Editing Demographics of India (section)

=== Autosomal DNA ===
[[File:Cropped Tripuri.jpg|thumb|right|250px|[[Tripuri people|Tripuri]] children preparing for a dance performance. The Tripuris are a Tibeto-Burman ethnic group.]]
Numerous genomic studies have been conducted in the last 15 years to seek insights into India's demographic and cultural diversity. These studies paint a complex and conflicting picture.
* In a 2003 study, Basu, Majumder ''et al.''. have concluded on the basis of results obtained from [[mtDNA]], [[Y-chromosome]] and [[autosomal]] markers that "(1) there is an underlying unity of female lineages in India, indicating that the initial number of female settlers may have been small; (2) the tribal and the caste populations are highly differentiated; (3) the Austroasiatic tribals are the earliest settlers in India, providing support to one anthropological hypothesis while refuting some others; (4) a major wave of humans entered India through the northeast; (5) the Tibeto-Burman tribals share considerable genetic commonalities with the Austroasiatic tribals, supporting the hypothesis that they may have shared a common habitat in southern China, but the two groups of tribals can be differentiated on the basis of Y-chromosomal haplotypes; (6) the Dravidian speaking populations were possibly widespread throughout India but are regulated to South India now; (7) formation of populations by fission that resulted in founder and drift effects have left their imprints on the genetic structures of contemporary populations; (8) the upper castes show closer genetic affinities with Central Asian populations, although those of southern India are more distant than those of northern India; (9) historical gene flow into India has contributed to a considerable obliteration of genetic histories of contemporary populations so that there is at present no clear congruence of genetic and geographical or sociocultural affinities."<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Basu |first1=A. |last2=Mukherjee |first2=N. |last3=Roy |first3=S. |last4=Sengupta |first4=S. |last5=Banerjee |first5=S. |last6=Chakraborty |first6=M. |last7=Dey |first7=B. |last8=Roy |first8=M. |last9=Roy |first9=B. |last10=Bhattacharyya |first10=N. P. |last11=Roychoudhury |first11=S. |last12=Majumder |first12=P. P. |year=2003 |title=Ethnic India: A Genomic View, With Special Reference to Peopling and Structure |url=http://genome.cshlp.org/content/13/10/2277.full |journal=Genome Research |publisher=Genome.cshlp.org |volume=13 |issue=10 |pages=2277–2290 |doi=10.1101/gr.1413403 |pmc=403703 |pmid=14525929 |access-date=16 June 2013}}</ref>
* In a later 2010 review article, Majumder affirms some of these conclusions, introduces and revises some other. The ongoing studies, concludes Majumder, suggest India has served as the major early corridor for geographical dispersal of modern humans from out-of-Africa. The archaeological and genetic traces of the earliest settlers in India has not provided any conclusive evidence. The tribal populations of India are older than the non-tribal populations. The autosomal differentiation and genetic diversity within India's caste populations at 0.04 is significantly lower than 0.14 for continental populations and 0.09 for 31 world population sets studied by Watkins ''et al.''., suggesting that while tribal populations were differentiated, the differentiation effects within India's caste population was less than previously thought. Majumder also concludes that recent studies suggest India has been a major contributor to the gene pool of southeast Asia.<ref name="mj1">{{cite journal |author=Majumder |date=23 February 2010 |title=The Human Genetic History of South Asia: A Review |journal=Current Biology |volume=20 |issue=4 |pages=R184-7 |bibcode=2010CBio...20.R184M |doi=10.1016/j.cub.2009.11.053 |pmid=20178765 |s2cid=1490419 |doi-access=free}}</ref><ref name="w1">{{cite journal |author=Watkins |display-authors=etal |date=July 2003 |title=Genetic variation among world populations: inferences from 100 Alu insertion polymorphisms |journal=Genome Res. |volume=13 |issue=7 |pages=1607–18 |doi=10.1101/gr.894603 |pmc=403734 |pmid=12805277}}</ref>
* Another study covering a large sample of Indian populations allowed Watkins ''et al.''. to examine eight Indian caste groups and four endogamous south Indian tribal populations. The Indian castes data show low between-group differences, while the tribal Indian groups show relatively high between-group differentiation. This suggests that people between Indian castes were not reproductively isolated, while Indian tribal populations experienced reproductive isolation and drift. Furthermore, the genetic [[fixation index]] data show historical genetic differentiation and segregation between Indian castes population is much smaller than those found in east Asia, Africa and other continental populations; while being similar to the genetic differentiation and segregation observed in European populations.<ref name="w1" />
* In 2006, Sahoo ''et al.''. reported their analysis of genomic data on 936 Y-chromosomes representing 32 tribal and 45 caste groups from different regions of India. These scientists find that the haplogroup frequency distribution across the country, between different caste groups, was found to be predominantly driven by geographical, rather than cultural determinants. They conclude there is clear evidence for both large-scale immigration into ancient India of Sino-Tibetan speakers and language change of former Austroasiatic speakers, in the northeast Indian region.<ref>{{cite journal |author=Sahoo |display-authors=etal |year=2006 |title=A prehistory of Indian Y-chromosomes: evaluating demic diffusion scenarios |journal=Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA |volume=103 |issue=4 |pages=843–848 |bibcode=2006PNAS..103..843S |doi=10.1073/pnas.0507714103 |pmc=1347984 |pmid=16415161 |doi-access=free}}</ref><ref>{{cite journal |author=Artis Zelmenis |year=2014 |title=Immigration for Indians to Europe; history & law |journal=Immigration World Guru |volume=1 |issue=1 |pages=10–24}}</ref>
* The genome studies conducted up until 2010 have been on relatively small population sets. Many are from just one southeastern state of Andhra Pradesh (including Telangana, which was part of the state until June 2014). Thus, any conclusions on demographic history of India must be interpreted with caution. A larger national genome study with demographic growth and sex ratio balances may offer further insights on the extent of genetic differentiation and segregation in India over the millenniums.<ref name="mj1" />