Month: April 2018

Closing the genetic chapter

Indus Valley People Did Not Have Genetic Contribution From The Steppes: Head Of Ancient DNA Lab Testing Rakhigarhi Samples:

In other words, the preprint observes that the migration from the steppes to South Asia was the source of the Indo-European languages in the subcontinent. Commenting on this, Rai said, “any model of migration of Indo-Europeans from South Asia simply cannot fit the data that is now available.”

Some more comments at my other weblog.

At this point, we need to move to other things. I think the broad genetic framework is pretty clear.

1) The Indus Valley Civilization (IVC) people were a mix of eastern West Asian (from modern Iran) people and native South Asian peoples (~80% of South Asian mtDNA are haplogroup M).

2) ~1500 BC a major incursion from the steppe occurred and overlaid upon #1 to various extents as a function of region, language, and caste.

3) ~0 to 500 AD the strong endogamy that characterizes modern South Asians seems to have established itself.

Colonial Dravidian

Vijay makes a very important contribution on the Aryan-Dravidian debate and how all of it was cooked up by the British (Hindu/Muslim divide, caste system, martial races etc).

It is the absurdity and arrogance of the British to imagine they created/united India; India has always existed from the times of our AASI/Andamese/Negrito ancestors (maybe we should go back to 80’s Britain and call the AASI black so we are basically black according to one-drop rule).

Colonialism was an absurdity and travesty and did so much to hold back Hindustan (I define this from the Hindu Kush to the Indian Ocean). Even Lord Curzon mentions (again I go quoting colonial authorities; I’m such a munafiq) that Rivers are not real boundaries; India does not stop at the Indus but at her mountains (Hindu Kush, Himalaya) and oceans.

“3) Indian politics –<br />a) North South divide – North = Arya, South = Dravida or Non-Arya aka Natives”<br /><br />You are overemphasising the so-called North-South ‘Divide’ . ‘ Dravida’ referred ethonologically to the Pancha Dravida brahmins ; this included brahmins of Gujarat and Maharastra. 19th Century ametuer linguist Rev Caldwell mistakenly thought it referred to the four large south Indian languages and named the linguitic group as ‘ Dravidian family’ and as was the prevalent notion of 19th century thinkers , he conflated the linguistic group with a racial group. From a purely linguistic angle , his identification of the linguistic group is right, but wrongly named it and even more atrociouly mistook it for a race.<br /><br />It is testament to the success of the the 19th century colonial categories that western mistakes have become creed for a section of Indians.<br /><br />However , the bald ‘ Arya-Dravida’ division is prevalent only in Tamilnadu, and not in other south India states; that too it is politically hyped up. The irony is the Tamil literature knows no word called Dravida till late 19th century under colonial instruction. <br /><br />Political froth from Tamilnadu should not be mistaken as the opinion of majority of people. The majority of Hindus have refrained from taking control the social and historical narrative or even challenging the prevalent narratives which are of 19th century western provenance. That is their mistake. I don’t think the so-called ‘Out of India’ theory is the solution. One nonsense cannot be fought with another nonsense. Wherever you see nonsense , be relentless in challenging and exposing it.<br /><br />The so-called ‘arya-dravida’ divide has no histotical basis – however such toxic narartives need exposing . The narrative of “arya-dravida” divide in Tamilnadu is high decibel and aggressive – it gets more aggressive as it’s historical basis is non-existant and it is running on empty. History is made by aggressive lies in the short run – Satyameva Jayate is a pious hope

Humanities and sciences

 

Where and how did this difference begin, is there anything universal to this or is it due to certain historical condition to how things developed in Europe. The founder of Heterodox Academy Jonathan Haidt gave this talk of incompatible sacred values between truth and social justice. And how the telos of Universities ought to be ‘Truth’.

In my view, this distinction begins with The role of church in European History.The distinction of secular and religious. The aim of the church had to do with what people believed. So, the eventual marxist world view simply took over the hole left behind by the long irrelevance of church in academia in many european societies.Present role of Humanities dept in I believe comes from the role of the church, if one were to consider their aim was to spread their belief system. Church still has an impressive anthropological division, translations into many native languages etc.

In other worldviews, like stoicism or buddhism,jainism,advaita,ajivika had a more cosmic oriented worldview. I see the differences in universities as an evidence of deeper epistemological differences between christian worldview and their greeko roman heritage. This model has now been transported to other places and is leading to similar problems. I was reminded of this view once again by the tweet storm of nassim taleb. One cannot read the history or even consider the ideas of west without asking in what ways has the role of church been in shaping the west and its impact in development of every idea that has come from the west, claims of universalism needs to be independently checked.It maybe that the church has found ways and means to keep itself out of the scrunity in different ways to be able to survive and adapt to developments of science, this could be in the role of the institutions or the kind of rhetoric deployed or organisations at community level or perhaps in academia itself.Perhaps this the crucial difference in comparison with other societies , they didnt have time enough to adapt and this is leading to further troubles.

Hence I do wish for other people of different beliefs or none to have their own independent study of the west and test the ideas and the claims.All Ideas,claims need to be independently tested.  Otherwise one might find oneself undone by some future eventuality that one didnt consider beforehand and suffer a mighty loss.

Here is how nassim taleb connects these,

Ancient Egyptian, Arya and Greek history part 2

This article is a continuation of previous articles on ancient history from Zachary, Razib, Omar and myself:

Continue reading Ancient Egyptian, Arya and Greek history part 2

BP Round-Up / Open Thread

I am doing a round-up of the past 10 posts excluding my own since ordinarily I tend to write more. I try to judge the tempo of BP and when it’s moving on it’s own momentum I hum down and do other stuff. Incidentally I have excerpted the last twenty articles (the pages display ten articles at a time) and I was surprised that in 3 days we generated so much content.

Beyond cultural parochialism: Razib tells us what to read, which is a good thing because he reads alot. I don’t know how he does it!

Revisiting Somnath–A Review: Kabir revisits Somnath academically and I do agree that British historiography somehow intensified Hindu-Muslim political rivalry. Of course it was a complex equation but I’m surprised no one senses the nefarious hands of Imperialism!

Jaydeepsinh Rathod on the historocity of Sanskriti: AnAn compiles all of JR’s thoughts on the historocity of Sanskriti. In the Aryan threads there are some very knowledgeable comments; I remember Allama Iqbal ending his thesis that the reason Hinduism survived and Zoroastrianism did not was because the Brahmins obsessively discussed every detail of their philosopy and mythology whereas the Magis did not. I sometimes feel like my Magian ancestors and I like to hold on to my cherished notions..

Toxic textbooks and social engineering in Pakistan: AMA investigates how the Pakistani psychosis came to be. I myself of course thoroughly indoctrinate in the Pakistani psychosis; I am rather a bit too proud of my Hijazi camel trader ancestors (nos ancetres les Hijazis sounds a lot less glamorous than the Moghuls).

How to argue

LV sent this to me and I found this a useful guide to blog debate..

I am very sensitive to “tone” so I probably am between Step 2 & Step 3 on the 7 step path to Aristotle.. IRL I tend to shy away from much discussion or debate, except with the better half, as I’m a very kinesthetic learner.

Beyond cultural parochialism

A major personal peeve of mine is that the past few centuries of Western colonialism have overshadowed so much that moderns are often unequipped to understand the vast tapestry of human historical and geographical diversity. If you are a modern Indian or Chinese or African person you know your own culture and its history…and its relationship to the modern West. This is a shadow of a bygone age which is down in its terminal stage.

Presuming that the audience of this weblog is mostly South Asian, here are some very broad surveys which I think the audience might find interesting:

– The Classical World: An Epic History from Homer to Hadrian

– China: A History

– Africa: A Biography of the Continent

– The Russian Moment in World History

– Strange Parallels…Southeast Asia in Global Context, c.800-1830

– History of Japan

– A History of the Ancient Near East, ca. 3000-323 BC

– When Baghdad Ruled the Muslim World: The Rise and Fall of Islam’s Greatest Dynasty

– The Great Sea: A Human History of the Mediterranean

– A History of Iran: Empire of the Mind

– Aboriginal Australians: A History Since 1788

If anyone can recommend a good survey of Latin American history, I’m game.

The Bollywood caste

It’s nice to see BP so active – I completely failed in my goal to take up AnAn’s suggestion and do a compendium of recent posts but I shall indulge with some observations.

We seem to spend a lot of time on BP talking on caste origins.

The more interesting castes are Bollywood; where most of the acting families are linked and intermarry with the industrialist and cricketing caste (the Sharma-Kohli wedding was presaged by Malik-Mirza match).

The Bollywood caste is Punjabi & Muslim men (Ranveer Singh dropped his Sindhi name – who would watch Ranveer Bhavnani) with women stemming from other parts of the Subcontinent.

I’m surprised by the lack of Sikhs in Bollywood; Arijit Singh (who is a cut Sikh) and Ranbir’s mother + Saif’s first wife are Sikh. Where and who are the Sikh men?

I think people forget India is undergoing a breathtaking pace of modernisation. However because of Bollywood; this modernisation isn’t necessarily Westernisation. Bollywood takes a nod from the West and translates it in Hindustani culture, language & values which then influences the whole nation (Pakistan is undergoing the same process but is far more immunised from Westoxication; we are generation to half a generation behind in liberalism).

LV was showing me the new trailer for Veere de Wedding (Kareena Kapoor & Sonam Kapoor) and I was remembering what Kangana Ranaut was saying about nepotism in Bollywood.

Also Vidhi pointed out to me that a lot of the “Punjabis” are in fact half-Sindhi (KJo, RSingh, Kareena Kapoor, Sonam Kapoor).

One of the most shocking juxtapositions in the Subcontinent is just how cosmopolitan and glamorous Sindhi Hindus are whereas Sindhi Muslims have such a staid reputation (landowners, wadheras).

Jaydeepsinh Rathod on the historocity of Sanskriti

@Fraxinicus,

1.
But it can, however, be used to argue against an origin in India – the Indo-Gangetic plain is also a spread zone, but the demographic weight of agricultural populations mean that spread of a language is much more difficult here – which is why Scythian and Hunnic and Turkic conquerors haven’t left any linguistic descendants in the subcontinent

Here is where you need to remember that there was already considerable demographic weight in the Bronze Age itself in the Indus civilization. This means that steppe nomads coming in from the North in the 2nd millenium BC quite simply could not have had the enormous success in changing the linguistic landscape going by what as you yourself indicate happened with the later migrants.

If IE languages originated in India, we would expect at least one other basal branch of the family to be found in South Asia. That is, there should be some other IE subfamily in or around India that is about as different from Indo-Aryan as the European IE languages are.

Continue reading Jaydeepsinh Rathod on the historocity of Sanskriti

Brown Pundits