Tamil nationalists like Vaiko, the MDMK boss and P Nedumaran are upset over Sri lankan High Commissioner Prasad Kariyawasam’s claim that 75 per cent of the Sinhalas originated from India, especially from Odisha and that only 12 per cent of Tamils in the island nation share ethnicity with Tamil Nadu.
Vaiko and Nedumaran condemned the High Commissioner for his “interference in India’s internal affairs”. Vaiko even wrote a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh demanding action against Kariyawasam for a mail he alleged to have circulated in media circles in which he said that Sinhala people were of Indian origin and India should protect them. But Kariyawasam has a point to prove. Genetic engineers and scientists have proved that the Sinhala population and Indians have similar genetic traits.
“A 1996 joint study undertaken by scientists of India and Oxford University have found that Indians share similar genetic traits with their counterparts in Sri lanka,” Kumarasamy Thangaraj, senior scientist, Centre for Cellular and Molecular Biology Research, Hyderabad, told The Pioneer on Thursday.
One cannot disagree with Thangaraj because his team demolished the Aryan invasion theory being propagated by the Dravidian political leaders. A team of scientists drawn out from the USA, India and Europe have found that there is no scientific validity for the Aryan and Dravidian divide. “People from Kashmir to Kanyakumari and Surat to Silchar have the same genetic traits. We also found that no one is intellectually or physically superior to others,” said Thangaraj.
He said the same holds true for the people in Sri lanka. “Can you make out whether one person is Sinhala or Indian or Tamil just because of the looksIJ We have established that the people in South Asia have same genetic traits and there is no sharp division between them,” he said.
Gyaneshwar Chaubey, scientist, Estonian Bio Centre, Tartu, Estonia, too agreed that Indians and Sinhalese share common genetic traits. “History itself says that the Sinhala kings were from places like Kalinga, Magadh. Our scientific studies too proved that the Sinhalese, Tamils and rest of the Indians share same DNA. There is no controversy in this,” said Chaubey.
Interestingly, most of the Tamil nationalists have their origins from either Telugu or Kannada background. EV Ramaswamy Naiker, popularly known as Thanathai Periyar is of Kannada origin. Both his parents were from Karnataka. According to Subramanian Swamy, the DMK chief M Karunanidhi is of Telugu origin. “Even Vaiko is of Telugu descendants,” said Swamy. Former Chief Minister and one of the founder members of the DMK, MG Ramachandran was a Keralite.
High Commissioner Kariawasam went one step further and said that Sinhalas share common genetic traits with a section of the people in Kerala. It is well known that Eezhavas, a politically powerful caste in Kerala have links with Sri lanka. “That is why they are known as Eezhavas, which means that they are from Eezham, or the country which lies at the bottom of India,” TN Seshan, former Chief Election Commissioner had observed.