The Peoples of India

by J. D. Anderson

CHAPTER I
RACE AND CASTE

Curiously enough, the systematic enquiry into the physical race-characteristics of the Indian peoples was due to a daring assertion by Mr Nesfield, of the Indian Educational Service, to the effect that, so far as physical signs go, there is practically only one Indian race and one Indian caste. This was a hasty but quite natural generalisation from experience of a part of India, the United Provinces, which is in the heart of the Aryan settlement in the Gangetic do-āb (the area between "two rivers"). Here caste has long been a settled institution, and innumerable sub-castes, professional or the result of outcasting, have come into existence. Mr Nesfield was driven by his local observations to assert the unity of one great Indian race; he denied the truth of "the modern doctrine which divides the population of India into Aryan and aboriginal": he sturdily declared that it was impossible to distinguish a scavenger from a Brāhman, save by costume and other artificial and accidental marks. Even in the United Provinces this uncompromising statement awoke dissent. In other parts of India, as, for instance, on the north-eastern frontier, the crowded home of many races and languages, dissent was eager and loud. It was evident, on the face of it, that Mr Nesfield's new dogma was based on too limited a study. Caste, for him, was a mere matter of hereditary function and profession; since most castes in the sacred "midland" of Hinduism have assumed that guise. There is no reason to suppose that castes have usually or even often been formed as professional guilds. They come into being for many reasons, some of which will be presently stated; and in civilised communities, where the division of labour and specialisation of professional skill are well established, a caste gradually assumes some distinctive means of livelihood. But on the borders of Hinduism, where the Hindu social system is still assimilating new races, instances abound of racial castes, tribal castes, perhaps even (though this is a more doubtful matter) totemistic castes.

Those who had the widest experience of the Peninsula were convinced that its races were at least as varied as those of Europe: those who, like Mr Nesfield, had made a close study of one limited tract, might have continued to believe that under the superficial distinctions of caste and class lay a real unity of race. But Mr (afterwards Sir H. H.) Risley had spent the early years of his Indian service among the Dravidian tribes of Chota Nagpore, and was aware that they differ more widely from the people Mr Nesfield had studied than an Englishman differs from a Turk. The difference, indeed, was almost as great as that between a European and a Chinaman. Could such differences be registered and described in such a way as to convince minds accustomed to scientific accuracy in statement? Mr Risley thought he saw his way to an ethnological classification of Indian races and castes by means of the then comparatively new methods of anthropometry. In 1891, he published in the Journal of the Anthropological Institute a paper which marked the beginning of systematic ethnological studies in India. It contained a summary of the measurements of eighty-nine castes and tribes of Bengal, the United Provinces, and Bihār. It dealt, therefore, with the great alluvial plain, created by the Ganges and Indus, which lies between the Himalayas and the massif central of the Deccan. Here is the home of the Aryan immigrants, where the great Indo-European languages are spoken by communities as numerous as the larger European nations. Anthropometry showed in the plainest, the most incontrovertible way, that the caste system of marriages had sorted out men into classes possessing definite and recognisable physical characteristics. There were local differences, and caste differences. It only remained to extend anthropometrical measurements to other parts of India to prove that the many languages and religious beliefs of India are associated with an even greater variety of physical qualities. Such enquiries are still in progress, but many notable results have already been obtained, especially by Mr Edgar Thurston, in his now famous investigations into Dravidian ethnography.

The most important and significant measurement is that of the shape of the head. It is, of course, impossible to take a man at random and to say with certainty that the excessive length or breadth of his skull proves him to belong to a given race. But the average skull-measurements of a race are distinctive, and confirm, on the whole, the impressions created by general aspect, colour, language and other vaguer indications. The general result is as follows. At either end of the Himalayan range, in Baluchistan on the west, and in Assam and Burma on the east, broad heads prevail. Broad too are the heads of the mostly Mongolian races inhabiting the valleys of the southern slopes of the Himalayas, and in a belt of country running down the western coast at least as far south as Coorg. In the Panjāb, Rājputānā, and the United Provinces, tracts where the climate is dry and healthy, where great summer heat is compensated for by a bracing winter, where wheat is for the most part the staple food, long heads predominate. In Bihār, travelling eastwards, medium heads are most common. In the damp and steamy delta of Bengal, inhabited by over forty millions of rather dusky rice-eating people, there is a marked tendency towards the Mongolian brachy-cephaly of Tibeto-Burman races. It is visible among the Muhammadans and Chandāls of Eastern Bengal, people who are probably indigenous in this tract, it is more marked among the Kāyasthas, the writer-caste of Bengal, which claims a western and Aryan origin. It reaches its maximum development among the Bengali Brāhmans. South of the Vindhya mountains, where the population is chiefly Dravidian, with a comparatively small and ancient mixture of northern blood, the prevalent type is mainly long-headed or medium-headed. The coast-population has been much affected by foreign influences. On the east coast Malayan, Indo-Chinese and even Portuguese settlers have altered the local type. On the west coast, Arab, Persian, African, European, and Jewish immigrants have mingled with local races, and have changed their physiognomy, stature, and character of mind and body.

It is still a moot point, which the Mendelists may some day settle for us, whether head-form is a true hereditary race-characteristic, whether the osseous structure of the body generally is not a result of climate, food and other such circumstances of environment. Yet the shape of the head as shown by average measurements does mark off races of men which are separated by other differences than those of habitat. They do correspond to those vaguer yet unmistakeable characteristics which enable us to tell one race from another. The Mongolian, even when he settles in the plains of Assam, Bengal, or Burma and takes to a diet of rice and fish, keeps his round head and his smooth hairless face. The Aryan of the north-west has a markedly long head, which, in his case, goes with a fair complexion and luxuriant beard. The Dravidian, darkest of Indian races, with a tendency to crinkly or curly hair, has also a long or medium head. The mixed races of Bengal have, it is not surprising to find, medium heads, which tend in the upper castes to become broad.

Another significant index to race is the measurement of the nose. The results of nose-measurements roughly divide the peoples of India into three classes—those having narrow or fine noses (leptorrhine), in which the width is less than 70 per cent. of the height; those having medium noses (mesorrhine), with an average index of from 70 to 85; and broad-nosed (platyrrhine) people, the width of whose noses exceed 85 per cent. Here we get a physical means of distinguishing between the long-headed people of north-western India, fair and stalwart, and the almost equally long-headed dusky folk of the south. For the average nose of southern India, in Madras, the Central Provinces, and Chota Nagpore, is broad. In the Panjāb and Baluchistan we get fine noses of what, to us Europeans, seems an aristocratic type. In Afghanistan, noses are so long and hooked as to give the tall and vigorous Afghan a Jewish aspect. In the rest of India, and especially down the west coast, noses are of medium type. A still more interesting discovery is the fact that anywhere outside the Aryan tracts of the north-west, the broad nose is a distinct sign of aboriginal blood. In Bengal, for instance, the lower castes have broad noses. The priestly and writer castes, for all their broad heads, have fine noses, which support their claim to a western origin. Roughly speaking, the broad nose goes with primitive forms of social organisation, with totemistic exogamous clans. Finer noses are usually associated with communities of a more modern type; and above these again come social units, castes and tribes, which claim descent from eponymous saints and heroes.

A third physical measurement enables us to effect a further sorting out of Indian races. What is called the "flatness" of the Mongolian face is plain to the most careless observer. This is due chiefly to the formation of the cheekbone, and its relation to the socket of the eye and the root of the nose. This can be measured and expressed in figures, with the result that the Mongoloid people of the north-east and the Himalayan region can be definitely distinguished from the broad-headed races of Baluchistan, Bombay, and Coorg.

Finally, it is possible to arrive at the average stature of various Indian races and communities. The tallest races are found in the north-west, in Baluchistan, the Panjāb and Rājputānā. A progressive diminution is seen as we go down the valley of the Ganges, until we find very short folk among the Assam hill tribes. The Dravidians of the south are shorter than the Aryans of the north. The smallest Indian tribe is that of the Negritos of the Andaman Islands, whose average height is only 4 feet 10½ inches.

From a careful comparison of these measurements, Sir Herbert Risley arrived at the classification of Indian humanity, which, for the moment, is the accepted division, into seven main physical types. Beginning with the north-western frontier, these are as follows:—

(1) The Turko-Iranian type, which comprises the Baloches, Brāhuis and Afghans of Baluchistan and the north-west Frontier Province. These are probably the result of a fusion of Turkī and Persian blood, and are all Muhammadans. The general aspect is wholly different from that of other Indian races, and no one who has ever seen an Afghan or Baloch, with his long Jewish nose and plentiful hair and beard, can ever confuse this type with any other. In temperament also these men of the border differ from other Indians. They are a fierce and warlike race, engaged in constant blood-feuds with one another.