode, Tamil Nadu
Indo-European linguists have long held the belief that “a band or bands of speakers of an Indo-European language, later to be called Sanskrit, entered India over the northwest passes,” some time in the second millennium BC and needed just the kind of new DNA evidence in settling this hotly contested topic. Indeed, all of the world’s populations, regardless of their specific geographic location, are migrants. There is no such thing as a pure race. Each is distinct yet bound by the underlying principle of unity.
A.K. Merchant,
New Delhi
The article is nothing but yet another western attempt — through inconclusive genetic research — to fit India into its template of a 5,000-year-old Indian history. There have been numerous articles in scientific publications where the findings have raised great hope only to be rejected in subsequent analysis. I am certain that this article too will end up this way.
L. Jayasree,
Guntur, Andhra Pradesh