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Biology as Politics
The etymology of the word "race" is traced and its different definitions are analysed in search of multilayered meanings. The history of the slave trade is drawn in detail to emphasise that the colour of skin or outward appearance was an easy and readily available justification to prove the slaves’ inferiority and the owner’s superior position in the hierarchy. Later, the Europeans developed and practised racial prejudices to give political and psychological credence to their exploitation of Asia and Africa. Biology being a scientific discipline based on hard evidences can never be used as a tool for discrimination. In biology, races are recognised as geographically localised groups and the human kind as a continuum. However, biological and anthropological concepts were distorted and interpreted in a way to suit the racialist thinking to achieve political ends. Eugenics societies aimed at improving the human society by encouraging breeding of superior individuals and preventing the birth of "inferior" ones. To differentiate the two, IQ tests and forcible sterilisation were done. No writing on race can be complete unless anti-Semitism is discussed. The author goes into a detailed analysis of Adolf Hitler and his eugenic ideas. The lesser-known massacre of Armenians in Turkey is also touched upon. The author raises a pertinent poser, "How do we internalise racial prejudices, which are bound to arise in our life, since race is intertwined with our origins and is inseparable from life?" Race is the easiest method to categorise people but we need to remember that the basic assumption on which the concept of race stands, that people’s appearance is indicative of their inner being is totally faulty. Surprisingly, the author does not include or even mention the revolutionary findings of the Human Genome Project that unraveled the mysteries of human chromosome complement in the year 2001. After studying the genome of Caucasian, Mongoloid, Asian, African and European races, it concluded that all the races are more than 90 per cent similar and only a few genes are responsible for different physical characters. This concrete evidence has demolished all racial superiority myths. Now no longer biology can be misinterpreted to uphold the racial flag. The thread of the complete discourse runs through all seventy-four pages without any breaks into chapters or sub-themes. The ideas follow in a natural and easy flow and the style suits the serious readers. The book is obviously not meant for light reading. |
The
book is a published version of author’s discourse to The Seagull
Foundation for the Arts on the inauguration of an exhibition. The title
gives the impression that it explores the relationship between
biological science and politics. However, the subtitle The Evolution
of a Concept in Modem Society clarifies that it is an attempt to
examine the concept of race. Hence along with a little biology and some
politics, there are quite a lot of historical, psychological and
sociological issues, which are understandable since race is a concept
that raises several ripples, touching the shores of myriad domains
simultaneously.