Aryan Valley, historically known as Dah Hanu region,[note 1] is an area comprising four village clusters — Dah and Hanu in Leh district, and Garkon and Darchik in Kargil district — in Central Ladakh in India. It is inhabited by Brokpa people of Dardic origin.[2][note 2][note 3] Until its absorption into the Maryul kingdom, Brokpa chiefs wielded nominal autonomy in the region.[3]
Aryan Valley
Dah Hanu region[note 1] | |
|---|---|
Region in Ladakh | |
 Aryan valley in Ladakh, India | |
  Aryan Valley Location in Ladakh, India  Aryan Valley Aryan Valley (India) | |
| Coordinates: 34°36′N 76°31′E / 34.60°N 76.51°E | |
| Country | India |
| Union Territory | Ladakh |
| District | Leh and Kargil[1] |
| Highest elevation | 3,000 m (10,000 ft) |
| Lowest elevation | 3,000 m (9,000 ft) |
| Population (2011) | |
• Human habitats | 3,727 |
| Spoken | |
| • Languages | Brokskat |
| Ethnicity | |
| • Ethnic group | Brokpa (Minaro) |
| Time zone | UTC+5:30 (IST) |
The current name originated in the tourism industry c. 2010 to market the Brokpas, the local inhabitants, as being the primordial Aryans.[web 3][note 4][note 2].However, it lacks scientific proof.
Geography and economy
editHistorically, the area was known as Dah Hanu region to the British administrators,[note 1] and as Brog Yul, "Hill country," in Tibetan.[note 3] The villages and hamlets are situated 70 km east of Kargil along narrow valley of the Indus River at an elevation of 9000–10000 feet.[note 5][note 3]
Agriculture — especially the cultivation of fruits like apricots and grapes — is the main driver of the economy.[web 4][note 6]
History
editBrokpas
editThe region is inhabited by the Brokpas — an exonym, used by the Ladakhis (lit. Highlanders) — who are a sub-group of the Shin people.[2] From their oral history, it can be reasoned that Dah-Hanu region was first occupied c. 10th century by a group of migratory Shins who practiced the largely-animist ancient Dardic religion, and staked claim to a "Minaro" ethnic identity.[2] About six hundred years hence, another group of Shins — influenced by Hinduism and Buddhism — migrated to Dah-Hanu, fomenting a conflict but yet chose to live together.[2] Until its absorption into the Maryul kingdom, their chiefs wielded nominal autonomy in the region.[3]
Uninfluenced by Islam to any significant extent, the Brokpas of Dah-Hanu maintained a unique culture unlike most of neighboring Shins.[2][web 4]
Aryan association and neologism
editIn 1880, G. W. Leitner, a British orientalist, called the Brokpas "remnants of an ancient and pure Aryan race" — this trope would be reinforced by other colonial administrators, effectively exoticising them.[4] The claims hold no merit and they run contrary to genetic analyses of the Brokpas.[5] Mona Bhan, a Professor of South Asian Studies and Anthropology at Syracuse University, notes that such ahistorical racialising of linguistic and cultural traits has persisted even in modern ethnography on the Brokpas.[6]
In 1980, H. P. S. Ahluwalia reported having met three German Neo-nazi female tourists who attended a Brokpa festival and hoped to be impregnated by the "pure Aryans"; such mythical tourists would be a staple of media coverage on the region.[7] Over time, the Brokpas imbibed the Aryan characterization to the extent of tracing descent from Alexander's army.[web 5][8] During the 2003 elections to the Kargil Hill Council, they claimed representation to the minority seats based on their Aryan identity, among other factors.[4] However, this self-fashioning differed from the usual connotations of "Aryan" in the West.[9] For the Brokpas, their Aryan identity laid in a millennia-old-struggle to maintain a unique identity in the face of persecution by various rulers, as told through folk-lores, and was a tool to improve their abject socioeconomic marginalization.[9]
Beginning in 2010, as the Government wished to attract tourism to the region, local travel agents began to market the "Aryan-ness" of the inhabitants;[9] the state government reinforced the trend by projecting the Brokpa people as "pure specimens of the Aryan race".[web 3] Some Brogpas even changed their surnames to "Aryan".[10] The name "Aryan Valley" was created within this discourse.[web 3] In 2019, locals demanded that the "Aryan valley" be declared as a heritage village to boost tourism.[web 4] The discourse on the Aryan traits of the Brokpas has been increasingly appropriated by right-wing Hindutva groups to leverage their supposed indigeneity against the Muslim other and to "validate their hold on India's disputed territory".[web 3][11]
See also
editNotes
edit- ^ a b c Dah Hanu:
- Shaw 1878, p. 27: "I paid visit to the Dha Hanu district (the home of these so called Buddhist Dards on my way down to India from Ladak (western Tibet) last winter (1876)."
- Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts: "Dha-Hanu is a remote area consisting of four major villages and small hamlets situated on both sides of the banks of Sindhu (River Indus). The four major villages are known as Dha, Hanu, Garkhan and Darchik.
- Bray 2008, p. 46: "A 16 century dispute over King Tsewang Namgyal's authority in the Dha-Hanu region illustrates how the hierarchies could be both extended and contested. The king summoned the people of Hanu, who until then had been closer to the Maqpon (ruler) of Skardu, to assist in the construction of a road."
- ^ a b A. Divya (2019-02-08) The Dard Aryans of Ladakh: who are this tribe, what are their concerns?, The Indian Express: "Some 200 km from Leh are the villages of Dha, Hanu, Garkone and Darchik on both sides of the Indus River, inhabited by the Buddhist Dard tribes. The villages are together called the “Aryan valley.”"
- ^ a b c Sharma 1998, p. 1: "In Tibetan (Ladakhi), it is called 'Brog-yul', a hilly mountainous region (Brog-- Hill +yul-- country). It is a land of narrow ravine and valleys south of Hindukush - Karakoram range forming the part of central Ladakh. The prominent inhabited localities of these land are DaH, Hanu, Darchiks, and Garkhone."
- ^ Tourism:
- Bhan 2018, p. 86 "More significant, Brogpas used discourses of Aryanism to promote tourism and secure funds for the preservation of an "endangered and unique Aryan culture" that was allegedly threatened by forces of change and modernity."
- Bhagabati 2021, p. 109: "The occult pull of their fabricated ancestry has become so irresistible that this region today is known as Aryan Valley in the tourism industry."
- A. Divya (2019-02-08) The Dard Aryans of Ladakh: who are this tribe, what are their concerns?, The Indian Express: "They have demanded that the government set up a tribal hostel and declare the “Aryan valley” a heritage village to boost tourism."
- ^ Sharma 1998, p. 1: "It is situated in narrow rocky gorges of Indus Valley at the elevation of 9000-10000 ft. above the sea level [...] Surface approach to this land is either from Kargil (from Srinagar side) or from Leh, the headquarters of Ladakh. The distance from Kargil side is approximately 70 km. and from Leh 190 km."
- ^ Sanjay Dutta (Aug 2, 2021)
References
edit- ^ Arora & Jayaram 2020, p. 65.
- ^ a b c d e Nicolaus 2015.
- ^ a b Vohra 1982, p. 76.
- ^ a b Bhan, Mona (2006). Visible Margins: State, Identity & Development among Brogpas of Ladakh (India) (Thesis). Rutgers University. ProQuest 305292033.
- ^ Syama et al. 2019.
- ^ Bhan 2018, pp. 82–83.
- ^ Friese 2000.
- ^ "The Last of the Aryans". Open The Magazine. 3 August 2011. Retrieved 18 January 2023.
Among Brokpas themselves, an awareness of their 'Aryanness' has spread far and wide with the influx of tourists and others drawn by the tag. Within just decades, the process of exoticising is firmly and disturbingly in place. Aware of Aryan looks and cultural traits, Brokpas are now seen to seek these out in themselves.
- ^ a b c Bhan 2018, pp. 84–86.
- ^ "In Pictures: The last Aryans". www.aljazeera.com. Retrieved 18 January 2023.
- ^ Bhagabati 2021.
Bibliography
edit- Printed sources
- Arora, Vibha; Jayaram, N. (29 November 2020). Routeing Democracy in the Himalayas: Experiments and Experiences. Taylor & Francis. ISBN 978-1-000-08435-1.
- Bhagabati, Dikshit Sarma (2021), "Dancing by the Juniper: Notes from the performative space of the Brokpa's cultural enactment", Asian Journal of Social Science, 49 (2): 109–119, doi:10.1016/j.ajss.2021.01.002, ISSN 1568-4849, S2CID 235585739
- Bhan, Mona (2018), ""In Search of the Aryan Seed": Race, Religion, and Sexuality in Indian-Occupied Kashmir", in Haley Duschinski; Mona Bhan; Ather Zia; Cynthia Mahmood (eds.), Resisting Occupation in Kashmir, University of Pennsylvania Press, ISBN 978-0-8122-4978-1
- Bray, John (2008). "Corvée transport labour in 19th and early 20th century Ladakh: a study in continuity and change". In Martijn van Beek; Fernanda Pirie (eds.). Modern Ladakh: Anthropological Perspectives on Continuity and Change. BRILL. pp. 43–66. ISBN 978-90-474-4334-6.
- Drew, Frederick (1875). Jammoo And Kashmir Territories.
- Friese, Kai (2000). "The Aryan Handshake". Transition (83): 4–35. ISSN 0041-1191. JSTOR 3137472.
- Nicolaus, Peter (9 October 2015). "Residues of Ancient Beliefs among the Shin in the Gilgit-Division and Western Ladakh". Iran and the Caucasus. 19 (3): 201–264. doi:10.1163/1573384X-20150302. ISSN 1573-384X.
- Sharma, Devi Datt (1998). Tribal Languages of Ladakh: A concise grammar and dictionary of Brok-shad. Part One. Mittal Publications. p. 1. ISBN 978-81-7099-616-3.
- Shaw, R. B. (1878). "Stray Arians in Tibet". Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. XLVII: 26– – via archive.org.
- Syama, Adikarla; Arun, Varadarajan Santhakumari; ArunKumar, GaneshPrasad; Subhadeepta, Ray; Friese, Kai; Pitchappan, Ramasamy (17 November 2019). "Origin and identity of the Brokpa of Dah-Hanu, Himalayas – an NRY-HG L1a2 (M357) legacy". Annals of Human Biology. 46 (7–8): 562–573. doi:10.1080/03014460.2019.1694700. ISSN 0301-4460. PMID 31856597. S2CID 209426139.
- Vohra, Rohit (1982), "Ethnographic Notes on the Buddhist Dards of Ladakh: The Brog-Pā", Zeitschrift für Ethnologie, 107 (1): 69–94, JSTOR 25841799
- Web-sources
- ^ "District Census Handbook – Kargil" (PDF). Directorate of Census Operations. 2011. p. 56.
- ^ "District Census Handbook – Leh" (PDF). Directorate of Census Operations. 2011. p. 184.
- ^ a b c d Mona Bhan, “Aryan Valley” and the Politics of Race and Religion in Kashmir, Society for Cultural Anthropology, 24 March 2014.
- ^ a b c "The Dard Aryans of Ladakh: who are this tribe, what are their concerns?". The Indian Express. 8 February 2019. Retrieved 26 December 2022.
They have demanded that the government set up a tribal hostel and declare the "Aryan valley" a heritage village to boost tourism.
- ^ Jain, Akshai (1 January 2010). "Who went where, when? On the trail of the first people in India". mint. Retrieved 3 January 2023.
External links
edit- Service, Tribune News. "'Aryans of Ladakh' struggling to preserve its cultural legacy". Tribune India News Service. Retrieved 21 December 2022.
- "Power Grid Corporation of India commissions 40-km transmission line successfully in Ladakh". newsonair.com. 31 July 2021. Retrieved 18 December 2022.
- Amrita, Agni (2 November 2022). "Aryan Valley, Ladakh - Looking into the Life of Brokpas | T2B". Tale of 2 Backpackers. Retrieved 18 December 2022.
- Tindall, Jay (19 June 2020). "Into the Aryan Valley with the Brokpa Dards". Travelogues from Remote Lands. Retrieved 18 December 2022.
- "Dha-Hanu, Aryan Valley". northernvalley. Retrieved 24 December 2022.
- Bera, Dr Tilak Ranjan (1 July 2015). Ladakh: A Glimpse of the Roof of the World. Partridge Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4828-4263-0.