The usual. Please post random thoughts here (OK, real-talk, post your Indo-Pak flamewars here).fopen thr
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DaThang
4 years ago
So this may not make a lot of sense but I still had some fun going through it.
A few weeks ago I suddenly had a nostalgic urge to look up the intro of an old TV show that I used to watch as a child. The show in question is titled ‘Hatim’ after the main character whose name itself is based on Hatim al-Tai.
Hatim al-Tai was a pre-Islamic era Arab poet from the Ta’i/Tayy/Tayyi tribe. The Tayy tribe is now associated with the Shammar tribe. And I happened to have already known that the Shammar tribe’s haplogroups are primarily J1 (52%) + R1a (43%).
Now, the TV show in question also happened to have been (obviously) heavily influenced by Tolkien’s works, and it just so happens that Tolkien himself belonged to the haplogroup R1a. So there is some chance of Hatim al-Tai and Tolkien belonging to the same major yDNA haplogroup. IDK why but I just thought that it was interesting to come across this potential albeit distant and indirect link and I happened to have thought about it simply because of remembering that old cheesy TV show.
a few years after hatim tai’s death, his daughter was captured by muhammad in one of his raids. in the normal course of events she would have expected a lifetime of sexual slavery. however, so legendary was hatim’s reputation even after his death that muhammad dared not mistreat her. she was returned back safely to her tribe.
the fate of most other women captured in muhammad’s raids was not so good.
INDTHINGS
4 years ago
“Post your Indo-Pak flamewars here”
We should troll Razib and just post nice things about each other’s countries.
Irrespective of what one think of the BJP, India’s political and religious pluralism is admirable, as has been its commitment to representative democracy, in the face of what could have been an easy slide to corporatism or zamindar-domination. That it has been able to keep regions as varied as Punjab, Tamil Nadu, and Assam together largely without resorting to force is kind of incredible. Its doing everything the right way, as opposed to Pakistan (focused on military) or China (shortcuts via autocracy which is bad long term).
Hinduism is quite pleasant, whether its visiting a temple or reading the texts from your computer. The Indian veggie dishes are so good you don’t mind going without meat for a while.
“China (shortcuts via autocracy which is bad long term)”
Everyone keeps saying that, while i see no evidence of their long term fall.
As Mark Twain once said “Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”
thewarlock
4 years ago
Pakistani people in America I meet in real life tend to be family and education oriented. They have a warm and gracious culture and make great punjabi food. Many of my friends and family friends are Pakistani, unsurprising given my parents are in medicine and engineering. Many do view Indians, especially from bordering states, as brethren lost to a pagan ideology, but good at heart. They, despite the trials and tribulations their nation faces, maintain an optimistic mindset. While many view the Pak government’s militaristic forays as unnecessary adventurism at best and inept bellicosity at worst, there is some truth that those instances did require courage and resolve, given they were aggressive moves made against a bigger entity. Hopefully, in the future, terrorism and religious fundamentalism will be notions of a bygone era, the Kashmir nonsense resolves, the LOC can just become a normal border, and SAARC can be trade union like EU. A large fear of mine is China just exploiting everyone. But that’s a whole different story.
i have taken reich lab ancient data and vagheesh’s new data and computed allele frequencies on the hirisplex pigmentation panel stratified by population. since i did this automated some of the pop-names are weird for obv reasons. you can see the results
i think readers of this weblog want to download and search sintashta and sbrun.
what is the question? some ‘nordicists’ claim that the indo-aryans were northern european looking blondes. other have looked at the snp data to assert that the indo-aryans may have been brown.
i will compute hirisplex and dig deeper, but i think looking at the data it’s most likely that the sintashta and people of the andronovo horizon were what we’d call ‘brunette whites.’ 4,000 years ago proto-northern european peoples weren’t as homogeneously ‘fixed’ for alleles that are distinctive in this group (look at some of the bell beaker results on slc45a2). there seems to be lots of local structure tribe to tribe.
the alleles associated with blue eyes and blond hair (not only cause, but highly correlated) in sintasha/sbruna groups seem to be less common in these groups than in modern n. europeans (or, than in some other contemporary groups which emerged out of the yamna horizon). the frequency is not as low as in some southern european groups, but it is closer to them than in northern europe. on the skin color loci, the two major genes slc24a5 slc45a2 look entirely ‘european.’
from what i can tell there has been LOTS of selection in pigmentation genes in europe and south asia in all sorts of directions.
SouthIndian
4 years ago
Not excusing Direct action day but Jinnah proved to be a blessing in disguise for India. One state solution even in the context of the sub-continent would have been disastrous for Hindus. India as a nation state would also not have made any progress economically had we been one state. Pan-subcontinental akhand Bharat is the greatest scam ever which has the potential to end Indic civilizational continuity. Even in the best case scenario we would have had a highly islamized polity and culture to reflect the demographic mix. Many Indians and Pakistanis can agree that partition (except for the tragic violence), was in our best interests.
I think there would have been a lot of intra-state conflict. Let us take the case of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. Without the Cauvery water tribunal, Supreme court and other national institutions, they would have gone to war. Additionally parts of North Karnataka having a Marathi speaking population and would want to be part of Maharashtra. The linguistic boundaries are not clear.
Some states would have become communist Kerela, Bengal, Telangana etc. For example Nepal which is not a part of India, turned to communism.
In any case a large common market, common talent pool is an important economic strength of India. This is why Europe formed a union. We have still not realized the full potential of a common market. With the GST, improved transportation. we will see more cross-state economic clusters mushrooming in the near future
While there are benefits to economic integration and common markets, they will only bear fruit in a low internal conflict environment. You can avoid internal conflicts associated with greater integration, if people are willing to work within the parameters set by institutions like an independent judiciary, constitutional separation of powers( state list, union list and concurrent list), finance commission to share revenues etc. Indian linguistic states have found a way of working within these institutional frameworks to minimize internal conflict so as to gain the benefits of an economic union.
If India was not partitioned along religious lines, I don’t think certain sections/regions would have subjected themselves to larger constitutional institutions to minimize conflict. Therefore the benefits of economic integration would not have borne fruit.
karnataka and tamilnadu would not have gone to war. i have seen leaders of both states agree in private that they can be accomodative but did not have the guts to face their political opponents at home.
a bold initiative involving farmers of both tamil nadu and southern karnataka was done by hindu etc which was very successful.
karnataka and tamilnadu would not have gone to war. i have seen leaders of both states agree in private that they can be accomodative but did not have the guts to face their political opponents at home.
a bold initiative involving farmers of both tamil nadu and southern karnataka was done by hindu etc which was very successful.
karnataka and tamilnadu would not have gone to war. i have seen leaders of both states agree in private that they can be accomodative but did not have the guts to face their political opponents at home.
a bold initiative involving farmers of both tamil nadu and southern karnataka was done by hindu etc which was very successful.
I think they may well agree in private because they are Indians first. The dynamics of a nation-state are different from that of a province. If you had a Tamil nation and Kannada nation with armies defending their borders, and citizens from both sides standing up for their nation against the enemy country that was stealing water, then would the dynamics be the same? Of course they might have found a modus vivendi but it would be a lot harder when it is a matter of national pride. Additionally, dispute resolution institutions would also be fewer in comparison to those within the Indian state.
As for farmers initiatives, I don’t think such an initiative have even taken place if they were not part of the same country. For example in the case of the Indus waters agreement, in case there are disputes in the future would there be an initiative involving Pakistani farmers and Indian farmers? The dynamics between Kannada nation and Tamil nation would certainly be better than India-Pakistan but not enough to solve disputes
Sri Lanka is a small country, had a tragic civil war and all. Now it has to play geopolitical games with greater powers. Doesn’t seem enviable, and yet it is cleaner, richer, more orderly, and inhabited by people who carry themselves with a dignity and consideration of their surroundings that is largely absent from India. See echos of it kerala and konkan, but these places are regressing to an abysmal national mean over the course of years. In an alternative history where these latter regions have greater sovereignty, they have per capita GDPs closer to the ASEAN mean, and have more cohesive communities that aren’t wedged by national controversies and living environments more civilised due to higher accountability and competency that self-government trains in people.
Srilanka had much higher levels of education even prior to its independence. It also had a thriving export sector even at that time. It was said by its first governor general that it was the “best bet in Asia” and has not lived up to its full potential. You are comparing a state that already got off to a good start and imagining that it would be the counterfactual for other states as well. Sri Lanka also has access to ports which is essential for trade and growth. So many of India’s states would be landlocked that much of them would struggle to increase trade. Nepal is a much more realistic counterfactual model.
As far as Kerala is concerned, I have lived there and experienced frequent strikes etc. It is regressing because of communism not because they are wedged by national controversies. A solid work ethic is seriously lacking among even highly skilled workers and it is not a cosmopolitan place at all. A tourist experience is not the same as living there. Kerala might have turned fully into authoritarian communist state had it not been for the Indian polity. Authoritarian communism would have sustained itself despite being economically disastrous since Kerala is a remittance economy augmented by tourism dollars from tourists who are from other parts of India/foreigners.
Nepal is another great example. Despite its very low gdp per capita, it has a superior society to its southern bihari and uttar pradesh neighbours. Has a higher life expectancy and better infant mortality than india at large, as well as compared to some of india’s most wealthy states. On top of that, it is cleaner and its people more respectful than the standard held in india.
As you mention, sri lanka had a head start in education around its independence. That probably aided their understanding of their own competencies, and influenced their decision to be a british dominion for another 25 years. Kerala and a few other places also had advantages, and by all measures there is increasing material prosperity in that state. Blaming declining hygiene on marxism is a bit far fetched, for all the faults of that ideology, this is not one of them. Mallus are nothing if not clever, still light years ahead of any major state in India, they know when to reject centre-driven models of industrial development that are meant for subsistence economies. In exchange, through remittence and tourism they still have a place that isn’t sh*thole. One hopes they continue to ignore the conventional wisdom of heartland indians; to do otherwise would be like canada following a mexican model of growth.
Nepal comparison should be with other Hill states like UK and Himachal and not with UP. Both these states are higher than Nepal on various indices. Dont make puerile arguments.
saurav , nepal’s population centre is far to the east and ethnographically shares more with the terai regions of up and bihar and eastern himalayan regions. furthermore, the point is that these other countries get more bang for their gdp buck when it comes to things that matter. bangalore is a high income/ high education city with a cholera outbreak. india may be approaching 2000 usd per capita gdp, but the infrastructure, hygiene and health of the people make it feel like half that. indians will largely not even notice this. this denial is the root of all failure
“nepal’s population centre is far to the east and ethnographically shares more with the terai regions of up and bihar and eastern himalayan regions.”
The major difference between Nepal and its southern neighbours is that it has always been a pseudo-independent kingdom and did not have to go through permanent settlement. The latter it has in common with HP and UK. One of the reasons it doesn’t do as well as HP and UK is because the British took special interest in developing these regions and that infrastructure has helped them.
“In an alternative history where these latter regions have greater sovereignty, they have per capita GDPs closer to the ASEAN mean”
In this timeline, they’d also have to worry about their own defence and access to natural resources. At the moment, they can get away with not having to contribute a lot in terms of man-power to the armed forces.
There’s also the chance that the region might have been lost to communism and been much more affected by cold war and the fall of USSR.
And also, the chance that you’d see much more sectarian conflict (fuelled in no small part by gulf money). The Mapilla rebellion was still fresh memory at the time of independence.
Not saying all of these would have happened but just that the chances of things going wrong seem much higher, especially considering the state of the rest of the world in the middle of the 20th century.
“bangalore is a high income/ high education city with a cholera outbreak. india may be approaching 2000 usd per capita gdp, but the infrastructure, hygiene and health of the people make it feel like half that.”
There are cultural reasons for this that I do not think any amount of autonomy is going to fix. If you visit Bangalore frequently, you’d notice almost all fly-over walls, road dividers, and footpath are lined with paan stains. It’s a miracle that we do not have full blown viral outbreaks all the time. Or maybe we do and we have learnt to just roll on with life.
Cultural change is necessarily slow unless you want a China style revolution and are willing to pay that price.
That said, I do think there should be more accountability of Indian states.
“Not excusing Direct action day but Jinnah proved to be a blessing in disguise for India.”
“I advocated Pakistan because I felt that it was only by partition that Hindus would not only be independent but free… A merely independent India would not have been a free India from the point of views of Hindus…When the partition took place I felt God was willing to lift the curse and let India be one great and prosperous.”
Ambedkar did not get emotionally carried away like Gandhi and Nehru. Seems to have seen the future more clearly especially in comparison to his dalit counterpart Jogendra Nath Mandal who got caught up in the Muslim-Dalit alliance, only to return to India disappointed. But being a neo-Buddhist, did Ambedkar foresee the rise of the Hindutva movement?
While I do have some qualms with Hindutva, I think one of the salutary aspects is the diminishing of caste consciousness. People are slowly beginning to identify with the larger umbrella identity of Hindus rather than caste. With increased urbanization, caste kinship networks breakdown and the only abstract identity that people can hold onto is Hinduism. Hindutva movement has accelerated this process. In the long run of course people will also not identify with religion but in the process the overtone window would have shifted. My hope is that people become Indic civilizationists i.e. positively appreciating the finer aspects of our culture as opposed to Anglicized deracinated individuals.
Brown
4 years ago
now the clever judge has admitted that he was transferred earlier and that he knew that he was being relieved.
Dravidarya
4 years ago
I used to think that all religions are equal according to the propaganda that went on in india for the past 500 years to impress the ruling invaders. I am a totally changed person now after coming to US, I really got a chance to look at my own culture and understand what is the place of a hindu/atheist/agnost in a Muslim and Christian dominated world. I also understood what Muslims and Christians actually believe in. We were never told in india about these beliefs of abrahamic faiths. I was a reactionary while I was in india, I got offended when someone insulted Hinduism or hindu related topics. I am still a hindu but I don’t care or don’t know about Supreme divine. In simple words I was a reactionary hindu who respected abrahamic religions also. Nowadays, I am agnostic non-reactionary hindu who might tolerate some people from abrahamic faiths. I am totally fine with cow jokes or I will criticize hierarchy in Hinduism and comment on absence of civic sense in hindus. Make fun of a hindu’s blowing one’s own trumpet kinda mentality etc. I think dharmic traditions can offer a lot to this fast paced world where our senses are overloaded. However all dharmic traditions need to undergo a cleansing ritual to lessen the reactionary attitude.
SouthIndian
4 years ago
Right now are cities have poorer infra because municipalities do not have sufficient revenue generating capacities to invest in them. Cities are cash cows that state politicians use to throw money at the rural areas in the state. For example money from Bangalore is channeled into farm loan waivers for rural Karnataka. Giving more autonomy to Karnataka by itself will not solve the problem of Bangalore’s infrastructure. This is a fundamental mis-diagnosis of the problem.
One solution is a Mayoral system in cities with revenue generating power. Here states like Karnataka will be an impediment because they will never give autonomy to a cash cow like Bangalore city.
The other solution is to devolve power to economic clusters. The economic clusters maybe as small as a intra-city cluster or large economic clusters that cross provincial state boundaries. These economic clusters which develop organically must be supported by the nation-state. They must have the power to frame their own labor and land regulations. Mayors must be in-charge of these SEZs. SEZ must be given national grants and/or have revenue generating powers. This will enable them to develop the infrastructure in these cities. For eg: Start with an SEZ in electronic city with its own labor/land rules, mayoral system and revenue raising abilities. Once certain SEZs are successful, states will be incentivised to give up power in exchange for revenue share from the SEZs.
SouthIndian
4 years ago
Remember that Karnataka includes not only high income/high education Bangalore but also low income/low education Gulbarga. I was raised in Gulbarga which was almost as poor in terms of HDI as sub-Saharan Africa. If we devolve power to Karnataka, Bangalore will still regress to Karnataka’s mean. If we devolve power directly to Bangalore or an economic cluster in Bangalore then we may see world class infra.
The total revenue of Karnataka budget is ₹2.30 lakh crore of which only ₹8,700 crore was for Bangalore municipality i.e approximately 4%. On the other hand, based of Finance commission division of revenues between state-center almost 42% of revenue goes back to state ( besides central schemes, defense allocations which the state benefits from). It is Karnataka which is allocating a pitiful sum to Bangalore not India. Some people think Bangalore is held back because of rural UP, in reality it is held back much more because of rural Karanataka. Data tells you its own story not swayed by parochial some narrative.
The thing about Karnataka is that it has many districts like DK, Udupi, Shimoga, Hassan, and Chikmagalur that are actually more socially forward than Bangalore and its hinterland. The Hyderabad Karnataka region, and particularly about a dozen problematic taluks are a challenge, and we’d rather focus on their development than subsidising distant regions.
The state budget allocation of 9,000cr to bangalore has to be seen in light of the state’s entire capital outlay which is probably less than 20% of the entire budget. Furthermore, certain big ticket infra projects in bangalore are directly aided by the centre. Its an entirely different matter that karntaka’s share of central taxes is not 42%. That is the entire allocation to all the states. Karnataka contributes >10% of direct taxes in the country and receives around 4% of the allocated 42%. The deficit every year from this would amount to >30,000cr. The state actually spends >15,000cr per annum on interest on debt alone. This is most certainly a defect of the fiscal arrangement with the centre. Blaming it on the state is ridiculous
SouthIndian
4 years ago
For any city based development you need to devolve power to the municipality. Municipalities need more revenue raising abilities. There needs to be a robust municipal bond market which is also based on the strength of the city finances. You need to have directly elected mayors in city with local accountability. I can name the Mayor of New York but cannot name the Mayor of Bangalore. Only if there is local accountability will you have better urban governance. Most of the voters of Karnataka (64 million) are outside of Bangalore( 8 million). The state politicians do not have the incentive to be accountable to Bangalore. SM Krishna , anecdotally did a good job was booted out because he focused too much on Bangalore. Chandrababu Naidu focused too much on Hyderabad etc. Giving independence to Karnataka will not magically turn the Bangalore into Singapore nor will it change the culture or incentives of various players. Independent Karnataka will have even less incentive to devolve power to Bangalore
100% agree with your major points about fiscal autonomy down to the municipal level. Don’t see it at odds with anything I’ve stated. You do a bit of special pleading on behalf of the centre by hesitating to characterise disproportionate tax contribution by certain states as being cash cows, but comfortable making that assessment of bangalore in relation to the rest of karnataka. We all know that direct tax collection is urban focused in india. That so many industries exist in administrative centers like hyderabad and bangalore is due to the leveraged political capital of entire states to draw enterprise in. It was nearly impossible to run an enterprise without an office or at least retainers of some sort in the capital, such being the nature of the license raj.
Scratch an Indian liberal and you get either a regional or a caste chauvinist.
For years since independence, India’s Northern heartland states have seen very low central govt. support which was lavished on Punjab (Dams and Canals) and the South (Scientific, engineering & aerospace institutions in Bangalore etc). Just because UP and Bihar bought into the India story completely, devastating economic practices like the Freight Equivalence policy were instituted with which these states natural advantages for industrialization was completely eroded.
The central govt collects tax from Bangalore and distributed it to the North. Thats true enough. Its also true that most of it goes to the poorest in North India who are disproportionately Dalits and Muslims. Do these Southern supremacists who have been making contentious arguments that “Dravida Nadu” would have reached European levels of Human Capital if not held back by the North, ever consider how anti-Dalit their advice actually is. How it completely overlooks the context in which certain areas of the South have been able to pull ahead of certain areas of the North.
I feel these Southern supremacists to be the worst cretins in India. Most of them are from dominant “OBC” castes who have an iron grip on political power and only the fact that their states are a part of India (and India is a democracy with the highest humanist ideals enshrined in its constitution) keeps a check on their excesses. If their states would have had more power, they would have been totally casteist hellholes not withstanding however much Periyar-Ambedkar solidarity the dominant castes there, profess today.
If you guys feel India is so bad, have enough courage of conviction to launch an insurgency. Lets see how many people of your own states you are able to convince.
janamjeya, because you’ve confused me for a liberal leftist, the rest of your comment doesn’t make much sense. i’m not overly concerned about the negative externalities of defunding dalits or muslims in north india. you don’t need to scratch anything to find my ethnocentrism. I put all the blame of assenting to disadvantageous arrangements on ourselves.
Hindutva supremacists new found concern for Muslims and Dalits is touching.
Saurav
4 years ago
I have utmost belief that Kannadigas would sort this mess out. I have high hopes from u folks. After all, u folks are my 2nd favorite ethnicity of India (after my own ethnicity ) 🙂
Opinion | Why a majority’s story often fails to convince the world
“The Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei, said: “The hearts of Muslims all over the world are grieving over the massacre of Muslims in India.” He may never give work visas to low-skilled Indian Muslims, but his heart will beat for them, just as the hearts of Indian Hindus beat for Pakistani Hindus, as though Indian Hindus treat one another with so much love they now need foreigners to love.”
“A majority population, or the victors of an era, cannot transmit powerful stories of their suffering. A defining quality of our times is that the strong are trying to imitate the ways of the oppressed to tell their stories. Brahmins, Caucasians, Israelis, and men have all tried. But it does not work.”
Interesting how the left plays its oppression Olympics. There are no uniform principles but only left selected victims.
For example, I think history matters to some extent. Groups today are not responsible for historical wrongs, but must at the very least acknowledge historical wrongs. This includes Hindus for the treatment of Dalits and Hindus by and large acknowledge this. But it also includes Muslims who ruled over/enjoyed patronage of rulers in large parts of India for over 600 years, imposed jaziya, destroyed thousands of temples and massacred many. History matters. A small minority ruled over a large majority against their will. The least muslims can do is distance themselves from such rulers but they claim these rulers as their own.
The left contends that the historic privilege of muslims does not matter and only present day minority status matters. So is the left uniformly applying the rule that history doesn’t matter and only present day electoral strength or demographic strength matters? Not really. Brahmins are a small minority constituting only 5% of the population and cannot swing elections in most states.
The worst part is that when it comes to Dalits vs Muslims, the left favors Muslims. Dalits are usually in the same neighborhoods as muslims and face the brunt of their violence. Historically Dalits have always been underprivileged whereas Muslims had the ruling class privilege them for hundreds of years.
The left is not applying either the history rule or minority rule or any kind of principle. It has its own chosen victims in the oppression olympics based on political convenience.
When Hindus acknowledge ruling over Buddhists, massacring them, destroying thousands of temples, and distance themselves from all the ancient Hindu empires and kings, then maybe Muslims will do the same.
As far as “privilege” is concerned, Muslims were privileged for a few hundreds years. Hindus were privileged for thousands of years, and most importantly, are the privileged class in the modern period.
“When Hindus acknowledge ruling over Buddhists, massacring them, destroying thousands of temples, and distance themselves from all the ancient Hindu empires and kings, then maybe Muslims will do the same.”
Buddy, your second paragraph has some sense but this one is off the rails.
You don’t really cite any evidence for wide spread Buddhist oppression. It seems you are just projecting Islamic treatment of infidels on to a completely different group.
This is similar to loony lefties, though, who think all oppressors are alike in that they are all ‘literally nazis!’
It back to changing hats to suit the narrative. Someone who said cmmon your ancestors conquered hindustan is now complaining they dont have enough privilege actually. How many times have people here or anywhere boasted about conquering Buddhism?
And your usual trope of ‘massacring Buddhists, destroying thousands of temples’ without substantial evidence is just convenient point to gloss over the actual historic massacres and temple destruction under Islam.
Based on principle ‘Everything is yellow to the jaundiced eye’ , Pakthings sees all power behaving exactly like his favorite one did.
I won’t stop making jokes just because you are too dense to perceive them.
I’ve cited stuff on past threads about Hindu repression of Buddhists. There’s this paper, which describes Hindus destroying thousands of Buddhist/Jain temples and monks. https://www.jstor.org/stable/24890281?seq=1
@ Indthings
Did you even read what you cited?
Other than Mihirakula(Hindu central asian white Hun) destroying monasteries (recorded by Xuanzang 2 centuries after these events but not by Mihirakula’s contemporary Chinese Buddhist traveller Song Yun who actually met Mihirakula) there is nothing of value in the paper you cited.
The other instances of violence/desecration mentioned are of Shashanka cutting the bodhi tree(claimed in a source 500 years after the supposed desecration), there was no historical Jalauka king mentioned by Kalhana,
impalement of Jains in Madurai is a fabrication not even claimed by Jains (and first recorded 4 centuries after it supposedly happened). Reading works of poor quality scholarship gives me a headache, is this what passes for research for you? Do you think other people have all the time to engage with your trolling? I was trying to learn something from long-time members like you but am genuinely disappointed at this pile of shit you posted.
Too dense to appreciate jokes? More like indifferent and irritated at your constant attempts at trolling
Between you have made you name as a certified troller on the forum. So Congrats on that !
The protection of minority rights is one of the core principles of secular democracies in the modern world. India has obligations to protect its non-Hindu citizens just as Pakistan has obligations to protect its non-Muslim ones (never mind that Pakistan is not a secular state). If nothing else, the state must protect the lives of its citizens. Allowing (or being complicit in) pogroms against them certainly fails this criteria.
One of the interesting things about Hindu nationalists is that they seem to see themselves as a historically persecuted minority, despite the fact that Hindus constitute more than 80% of India’s population and control all the major levers of the state. In fact, Muslim representation in India’s parliament is among the lowest it has been in years (I don’t recall the exact statistic).
A similar narrative can be seen in the case of Israel where a group that did suffer terrible atrocities in Europe has now become the oppressor in Palestine. Zionist apologists seek to portray Israel as a victim of its neighbors when it is their own state that is perpetuating an Occupation.
I agree with the first quotation about the hypocrisy of being more concerned with your co-religionists in other countries than with religious minorities in one’s own. Defenders of CAA seem to be extremely concerned about non-Muslim minorities in neighboring countries (though only selected neighboring countries) while treating Indian Muslims as a fifth column. In fairness, the Pakistani state also shows much more concern for Indian Muslims and for Kashmiris then for its own minority citizens. Of course, this is a consequence of Pakistan’s being an “Islamic Republic” and of India under the BJP viewing itself as the land of the Hindus rather than a state belonging to all citizens, whatever their religion happens to be.
Any community that was not allowed to rule itself for 600 years despite being a majority has been wronged and was historically persecuted. Not to mention the massacres, temple destruction etc. Africans were also the majority in Apartheid South Africa but are a historically persecuted minority. Present day status in South Africa or India does not change history. And remember despite muslims being a minority managed to launch direct action day, killing people to win themselves a state of their own.
In the present day, the government which is pro-Hindu does control the levers of power. But the state capacity i.e. police, judiciary is weak. So local majorities matter. Despite India controlling power in Kashmir, Kashmiri pandits had to flee because of local majority. Similarly even in parts of Bengal or even areas within a city where muslims are a local majority, become no-go areas and Hindus are made to flee or bear the brunt of violence(especially Dalits who live in these areas). Which is why Tahir Hussain could get away with what he did in a muslim majority area. Muslims are better organized as they are a congregational religion with a politically driven holy book. They also see themselves as entitled former rulers. All these factors make them prone to violence in the areas where they are local majorities.
The dynamics of local majorities may end in the future when state capacity becomes stronger. Use of drones to take videos and then punish the perpetrators of violence even in muslim no-go areas, better equipped police force, more judicial capacity, lower tolerance for violence will make local majorities irrelevant. Muslims will then stop using violence as a tool. Any counter-violence from the Hindu side will also be strongly punished. I’m hopeful about the future.
Politically speaking, Hindus are divided along caste lines, so all communities are minorities electorally. Even post 1947 muslims enjoyed a veto in Indian politics, because of this caste division. But increasingly there is a reduction in caste consciousness and formation of a Hindu political identity. Leftists, communists, marxists in the media and academics in liberal arts programs of course still control levers of power in their domains and favor muslims.
Lastly, globally pagans, polytheists and others have been wiped out or converted by Abrahamics. Hindus are also conscious of this global history
History is best left to historians to judge. A group which forms more than 80% of a country’s population and holds all the major levers of power is by no means persecuted.
The rest of your comment is typical Hindu Right rhetoric: Muslim “no-go areas”, Muslims committing violence while Hindus only commit “counter-violence” (this point is particularly interesting) and the best is the list of Hindutva enemies–Marxists, Leftists and Liberal Arts academics (all “anti-nationals”).
Right-wing defenses are pretty similar all over the world. If you were a White American, you would be wearing a MAGA T-Shirt.
I don’t think he meant Hindus are currently persecuted group in India, that’s more like a historical background.
I personally don’t think Hindus engage exclusively in counter-violence with others. There are plenty of them who are waiting for an opportunity. It won’t harm the state to rein them in.
Also to be fair just like right wing defences left wing victim identication strategies are similar worldwide too. I mean you could swap their t shirts worldwide on either side of the debate.
After ruling the country/patronized by rulers for 600 years you equate yourselves with African americans who were slaves for 100s of years. The most important point emphasized by African Americans is that history matters. Please do not insult their genuine cause. Had African Americans ruled over Caucasians for 600 years, they would have been in a very different position than muslims are today.
African Americans assert that history matters because of how it affects the present. Basically, the past matters because even though slavery ended hundreds of years ago, the adverse effects still exist today which manifest in discrimination and poverty.
So yes the past matters, but only if its effecting present day circumstances. What benefits do Muslims of the modern period get from roughly 600 years of Muslim rule? None. What benefits do Hindus get in the modern period? A lot.
Saurav, stop being intentionally dumb. We are talking about India, not Pak or Bang.
Regardless, those countries exist because the majority of their populations wanted independence (first from Britain and secondly from a potential union with India).
Your comment is akin to me saying India only exists as an expression of Hindu privledge from 3000 years of Hindu rule. Complete nonsense.
I agree with most of the points raised. In case of India (and hindu RW) most of the movements starting from Arya Samaj, Hindu mahasabha down to present day RSS are mostly reactionary. Any attempt at virtue signalling against these reactions without working on the stimuli will prove to be of no effect and would be viewed with suspicion.
Agree with your point.
I have personally experienced the dynamics of a local majority as a child when there were riots in my neighborhood. We were in a Hindu majority area but surrounded by muslim majority areas. I stopped going to school and when more Hindus were killed in the surrounding areas, my dad sent my mom and me to another city with a lower muslim population. We were fearful for my dad though. Of course there were innocent muslims who were killed in retaliation too.
The woke population/leftists are typically rich kids in gated communities who live as far away as possible from muslim areas and so have never experienced this dynamic or the fear.
That is why I favor strong police action right in the onset. Initially the police because of incapacity or fear of being perceived to be harsh, don’t take action against muslim miscreants who start the riots and then you end up with the innocent hindus and muslims being killed. It is ok for the police to be harsh on violent muslim riot initiators, it will only save the lives of innocents later. This is why I was disappointed with the handing of the Delhi riots. To protect their image they did not take strong action against muslim initiators initially and ended up with a riot. Earlier I used to dislike Yogi a lot, but he seems to have handled the situation better, taking strong action initially which prevented a riot later.
Indeed, Manu Joseph is a smart guy, and writes using a language liberals can (technically speaking) relate to if they want. But as that very article explains, it won’t be taken seriously.
[EDIT: That was a response to Saurav’s livemint link]
SouthIndian
4 years ago
Many minorities are able to build on a hundreds of years of privilege to continue to be successful even when they don’t enjoy privileged status. However muslims haven’t been able to do that because they many in the community did not fully embrace secular education. In some sense they are like the Ultra orthodox Jewing community or Amish who self-marginalize themselves by not embracing the mainstream society and secular education. But unlike the peaceful Amish and Ultra orthodox, some sections of the muslim community also embrace the violent Islamist ideology which generates antipathy. One can’t parallelly embrace violence and demand victim status .
It is possible that left pities unsuccessful communities irrespective of whether they were historically privileged, irrespective of self-marginalization, irrespective of their minority/majority status or violence perpetrated by the community. Dalits now have more upward mobility and are more successful than muslims despite Dalits being the most historically underprivileged community in India, left therefore pities muslims more. But of course the pity theory still doesn’t explain many other discrepancies.
“Muslims didn’t succeed because they don’t embrace secular education”
Lord have mercy.
The Ashrafs and Muslim mercantile communities in West India were the most educated and affluent of all Indians. Their wealth was stripped from them when the Europeans arrived, and given to the Hindus.
As for the other 70-80% of Muslims who are drawn from low-caste converts, I wonder why they haven’t advanced while Dalits have (as you point out). Possibly, and I’m just spit-balling here, BEING DENIED ACCESS TO THE RESERVATION SYSTEM might have something to do with it.
The balls it takes to craft the most lucrative affirmative action program in the world, specifically exclude Muslims from it, and then wonder aloud why Muslims aren’t advancing.
The balls it takes to craft the most lucrative affirmative action program in the world, specifically exclude Muslims from it, and then wonder aloud why Muslims aren’t advancing.
Eh, why is this the fault of the state and its affirmative action program and not that of Indian Muslim society as a whole? The reason to convert was presumably so one could be on an equal footing (socially, if not economically) with one’s co-religionists. In Hinduism, some people have always been more equal than others, but Islam’s selling point has been that it is completely egalitarian.
The logic of affirmative action is that socially underprivileged people need to be given separate advantages to overcome their lack of privilege. As Muslims, by definition, claimed that none among them suffered from lack of privileges, they were naturally excluded from the program. If Dalits still remain Dalits once they concert to Islam, I’d put blame squarely on privileged Muslims.
In fact, the BJP has long (at least pre-Modi) advocated for affirmative action to be based on class (income and prosperity levels) rather than caste. This would take care of the problem of Muslim Dalit converts not getting a leg up. It’s also one of the few BJP initiatives I have liked and supported (to the extent I support AA at all).
No Muslim has claimed that Islam removes, “any lack of privileges”, simply that it removes some of the horrors of the caste-system (not able to interdine, being considered ritually unclean, can’t participate in religious worship).
In terms of being socioeconomically marginalized, there’s no change. In fact its worse in the modern period under Hindu rule, as if there’s one thing an upper-caste Hindu hates more than a Dalit, its a Dalit who wised up and converted to Islam (as can be seen from this thread).
I’m also not sure what personal religious law has to do with this. There was no deal where Muslim agreed to give up reservation for aspects of personal law (that are now starting to be repealed anyway without promise of reservation). Not sure why this is a big deal, when Hindu personal law is enforced on everyone (ban on cow slaughter), so the least the Muslims should have is their own personal law among themselves.
“The balls it takes to craft the most lucrative affirmative action program in the world, specifically exclude Muslims from it, and then wonder aloud why Muslims aren’t advancing.”
This policy was not the product of Hindutva.
The central government’s reservation system was primarily designed to address caste-based discrimination. Converting to Islam, a religion without caste-based discrimination, is thought by some to resolve that.
In some cases, it does resolve it. In Kerala, for example, there are stories from the colonial period indicating that a low caste Hindu who works for a middle caste Hindu would have equal or greater privileges than their master upon converting to Islam. In other regions, though, conversion seems to have made little difference because (i) Hindus already knew they were low-caste regardless of what religion they now claim to profess and didn’t change their treatment, and (ii) upper-caste Muslims were not as accepting.
It’s a complicated matter. I have no issues with including lower-caste Muslims in the central government’s reservation system, even if conversion to Islam actually addresses caste-based discrimination in some regions. But it wasn’t like Ambedkar and Mandal etc. were trying to design some Hindu supremacist system. It is more related to the question of whether caste exists among Indian Muslims, and that is a complicated matter that seems to vary from region to region. Some Muslims do not want to acknowledge that caste-based discrimination carries over from Hinduism to Islam in some regions of India, and some Hindus that get affirmative action benefits would like to keep more of it for themselves.
“The Ashrafs and Muslim mercantile communities in West India were the most educated and affluent of all Indians. Their wealth was stripped from them when the Europeans arrived, and given to the Hindus.”
It wasn’t stripped off them. They wanted a separate state of their own and they abandoned their wealth for it. In contrast to Hindu and Sikhs of the north west who lost their possessions without ever having wanted to leave. In any case, the wealth of the Ashrafs was primarily rent extracted from land. They didn’t really produce anything useful.
And let’s not forget that there would barely be a Pakistani Punjab without the British and their canal colonies. Be a bit more thankful for your existence.
“The balls it takes to craft the most lucrative affirmative action program in the world, specifically exclude Muslims from it, and then wonder aloud why Muslims aren’t advancing.”
Playing victim is drilled so far up these people’s arses that a Pakistani-origin American feels this obsessive urge to defend the stupid decisions of Indian Muslims. And then makes a mockery doing that.
The affirmative action for Dalits didn’t come up in isolation. It should be seen along with the Hindu code bills that were introduced to codify Hindu law and remove certain practices. These were severely protested by conservative Hindus but were passed nonetheless.
Muslims on the other hand did not want the state meddling in their regressive affairs. Their personal laws were never reformed. So they don’t get the carrots from the state as well.
They should have built engineering schools instead of Madrassas with the sweet Wahabbi money that their autonomy earned them. There’s a reasons Christians are doing better than Muslims (and Hindus) inspite of not having an elite Ashraf layer at top. Or maybe because of that.
One of the reasons Indian Muslims have been left behind is because of characters like indthing who instead of calling for reforms in their own community try to rationalise and play victim. Take some freaking responsibility for once.
(And don’t go ahead and act like dumbfuck by conflating lack of AA with CAA)
And he already mentioned that this wealth was earned during even earlier colonization by the rent seekers from the masses of the country. So its not such a pity or injustice !
For the rest you can’t come up with logical counter. Maybe that’s why it looks dumb.
@Prats
Why do you guys keep saying Muslims don’t have affirmative action/quotas, what am I missing here? I had a bunch of muslim friends in IIT who got in with OBC(M-muslim) quota.
“Muslims don’t embrace secular education”– clearly the people commenting here have not heard about Sir Syed Ahmed Khan and Muhammadan Anglo Oriental College (now Aligarh Muslim University).
“The Anglo–Indian statesman Sir Syed Ahmad Khan founded the predecessor of Aligarh Muslim University, the Muhammadan Anglo Oriental College, in 1875 having already established two schools. These were part of the movement of Muslim awakening associated with Syed Ahmad Khan which came to be known as Aligarh Movement.[3] He considered competence in English and “Western sciences” necessary skills for maintaining Muslims’ political influence, especially in Northern India. Khan’s image for the college was based on his visit to Oxford and Cambridge and he wanted to establish an education system similar to the British model.[4]” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammadan_Anglo-Oriental_College
“clearly the people commenting here have not heard about Sir Syed Ahmed Khan and Muhammadan Anglo Oriental College (now Aligarh Muslim University).”
Ahh yes, Sir Syed… he had some interesting speeches.
“Think for a moment what would be the result if all appointments were given by competitive examination. Over all races, not only over Mahomedans but over Rajas of high position and the brave Rajputs who have not forgotten the swords of their ancestors, would be placed as ruler a Bengali who at sight of a table knife would crawl under his chair. (Uproarious cheers and laughter.) There would remain no part of the country in which we should see at the tables of justice and authority any face except those of Bengalis. I am delighted to see the Bengalis making progress, but the question is — What would be the result on the administration of the country? Do you think that the Rajput and the fiery Pathan, who are not afraid of being hanged or of encountering the swords of the police or the bayonets of the army, could remain in peace under the Bengalis? (Cheers.) This would be the outcome of the proposal if accepted.”
“I am glad that some Pathans of the N.-W. P. [North-West Provinces] and Oudh are here today, and I hope some Hindu Rajputs are also present. My friend Yusuf Shah of the Punjab sits here, and he knows well the mood of mind of the people of the Punjab, of the Sikhs and Musalmans. Suppose that this agitation that has arisen in Bengal — and I imagine that no danger can spring from it there — suppose that this agitation extends to these Provinces, to the Rajputs and Pathans of Peshawar, do you think it will confine itself to writing with the pen — giz, giz, giz, giz, giz [the scratching of a pen] — and to mere talking — buk, buk, buk, buk [babbling]? It will then be necessary for Government to send its army and show by bayonets what the proper remedy for this agitation is. I believe that when Government sees the Mahomedans and other brave races taking part in this stupid agitation, it will be necessary for Government to pass a new law and to fill the jails. O my brothers! Children of my heart! This is your relationship to Government: you should conduct yourself in a straightforward and calm manner; not come together to make a noise and a hubbub like a flock of crows. (Cheers and laughter.)”
Sir Syed was not in favor of the Indian National Congress and can be considered an apologist for the Raj.
However, the example of Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College clearly disproves the stupid charge that “Muslims don’t embrace secular education”. The entire Aligarh Movement was about embracing modern education in order to retain political power.
The example of MAO College was given to prove that “Muslims don’t value secular education” is a stupid comment. The founders of the Aligarh Movement clearly recognized the importance of modern education for Indian Muslims.
Also Osmania, Jamia Millia, and many regionally known examples like Al-Ameen educational society in bangalore. One could also add Azim Premji University, if its just about the social background of the founder.
“Also Osmania, Jamia Millia, and many regionally known examples like Al-Ameen educational society in bangalore.”
Again, not enough. Compare this to the number of Christian institutions named after saints.
Also, these are mainly higher education institutions that cater to a very small percentage of the population. A large bulk of Muslim kids go to Madrasas where the focus is primarily on an Islamic education and they are often not even taught basic maths and science.
This is the main the complaint when people accuse Muslims of ignoring ‘secular’ education.
INDTHINGS – Can you cite evidence for the following assertion ?
“The Ashrafs and Muslim mercantile communities in West India were the most educated and affluent of all Indians. Their wealth was stripped from them when the Europeans arrived, and given to the Hindus.”
This smacks of victimhood to me and part of the mythology that underlies the mythology of Pakistan.
Bottom line is the British came down hard on whichever community put up resistance to their rule and rewarded those who acquiesced to British rule. This was regardless of religion, caste, language, or race.
Many muslim mercantile communities – Khojas, Bohra for example – advanced economically even during the British rule. They embraced education in English and continued to leverage their historic trade connections to the Middle East and South East Asia.
The Ashrafs – of United Provinces and Bihar – lost out because they could not get over the fact that the time of Islamic domination of South Asia was over. They led the struggle for Pakistan, supposedly a project for protecting the interests of Muslims in South Asia. But the moment of Ashraf dominance had passed. Local elites of West Pakistan – Punjab in particular – asserted power purely by virtue of sheer numbers. East Pakistani elites shrugged off domination by West Pakistanis who treated them as lesser partners in the Pakistan project.
Pakistan really needs to acknowledge the mythology of its founding.
Indian Muslims esp in the north were the losers in the two nation theory and the creation of Pakistan. The better educated and wealthy of the Muslims in the UP/Bihar left for Pakistan leaving their less fortunate brethren, who have become demoralized and in suspicion of the rest of the society. Only about 5% of the UP/Bihar Muslims migrated to Pakistan even though the Pakistan movement was born among them and they were supposed to be it’s beneficiaries
SouthIndian
4 years ago
The leftists in India are far more to the left that the leftists in the US economically, politically and socially. What is the left in the US is probably the center in India
Economic- Unfortunately the entire Indian political is left shifted economically. The only good news is the shrinking footprint of the Communist parties everywhere except Kerala and JNU. However, even the congress is opposing disinvestment by the government claiming that it is like selling family silver. I don’t understand why there isn’t more consensus on selling PSUs. In contrast even the likes of socialist Bernie has only promised Medicare for all
Political – In the US, the left seems to be invested more in the country’s continuance,its exceptionalism etc. there is no tukde-tukde equivalent sentiment among the coastal liberal elites.
Social – Left in India seems to lack originality and are blindly applying White guilt framework to India without the equivalent of the genocide of the native Americans, slavery and larger European colonization project.
All in all, Nehruvian Fabian socialism is the worst thing that happened to India. The povertarian mindset will never allow us to succeed. I think the left is losing space because of its political and social views, but the collateral benefit is that the discourse on their povertarian economic ideas will also be limited.
The leftists in India are far more to the left that the leftists in the US economically, politically and socially. What is the left in the US is probably the center in India
this is stupid. made me laugh out loud. didn’t read the rest of the comment.
In this context, I’m referring to how the left shames individuals for being a part of a religion. I think the left in India forces Hindus to be apologetic about being hindus and no atrocities against hindus are recognized. On the other hand, they apply the White guilt framework to Hindus, when Hindus have not been responsible for any genocide but have been subject to genocide as recently as 1971 when a majority of the 3 million people killed by the Pakistani army were Bengali hindus. It is not like Hindus were in any position of strength for the past 800 years. They have been forced to be apologetic about their religion for this entire period. They were attacked for their polytheism and idol worship, their temples were destroyed, forced to pay pilgrimage tax, jizya etc. All this is whitewashed by the left. Hindus of course acknowledge the evils of caste system and have a reservation system to overcome these problems. There is a systematic attempt to belittle even harmless festivals or practices. Overall the flak that Hindus get is not warranted by history.
Yeah, Indian leftists are to the left of American leftists only in economic terms. They are communists at heart, believing in the state controlling all means of production and in abolition of private enterprise (I may be exaggerating a bit here.) But politically, they are quite nationalist (like Bernie used to be) and socially quite conservative, so the OP is way off the mark here.
The communists supported the creation of Pakistan in 1947. Even today, the left hails the Tukde gang. The Azadi slogans hark back to Kashmir. The joining of forces of Islamists and the left is clear in the anti-CAA protests, though there were occasional differences between these groups. Even JNU students demand azadi for various states. Which leftist in the US demands that USA be split up or demands independence for some states?
The congress under Sonia-Rahul is not nationalistic. RG’s visit to JNU after the Tukde episode and meeting the Chinese during Doklam dented his image. Would Bernie visit a university after there have been rallies where there is a demand for the USA to be be split up? However, Indira Gandhi is a different matter. Though her economic policies were disastrous (bank nationalisation, tighter license raj etc), she was firmly to the right when it came to nationalism.
You are right about the hardcore communists. But even they have had factions, no? I thought the CPI was the China-supporting party and the CPM the “patriotic” party (but do correct me if I’m wrong.) In any case, I was talking broadly about the Indian left, which includes big chunks of the Congress and regional parties, and not just about the hardcore communists (among whom figured Soviet and Chinese stooges for sure.)
What’s a “patriotic” communist? Is it like “Hindu” communist?
The “patriotic” party only difference with the non-patriotic one, during the China war, was that they only criticized India, rather than going off full gung-ho supporting China.
I guess we should be grateful for such small mercies
Don’t worry! Fling color at people and then fling cow dung on them immediately after. All will be cured.
Janamejaya
4 years ago
Happy Holi everyone.
Brown
4 years ago
Aditya Jyotiraditya!!!!
Saurav
4 years ago
“The communists supported the creation of Pakistan in 1947.”
One of the things which the commies did with the Indian textbooks is to whitewash their earlier antecedents like this ones. Couple of other instances
1. Lot of talk on how the RSS opposed the Constitution, but what has been whitewashed that in 50s the communist party ( the parliamentary ones) declared war on India.
2. In Indo-China war, the party vacillated b/w supporting China and criticizing India. This is when the war was still on.
Of course neither incident along with their tactic support to Indira’s emergency finds mention in textbooks or in liberal intelgenisa.
SouthIndian
4 years ago
What are the economic reforms that India needs to undertake. Request your suggestions/ comments/priorities etc. List follows:
1) Increase judicial capacity for better enforcement of contracts
2) Labor reforms ( though currently there are contract provisions that offer some flexibility, more flexibility is needed for full time)
3) Land reforms ( repeal UPA era Land acquisition bill)
4) Create a bad bank for the NPA mess?
5) Improve sea port infrastructure and logistics to reach ports; General infra
6) Privatisation of general companies( BPCL, AirIndia etc approved as of now)
7) Privatisation of some PSU banks
8) Railway privatization ( there are some baby steps taken here)
9) Better vocational training for mass manufacturing
10) Administrative reform of bureaucracy
11) Reduce tax harassment ( poor job by Govt here)
12) Improve school quality( will voucher system work in India?) and reform RTE
13) Scale up voucher system of Ayushman Bharat for health
14) Replace farm loan waivers with direct transfers of money through JAM trinity
15) Agricultural reform ( how to transition from APMC system?) and tax agri income
Watch: Union Minister Chants “Go Corona” At Prayer Meet In Mumbai
The video was reportedly shot at Gateway of India on February 20 during a prayer session to stop the spread of the coronavirus in China.
Roy
4 years ago
Modi has done wonders for India’s international reputation.
So this may not make a lot of sense but I still had some fun going through it.
A few weeks ago I suddenly had a nostalgic urge to look up the intro of an old TV show that I used to watch as a child. The show in question is titled ‘Hatim’ after the main character whose name itself is based on Hatim al-Tai.
Hatim al-Tai was a pre-Islamic era Arab poet from the Ta’i/Tayy/Tayyi tribe. The Tayy tribe is now associated with the Shammar tribe. And I happened to have already known that the Shammar tribe’s haplogroups are primarily J1 (52%) + R1a (43%).
Now, the TV show in question also happened to have been (obviously) heavily influenced by Tolkien’s works, and it just so happens that Tolkien himself belonged to the haplogroup R1a. So there is some chance of Hatim al-Tai and Tolkien belonging to the same major yDNA haplogroup. IDK why but I just thought that it was interesting to come across this potential albeit distant and indirect link and I happened to have thought about it simply because of remembering that old cheesy TV show.
a few years after hatim tai’s death, his daughter was captured by muhammad in one of his raids. in the normal course of events she would have expected a lifetime of sexual slavery. however, so legendary was hatim’s reputation even after his death that muhammad dared not mistreat her. she was returned back safely to her tribe.
the fate of most other women captured in muhammad’s raids was not so good.
“Post your Indo-Pak flamewars here”
We should troll Razib and just post nice things about each other’s countries.
Irrespective of what one think of the BJP, India’s political and religious pluralism is admirable, as has been its commitment to representative democracy, in the face of what could have been an easy slide to corporatism or zamindar-domination. That it has been able to keep regions as varied as Punjab, Tamil Nadu, and Assam together largely without resorting to force is kind of incredible. Its doing everything the right way, as opposed to Pakistan (focused on military) or China (shortcuts via autocracy which is bad long term).
Hinduism is quite pleasant, whether its visiting a temple or reading the texts from your computer. The Indian veggie dishes are so good you don’t mind going without meat for a while.
“China (shortcuts via autocracy which is bad long term)”
Everyone keeps saying that, while i see no evidence of their long term fall.
As Mark Twain once said “Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.”
Pakistani people in America I meet in real life tend to be family and education oriented. They have a warm and gracious culture and make great punjabi food. Many of my friends and family friends are Pakistani, unsurprising given my parents are in medicine and engineering. Many do view Indians, especially from bordering states, as brethren lost to a pagan ideology, but good at heart. They, despite the trials and tribulations their nation faces, maintain an optimistic mindset. While many view the Pak government’s militaristic forays as unnecessary adventurism at best and inept bellicosity at worst, there is some truth that those instances did require courage and resolve, given they were aggressive moves made against a bigger entity. Hopefully, in the future, terrorism and religious fundamentalism will be notions of a bygone era, the Kashmir nonsense resolves, the LOC can just become a normal border, and SAARC can be trade union like EU. A large fear of mine is China just exploiting everyone. But that’s a whole different story.
i have taken reich lab ancient data and vagheesh’s new data and computed allele frequencies on the hirisplex pigmentation panel stratified by population. since i did this automated some of the pop-names are weird for obv reasons. you can see the results
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1B6ulfyzBi7FnHVOb48RsKilhX0pNgARd_J3l8bLaYcM/edit?usp=sharing
i think readers of this weblog want to download and search sintashta and sbrun.
what is the question? some ‘nordicists’ claim that the indo-aryans were northern european looking blondes. other have looked at the snp data to assert that the indo-aryans may have been brown.
i will compute hirisplex and dig deeper, but i think looking at the data it’s most likely that the sintashta and people of the andronovo horizon were what we’d call ‘brunette whites.’ 4,000 years ago proto-northern european peoples weren’t as homogeneously ‘fixed’ for alleles that are distinctive in this group (look at some of the bell beaker results on slc45a2). there seems to be lots of local structure tribe to tribe.
the alleles associated with blue eyes and blond hair (not only cause, but highly correlated) in sintasha/sbruna groups seem to be less common in these groups than in modern n. europeans (or, than in some other contemporary groups which emerged out of the yamna horizon). the frequency is not as low as in some southern european groups, but it is closer to them than in northern europe. on the skin color loci, the two major genes slc24a5 slc45a2 look entirely ‘european.’
from what i can tell there has been LOTS of selection in pigmentation genes in europe and south asia in all sorts of directions.
Not excusing Direct action day but Jinnah proved to be a blessing in disguise for India. One state solution even in the context of the sub-continent would have been disastrous for Hindus. India as a nation state would also not have made any progress economically had we been one state. Pan-subcontinental akhand Bharat is the greatest scam ever which has the potential to end Indic civilizational continuity. Even in the best case scenario we would have had a highly islamized polity and culture to reflect the demographic mix. Many Indians and Pakistanis can agree that partition (except for the tragic violence), was in our best interests.
Imagining an alternate history if south asia had ben partitioned along lingustic lines rather than religious.
With a bunch of smaller states, I wonder if a few stand out countries would emerge in terms of economic development, HDI etc.
Or if a disunited south asia would just get pushed around on the international state.
I think there would have been a lot of intra-state conflict. Let us take the case of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. Without the Cauvery water tribunal, Supreme court and other national institutions, they would have gone to war. Additionally parts of North Karnataka having a Marathi speaking population and would want to be part of Maharashtra. The linguistic boundaries are not clear.
Some states would have become communist Kerela, Bengal, Telangana etc. For example Nepal which is not a part of India, turned to communism.
In any case a large common market, common talent pool is an important economic strength of India. This is why Europe formed a union. We have still not realized the full potential of a common market. With the GST, improved transportation. we will see more cross-state economic clusters mushrooming in the near future
While there are benefits to economic integration and common markets, they will only bear fruit in a low internal conflict environment. You can avoid internal conflicts associated with greater integration, if people are willing to work within the parameters set by institutions like an independent judiciary, constitutional separation of powers( state list, union list and concurrent list), finance commission to share revenues etc. Indian linguistic states have found a way of working within these institutional frameworks to minimize internal conflict so as to gain the benefits of an economic union.
If India was not partitioned along religious lines, I don’t think certain sections/regions would have subjected themselves to larger constitutional institutions to minimize conflict. Therefore the benefits of economic integration would not have borne fruit.
karnataka and tamilnadu would not have gone to war. i have seen leaders of both states agree in private that they can be accomodative but did not have the guts to face their political opponents at home.
a bold initiative involving farmers of both tamil nadu and southern karnataka was done by hindu etc which was very successful.
karnataka and tamilnadu would not have gone to war. i have seen leaders of both states agree in private that they can be accomodative but did not have the guts to face their political opponents at home.
a bold initiative involving farmers of both tamil nadu and southern karnataka was done by hindu etc which was very successful.
karnataka and tamilnadu would not have gone to war. i have seen leaders of both states agree in private that they can be accomodative but did not have the guts to face their political opponents at home.
a bold initiative involving farmers of both tamil nadu and southern karnataka was done by hindu etc which was very successful.
I think they may well agree in private because they are Indians first. The dynamics of a nation-state are different from that of a province. If you had a Tamil nation and Kannada nation with armies defending their borders, and citizens from both sides standing up for their nation against the enemy country that was stealing water, then would the dynamics be the same? Of course they might have found a modus vivendi but it would be a lot harder when it is a matter of national pride. Additionally, dispute resolution institutions would also be fewer in comparison to those within the Indian state.
As for farmers initiatives, I don’t think such an initiative have even taken place if they were not part of the same country. For example in the case of the Indus waters agreement, in case there are disputes in the future would there be an initiative involving Pakistani farmers and Indian farmers? The dynamics between Kannada nation and Tamil nation would certainly be better than India-Pakistan but not enough to solve disputes
Sri Lanka is a small country, had a tragic civil war and all. Now it has to play geopolitical games with greater powers. Doesn’t seem enviable, and yet it is cleaner, richer, more orderly, and inhabited by people who carry themselves with a dignity and consideration of their surroundings that is largely absent from India. See echos of it kerala and konkan, but these places are regressing to an abysmal national mean over the course of years. In an alternative history where these latter regions have greater sovereignty, they have per capita GDPs closer to the ASEAN mean, and have more cohesive communities that aren’t wedged by national controversies and living environments more civilised due to higher accountability and competency that self-government trains in people.
Srilanka had much higher levels of education even prior to its independence. It also had a thriving export sector even at that time. It was said by its first governor general that it was the “best bet in Asia” and has not lived up to its full potential. You are comparing a state that already got off to a good start and imagining that it would be the counterfactual for other states as well. Sri Lanka also has access to ports which is essential for trade and growth. So many of India’s states would be landlocked that much of them would struggle to increase trade. Nepal is a much more realistic counterfactual model.
As far as Kerala is concerned, I have lived there and experienced frequent strikes etc. It is regressing because of communism not because they are wedged by national controversies. A solid work ethic is seriously lacking among even highly skilled workers and it is not a cosmopolitan place at all. A tourist experience is not the same as living there. Kerala might have turned fully into authoritarian communist state had it not been for the Indian polity. Authoritarian communism would have sustained itself despite being economically disastrous since Kerala is a remittance economy augmented by tourism dollars from tourists who are from other parts of India/foreigners.
Nepal is another great example. Despite its very low gdp per capita, it has a superior society to its southern bihari and uttar pradesh neighbours. Has a higher life expectancy and better infant mortality than india at large, as well as compared to some of india’s most wealthy states. On top of that, it is cleaner and its people more respectful than the standard held in india.
As you mention, sri lanka had a head start in education around its independence. That probably aided their understanding of their own competencies, and influenced their decision to be a british dominion for another 25 years. Kerala and a few other places also had advantages, and by all measures there is increasing material prosperity in that state. Blaming declining hygiene on marxism is a bit far fetched, for all the faults of that ideology, this is not one of them. Mallus are nothing if not clever, still light years ahead of any major state in India, they know when to reject centre-driven models of industrial development that are meant for subsistence economies. In exchange, through remittence and tourism they still have a place that isn’t sh*thole. One hopes they continue to ignore the conventional wisdom of heartland indians; to do otherwise would be like canada following a mexican model of growth.
Nepal comparison should be with other Hill states like UK and Himachal and not with UP. Both these states are higher than Nepal on various indices. Dont make puerile arguments.
saurav , nepal’s population centre is far to the east and ethnographically shares more with the terai regions of up and bihar and eastern himalayan regions. furthermore, the point is that these other countries get more bang for their gdp buck when it comes to things that matter. bangalore is a high income/ high education city with a cholera outbreak. india may be approaching 2000 usd per capita gdp, but the infrastructure, hygiene and health of the people make it feel like half that. indians will largely not even notice this. this denial is the root of all failure
“nepal’s population centre is far to the east and ethnographically shares more with the terai regions of up and bihar and eastern himalayan regions.”
The major difference between Nepal and its southern neighbours is that it has always been a pseudo-independent kingdom and did not have to go through permanent settlement. The latter it has in common with HP and UK. One of the reasons it doesn’t do as well as HP and UK is because the British took special interest in developing these regions and that infrastructure has helped them.
“In an alternative history where these latter regions have greater sovereignty, they have per capita GDPs closer to the ASEAN mean”
In this timeline, they’d also have to worry about their own defence and access to natural resources. At the moment, they can get away with not having to contribute a lot in terms of man-power to the armed forces.
There’s also the chance that the region might have been lost to communism and been much more affected by cold war and the fall of USSR.
And also, the chance that you’d see much more sectarian conflict (fuelled in no small part by gulf money). The Mapilla rebellion was still fresh memory at the time of independence.
Not saying all of these would have happened but just that the chances of things going wrong seem much higher, especially considering the state of the rest of the world in the middle of the 20th century.
“bangalore is a high income/ high education city with a cholera outbreak. india may be approaching 2000 usd per capita gdp, but the infrastructure, hygiene and health of the people make it feel like half that.”
There are cultural reasons for this that I do not think any amount of autonomy is going to fix. If you visit Bangalore frequently, you’d notice almost all fly-over walls, road dividers, and footpath are lined with paan stains. It’s a miracle that we do not have full blown viral outbreaks all the time. Or maybe we do and we have learnt to just roll on with life.
Cultural change is necessarily slow unless you want a China style revolution and are willing to pay that price.
That said, I do think there should be more accountability of Indian states.
“Not excusing Direct action day but Jinnah proved to be a blessing in disguise for India.”
“I advocated Pakistan because I felt that it was only by partition that Hindus would not only be independent but free… A merely independent India would not have been a free India from the point of views of Hindus…When the partition took place I felt God was willing to lift the curse and let India be one great and prosperous.”
~ B.R.Ambedkar
Ambedkar did not get emotionally carried away like Gandhi and Nehru. Seems to have seen the future more clearly especially in comparison to his dalit counterpart Jogendra Nath Mandal who got caught up in the Muslim-Dalit alliance, only to return to India disappointed. But being a neo-Buddhist, did Ambedkar foresee the rise of the Hindutva movement?
While I do have some qualms with Hindutva, I think one of the salutary aspects is the diminishing of caste consciousness. People are slowly beginning to identify with the larger umbrella identity of Hindus rather than caste. With increased urbanization, caste kinship networks breakdown and the only abstract identity that people can hold onto is Hinduism. Hindutva movement has accelerated this process. In the long run of course people will also not identify with religion but in the process the overtone window would have shifted. My hope is that people become Indic civilizationists i.e. positively appreciating the finer aspects of our culture as opposed to Anglicized deracinated individuals.
now the clever judge has admitted that he was transferred earlier and that he knew that he was being relieved.
I used to think that all religions are equal according to the propaganda that went on in india for the past 500 years to impress the ruling invaders. I am a totally changed person now after coming to US, I really got a chance to look at my own culture and understand what is the place of a hindu/atheist/agnost in a Muslim and Christian dominated world. I also understood what Muslims and Christians actually believe in. We were never told in india about these beliefs of abrahamic faiths. I was a reactionary while I was in india, I got offended when someone insulted Hinduism or hindu related topics. I am still a hindu but I don’t care or don’t know about Supreme divine. In simple words I was a reactionary hindu who respected abrahamic religions also. Nowadays, I am agnostic non-reactionary hindu who might tolerate some people from abrahamic faiths. I am totally fine with cow jokes or I will criticize hierarchy in Hinduism and comment on absence of civic sense in hindus. Make fun of a hindu’s blowing one’s own trumpet kinda mentality etc. I think dharmic traditions can offer a lot to this fast paced world where our senses are overloaded. However all dharmic traditions need to undergo a cleansing ritual to lessen the reactionary attitude.
Right now are cities have poorer infra because municipalities do not have sufficient revenue generating capacities to invest in them. Cities are cash cows that state politicians use to throw money at the rural areas in the state. For example money from Bangalore is channeled into farm loan waivers for rural Karnataka. Giving more autonomy to Karnataka by itself will not solve the problem of Bangalore’s infrastructure. This is a fundamental mis-diagnosis of the problem.
One solution is a Mayoral system in cities with revenue generating power. Here states like Karnataka will be an impediment because they will never give autonomy to a cash cow like Bangalore city.
The other solution is to devolve power to economic clusters. The economic clusters maybe as small as a intra-city cluster or large economic clusters that cross provincial state boundaries. These economic clusters which develop organically must be supported by the nation-state. They must have the power to frame their own labor and land regulations. Mayors must be in-charge of these SEZs. SEZ must be given national grants and/or have revenue generating powers. This will enable them to develop the infrastructure in these cities. For eg: Start with an SEZ in electronic city with its own labor/land rules, mayoral system and revenue raising abilities. Once certain SEZs are successful, states will be incentivised to give up power in exchange for revenue share from the SEZs.
Remember that Karnataka includes not only high income/high education Bangalore but also low income/low education Gulbarga. I was raised in Gulbarga which was almost as poor in terms of HDI as sub-Saharan Africa. If we devolve power to Karnataka, Bangalore will still regress to Karnataka’s mean. If we devolve power directly to Bangalore or an economic cluster in Bangalore then we may see world class infra.
The total revenue of Karnataka budget is ₹2.30 lakh crore of which only ₹8,700 crore was for Bangalore municipality i.e approximately 4%. On the other hand, based of Finance commission division of revenues between state-center almost 42% of revenue goes back to state ( besides central schemes, defense allocations which the state benefits from). It is Karnataka which is allocating a pitiful sum to Bangalore not India. Some people think Bangalore is held back because of rural UP, in reality it is held back much more because of rural Karanataka. Data tells you its own story not swayed by parochial some narrative.
The thing about Karnataka is that it has many districts like DK, Udupi, Shimoga, Hassan, and Chikmagalur that are actually more socially forward than Bangalore and its hinterland. The Hyderabad Karnataka region, and particularly about a dozen problematic taluks are a challenge, and we’d rather focus on their development than subsidising distant regions.
The state budget allocation of 9,000cr to bangalore has to be seen in light of the state’s entire capital outlay which is probably less than 20% of the entire budget. Furthermore, certain big ticket infra projects in bangalore are directly aided by the centre. Its an entirely different matter that karntaka’s share of central taxes is not 42%. That is the entire allocation to all the states. Karnataka contributes >10% of direct taxes in the country and receives around 4% of the allocated 42%. The deficit every year from this would amount to >30,000cr. The state actually spends >15,000cr per annum on interest on debt alone. This is most certainly a defect of the fiscal arrangement with the centre. Blaming it on the state is ridiculous
For any city based development you need to devolve power to the municipality. Municipalities need more revenue raising abilities. There needs to be a robust municipal bond market which is also based on the strength of the city finances. You need to have directly elected mayors in city with local accountability. I can name the Mayor of New York but cannot name the Mayor of Bangalore. Only if there is local accountability will you have better urban governance. Most of the voters of Karnataka (64 million) are outside of Bangalore( 8 million). The state politicians do not have the incentive to be accountable to Bangalore. SM Krishna , anecdotally did a good job was booted out because he focused too much on Bangalore. Chandrababu Naidu focused too much on Hyderabad etc. Giving independence to Karnataka will not magically turn the Bangalore into Singapore nor will it change the culture or incentives of various players. Independent Karnataka will have even less incentive to devolve power to Bangalore
+1 as a libertarian I agree India needs to be massively decentralised.
but then I’m taken to be an ISI agent; a pretty miserable one if you ask me having botched love jihad and instead done a ghar whapsi..
in fact I believe all countries should be federalised down to their most basic levels, power corrupts!
The rise of China seems to say otherwise, wouldn’t you say?
100% agree with your major points about fiscal autonomy down to the municipal level. Don’t see it at odds with anything I’ve stated. You do a bit of special pleading on behalf of the centre by hesitating to characterise disproportionate tax contribution by certain states as being cash cows, but comfortable making that assessment of bangalore in relation to the rest of karnataka. We all know that direct tax collection is urban focused in india. That so many industries exist in administrative centers like hyderabad and bangalore is due to the leveraged political capital of entire states to draw enterprise in. It was nearly impossible to run an enterprise without an office or at least retainers of some sort in the capital, such being the nature of the license raj.
Scratch an Indian liberal and you get either a regional or a caste chauvinist.
For years since independence, India’s Northern heartland states have seen very low central govt. support which was lavished on Punjab (Dams and Canals) and the South (Scientific, engineering & aerospace institutions in Bangalore etc). Just because UP and Bihar bought into the India story completely, devastating economic practices like the Freight Equivalence policy were instituted with which these states natural advantages for industrialization was completely eroded.
The central govt collects tax from Bangalore and distributed it to the North. Thats true enough. Its also true that most of it goes to the poorest in North India who are disproportionately Dalits and Muslims. Do these Southern supremacists who have been making contentious arguments that “Dravida Nadu” would have reached European levels of Human Capital if not held back by the North, ever consider how anti-Dalit their advice actually is. How it completely overlooks the context in which certain areas of the South have been able to pull ahead of certain areas of the North.
I feel these Southern supremacists to be the worst cretins in India. Most of them are from dominant “OBC” castes who have an iron grip on political power and only the fact that their states are a part of India (and India is a democracy with the highest humanist ideals enshrined in its constitution) keeps a check on their excesses. If their states would have had more power, they would have been totally casteist hellholes not withstanding however much Periyar-Ambedkar solidarity the dominant castes there, profess today.
If you guys feel India is so bad, have enough courage of conviction to launch an insurgency. Lets see how many people of your own states you are able to convince.
janamjeya, because you’ve confused me for a liberal leftist, the rest of your comment doesn’t make much sense. i’m not overly concerned about the negative externalities of defunding dalits or muslims in north india. you don’t need to scratch anything to find my ethnocentrism. I put all the blame of assenting to disadvantageous arrangements on ourselves.
Hindutva supremacists new found concern for Muslims and Dalits is touching.
I have utmost belief that Kannadigas would sort this mess out. I have high hopes from u folks. After all, u folks are my 2nd favorite ethnicity of India (after my own ethnicity ) 🙂
https://www.livemint.com/opinion/columns/why-a-majority-s-story-often-fails-to-convince-the-world-11583679969446.html
Opinion | Why a majority’s story often fails to convince the world
“The Supreme Leader of Iran, Ayatollah Khamenei, said: “The hearts of Muslims all over the world are grieving over the massacre of Muslims in India.” He may never give work visas to low-skilled Indian Muslims, but his heart will beat for them, just as the hearts of Indian Hindus beat for Pakistani Hindus, as though Indian Hindus treat one another with so much love they now need foreigners to love.”
“A majority population, or the victors of an era, cannot transmit powerful stories of their suffering. A defining quality of our times is that the strong are trying to imitate the ways of the oppressed to tell their stories. Brahmins, Caucasians, Israelis, and men have all tried. But it does not work.”
Interesting how the left plays its oppression Olympics. There are no uniform principles but only left selected victims.
For example, I think history matters to some extent. Groups today are not responsible for historical wrongs, but must at the very least acknowledge historical wrongs. This includes Hindus for the treatment of Dalits and Hindus by and large acknowledge this. But it also includes Muslims who ruled over/enjoyed patronage of rulers in large parts of India for over 600 years, imposed jaziya, destroyed thousands of temples and massacred many. History matters. A small minority ruled over a large majority against their will. The least muslims can do is distance themselves from such rulers but they claim these rulers as their own.
The left contends that the historic privilege of muslims does not matter and only present day minority status matters. So is the left uniformly applying the rule that history doesn’t matter and only present day electoral strength or demographic strength matters? Not really. Brahmins are a small minority constituting only 5% of the population and cannot swing elections in most states.
The worst part is that when it comes to Dalits vs Muslims, the left favors Muslims. Dalits are usually in the same neighborhoods as muslims and face the brunt of their violence. Historically Dalits have always been underprivileged whereas Muslims had the ruling class privilege them for hundreds of years.
The left is not applying either the history rule or minority rule or any kind of principle. It has its own chosen victims in the oppression olympics based on political convenience.
When Hindus acknowledge ruling over Buddhists, massacring them, destroying thousands of temples, and distance themselves from all the ancient Hindu empires and kings, then maybe Muslims will do the same.
As far as “privilege” is concerned, Muslims were privileged for a few hundreds years. Hindus were privileged for thousands of years, and most importantly, are the privileged class in the modern period.
“When Hindus acknowledge ruling over Buddhists, massacring them, destroying thousands of temples, and distance themselves from all the ancient Hindu empires and kings, then maybe Muslims will do the same.”
Buddy, your second paragraph has some sense but this one is off the rails.
You don’t really cite any evidence for wide spread Buddhist oppression. It seems you are just projecting Islamic treatment of infidels on to a completely different group.
This is similar to loony lefties, though, who think all oppressors are alike in that they are all ‘literally nazis!’
FYI I posted links last night but the comment is still in moderation.
It back to changing hats to suit the narrative. Someone who said cmmon your ancestors conquered hindustan is now complaining they dont have enough privilege actually. How many times have people here or anywhere boasted about conquering Buddhism?
And your usual trope of ‘massacring Buddhists, destroying thousands of temples’ without substantial evidence is just convenient point to gloss over the actual historic massacres and temple destruction under Islam.
Based on principle ‘Everything is yellow to the jaundiced eye’ , Pakthings sees all power behaving exactly like his favorite one did.
I won’t stop making jokes just because you are too dense to perceive them.
I’ve cited stuff on past threads about Hindu repression of Buddhists. There’s this paper, which describes Hindus destroying thousands of Buddhist/Jain temples and monks. https://www.jstor.org/stable/24890281?seq=1
If you can’t find a free version, there are articles online that discuss the topic. https://scroll.in/article/877050/religious-violence-in-ancient-india-a-lesson-for-those-who-write-history-textbooks-for-school
https://thewire.in/books/textual-evidence-from-early-india-reveals-hinduism-was-not-a-tolerant-religion
@ Indthings
Did you even read what you cited?
Other than Mihirakula(Hindu central asian white Hun) destroying monasteries (recorded by Xuanzang 2 centuries after these events but not by Mihirakula’s contemporary Chinese Buddhist traveller Song Yun who actually met Mihirakula) there is nothing of value in the paper you cited.
The other instances of violence/desecration mentioned are of Shashanka cutting the bodhi tree(claimed in a source 500 years after the supposed desecration), there was no historical Jalauka king mentioned by Kalhana,
impalement of Jains in Madurai is a fabrication not even claimed by Jains (and first recorded 4 centuries after it supposedly happened). Reading works of poor quality scholarship gives me a headache, is this what passes for research for you? Do you think other people have all the time to engage with your trolling? I was trying to learn something from long-time members like you but am genuinely disappointed at this pile of shit you posted.
Too dense to appreciate jokes? More like indifferent and irritated at your constant attempts at trolling
Between you have made you name as a certified troller on the forum. So Congrats on that !
The protection of minority rights is one of the core principles of secular democracies in the modern world. India has obligations to protect its non-Hindu citizens just as Pakistan has obligations to protect its non-Muslim ones (never mind that Pakistan is not a secular state). If nothing else, the state must protect the lives of its citizens. Allowing (or being complicit in) pogroms against them certainly fails this criteria.
One of the interesting things about Hindu nationalists is that they seem to see themselves as a historically persecuted minority, despite the fact that Hindus constitute more than 80% of India’s population and control all the major levers of the state. In fact, Muslim representation in India’s parliament is among the lowest it has been in years (I don’t recall the exact statistic).
A similar narrative can be seen in the case of Israel where a group that did suffer terrible atrocities in Europe has now become the oppressor in Palestine. Zionist apologists seek to portray Israel as a victim of its neighbors when it is their own state that is perpetuating an Occupation.
I agree with the first quotation about the hypocrisy of being more concerned with your co-religionists in other countries than with religious minorities in one’s own. Defenders of CAA seem to be extremely concerned about non-Muslim minorities in neighboring countries (though only selected neighboring countries) while treating Indian Muslims as a fifth column. In fairness, the Pakistani state also shows much more concern for Indian Muslims and for Kashmiris then for its own minority citizens. Of course, this is a consequence of Pakistan’s being an “Islamic Republic” and of India under the BJP viewing itself as the land of the Hindus rather than a state belonging to all citizens, whatever their religion happens to be.
Any community that was not allowed to rule itself for 600 years despite being a majority has been wronged and was historically persecuted. Not to mention the massacres, temple destruction etc. Africans were also the majority in Apartheid South Africa but are a historically persecuted minority. Present day status in South Africa or India does not change history. And remember despite muslims being a minority managed to launch direct action day, killing people to win themselves a state of their own.
In the present day, the government which is pro-Hindu does control the levers of power. But the state capacity i.e. police, judiciary is weak. So local majorities matter. Despite India controlling power in Kashmir, Kashmiri pandits had to flee because of local majority. Similarly even in parts of Bengal or even areas within a city where muslims are a local majority, become no-go areas and Hindus are made to flee or bear the brunt of violence(especially Dalits who live in these areas). Which is why Tahir Hussain could get away with what he did in a muslim majority area. Muslims are better organized as they are a congregational religion with a politically driven holy book. They also see themselves as entitled former rulers. All these factors make them prone to violence in the areas where they are local majorities.
The dynamics of local majorities may end in the future when state capacity becomes stronger. Use of drones to take videos and then punish the perpetrators of violence even in muslim no-go areas, better equipped police force, more judicial capacity, lower tolerance for violence will make local majorities irrelevant. Muslims will then stop using violence as a tool. Any counter-violence from the Hindu side will also be strongly punished. I’m hopeful about the future.
Politically speaking, Hindus are divided along caste lines, so all communities are minorities electorally. Even post 1947 muslims enjoyed a veto in Indian politics, because of this caste division. But increasingly there is a reduction in caste consciousness and formation of a Hindu political identity. Leftists, communists, marxists in the media and academics in liberal arts programs of course still control levers of power in their domains and favor muslims.
Lastly, globally pagans, polytheists and others have been wiped out or converted by Abrahamics. Hindus are also conscious of this global history
History is best left to historians to judge. A group which forms more than 80% of a country’s population and holds all the major levers of power is by no means persecuted.
The rest of your comment is typical Hindu Right rhetoric: Muslim “no-go areas”, Muslims committing violence while Hindus only commit “counter-violence” (this point is particularly interesting) and the best is the list of Hindutva enemies–Marxists, Leftists and Liberal Arts academics (all “anti-nationals”).
Right-wing defenses are pretty similar all over the world. If you were a White American, you would be wearing a MAGA T-Shirt.
I don’t think he meant Hindus are currently persecuted group in India, that’s more like a historical background.
I personally don’t think Hindus engage exclusively in counter-violence with others. There are plenty of them who are waiting for an opportunity. It won’t harm the state to rein them in.
Also to be fair just like right wing defences left wing victim identication strategies are similar worldwide too. I mean you could swap their t shirts worldwide on either side of the debate.
After ruling the country/patronized by rulers for 600 years you equate yourselves with African americans who were slaves for 100s of years. The most important point emphasized by African Americans is that history matters. Please do not insult their genuine cause. Had African Americans ruled over Caucasians for 600 years, they would have been in a very different position than muslims are today.
African Americans assert that history matters because of how it affects the present. Basically, the past matters because even though slavery ended hundreds of years ago, the adverse effects still exist today which manifest in discrimination and poverty.
So yes the past matters, but only if its effecting present day circumstances. What benefits do Muslims of the modern period get from roughly 600 years of Muslim rule? None. What benefits do Hindus get in the modern period? A lot.
“What benefits do Muslims of the modern period get from roughly 600 years of Muslim rule”
I don;t know man, like 2 separate countries to rule.I know its not much but…
Saurav, stop being intentionally dumb. We are talking about India, not Pak or Bang.
Regardless, those countries exist because the majority of their populations wanted independence (first from Britain and secondly from a potential union with India).
Your comment is akin to me saying India only exists as an expression of Hindu privledge from 3000 years of Hindu rule. Complete nonsense.
I agree with most of the points raised. In case of India (and hindu RW) most of the movements starting from Arya Samaj, Hindu mahasabha down to present day RSS are mostly reactionary. Any attempt at virtue signalling against these reactions without working on the stimuli will prove to be of no effect and would be viewed with suspicion.
Agree with your point.
I have personally experienced the dynamics of a local majority as a child when there were riots in my neighborhood. We were in a Hindu majority area but surrounded by muslim majority areas. I stopped going to school and when more Hindus were killed in the surrounding areas, my dad sent my mom and me to another city with a lower muslim population. We were fearful for my dad though. Of course there were innocent muslims who were killed in retaliation too.
The woke population/leftists are typically rich kids in gated communities who live as far away as possible from muslim areas and so have never experienced this dynamic or the fear.
That is why I favor strong police action right in the onset. Initially the police because of incapacity or fear of being perceived to be harsh, don’t take action against muslim miscreants who start the riots and then you end up with the innocent hindus and muslims being killed. It is ok for the police to be harsh on violent muslim riot initiators, it will only save the lives of innocents later. This is why I was disappointed with the handing of the Delhi riots. To protect their image they did not take strong action against muslim initiators initially and ended up with a riot. Earlier I used to dislike Yogi a lot, but he seems to have handled the situation better, taking strong action initially which prevented a riot later.
Indeed, Manu Joseph is a smart guy, and writes using a language liberals can (technically speaking) relate to if they want. But as that very article explains, it won’t be taken seriously.
[EDIT: That was a response to Saurav’s livemint link]
Many minorities are able to build on a hundreds of years of privilege to continue to be successful even when they don’t enjoy privileged status. However muslims haven’t been able to do that because they many in the community did not fully embrace secular education. In some sense they are like the Ultra orthodox Jewing community or Amish who self-marginalize themselves by not embracing the mainstream society and secular education. But unlike the peaceful Amish and Ultra orthodox, some sections of the muslim community also embrace the violent Islamist ideology which generates antipathy. One can’t parallelly embrace violence and demand victim status .
It is possible that left pities unsuccessful communities irrespective of whether they were historically privileged, irrespective of self-marginalization, irrespective of their minority/majority status or violence perpetrated by the community. Dalits now have more upward mobility and are more successful than muslims despite Dalits being the most historically underprivileged community in India, left therefore pities muslims more. But of course the pity theory still doesn’t explain many other discrepancies.
“Muslims didn’t succeed because they don’t embrace secular education”
Lord have mercy.
The Ashrafs and Muslim mercantile communities in West India were the most educated and affluent of all Indians. Their wealth was stripped from them when the Europeans arrived, and given to the Hindus.
As for the other 70-80% of Muslims who are drawn from low-caste converts, I wonder why they haven’t advanced while Dalits have (as you point out). Possibly, and I’m just spit-balling here, BEING DENIED ACCESS TO THE RESERVATION SYSTEM might have something to do with it.
The balls it takes to craft the most lucrative affirmative action program in the world, specifically exclude Muslims from it, and then wonder aloud why Muslims aren’t advancing.
The balls it takes to craft the most lucrative affirmative action program in the world, specifically exclude Muslims from it, and then wonder aloud why Muslims aren’t advancing.
Eh, why is this the fault of the state and its affirmative action program and not that of Indian Muslim society as a whole? The reason to convert was presumably so one could be on an equal footing (socially, if not economically) with one’s co-religionists. In Hinduism, some people have always been more equal than others, but Islam’s selling point has been that it is completely egalitarian.
The logic of affirmative action is that socially underprivileged people need to be given separate advantages to overcome their lack of privilege. As Muslims, by definition, claimed that none among them suffered from lack of privileges, they were naturally excluded from the program. If Dalits still remain Dalits once they concert to Islam, I’d put blame squarely on privileged Muslims.
In fact, the BJP has long (at least pre-Modi) advocated for affirmative action to be based on class (income and prosperity levels) rather than caste. This would take care of the problem of Muslim Dalit converts not getting a leg up. It’s also one of the few BJP initiatives I have liked and supported (to the extent I support AA at all).
You are advocating a position nobody holds.
No Muslim has claimed that Islam removes, “any lack of privileges”, simply that it removes some of the horrors of the caste-system (not able to interdine, being considered ritually unclean, can’t participate in religious worship).
In terms of being socioeconomically marginalized, there’s no change. In fact its worse in the modern period under Hindu rule, as if there’s one thing an upper-caste Hindu hates more than a Dalit, its a Dalit who wised up and converted to Islam (as can be seen from this thread).
I’m also not sure what personal religious law has to do with this. There was no deal where Muslim agreed to give up reservation for aspects of personal law (that are now starting to be repealed anyway without promise of reservation). Not sure why this is a big deal, when Hindu personal law is enforced on everyone (ban on cow slaughter), so the least the Muslims should have is their own personal law among themselves.
“The balls it takes to craft the most lucrative affirmative action program in the world, specifically exclude Muslims from it, and then wonder aloud why Muslims aren’t advancing.”
This policy was not the product of Hindutva.
The central government’s reservation system was primarily designed to address caste-based discrimination. Converting to Islam, a religion without caste-based discrimination, is thought by some to resolve that.
In some cases, it does resolve it. In Kerala, for example, there are stories from the colonial period indicating that a low caste Hindu who works for a middle caste Hindu would have equal or greater privileges than their master upon converting to Islam. In other regions, though, conversion seems to have made little difference because (i) Hindus already knew they were low-caste regardless of what religion they now claim to profess and didn’t change their treatment, and (ii) upper-caste Muslims were not as accepting.
It’s a complicated matter. I have no issues with including lower-caste Muslims in the central government’s reservation system, even if conversion to Islam actually addresses caste-based discrimination in some regions. But it wasn’t like Ambedkar and Mandal etc. were trying to design some Hindu supremacist system. It is more related to the question of whether caste exists among Indian Muslims, and that is a complicated matter that seems to vary from region to region. Some Muslims do not want to acknowledge that caste-based discrimination carries over from Hinduism to Islam in some regions of India, and some Hindus that get affirmative action benefits would like to keep more of it for themselves.
“The Ashrafs and Muslim mercantile communities in West India were the most educated and affluent of all Indians. Their wealth was stripped from them when the Europeans arrived, and given to the Hindus.”
It wasn’t stripped off them. They wanted a separate state of their own and they abandoned their wealth for it. In contrast to Hindu and Sikhs of the north west who lost their possessions without ever having wanted to leave. In any case, the wealth of the Ashrafs was primarily rent extracted from land. They didn’t really produce anything useful.
And let’s not forget that there would barely be a Pakistani Punjab without the British and their canal colonies. Be a bit more thankful for your existence.
“The balls it takes to craft the most lucrative affirmative action program in the world, specifically exclude Muslims from it, and then wonder aloud why Muslims aren’t advancing.”
Playing victim is drilled so far up these people’s arses that a Pakistani-origin American feels this obsessive urge to defend the stupid decisions of Indian Muslims. And then makes a mockery doing that.
The affirmative action for Dalits didn’t come up in isolation. It should be seen along with the Hindu code bills that were introduced to codify Hindu law and remove certain practices. These were severely protested by conservative Hindus but were passed nonetheless.
Muslims on the other hand did not want the state meddling in their regressive affairs. Their personal laws were never reformed. So they don’t get the carrots from the state as well.
They should have built engineering schools instead of Madrassas with the sweet Wahabbi money that their autonomy earned them. There’s a reasons Christians are doing better than Muslims (and Hindus) inspite of not having an elite Ashraf layer at top. Or maybe because of that.
One of the reasons Indian Muslims have been left behind is because of characters like indthing who instead of calling for reforms in their own community try to rationalise and play victim. Take some freaking responsibility for once.
(And don’t go ahead and act like dumbfuck by conflating lack of AA with CAA)
Couldnt have said it better.
Prats,
The stripping of Indian Muslim wealth was done during the colonial period, I’m not talking about partition.
The rest of your comment is dumb.
And he already mentioned that this wealth was earned during even earlier colonization by the rent seekers from the masses of the country. So its not such a pity or injustice !
For the rest you can’t come up with logical counter. Maybe that’s why it looks dumb.
@Prats
Why do you guys keep saying Muslims don’t have affirmative action/quotas, what am I missing here? I had a bunch of muslim friends in IIT who got in with OBC(M-muslim) quota.
“Muslims don’t embrace secular education”– clearly the people commenting here have not heard about Sir Syed Ahmed Khan and Muhammadan Anglo Oriental College (now Aligarh Muslim University).
“The Anglo–Indian statesman Sir Syed Ahmad Khan founded the predecessor of Aligarh Muslim University, the Muhammadan Anglo Oriental College, in 1875 having already established two schools. These were part of the movement of Muslim awakening associated with Syed Ahmad Khan which came to be known as Aligarh Movement.[3] He considered competence in English and “Western sciences” necessary skills for maintaining Muslims’ political influence, especially in Northern India. Khan’s image for the college was based on his visit to Oxford and Cambridge and he wanted to establish an education system similar to the British model.[4]”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muhammadan_Anglo-Oriental_College
“clearly the people commenting here have not heard about Sir Syed Ahmed Khan and Muhammadan Anglo Oriental College (now Aligarh Muslim University).”
Ahh yes, Sir Syed… he had some interesting speeches.
“Think for a moment what would be the result if all appointments were given by competitive examination. Over all races, not only over Mahomedans but over Rajas of high position and the brave Rajputs who have not forgotten the swords of their ancestors, would be placed as ruler a Bengali who at sight of a table knife would crawl under his chair. (Uproarious cheers and laughter.) There would remain no part of the country in which we should see at the tables of justice and authority any face except those of Bengalis. I am delighted to see the Bengalis making progress, but the question is — What would be the result on the administration of the country? Do you think that the Rajput and the fiery Pathan, who are not afraid of being hanged or of encountering the swords of the police or the bayonets of the army, could remain in peace under the Bengalis? (Cheers.) This would be the outcome of the proposal if accepted.”
“I am glad that some Pathans of the N.-W. P. [North-West Provinces] and Oudh are here today, and I hope some Hindu Rajputs are also present. My friend Yusuf Shah of the Punjab sits here, and he knows well the mood of mind of the people of the Punjab, of the Sikhs and Musalmans. Suppose that this agitation that has arisen in Bengal — and I imagine that no danger can spring from it there — suppose that this agitation extends to these Provinces, to the Rajputs and Pathans of Peshawar, do you think it will confine itself to writing with the pen — giz, giz, giz, giz, giz [the scratching of a pen] — and to mere talking — buk, buk, buk, buk [babbling]? It will then be necessary for Government to send its army and show by bayonets what the proper remedy for this agitation is. I believe that when Government sees the Mahomedans and other brave races taking part in this stupid agitation, it will be necessary for Government to pass a new law and to fill the jails. O my brothers! Children of my heart! This is your relationship to Government: you should conduct yourself in a straightforward and calm manner; not come together to make a noise and a hubbub like a flock of crows. (Cheers and laughter.)”
http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00islamlinks/txt_sir_sayyid_lucknow_1887.html
Sir Syed was not in favor of the Indian National Congress and can be considered an apologist for the Raj.
However, the example of Muhammadan Anglo-Oriental College clearly disproves the stupid charge that “Muslims don’t embrace secular education”. The entire Aligarh Movement was about embracing modern education in order to retain political power.
“clearly the people commenting here have not heard about Sir Syed Ahmed Khan and Muhammadan Anglo Oriental College (now Aligarh Muslim University).”
A couple of decent colleges don’t really help when your population numbers around 200 million. Build more.
I’m all for building more universities.
The example of MAO College was given to prove that “Muslims don’t value secular education” is a stupid comment. The founders of the Aligarh Movement clearly recognized the importance of modern education for Indian Muslims.
Also Osmania, Jamia Millia, and many regionally known examples like Al-Ameen educational society in bangalore. One could also add Azim Premji University, if its just about the social background of the founder.
“Also Osmania, Jamia Millia, and many regionally known examples like Al-Ameen educational society in bangalore.”
Again, not enough. Compare this to the number of Christian institutions named after saints.
Also, these are mainly higher education institutions that cater to a very small percentage of the population. A large bulk of Muslim kids go to Madrasas where the focus is primarily on an Islamic education and they are often not even taught basic maths and science.
This is the main the complaint when people accuse Muslims of ignoring ‘secular’ education.
INDTHINGS – Can you cite evidence for the following assertion ?
“The Ashrafs and Muslim mercantile communities in West India were the most educated and affluent of all Indians. Their wealth was stripped from them when the Europeans arrived, and given to the Hindus.”
This smacks of victimhood to me and part of the mythology that underlies the mythology of Pakistan.
Bottom line is the British came down hard on whichever community put up resistance to their rule and rewarded those who acquiesced to British rule. This was regardless of religion, caste, language, or race.
Many muslim mercantile communities – Khojas, Bohra for example – advanced economically even during the British rule. They embraced education in English and continued to leverage their historic trade connections to the Middle East and South East Asia.
The Ashrafs – of United Provinces and Bihar – lost out because they could not get over the fact that the time of Islamic domination of South Asia was over. They led the struggle for Pakistan, supposedly a project for protecting the interests of Muslims in South Asia. But the moment of Ashraf dominance had passed. Local elites of West Pakistan – Punjab in particular – asserted power purely by virtue of sheer numbers. East Pakistani elites shrugged off domination by West Pakistanis who treated them as lesser partners in the Pakistan project.
Pakistan really needs to acknowledge the mythology of its founding.
Indian Muslims esp in the north were the losers in the two nation theory and the creation of Pakistan. The better educated and wealthy of the Muslims in the UP/Bihar left for Pakistan leaving their less fortunate brethren, who have become demoralized and in suspicion of the rest of the society. Only about 5% of the UP/Bihar Muslims migrated to Pakistan even though the Pakistan movement was born among them and they were supposed to be it’s beneficiaries
The leftists in India are far more to the left that the leftists in the US economically, politically and socially. What is the left in the US is probably the center in India
Economic- Unfortunately the entire Indian political is left shifted economically. The only good news is the shrinking footprint of the Communist parties everywhere except Kerala and JNU. However, even the congress is opposing disinvestment by the government claiming that it is like selling family silver. I don’t understand why there isn’t more consensus on selling PSUs. In contrast even the likes of socialist Bernie has only promised Medicare for all
Political – In the US, the left seems to be invested more in the country’s continuance,its exceptionalism etc. there is no tukde-tukde equivalent sentiment among the coastal liberal elites.
Social – Left in India seems to lack originality and are blindly applying White guilt framework to India without the equivalent of the genocide of the native Americans, slavery and larger European colonization project.
All in all, Nehruvian Fabian socialism is the worst thing that happened to India. The povertarian mindset will never allow us to succeed. I think the left is losing space because of its political and social views, but the collateral benefit is that the discourse on their povertarian economic ideas will also be limited.
The leftists in India are far more to the left that the leftists in the US economically, politically and socially. What is the left in the US is probably the center in India
this is stupid. made me laugh out loud. didn’t read the rest of the comment.
Razib and SouthIndian, how do you define socially left?
In this context, I’m referring to how the left shames individuals for being a part of a religion. I think the left in India forces Hindus to be apologetic about being hindus and no atrocities against hindus are recognized. On the other hand, they apply the White guilt framework to Hindus, when Hindus have not been responsible for any genocide but have been subject to genocide as recently as 1971 when a majority of the 3 million people killed by the Pakistani army were Bengali hindus. It is not like Hindus were in any position of strength for the past 800 years. They have been forced to be apologetic about their religion for this entire period. They were attacked for their polytheism and idol worship, their temples were destroyed, forced to pay pilgrimage tax, jizya etc. All this is whitewashed by the left. Hindus of course acknowledge the evils of caste system and have a reservation system to overcome these problems. There is a systematic attempt to belittle even harmless festivals or practices. Overall the flak that Hindus get is not warranted by history.
Yeah, Indian leftists are to the left of American leftists only in economic terms. They are communists at heart, believing in the state controlling all means of production and in abolition of private enterprise (I may be exaggerating a bit here.) But politically, they are quite nationalist (like Bernie used to be) and socially quite conservative, so the OP is way off the mark here.
The communists supported the creation of Pakistan in 1947. Even today, the left hails the Tukde gang. The Azadi slogans hark back to Kashmir. The joining of forces of Islamists and the left is clear in the anti-CAA protests, though there were occasional differences between these groups. Even JNU students demand azadi for various states. Which leftist in the US demands that USA be split up or demands independence for some states?
The congress under Sonia-Rahul is not nationalistic. RG’s visit to JNU after the Tukde episode and meeting the Chinese during Doklam dented his image. Would Bernie visit a university after there have been rallies where there is a demand for the USA to be be split up? However, Indira Gandhi is a different matter. Though her economic policies were disastrous (bank nationalisation, tighter license raj etc), she was firmly to the right when it came to nationalism.
You are right about the hardcore communists. But even they have had factions, no? I thought the CPI was the China-supporting party and the CPM the “patriotic” party (but do correct me if I’m wrong.) In any case, I was talking broadly about the Indian left, which includes big chunks of the Congress and regional parties, and not just about the hardcore communists (among whom figured Soviet and Chinese stooges for sure.)
What’s a “patriotic” communist? Is it like “Hindu” communist?
The “patriotic” party only difference with the non-patriotic one, during the China war, was that they only criticized India, rather than going off full gung-ho supporting China.
I guess we should be grateful for such small mercies
Happy Holi, everyone 🙂
Do take precautions against Corona.
Don’t worry! Fling color at people and then fling cow dung on them immediately after. All will be cured.
Happy Holi everyone.
Aditya Jyotiraditya!!!!
“The communists supported the creation of Pakistan in 1947.”
One of the things which the commies did with the Indian textbooks is to whitewash their earlier antecedents like this ones. Couple of other instances
1. Lot of talk on how the RSS opposed the Constitution, but what has been whitewashed that in 50s the communist party ( the parliamentary ones) declared war on India.
2. In Indo-China war, the party vacillated b/w supporting China and criticizing India. This is when the war was still on.
Of course neither incident along with their tactic support to Indira’s emergency finds mention in textbooks or in liberal intelgenisa.
What are the economic reforms that India needs to undertake. Request your suggestions/ comments/priorities etc. List follows:
1) Increase judicial capacity for better enforcement of contracts
2) Labor reforms ( though currently there are contract provisions that offer some flexibility, more flexibility is needed for full time)
3) Land reforms ( repeal UPA era Land acquisition bill)
4) Create a bad bank for the NPA mess?
5) Improve sea port infrastructure and logistics to reach ports; General infra
6) Privatisation of general companies( BPCL, AirIndia etc approved as of now)
7) Privatisation of some PSU banks
8) Railway privatization ( there are some baby steps taken here)
9) Better vocational training for mass manufacturing
10) Administrative reform of bureaucracy
11) Reduce tax harassment ( poor job by Govt here)
12) Improve school quality( will voucher system work in India?) and reform RTE
13) Scale up voucher system of Ayushman Bharat for health
14) Replace farm loan waivers with direct transfers of money through JAM trinity
15) Agricultural reform ( how to transition from APMC system?) and tax agri income
CARONA GO!!
https://www.ndtv.com/india-news/watch-union-minister-chants-go-corona-at-prayer-meet-in-mumbai-2192898
Watch: Union Minister Chants “Go Corona” At Prayer Meet In Mumbai
The video was reportedly shot at Gateway of India on February 20 during a prayer session to stop the spread of the coronavirus in China.
Modi has done wonders for India’s international reputation.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qVIXUhZ2AWs
Tweet from Mike Huckabee
https://twitter.com/Rohaan49/status/1238071269364383749/photo/1