Ahead of a meeting with India’s prime minister, Trump mispronounced Nepal as “nipple” and laughingly referred to Bhutan as “button”, sources told Politico. He reportedly didn’t realise what Nepal and Bhutan were. One person familiar with the meeting said:
He didn’t know what those were. He thought it was all part of India. He was like, ‘What is this stuff in between and these other countries
Trump ‘needs reminders about how time zones work’, according to White House aides
President Trump is single-handedly hastening the end of a unipolar world. The deft Obama-era diplomacy where the former President reached out to recalcitrant nations (Iran, Cuba) is swiftly coming to an end.
The world is shaping along the lines of a Hindutva-Zionist wet dream. The Anglospheric nations (Britain firmly at the centre because of Brexit) along with India & Israel. What prompts this vision of a Eurasian entity is the sudden collapse of Turkey by a single Trump Tweet.
I have just authorized a doubling of Tariffs on Steel and Aluminum with respect to Turkey as their currency, the Turkish Lira, slides rapidly downward against our very strong Dollar! Aluminum will now be 20% and Steel 50%. Our relations with Turkey are not good at this time!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 10, 2018
This isn’t to say that Turkey didn’t have pre-existing political and economic issues but when the US is trying to twist the knife; well nations have very long memories. The US has antagonistic relationships with Iran, Russia and China; to add Pakistan and Turkey to the mix is to essentially recreate the Ghost of the Gunpowder Empires.
I was looking for Macaulay’s essay on Land Empires and came across this:
Of these 6 Empires; 5 will be firmly in an anti-Western anti-American camp. The other Great Powers are the EU, India, Israel (an important minor power) and Japan (and the Koreas).
Happy 71st birthday to the Mughal-Muslim Republic that is Pakistan. I would consider it to be the inheritor of the Land Empire of the Mughals whereas I see the modern Indian Republic to be more of an Indian Ocean Entity connected to the rest of the Anglosphere and more attuned to the time of the Mauryas. The level of animosity towards the Mughals in modern day India is reaching such histrionic levels that histories as well as geographies must now be partitioned.
Pakistan’s geopolitical importance can never be overstated and it will be interesting how India will be managing an intense relationship with Iran/Russia and a growing friendship with the US. For the US to lose Turkey is simply a strategic blunder because the latter is probably the most important Islamic country and the Turks are a generation ahead of the rest of the Muslim world. If in the medieval era the three great Islamic Imperiums (the Ottomans, Safavids & Mughals) had formed a stable alliance there probably would have been able to beat back any outsider power..
Let us see now how King Khan will navigate an increasingly interesting yet turbulent world.
President Trump is single-handedly hastening the end of a unipolar world.
isn’t it over? trump just doesn’t know it yet….
Trump is the first president who is sure it is over. This is one reason some people like or agree with Trump.
I guess humanity had a good run…
Seriously? Erdogan has been crap as a financial administrative czar. We should not look too much at the history of empires as a guide for the present. A reasonable descriptor of the present day Turkey is an extension to PIGS method of using borrowed money to finance growth, but without EU to take the debt payment. Erdogan is at the worst, Putin without brains. His ruthlessness towards Kurds, Armenians and other opposition has to be felt to be understood. Let us not get excited by a dictator, this is not the days of the past.
Seriously? Erdogan has been crap as a financial administrative czar. We should not look too much at the history of empires as a guide for the present. A reasonable descriptor of the present day Turkey is an extension to PIGS method of using borrowed money to finance growth, but without EU to take the debt payment. Erdogan is at the worst, Putin without brains. His ruthlessness towards Kurds, Armenians and other opposition has to be felt to be understood. Let us not get excited by a dictator, this is not the days of the past.
Ours is not as much an age of poles as it is an age of hyperboles.
Janitor Bible, 4.20
Ours is not as much an age of poles as it is of hyperboles.
Janitor Bible, 4.20
Droll
Jacob Rothschild is very worried, the shares of his company RIT Capital Investment lost 47% during the Trump. Particularly is disturbed by the trade war between US President Donald Tramp and China, as well as a major crisis in the Eurozone after Brexit and the growing strengthening of national political options.
Former CIA chief Michael Morel, the speaker for US ruling class, publicly asked the US to spark Russia’s orange-like revolution in Ukraine. He advised the role of the detonator to be handed over to the anti-US sanctions that are rushing to introduce in the US Congress.
Washington is actually using the financial system of Russia to organise a state bankruptcy in Moscow. It has already been cut off from other possibilities. First: by establishing an MIR payment system that is analogous to the SWIFT system. Second: by selling three-quarters of US government bonds. The third step will be the gradual nationalisation of the financial system. This measure is absolutely extorted, but everyone will avoid talking about it publicly. As China, under socialist slogans, builds capitalism with Chinese specifics, so will Russia – under liberal slogans – build state capitalism with a strong socialist component – with Russian characteristics.
Milan, very interesting. Can you please e-mail me?
Are you still interested in ancient Arya history?
Aryan history is a part of bigger picture, there are also other non-related things, name.mt.surnameatgmailcom.
“The level of animosity towards the Mughals in modern day India is reaching such histrionic levels that histories as well as geographies must now be partitioned.”
The mughals i would say still have some backers in India(history is still being contested), the delhi sultanate is an orphan, even though the same arguments can be used why they should also be seen as “Indian”.
Orphan in an Indian not Pakistani context..
Not as orphan in Pakistani context, but still more orphan than the Ghaznis,Qasims and the mughals of the world. I have always wondered why. The sultanate did rule India for almost as long as the mughals did but still they dont register as much as the mughals in Pakistan psyche as well. Your thoughts?
It’s not as easy a narrative / the 6 strong Mughal emperors make it easy to remember.
6? Only 4 are worth knowing.
“The level of animosity towards the Mughals in modern day India is reaching such histrionic levels that histories as well as geographies must now be partitioned.”
This perception seems a bit misplaced but I can understand if you feel like this if most of your narrative comes from social media.
There are enough folks into shayari and Mughal-philia in India, even if they subconsciously admit to the extractive nature of Mughal regime.
Urdu will never be a dominant language due to lack of stage patronage but there is a good grass-roots movement (see Rekhta -www[dot]rekhta[dot]org/).
IMO this is a good thing. Indians of all political persuasions are too eager to use the state to do their bidding, which is futile. Just see the number of Wikipedia articles in Indian languages.
Kannada, Marathi, Hindi etc activists should learn from this start creating good content in their languages instead of acting like hooligans.
I’m shocked to read Premchand is actually an Urdu writer who then branched out into Hindi. No wonder he got such acclaim..
It reminds me of how so many Israeli Hebrew singers are of Sephardic background; their Arabic culture and language probably gives them an edge..
“The level of animosity towards the Mughals in modern day India is reaching such histrionic levels that histories as well as geographies must now be partitioned.”
I’ve heard there is only one correct answer to the question “Who was the greatest emperor of India?” during the final interview portion of the civil service examinations, the answer being Padshah Akbar.
Cakravarti Ashoka would have been acceptable as well considering that it is his ‘chakra’ that is at the center of the national flag, his capital that is the national emblem and the closest thing India has to a palladium with the ethos of his edicts considered the native basis of the working ideology of the state.
Nevertheless, the truth is that his memory was entirely resurrected in India by the British. Though this makes it quite fitting that the modern Indian state looks up to Ashoka for patrimony considering the continuity between it and british india.
And as a compromise between the ‘newly remembered’ Ashoka and the other more traditional hero/great emperor figure (Samrat Vikramaditya), the Mughal Akbar ended up being the correct answer. It also helps that everyone can find something to emphasize in Akbar depending on their ideological persuasion (the ghazi, syncretist or apostate).
Who is Samrat Vikramaditya?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikramaditya
The mythical ideal of a king, mostly identified with Chandragupta Vikramaditya (or Chandragupta II), whose exploits are famous as children’s stories.
You might like this: https://thewire.in/history/india-national-flag-emblem-suraiya-badruddin-tyabji/
Important enough that Vikram Samvat (Vikram’s calendar) was the primary calendar used in Gujarat and Rajasthan (may be elsewhere in north India too?) until about 50 years ago. It starts in 57BC (i.e. 57 years ahead of Gregorian calendar)
Zack there are some who believe that the near contemporary of Alexander the Great might be Chandragupta II (who some suspect might be Vikramaditya)?
If this is so, then Chandragupta Maurya was born much earlier.
Part of the issue is that many believe that Buddha was born before 1000 BC and Buddha considerably preceded Chandragupta Maurya.
And to tie it all together, there is the Allahabad Pillar.
“….the Allahabad pillar had apparently been shifted downriver from its original site in Kaushambi. It was meant to enhance the pretensions of the Allahabad fort as rebuilt by the Mughal emperor Akbar in the late sixteenth century. Akbar’s son Jahangir would add his own inscription to those of Ashoka and Samudra-Gupta; and thus it is that scions of each of India’s three greatest dynasties – Maurya, Gupta and Mughal – share adjacent column inches in the heart of Allahabad…” – Keay’s India
Samudragupta being the father of Chandragupta II and also sometimes identified as contributing to the legends of the mythical Vikramaditya.
And the city itself appropriately holding great significance for all the three dynasties despite the pillar’s original location. Akbar named it Illahabad (city of faith) after his syncretist/apostatic Din-i Ilahi beliefs. Later renamed by Shah Jahan.
Again, quite appropriately, the pillar was rescued and restored by the British.
India & Iran have a symbiotic relationship- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lion_Capital_of_Ashoka
Currently seven animal sculptures from Ashoka pillars survive.[6][7] These form “the first important group of Indian stone sculpture”, though it is thought they derive from an existing tradition of wooden columns topped by animal sculptures in copper, none of which have survived. There has been much discussion of the extent of influence from Achaemenid Persia, where the column capitals supporting the roofs at Persepolis have similarities, and the “rather cold, hieratic style” of the Sarnath sculptures especially shows “obvious Achaemenid and Sargonid influence”.[8]
via https://thewire.in/history/india-national-flag-emblem-suraiya-badruddin-tyabji
I think all these ideas of “geo”strategic location is the thought process of minor/inferior/provincial outlook peoples or cultures not looking or capable of looking further. Every place is going to be some other place to its north, some place to its south, east, west, etc. This stuff is getting overplayed about so called strategic location of middle Asia or Eurasian boundary. This used to be an asset in the past, and by past I mean Genghiz Khan or Timur past. That guy could sit there in arid frozen wasteland do ini mini maini mo which way I wanna go and then go that way, do his thing, run back if necessary, regroup, etc.
Today being a population or state in so called strategic location means chances of getting played and wrecked havoc in your own lands is higher. And by today I mean from the time of growth of British and Russian empires.
Apparently real power has grown from the disconnected extremities.. So that can be an England isolated from continental Europe, or America isolated from Europe, or Japan from Asia, or now China which is also main population center is away from middle Asia and concentrated on Pacific coast.
Pakistan advertising geostrategic location of its territory as a selling point (their ambassadors/media reps actually say stuff like this about their country) really underscores a lot of what the thought about Mughals etc is becoming across modern India, and to that point Pakistan indeed is the successor to Mughals. My personal hope is that the centers of Indian development and revival, like Al Beruni said, can retreat deep into the center and south hinterlands and India truly becomes an Indian Ocean facing state. Matter of fact India ocean is still very provincial. The Chinese are buying up major land from beachfront in Jamaica and Dominican Republic to investments in Colombia and Brazil and across Africa and Europe even. So the Chinese are essentially starting to violate and get away with usurping Monroe doctrine that the US drew out regarding not accepting old world interference in new world.
Maybe India can get a jumpstart on extra terrestrial strategic outlook. Asteroid mining or lunar mining etc. And the centers for such activity is already anyway far from the troubled transition zone to geostrategic locations. ISRO is out there in Sriharikota on border of Andhra and Tamil Nadu. Most tech work going on in Bengaluru. Missile testing going on in Balasore Odisha. One can dream lol, that the extremity of southern south Asia can also deliver a possibility for true power developing there just like Chinese Pacific coast concentration has allowed them.
The so called ‘geo’ strategic location has only impelled them to pimp themselves to the highest bidder. US Arabs and now Chinese. That has been done at the cost keeping their society in a medieval morass.
I read last year while tensions were high in South China Sea about Philippines having geostrategic location…
If I have rubbed someone the wrong way here and they want me to blow a blood vessel, the way to get me is to send me a link to an article about India’s geostrategic location lol
I welcome ur writings; it’s wonderful to have different perspectives ..
Wow literally hours after I express about India expanding its vision to include mahakaash/space, Modiji comes on air announces ISRO to target human spaceflight by 2022.
The power of icchha shakti ?
Yes I noticed that too