(*please see
Princess notes below before reading)
Since the first modern humans (Homo
sapiens) were of African birth, the African presence globally can be
demonstrated through the history of the Black populations that have
inhabited the world within the span of recent humanity. Not only are
African people the aboriginal people of the planet, however, there is
abundant evidence to show that Black people created and sustained many
of the world's earliest and most enduring civilizations. Such was the
case in India.
India
The Associated Press(1),
“Scientists from the University of Padua in Italy
examined
hereditary material in cells found that modern humans followed a
migration wave from Africa to Asia thousands of years ago after an
earlier exodus to the Mediterranean and Greece. Blood samples of people
from east Africa and India showed close genetic similarities indicating
a common African ancestor.”
The Italian study was reported in the December 1998 issue of the
Journal Nature Genetics.
Exceptionally
valuable writings reflecting close relationships between
Africa and early India have existed for more than two thousand years.
In the first century B.C.E.(2),
for example, the famous Greek historian Diodorus Siculus penned that,
"From Ethiopia he (Osiris) passed through Arabia, bordering upon the
Red Sea as far as India.... He built many cities in India, one of which
he called Nysa, willing to have remembrance of that (Nysa) in Egypt,
where he was brought up."
The literary work of the early Christian writer Eusebius preserves the tradition that, "In the reign of Amenophis III [the mighty Dynasty XVIII Egyptian king] a body of Ethiopians migrated from the country about the Indus, and settled in the valley of the Nile." And still another document from ancient times, the Itinerarium Alexandri, says that "India, taken as a whole, beginning from the north and embracing what of it is subject to Persia, is a continuation of Egypt and the Ethiopians."
(1) the world's oldest and largest news organization.
(2) BCE stands for "Before the common era." It is expected to replace BC, which means "Before Christ." BC and BCE are also identical in value. Most theologians and religious historians believe that the approximate birth date of Yeshua of Nazareth (Jesus) was in the fall, sometime between 4 and 7 BCE.
The term "common" simply means that this is the most frequently used calendar system: the Gregorian Calendar. There are many religious calendars in existence, but each of these are normally in use in only a small geographic area of the world -- typically by followers of a single religion.
The literary work of the early Christian writer Eusebius preserves the tradition that, "In the reign of Amenophis III [the mighty Dynasty XVIII Egyptian king] a body of Ethiopians migrated from the country about the Indus, and settled in the valley of the Nile." And still another document from ancient times, the Itinerarium Alexandri, says that "India, taken as a whole, beginning from the north and embracing what of it is subject to Persia, is a continuation of Egypt and the Ethiopians."
(1) the world's oldest and largest news organization.
(2) BCE stands for "Before the common era." It is expected to replace BC, which means "Before Christ." BC and BCE are also identical in value. Most theologians and religious historians believe that the approximate birth date of Yeshua of Nazareth (Jesus) was in the fall, sometime between 4 and 7 BCE.
The term "common" simply means that this is the most frequently used calendar system: the Gregorian Calendar. There are many religious calendars in existence, but each of these are normally in use in only a small geographic area of the world -- typically by followers of a single religion.
In Greater India, more than a thousand years before the foundations of Greece and Rome, proud and industrious Black men and women known as Dravidians erected a powerful civilization. We are referring here to the Indus Valley civilization- -India's earliest high-culture, with major cities spread out along the course of the Indus River.
The Indus Valley civilization was at its height from about 2200 B.C.E. to 1700 B.C.E. This phase of its history is called the Harappan, the name being derived from Harappa, one of the earliest known Indus Valley cities.
In
1922, about 350 miles northeast of
Harappa, another large Indus city, Mohenjo-daro (the Mound of the Dead)
was identified. Mohenjo-daro and Harappa were apparently the chief
administrative centers of the Indus Valley complex, and since their
identification, several additional cities, including Chanhu-daro,
Kalibangan, Quetta and Lothal have been excavated.
The
decline and fall of the Indus Valley civilization has been linked to
several factors, the most important of which were the increasingly
frequent incursions of the White people known in history as
Aryans--violent Indo-European tribes initially from central Eurasia and
later Iran. Indeed, the name Iran means the "land of the Aryan." (we
will discuss the Aryan Nation in the next section)
It is
safe to say that when we speak of the Dravidians as a people we are
speaking of the living descendants of the Harappan people of the
ancient Indus Valley who were pushed into South India as the result of
the Aryan invasions. This is certainly consistent with Dravidian
traditions which recall flourishing cities that were either lost or
destroyed in antiquity. The term "Dravidian," however, encompasses both
an ethnic group and a linguistic group. The ethnic group is
characterized by straight to wavy hair textures, combined with Africoid
physical features. In reference to this Dr. Cheikh Anta Diop stated
that:
From at least the third century C.E. three major Dravidian kingdoms existed in South India: the kingdoms of Pandya, Chera and Chola. Pandya was the southernmost Dravidian kingdom.
In 1288 and again in 1293 the Venetian traveler Marco Polo visited the Pandyan kingdom and left a vivid description of the land and its people. Polo exclaimed that:
"The darkest man is here the most highly esteemed and considered better than the others who are not so dark. Let me add that in very truth these people portray and depict their gods and their idols black and their devils white as snow. For they say that God and all the saints are black and the devils are all white. That is why they portray them as I have described."
Birth of the Untouchables The
White tribes that invaded India and disrupted Black civilization there
are known as Aryans. The Aryans were not necessarily superior warriors
to the Blacks but they were aggressive, developed sophisticated
military technologies and glorified military virtues. After hundreds of
years of intense martial conflict the Aryans succeeded in subjugating
most of northern India. Throughout the vanquished territories a rigid,
caste-segmented social order was established with the masses of
conquered Blacks (called Shudras) essentially reduced to slaves to the
Whites and imposed upon for service in any capacity required by their
White conquerors.
This vicious new world order was cold-bloodily racist, with the Whites on top, the mixed races in the middle, and the overwhelming majority of Black people on the very bottom. In fact, the Aryan term varna, denoting one's societal status and used interchangeably with caste, literally means color or complexion and reflects a prevalent racial hierarchy. Truly, India is still a racist country. White supremacist David Duke claimed "that his 1970's visit to India was a turning point in his views on the superiority of the White race." Caste
law in India, based originally on race, regulated all aspects of life,
including marriage, diet, education, place of residence and occupation.
This is not to deny that there were certain elements of the Black
aristocracy that managed to gain prominence in the dominant White
social structure. The masses of conquered Black people, however, were
regarded by the Whites as Untruth itself. The Whites claimed to have
emerged from the mouth of God; the Blacks, on the other hand, were said
to have emerged from the feet of God. This was the ugly reality for the
Black masses in conquered India.
Servitude to Whites became the basis of the lives of the Black people of India for generation after generation after generation. With the passage of time, this brutally harsh, color-oriented, racially-based caste system became the foundation of the religion that is now practiced throughout all India. This is the religion known as Hinduism. The
existence of Untouchability has been justified within the context of
Hindu religious thought as the ultimate and logical extensions of Karma
and rebirth. Indus believe that persons are born Untouchables because
of the accumulation of sins in previous lives. Hindu texts describe
these people as foul and loathsome, and any physical contact with them
was regarded as polluting.
Untouchables were usually forced to live in pitiful little settlements on the outskirts of Hindu communities. During certain periods in Indian history Untouchables were only allowed to enter the adjoining Hindu communities at night. Indeed, the Untouchables' very shadows were considered polluting, and they were required to beat drums and make loud noises to announce their approach. Untouchables had to attach brooms to their backs to erase any evidence of their presence. |
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Untouchables Today The basis status of India's Untouchables has changed little since ancient times. On August 10, 1991 six Untouchables were shot to death in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh. On August 16, 1991, an Untouchable woman was stripped in public and savagely beaten in the southern state of Andra Pradesh. On September 6, 1991, in the western state of Maharastra, an Untouchable policeman was killed for entering a Hindu temple. Official Indian figures on violent crimes by caste Hindus against Untouchables have averaged more than 10,000 cases per year, with the figures continuing to rise. The Indian government listed 14,269 cases of atrocities by caste Hindus against Untouchables in 1989 alone. However, Indian human rights workers report that a large number of atrocities against Untouchables, including beatings, gang-rapes, arson and murders, are never recorded. Even when charges are formally filed, justice for Untouchables is rarely dispensed. |
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The Black
Panther Party and the Dalit Panther Party
Possibly the most substantial percentage of Asia's Blacks can be identified among India's 160 million "Untouchables" or "Dalits." Frequently they are called "Outcastes." Indian nationalist leader and devout Hindu Mohandas K. Gandhi called them "Harijans," meaning "children of god." The official name given them in India's constitution (1951) is "Scheduled Castes." "Dalit," meaning "crushed and broken," is a name that has come into prominence only within the last four decades. "Dalit" reflects a radically different response to oppression. |
In 1981, in Bangalore, India Dravidian journalist V.T. Rajshekar published the first issue of Dalit Voice--the major English journal of the Black Untouchables. In a 1987 publication entitled the African Presence in Early Asia, Rajshekar stated that:
"The African-Americans also must know that their liberation struggle
cannot be complete as long as their own blood-brothers and sisters
living in far off Asia are suffering. It is true that African-Americans
are also suffering, but our people here today are where
African-Americans were two hundred years ago. African-American
leaders
can give our struggle tremendous support by bringing forth knowledge of
the existence of such a huge chunk of Asian Blacks to the notice of
both the American Black masses and the Black masses who dwell within
the African continent itself."
Princess Notes:
I found this
particular reading to be somewhat disturbing but because it is a part
of this world's history, I could not leave it out. It is my
sincere hope that our red blood will one day be basis for unity
in our world. However, if you would like to read more indepth on
this passage please visit the link below.
http://www.cwo.com/~lucumi/india.html