Romani scholar: Czech press reports on Romani origins oversimplify, promote stereotypes
The Czech Press Agency has published an article on the genetic origins
of Romani people in Europe which seems to be very imprecise. According
to the wire service, Romani people in Europe are descended from the
"Dalit caste" in India, which reportedly represents the lowest level in
the professional caste hierarchy there. The ancestors of today’s Romani
people are said to have left the Indian subcontinent 1 000 years ago.
The British newspaper The Daily Telegraph has also reported that these claims have been proven by a new genetic study.
DOKUMENT
The Czech Press Agency further reports that the authors of the study, an article about which has been published in the journal Nature, compared DNA samples from Romani men in Europe with samples taken from thousands of Indian people from throughout the subcontinent. More than 10 000 samples were compared in total, including samples from members of 214 different ethnic groups in India.
The greatest similarities were reportedly found with samples from northwestern India in areas occupied by the lowest "caste", the Dalits or untouchables. In the traditional caste system of Hindu society, which has officially not applied in India for many years but which strongly persists in many places, such people were reportedly considered unclean.
The authors of the research are said to be convinced that the ancestors of today’s Romani people in Europe began their pilgrimage to the west in order to fight in wars on the territory of what is today Punjab between 1001 and 1026. They were reportedly promised promotion into a higher caste in exchange. Later they evidently fled the collapse of the Hindu empire in what is Pakistan today. The Daily Telegraph reports that their exodus to northern Africa and Europe indicates that they may have been some of the first fleeing Islam as it penetrated the Indian subcontinent.
Romani scholar says interpretation of research is imprecise
Romani studies scholar Lukáš Houdek, who wrote a thesis on this topic, says the interpretation of this research as published by the Czech Press Agency is oversimplified. According to him, the information about Romani origins has been distorted through much imprecise wording.
"The Czech Press Agency article states that Romani people come from the ‘Dalit caste’. In and of itself that cannot be true, because the Dalits are not a caste. That term is now the politically correct label for a group of inhabitants who were once considered untouchables, and they live all over India. The Romani people most probably come from a group that included several castes known as the Doma," Houdek says. The Doma reportedly were and are distributed particularly throughout northwestern India, as the research mentions.
"The Czech Press Agency is relying on the text published by The Daily Telegraph, which summarizes the entire study. The study does not mention anything about Dalits, ritual impurity, or other such attributes, and does not include a single mention of ‘untouchables’, etc. There are only references to the origins of Romani people in the so-called Scheduled Castes. These were originally tribal groups that were included into Hindu society at a later time and occupied the lowest rung of the social ladder there. The Czech Press Agency’s interpretation involves dangerous simplifications and its text is being copied by most of the Czech media," Houdek says.
Houdek considers it key to illuminate how such tribal groups later became untouchables when discussing potential links to Romani genetics.
"As the Indian academic V. N. Misra states, these were often indigenous tribal societies living in inaccessible places that only became incorporated into the creation of Hindu society at a later date. There was no room for them in the stratification of society as it was being created and they were set apart from it, which meant they acquired a very low status. This is evidently how the outcast group originated, i.e., the untouchable groups as well. Nevertheless, the status of ‘ritual impurity’, which the Czech Press Agency text mentions, only applies to those with a position inside the caste system. Moreover, a link between Romani people and the Doma and their origins in northwestern India has been discussed since the 19th century, on the basis of linguistic analysis in particular. This is, therefore, nothing revolutionary. I personally perceive such distorted reporting on Romani origins as very dangerous, because numerous stereotypes held by the majority society about Romani people can be supported by these reports, which rely on society’s ignorance of realities in India," Houdek says.
