The Disturbing Question

Some 70,000 years back, Homo Sapiens came out of Africa (OOA-2) and started moving. They were referred to as ‘Hunter-gatherers’ and they started expanding, initially through the southern coast, to Asia & Oceania, and finally, reaching all continents. During their journey across, the Sapiens sometimes fought and sometimes interbred with the Homo Erectus (and its various avatars), who had come out of Africa (OOA-1) and spread across the planet, some 2000,000 years ago. 

However, it wasn’t very long ago (in comparison), only about 7000 years back, that humans started settling down with agricultural cultivation. They domesticated wild animals, dug up metals, built up townships, and began societies. 

History and science, thus, tell us that the whole human species are migrants and of course, grossly interbred. All of us carry a certain percentage of all those hominids in our DNA, which could easily be identified through a DNA test, something not expensive to undertake today! The question therefore is, to which percentage faction in the DNA is one biased? 

Take the case of the Indian sub-continent which over the last millennium has become 7-8 nations with a possibility of permuting again. In the current India where the diversity is still very strong (in haploid factions, languages, religions, and cultures), unity is achieved by accepting and tolerating diversity with the level of empathy that is required to do so. Until now, it went well, under the protection of the Constitution. With the rise of majoritarianism that is on now, are we not showing the candle to burn off what is not accepted? And, will it only burn off whatever is unwanted, or the whole?

This is the introspection that we need to do. Looking at how persecuted minorities behave across the world, are we not intelligent enough to understand that any act of aggrandizement can only result in resistance, chaos, and annihilation of all that we had built up, on either side of the spectrum? 

When we fight the so-called separate others, are we not fighting within ourselves?

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