Historical definitions of races in India

Various attempts have been made, under the British Raj and since, to classify the population of India according to a racial typology. After the independence, in pursuance of the government's policy to discourage distinctions between communities based on race, the 1951 Census of India did away with racial classifications. The national Census of independent India does not recognize any racial groups in India.

Some scholars of the colonial epoch attempted to find a method to classify the various groups of India according to the predominant racial theories popular at that time in Europe. This scheme of racial classification was used by the British census of India. It was often mixed with considerations about the caste system.

Scientific racism of the late 19th and early 20th centuries divided mankind into three "great races", Caucasoid (white), Mongoloid (yellow) and Negroid (black) in accordance with their own world-view.

The populations of the Indian subcontinent, however, were problematic to classify under this scheme. They were assumed to be a mixture of "Dravidian race", tentatively with an "Australoid" grouping, with an Aryan race, identified as a sub-race to the Caucasoid race, but some authors also assumed Mongolic admixture, so that India, for the purposes of scientific racism, presented a complicated mixture of all major types.

Edgar Thurston identified a "Homo Dravida" who had more in common with the Australian aboriginals than their Indo-Aryan. As evidence, he adduced the use of the boomerang by Kallar and Maravar warriors and the proficiency at tree-climbing among both the Kadirs of the Anamalai hills and the Dayaks of Borneo.

...
Wikipedia