Prelude Punjab 1-Our Migration Story

Daarji, it seemed was in a very thoughtful mood sitting on his favourite chair flipping through ‘The Story of Mankind’, and marking the pages diligently with ‘Post-its’ and Bebe helped collect the reference books for him.

Meanwhile, the children sat around in silence eyeing this very serious looking Daarji.

Putting down the book, Daarji looked up and smiled warmly at the eager little faces around him.

“Brilliant”, he said clapping his hands, “I am of this firm belief that you are never too young and never too old to learn things new. 

 Do you know ‘bacheyo’, from my childhood most of our history lessons taught us about that one long ‘Aryan migration to India’.

But the fact check gave me another viewpoint to explore.

One winter evening, a friend of mine, who happened to be a Rhode Scholar at Oxford came visiting us. We were sitting by the fireplace, and Bebe was in and out of the door to stoke the embers to keep them ablaze. The room was cosy and the conversations drifted towards the happenings the world over, Indian politics, China,  Corona spread and migrations. In the flow of talks, he casually remarked about the pre-historic migrations to India. That pointer set me delving in the dusty cobwebby corners of history for any information I could glean.

Wow! That was new to me. 

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 Now this he said tapping ‘ The Story of Mankind’, this is a new finding for me that I must share with you all

In the pre-historic times there  were waves of moves and migrations over thousands of centuries. Not just one. These, coming of people to India seemed to have created a melting pot of diversity. 

Look around, just look and you will see glimpses of ancient times from differing vibrant cultures, languages and food habits.

This made India as we know it today. 

In the Armed Forces, we are a microcosm, a  small-scale version of this fusion and mingling.

We have been shaped by not one but four, large prehistoric migrations

The script of this Indian saga was begun by the coming  of the first migration and it came out of Africa and formed the largest base of the story of the Indians origin. Simply put we can  tag them as ...‘First Indians’.

The second wave came around 7000 BC  from the Zagros region of Iran to northwestern India and with them, they brought the know-how of growing crops. These people blended like a dream with the 'First Indians; together their methods and try-outs in agriculture spread.

The result was that farming spread like wildfire across the northwestern region, especially of barley and wheat. This perhaps later  became the cornerstone for the Indus Valley Civilisation to grow.

    

The third major passage of movement came from southeast Asia around 2000 BC towards our north-east. In all likelihood, the growing population from the Chinese heartland was pushed to southeast Asia and from there they reached India. They brought with them a new family of languages, such as Mundari, Khasi and others which are today spoken in the eastern and central parts of India.

 The last, or the fourth, major migration brought Central Asian pastoralists to India, who spoke Indo-European languages and called themselves “The Aryans”. .. moved around the Indus and Indic belt

This became the melting pot of four migration groupings.

             

However, during ancient times, this ‘Land of the five rivers ‘was perhaps formally not known as Punjab. After the disappearance of Indus Valley Civilisation, this Land of Five Rivers was forgotten for hundreds of years.

It is only after many centuries, Punjab came back into history again, with the coming of the Aryans to India. They came across the great Hindukush mountain ranges, through gaps called 'Passes'.

The Aryans came from Central Asia. Their coming was not an invasion…it was …I think what you could call a trans-migration and they blend in with the atmosphere and the ambience of the land and people.

Now, just wait a moment, let me open the map for you. It will help you understand better. 

There, see this is the way they came.

It would be fair to mention here that there is a historical debate going on these days, though with some political overtones on the Aryan migration 4000 years ago. 

Till they sort it out, let us carry on with the widely accepted story of migration.

 Aryans probably came together in small groups over a period of time rather than in just one big horde. This was the ongoing migration of people to a new land and they perhaps came with big hopes and simple dreams to make a fresh start in life to better the lives of their families.

 Families made a tribe. And they came in as tribes, men and women …old and young….all trekked through together as one big clan. They even brought their animals with them.  

 At first, they wandered about with their herds of cattle, rather than live in one place. These people were like nomads.

 But they had one big advantage…..They had two-wheeled chariots, which allowed them swift movement. Possibly this intimidated the native people. 

                               

It seems the Aryans in the early Vedic age settled in Punjab and surrounding areas of north-western India.

We can now safely say that in ancient times, these Aryans were our ancestors.

They were a tall, fair-skinned … and a handsome race.

And they were very brave people too. Over the years they had to face many an attack, but they were brave and strong. They survived.

It is popularly said that anything that does not kill you will only make you stronger.

Times must have been bad. How bad! Perhaps we cannot even begin to imagine.

Years slipped by and our beloved land suffered.

 Our forefathers endured not one but many invaders over the centuries. 

However a definite message that does come across is that in this melting pot we are all one. We are all descendants of migrants who mixed and mingled with each other for times immemorial, even before the caste system fell into place in Vedic times.

We are all kinsfolks.  

With this Daarji shut, the Book. He stood up and stretched out to ease the muscles, and looking at waggy tails gave a short sharp whistle a signal for the daily doggy playtime in the garden.

 Together, they all went out, some ran and jumped and our Daarji sauntered at a lazy pace. All told amid joyful merriment