Gujjars have links to Pashtuns in Pakistan and Afghanistan, says CDFD study

Gujjars from Jammu are genetically linked to Pashtuns from Afghanistan and Pakistan, Indian researchers have reported, adding more scientific evidence in favor of the complex migration pattern that the Indian subcontinent witnessed for centuries.

While there is historical and cultural evidence connecting Gujjars in India with the nomadic tribes of India's north-western neighbours, this is probably the strongest genetic evidence to back such a link.

“Broadly Gujjars showed closer affinity to nomadic populations of Pashtuns from Baghlans and Kunduz provinces of Afghanistan, and Pashtuns and Sindhis of Pakistan,” geneticists at the Centre for DNA Fingerprinting and Diagnostics, Hyderabad reported earlier this month.

“This is scientific evidence of what is known historically,” team leader Madhusudan R Nandineni told DH.

The Indian subcontinent, which represents about one-sixth of the world population, is a unique conglomerate of multiple cultures, languages and genetic diversity.

Together with sub-Himalayan countries and the modern-day Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, it is one of the world's oldest geographical regions inhabited by modern humans and witnesses to ancient human migratory histories.

Since the two northernmost Union Territories – Jammu and Kashmir and Ladakh – sit in the middle of the ancient corridor of human travel, they preserve unique signatures of such cross-cultural movement in their heritage and as the CDFD study now shows – in their genes.

The CDFD team set out to explore the genetic ancestry of Gujjars from Jammu regions as well as people from Ladakh that was open to the world through the historic Silk Route.

“The markers on the Y-chromosome establish the Gujjar's links to the nomadic tribes in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Ladakhis, on the other hand, are linked to Uighurs and Han Chinese as well the Magar community of Nepal,” said Mugdha Singh, first author of the study.

The scientists found three broad genetic groups among the Ladakahis, which settled in India between 18,000 and 10,000 years ago. The team, however, could not establish such a cut off date for the Gujjars, which constitute the third largest population group in J&K.

Though Gujjars also reside in Haryana, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh, the CDFD study only deals with a tribe living in Jammu.

“The Gujjar community is primarily nomadic and is believed to practice a highly endogamous culture, conservative lifestyle, religious practices and traditional occupation as compared to other populations in the vicinity. In contrast, the enormous diversity in terms of cultural, religious and food practices of Ladakhis is believed to be the result of congruence of different ancestral groups,” said the study, published in the journal Scientific Reports.