Agnotology and ethnic relations

by Geewananda Gunawardana,
Ph.D.

The scientific study of culturally induced ignorance and its effects on society is referred to as agnotology. Regardless of the catchy name, this discipline gives credence to the phenomenon and helps the systematic investigation of this sensitive subject. Ignorance is not a demeaning term, but it is a condition that must be acknowledged and dealt with, just as a sickness needs to be treated. Sri Lankans have another reason to do so: Buddhism teaches it as the root cause of all human problems, even though it refers to a different kind of ignorance. Culturally induced ignorance is becoming more prevalent, particularly with the rise of Artificial Intelligence; for example, the country that has the best education system in the world is not free from it as shown by its recent election of a convicted felon to lead them. In that sense, we the Sri Lankans should be enormously proud of our accomplishment; we have proven our wisdom as a nation. But the job is not complete, there are more dark corners that need illumination.

This type of ignorance results from the intentional dissemination of inaccurate or misleading information for the benefit of an individual, organisation, or a movement (Iain Boal 1992). That does not mean the facts are not available, but they are overridden, hidden, and muddied: “We live in a world of radical ignorance, and the marvel is that any kind of truth cuts through the noise. Even though knowledge is ‘accessible,’ it does not mean it is accessed” (Robert Proctor 1988). Therefore, ignorance is not the lack of education itself, it is the inability to separate fact from fiction. A good example is tobacco use: health hazards of tobacco had been known for a century, but it took that long to overcome the mega industry’s advertising campaign and convince the authorities and public to curtail it.

Myths or misinformation

We have myths or misinformation that are millennia old and are entrenched in our collective memory. It is the practices based on such beliefs that have brought us to where we are. The way we elected our leaders is the prime example. Monarchs ruled us for millennia followed by colonial rulers for another few centuries. After that, the country’s elite took over. This long history has drilled into the nation’s psyche the fallacy that the elite must be venerated. The elite took advantage of this vulnerability: voters were manipulated by using their culturally induced beliefs to fabricate threats so the elites could stay in power and enrich themselves. Our past elections have been fought based on the interests of this elite, and not that of society or the nation. The use of chicanery, violence, all manner of vulgarities, and bribery by the elite had become the norm. We voted according to their wishes and not ours.

We the people owe it to ourselves, and to the future generations, to eliminate this ignorance for good. First, we must stop our habit of venerating our leaders and turning them into a new elite. As mentioned before, challenging the tradition, or culture is not easy; difficult and unpleasant it may be, but change is necessary, and our survival depends on it. This responsibility rests on all of us: adults, teachers, clergy of all faiths, and most importantly the media. As a country with a long history, it has no shortage of culturally inherited misinformation. The most damaging one among them is the myths surrounding ethnicity.

The narration in the great chronicle Mahawamsa on populating the island is accepted as historical facts by the majority. Minorities have countered that with their own versions. The question we must ask is, did the authors on both sides present facts or wrote things that were favourable to a cause that each was pursuing. On the Vijaya episode in the Mahavamsa, a historian has argued that it is not a story about the origins of the Sinhala people, but about the origins of a political elite. Indeed, he suggested, a fully-fledged Sinhala ethnic consciousness only arrived in the British period (Gunawardana 1995). Note that he used the term political elite.

Another historian describes the presence of similar accounts in the mythology of many other countries including Greece and Rome. He sums up the essence of these stories as follows. It is interesting to note that this historian was not aware of the Sri Lankan version.

“The king is an outsider, often an immigrant warrior prince whose father is a god or a king of his native land. But, exiled by his own love of power or banished for murder, the hero is unable to succeed there. Instead, he takes power in another place, and through a woman: princess of the native people whom he gains by a miraculous exploit involving feats of strength, ruse, rape, athletic prowess, and/or the murder of his predecessor.” (Sahlins 1985).

Science unheeded

Unfortunately, both sides of this debate do not pay attention to what science has to say on this matter. What follows is a survey of scientific information available on this topic, but to get closer to reality, one must remove the coloured glasses put on us at birth. The first archaic human species (Homo erectus), evolved in East Africa about two million years ago. Fossil records show that they emigrated out of Africa and populated most of Asia and Europe. Modern humans (Homo sapiens) appeared, also in East Africa, about 300,000 years ago. Sapiens have migrated out of Africa in two waves: the first around 130 to 100 thousand years ago taking a northern route and the second around 70 to 60 thousand years ago taking a southern route, hugging the coastline. These later migrants have both interbred with and or displaced the earlier arrivals while settling in different corners of the globe. There have been several other Homo species, like Neanderthals and Denisovans; while none of them exists today, some human populations carry their genes.

Peopling of the Indian subcontinent, the meeting ground of settlers from several adjoining regions, has been a complex one. Following are the four main population groups involved in this process: a) Aboriginal Indians. These are the members of the second wave of humans that left Africa and settled around fifty thousand years ago; b) Iranian farmers; c) Farmers from Central Asian Steppes; and d) East Asian rice farmers. The farmers from Iran and steppes were wheat and barley growers, and their East- Southeast migration had been slowed for some time as their crops were not ideally suited for tropical climate. While rice farming was adopted by all populations, the East Asian farmers have not made much of an impact in populating the country, except in the Northeast corner.

The accepted migration pattern of these populations is as follows. Iranian farmers who have arrived in the Indus valley around nine- to seven thousand years ago had crossed into India, mixed with the Aboriginal Indians, and moved southward around four thousand years ago. The resulting population is referred to as Ancestral South Indians. Farmers from the steppes moved to Indus valley, mixed with the Iranian farmers. These Steppes farmers, referred to as Europeans but differ from the Germanic Europeans, introduced horses and wheels. This Iranian-Steppes mix moved Eastwards towards the Gangetic valley and mixed with the earlier arrivals. This population is referred to as Indo-Europeans. Their southward migration has been slowed for several reasons. It is accepted that it was this latest group that introduced the precursor to Sanskrit language, Vedic literature, and the four-tier caste system.

Some argue that it was the strict caste system that prevented further mixing and southward spread of this Indo-European group. These classifications and nomenclature have created much controversy and debate. The use of terms like Ancient Northan Indians and Ancient Southern Indians are disputed as their origins are outside of India. The use of Aryans and Dravidians is equally controversial, and arbitrary. And specifically in our case, dangerously misleading.

Now, let us see what happened in Sri Lanka. The maximum depth of the 48 km long Adams Bridge is about ten metres while most of the shoals are less than 1 metre underwater. During the height of the ice age, between 80 to 20 thousand years ago, the sea levels stood about 120 metres below the current level. Therefore, Sri Lanka had been part of the Indian landmass, allowing for the southward migrations to reach the island, until the sea level rose about six thousand years ago.

Archaeological evidence shows that some of the early migrations reached the island as early as 125,000 years ago. Modern human fossils found in Sri Lanka has been dated back to 36,000 years (Deraniyagala 1992). Remarkably, these are the only reports of that antiquity in Southeast Asia. They were hunter gatherers using tools belonging to the middle stone age. They thrived until people skilled in agriculture and cattle breeding arrived around 2,800 years ago.

Narration of chronicles

How does the narration of the great chronicles match with this version? The arrival of North Indian prince Vijaya, with his retinue of seven hundred men, and ruling the country from 543 to 505 BCE is the cornerstone of this narration. There are many associated legends that cannot be verified. Vijaya’s campaign to eliminate the natives, who belonged to Yaksha and Naga tribes, is one. Some report Vijaya being from the Northeast coast of India while the others suggest a Northwest origin. However, linguists and historians see a connection between Sinhala and the languages spoken along the Konkani coast, favouring a Northwest origin. Realistically, there is no reasons to rule out continuous exchanges between India and Sri Lanka along the east and west maritime routes as well as through the shallow seas in the Palk Straits throughout the history. Vijay’s arrival had stood out in the chronicler’s mind as he was a notable person, but he cannot be the first to arrive from India.

Now, let us turn to genetic studies of Sri Lankans. Humans are a genetically homogeneous species; this suggests a population collapse in recent times, leaving a small number of females of reproductive age. Modern technologies developed in the field of genetics can use a type of markers known as mutations to track the genealogy of an individual or a population despite this homogeneity. When a cell divides, its genetic material or DNA is duplicated and distributed equally among the two daughter cells. During this copying process some errors are made. Genes or DNA is a set of instructions written in a language that has five letters: A, T, G, C, and U. The words in this language are made up of three letters. Most of the copying errors are misspellings, typos as we say. The type of errors known as single nucleotide polymorphism (SNP) are the most common markers used in genetic studies to trace genetic history.

There are several small-scale genetic studies conducted on Sri Lankans. The most recent open access publication by Singh and others in 2008 provides references to these studies. I am using the set of data reported by Ranaweera (2014) and graphically represented by Chaubey (2014) for this discussion, as these data are representative of the overall findings (Figure 1: Mitochondrial DNA analyses of Sri Lankans).

These are the most striking facts that emerge from these data: the major ancestral share of all Sri Lankans, i.e. those identify as upcountry, low country, and mixed Sinhala; Sri Lankan and Indian Tamil; and Adivasi population, is the Ancient South Indian genotype, which is considered as consisting of 75% Ancient Ancestral South Indian and 25% Iranian Farmer genotypes. All Sri Lankans have over 60% of this type. At the same time, all Sri Lankans, except the Indian Tamils, also carry more than 20% Indo-European genotype. Not surprisingly, considering the island’s geographical location in the East-West maritime route and five hundred years of European occupation, Sri Lankans also carry anywhere from 6 to 14% of other genotypes, which are not identified in this study. Sri Lankan Moors are not included in this data set, but they too carry a high percentage of Ancient South Indian genotype indicating mixing with the other types (Perera 2021).

Baseless proposition

Considering these data, to assign an ethnicity and suggest that one or the other group arrived on the island first is an utterly baseless proposition. This allegiance to one or the other camp had to have happened within the island. For example, Indian mercenaries brought into the country in more recent times have settled down in the south and assimilated without trace after the wars ended; in fact, some of the prominent Sinhala leaders belong to this category. Similarly, just because one group follows a distinct set of customs or speaks a particular language is also not related to their arrival chronology. Such divisions could have easily happened after their arrival. Our ancestors have been living on this island for over three millennia through war, peace, and famine. As can be seen all over the world, interbreeding can happen under any condition, for better or for worse. Not only genes, but words, customs, beliefs, and food were exchanged. The boundaries between so-called Adivasis, Aryans, Dravidians, Moors, or others are porous and have no meaning in the big picture. Genetic studies show without doubt that if one assumes that they belong to the pure Ancient Soth Indian genotype or the pure Indo-European genotype, it would be not only a preposterous idea, but it would be a comical one as well. The bottom line is that we all have lived on this small island for so long, we have become near homogenous genetically. Who knows what languages were spoken or what beliefs were practiced by our predecessors four or five generations ago. What matters is that we all are citizens of this land with the same rights, and we should not leave any opportunity for the wicked elite to divide us and fatten themselves ever again.

Unfortunately, the government policies or the failure to implement “successful, sustainable development projects” over the years has strengthened the divisions based on culturally induced ignorance leading to conflicts and economic disasters (Richardson 2005). If we were to succeed as a nation, there are two things the country must do: the government must have policies for sustainable economic development and give equal access to all, and the people must do their part to reduce the culturally induced ignorance among themselves. Myths surrounding ethnicity is only one issue; there are many others that will have to be addressed at another time. All parties that genuinely care about the nation’s future must engage in this civic discourse and prevent the future generations from inheriting our ignorance. The younger generations must be trained to be critical thinkers and not mere followers. This is an excellent opportunity to do so and missing that will be a grave mistake.