What race is south Asians?

Answer 1

To understand the raciality of South Asians, one must be aware of the caste & social stratification in the South Asia region, especially India. Race in South Asia varies from one individual to another depending on their respective castes.

For the most part, "race in India" is related to caste, and has little to do with one's linguistic affiliation. The three major linguistic families in India are Indo-Aryan, Dravidian & Sino-Tibetan.

And the major racial catgories include Caucasoid, Australoid, Negroid & Mongoloid. However, these race oriented terminologies are only used by anthropologists & genealogists, and not by the government since there are many multiracial castes. Race mixing has been happening in India since the vedic times.

Race, ethnicity & lingo are contiguous & consistently related to one another in the case of Europeans, and other Caucasians living in the new world. However it is not the case in the other parts of the world, and among other communities. For example, one can't classify black african-americans to be Caucasian just because they speak the Indo-European "English language" today.

INDIA:

In Northern India, all members of the three upper/forward castes, namely brahmins (priestly class), kshatriyas (warrior/aristocratic class) & Vaishyas (traders) are mostly Caucasoid/Caucasian with very little Australoid inbreeding. Among them, brahmins are likely to be the most Caucasoid followed by the warrior class and so on. Some of these members, especially brahmins, are likely to be almost entirely Caucasoid. Members of the other/sub-ordinate castes belonging to the "backward, most backward, scheduled & tribal castes" are likely to be more Australoid than Caucasoid.

While North India is linguistically Indo-Aryan, "race" varies based on caste. Similarly, though members of the southern part of the country are speakers of dravidian languages, raciality varies from one group to another depending on their castes.

In Southern India, members of almost all castes (other than brahmins) are mostly Australoid. The brahmins in Southern India are Caucasoid/Caucasian like the North Indian priestly community, and are of the Vedic Aryan heritage, who are believed to have settled in South over a period of time. Brahmins of south India, namely Iyengars, Iyers, Madvas, Niyogi, etc are ancestral North Indians who emigrated to south fearing for their lives during the first Mughal/Islamic invasion. Other south indians belonging to the various other castes are for the most part Australoid.

Hence individuals of both racial types and multiracials could be found among both regions & linguistic families.

For example, the Turkish people of Turkey are ethno-linguistically "Altaic" just like their central asian counterparts in Turkmenistan, Kazhakstan & the others. However, the people of Turkey are originally Anatolians who are racially related to the Greeks. The people of Turkey are not really Turks but are rather classified as "Turkized people" who have adopted the cultural, religious & linguistic identities of the Central Asians Turks, but are racially Caucasian. Similarly the Ethiopans & Somalians are Afro-Asiatic speaking people like the middle-easterners, however they're racially not alike. Both of them are rather black who are related to the other Eastern, Central & southern africans.

Additionally, social adaptation to climatic conditions in India have caused considerable changes in the physical traits, so that a Caucasoid may sometimes look different from the mainstream Caucasoids of Europe due to climatic exposure, and not necessarily out of race mixing.

Negroid types in India are mostly found among the Andamanese tribes of the "Andaman & Nicobar Islands", while North-East Indians (escpecially the Sino-Tibetan speakers) are Mongoloid who are related to the East-Asians(Chinese, Tibetans, etc).

PAKISTAN:

The PAKISTANI gene pool is for the most part derived from Caucasoid-Indian & Australoid-Indian along with sizable components of Caucasoid-Iranian, Arab & Turko-Mongol genes. In PAKISTAN, the Pashtuns/Pathans who are ethnic Afghans are more Caucasoid than the other populations. The Caste System is similar to that of India's, and hence the raciality of most of their population could be determined in the same way as is done in India's case.

BANGLADESH:

Bangladeshis are ethnic Bengalis like their Indian counterparts, however not racially. Most Banglas and/or Bengalis who converted to islam were of the lower caste stratification who eventually formed the sovereign country of Bangladesh. Hence most Bengalis of Bangladesh are mostly Australoid like the lower caste Indian Bengals, while the upper caste Bengals of West Bengal, India are mostly Caucasoid.

SRI LANKA:

The two major linguistic groups are sinhalese & tamil. The sinhalese people are descendants of lower caste Indians from West Bengal & Orissa, most of whom converted to Buddhism and settled in the island. Hence the sinhalese are mostly Australoid, although they speak the Indo-Aryan language of sinhala. The tamils emigrated in two batches, the first batch of Immigration purportedly dating 1000 years back while the second was during the British Raj, about 150 years ago. Since these people were mostly from the lowermost castes, Sri Lankan tamils are almost entirely Australoid, racially. Additionally, according to genetic studies, Lankan tamils are closely related to Sinhalese Lankans, and are genetically far from Indian tamilians of any caste. The other prominent communities in the island are the Burghers, Moors & veddah. Burghers are anglo-lankans, while Moors are Arabs who arrived at the island as traders and eventually got settled there. The Veddahs are seen as an indigenous tribe who are racially related to both Negroids & Australoids.