I hold secular states to a higher standard than religiously defined ones. But you seem to want to drag India down to Pakistan’s level. I’m honestly bored of this tit for tat now.
Supporting zionism and hindutva because of your antipathy to Islam is beyond bizarre.

I’m not a liberal; I’m an Arch-Tory 🙂

What I dislike is inconsistency. If people want a Jewish state in Israel, or a Muslim state in Pakistan then they should advocated secularism in Britain or the US.

Either we all express our identities to the max or we all collectively curtail them.

Asking Hindus to be secular and tolerant but then accepting that “Muslims will be Muslims” smacks of bias.

Hazrat Asia is the most important existential issue for Pakistani liberals; she is the soul of our nation. Not only must she set free, she must be provide Z-Cat security in Pakistan itself, given 10 million USD, a national apology from the President and our nation’s highest honour. Anything less than that is insufficient and stains the soul of Pakistan.

I’ve always been clear that I prefer the secular state to any religiously based one– including Pakistan. I love Pakistan because it is where my family is from. It doesn’t mean I support the TNT.
If anyone is abusing the term liberal , it’s the person who supports apartheid Israel and hindutva.

I’ve always been clear that I prefer the secular state to any religiously

Pakistani liberals are extremely proud of Pakistan and the Muslim state. Hell I was too and I’m not even Muslim.

That’s absolutely fine we can’t help what we love but let’s not abuse the term liberal.

The liberal progressive position is to be against the Occupation of Palestine and against religiously based states. It is only the right wing that supports Israel.

Perhaps you are right..

I think zack might need to ramp up on reading more modern genetics. The old ANI has been further deconvoluted into Iranian ancestry and steep ancestry components. The fraction of steppe ancestry is small (but not negligible), and the Iranian farmer ancestry is much larger, and found in almost every population. Both, ANI and ASI are composed of Iranian farmer admixture, with Steppe, and Ancient south Indian, and found in every population, but still, the Dravidian farmer and the Original south Asian percentage dominate.

Extrapolating this to the four caste system is not straightforward because the fourth caste, the scheduled castes, and Muslims (more resembling the BC) easily approach 70+%. This, by itself, says that the Iranina farmer and the ancient south Indian dominate the Indian populations. Extrapolations from the Pakistani Punjab and Pathans to India are not straightforward. There, it is possible that the Steppe ancestry is a significant presence.

I suspect that it’s been roughly similar to today.

The high level of ANI ancestry shows that more often than not that the caste system is like the aristocracy in the UK (low performing members of the elite descend into the general population).

The caste system reflects economic prerogatives as well; pre-industrial society could only do with a certain % of priests, scribes, warriors and merchants.

Have ‘lower castes’ always been the majority or a significant plurality in India?

I always thought that the huge demographic gap was a recent phenomenon. Maybe even just over the last 100 years.