Who is an Indian? Who is a human being? These questions rack the mind to an extent, and there are a variety of political contentions that have given birth to heated debates since the beginning of modern times. It is true that when I touch upon this topic, I am liable to create a controversy for this topic is where groups with different aspirations and identities clash with each other, and in recent times, quite too much. It’s a sensitive agenda that I undertake indeed. In such a situation, it becomes clear that we have to probe into the issue to discover the truth. And this was not a creative effort of mine but my discovery of truth through an intermediary which is a book called Early Indians: The Story of Our Ancestors and Where We Came From by Tony Joseph, and this literature is persuasive to the extremes. And I desire to disclose what I think of diversity here by illustrating what I learnt one by one.
The world is dominated by human beings, or the Homo Sapiens in scientific terms. And the Indian subcontinent also consists of diverse religions, cultures, castes, tribes, and this has led to interpretations that either India is an amalgamation of different communities or is the rightful land of a particular group. This issue, therefore, has led to the rise of historical distortions, which need to be condemned.
First, who are ‘modern’ humans? They are Homo Sapiens, a separate species who have evolved from primates, and are different from ‘archaic’ humans like Homo Neanderthals, Denisovans, Homo Erectus, whom we can consider to be intermediaries in the evolution of apes into sapiens. Homo Sapiens are a specific species while sharing familial relations with members of the other Homo species.
So, how did these modern humans or Homo Sapiens originate? They have spread around the world. Did they originate in one particular place or did each species of Homo Sapiens emerge in each region? Did modern humans settle in India after their origin from a common point or did they originate in India itself while being distinct from other modern humans in the world?
The study of genetics, which has been leapfrogging in the last decade, has provided us many unknown answers. DNA evidence has shown that all modern humans living in the world today are all descendants of a single population from Africa, and that they migrated out of Africa 70,000 years ago, so rightly called as the Out of Africa (OoA) migrants.
What is the logic of genetics? Our genome inherits data from our parents. We inherit mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) from our mother and never from our father. Basically, we have been inheriting the same mtDNA way back to ancient times. We also have 23 pairs of chromosomes in our DNA, and one pair are the sex chromosomes. Males inherit the Y chromosome and females the X one from the father, while combining with the X chromosome of the mother always. Similarly, the Y chromosome that we inherit can be traced back to ancient times on paternal lines. In short, the mtDNA from our mother and the Y chromosome from our father in the case of males can be traced back to Africa. Archaeologists have conducted studies by extracting samples from the skeletons of early modern humans, and the sequence of our genomes correspond to the DNA of the modern humans from Africa. To tell more shortly, all modern humans share the same part of the DNA with Africans, and we all originated from Africa, therefore we are one big family. Modern humans did not originate in each region but originated in Africa and spread across the world.
The mtDNA and Y chromosome are only parts of the genome, while other parts are used to identify the different ethnicities of each region. The other parts of the genome are called ‘haplogroups’. Let’s just illustrate this: A and B belong to different ethnicities, and they indeed date back to Africa, yet they are different from each other, because different sections among the Out of Africa migrants mixed with each other to form haplogroups and sub-haplogroups, and therefore, A and B belong to different haplogroups and sub-haplogroups. We can use haplogroups to trace people to a particular section of the Out of Africa migrants.
We will come to India now. The first modern humans to settle in India were in Bhimbetka, because that is the first site identified by archaeologists to be occupied by modern humans. Out of Africa migrants could not, of course, directly cross into other continents because of climate changes. Homo Sapiens originated in Africa 300,000 years ago but could not exit Africa until 70,000 years ago due to right climactic conditions. They crossed into the Middle East because of a bridge connecting today’s Egypt to the Levant, and some sections went to Europe, some to Eurasia and the Russian region, some to India, then to Southeast Asia, from India to China, then from Russia to North America by crossing the Bering Strait, then finally to South America 16,000 years ago, but migrants did not move in a straight line, and often mixed with each other, going back and forth, as a second set of migrants later moved into Europe, then back again to the Middle East, and I could go on.
The earth had glacial periods which meant that the First Indians (as we shall call them) could have only entered India 65,000 years ago due to the right climactic conditions, tabled in the Marine Isotope Stages. 50-65% of all Indians derive their ancestry from the First Indians, including almost all regions, all linguistic groups, all castes, all tribes of the country.
What came next? We are aware of the Indus Valley Civilization that was the first urban civilization in the subcontinent. Most of the areas lie in today’s Pakistan, and some in Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana and Gujarat. We shall refer to the civilization as the Harappan Civilization for convenience and proper usage of terms.
Mehrgrah is a historical place of interest to archaeology. This small hamlet was the seed of the Harappan Civilization. It was discovered in 1976 by a French archaeological mission. The people here led rural lives and built clay houses with specific designs. They practiced pottery and had native flora and fauna. Why are we focusing on this particular place now? Let us now shift to another area.
The Natufians were a group with a culture in the Levant that spread to many parts of West Asia, including the central Zagros mountain region, where ancient Iranians originated and became farmers. They had a specific culture of domestication of animals, burials, pottery, et cetera, and were mostly rural.
Now, why Mehrgarh is of so much interest? The place’s culture, construction, practices correspond to the brickmaking of the people of Zagros, their pattern of domestication of animals, their burial practices, and also to the rice cultivation and other agricultural practices of the Harappan Civilization. Let’s say there was a ‘sort of a cultural continuum’ between the cultures of Harappa and Zagros.
Not only archaeology, but the study of ancient DNA proves this point. The DNA of an ancient individual from the Harappan Civilization (from Rakhigarhi, Haryana) carries the mixed ancestry of the First Indians and the ancient Iranians of Zagros. Ancient Iranians and the First Indians laid the foundation of the Harappan Civilization. This might seem a smaller sample, but the genetic profile of the individual is not a rarity but is widespread as the profiles of eleven more individuals who had migrated from the Harappan Civilization to other cities Harappa had connection with had the same DNA. The Harappans derived their ancestry from the First Indians and ancient Iranians, while they had no single connection to the Steppe pastoralists (or the ‘Arya’) who only entered Harappa during its waning times.
Let us continue the story of Harappa, India’s first urban civilization. They had a unique culture with a Great Bath, good sewer systems, clay houses, and lived in the Indus region in Pakistan and north-western India. Their language is not decoded yet, and the Elamite language from the regions of Mesopotamia would have very well been spoken but is only a candidate. Testimony contributing to the cultural connections between Mesopotamia in the West Asian region and the Harappan Civilization is a case in point as Elamite might have been used. The Elamite language has been linked to Dravidian languages, quite remarkably. In proto-Elamite and proto-Dravidian, many words are alike. This is not just a statement, but examples of different varieties can prove the point that Elamite and Dravidian languages are connected more than just through speculation. To illustrate a few instances:
1. Proto-Elamite-pot (young animal); Proto-Dravidian-pot (young animal or plant); Tamil-pottu (sapling)
2. Proto-Elamite-vari (to fix, tie, hold); Proto-Dravidian-vari (to bind, tie, fasten); Tamil-vari (to bind, tie, fasten)
3. Proto-Elamo-Dravidian-um (to process grain); Achaemenid Elamite-umi (to grind grain); Proto-Dravidian-um (husk, chaff); Tamil-umi (husk, to become chaff)
4. Old Elamite-ni (you); Dravidian-ni (you)
5. Proto-Elamite-Dravidian-nal (day); Middle Elamite-na, nana (days); Proto-Dravidian-nal (day)
6. Proto-Elamo-Dravidian-ul (interior, inside, mind, heart, to think); Middle Elamite-ulhi (dwelling place, residence, sanctuary); Tamil-ullam (mind, thought)
7. Proto-Elamo-Dravidian-kat (bed, throne); Royal Achaemenid Elamite-kat (place, throne); Proto-Dravidian-kattil (cot, bedstead, throne of distinction); Tamil-kattil (cot, bedstead), and I could go on and on.
This means that the Harappan Civilization has nothing to do with the Aryas and were descendants of the First Indians and ancient Iranians. Indeed, Dr. Iravatham Mahadevan, who has researched about Indo-Dravidian connections, has denounced the relations between the Aryas and Harappa as,
1. The Harappan Civilization was an urban civilization, while early Vedic society that came afterwards was rural and pastoral, and the Indus Valley region had already had an urban revolution after agriculture ceased to be their main occupation.
2. Indus Valley seals depict many animals but not the horse, and the horse and the chariot were a defining characteristic of Aryan societies, and only shows chariots being pulled by bulls.
3. The tiger, mentioned in Indus seals, are not mentioned in the Rig Veda.
4. Harappans worshipped buffalo-horned male god, mother goddess, the peepul tree, the serpent, and the phallic symbol, all of which not derived from the earliest Vedas but from the pre-Aryan population.
However, Mahadevan says that Indus heritage is shared by both Dravidian and Indo-Aryans, and as he reads it, the message of the Indus script is unity in diversity.
There is also a reason to believe that Dravidian languages may have originated in India as long as 2800 BCE, before the Mature Harappan phase, when there is evidence of rural areas and pastoralism in South India, in north Karnataka especially. There is also hefty evidence suggesting that the Harappans moved from the north to the south and introduced pastoralism in Dravidian society built on the foundation of Dravidian presence in India, before an urban Indus Valley Civilization could originate. There is compelling evidence of movement of early Harappans to south India as an expanse from Gujarat and Rajasthan, through the Deccan, down to south India is covered in grasses, and this would have been a route taken by pastoralists from Harappa who settled in Dravidian lands. As illustrated by research, 800 or more villages in Maharashtra have Dravidian names, and even Dravidian river names in Maharashtra are also a case in point. This suggests that early Harappans moved along the west coast of India to reach South India and laid the foundation of Dravidian society as the Harappan Civilization was coming into fruition.
There is also the notable migration of Austro-Asiatic speakers who migrated from the south- east Asian regions of Indonesia, Malaysia, etc, who migrated back into the Indian mainland. Their genetic profile is also present among contemporary Indian population.
The next group to enter India is the Arya. Who were they? They were pastoralists who were not among the composition of the Harappans (First Indians and ancient Iranians) and the Dravidians. Why do we say that the Aryans entered India and that Indians did not exit India to become Aryans? This is because the DNA mapping of Steppe pastoralists into India have proved this assumption, and the movement of Harappans into Europe to found Indo-European languages (related to the Aryans’ proto-Sanskrit) is not genetically mapped. Through the study of genetics, there is a DNA trace that proves that Steppe pastoralists’ genome merged with those of Harappans, and not the other way around.
The Aryans mainly came from the group of Yamnaya, corresponding to their haplogroup. The Yammnaya were a group in the Steppe region who expanded to Europe and replaced the first Out of Africa migrants in Europe. The preponderance of the Y chromosome in the Yamnaya implies that they had more political and social power at competing with local mates than local groups. Sanskrit is related to Indo-European languages, and these events portray the culture of the Yamnaya belligerently mixing with the first OoA migrants of Europe.
The Aryas came from these Yamnaya of Europe and entered India during the decline of the Harappan Civilization. The clear attribution to ancient DNA provides that Aryans were alien to the Harappans. The conflict between late Harappans and the oncoming Aryans has been recorded, as illustrated by the stark contrast between the Rigveda principles and the Harappan practice. The Rigveda denounces ‘shishna-deva’ (phallus god), for instance, while Harappan artifacts convey that phallus worship is part of their culture. The main gods of the Rigveda do not have Harappan representation. Today, there are eight tribal groups speaking Dravidian languages, who are indigenous, without any Steppe pastoralist ancestry. Indeed, Aryans mixed with the Indians of their day and contributed to the genetic makeup of today’s Indians, but it is a farce if it is claimed that they are the only ancient Indians and that they were connected to Harappa. The Aryans mixed with those in the subcontinent, but at a later point of time, they practiced endogamy, and this led to the rise of the caste system, and the separation of the Aryan haplogroup proves that endogamy had started with the caste system, yet Aryans mixed with the early Indians way before that.
Today, Indians are not only made of the First Indians and ancient Iranians who were the composition of the Harappans, and the Aryans, but there were many migrations later, that of the Greeks during Alexander’s time, the Jews, the Huns, the Sakas, the Parsis, the Syrians, the Mughals, the Portuguese, the British, the Siddies.
Each of these groups might have different haplogroups but we can never ascertain the superiority or inferiority of one particular group, which will only lead to discrimination. Secondly, even if these groups belong to different haplogroups, they are all humans, as we are all Africans in the first place.
To sum up, we all originate in Africa, the mixing of the First Indians and ancient Iranians led to the rise of the Harappan Civilization, there was a connection between Harappan and Dravidian societies, the Aryans came only during later Harappan times and mixed with the subcontinent, and many migrations followed (including those of the Mughals) contribute to the Indian pizza, as Tony Joseph calls it. India is not a society made of one single culture of Vedic religion as many misunderstandings and politically motivated superstitions claim, but is a society composed of diverse communities. We are all different. Indeed, the Muslims came much later, yet they are an integral part of India, and if their entrance is considered ‘colonialism’, the same word can be applied to every other migration that came previously, that of the Aryans and everyone else. Different groups have fought in the past with each other, but today we live in a secular country that respects the rights of the diverse groups it accommodates within its frontiers. There is simply no single strand of history as Hindu nationalists falsely claim, and if there is, it can be only that we are all Africans.
Tony Joseph provides a phrase expressed exquisitely about the human species in his epilogue, ‘We are all migrants.’
I would like to provide a disclaimer that this is in no way a research article but a piece laying down my thought against the backdrop of the ongoing crisis in West Asia and its repercussions on India. After a long time, reading the news prompted me to pen this blog.
The current state of affairs in West Asia is the prolongation of the
imperialist war against the Arab countries, particularly Iran. The
American-Israeli attacks on Iran represent an escalation of the crisis plaguing
the present world order. As usual, the United States with its attack dog in
West Asia has begun another war or intervention to preserve its hegemony. It is
nothing new in geopolitics and this has always been that way since the
overthrow of Mohammad Mossadegh of Iran in 1953 to replace the democracy with a
regime of the Iranian Shah through a covert CIA operation, and in fact, the
precedent has been set from last year’s attacks on Iranian nuclear facilities
by Israel for 12 days. And quite usually, Israel has claimed it engaged in
pre-emptive attacks and America claimed Iranian people needed to be ‘freed’
from an oppressive regime. The most shocking incident following the recent
attacks is the assassination of the Ayatollah, the second Supreme Leader of the
Islamic Revolution since 1979.
For
decades, Iran and its non-state proxies have kept American and Israeli hegemony
at bay. After Israel’s continuous invasion of and depredations in Lebanon, its
genocidal campaign in Gaza, the overthrow of the Bashar al-Assad government by
the HTS led by a former jihadist cutting off crucial Iranian support to the
Axis of Resistance, Iran’s octopus tentacles seem to have been severed. The
assassination has been met with Iran’s 88-member Assembly of Experts choosing
the son of the Ayatollah to be the next Supreme Leader for which it seems the
US is not satisfied. Not only are the attacks a blatant violation of Iranian
sovereignty and territorial integrity, it comes along with serious
consequences. Iran has the right to choose its own political system. As the ICJ
in Nicaragua v. US laid down in relation to the principle of
non-intervention and the doctrine of sovereignty, sovereignty also meant a
nation-state’s right to choose its own political, economic, social or cultural
system.
Clearly,
the US and Israel do not respect that whatsoever the case. They invade Iran
with a similar pretext when Bush invaded Iraq allegedly for its possession of
WMDs: here, the possession of nuclear weapons, and it is indigestible that they
invade a sovereign nation based on suspicion when negotiations were ongoing and
Iran was even willing to give up its claims to enrich uranium. As Trump said in
his State of the Union address, the US wants Iran to tell the words, ‘We will
never have a nuclear weapon.’ That requirement is fulfilled, then where is the
reason to go to war? In fact, in 2007, the US intelligence’s National
Intelligence Estimate concluded, ‘We judge with high confidence that in fall
2003, Tehran halted its nuclear weapons programme.’ IAEA Director Rafael Grossi
in 2025 definitively told Al Jazeera, ‘We did not find in Iran elements to
indicate that there is an active, systematic plan to build a nuclear weapon.’
This so-called Operation Epic Fury costs the US 1 billion dollars a day when
their social sector is in tatters.
The
implications of this war are not limited to West Asia alone. It extends to
other regions as well. I condemn strongly those who sit at home thinking
geopolitics do not affect us. Iran has closed the Strait of Hormuz on March
2nd. Four vessels were attacked in the strait where 20% of total oil consumed
by the world passes through. Oil prices have soared to 100 dollars a barrel,
the highest since the Russia-Ukraine conflict started.
Now,
out of all things going on in the world worrying us, this took my attention
particularly because of India’s weak response. India had been a vocal
anti-colonial and resistant nation against the West, but now, its stature has
been demeaned for it has to acquire permission from the US to buy Russian oil.
The US wishes India to buy oil from Venezuela (another grave violation of
international law by the US, attacking a sovereign country and kidnapping its
leader) when it is expensive. It was shocking to see the repetition of the
bootlicking behaviour of our leadership as oil and LPG prices soar. The impact
is widespread: the farthest geopolitical impact I have observed in my life as
far as I understand it on India, as restaurants close, my family is deliberating
on travel prices to visit me, and my hostel amends the food chart. Despite
disagreements over tariffs and purchase of Russian oil, India has not recorded
even its condemnations of the grave breaches of a nation-state’s sovereignty.
Yes, India reacted to the impact of the crisis on Indians in the Gulf but when
the Ayatollah was assassinated and an Iranian vessel was sunk by a US submarine
on Indian shores in the high seas, India did not seem to react. Despite having
good relations with the Arab countries, India seems to be heavily shifting in
favour of the Zionist regime under US pressure. Also, when 54% of our oil
imports come from the West Asian countries, this is a serious development. When
we enjoy good rapport with Russia, why does India require any permission from
the US, which is attempting to impose its neocolonial dictates on us? As I
said, this is nothing but a repetition of the bootlicking behaviour. It’s
highly necessary India does not bat an eye for any instruction from the Western
neocolonial power. Our foreign policy needs to prioritize the sovereignty of
all nation-states and aim to protect our energy security in the face of the
disgraceful situation the Indian economy is currently in.
References:
US
grants waiver to allow India to buy Russian oil amid Iran war | Oil | The
Guardian
Iran
War and Oil Prices: Why the Conflict Is Shaking Global Energy - Frontline
The
Iran war intensifies India’s strategic challenge - The Hindu
Strategic blunder: On the
U.S., the Iran war - The Hindu
Oil
and Iran-U.S. war: Key takeaways in graphics - The Hindu
It was in sixth grade that I first took Percy Jackson by Rick Riordan from the school library. Though I followed no specific order of reading and had to read the entire bibliography from the first later on, it was one evergreen ride. The release of the recent TV series has overshadowed the books, what with the plot changes and the cast not sticking to physical descriptions, though not as removed from the storyline as the movies (despite their jaw-dropping moments), and I feel the need to reiterate how the book experience actually was. An account of the story would be illustrative of how massive the experience was; however, I cannot spoil the ride. I must confine myself to giving the vaguest description I can provide the reader, but in a way that induces them to actually take all of the thirty to forty books and read them as they were originally before the adaptations.
It is well-known that the plot is about a storyline of a guy named Percy discovering he is a demigod son of a Greek god and has to train at Camp Half-Blood, Long Island Sound, and go on quests to save the world. The corpus of the pentalogy is carefully written, and though it is a colloquial piece of work, it does not fail to amaze you with the plot lines it fabricates and connects. Every thread connects with each other. It shows the coming-of-age of Percy over time to fulfill the Great Prophecy at a time when the Titans are arising. Characters like Annabeth Chase, Grover Underwood, Tyson, Thalia Grace, and Rachel Elizabeth Dare contribute to the character arc of Percy. The writing simply cannot be underestimated as Percy’s oxymoronically smart-dumb personality sarcastically interacts with that of the smart-aggressive one of Annabeth. The Thalia-Percy tensions in the third book create a rivalry unseen. But most importantly, the first Percy Jackson and the Olympians series focuses on the Percy-Luke rivalry. Luke is everyone Percy is, but Percy is not Luke because Luke exists. This characterizes their story that moves forward. Without their rivalry, the entire series would have been in vain. The first series involves not Percy not just discovering he must do adventure quests, but each quest means something. A quest to prevent the rise of Kronos, the king of the Titans, from returning to the living world from the evil pit of Tartarus in the Underworld. The Lightning Thief sees Percy allying with his demigod friends Annabeth and the satyr Grover to retrieve the lightning bolt of Zeus. In the process, he learns of the Titans' comeback. In The Sea of Monsters, he must save Camp Half-Blood by traversing oceans sailed without return to get his hands on the Golden Fleece to save camp. In The Titan's Curse, he is much more mature with the advent of the kids Nico and Bianca di Angelo. In The Battle of the Labyrinth, he must once again save camp, and it all boils down to the final war to defend Mount Olympus against the forces of Kronos and Luke.
The plot also gets more serious from the first to the fifth book. Not only is there growth of characters, but also sarcasm. Percy’s point of view from a first-person perspective is not heroic. It is a guy struggling to find himself in the world. The growth of these characters is not just among the best-written in literature, but I also hold it is also the best-written romance. The way Percy and Annabeth become a couple at the end of the fifth book is one of the most well-drafted creative pieces. Not only that, it is the most ideal relationship. This continues in the Heroes of Olympus series, which is my next point of focus.
The Heroes of Olympus series does not just have Percy and Annabeth. It introduces to us Jason, Piper, Leo, Hazel, and Frank. Seven heroes of Olympus who must answer the call that has arisen. It is, in Chiron's [Percy’s mentor at camp] terms, the last chapter. This last chapter is due to the events of The Last Olympian, the fifth book in the Percy series. The way I lost my mind reading the last sentence of The Lost Hero, or the way I was dumbfounded by the cliffhanger at the end of The Mark of Athena, cannot be described. I wish to put them in words here but you cannot afford a spoiler. The Heroes of Olympus takes seven heroes, nine if you include Nico and Reyna, to defeat the next big threat. Not only that, it takes you three books out of the five to take you across the world, put you on a ship to travel the length of the globe, to cover half the hemisphere.
This was followed by the Trials of Apollo series, which was equally amazing of course, revisiting the characters we have known for more than a decade. As the Trials of Apollo series wrapped up, it seems there is peace reigning in the world of Percy Jackson. The Kane Chronicles series, based on Egyptian mythology, was also a scary work of art and lengthy in itself, and it tied into the world of Percy Jackson. Tie-ins are not limited to Egyptian mythology alone, but Norse mythology as well, as seen in the Magnus Chase series, about the cousin of Annabeth who discovers the world of Odin, Thor, and Loki. The recent books on Nico and Will, and the new Percy Jackson Senior Year Adventures with smaller stories, do not give you as much entertainment as the old books had given us.
This simply cannot be captured by the new TV series. It is a new work in itself and does not reflect much of the plotline, sarcasm, or descriptions of locations and characters. It has essentially done what the movies did. Though both the movies and the TV series are worth a watch, anyone who has not read the books and has been imposed an imagination through these adaptations needs to be whacked upside the head. Read the books. After that, read the graphic novels. They are better works of art, especially I liked the art of Orpheus Collar, whose art was similar to the canon Viria art. Shame The Blood of Olympus is not coming out. Nor any other future comic. I can speak more, but this broadly covers my elation and nostalgia in engaging with the world of Percy Jackson. Those days shall never fail to astonish me, and no adaptation can replace what I experienced in that era. Period.
The twelve-day war between the United States-Israel alliance and Iran on the other side has warranted global attention. Iran had been weakened by the crises in Gaza, Yemen, Syria and Lebanon. It is against this background that Israel launched pre-emptive strikes against Iran. The US also backed Israel by jumping into the conflict, with its B2 aircraft delivering bunker bombers or Massive Ordnance Penetrators in a 37-hour long operation (its longest operation was in Afghanistan in the 2000s for 42 hours) to the underground and well-protected nuclear facilities of Fordow, Natanz and Isfahan.
The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
The NPT was floated in 1968 to prevent the development of nuclear weapons and ensure peaceful use of nuclear energy. Countries like India, Pakistan, the DPRK, have indeed developed nuclear weapons nevertheless even though the P5 countries of the UNSC attempted to prevent them from doing so.
Iran had, under the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, agreed to shut down its nuclear weapons program at a time of scrutiny in return for sanctions relief from the US and the UNSC. Trump, during his first term, unilaterally withdrew from the nuclear deal, piling up sanctions on Iran, leading to concerns over Iran developing nuclear weapons. However, IAEA Director General Rafael Grossi and the Director of National Intelligence of the USA herself, Tulsi Gabbard have denied the possibilities of Iran to have developed nuclear weapons. It is only in the aftermath of this conflict that the Iranian parliament has voted to exit from the NPT and the threat of the US and Israel has forced Iran to consider the option of nuclear deterrence.
On the other hand, Israel, not being a party to the NPT, has developed nuclear weapons without accepting inspections by the IAEA, aided by the US. Israel represents a more powerful nuclear threat than Iran itself, which is why we need to look into the legality of Israel’s actions. In the Advisory Opinion on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons case in the International Court of Justice also affirmed the right of nation-states to use nuclear weapons subject to the principles of the UN Charter, humanitarian and customary international law. Israel, on the other hand, has been a rogue state under the leash of the US and has violated international law on many counts and remains a dangerously militarized state in possession of nuclear weapons.
Israel’s attacks on Iran
Article 2(4) of the UN Charter says, ‘All Members shall refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state, or in any other manner inconsistent with the Purposes of the United Nations.’ Sovereignty and territorial integrity are vested in all 193 member-states of the UN, which can never be undermined by the use of force or an act of aggression that are prohibited under international law. That is clear. The purposes and principles of the UN Charter, to prevent conflict in this world, has strictly enshrined in itself this fundamental concept.
Use of force is permitted only under certain circumstances. Article 51 of the UN Charter says a nation-state may undertake use of force against another nation in self-defence if an armed attack occurs on its territory, by a state or non-state actor. Even this provision is subject to the test of necessity, immediacy and proportionality under customary international law. Otherwise, under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, the UNSC may determine a threat to peace or an act of aggression and may take measures such as cessation of economic and diplomatic relations under Article 41 or military measures under Article 42. This can only be done on the authorization of the Security Council.
However, clearly, Israel’s attacks on Iran, nor of the US on Iran, do not fall within the ambit of any of these concepts of provisions in international law.
Israel claims that it carried out ‘pre-emptive’ strikes, interpreted to be anticipatory self-defence under Article 51. Despite this contention, it should be noted that the Caroline doctrine does not allow Israeli actions to stand the test of legality. In 1837, British colonial forces attacked an American warship Caroline that aided Canadian rebels in self-defence. This was contended to be pre-emptive. Under the Carolien doctrine, pre-emptive attacks or anticipatory self-defence is allowed but under the condition that a threat is ‘imminent’, ‘inherent’ or ‘overwhelming’ to necessitate the use of force. This conditionality of imminence under the Caroline doctrine also negates the Israeli argument that there was any immediate threat from Iran.
It can only be assumed that the US and Israel have violated the global order of things to attack Iran for their diabolical interests. Iran may be a theocratic state curtailing civil liberties especially those of women but in the international forum, they represent a movement of opposition to hegemony. The Iranian people may want a regime change, but definitely not by a hegemon seeking to install a puppet regime.
I shall begin with a disclaimer: this post is confined to the Jurassic movie franchise, not the books. My fascination with dinosaurs may have begun from childhood like everyone else but only recently did I begin to appreciate the enormity of the plotlines in each and every Jurassic Park or Jurassic World film. Given the recent release of Jurassic World: Rebirth, I found it imperative to provide my opinions on the franchise.
Throughout the
seven installations, it cannot be denied that the dino VFX and CGI have had a
great impact on our childhood, our cinematic experience due to their themes of
adventure, thriller and so on. But it doesn’t stop there. It is a universally known
fact that it is also a science-fiction series. The science may not be so
accurate, as it so happens in every sci-fi work of art, but the science is
there. The compelling storylines of dino DNA being extracted from fossils of
mosquitos, filling gaps in their strands with those of reptiles (why not birds,
we may never know), the ability of these dinosaurs to change sex due to the
inclusion of West African frog DNA, genetic engineering developing to an extent
that mankind can create hybrids, mutants and biological weapons (I found the Indominus
Rex and the Indoraptor to be an innovative concept to explore but was
disappointed that they delved into this too much to create mutants in the
latest installment, focusing on ‘monsters’ than on real dinosaurs) bring to
light the possibilities of technology as well as highligh ethical concerns.
The franchise’s
focus on science is great indeed but it is the recurring theme of the entire series
that incites me to appreciate the franchise even more. ‘Life finds a way,’ is a
saying by Ian Malcolm, well-known among the frequent watchers of Jurassic
Park and Jurassic World. It is an acknowledgement that mankind doesn’t
control nature: like the dinosaurs reproducing by changing sex despite InGen
attempting to suppress the XY chromosome in dinosaurs, Owen Grady telling he
doesn’t control his Velociraptors rather sharing a mutual bond with them to Malcolm
and Hoskins, and the repeated dialogues that reinforce the point that dinosaurs
aren’t assets of a company and cannot be seen from an accounting perspective
rather they are living beings capitalism cannot seek to control. In this way,
the franchise is not only a sci-fi work but also political cinema tuned to
commercial audiences who only go to these movies to enjoy the visuals, adventuristic
themes and the dinosaurs during vacations. The same theme also returned in Rebirth
when Jonathan Bailey’s character convinced Zora Bennett to open-source the
medicinal samples from dinosaurs instead of turning them over to a monopolist.
It is argued that from when the movies were rechristened as Jurassic World,
they had attempted to integrate dinosaurs with Hollywood’s backing of the
American military-industrial complex. I may have to digress—due to the fact
that while Hollywood, influenced by the CIA, might produce vast numbers of
pro-American imperialist narratives, the Jurassic World franchise
nevertheless didn’t give in to the whims and fancies of the same
military-industrial complex but portrayed the impact of what may happen if
dinosaurs were assets of corporations or biological weapons of the
military-industrial complex, an excellent critique (and also showing the nexus
between the black market and the state, of course). This particular theme never
runs dry because people continue to need this understanding.
This may describe
my broader views on the political aspects of the franchise, but as I mentioned
earlier, the Jurassic movies also possess a different kind of
storytelling that many audiences fail to see. The first film created one of the
best settings: the invitation of paleontologists and a chaotician to endorse
the theme park due to litigation by investors, and continued to balance our
amazement with the revival of dinosaurs in the modern era (the inception of a
time where our fascination with dinosaurs was induced), and the chaos that
follows when Dennis Nedry attempts to steal embryos for profit by turning off
the security mechanisms in place and selling them to BioSyn (the first instance
of human greed in corporations who are competitors). The second installment
showed Isla Sorna, or Site B, when the characters on a rescue mission were
trapped on an island, this time with no fences, and also the first interaction
of dinosaurs with the human world when the T-Rex undertook a temporary tour in
San Diego. In the third part, Alan Grant was sent back to Isla Sorna and his
character was done justice as his professional interest in understanding raptors
was satisfied by his second entrapment on Isla Sorna which was the natural
habitat for dinosaurs, and we also got the one-time famous Spinosaurus that
broke the plot armour by being the only dinosaur to kill a T-Rex.
It is unanimously agreed
to by movie-goers that the original Jurassic Park films were
exceptional. I do not sit well with the indulgence in nostalgia by certain
sections of the fandom as they are incapable of differentiating what exactly
went wrong with the later movies. The Jurassic World movies may have
resorted to nostalgia from the earlier movies nonetheless they continued to
have better storylines. The first fight between two the T-Rex and the Indominus
Rex in Jurassic World was the cherry on the cake, with compelling
characters and a plot that did not stagnate in any scene.
Now comes my dissociation
with the rest of the audience. Fallen Kingdom and Dominion were equally
well-made. Fallen Kingdom was a peak film, portraying the demise of
dinosaur species due to a volcano eruption on Isla Nublar and the characters
attempting to save them or the cliffhanger of dinos escaping into the human
world (new and fresh takes) and it gave us the creeps with the equally
mortifying Indoraptor and the near-death escape sequences. Dominion too
by bringing together the characters of both the Jurassic Park and the Jurassic
World franchise was the perfect send-off. Of course, the claims of the lack
of focus on dinosaurs due to the locusts being genetically developed from
dinosaurs and the hyped-up Giganotosaurus exist, but that doesn’t mean it was
entirely bad. The overall experience was the same as the earlier movies, with a
plotline you had to connect. Unlike many Hollywood movies, animatronics was
used till Dominion. The movie changed the theme from allowing dinosaurs the
‘absence’, as John Hammond called it in The Lost World, of humanity to a
conclusion that dinosaurs and humans can coexist (while also the Carnotaurus
sequence illustrating the chaos ensuring from dinosaurs being released in the human
world). It gave closure to Henry Wu, introduced in Jurassic World after a
long gap since the first Jurassic Park film came out. Bringing back
Lewis Dodgson as an antagonist and the can with the embryos Dennis Nedry lost
way back in the first film when he was eaten by a Dilophosaurus, it felt like a
fitting end to the franchise, indeed, Chris Pratt called Dominion the ‘Avengers:
Endgame’ of Jurassic Park. The movie still had many dinosaurs and new
ones like Atrociraptors and the Therizinosaurus were introduced. The raptor
chase continued to amaze us of course. The story centrally focused on the ethical
implications of genetic engineering derived from dinosaurs (Besides the locusts
were from the Cretaceous era!). The Giganotosaurus increasingly felt
threatening when it attacked the characters despite the criticism from fans. I
do not understand how the audience prefers third-rated movies and compares them
positively to critically-acclaimed movies when they do not appreciate
adequately the success of the storylines in these films that have tried their
best.
Moreover, unlike
the fandom, it was my analysis from the beginning that Rebirth was the
revival of a franchise that was better left extinct (one review wrote this in a
negative manner, however, I’m using this term to denote the closure the
audience achieved in Dominion). Rebirth essentially undid the
last installment’s ending by making dinosaurs go extinct again due to the lack
of a Mesozoic climate that allows them to live only near the equator, undoing Dominion’s
conclusion. It could rather have been a film that took place between the events
of two earlier films. The Delgados in Rebirth were unnecessary add-ons despite
one of them being important in revealing the ill will of the antagonist in the
film. Unlike the hybrids in the earlier films which were believable and able to
replicate dinosaurs, the idea of mutants did not sit well. Nevertheless, it
showed well-known and new dinos and had a solid and direct story without plot
holes.
My overall views
on the franchise have been descriptively laid down here. In light of the new
movie, I decided to pen these thoughts and opinions. My objective of this post
would be to highlight how the Jurassic films are not just children’s movies;
they are something more. They are cinematic and political.
When I walk along the streets, footpaths and platforms,
When I traverse the petty shops and workers’ dorms,
I witness the historical conspiracy,
For which I possess no ecstasy.
There are a great many Gates to Heaven,
And around this Garden of Eden,
There exists unthinkable destitution,
Which has no good reputation.
On my right flank, I see skyscrapers,
Of the kind that are written only in mythical papers,
On my left flank, I see slums, sewage, and disease.
Onlookers of these cannot rest with ease.
How is the country, you may ask;
As a patriot, it is a simple task
For me to say the country is great.
Yet, what follows is its fate.
This country has a great many peasants.
The ants are the Osiris of the nation’s pleasant.
Their surplus is devoured by the locusts,
Remorseless and the cause of society’s rusts.
After my visit to my native village,
I return to the city after an age.
There I find a great many flocks of sheep,
Who do not know to think deep.
When they think deep, they will realize,
They are slaves to the draconian cries
Of their consumerist lords,
Who reside in industrial centers and tour in Fords.
In my place, I saw luxuries and beggars.
I go places, and I see crowds in the city.
Vendors, homeless and muggers,
In the capital city, and everything is now a commodity.
While some live with awesome powers,
Others exist in society and cower.
This nation has not yet attained progression,
Still gripped by the death stroke to civilization.
I paint a grim picture of today,
And throughout history, this has been the way.
From cavemen, to lords and kings,
Countrymen, now is the time to discard your binding rings.
We workers toil each and every day but don't have our say. When we aim what makes us us, survival pushes us away, it does. Our labour re...