RAIPUR: Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh, who is on a nine-day visit to Australia to attract investors and tap investment opportunities, has been astonished by similarities between Australian Aborigines and the tribals in his state.
The CM took time off his busy schedule interacting with the top bosses of various companies to visit Cranes in Queensland to attend a tribal cultural event. He met tribal folk artists and watched them perform on the didgeridoo, a wind instrument developed by the Aborigines.
He was moved by the similarities between the tribal communities of Chhattisgarh and distant Australia.
“It was a delightful experience to closely watch the Australian tribal people. I found many similarities between the tribal populations of Australia and Chhattisgarh, and was reminded of the folk festivals of my state. The folk culture of the Australian tribal community appears similar to the one in our state”, the chief minister said.
Singh’s statement is not surprising given the fact that he rules a state where tribals account for around 31 per cent of the population. The parallels between the tribal communities of the two countries have been established by extensive research to find a direct genetic link between the tribes of Australia and those living in central India, such as the Baigas, and the Birhor of eastern India.
According to a study led by the Anthropological Survey of India, geneticists analysed some 1,000 persons from Indian tribal groups such as the Baigas and the Birhor, and compared their data with Australian Aboriginal DNA data. They were surprised to find that the mitochondrial DNA in the Indian and Aboriginal samples matched perfectly. According to their calculations, the ancestors of Indian tribes and the Aborigines split more than 50,000 years ago.