I realize now that we dont really see the same kind of upscaling for artisan castes, either there or in North India.

Cant compete with mass production in Chaina
Two simple examples

a) Carved cowrie shells for sale at tourist spots and beach vendors. Can be bought for about USD 2-3 by bargaining. Most important is that it is illegal to collect cowrie and conch shells from the coral reefs.

What is being sold are some kind of ceramic product mass produced in China. I guess they change the mold and sell to all beach tourist countries.

https://acrilmart.com/product/sri-lanka-carved-cowrie-shell/

b) Paintings with glitter on black velvet. For a 0.5mx05m I estimate material cost and wages would be about USD 25.

Can buy them at the wholesale market in Pettah for USD 1. I was shocked when I first saw that a couple years back, bcos had just bought as gift at USD 10 a few days prior.

https://www.alamy.com/stock-photo-paintings-of-kandyan-dancers-and-sri-lankan-scenes-on-black-velvet-48514071.html

Hi girmit, some excellent points there. Harish Damodaran pointed out in his book that we see farming/peasant castes upscale into entrepreneurs in southern and western India. I realize now that we dont really see the same kind of upscaling for artisan castes, either there or in North India.

Trading guilds becoming organized companies and corporations was seems to have been an important pillar of capitalist development in Europe and Japan. I looked up the 10 biggest footwear companies of India and with the exception of Mirza international, none seemed artisan caste owned. It seems that colonial rule and the nexus between trading castes and political rulers could have prevented the incorporation of artisan guilds into companies in India.

I think there wasnt; much thought put into it.It was mostly to spite the tamils (Dravidian) . Also genetic and civilization marker could be different. The Assamese are more Tibeto Burman (genetically) but follow an Aryan religion and culture.

So yeah Sinhalese could be genetic closer to Indo-aryans but culturally closer to Tamils

Vikram, thats a really interesting question regarding why there are no great muslim mercantile communities in North India. Just some conjecture here, but the muslim mercantile communities of the southern penninula , sri lanka, and gujarat have maritime trade connections that were possibly leveraged to gain access/control of certain domestic markets. The landlocked northern muslims had only tenuous relations with mercantile arabs, and their identities were anchored to the central asian/turko-persian ideal. There are innumerable muslim artisan castes in the gangetic plain, and guilds often evolve into trading bodies, so the underlying potential existed. As you mention, hindu khatri and baniya concerns were already well established in the overland trade of horses, textiles and crafts as far as astrakhan, perhaps those relations were less dynamic in the early modern period and fewer opportunities emerged to usurp dominance.

“LOL, yeah read that Sri Lanka just named its first satellite Ravana.Its ironical that in Ramayan, Ravana has fairer skin tone than Rama, higher caste than Rama. He is in a way more Aryan than Ram ”

But don’t ethnic Singhalese self-identifies as Aryans?

@Omar

// my guess is that there is a real unfinished conflict in the case of India and that is what is driving all the heartburn //

I generally find the whole notion of “idea of India” (or of any country) to be unfalsifiable and therefore avoid speaking in terms of it.

To me the heartburn (it is more churn than heartburn in my opinion) is a feature of any society that when information barriers are reduced, people will challenge the textbook narrative (which some perceive in teleological terms) taught to them. People do that in the US too all the time: birthers, 9/11 truthers, creationists, Area 51 nuts, climate skeptics, flat earthers etc.

Indians have a special fascination with history because there is some component of teleology quite explicit within the symbols of the Indian state, which are merely now appropriated (or replaced) by the Hindu Right.

E.g. why would a country formed in 1947 use the Lion Capital of the Mauryan state (from 2300 years ago) as its emblem and seal? The decision to do it was not made by the Hindu RW, but does hint at rebirth of an old nation (as Nehru, Gandhi etc saw it). Nehru’s Discovery of India is an exercise in creating a historical narrative that magically results in the conclusion of Indians yearning to be free.

All of this is essentially just confirmation bias lying at the heart of the Republic. I am not saying that other nations are any more “ordained”, cf Britain’s founding myth around The Charter (Magna Carta) or France’s Revolution etc have similar valence. And in all these countries people have questioned the relevance of such myths (or tried to replace them by other myths). So doing the same in India is perfectly fine and sensible. Where it becomes silly is that Indians are more willing than others to take leave of sane arguments altogether in favour of their pet myth – even at the elite opinion-making level. It is like as if all conservative Christians in the US started saying that the Earth is 5000 years old or speciation just doesn’t happen. Some do, but most apologists are way more sophisticated than that.

Also, AFAIK, the Marathas continued the revenue policies of the Mughals, so religion is not a factor here.

The question that interests me is:
Why did no merchant class develop amongst the Muslim elite of North India ? There is no shortage of Muslim entrepreneurs in other regions of India, what makes North India different. Why were Agarwal merchants travelling all the way to Armenia, but no Muslim merchants.

” Literate, look at the mirror, watch TV and realize not Aryan. Dont want to claim Dravidian, are not they Tamils. So why not Ravana.”

LOL, yeah read that Sri Lanka just named its first satellite Ravana.Its ironical that in Ramayan, Ravana has fairer skin tone than Rama, higher caste than Rama. He is in a way more Aryan than Ram 😛

Well i was largely talking about India. Sri Lanka, BD, Nepal, Pakistan and Myanmar etc have their origin stories established in more concrete ways and have in a way chosen one side (as a state) over other. SL (Buddhist-Sinhalese ), Myanmar (Burman-Buddhist) , Pakistan (Islam) , Bangladesh (Bengali-Islam) etc. There could be changes but they would be minor ones. Like the way you said from swinging to Aryan to Dravidian back to Ravana, but in essence Buddhism stays.
Its India which does not have a overwhelming culture-religious majority (Hindu-Hindi-Aryan is a close competitor ) which gives minorities of every social-religious kind (Muslims, Dravidian, tribal, left liberals) to counter that, and hope that they have a chance. But not sure for how long can they fight back.

Saurav, VijayVan

“the vast majority of people have no idea about any of these issues.”

True. Also for all the things which Indthings thinks will happen you need a lot of stuff to happen.

/counter the Indo-aryan Vedic “India” is Dravidian…/

One concept that is going to be hard to erase.

The Land chosen by Buddha (note not the people).

In the immediate past, my generation and fathers generation the clamor was the Aryan Sinhalese have to protect the land Buddha chose.

Now, younger generation* claim they descendants of Ravana and need to protect the land Buddha chose.

Forget the fact Ravana or the Aryans are not mentioned in the Mahavamsa.

Mahavamsa mentality is protecting in the land that Buddha chose, Buddhism.

* Literate, look at the mirror, watch TV and realize not Aryan. Dont want to claim Dravidian, are not they Tamils. So why not Ravana.