I have a bunch of samples of people who say their four grandparents were born in India from DTC companies. I plotted them on 1000 Genomes with a focus on India. No Southern Dalits in the same for sure.
I have a bunch of samples of people who say their four grandparents were born in India from DTC companies. I plotted them on 1000 Genomes with a focus on India. No Southern Dalits in the same for sure.
How can Sindhis have no west asian or central asian ancestry? They were attacked the most from Scythians to Arab Bin Qasim
Also a good percentage of Sindh is ethnic Baloch people. Pashtuns are not too far off with their samples with Sindhis or Kashmiris
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-12-12/modi-needs-to-fix-india-s-farm-crisis-or-risk-post-covid-recovery
“ Modi Needs One More Farm Law to End Crisis”
Here we can’t implement the laws we already passed recently , but our Indian “economist” want to pass one more farm law.
Craven is too weak a word to describe them.
Preference for higher Steppe:AASI ratio phenotype strikes again ??♂️
https://twitter.com/sagarikaghose/status/1335519834436603905
Politically correct notions of beauty are less prevalent in the Delhi elite than in the Deccan ones.
I remember being at a standup comedy open mic 2-3 years ago where a comedian shut down a heckler by saying
“Tu to shakl se hi SC/ST dikhta hai.”
And then the entire room laughed.
The comedian himself was quite self-deprecating by admitting that his mediocre looks were on account of him being an OBC from Shahdara.
Prats, interesting anecdote. My experience is that in the south, being dark skinned is not something people are too sensitive about, it doesn’t demote you in status, but its considered fair game to crack a joke at. If a guy revealed pride in having a fair complexion, it would seem comical. There’s also an inverse association with fair skin and masculinity, unlike the sense i get from the north. As a male, being fair is associated as cute or handsome but not as rugged or valorous. Among punjabis i’ve seen the opposite, with dark skin being associated with inferiority and less robustness.
“My experience is that in the south, being dark skinned is not something people are too sensitive about, it doesn’t demote you in status, but its considered fair game to crack a joke at. If a guy revealed pride in having a fair complexion, it would seem comical.”
This is largely true IMO at least among men.
Among women, I have sometimes seen them show pride in looking north Indian. Also had a couple of cases where the women were specifically interested in me because of my lighter-than-average-south-Indian colour. That was a bit creepy 😛
That said, south Indian women brought up in larger cities or Anglophone environments seem much more confident about looks than their north Indian counterparts.
(All views based on my limited experience living in Bangalore and travelling around it)
I travel back to Bangalore from time to time. To me each time I visit, I feel it has become a bit more North Indian. Even the South Indians there seem awashed with all thing North Indian from culture to music etc.
Last time I was there I was in a bar full of virat kholi look alikes.
such a moronic statement
And much rich too coming from people who claim to be vanguards of affirmative action
https://theprint.in/national-interest/fallacy-of-too-much-democracy-no-economic-freedoms-can-thrive-without-political-freedoms/565302/
“ Almost two decades ago, I found myself caught in this debate in an Asia Society conference in New Delhi, where I was on a panel with the voluble Ronnie Chan, the formidable real estate and philanthropist ‘tai-pan’ from Hong Kong and owner of Hang Lung Group. He was then investing big time in China, especially in Shanghai’s redevelopment. The audience asked when he would bring his investments into India.
Ronnie was forthright: I won’t bring any investment here, because you are too much of a democracy. If you were less so, I might“
The Boston Tea Party’s Warning for Facebook and Google
The revival of a longstanding antimonopoly tradition in the U.S. is bad news for Big Tech.
Most Americans know a little bit about the Boston Tea Party in 1773. But a key part of the story is often left out: They dumped the tea overboard because they viewed the East India Company as an illegitimate monopoly. Under the terms of the so-called “Tea Act” passed by Parliament, they had no choice but to buy their tea from a company chosen by the government.
https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2020-12-12/the-boston-tea-party-s-warning-for-facebook-and-google
[Copying this over since the Open Thread action has moved here]
Razib/Omar:
Please get Joseph Noony (Mallu Christian background Indian/Indic nationalist medico, polymath, amateur historian) on your podcast
https://twitter.com/JoeAgneya/status/926767651984105473
All:
What is the endgame / endpoint here with random Western elected reps openly interfering in Indian domestic politics and/or supporting separatism in Kashmir/Punjab? Understand that these comments are throwaways intended to appease domestic constituencies but ultimately if there is constant chatter of this kind, it could result in more pressure on India. The Modi government is both bad at communication and also pursuing the scorn-them-ignore-them strategy but I’m not sure it is optimal (even if it may be working in some ways) and think there is a course correction needed on this front. It is possible to both follow your agenda and smooth talk / communicate / lightly pander to the West without really give up anything.
Finally,
Does anyone know what happened to Frankbullit37 on Twitter? I have seen several of these Indoright accounts disappear (or go private) in wake of the Biden victory. Danger from wokes allied with Islamofascists is real for anyone on the right but we need these alternate, courageous right voices to balance out leftist/Islamist bullshit.
[Copying this over as the Open Thread action has moved here]
What is the strategy of the Sikh community wrt their interests in India? It seems the most vocal parts of the community are forever needling Hindus and making everything about Sikhi/Sikhs vs. Hindus from state rights to farmer bills AND the silent majority is keeping totally quiet. There is open alignment with leftists/Islamists in India and Pakslamists in the West and it seems the hard Sikh right doesn’t fear any consequences (economic or social) due to this. What is their endgame? Doesn’t look like they have really thought this out and seem to be riding on a (false) superiority complex fed by past Hindu deference, religio-supremacism and their short-lived empire (which btw was overshadowed in duration/extent/influence by Marathas by a long shot).
What should be the Indian right wing response? My thoughts:
a) Stop the Dharmic family talk which only feeds Sikh insecurity. Keep Jains and Buddhists in the Dharmic family, let Sikhs go their own way
b) Cultivate moderate and/or Sanatani Sikhs but in more hands-off way. Work on soft power/messaging/good cops – learn PR tactics from the Sikhs (and dare I say Islamists to some extent)
c) Stop pandering to their ego. No talk about sword-arm (lol) etc. Also teach the history of / make movies about Hindu warriors/leaders/conquerors of the past. Sikhs have got this false sense of exceptionalism and that balloon needs to be punctured
d) Build an alliance of Hindus (incl Dalits)+ upper case Sikhs (Khatris) and lower caste Sikhs (e.g. Mazhabi, Dalits, Ramgarhia etc) in Punjab. BJP has built such alliances everywhere including in Haryana and this should be totally doable in Punjab as well .Leave the middling caste Jatts to their own device to wallow in their superiority complex.
e) Slowly whittle away at special privileges granted to Punjabis (no more 2/3rd wheat procurement from Punjab when they only account for 20% of national production)
What else?
“the silent majority is keeping totally quiet”
The BJP should have gone alone in the last assembly polls, I think a lot of Khatri and Mazhabi Sikhs would have voted for them along with the Hindus. This would have indicated to the hard-right Sikhs how isolated they are.
Vikram:
That’s what they will (have to) do in 2022 which is a good 2+ years away giving BJP enough time to try and build this coalition. It will be interesting to see how the Farmer protests play out eventually in the Punjab political equation.
Prats: One big difference with IAC is that these protests are really not widespread and are restricted to Punjab and Haryana. IAC was a much bigger mass movement cutting across age groups, class/caste and region. Also, as you pointed out, there is no one like the BJP/RSS to capitalize on these protests. Finally elections are 4 years away and these protests will fizzle out (with some sort of a compromise) long before then.
But my question was really about the endgame of Sikh identarian politics and its equation vis-à-vis Hindu nationalist politics in India. I am seeing antagonism and insecurity, and no accommodation from the Sikh hard right.
>> That’s what they will (have to) do in 2022 which is a good 2+ years away giving BJP enough time to try and build this coalition.
BJP is already giving subtle signs about this – https://twitter.com/BJP4Punjab/status/1336190564711104512
They should just declare a Mazhabi Sikh (or other Dalit Sikh) as CM candidate and give enough Vidhan Sabha tickets to all the other Sikh castes. There might be a pre-poll (or post-poll) alliance between Akali Dal and Congress, but this would be like Haryana last time around.
Lurker:
I agree with you 100%. What’s going in Punjab and especially amongst the Jatt Sikhs there, from my perspective, is what’s happened to the white people of America’s Rust Belt states: They’ve seen a long-term economic decline, a long-term decline in their prestige, and they don’t see things getting better any time soon. So they have White Anxiety and AANI Anxiety. ?
The way I remember it, the economy of Punjab since the inception of Inida, was always very good. According to this article in Wiki, they had the highest per capita GDP in ’81
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Punjab,_India#Green_Revolution_period_(1947%E2%80%931991)
Even in the late ’90s, I remember that their economy was still flourishing.
I believe that they got really complacent over the years, and allowed their boys to do whatever the hell that they wanted to do. These guys out numbered the girls by around 1.20:1.00, which is a demographic and social disaster waiting to happen. Moreover, they have a culture that’s resorted to hard drugs like opium, and we all know that Jatt songs glorify over-drinking and alcoholism.
I always had the feeling that the Indian government always seemed to appease the Sikhs. All my Sikh American friends prior to ’03 complained that India’s never had a Sikh PM. Keep in mind that Sikhs are only 2% of the population in India. However, India’s had a Sikh PM, and he did a stellar job, but still, Sikhs seem to act all victimized once again.
I know Jatt Sikhs from Fresno, California, the UK, and some from Canada. Many of these people, even the ones born in California, UK, or Canada, support Khalistan. I was at a Gurudwara in Fresno area around 2002, and one guy was handing out flyers for a Khalistan. The bullet points were mostly wrong, as was his knowledge base on India (he said that all the PMs were from UP, and I asked him about Indira Gandhi).
I don’t understand anything about these protests, but I get the feeling that it involves Jatt Sikhs complaining and acting like victims. Hopefully this won’t be the start of a new Khalistani Movement.
https://scroll.in/article/980979/interview-manan-asif-ahmed-on-the-loss-of-hindustan-and-how-colonialism-altered-our-past
” The whole of the book is about misconceptions, so this question is a bit harder, but I’d still like to ask: What is the one misconception that you find yourself having to correct all the time?
I think it is one thing that I’ve made a part of both books, which is this idea of Muslim presence in the subcontinent being perceived as [that of] outsiders.
In both India and in Pakistan. In India, because of the Hindutva [project]. In Pakistan, they say, we are descended from Arabs, and have nothing to do with the subcontinent.
So this idea of outsiderness, both in Pakistan and India. How does it work? You see disciplinary scholarship, studies that are wedded to this analytical framework.”
The current protests are reminding me more and more of India Against Corruption (IAC).
It eventually resulted in a BJP victory. Wonder who this will benefit.
IMO a likely endgame I see irrespective of whether the laws are repealed or not is some sort of a Farmer’s Party emerging that will split the votes in Punjab and nearby regions without itself winning much. Might also help the left parties win back some seats around the country.
Don’t see Congress making a BJP like come back any time soon as long as RaGa is in charge. This would be a good time for an ambitious politician to lead an insurrection within the party and capitalise on this opportunity.
(Must be noted that before Modi was elevated as the PM candidate ~ 2013, the BJP was in complete doldrums with a way past his prime Advani at the helm)
https://thediplomat.com/2020/12/indian-scientists-work-could-help-fight-environmental-challenges-in-south-asia/
Indian Scientist’s Work Could Help Fight Environmental Challenges in South Asia
@Razib How much steppe and AASI do Kerala brahmins and upper caste have?
On Peshawar in the Financial Times by William Dalrymple.
https://www.ft.com/content/9d2a82bc-d91f-427e-b99b-eaadd1ddb96
Ancient treasures in Pakistan
WILLIAM DALRYMPLE
My most thrilling journey this year was a rediscovery rather than an encounter with something new. In late February, just before lockdown, I returned to one of my favourite cities in the world, Peshawar, just below the Khyber Pass in Pakistan.
It was a regular hang-out of mine as a young foreign correspondent in the late ’80s, but after 9/11 it suddenly became an unstable and dangerous place: first the Sufi Shrine of Rahman Baba was attacked and shortly afterwards the best hotel, the Pearl Continental, was bombed and almost destroyed. Other bombings followed, including a tragic attack on an infant school.
Today, all that seems to be long forgotten. The city feels safe again, its shrines, courtyard houses and monuments — Buddhist, Hindu and Mughal — are undergoing restoration, and its magnificent museum, which contains some of the very greatest Indo-Hellenic Gandharan sculptures to survive from the ancient world, has been given a spectacular facelift. Today, rather astonishingly, the Peshawar Museum is arguably the best kept, best displayed, best lit and best labelled museum of the art of early south Asia anywhere in the subcontinent.
Room after room is filled with spectacular black-schist figures, standing, meditating, preaching or fasting
Almost as remarkable is the small site museum at Taxila, originally built by Sir John Marshall in the 1920s, which lies between Peshawar and Islamabad. This holds finds from one of the world’s first university cities where Alexander the Great questioned naked sadhu-philosophers and Panini wrote his celebrated Sanskrit grammar.
Both museums contain remarkable new discoveries excavated in the past decade: Peshawar has a range of large-scale images from the stupa gateways of a newly dug Buddhist monastic site, Zar Dheri, while Taxila has on display finds from the monastery of Bhamala, a few miles to the west, high above the waters of the Khanpur Lake. Here archaeologists have recently found fragments of the earliest known reclining Buddha, a massive 48 feet long, carved in the 3rd century AD.
Over one entire wall of the Taxila museum are gold coins, minted during the reigns of rulers with names such as Pantaleon, King of North India, Demetrius “Dharmamita” and Menander of Kabul. The coins hint at the hybrid world these kings inhabited. They brought east and west together at a time when the British, the only other Europeans who succeeded in ruling this area, were still running through the fog dressed in bear skins.
The coins of Heliochles of Balkh were typical: they showed a Roman profile on one side — large nose, imperial arrogance in the eyes — but on the reverse Heliochles chose as his symbol a humped Indian Brahmini bull. In the next cabinet you can see one of the oldest images of the god Shiva, on the reverse of the gold coin of the Kushan King, Vima Kadphises, who ruled this area from 85-120 AD.
The image is closely based on classical Greek images of Herakles and Poseidon, raising the interesting question if that is the ultimate source of Lord Shiva’s trident/trishul, or whether the image travelled in the opposite direction.
But most striking of all are the Gandharan sculptures in Peshawar, showing the Buddha and the Bodhisattvas. Room after room is filled with spectacular black-schist figures, standing, meditating, preaching or fasting. The physique is magnificent: muscles ripple beneath the diaphanous folds of the Buddha’s toga. The saviour sits with half-closed eyes and legs folded in a position of languid relaxation. His hair is oiled and groomed into a beehive topknot; his high, unfurrowed forehead is punctuated with a round urna mark. His face is full and round; the nose small and straight; and the lips firm and proud.
It is only when you have stared at these Hellenised Indic figures for several minutes that you realise what is so surprising about the Gandharan version of the Buddha: it is its masterful self-confidence. This is the Buddha as he was in life: a prince. And soon you realise where you have seen that haughty expression before: outside in the bazaar. For the Pashtuns meet your gaze. Hawk-eyed and eagle, their poise directly reflects that of the Bactrian Greeks who sculpted these images in Peshawar nearly two millennia ago.
Dalit men kill a Jat man because his brother married a Dalit woman in Haryana….
https://scroll.in/latest/883918/haryana-23-year-old-man-from-jat-community-killed-allegedly-over-brothers-inter-caste-marriage
How common is this where the oppressed caste groups are opposed to the dominant/ upper caste people marrying into their community?
Razib, which is that lonesome relatively Dai shifted sample?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_HVzpsEu7s The argument of this person has been considered here on brown pundits. So, good job everyone. The argument being Hindutva is radical, it is egalitarian in its views of hindus.
Folks here seem to have more trust in BJP in Punjab politics than BJP itself, LOL.
BJP has lost Punjab (whatever was left of it) for the foreseeable future and made their peace with it. The only question that remains is if they can retain Haryana, since its on razor edge, and BJP is not an organic Haryanvi party.
Indian success in turning around local cell phone manufacturing and becoming a net exporter as of 2020 is unheralded. Makes me think import substitution can work as a development strategy for India and help it move up the value chain.
Still there are issues, for eg the recent riots at the iPhone factory.
https://www.scmp.com/news/asia/south-asia/article/3113783/hundreds-riot-iphone-factory-india-over-exploitation-claims
https://twitter.com/dhume/status/1338324792315961346?s=21
“ If India had an economically center-right party that stoutly defended human rights many educated people of all faiths (and none) would sign up for it. Right now Muslims and Christians have no good choices. Can’t blame them for preferring leftists to angry medieval grudge-holders. “
For Indians “economist” and commentators, any reform done by the bjp is not reform enough. Any amount of fiscal discipline shown is not center right enough.
There is a real world and then there is Indian “economist” world
https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/delhi-farmer-protest-china-agriculture-economy-7103907/lite/
ExplainSpeaking: How did China go about reforming its agriculture and reducing poverty
What is your preference, Right-Wing Women or Left-Wing Women?
My question to Razib or anyone else who can answer.
Was there any West Eurasian ancestry in South India before the IVC collapse or was it uninhabited and populated by migrants from IVC?
@Jezza
The south of India has been populated from the paleolithic period (400-200kya). There is no question of it being un-inhabited . Hominins exhibiting thumb skills (stone weapons) were present in India since a very long time predating the supposed Out of Africa migration.
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/news/2018/01/india-stone-tools-human-evolution-archaeology-science/
The Indian paleoclimate supported by faunal and water resources has supported hominin existence deep into the mists of time.
Thank you for your answer, Ugra.
Ok, my chance to contribute in some way after eons lol
Yes Ugra we do know that the South of india has been inhabited since the palaeolithic, but the dates you mentioned are off, to put it mildly. The cosmogenic dating of tools from the site of Attirampakkam in TN by Dr. Pappu confirms an existence of an Acheulean industry (a stone tool-making culture, origins in East African rift valley, earliest evidence ~1.76 Ma) since atleast 1.07 Ma (there’s a bit of pluranimity regarding the latter, as its not an absolute date, the upper limit is of around 1.7 Ma, and the average actually comes out to be ~1.5Ma, so any Early pleistocene antiquity assuredly; the same site has also yielded evidence for the existence of a Middle Palaeolithic culture too, which are one of the oldest dates as such in the Old world, dated to around ~385Ka), so a lot earlier.
We also have dates from Dr. Paddayya’s site in the Hunsgi valley, Isampur, with dates of around ~1.2Ma, so again, an Early Pleistocene existence.
Who were these “people”(non-H.sapiens hominins)? We do not know! Only lithic assemblages have been recuperated as palaeoanthropological evidence until yet, which points to the probable presence of H. erectus. We need atleast some vertebrate fossil evidence to confirm, or disconfirm that.
“Hominins exhibiting thumb skills (stone weapons)”
They weren’t stone weapons at all Ugra, but rather tools, utilised to assist in daily chores, like butchering, or cutting etc. Think of handaxes, cleavers, etc.
“since a very long time predating the supposed Out of Africa migration.”
You sure about that? bcoz that isn’t the what the likes of Dr. Robin Dennell, Dr. Parth Chauhan or Dr. Ceri Shipton believe, or simply put, not a consensus view. The Out of Africa dispersal is not a single migration that happened only in the Upper Palaeolithic (as you seem to think), or at around ~50ka, when the AMHS, or our species, entered South Asia. There probably happened another dispersal/migration at around 1.5-1.7 Ma also, as can be postulated from current evidence, of populations that brought along with themselves the Acheulean culture, and is the implication of the “Out of Africa I” model. So the populations you talk about were themselves derivatives of a much earlier migration. There definitely are contrarian opinions too, like Dr. Sheila Mishra(an ex-professor at my department) has rebelliously opined a disparate and autochthonous origin of Late Pliocene/Early Pleistocene) populations in South Asia itself, so a case of genetic evolution of the Acheulean culture in India, or maybe of convergent evolution, as Gonen Sharon(an Israeli palaeoanthropologist) asserts, rather than the cumulative cultural transmission one, which is implied by the Out of Africa I. The paucity of evidence is one serious issue, hope we can work on resolving it in near future by coming up with new finds, fingers crossed:)
“The Indian paleoclimate supported by faunal and water resources has supported hominin existence deep into the mists of time.”
Yes I absolutely affirm that. The upliftment of the Tibetan Plateau during the Pliocene set the foundations for the South Asian monsoon, which has its origins at ~6-7 Ma, and the seasonality aspect of the climate in the region meant a conducive palaeoenvironment for vertebrate fauna and hominins to flourish.
Ironically ugra, even though it might seem that I vouch for the validity of the Out of Africa I model here, the essay I’ve been working on since a while now is titled “Plio-Pliostecene hominin dispersals: Problems with the Out of Africa I model” LoL
Seems like folks who today live in and around IVC sites are far less interested, then folks who live thousands of miles away from it.
Very strange.
The more history one uncovers the more new narratives come into play. 18th century Indians barely knew about the Mauryan empire. Today the Lion capital is the emblem of the republic.
If we have a revolution in 2100 and a new state emerges, I wouldn’t be surprised if they have the Harappan dancing girl as the emblem.
V Unlikely.
Most of IVC, Harrapan motifs are taken up by Hindu-nationalism. Very difficult to reclaim it back, akin to reclaim Ram from Hindutva. Either that or u want to leave a back door open for Hindtuva AFTER the revolution. The 1940s Nehruvian claiming of Mauryas/Ashoka was a different matter, since Congress still had Hindu legitimacy.
The symbol would either be Ram or hammer-sickle. 😛
Razib, see if you can get Aadil Brar for a podcast: https://twitter.com/aadilbrar
He’s familiar with Mandarin and monitors stuff happening in China, including on many of the online Chinese forums. He also recently covered the Sikh protests on the farm bills from Canada.
https://journals.openedition.org/samaj/6636
“Hindutva’s Dangerous Rewriting of History”
Truschke Tai
>>> From the above link:
“Hindutva Tactics
What Hindutva ideologues lack in historical grounding, they compensate for in hateful and sometimes inchoate screaming, both literal and metaphorical. Hindutva followers often self-identify as an “army” or, to use other martial terms, are ruthless against those they perceive as enemies. They disseminate bad-faith ideas and perpetrate odious attacks in many venues, including WhatsApp, propaganda websites, email chains, and so forth. The most visible arena that Hindu nationalists treat as a battleground is social media, where they smear, dox, and threaten people with great regularity. Christophe Jaffrelot has pointed out that social media has empowered Hindutva advocates to “disseminate this ideology anonymously, and therefore more aggressively” (Anderson and Jaffrelot 2018:473). Others have reconstructed how the BJP maintains and gives targeted orders to its troll army (Chaturvedi 2016). As someone who has been the target of a coordinated Hindu Right attack, it is both unmistakable and distressing. For many scholars, the fear that this might one day happen to them provides enough incentive to keep their historical arguments squarely within academic publications, which few people read, rather than trying to speak to broader popular audiences.”
>>> Just to add to the previous >>> “stalking fulmo-s (full morons)… “
So, what do we have here?
@Milan Todorovic and Audrey Truchke’s *white man’s burden* to teach the *correct* history to heathens. Just as Truchke asserts that Hindus must have revelled in joy — while getting genocided or ethnically cleansed, slaved, and paying jaziya, for the crime of simply existing, by fundamentalist muslim emperors — Serbians too must have reached the high heavens during the divine Ottoman rule. Every day they pine for the return of the righteous rule of Turkey/Ottomans. I dare @Milan Todorovic to apply Truchke’s thesis to Serbia that he holds so dear. If he doesn’t, then he is a Christian fundamentalist masquerading as a Serbian nationalist.
In conclusion, there is no end to mudslinging. If @Milan Todorovic does not like being fact checked, then he should not post conjectures, tenuous historical assertions, and outright lies.
i’ve posted the tim mackintosh-smith interview https://www.patreon.com/razibkhan
the 2 episode interview will be posted this week
https://denverite.com/2020/12/13/denvers-indian-community-rallies-in-solidarity-with-250-million-protesters-a-hemisphere-away/
Man, the shear passion of these Khalistanis is something. The ethnonationalism runs quite deep. Of course the troll proportions on here also support that notion. Just shocking to see how committed they are.
Stay strong Modi. Reasonable people are with you. They won’t have the same bombast. But their numbers are greater.
https://twitter.com/cmkshama/status/1338295340496130049?s=21
“ Tomorrow, the Seattle City Council will vote on a resolution I’m co-sponsoring with CM Mosqueda. in support of millions of farmers in India, protesting against new privatization & exploitation laws by the Hindu fundamentalist & reactionary establishment regime of Modi & the BJP. “
The coalition of less/non Hindu people is taking shape
What is the Khalistani angle here?
Khalistan would be a landlocked theocracy without access to the funds from the rest of the country.
How would it subsidize Khalistani farmers?
Farmers don’t even pay income taxes in India on agricultural income.
The reality is India as a whole needs to transition away from agriculture based employment.
When I was a kid, I remember Lalu had organized a Lathi rally wherein lakhs of people came on to the streets of Patna waiving lathis (wooden sticks) after covering themselves in oil.
It was a big deal back then.
The rally was ostensibly against ‘America’. I don’t think it made even the slightest dent to American
These resolutions have a similar energy to them.
https://en.gaonconnection.com/why-are-the-dalit-landless-farm-labourers-of-punjab-protesting-the-new-agri-laws/
Why are the Dalit landless farm labourers of Punjab protesting the new agri laws?
https://twitter.com/pti_news/status/1338553142619729922?s=21
“ Former UP CM Akhilesh Yadav says Lord Ram belongs to Samajwadi Party and he would soon visit Ayodhya with his family members to worship the deity. “
More Hindu-space ☝️
We bend the opposition to our will.
when we were in college, tata and birla were villains. the irony is that yesterday ratan tata was on stage with pm for a mega govt project his company won. ten years down the line ambani will be bharath ratna!!!
and now tata is buying air india.
https://swarajyamag.com/defence/1971-war-how-a-photograph-and-a-bbc-report-hastened-pakistans-surrender
1971 War: How A Photograph And A BBC Report Hastened Pakistan’s Surrender
Are Pakistanis going to rebuild Takshashila university and teach Sanskrit to students?
https://twitter.com/mqakhokhar/status/1338131075822878721?s=20
At least this guy seems to have realized that they are not Arabs
No, it’s just trying to go on the offensive and create a new narrative. Therefore, the mention of the word ”ancient Pakistan”. These lands are now called Pakistan thus the history is referring to that name, and changing it from the word ‘India’.
Most Pakistanis are uninterested in learning about Sanskrit or visiting Buddhist sites in the country, these are just aimed at foreigners and the world in general to promote a soft image and tourism in general.
I remember once the TV show Flash showed a character introduction as hailing from “Indus Valley, India”, and some Pak folks losing their shit on twitter.
Pakistanis also hate to mention how all of modern day Gujarat, Haryana,and Western UP were in indus valley and while the biggest sites are in what is now Pak, a ton of sites, including major ones, ars in modern day India.
Modi is more Indus than the more heavily steppe influenced leaders of Pak.
Indus does not flow in Gujrat or Haryana, and despite modern Sindhis being the closest group to IVC, genetic inheritance is completely useless marker here. Modern nation states like Pakistan and India are not based on genes or race, just land.
I find this extreme Indian fascination with IVC fascinating in itself. Why care so much about some runes from 4000 years ago that’s mostly in another country?
Correction: Indians who inhabit the Indus regions don’t have any fascination for IVC. Indians who don’t live or hail from those Indus regions have this fascination for IVC.
If someone in that region didn’t know English, they would not even know the word India. They would call their homeland Sindh, or Pakistan, and the river that feeds them would be called ‘dariya e Sindh’.
So technically, India is just an English corruption of the word Sindh.
Names are only relevant in the context they are being used. In a modern context, India has nothing to do with Sindh, because its part of Pakistan. This is why, the change in narrative is in process now to keep the rest of the world up to date.
Look at the map of the civilization. The borders extend to the east and west of the river. Jeez. Also modern sindhis have too much steppe. Modern day patels reddys kammas with little steppe mostly ivc and aasi are closest. Don’t peddle false facts.
Lothal, major port is in Gujarat and part of IVC. Raghikari is a Haryana site. Please do some reading before uttering false stuff, unless you know the truth but want to push a narrative aka pull an Araingang
Once again, you bring ‘genetics’ and race into the discussion while telling everyone how you are against racialism.. its always you trying to draw some racial link with the past.
Ignoring the genetic discussions aside, you have not answered my question:
1) Why so much fascination with IVC? It’s mostly in another country. Even the sites you mention have very little to do with Indian heartland.
2) What is the relevance of IVC today, 4000 years after? On this account, I blame the Pak nationalists too, but they at least do it in response to the Indians claiming the land’s history. Why are Indians so obsessed about claiming it?
That’s the thing, the narrative is being changed now that it’s been 70 years since formation of Pakistan.
It is patently wrong to claim that IVC existed only around Indus river. Remember IVC is a name that modern people have used.
Look up the number of IVC sites in India:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Indus_Valley_Civilisation_sites
Many cultural aspects of IVC continue in present day Hinduism. Show me one symbol of this cultural continuation in Pakistan.
If you want claim IVC, Chankya, Taskshashila, better start by incorporating some cultural aspects. Otherwise its just that a mound of mud that exists in some place. Which is what it is fo majority in Pakistan.
In fact present day Pakistanis are proud of the very invaders who burned down Takshashila
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/vinay-sitapati-on-political-history-bjp-before-modi/id1453878698
A question to all who can answer: does the Yamuna-Sutlej canal give good sea access to Punjab? If not, are there any benefits to Punjab in getting the canal completed?
Yesterday was 16th Dec. Winning of Bangladesh war.
https://twitter.com/_GhulamMustafa_/status/1339245619848810501
“14 Aug 1947-16 Dec 1971. Brahmin Zionists led by Nehrus actualise their dream. Undo Pakistan (We fail collectively). Thus emboldened, do 16 Dec 2014 & 5 Aug 2019 while we only mourn & pray for our Shuhada. No soul searching, blame game only. Wake up Pakistan. We have debt to pay.”
https://www.thenews.com.pk/print/88182-inhibitions-of-the-downtrodden
“There is a famous description of Bengalis that Ayub Khan gives in his book, ‘Friends Not Masters’, which I quote for you here.
“The people of Pakistan consist of a variety of races each with its own historical background and culture. East Bengalis, who constitute the bulk of the population, probably belong to the very original Indian races. It would be no exaggeration to say that up to the creation of Pakistan, they had not known any real freedom or sovereignty. They have been in turn ruled either by the caste Hindus, Moghuls, Pathans, or the British.
“In addition, they have been and still are under Hindu cultural and linguistic influence. As such they have all the inhibitions of downtrodden races and have not yet found it possible to adjust psychologically to the requirements of a newborn freedom. Their popular complexes, exclusiveness, suspicion and a sort of defensive aggressiveness probably emerge from this historical background.”
https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/ro-khanna-named-democratic-vice-chair-of-congressional-india-caucus/story-zgY15rufcr3EVfDMhrs4YK.html
Ro Khanna seems to part of both India and Pak Congressional Caucasus.
And perhaps that’s right, considering he is a Punjabi.
Indus does not flow in Gujrat or Haryana
You speak as if the civilization was only built around Indus, sounds like a reddit argument
I thought it was obvious that the name “IVC” is pretty much a misnomer at this point, more so given the fact that people have come up with newer names (seen them being used on BP too)
I find this extreme Indian fascination with IVC fascinating in itself. Why care so much about some runes from 4000 years ago that’s mostly in another country?
Why is anybody ever fascinated by history? Is the fact that most of us have IVC ancestry not enough? Or that IVC most likely gave rise to certain cultural/religious practices we see today?
By similar logic, why are Pakistanis fascinated by Muhammad’s life or shows like Ertugrul (which is largely made up based on whatever little info there is on 13th century Anatolia)?
mostly in another country
Care to justify this? India has 900+ sites (including the largest and the oldest) and Pak has 450+
Numbers seem to be from quite an old book, but I doubt the balance has shifted
I think you hit the nail right on the head. Despite IVC having very little to do with modern India or the Indian heartland or Indian religions, it is important for India to claim it because of its antiquity as it provides grounding basis for some pan-Indian civilization. It’s like Americans claiming Greco Roman history even more so than the Italians or the Greeks, although they might have a better claim on that when compared to modern India’s claim on an unbroken chain with IVC. This is why so much time is spent trying to link Hinduism with IVC’s religious practices despite evidence on the contrary mounting higher. More time should have been spent studying other areas of India for the source of modern Indian culture. Or Perhaps look at the steppes of Central Asia where all Indian languages came from, but this subject may be taboo.
//Why is anybody ever fascinated by history? Is the fact that most of us have IVC ancestry not enough?//
Fascination of history is admirable, but to us, it seems like an obsession and obsession always has other reasons than just fascination. Just ancestry is not enough reason, Pakistanis also have IVC ancestry, much more than most Indians, but they are not obsessed about it.
//By similar logic, why are Pakistanis fascinated by Muhammad’s life or shows like Ertugrul//
Drawing parallels with Islamic religious obsession with Muhammad is just disingenuous. It’s a religion that clearly wants its adherents to be obsessed about God and Muhammad. It’s literally spelled out in the texts. Neither Arabs, Iranians nor Pakistanis think of Islam as ” Arab fascination”. This charge is only levied by non-Muslims or ex-Muslims, perhaps they think it’s derogatory but it’s not taken as such by most Muslims. Arabs themselves don’t really care about their pre Islamic past, nor do Pakistanis about their own. Iranians are probably the only Muslims who care about their pre Islamic heritage, but even they are not that obsessed about it.
1. Indians are not obsessed with IVC. There’s more to India or even Hindutva than the nerdy bubble we reside in. People in these bubbles have weird pathologies that have little bearing on reality.
2. The Indian interest in IVC in as much as it exists is more due to internal politics of north vs south (or Aryan vs Dravidian) as opposed to anything to do with Pakistan. The fact that there are sites in Pakistan is incidental. The biggest proponents of IVC in India are Dravidianists.
3. Most Indians with passing interest in history accept AIT/AMT. It’s another matter that some also think that Afghanistan was part of India. So discussing influence of Central Asia on India or vice versa is not taboo.
The OIT horse is flogged from time to time on the internet and tbh I think it has utility because you need a counter-weight to online Euro-nats who think Indian culture originated in Europe and Buddha was a white man giving enlightenment to 81 IQ Indians. It also probably helps point out shortcomings in various AIT theories. That’s about it.
But there’s close to zero impact it has on the ground even among educated people.
Point #2 is a new angle, thanks for bringing that up, I was not aware about that.
Also another small thing on “Despite IVC having very little to do with modern India or the Indian heartland or Indian religions, it is important for India to claim it because of its antiquity as it provides grounding basis for some pan-Indian civilization.”
Indians dont need any IVC linkage since its Hindu History is old enough. Most parts of the world don’t even have that. On the contrary Hindu nationalist would love to have their history start from “Hindu” part and before IVC excavations everyone in the subcontinent believed that. On the other hand its folks opposed to Hindu nats who drum up linkages to IVC and modern India.
That has not been my experience. Just going by online presence on social media and blogs, Hindutva or Hindu-nats are the most ardent supporters of OIT or showing interest in IVC etc. Read some articles on Swarajya mag in suport of OIT, or even on reddit/fb/twitter, it’s always the most nationalist Indians who are into this stuff. Perhaps there is another internal feud between Dravidian/North Indians, but I have never seen southerners being so vehemently in support of OIT or showing any interest in IVC.
There are far too many debates going on in India and there is little coherence in positions. The more you uncover, the more bizarre alliances come up.
Swarajya/subreddits barely have a few tens of thousands readers. It’s practically nothing. Even Shekhar Gupta/Barkha Dutt’s videos have only about ~10k views on average.
Arnab etc have a few tens of lakhs viewers at best.
The reach of vernacular media is much much higher. That’s why people like Modi can win.
As far as Dravidian online-sphere is concerned, you should give it a try. The Lemurians are crazy enough to give Pak-nationalists and the deep end of Hindutva garuda vimaan types a run for their money. Good entertainment.
You can check out people like @teloogoo on Twitter for weird nativist theories mixed with genuine political grievances.
\I have never seen southerners being so vehemently in support of OIT or showing any interest in IVC.\
look again, you will find plenty.
There is an Indus Research Centre in Chennai
https://rmrl.in/?page_id=222
They presumably want to prove IVC spoke a Dravidian language . At popular level there are many attempts to connect Tamils are descendents of IVC . This line is mostly inspired by Dravidian movement , which wants to prove they -and themselves- are pre-aryan and “orginal” sons of soil
There is another guy R.Balachandran I.A.S. who wants to prove a single civ from Indus to Vaigai – at the southern tip of India – as forming a continuous civ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdCNvDnwzNc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_7MAY2Q-SCo
Recent archeological excavations at Keezhadi in Tamilnadu is conencted to IVC. So, southies are wholly hooked onto IVC
persoanlly I am very sceptic of such archeological or historical claims , howver that is the public view articulated by educated people
“Gujarat and UP were part of the IVC too”
Gujarat and UP were also part of the Maratha Confederacy, but they don’t have any serious claim to the empire, these were simply regions that were expanded into when the Marathas moved out of the Deccan. Haryana is tricky as half of it is basically UP extended, but the other half was likely primarily watered by the Saraswati, so part of the Indus Valley rather than the Gangetic basin.
“There are more IVC sites in India”
There’s a lot of sites being excavated in India because India unlike Pakistan is desperate and wants some kind of connection to the IVC. Also, many of India’s sites are relatively easy to find and well preserved as they lay along the abandoned Sarasvati route in the Thar desert, which saw relatively little activity since it dried up post-IVC. In contrast, much of Pakistan’s sites lay along the Indus and Punjab rivers, which have seen tons of activity, buildup, and destruction since IVC times. Harder to excavate those sites presuming they even still exist.
“Modern Indus populations aren’t genetically the same as the IVC people”
So? This is also true for China, Mesopotamia, Egypt, etc. Tangential populations to these regions who avoided gene flow and thus more closely resemble ancient genomes can likely be found in all these civilizations, but it would be silly to argue they now have a greater claim to these core regions than the actual natives.
Good to have you back 😉
IVC map is clear. But ok lmfao. Enough major sites in gujarat. Larpers just mad Modi closer descendent than them.
Also, yes all of this is silly. But showing the inconsistencies within the larp is just too easy and funny not to do.
I guess it’s worth pointing out that we had no collective memory of the IVC till it was discovered in the mid-1800s.
So we are all weaving narratives…
“ Gujarat and UP were also part of the Maratha Confederacy, but they don’t have any serious claim to the empire,”
The Maratha confederacy was a short lived conquest, like that of Alexander the Great. With minimal impact on the demographics.
Whereas the “IVC” (various stages) in Gujarat spanned thousands of years and there is strong genetic continuity.
A Mexican with native ancestry who lives in Guadalajara has a greater claim to the Aztec-era Meso-American civilization than a Mexican with Spanish ancestry who lives in Mexico City.
Yes, this is the right analogy. Or even a present day person who still speaks a nauhatl language in the north vs someone who only speaks spanish and is a strict catholic in mx city
There’s a lot of sites being excavated in India because India unlike Pakistan is desperate and wants some kind of connection to the IVC.
Same stuff always
1. “Indus is in Pak so IVC has nothing to do with India”
2. “We aren’t even excavating”
3. “Indian sites are in decline”
And now that India has very old sites like Bhirrana, Jhusi and Lahuradewa, the next garbage coping mechanism of Mehrgarh being some sort of pre-IVC civilization is emerging
We’re not desperate to want some kind of connection, we HAVE one, this was never the debate : )
Pakistanis are the ones who are highly desperate to try and discredit any relation India has with IVC. Just go to fb/twitter/reddit and see the types of comments on IVC related stuff. Your people are having a meltdown
People post stuff like this even though anyone with half a braincell can do a simple google search and find 100x better pics of Rakhigarhi-
https://twitter.com/MHuzaifaNizam/status/1337102196916174849
Pakistanis taking pride in IVC is one thing, but trying to claim that IVC has nothing to do with modern-day India reeks of insecurity and desperation
https://swarajyamag.com/ideas/india-born-aerospace-engineer-moots-novel-technology-to-reverse-global-warming
India-Born Aerospace Engineer Moots Novel Technology To Reverse Global Warming