Sanku wrote:Anyway there is a question that I had, how much of Afgan population shows continuity since 500-1000 BCE? We know that most of India is completely continuous.
How about Afghanistan parts?
(Or like Roman/Italians did the older population get completely replaced by Invaders like Goths etc? Or in case of re population of Anatolian peninsula under the Turkish tribes?)
The second option seems plausible. the demographic flux has always been high in this NW frontier region of India aka Gaandhara.
Gaandhar basically refers to region between Kubha river (kabul) and Bakshu river (amu darya). The regions of Kandahar, Herat etc, might not have under lasting Indian influence. They have traditionally been under Iranian influence. Even in battle of 10 kings in Rigveda, the tribes of anus and Pakthas come from Kubha-Bakshu doab. The conquests mentioned in "Raghuvamsha" of king Raghu whom scholars equate with Chandragupta Vikramaditya also shows expansion of the empire upto Bakshu conquering this doab. So does the initial conquests of Chandragupta Maurya before he received rest of Afghanistan and eastern Iran as part of dowry.
The tribes of Shaka, Kushans, Huns, Mongols, Turks have overran this region on many occasions since then. I do not think that the demographic continuity exists in people from Kubha-Bakshu doab, especially after the mongolian conquests. We however have very strong cultural and civilizational continuity with the doab. After Mongolian conquest, the tendency in this region to control and project a stable power over vast swathes of land for long time has vanished too.
We see no empire after demise of Ghurid empire, primarily because of ferocities of Mongol invasion. The only "empire" we see which was truly Afghan in origin was Durrani empire which lasted as long as life of Ahmadshah Abdali. Durrani empire too did not come out of civilizational shadow of Persia. nor could it fix this problem.
Hence, the genocidal techniques of Mongols have made Gandhar suffer from following two outcomes.
1. Probable wiping out of the native gaandhara people and their replacement with central asians, Iranians and Indians (Punjabis). (This is slightly improbably, but not impossible. The genetic studies on the population of that region will reveal much of the data.)
2. What the mongolian incursions did certainly was to fragment the Gandhara so much that it got stuck in the "rut" of tribalism. The power remained perpetually fragmented thereafter, thanks to kings ruling from delhi. This neither gave them peace (mughals had to try very very hard to keep Pathan areas under their control. Eventually they had to cede northern afghanistan. By the time of aurangzeb, even southern afg became liability) nor did this gave the region any chance to consolidate. Isn't it ironical that since the demise of Shahis, Republic of India is the only government of India in past 1000 years which is showing interest in consolidation of Afghanistan. That too after 9/11, in past decade. Rest all of the GOI's have planned and ensured that the power structure remains fragmented in Kubha-Bakshu doab.
Now, historically, even the ancient Gandharas were fundamentally rebellious people. Even Ashok had to quell the rebellions of Takshashila and Gandhar twice in his life. however, the society wasn't fragmented, and in spite of political continuity from india, the cultural continuity remained amongst the family structure of Gandhar province. Just like rest of India, the life went on in gandhara in spite of political changes. It is the social system which was entrenched which did this job. It was this social system which helped resistance of Afghanistan agaisnt islamization from iran and CAR for very long time. And even after islamization, this system kept afgh consolidated for very long time.
What India needs to do today is to cultivate this continuity in the families of that region. This cannot be done by islamism which seems to be rather popular in that region in current times. The civilizational memory will have to be reactivated, probably by the means of large-scale marital alliances between people from Gandhara and gangetic plains OR surrounding deccan arc.
