Open Defecation is generally a product of poor socioeconomic indicators, however this is not the case for South Asia. As one 2018 study¹ put it, “Open defecation rates vary widely across the countries of South Asia, but the differences present a puzzle that is not solved by standard indicators of…

Using South Asian genetic samples run through the Harappa Calculator, I’ve constructed averages for various ethnic groups and castes across the Indian Subcontinent. Below is a quick guide on how to interpret the figures. S Indian: A signal representing the Ancestral Indians, who were the indigenous hunter-gatherers of India. Their…

Cousin Marriage (CM) occurs with significant frequency across North-Africa, the Middle-East, and West-Asia, with the practice being at least partially rooted in certain Islamic traditions. Pakistan has perhaps the highest rate of CM of any country in the world, clocking in at 57.9% in 2018, a marginal improvement from their…

“The story told in this chapter is of a person who came from humble stock and rose to eminence step by step, not by favor of any man, certainly not by subservience either to the ruling authorities or to popular ideas; but simply by the operation of that natural law…

Earlier I had constructed a map on the Muslim population of British Punjab before and after partition, so I figured I’d do one for Hindus as well. Observations from the 1941 figures: Hindus are a minority in virtually every Tehsil where Punjabi speakers predominate. This is to be expected, as…

I’ve been asked to compare the genetics of ancient Pakistanis to that of modern population, so using data collated from Genoplot, I’ll be doing just that. The samples are all from Swat, a traditionally Dardic region that was Pashtunized during the medieval period. The ancient DNA has been dated…

British Punjab was perhaps the most religiously dynamic region in all of South Asia during the colonial period. Christian missionaries, Dalit activists, Hindu reformers, Sikh preachers, and Muslim revivalists all jockeyed for position in a region traditionally not monopolized by any one faith. …

India has long been infamous for its skewed gender balance against females. While a lot has been written about the causes of this phenomena (sex-selective abortions, patriarchal culture, etc), there’s been relatively little examination of the role regional and religious differences play. Thanks to data from the 2011 Census, we’ll…

Conventional wisdom has long held that the principal genetic divisions in South Asia are generally tied to linguistic differences. Indo-Aryan speakers (North Indians) form one broad cluster, Dravidian speakers (South Indians) form a second cluster, Iranic speakers (Western Pakistan) form a…