Culture ministry to check ‘racial purity’ of Indians

Express News Service

NEW DELHI:  The Ministry of Culture is within the strategy of buying an array of DNA profiling kits and related state-of-the-art machines for establishing the genetic historical past and “trace the purity of races in India”. Highly positioned authorities sources stated the acquisition course of started not too long ago following a gathering that Ministry of Culture Secretary Govind Mohan held with well-known archaeologist Professor Vasant S Shinde and senior scientists and students of the Lucknow-based Birbal Sahani Institute of Paleosciences (BSIP) in Hyderabad two months in the past.

Shinde is adjunct professor on the Bangalore-based National Institute of Advanced Study and director of the Rakhigarhi Research Project. Founder of the Society of South Asian Archaeology, Prof Shinde’s analysis contribution contains “DNA analysis and craniofacial reconstruction of Harappan People”.

When contacted over cellphone, Prof Shinde admitted that the devices have been within the strategy of being acquired. He stated, “We want to see how mutation and mixing of genes in the Indian population has happened in the last 10,000 years. Genetic mutation depends on the intensity of contact among populations and the time that this process takes. We will then have a clear-cut idea of the genetic history. You may even say that this will be an effort to trace the purity of races in India.”

The Kolkata-based Anthropological Survey of India (ANSI), which has, “of late”, expressed “disinclination” to proceed with the train to hint the genetic origins of early Indians as a result of the problem is “politically loaded”, can also be a part of this undertaking which was initially conceived in 2019. A price range of `10 crore has been earmarked for procuring the DNA profilers and the opposite associated scientific devices, sources stated. The intention, in keeping with the ANSI, is to “develop a resource of cell lines and DNA samples that can be used to study DNA sequence polymorphism in contemporary Indian populations”.

More importantly, the ANSI seeks to “establish (the) Indian role in the dispersal of modern humans out of Africa” as a result of “modern humans could have taken the ‘southern route of dispersal’, utilising the coastlines to travel from Africa, through Arabia, across the Indian subcontinent and then into South-East Asia and finally into Australia”. 

Secondly, the ANSI desires to grasp the genetic range of Indian populations amongst numerous ethnic teams in several areas of India primarily based on direct re-sequencing of haploid genomes. By its personal admission, below this undertaking, the ANSI has studied 75 communities comprising 7,807 blood samples from completely different elements of the nation. These communities embody the Jarawa, Nicobarese, Andh, Kathodi, Madia, Malpaharia, Munda, Bhoi Khasi, Nihal, Toto, Dirang Monpa, Paitei, Lepcha and a number of others.