The Rise of the RSS

March 8, 2018 X.T.M 8 Comments filed under X.T.M

Prashant’s made a fascinating that Pakistan’s constitution hates minorities so that Pakistanis don’t have to. However India needs the BJP to control minorities.

I find the Muslim minority in India to be perplexing. They should ditch the hijab, stop eating beef and integrate wherever they can. They should also only do the Azaan one Friday afternoon a week; beautifully recited by a qualified Arabic-speaker.

Of course however they must eschew Hindi whenever possible in favour of Urdu. I find it very problematic that Muslim children are learning an alien Brahminical script when they should be keeping to their Perso-Arabic heritage.

In some ways the West, Israel & India are under major strain between populism & liberal democracy. It may just be that liberal democracies work well in hegemonic majoritarian cultures not those that have large and growing (Muslim?) minorities?

No, Mughals didn’t loot India. They made us rich

March 8, 2018 X.T.M 52 Comments filed under Popular

Kabir alerted me to this on Facebook, “No, Mughals didn’t loot India. They made us rich.”

Let us examine India’s economic status prior to its becoming a British colony.

The Cambridge historian Angus Maddison writes in his book, Contours of the World Economy 1–2030 AD: Essays in Macro-economic History, that while India had the largest economy till 1000 AD (with a GDP share of 28.9 per cent in 1000AD) there was no economic growth. It was during the 1000 AD-1500 AD that India began to see a economic growth with its highest (20.9 per cent GDP growth rate) being under the Mughals. In the 18^th century, India had overtaken China as the largest economy in the world.

The changing share of world GDP 1600–1870 (in million 1990 international $)

Source: Angus Maddison, The World Economy, Paris: OECD, 2001, p. 261, Table B-18

In 2016, on a PPP adjusted basis, India’s was 7.2 per cent of the world GDP.In 1952, India’s GDP was 3.8 per cent. “Indeed, at the beginning of the 20th century, “the brightest jewel in the British Crown” was the poorest country in the world in terms of per capita income,” former prime minister Dr Manmohan Singh once said.

Since it’s established now that the Mughals did not take away money, let’s talk of what they invested in. They invested in infrastructure, in building great monuments which are a local and tourist draw generating crores of rupees annually.

India at 70: Why Hindu nationalists are afraid of Mughals

Happy Women’s Day

March 8, 2018 X.T.M No Comments filed under X.T.M

My wife (Vidhi Lalchand, the 200th person to like the status, I was 201) is proud that Professor Nita is Indian while I am proud that she is a Bahá’ís (we belong to the same community).

Professor Nita paraphrased one of Abdul Baha’s most famous quotes: “The world of humanity has two wings—one is women and the other men,” wrote ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, “Not until both wings are equally developed can the bird fly. Should one wing remain weak, flight is impossible.”

Day: March 8, 2018