How India own-goaled itself on Kashmir

A Kashmiri pandit shares a story about his family’s tragic exile. It just makes me wonder what was India’s end-goal on J&K especially with regard to the Valley.

Also an amazing thread on the Deoband-Barelvi dynamics (interesting both are from the Urdu heartland imported into the Punjab)

https://twitter.com/napoha_/status/1063119568514793472?s=21

Of course Britain is in the midst of Brexit convulsions so at the moment I’m more of a “Brexit Pundit.”

As an interesting aside since we were discussing about skin colour earlier; it’s so evident to see the well-groomed lean and Normanesque Tory MPs set off against the portly Anglo-Saxonish Labour members. I know it’s difficult to quantify somehow but the ghost of the Normans is so evident in the social classes of England.

As for skin colour in the Subcontinent I think we have 3 divisions.

(1.) The AASI’s, which are sort of co-equivalent to the Negritos and Anadamese Islanders (one of the first coastal waves out of Africa that somehow also ended up in the Amazon). It’s interesting that they are substrate to every South Asian population (I think there are trace amounts in Central Asia, Afghanistan and even Iran).

(2.) the “Dravidian” farmers out of Iran. They are probably related to the J1/J2 types and might be an olive skinned population. Prominent in Sindh and Southern Pakistan through to South India (high % in Gujarat – must have been a locus of some sort).

(3.) our beloved Aryans who are especially prevalent among Brahmins, the Punjab and Haryana (though arguably the Haryanvis and East Punjab descend from Scythians to some extent). These look “European” but it’s a very different look to #2.

The Aryans are conventional European (light eyes, light hair, white skin) the ancient Dravidians would have (probably) looked like Middle Easterners (olive skin, dark hair dark eyes) and the AASI looks like Papua New Guineans.

Of course India being an ancient region these populations have all compounded to varying degrees but it explains why the Pathans & Brahmins look European but the Sindhis (Muslims mainly/ Sindhi Hindus are Punjabi Khatri migrants) and Gujarati (non Brahmin) have a browner Olive look.

0 0 votes
Article Rating
60 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Saurav
Saurav
5 years ago

I dont think India own goaled it. In most cases India has reacted to the incidents in the valley and not the other way round. This is true in other parts of India, dont fix something which aint broke. But one of the thing which has even surprised me is the resiliance shown by its politicians. for example, If i would have been a betting person i would have put my money on Ayub over Shastri, or in Kashmir, Pakistan over India(considering the demographics).

India never had a fighting chance in Valley, sooner or later the religious fault lines would have emerged. Ironically the most stringent voice (the RSS) on the matter doesn’t get that if Kashmir secedes, that would actually help them expedite their Hindu Rastra project. It would be the final proof that wherever Muslims are a majority they will try to secede from India. The Indian liberals understand it , thats why they mostly tow the state line wrt to Kashmir. They know how precarious the situation is, and what effect it will have on other North India muslims. In many ways they have more to loose than the right wing in India.

On Pandits , i feel that we exaggerate their solidarity part. They are mostly a divided and silent group. They still live in the cocoon of “Kashmiryat” and deep down unwilling to accept their own brethren did it to them. Many feel “Kahsmiryat” trumps their ties with Indians(Similar to muslim brethren). A similar situation of how Tam-Brahms champion Dravidian politics, not understanding once the goal is achieved what would it really mean for them.

Those who understand , stay silent , albeit they are accused of “helping” the communal forces. Pandita himself is one of them, who painstaking has to put in qualifier after everything he says on Pandits. A community which does not think about itself , why should others feel much about them? They will be used by either side during elections to score browny points and cast away.

VijayVan
5 years ago

. A similar situation of how Tam-Brahms champion Dravidian politics,.. …. ???
Even though this is a logical possibility, I have not come across such persons of any note or prominence. The only exception was late Jeyalalitha, who was a class apart. Chink in the armour of Dravidian politics was/is obsession with film personalities . She gave herself body and soul to MGRism, not to Dravidian shibboleths directly. She is an exception. Otherwise there is mutual antipathy between Dravidian politics and Tambrams. The raison d’etre of the former is opposing the latter.

Vijay
Vijay
5 years ago
Reply to  VijayVan

Using Jayalalitha and class in one line … is something.

Tamil Brahmins do not champion Dravidian politics. Hell, even Dravidan parties do not champion Dravidian politics. The present response to Gaja cyclone shows that there has been converging modulations to Tamil politics. Tamil Brahmins are not important in Tamil politics owing to insignificant numbers, and have been sidelined by all politicians concerned. Just repeating this, and equating your position to Kashmiri Pandits who were all expelled, is a cheap attempt to seek attention. Kashmiri Pandits are stuck in Jammu, Delhi and other cities without any compensation. Tamil Brahmins are economically the most advanced group of people leaving only the merchant castes of Scindis and marwaris. And they did it without risking their own income.

regularguy
regularguy
5 years ago
Reply to  Vijay

Tamil Brahmins are the highest achieving group in India. Do you think that there departure from TN is a loss for the state (not a rhetorical question)?

PS: North Indian; no connection to TN Brahmins

Vijay
Vijay
5 years ago
Reply to  regularguy

What departure? TN brahmins took jobs in high paying Indian private sector everywhere, in India, in Silicon valley. If an educated person gets transferred to Bangalore, Hyderabad or Dubai, it is not like Pandits who were expelled. D. Ajit, Han Donker and Ravi Saxena, inspected the boards of India’s top 1,000 companies. These companies represent 80% of the total market capitalization of the National Stock Exchange (NSE) and Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) in 2010, and found 90% of the boards are made of two castes, 46.6% Vaishya and 44% Brahmin, and a huge number of Tamil Brahmin.

Most Tamil Brahmin people have flats and retired people in Chennai and Metros. Note that unlike most others, TamBram is a risk-averse population with no money investment, except in education.

Again, educated people taking jobs all over the world is by choice and expected.

saurav
saurav
5 years ago
Reply to  Vijay

Yeah i agree, just trying to flesh out a point that you can meet people who champion causes which in the long run will eventually turn against them. Kashmiriyat by Pandits, Dravidian nationalism by Tam-Brahms.

Though i dont agree that Dravidian parties dont champion Dravidian politics. Probably they dont do it extent that many would want. But for non Tamilans and specially N-Indians they do it enough.

VijayVan
5 years ago
Reply to  Vijay

” equating your position to Kashmiri Pandits who were all expelled, is a cheap attempt to seek attention”

Uhh. The equation was done by a poster be4 me and I wanted to correct that. Bit more attention to a post will avoid needless replies.

Kabir
5 years ago

India’s policies in Kashmir have definitely negatively contributed to the situation. Leaving aside for a moment Pakistan’s role in fanning the flames of separatism (which no reasonable person would deny), the Indian State has made a mess of things especially over the last three decades. Young Kashmiri Muslims hate India more than at any point since the 1990s. This is reflected in the low turnout in the recent local elections (which are usually supposed to be on so-called development issues) and the fact that most candidates didn’t even want their names given on the record. There were many places where there wasn’t even one candidate. Omar Abdullah pointed out that holding elections in such circumstances is a farce.

If India had respected the autonomy granted to Kashmir in the Instrument of Accession perhaps we would not be where we are today. Rigging the election in the late 1980s was a bad move. Even the “pro-India” parties in the Valley want a return to the pre-1953 status.

Pandits and Muslims are more polarized than ever. You just have to watch India’s news “debates” to hear the vile things that some members of the Pandit community have to say about Kashmiri Muslims. A movement that could have gone in a secular nationalist direction has now assumed an Islamic character (again with thanks to Pakistan) and it will be almost impossible to put that genie back in the bottle. How does one bring about truth and reconciliation among two communties which have experienced such violence and bitterness?

I don’t think it is fair to compare Kashmiri Muslims to Muslims in India proper who have no interest in seceding. The Kashmir conflict is a special case and the circumstances of Kashmir’s relation to India are unique.

VijayVan
5 years ago
Reply to  Kabir

Instrument of Accession promised neither referendum or autonomy to J&K. 525 Princely States went through the mill, why should J&K be any different.

Kabir
5 years ago
Reply to  VijayVan

The Instrument of Accession stated that India would be responsible only for defence and foreign affairs. Sheikh Abdullah was the Prime Minister of Kashmir. It was only later that the autonomy was whittled away and the Prime Minister became a Chief Minister as in India proper. Kashmir also has its own Constitution.

The most “pro India” party in Kashmir is NC. And even they want autonomy to be respected.

VijayVan
5 years ago
Reply to  Kabir

IoA with J&K was no different from hundreds of such IoAs with other princes. The Princely states acceed to India , and with that their story is over. It is bit rich for Pakistan which gobbled up Balochistan which was an independent state and later unsuccessful military suppression of Bangladesh resulting in millions of deaths to shed tears for the autonomy of J&K.
Without reading the UN Resolution on Kashmir which asked Pakistan to vacate parts of J&K it occupied , Pakistanis , even high placed ones, keep harping that UN Resolution wanted referendum and India has not carried it out. This is similar song – IoA with Kashmir promised Autonomy , without reading the sources.

Kabir
5 years ago
Reply to  VijayVan

It is a fact that Hari Singh only agreed to let India have control of defence, foreign affairs and currency. You don’t have to believe me. You can look up Article 370 for yourself.

Kabir
5 years ago
Reply to  VijayVan

“Article 370 of the Indian constitution is an article that gives autonomous status to the state of Jammu and Kashmir. The article is drafted in Part XXI of the Constitution: Temporary, Transitional and Special Provisions.[1] The Constituent Assembly of Jammu and Kashmir, after its establishment, was empowered to recommend the articles of the Indian constitution that should be applied to the state or to abrogate the Article 370 altogether. After the J&K Constituent Assembly later created the state’s constitution and dissolved itself without recommending the abrogation of Article 370, the article was deemed to have become a permanent feature of the Indian Constitution.[2][3] ”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Article_370_of_the_Constitution_of_India

Saurav
Saurav
5 years ago
Reply to  Kabir

“This is reflected in the low turnout in the recent local elections (which are usually supposed to be on so-called development issues) and the fact that most candidates didn’t even want their names given on the record.”

Even during 2006-2010 phase including the last 2015 election the turnout was 60-70 percent which is the average in India. I dont think Pakistan/Separatist or anyone really recognized that since the turnout is high Kashmirs want to live with India. You cannot have it both ways, when turn out is high then its for “administrative” reasons and when its low Kashmiris dont want to live with India.

“If India had respected the autonomy granted to Kashmir in the Instrument of Accession perhaps we would not be where we are today. Rigging the election in the late 1980s was a bad move. ”

Thats what i said sooner or later it would have happened . The religious faultlines are too strong for anything to paper over it. This is mis perception that somehow everything was hunky dory pre 1988. Which is not true, my uncle was deployed there and he knew exactly that he was not in “India”. Was it as bad as 90s ? No. The rigged election was the last straw, just like the expulsion of Pandits was the last thing in a series of humiliation meted out to them. That need not mean they were living in a paradise earlier. Pandits were able to say all those stuff about their past now, because they are no more at the mercy of muslim brethren or else they would have similarly kept their head down and gone around with their job.

“A movement that could have gone in a secular nationalist direction has now assumed an Islamic character (again with thanks to Pakistan) and it will be almost impossible to put that genie back in the bottle. ”

I think we differ on what constitutes secularism. Its like many people who call the Palestine movement secular because there are token christian/Jews in their movement. The Kashmir movement was never secular, it was again a canard blown out of proportion because it needed that acceptability in the eyes of the world. The next stage which i am seeing is to showcase the movement as a “feminist” movement, and a whole lot of people will fall for that too now.

“I don’t think it is fair to compare Kashmiri Muslims to Muslims in India proper who have no interest in seceding. The Kashmir conflict is a special case and the circumstances of Kashmir’s relation to India are unique.”

That’s true , but unfortunately that will not how it will seen in the rest of India. The message back in India will be the one which i had listed. Also whether Indian muslims wants to secede or not is a question for a different day, and has been discussed already many times. In my view lack of choice should not be misconstrued as unwillingness. When there is a choice (as Kasmiri muslims have) , only then you can say what someone will/can really choose.

Kabir
5 years ago
Reply to  Saurav

Of course everything was not hunky-dory prior to the 1980s. But the point is the demand before that was for autonomy. It was only after the rigging of the elections and subsequent bloodshed that the demand became full azaadi.

The Kashmir conflict did not inherently have to assume a religious character. There are plenty of secular nationalist movements in the world. There could have been a political argument made for independence based on the fact that Kashmir has a distinct history and culture from India and was incorporated into India by the Mughals. However, given the Partition based on religion and subsequent developments, it is perhaps understandable why the movement assumed an Islamic color. India certainly wants to delegitimize the political issues and portray the conflict as against “Islamic fundamentalism”.

Those Indian Muslims who wanted to “secede” went to Pakistan in 1947. Indian Muslims are not ethnically any different than Indian Hindus. Kashmiris are ethnically and culturally distinct. Kashmir is also a disputed territory while the rest of India is not. Very different situations.

Saurav
Saurav
5 years ago
Reply to  Kabir

Its again bullshit that Kashmir has a distinct history and culture from India. This is true for rest of India. Haryana has a distinct history and culture than Kerala. What does “distinct’ culture mean? Kashmir has beena part of North Indian empire even before mughals, just like Kashmiri kingdoms have constituted parts of “India”.

There are “high” reasons which you have listed and then there are “on the ground” reasons why Kashmiri want to join Pak/secede. Simple fact they are muslims and dont want to part of hindu majority country. Its not as if this has not happened before. No need to be apologetic about it or try to remodel it to something palatable.

Saurav
Saurav
5 years ago
Reply to  Saurav

Ask yourself, do you genuinely believe if Kashmir was a hindu majority state it would still have tried to secede(considering its supposedly different history/culture/peripheralilty to S-Asia)?

There lies your answer

Razib Khan
Admin
5 years ago
Reply to  Saurav

hm. i don’t know, i think zl is right. it is more peripheral. isn’t the kashmiri language basal to other indo-aryan languages?

Arjun
Arjun
5 years ago

Normanesque Tories ? LOL. Let’s do a genetic profiling of political personalities and assign skin colour indices to Tories, Labour and whatever else passes for a political party in Britain.

Come to think of it, I also find people in my gym insufficiently progressive. And don’t even get me started on people who prefer golf to soccer. Steppe people every one of them.

Where is a genetic profiler when you need one ?

bharat
bharat
5 years ago

One wonders how it is that many struggles of predominantly muslim groups eventually turn to islamist struggle. Rhetorical question. its harder to mask true reasons for they are what truly motivates people. The other reasons simply give away to the true reason as time corrodes the mask. To see otherwise is to somehow imagine that a secular nationalist struggle wouldnt have given in to absorption into Indian union.That too would be natural and somehow people choose not to imagine this as well. So why is it that people try to say that x was once nationalist struggle etc other than perhaps for apologetics.

bharat
bharat
5 years ago

And led to an atheist becoming first prime minister and an ex untouchable to become chairman of Indian constitution and eventual explicit inclusion of secularism in constitution(Was there already in description). The argument can be further taken to look into countries that are already majority religious group of one kind with no more than 2-3% of other religious community, so religious arguments must be of lesser value but somehow they dont fall in value. If partitioned India had total population transfer, BJP wouldnt exist, Indian politics would be about poverty,enterprise, caste discrimination etc. That would be it. Religion would lose currency. Kasmir was already muslim majority with rule to make clear demographic change wouldnt happen, autonomy should have been enough but it isnt. Same with Iran ,thailand , Saudi arabia etc. Europe shows same, all were xtian, many are atheist now. It is the great struggle that keeps religion alive, without drama it should in general die, in case of Islam, so far that doesnt seem to be the case even with all the information, if it was about pursuit of truth, all that would have wilted away. So its not about truth, its not about information, its about egotism and struggle to maintain it indefinitely.

Mir
Mir
5 years ago
Reply to  bharat

>And led to an atheist becoming first prime minister and an ex untouchable to become chairman of Indian constitution and eventual explicit inclusion of secularism in constitution(Was there already in description)

And now the left wing behind that has almost been decimated and there’s a Hindu nationalist government in power. Really makes you ponder.

>If partitioned India had total population transfer, BJP wouldnt exist,

I know there’s a lot of evidence to suggest that after partition, all the RSS boys would tear down their Akhand Bharat maps and scratching out the lines in their pamphlets talking about reclaiming Muslim-occupied lands, but I don’t think that’s true.

>autonomy should have been enough but it isnt.

A puppet government which can be dissolved with President’s rule isn’t autonomy.

bharat
bharat
5 years ago
Reply to  Mir

>>And now the left wing behind that has almost been decimated and there’s a Hindu nationalist government in power. Really makes you ponder.

Precisely my point, Hindus chose congress, with Gandhi and Nehru to head them , now have changed to BJP, the idea of all religions are the same infantile logic has over time been rejected. Its amazing for left wing whether it be in regards to socio cultural issues or economic issues will never accept that they are wrong and will not accept people who supported them, brought them to power begin to reject them because they can see them as being wrong. Congress/left has been wrong on both counts of economics and also on socio cultural issues. Rather than go by evidence based reasoning have instead gone by ideology. People cannot be blamed if they have tested you out and found you wanting. No equivalence can be made to pakistan which has never tried secular govt at all.

>>
I know there’s a lot of evidence to suggest that after partition, all the RSS boys would tear down their Akhand Bharat maps and scratching out the lines in their pamphlets talking about reclaiming Muslim-occupied lands, but I don’t think that’s true.

same reasoning as before, rss was shunned, now acceptable. Have the people gone bad, or is it that the other side has been tested and found wanting?. One can see it in particular to states like tamil nadu, rss isnt going to win there any time soon. And evidence is in many European countries already. Also Hinduism isnt islam where people need to be reminded again and again of what is sunnah and what is shirk or how apostates are to be killed.Local needs get priority,no regard in hinduism as to how it needs to expand and take over everyone else either.

>>A puppet government which can be dissolved with President’s rule isn’t autonomy.
You dont get to decide what is real autonomy. What is of importance in the argument I made is still relevant.

Mir
Mir
5 years ago
Reply to  Mir

>Precisely my point

Well no, that wasn’t your point. We can see your previous posts, friend.

>now have changed to BJP, the idea of all religions are the same infantile logic has over time been rejected.

I wouldn’t actually disagree with that except that it’s always been popular in the mind of Indians.

>same reasoning as before, rss was shunned, now acceptable. Have the people gone bad, or is it that the other side has been tested and found wanting?

What are you trying to say here? The point I was getting at is that a right wing would always exist, irrespective of whether there’d be people in India eating beef or not. If there were no people to lynch, they’d just turn to their core platform which was reclaiming the rest of the land they lost during partition.

>Also Hinduism isnt islam where people need to be reminded again and again of what is sunnah and what is shirk or how apostates are to be killed.

That’s not true. Hinduism is just as capable of being dogmatic.

>You dont get to decide what is real autonomy.

And you get to lmao? It doesn’t work like that. Your argument means nothing because your definition of autonomy is self-rule but with the central government hovering over you and rigging your elections when it feels like it. Yeah, no shit, ‘autonomy’ didn’t pacify Kashmir.

Razib Khan
Admin
5 years ago

The Aryans are conventional European (light eyes, light hair, white skin)

by the time they came to india, probably not.

Vijay
Vijay
5 years ago
Reply to  Razib Khan

This one line is more important than all the genetics in the entire post. The Aryans are not the Euro_aryans ,and, per Vagheesh Narasimhan, the people who arrived in India about 3000 years BP were IP-Steppe_MLBA admixture with as much as 71% IP. How can one even be sure if the invaders had “light eyes, light hair, white skin”? May be lighter than AASI, but….
The Dravidian farmer themselves arrived only 3400 years ago (not too far earlier than IP-Steppe_MLBA) and assuming that this mostly IP how to make gross generalizations (as made in the post) about melanin, looks, etc?

I repeatedly caution about caste formation, looks, color based on Aryans and the confounding IP+Steppe_MLBA+AASI with East Asian admixture makes any model of this impossible.

The only solution is an ANN or deep learning model. However, data is insufficient to fit a model.

td
td
5 years ago
Reply to  Razib Khan

FWiW, i have been told (by a person who can read and umderstand vedic texts) , RgVeda doesn’t mention such traits(light hair etc) . The women and men pray for DARK hair. Acquaintance with people having such traits like light hair come in the later texts

bharat
bharat
5 years ago

“Certain regions are more peripheral to South Asian history and certain regions are core to it.”

can be answered with

“certain regions are peripheral to human history and certain regions are core of it”?

very strange, then we hear arguments of how it could have been secular nationalist struggle because hey it happened in lots of other places. I mean, partition was based on religion, not on regions. There were two wings of pakistan, on either side of India, two partitions,of punjab and bengal. Imagination on display is a sight to behold, this soon after asia bibi issue recently. The constraint on history is not of imagination of what could have been, I can dream of How wonderful the world would have been had xtianity and islam not existed at all .I think that case can be made as well. No, the question is about which memes continue to have greater salience on issues at hand. And here the salience of “islam” is significant.

उद्ररुहैन्वीय

I have little interest in this debate. Just responding to the point about Kashmiri linguistics raised by Razib.

// isn’t the kashmiri language basal to other indo-aryan languages? //

Not quite sure what you mean by basal here. If you mean kashmiri (and the larger darada prkRta group which it bears affinity to) split-off early from Vedic speech, then that is probably true. If you mean it is more conservative than other IA prkRta-s, then that is not true across the board – certainly not in matters of phonetics and morphology – though it does have more conservative grammar/syntax (cf. aorists in darada prkRta-s).

Nonetheless, linguistic kinship distance is not a terribly good proxy for politics. After all, Tibeto-Burman speaking regions within India have never had separatism, including the biggest areal chunk of the state of J&K. And Tibeto-Burman is to IA what chalk is to cheese, linguistically speaking.

(Please continue…)

saurav
saurav
5 years ago

If anything you are the perfect person to take the argument forward 😛

उद्ररुहैन्वीय
Reply to  saurav

Not on BP 🙂

Vijay
Vijay
5 years ago

What would help the BP readers and contributors is a monster Razib summary combining:
1. https://www.gnxp.com/WordPress/2018/03/31/the-maturation-of-the-south-asian-genetic-landscape/
2.Genetic observations on caste (here)
and
3. Skin Color of south asian groups (here)

into one big “state of the art in caste, color and genetics in South Asia”

This would break the mold on a lot of misunderstanding among BP comments; finally, it might even explain the origin and evolution of Hinduism; it may have nearly as much to do with InPE-AASI admixture events as with the Steppe_MLBA intrusion into India. But I do not know if he cares about Hinduism or BP commenters that much.

उद्ररुहैन्वीय
Reply to  Vijay

// it may have nearly as much to do with InPE-AASI admixture events as with the Steppe_MLBA intrusion into India //

Explaining *human* culture – a result of knowledge creation – based on genetic admixture events. Hmmm.

Vijay
Vijay
5 years ago

Is this not very common? the spread of western culture into Latin and northern america is essentially created by admixture of white, black and Indio people, but the religion is universally Christian, and the language Spanish, Portugese and English? The (forced) relocated Africans intermingled in USA but speak English and are Christians. Turks spread from Altai all the way into the southern fringe of Europe but are Muslims and speak an Asian language. Human culture is created by admixture (but not exclusively by admixture). In turn culture causes (genetic) evolution but evidence is more difficult.

Santosh
Santosh
5 years ago
Reply to  Vijay

I am downhill yet again so I will succumb once again. I am personally inclined to think what Vijay gAru seems to think too. Genetic admixture events, especially in the ancient period, appear to have played a very important role in the creation and spread of new cultural elements. Again, just like Vijay also notes, not every element of a culture comes from population admixtures but some might be springing from there. But then, it might be the case that it is not genetic admixtures between either genetically or very phenotypically different populations that is majorly responsible for the emergence of new cultural patterns but a kind of cultural admixture. For example, an admixture brought due to the high cultural differences between the Indus agriculturists (chalcolithic-bronze age people) and the inner Indian hunter-gatherers (mesolithic-neolithic people) when the Indus exodus into inner India took place. Or something like an initial Iran_N (neolithic) and northwestern AASI (mesolithic) encounter. Or an encounter between the Indo-Aryans (metal age but advanced pastoralism) and the Indus agriculturists (similar bronze age but failed agriculture). And so on. I suspect Vijay gAru might have meant similar kind of a thing too.

bharat
bharat
5 years ago

>Precisely my point

Well no, that wasn’t your point. We can see your previous posts, friend.

>now have changed to BJP, the idea of all religions are the same infantile logic has over time been rejected.

I wouldn’t actually disagree with that except that it’s always been popular in the mind of Indians.
—–

I already tied that point to BJP in the following argument and other countries. . I think democracy decides who gets to be in power(popular). Congress was tried and tested out for over 50 yrs.

>same reasoning as before, rss was shunned, now acceptable. Have the people gone bad, or is it that the other side has been tested and found wanting?

What are you trying to say here? The point I was getting at is that a right wing would always exist, irrespective of whether there’d be people in India eating beef or not. If there were no people to lynch, they’d just turn to their core platform which was reclaiming the rest of the land they lost during partition.

—-
So your point is that a rightwing would always exist?. Yeah, I sense a lot of false equivalence. I understand this to be true with respect to Islam and hence you would see the same with everyone else as well. your point that some rightwing would always exist seems trivial if not absurd. Even granting that, it means nothing. Question is why did they fail earlier and now succeeded, are they a missionary religion converting everyone into their pov? or its just that people are disappointed with the performance of congress. After all partition of India was a violent period, if ever rss/bjp should have been in power, it should be around that time rather than now. People did give peace a chance in India during the most troubled times and have come to see that the high hopes of liberals were not built on something concrete but was a mirage.

>Also Hinduism isnt islam where people need to be reminded again and again of what is sunnah and what is shirk or how apostates are to be killed.

That’s not true. Hinduism is just as capable of being dogmatic.

—-
ladies and gentleman, here is what delusion gets people to believe in. Lets all believe jains and amish are also capable of doing what ISIS is doing. This is different from saying that human beings are capable of doing and being equally bad, thats correct. But one cannot follow the logic of a program and say the result would be the same as following another program. Not all codes give the same result, not all religions are the same.Not all fruits are the same or taste the same either. One can see the difference today in many countries, the priorities they valued . Christine fair, not really a friend of rss/bjp nonetheless did her research and came to see that the pakistani army military journals are suffused with stories of how momin can defeat 10,000 infidels stories. It must be hard for people to realize that some religions really are the worst and create far more trouble and deviate from rational expectations than others. So one must believe that everyone else are just as equally capable of being worse as well. After all , luberals dont believe in existence of quality called “resilience”. How many acts of provocations would it take over how many long years to turn one country to rightwing?. Is it the same for all countries and all religious background or are some religions just so built to give into their dark side more easily than others?.

>You dont get to decide what is real autonomy.

And you get to lmao? It doesn’t work like that. Your argument means nothing because your definition of autonomy is self-rule but with the central government hovering over you and rigging your elections when it feels like it. Yeah, no shit, ‘autonomy’ didn’t pacify Kashmir.


I think, you should learn first to be fair to others before you criticize them. I am quoting you in full, you are not. Why is that so other than to misconstrue what I am saying?. Did I not explicitly say that Indian govt made it clear so that demographic change wouldnt happen?. For all practical purposes Kashmiris did not need to fear being overwhelmed by migration into kashmir from rest of India. This was part of “Autonomy” as I see it. But I now see this bit of charity of being worthless as the consequence has been the same anyway. Any govt has the perfect right to remove an elected body if it sees the changes as being inimical to its interests. Autonomy is part of package that needs to be reciprocated with good behavior. When it isnt being reciprocated, it shouldnt matter. India could have done from the very beginning what chinese are doing, create massive demographic shift in kashmir. But ofcourse we are all going to pretend that doesnt matter, because “autonomy” didnt exist as some would see it. Such “autonomy” didnt exist and hence India was bound to this clause under “non existing autonomy” that bound India from doing so because “autonomy” didnt exist!!!

No good deed goes unpunished

Mir
Mir
5 years ago
Reply to  bharat

>I understand this to be true with respect to Islam and hence you would see the same with everyone else as well. your point that some rightwing would always exist seems trivial if not absurd. Even granting that, it means

How the hell is it trivial? Your point is that if India didn’t come out of partition having genocided and completely cleansed Muslims, it would come out signing kumbaya and solving poverty with no RSS or BJP. Your posting history rests on that one hypothetical. If that turned out to be false, every single post you’d make would be invalidated.

>After all partition of India was a violent period, if ever rss/bjp should have been in power, it should be around that time rather than now. People did give peace a chance in India during the most troubled times and have come to see that the high hopes of liberals were not built on something concrete but was a mirage.

No, there’s no reason to have that expectation. In fact, it’s much more likely now that there’s a strong middle class which feels disenfranchised that politics have shifted from that of the worker to that of the good family Hindu. That’s the trajectory fascism took.

>Lets all believe jains and amish are also capable of doing what ISIS is doing.

Yeah they are. Do you think they’re robots with an inbuilt self destruct mechanism for when they touch someone aggressively? Moron. Despite not being Muslims, the Sinhalese or Burmese Buddhists went on to carry out pogroms and genocides against other groups, because as it turns out, it didn’t matter what they were supposed to believe in.

>I think, you should learn first to be fair to others before you criticize them. I am quoting you in full, you are not. Why is that so other than to misconstrue what I am saying?. Did I not explicitly say that Indian govt made it clear so that demographic change wouldnt happen?. For all practical purposes Kashmiris did not need to fear being overwhelmed by migration into kashmir from rest of India. This was part of “Autonomy” as I see it.

I’m being completely fair to you and holding you up to your nonsensical definition of autonomy. You really lack self-awareness here to demand me to be fair to you while expecting 13 million people to be pacified with the guarantee that they’ll be a vassal of the Indian government but won’t have to deal with demographic change. I’ll repeat it again. That’s not autonomy.

bharat
bharat
5 years ago
Reply to  Mir

“Your point is that if India didn’t come out of partition having genocided and completely cleansed Muslims”

When one cannot argue one lies. I never said genocide, I said total population transfer. The difference is big enough that I must recluse myself from discussing with you further. It is for other people to see and decide where reason exists.

>Lets all believe jains and amish are also capable of doing what ISIS is doing.

Yeah they are. Do you think they’re robots with an inbuilt self destruct mechanism for when they touch someone aggressively? Moron. Despite not being Muslims, the Sinhalese or Burmese Buddhists went on to carry out pogroms and genocides against other groups, because as it turns out, it didn’t matter what they were supposed to believe in.

———-
So jains and amish are capable of going all the way around the world to fight and enslave women?. Again you didnt quote me in full. And in this case it is the very next sentence. I would only point this out
” This is different from saying that human beings are capable of doing and being equally bad, thats correct.”
I think you fail the test of simple math . Frequency , how frequently in history has this been the behavior of muslims or buddhists and in this case I explicitly used jains . Your statements further once again show who is not a moron, but a delusional liar.

“I’m being completely fair to you”

The simplest test to see whether one is being completely fair is to atleast quote me in full. One can always misquote ofcourse, but even that requires brains I guess. Everyone can see this and now everyone who reads this knows. I have nothing more to say.

Kabir
5 years ago
Reply to  bharat

“Total population transfer” is ethnic cleansing, which is a disgusting notion and cannot be defended in the 21st century.

bharat
bharat
5 years ago
Reply to  Kabir

Total population transfer by agreement is not ethic cleansing.

Kabir
5 years ago
Reply to  Kabir

Sorry, “total population transfer” (by agreement or not) is beyond the pale in the 21st century.

sbarrkum
5 years ago
Reply to  bharat

bharat says
Despite not being Muslims, the Sinhalese or Burmese Buddhists went on to carry out pogroms and genocides against other groups, because as it turns out, it didn’t matter what they were supposed to believe in.

I cant speak for the Burmese, but how do you claim that “the Sinhalese Buddhists went on to carry out genocides against other groups”.

nb: did not include pogroms which did occur once in 1983.

bharat
bharat
5 years ago
Reply to  sbarrkum

i didnt say that!
Quoting another

bharat
bharat
5 years ago

my post to mir is not posted.

VijayVan
5 years ago

There is a widespread unsupported opinion that genetic admixture – voluntary or otherwise – to put in ordinary terms inter-racial or inter ethnic mixing will lead to better cultural forms. There is no clear cut evidence for it. Renaisance in the 15th century Italy was brought by stable populations. After the fall of Roman Empire and attendant ‘Volkenwanderung’ there has been no large scale admixture for centuries. England of the 18th century gave rise to Industrial Revolution – that also came about in an ethnically stable class-bound society.

Contrarily, Arabs have take lot of slaves , females from many societies. Even male genes have been contributed by the conversion of many far away tribes. Slave armies like Mamluks had a big gene pool. In spite of these genetic mixing , cultural progress in west Asia is nothing to crow about. Even Turks of today are genetically a far cry from those seljuk nomads who were pushed westward by Mongols

Vijay
Vijay
5 years ago
Reply to  VijayVan

I think biological nomenclature is getting confused with socio-political here.

Biologically speaking “Cultural evolution is the change over time of non-biological aspects of human society. The process is loosely analogous to biological evolution, although does not necessarily involve Darwinian natural selection, and includes changes in language, art and social behaviour and norms.” I can loosely throw in religion, but religions are often one-man events.

I claimed that genetic admixture events (strictly speaking, Arabs taking African slaves and Ottomans taking white women are not this; a more appropriate example is people carrying steppe-MLBA arriving into India) caused cultural changes in India. A practical example is lactase persistence and more dairy farming and consumption. Without evidence, I claimed that “low” Hinduism and “High” Hinduism could have been caused (or the switch to those forms accelerated) by admixture events. The dravidan languages may have been formed after InPE-AASI admixture. The African crop package (Sorghum, pulses) came through the west asian farmer intrusion in India. Rice arrived in India along with Austo-Asiatic (termed Munda) intrusion. Genetic admixture events cause cultural evolution, but slowly. Cuktural evolution also impacts biological, but that is more controversial.

Who said “better cultural changes”?

The examples discussed above (reformation in Italy, British industrial revolution etc.. ) are complex events, and no biological causes have been ever assigned by anyone. It is not possible to assign every cultural change to a common cause. Use of counter-examples does not disprove anything.

td
td
5 years ago
Reply to  Vijay

“Rice arrived in India along with Austo-Asiatic (termed Munda) intrusion. ” — Doubtful.

“The African crop package (Sorghum, pulses) came through the west asian farmer intrusion in India” — Possibly through sea trade. I am still not sure when exactly Iranian_N component arrived . I have a feeling it might be quite old(expecting it to be threre at Mehrgarh by 6th millenium BCE)

AnAn
5 years ago
Reply to  td

td, can we link up offline? I find your comments very insightful.

td
td
5 years ago
Reply to  AnAn

Sure, give me your email address . 🙂

Vijay
Vijay
5 years ago
Reply to  Vijay

To TD

Indica was independently domesticated in India; but https://www.biorxiv.org/content/biorxiv/early/2018/09/20/423004.full.pdf
Higham, Charles. (2003). Chapter 18 Languages and Farming Dispersals: Austroasiatic Languages and Rice Cultivation. In: Examining the farming/language dispersal hypothesis.
The Austroasiatic Munda Population from India and its Enigmatic Origin: A HLA Diversity Study
MARIA EUGENIA RICCIO, JOSÉ MANUEL NUNES, MELISSA RAHAL, BARBARA KERVAIRE, JEAN-MARIE TIERCY and ALICIA SANCHEZ-MAZAS
Human Biology
Vol. 83, No. 3 (June 2011), pp. 405-435

and a number of other references. Razib has an article in GNXP “http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2010/10/sons-of-the-conquerers-the-story-of-india/”

The Iranian farmers brought agriculture to India; hwoever, wheat/barley was not appropriate to IVC, and the sorghum-pulse complex from Africa became the pakage.

The first evidnce from Mehrgarh, which had row crops, Granaries, but barley and wheat along with cows and goats. However, the crops were not succesful even in IVC or further east, as climate was not favorable.

The following is from Wikipedia, that almost exclusively lifts from Fuller.
“Irrigation was developed in the Indus Valley Civilisation by around 4500 BCE.[39] The size and prosperity of the Indus civilisation grew as a result of this innovation, which eventually led to more planned settlements making use of drainage and sewers.[39] Sophisticated irrigation and water storage systems were developed by the Indus Valley Civilisation, including artificial reservoirs at Girnar dated to 3000 BCE, and an early canal irrigation system from circa 2600 BCE.[40] Archaeological evidence of an animal-drawn plough dates back to 2500 BC in the Indus Valley Civilisation.[4]

Outside of the Indus Valley area of influence there are 2 regions with distinct agricultures dating back to around 2800-1500 BCE. These are the Deccan Plateau and an area within the modern states of Orissa and Bihar. Within the Deccan the ashmound tradition developed c.2800 BCE. This is characterised by large mounds of burn cattle dung and other materials. The people of the ashmound tradition grew millets and pulses, some of which were domesticated in this part of India, for example, Brachiaria ramosa, Setaria verticillata, Vigna radiata and Macrotyloma uniflorum. They also herded cattle, sheep and goat and were largely engaged in pastoralism (Fuller 2006, ‘Dung mounds and Domesticators’). In the east of India Neolithic people grew rice and pulses, as well as keeping cattle, sheep and goat. By 1500 BCE a distinct agriculture focused on summer crops, including Vigna and Panicum milliaceum was developed.”

td
td
5 years ago
Reply to  Vijay

I have read the Munda’s genetics(the recent one by Tatte et al) paper and what i understood is that the admixture they had with south asian pop(with low West Asian component) is relatively recent (possibly later than 1800 BCE) and it most probably happened in the far east side (Bangladesh). Now if the above assertion is correct then the rice farming evidence that we have at Lahurdewa in UP (dating back to the 7th-6th millenium BCE) is not due to Munda people. They brought a different variant of rice from what i understand. Lahuradewa also supposedly provides one of the earliest evidences of ceramics in South Asia .
I didn’t read the Charles Higham paper(2003)

“The first evidnce from Mehrgarh, which had row crops, Granaries, but barley and wheat along with cows and goats.” — Imo, Jhusi(present day Uttar Pradesh) would also be one of the candidates for the earliest Neolithic sites in South Asia.
From what i know (i might be completely wrong) , Mehgarh had evidence of six-row barley by 8700 BCE (though not probably fully domesticated) while Ganj Dareh had two-row barley a bit later. As for cows, the south asian domesticated cows were local (Zebu aka Bos Taurus Indicus). No idea about goats :).

As for lactose-tolerance , i have a doubt. The Toda people of the Nilgiri mountains(who are water-buffalo herders , a very important animal that you didn’t mention while talkimg about Neolithic :/ ) have the same LCT gene that north-indians and europeans have (so did the steppe dudes) . Now i am not sure if Toda people have Steppe_MLBA related ancestry. From their Y-DNA data, i saw no R1a/R1b but high % of J2a-M68 and R2 . So, where did the Steppe LCT gene arose really arose in the Steppe ?

उद्ररुहैन्वीय

Cultural change due to genetic change is genetic over-determinism. As is using genetic information as markers of culture. It is a philosophically (epistemologically) silly notion.

Anyway, don’t let that come in the way of your interesting discussions.

उद्ररुहैन्वीय

They bring in new cultural adaptations only if they have new culture to begin with. So it really is all about culture and not about information encoded at the genetic level.

A can be a proxy for B if there is some information pathway from B to A.

Like all good scientific statements, we can do experiments with it too (not necessarily moral ones tho): Give me a child of any racial/genetic make-up and I will make a Kashmiri nationalist out of her/him.

Brown Pundits