Just as the title promises, this book sets out to trace how the Indian subcontinent was populated. It begins from the time of the out of Africa migrations about 65000 years ago onto the Harrappan civilization (where they came from, its rise, its decline, etc.), the subsequent migrations of the Aryans and the east Asians and how all of these ancients mixed to form the genetic identity of Indians that prevails even today.
It is a controversial topic to tackle in the atmosphere that prevails in India today. But the book does a great job of drawing from the latest studies and papers on ancient DNA, genomic studies of population movements, archeological and linguistic data to tell the story of the population of a land. Many of the conclusions in the book will be unpalatable to a section of Indians today. But in my opinion, the conclusions of our evolution and history only bother those who have used and continue to use their heritage and legacy to claim superiority over others. It is no different from people being aghast at the idea that humans evolved from apes. It only bothered us because until then we considered ourselves better, civilized in short superior to all the other creatures on the planet. Still science proves again and again that nature does not work in that manner. There aren’t any true hierarchies in nature other than survival. We are prolific today but may not be tomorrow and in a brilliant plot twist of nature our extinction may be the result of our so called superior intellect.
Having said that I do believe that history is there for us to learn from it. Understanding where we come from is humbling and rather than being offended we ought to be fascinated and curious to know our tale and the paths it took to bring us here today. Studying, reading history gives us hindsight, a lens through which our present and future choices and their consequences might be clarified.
This book, along with all of the latest in genetic research, give a resounding message of unity in diversity. They tell us how closely connected we are to not just our neighbours but the rest of the globe and still very unique in our individuality. It is a message that deeply resonates and reflects at least my world view: we are different but the same.
This book is great for anyone like me, who wants an easy to follow account of Indian pre-historical migrations sprinkled with a basic understanding of world population movements in that time period. The bibliography, with the books, research papers, etc. it references, is a good resource for further reading.
Bookish Experiences 