AHC/WI: Nordic looking people more populous in India

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Albert.Nik

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There are many Nordic looking people in parts of India. Burusho,Chitrali,Kalash,Pashayi are the few to name. Now in this AHC,make them more populous to say about 35-40% or more of India. And those people only fit into this challenge.
Now with the WI part. How would this affect the history of India and the Whole World later?
Caste system not developing and hence a more open and a prosperous India mostly on par with Europe at the Age of Enlightenment?
Different kind of religions more closer to Norse,Roman and Zoroastrian religions and a different religious influence elsewhere?
More connection with Europe and Persia?
Demographically different Middle East and more similar to Europe?
And how would all this affect the later days of development of the whole empires and civilizations?
 
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Albert.Nik

Banned
These are the people I'm talking about. So the people of these regions alone are fit for this challenge. No Iranian speakers. Only Indo-Aryan Dardic or otherwise and Burusho people and in their original look(Nordic) only. No Slavs,Iranian speakers,Goths,Brits,etc. If you want you can give them admixtures of that groups but the base should be what I mentioned only and also they shouldn't loose the Nordic looks in the generations to come and should multiply in population(as for for this challenge).
6747601483
You can go as far back if you want.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/m-j-rousell/6747601483
 
Caste system not developing and hence a more open and a prosperous India mostly on par with Europe at the Age of Enlightenment?

I already know the answer to this question, but why do you think having more "Nordic people" in India would lead to a more "open and...prosperous India mostly on par with Europe?" Especially because at the Age of Enlightenment, Indian polities OTL were already on par with Europe in many respects. While a European-style navy was lacking as far as I know, Mysore's artillery often outgunned their British adversaries.
 

Albert.Nik

Banned
I already know the answer to this question, but why do you think having more "Nordic people" in India would lead to a more "open and...prosperous India mostly on par with Europe?" Especially because at the Age of Enlightenment, Indian polities OTL were already on par with Europe in many respects. While a European-style navy was lacking as far as I know, Mysore's artillery often outgunned their British adversaries.
Militarily yes. But industrially and socially not very progressed.
The reason why that many Nordic people(Indigenous) in India would improve the conditions is that in such a homogeneous society,Caste wouldn't be strong(the diverse population is how caste system first originated) and wouldn't even exist(we are talking about an India where there are at least 45-50+% of the people I have talked about in every way) and hence you could have an intelligent class that could emerge from this homogeneous and strong society with strong origins and strong roots and hence also could repel deadly invasions. So this India would be richer and more open and progressive in most ways I see it.
PS: What did you already know the answer for? :p
 
But why would you need specifically "Nordic looking" people to form this more homogenous society?
I get that their being a rarer group of Indians that look more European than their fellow countrymen is relatively interesting but this whole thing just seems....I'll say distasteful.
 
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Albert.Nik

Banned
They could get a good foundation in the Mountains if they could invent terraced farming and domesticate exotic crops and animals and use the abundant streams there. Then they can expand into the Shiwalik regions of the Himalayas. These people were probably the first people to settle in the mountains there. Mountain empires also offer a good protection from invasions. So that could be a good start for them to eventually create a good number of them in the whole country to which they would expand after they're done with Shiwalik slopes. But they would need to invent more sophisticated things. Sounds interesting!
 
But why would you need specifically "Nordic looking" people to form this more homogenous society?
I get that their being a rarer good of Indians that look more European than their fellow countrymen is relatively interesting but this whole thing just seems....I'll say distasteful.
Indeed.
Kind of implying that a caste system is something "Nordic looking people" don't do.
 
Militarily yes. But industrially and socially not very progressed.

Bengal was one of the wealthiest parts of the world until the British conquered it and given the productivity of its industry its one of the best candidates for an industrial revolution (or at least "pulling a Meiji"). Definitely richer than more Nordic countries like Poland, Russia, Finland, etc.

The reason why that many Nordic people(Indigenous) in India would improve the conditions is that in such a homogeneous society,Caste wouldn't be strong(the diverse population is how caste system first originated) and wouldn't even exist(we are talking about an India where there are at least 45-50+% of the people I have talked about in every way) and hence you could have an intelligent class that could emerge from this homogeneous and strong society with strong origins and strong roots and hence also could repel deadly invasions. So this India would be richer and more open and progressive in most ways I see it.
PS: What did you already know the answer for? :p

And why wouldn't these Nordic people just make themselves the upper castes and make everyone else the lower castes, akin to discredited racial theories which propose light skinned Indians were originally the high caste Aryans and dark skinned vice versa.
 

Albert.Nik

Banned
Indeed.
Kind of implying that a caste system is something "Nordic looking people" don't do.
In our timeline the Caste system came from a diverse society. But in this timeline,I have kept the POD to make a homogeneous society like today's Scandinavia established by the people who would start with a strong Mountain empire as I mentioned in all my previous posts. That could create a more strong,populous and a homogeneous closely related peoples empire which would be strong and very stable leading to a large population of the Nordics who founded it. That would also give them less insecurity and hence the Caste system would not be established as it was in OTL India by those who had greater percentage of Aryan descent. Also mixture of others would matter less as this strong empire has become so populous that they would be the dominant genes even if anybody else joined and hence would be more open and welcoming with some conditions. That could also increase progress in other fields.
 

Albert.Nik

Banned
Bengal was one of the wealthiest parts of the world until the British conquered it and given the productivity of its industry its one of the best candidates for an industrial revolution (or at least "pulling a Meiji"). Definitely richer than more Nordic countries like Poland, Russia, Finland, etc.



And why wouldn't these Nordic people just make themselves the upper castes and make everyone else the lower castes, akin to discredited racial theories which propose light skinned Indians were originally the high caste Aryans and dark skinned vice versa.
I have explained about both the parts in my previous two posts.
 
Militarily yes. But industrially and socially not very progressed.
The reason why that many Nordic people(Indigenous) in India would improve the conditions is that in such a homogeneous society,Caste wouldn't be strong(the diverse population is how caste system first originated) and wouldn't even exist(we are talking about an India where there are at least 45-50+% of the people I have talked about in every way) and hence you could have an intelligent class that could emerge from this homogeneous and strong society with strong origins and strong roots and hence also could repel deadly invasions. So this India would be richer and more open and progressive in most ways I see it.
PS: What did you already know the answer for? :p

Before ca. 1800 India was at the heart of the global economy, maybe only surpassed by China. And unless you define social progress as being equivalent to western social norms the subcontinent was by no means backwards. When the Scandinavian monarchies were peripheral polities of a few million people whose main concern was enforcing confessional orthodoxy and burning witches, Akbar was throwing inter-faith seminars whilst governing a realm of 100 million people.

Now, brushing aside the obvious fallacy of equalling ethnicity with civilizational acumen, your perception of the caste system is fundamentally flawed. It originated in the Aryan 'conquest' of India as the invaders transplanted their societal structure on the conquered in order to maintain political superiority over the natives and not be absorbed by them. It continuously grew, changed and reformed. It did not and does not inhibit economic, societal or political developments. If it did, India would not have become one of the most prosperous regions in world history nor would there've been a reason for the Europeans to be so desperate to get a foot in the Indian market.

The rise of the west did not happen because the Europeans had blue eyes and the Indians didn't.
 
Changing the demographics of the levels of the migrations to India that (most probably) brought Indo-Aryan languages probably around 1500 BCE, and/or their subsequent population growth, would butterfly away the ideas that led to caste (passing over how much the incoming groups actually matched the physical appearance you describe).

Though it did not hinder India in a deterministic way, I'd guess caste probably was not good for the development of a society where everyone had a fairly high level of basic primary education, and there was flexibility in the market economy to allow it to structurally change, and where open social institutions are effective in nation building (besides our personal ideas about how unjust it was), and this has probably not been good for India in the longer term.

But it seems like a bit of a heavy handed way of avoiding caste when ideas about castes/varna that were significantly more rigid than class structures elsewhere probably did not come into being until later in the period 1000-400 BCE, and plenty of South Asian religious schools did not have the same ideas or emphasise occupational endogamy and immobility (Jainism, Buddhism, Sikhism).
 
Ethnically the population of India is supposed to be a mixture of ANI (Ancient North Indians) and ASI (Ancient South Indians). The ASI is a mixture of hunter-gatherers native to the Peninsula and the agriculturists from Mediterranean region and Iran called Iranian farmers. The ANI is a mixture of migrants from Central Asia and the Iranian farmers. There were also some Mongoloid migrants from the Northeast. There were no trace of Negroids or Australoids in the native population but it was totally native which might be termed Dravidian, though 'Dravidian' is a linguistic term and not an ethnic term. The so called 'Aryan Invasion Theory' is a myth and there was not any invasion but only migrations from Central and West Asia. Today all the Indians carry the traces of ANI and ASI genes in varying degrees. The South Indians have predominantly more ASI genes and the North Indians more ANI genes. The Indus Valley Civilization was created by people with ASI genes and if it had not collapsed due to change of climatic conditions like droughts that lasted for centuries, and if the IVC people had spread across the rest of the subcontinent, the population would have been more homogeneous.
 
Ethnically the population of India is supposed to be a mixture of ANI (Ancient North Indians) and ASI (Ancient South Indians). The ASI is a mixture of hunter-gatherers native to the Peninsula and the agriculturists from Mediterranean region and Iran called Iranian farmers. The ANI is a mixture of migrants from Central Asia and the Iranian farmers. There were also some Mongoloid migrants from the Northeast. There were no trace of Negroids or Australoids in the native population but it was totally native which might be termed Dravidian, though 'Dravidian' is a linguistic term and not an ethnic term. The so called 'Aryan Invasion Theory' is a myth and there was not any invasion but only migrations from Central and West Asia. Today all the Indians carry the traces of ANI and ASI genes in varying degrees. The South Indians have predominantly more ASI genes and the North Indians more ANI genes. The Indus Valley Civilization was created by people with ASI genes and if it had not collapsed due to change of climatic conditions like droughts that lasted for centuries, and if the IVC people had spread across the rest of the subcontinent, the population would have been more homogeneous.
> year 2019
> unironically using terms like “Mongoloid” and “Negroid” from 19th century racial theory

Ok buddy.
 
There are a number of incorrect premises with this challenge.

1. That minority folk such as the Kalash are "Nordic" in appearance. While definitely distinct from the general population in India and Pakistan, they are nevertheless very different looking people from Scandinavia and such.

2. That a caste system would not develop if the Indians we know today were replaced. The Indians were not the only people in the world to develop a caste system, a social structure which could in the past have also been found in such backward and poorly developed places like Japan. There is no reason to suggest that the development of a caste system in India has its origins in the DNA of its people.

3. Race dictates religion. Christianity has been a brown, then a white, and is now increasingly a black religion through its history, if we are going to use such crude terms for identifying people. Muslims similarly include people of all races, Buddhism has found converts in the West in modern times (and amongst Greeks in Ancient times), etc. Ignoring the fact that Hinduism may well have its origins in the same place as the Paganism of many early European civilizations, India has proved just as capable if not more of being a centre of religious thought. After all, Buddhism itself is an Indian religion in origin.

4. How exactly would "racial affinity" promote increase connectivity? Surely weren't the vast distances and difficult terrain more of an issue when it came to communicating with places like Europe or Persia? This of course is ignoring the massive Persian legacy within India, which meant that many Indian courts into the 19th century had Persian as their official language. In addition for this, for all the attention in the popular mind focus on the ancient "Silk Road", Roman trade with India was far greater in volume than it was with China. Which is only natural, as most of the journey between say, Rome and the West Coast of India could be made mostly by water.
 
> year 2019
> unironically using terms like “Mongoloid” and “Negroid” from 19th century racial theory

Ok buddy.
Thank you for pointing out my mistake. I know that terms using '-oids' are usually avoided nowadays. Can you mention some other words that can be used to describe similar terms.
 
This whole thread is also based on the premise that Europeans have blue eyes and somewhat blond.
My Italian ancestors have a couple things to tell you.
 

Albert.Nik

Banned
Ethnically the population of India is supposed to be a mixture of ANI (Ancient North Indians) and ASI (Ancient South Indians). The ASI is a mixture of hunter-gatherers native to the Peninsula and the agriculturists from Mediterranean region and Iran called Iranian farmers. The ANI is a mixture of migrants from Central Asia and the Iranian farmers. There were also some Mongoloid migrants from the Northeast. There were no trace of Negroids or Australoids in the native population but it was totally native which might be termed Dravidian, though 'Dravidian' is a linguistic term and not an ethnic term. The so called 'Aryan Invasion Theory' is a myth and there was not any invasion but only migrations from Central and West Asia. Today all the Indians carry the traces of ANI and ASI genes in varying degrees. The South Indians have predominantly more ASI genes and the North Indians more ANI genes. The Indus Valley Civilization was created by people with ASI genes and if it had not collapsed due to change of climatic conditions like droughts that lasted for centuries, and if the IVC people had spread across the rest of the subcontinent, the population would have been more homogeneous.
Well,well,well. Some amount of corrections.
AASI is an another phenotype that existed then. They are said the first inhabitants who we can see through the genes. They are said to be closer to Andamanese as per Scientists. This phenotype is today extinct totally in the mainland. Their language hasn't yet been traced though there are a couple of language isolates in Central India today other than Dravidian and surrounded by an Indo-Aryan language ocean. It's a tribal language and even those speakers aren't the pure AASI phenotype.
Now coming to the ASI,IVC is first theorized to have been found by an Iranian and Anatolian(not the Indo-European Anatolians) migrations who took agriculture from its starting point in Çatalhuyuk in Southern Turkey of today. They would have been diverse in origin. IVC was joined in waves and waves of others in its tenure as it seems. No ASI yet. ASI started appearing in the waning days of the IVC as it appears as these mixed with the hunter gatherers of the AASI phenotype. There could have also been widespread epidemics that could have affected the not so diverse AASI brought from elsewhere in ME,Central Asia,Iran to which the natives would have less immunity to. But these are still projections. Now an another interesting point. It is theorized there was an already another Nordic Race which is the source of haplogroup L that originated in the Pamir. It is theorized that these spread out settling here and there,put the Nordic Tarim Mummies that probably predates Tocharians(often confused as Tocharians were also White but more towards Celtic type),established the BMAC and also in some number came to the IVC and joined,possibly the source of Gutians,an another Nordic Race in the ME who ruled the Sumerian empire for a time. The Burusho are the surviving members of this race today probably. They are Nordic type even now and speak a language Isolate and live in valleys of Kashmir on both sides of the LOC. Now,this L Nordic type was not associated with a language family like the Proto-Indo-Europeans. They are also hypothesized to be the source of Proto-Dravidian language in India. No proofs yet for this. Indo-Aryans are still on their way. Indo-Aryans were first heard of at the BMAC region. They settled the Afghanistan region in large numbers forming the different confederations as mentioned in the Rig Veda. The early Nordics were assimilated by the Indo-Aryans. The region called Gandhara(Afghanistan to Kashmir and also the region where these people of this thread live today) was the first to be settled by them. IVC had collapsed by now and ASI formed by the mixing of native AASI hunter gatherers,IVC people and some Nordic L type. ANI formed by the mixing of Indo-Aryans,Nordic L in small numbers,Indus valley farmers. You know the later events. It wasn't an invasion but rather a migration as you said.
In the mountain regions,the Indo-Aryans and the Nordic L type mix survives as the Burusho,Kalash,Pashayi,Chitrali,Hunza,etc who retain the features of their original ancestral races intact today. Except Burusho,all Indo-Aryan speakers and probably descendents of Gandharvas and Dardas as said in Vedic Sanskrit. The thread is about them being more numerous.
Yaghnobi are a mix of Eastern Iranian and the Nordic L type. Though close genetically,the contact didn't exist and these are Iranian speakers and not Indo-Aryan speaking.
I am looking to reconstruct the Gandhara language and finding resources for it.
Cc: @Freedom2018
 
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