If you have an iPhone, I can send you an invite. Information bandwidth is an order of magnitude higher there vis-a-vis Twitter. Will need a phone number though.
Ugra
3 years ago
What are the odds that we are going to have the first Brahmin president of the United States in the next 3 months?
If I remember correctly, the current PM is the only non-Brahmin candidate who has completed the full 5 year term successfully in the last 70 years (let’s put Sikhs in a category for the moment). Other OBC candidates have been pushed out quite early on in their terms.
This puts the whole vitriol against Modi in a different light, doesn’t it? 🙂 Hindutva!!!
NM
3 years ago
The Chinese have come up with a new term to refer to the woke crowd: “Baizuo”
the term evolved to criticize some people among the left who seemingly advocate for positive slogans like peace and equality to boast their sense of moral superiority, but are ignorant of real-world consequences, and utilize destructive behavior like political sacrifice and identity politics
… term came to be more widely used in reference to perceived double standards of Western media, as well as in relation to the tolerance of left-wing activists for manifestations of Islamism
Brown
3 years ago
offsping’s caste gets defined by the fathers’ cast.
India may see more local manufacturing: Foxconn’s Josh Foulger
He said India has a “leg-up” in terms of talent and cost.
When you look at the competing geographies or countries, China, India, Brazil, Vietnam, Indonesia, India kind of checks all of the right boxes. It really is a conducive environment,” he said.
Numinous
3 years ago
I suggested this in a previous Open Thread, but the thought cropped up in my mind again as I listened to the latest BP podcast with Hindu students about the Truschke affair.
Is it the case in American academia that Hinduism is singled out for this kind of critical “scholarship” or is that the norm for all religions other than Islam? Mukunda and his guests seemed convinced that this is all because of a mix of ignorance and Hinduphobia. But aren’t American academics (and elites in general) quite Christophobic too? Critically examining Islam (and its founder) is what seems taboo; if, for example, Truschke had called Mohammad a pedophile (an accurate statement if we believe the writings from that era), she’d probably have been fired pronto.
The total number of Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists combined are less than 5% of America’s population.
The rest of the country is either Christian or liberal, which is basically a secular version of Protestantism.
It is easy to grandstand in such a case. We’ll see how the west behaves once any of the minority religious groups hits 10%. Signs from Europe certainly do not scream ‘freedom’ 🙂
Numinous
3 years ago
On the students’ observations about their parents’ having done a crummy job of teaching them Hindu traditions and history, I think the bigger reason is the lack of the metaphorical “village”, or at least extended family; in particular, grandparents. I grew up in a multi-generational household, and I learned all of this (Ramayana, Mahabharata, many Vedic concepts) from my grandparents. My parents didn’t teach me zilch about this, though my mom did point me toward Amar Chitra Katha, which became my reservoir of knowledge about historical and mythical India.
So it’s not surprising to me that Indian-American kids don’t learn these things, and instead have a “come to Jesus” moment when they encounter them in adulthood. Probably many kids in India who don’t have close ties with grandparents have similar experiences. Might explain the popularity of the Hindu right today, way beyond its original milieu.
For my part, I absorbed all of that when I was a toddler, so I have no identity confusion. Instead, I gradually lapsed into my present agnosticism (or atheism if you will). The conservatism of Indian society, of Hindusim, and of religion period, seemed to me to substantially limit my personal growth (and in macro terms, inhibit the progress of mankind). Religious traditions have their uses in grounding kinds in a strong system of ethics, but IMHO they are not something adults should be taking very seriously. Science and rationality ought to trump religious thought.
@Razib, although Japanese have Jomon admixture(who are believed to have significant West Eurasian), why are they genetically further away from West Eurasians than that of Han Chinese in PCA maps? https://www.discovermagazine.com/health/genetic-map-of-east-asia
Is the West Eurasian in East Asia mostly European-like or West Asian-like?
Though Jomons were not homogenous, 14% West Eurasian is significant. Also, Ainus are hairy and many look radically West Eurasian. So it hints towards a significant West Eurasian input IG.
“When 10 different simple or admix tree
models were tested to add F23 into the three-population tree,
two trees were supported: (1) the simple tree, in which F23
first clustered with Han (Z = 2.073); and (2) the admix tree,
in which the admixture of East Eurasian Han (86%) and
West Eurasian Sardinian (14%) explained the ancestor of
F23 (Z = 0.011). When we used French instead of Sardinian,
both the simple tree and the admix tree became the best
model (Z = –0.241 for both trees and the proportion of the
admixture was 99% and 1% in the admix tree model)”
So it can be down to 1%, which is similar to or less than the recent west Eurasian in Chinese. Not only that, it was using Chinese for reference so that may be the reason for such variable results. A more proximate population, maybe like pre-jomon minatogawa, will likely support a low admixture of something like a couple of percent.
So far AASI has not been sampled so it is hard to place Jomon with that reference. What is known is that Jomon aren’t as divergent as Papuans from east Asians, but that isn’t saying much.
“We will rise with roar of Osama bin Laden, we are Rasul soldiers’: Muslims in Bangladesh protest against visit by ‘Hindu Nationalist’ PM Modi”
Halal haleem owaisi
Roy
3 years ago
Indian-origin man in New Zealand arrested for allegedly threatening Sikh youth on social media
He reportedly called the Sikh man a ‘Khalistani terrorist’, and posted his photos and phone number online.
The police in New Zealand’s Auckland city on Friday arrested a man of Indian origin for allegedly threatening a Sikh youth on social media and posting derogatory messages against him, The Times of India reported. The accused also abused a few other people.
The man allegedly made the offensive remarks on a Facebook group. He reportedly called the Sikh man a “Khalistani terrorist” and posted his photos and phone number online. The man accused the youth of running a hate campaign against Indians, and urged people to complain to the police about him.
The accused also told the youth that he would come to his house to teach him a lesson, according to The Times of India. The police have filed a case against the man based on the youth’s complaint. They are also likely to investigate the role of some other people in making hateful comments.
Sikh community leaders in Australia have also noted a growing divide within the Indian-Australian community, according to The Guardian. They alleged that Facebook and WhatsApp were being used to disseminate rhetoric against religious minority groups, amid the farmers’ protest in India.
Last month, armed men had attacked four Sikh students in Sydney. It was suspected to be a hate crime.
I saw the Netflix adaptation of The White Tiger a couple of weeks back with my wife and really enjoyed it to the point I am reading the book now. Unlike the BBC adaptation of A Suitable Boy, it felt like it had been made by a creative team who really knew India.
I don’t think the book was particularly popular in India largely I suppose because of its treatment of a largely taboo subject, the absolutely brutal treatment which servants, domestic workers and anyone further down the ladder get.
It is the same in Pakistan where it would be rather unremarkable for a family with servants to care more about its pets than those cooking and cleaning for them. Seeing that plus the stark poverty always makes me really uncomfortable when I am in Lahore visiting family. When there you are expected as a matter of course to lock your bedrooms when you leave to prevent domestic staff from stealing your passports, valuables, money etc. It is also really unhealthy for kids to grow up in an environment where they can order adults around and insult them and have them at their beck and call to do whatever they feel like.
A White Tiger was by no means the first book to talk about the abuse of servants in India. In fact, one woman in such a position (Baby Halder) actually wrote a book about her experiences (Aalo Aandhari – A Life Less Ordinary). Good read.
I’d never heard of this book until you mentioned it. Looking at its Wikipedia entry, it does sound like a good (and informative) read.
There are several reasons why a book by someone like Adiga would gain immediate fame as compared to a book like this. First, it is written in English rather than going through a translation. It is written in an idiom that the “people who decide what books are good and fit to read” can understand (this is not a criticism, just a fact). Adiga is also someone who has lived in the West and looks at India through semi-foreign eyes, so the international readers of his book can relate to his writing. His book was mostly about servant abuse but occasional broader critiques of Indian society also slipped in; just like in Naipaul’s books.
(I remember The White Tiger being one of the first books I read after moving back to India, in an effort to try and understand the country I had totally lost touch with. And since I’d chosen to move to Delhi, a place hitherto alien to me, what the book said squared with my personal observations.)
Explained: Why House panel wants govt to implement this farm law despite protests
In its report on ‘Price Rise of Essential Commodities- Causes and Effects,’ the committee has given reasons for the implementation of the law. “The Committee note that although the country has become surplus in most agricultural commodities, farmers have been unable to get better prices due to lack of investment in cold storage, warehouses, processing and export as entrepreneurs stated to be get discouraged by the regulatory mechanisms in the Essential Commodities Act, 1955,” says the report of the committee.
The 30-member committee has members from both the houses and 13 parties. The names of the members are: Bhagwant Mann (AAP); Girish Bhalchandra Bapat, Gangasandra Siddappa Basavaraj, Pratima Bhoumik, Anil Firojiya, Sanganna Amarappa Karadi, Ajay (Teni) Misra, Khagen Murmu, Mitesh Rameshbhai (Bakabhai) Patel, Subrata Pathak, Himadri Singh, Satish Chandra Dubey, Roopa Ganguly and Sakaldeep Rajbhar (all BJP); Saptagiri Sankar Ulaka, Rajmohan Unnithan, Vaithilingam Ve. and Rajmani Patel (all Congress); Ganesan Selvam (DMK); Kavita Singh (JD(U)); K.G. Kenye (Naga Peoples Front); Farooq Abdullah (NC; Fauzia Tahseen Ahmed Khan (NCP); M.C. Mary Kom(Nominated); Anbumani Ramadoss (PMK); Rajendra Dhedya Gavit (Shiv Sena); Shafiqur Rahman Barq (SP) Shanta Chhetri (TMC); and Nandigam Suresh (YSRCP).
While most of the parties, which have members on this committee, have opposed the three farm laws, none of the 30-member has given a dissent note in the report.
> While most of the parties, which have members on this committee, have opposed the three farm laws, none of the 30-member has given a dissent note in the report.
I am confused. Is Bhagwant Mann (therefore AAP) in favour of the laws i.e. are they asking the government to implement them?
I think most of the leaders against farm laws realize that it’s needed but they are opposing it for political reasons. I think kejriwal will do a farmers rally in punjab in coming days and mann has said things like this-
Repeal of farm laws only solution, not forming of committee: Bhagwant Mann
why is it difficult for bjp to have an ‘intellectuals’ barat as congress has? i feel they need to fish out side the delhi environment. after all abvp is spread all over india.
Agree. That there are many prominent brahmins in centrist and leftist poltical camps speaks more to the fact that they are overrepresented among intellectuals. In my experinece, the less anglophone a brahmin is, the more likely they are solid hindu nationalist. The core BJP was middle-class/upper caste and both of these were once essentially the same thing. OBC involvement in the hindu nationalist project probably correlates with their entry into/ or aspiring to the middle class and concommitant urbanisation. They were able to convince their country cousins that aligning with the BJP is no longer taboo, and that it has good-faith intentions for the OBC block.
Indian intellectual is necessarily a person who is a fluent speaker and writer of english language. His parents and grandparents have also gone to english medium schools. Over time, this generation has become more anglicized and has stopped seeing any utility in Indian culture. This generation is very different from say – Rajaji type generation that was at home with english and vernacular and was actually well read and knew what they were talking about. A reason could be that they probably did not start their childhood going to English medium schools.
A lot of these intellectuals have studied in US/UK universities and come back to India armed with language, right accent, and scholarly competency. Any discussion of secularism that happens in India happens in English. This fact itself is telling. In fact, the original languages will not even have translations of words like secularism. These are newly made up words. The old bania-brahmin nexus is not that conversant with English language and as a consequence has stayed closer to its Indic roots. I think that the BJP debaters make a big mistake by responding in english and thereby losing their advantage. Just being fluent in English gives you points in India. There is strong correlation between language competency and the intellectual debate that happens in India.
LMFAO. The cope is hilarious, that too by the group we would all predict…
Prats
3 years ago
Delhi needs to ramp up vaccination. I don’t want to go through another peak and lockdown. Don’t know why the centre is insisting on limiting vaccines to 60+ and 45+ with co-morbidities. It should let states decide.
Ideally, the best strategy is to vaccinate randomly and rapidly to achieve herd immunity. My hunch is that the government doesn’t think that SII can ramp up production fast enough. So it’s rationing the doses.
That is assuming you can roll out vaccines to all vulnerable people faster than you can to 60% of overall population. I doubt that. Lot of spare capacity in India right now that is going wasted ~ 10%
Letting states figure out some hybrid strategy would be better.
“Unhappy with the wedding of the Muslim girl, her family, relatives and her community reached Harijan Basti at around 10.30 pm and vandalized the street in which the boy lives.
Harijan Basti boy marries Muslim girl, creates fiercely at 10:30 pm – India TV Hindi”
“From Ayub Khan’s autobiography where he is comparing the history of Bangladesh and Pakistan (former East and West Pakistan) in Friends Not Masters (1967 Oxford University Press) on p. 187: They “have been and still are under considerably Hindu cultural and linguistic influence1/4
“…Their popular complexes, exclusiveness, suspicion and a sort of defensive aggressiveness probably emerge from this historical background….The population in West Pakistan, on the other hand, is probably the greatest mixture of races found anywhere in the world.”End quote 2/4
Interestingly the more secular leaning pakistanis tend to be more interested in racial makeup of pakistani pops and ethno geographical elements of the country. While more religious pakistanis see things more in light of all human beings being equal and look at things from muslim vs non muslim angle.
Aitzaz Ahsan the guy who started this indus nationalism stuff , that is now reaching mainstream apeal among young pakistanis was also secular
Makes perfect sense. Humans are tribal. If one tribal identity weakens, another takes hold.
I don’t mind the ethnic promotion types so as long as they are not supremacists and/or disingenous about degree of connection to rest of S Asia. The issue is that thr loudest voices are. The same can be said about the “akhand bharat” types.
” I teach in northern New Jersey, and my scholarship is compelling. That is not to say that I am always correct, but my colleagues generally find my ideas thoughtful and thought-provoking. This makes me dangerous to the Hindu right-wing because I can and do undercut their mythology about the Indian past. Also, in their view, I am the wrong colour and the wrong sex. “
Aurangzeb’s girlfriend is overly attached to modern political trends. Find it amusing that Indian “atheists” and “liberals” are disowning her. After all she is only the “current” girlfriend. They don’t display the same scorn for his earlier partners in Liberal India.
“This process is amplified by the very nature of nation building. States need stories and creation myths, and while these may or may not have a strong foundation in real events, the narrative is less concerned with accuracy and more with justifying its own existence.
As a political identity, Pakistani is a relatively young one. While the history of our land is ancient, there have been at most five generations of people who could identify themselves as ‘Pakistani’. What is more is that only starting with the millennial generation are Pakistanis growing up with no concept of being anything other than Pakistani.
All cultures and communities have a need for tracing their lineage. For most young Pakistanis, a lack of emphasis on our actual history creates an impetus to latch onto alternate regional narratives.”
Queue Indus Larp aka Birdari Ethnosupremacy w/ a healthy dose of radicalislamoapologism. Add in a solid dose of hatred of dharmic peoples, especially those of the gangetic plains.
Nobody really regards the Hindoos as a threat since Pakistan got nukes. The US, Israel and whatever country last was perceived to have insulted Islam (currently France although everyone has forgotten that now) are much more popular targets for ire. As for “dharmic” peoples it would be news to most Pakistanis that Buddhists and Jains still exist in India.
This ”indus gang” you keep shouting about only exists online. There is no discussion of Pakistan being Indus civilization in Pakistani media or academia. The reason? Because Indus river is called ”Darya-e- SINDH” in Urdu so it would be a bit weird to say Pakistan = Sindh for Pak Punjabis. The whole notion seem to have sprung only online, and in response to Indian nationalists trying to ”we wuz sem2sem” Pakistanis at every turn online which is relentless and nauseating. Most Pakistanis have no conception of some Indus civilization, nor do they care about ‘Gangetic’ civilization enough to hate it… Amongst Pakistan’s intelligentsia, civilizations are not based on rivers and pilgrimage sites, but on ideology. “Nazariya” as they call it.
The bit about Indus and Sindh is interesting. Every nation in South Asia is either a ethnonym, exonym or endonym – India, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka.
“Amongst Pakistan’s intelligentsia, civilizations are not based on rivers and pilgrimage sites, but on ideology. “Nazariya” as they call it.”
Ironically the use of the root ‘Nazar’ (sight) to mean ideology strikes me as one of those deep seated Indic things that still exist as an unwanted stain on Pakistani culture despite decades of cleansing.
Brief google search seems to confirm my suspicions that Persians don’t use the word “Nazar” in this context.
The sanskrit equivalent of the word i.e. Darsana is used to mean ideology within Hinduism and Buddhism.
//Ironically the use of the root ‘Nazar’ (sight) to mean ideology strikes me as one of those deep seated Indic things that still exist as an unwanted stain on Pakistani culture despite decades of cleansing.//
The word ”Nazariya” is a direct borrowing from Arabic which literally means “theory” and can also mean ideology. This word is present in Persian, Turkish and Urdu. Hint: any word with ‘Z’ or ‘F’ or ‘Q’ or /Kh/ or /Gh/ and like half the vocabulary of common Hindi is ”foreign” not Indic.
It’s amusing you say that Pakistan cleansed off its Urdu vocabulary from Indic influence, when this is patently false because all these words existed pre-partition in the language, perhaps for centuries, whereas it is India that cleaned (or tries to) its Hindi vocabulary from ”foreign” influences. Urdu has retained pretty much all of its Indic vocabulary, you can’t say the same for Hindi.
//Brief google search seems to confirm my suspicions that Persians don’t use the word “Nazar” in this context.//
Modern Persians don’t use a lot of terms that Urdu uses because modern Persian (especially the Tehrani version) contains much more loan words from Arabic, English and French. Urdu/Hindi however borrowed words from Old Persian, it uses those terms that you will likely find in modern Dari.
”Nazariye” is the term you are looking for in Persian and it literally is the first word that props up when you type in ”theory”
//The sanskrit equivalent of the word i.e. Darsana is used to mean ideology within Hinduism and Buddhism.//
Are you sure darshan means ideology (in general) when as far as I recall, it means sight
If you are talking about religious ideology or theory or viewpoint, we also have another word for that: It’s called ”mazhab”
Well Mazhab is colloquially used for ‘religion’ in the subcontinent, but it means literally a ”religious path” or figuratively ”religious school of thought”..
//All cultures and communities have a need for tracing their lineage. For most young Pakistanis, a lack of emphasis on our actual history creates an impetus to latch onto alternate regional narratives.”//
Disagree with the writer here about ”tracing lineage”. It seems the writer is implying that one needs to trace some kind of genetic or geographic lineage to arrive at what is considered ”our” history or ”their history”. This is not how most nations on earth arrive at what they consider ”our” history. Americans, despite living on another continent, appeal to greco-roman ideals and considering that their history despite sharing little genetics with ancient greeks or romans. Arabs have little regard for their pre Islamic history, and while secular atheist Turks might tell everyone how badass their Tengri ancestors were, most Turks are also very uninterested in that period. Egyptians don’t consider ancient Egyptian relics as anything but tourism money.. What is considered ”our history” is very much manufactured using mythology.
What we are seeing in Pakistan is a formation of singularly a ”Pakistani” identity.. based on common religion and a common language. I would say currently this is much more grounded than India’s which hasn’t yet decided whether it wants to be retain its diversity or become a Hindu nation, and I’m not sure they can easily decide that.
Lastly, Ertugrul became popular because its a big budget production with good cinematography, good acting, engrossing story line and a show where Islamic values are promoted.. it’s nothing revolutionary, it just gave people what they wanted to see on TV
Bang on regarding Ertugral , I can bet if you remove nude scenes from spartacus and game of thrones and give them a bit of religious touch , they would be equally popular.
These intricate power struggle type shows rooted in history can garner lot of interest in masses. Some people are just making a big fuss out of it.
It’s also very popular as it was dubbed in Urdu, had attractive leads and was different from 95% of Pakistani drama which consists of saas-bahu/extended family conflicts featuring lots of women crying.
froginthewell
3 years ago
Perhaps folks here know all this, so you can clear my confusion:
So here are the top earning youtubers in four brown countries:
1. Bangladesh – Farjana Drawing Academy – 4.58 million subscribers, 1023027 daily views, $225000 monthly earnings, cost per 1000 impressions 7.34.
2. Pakistan – Kitchen with Amna – 3.42 million subscribers, 461670 daily views, $101600 monthly earnings, cost per 1000 impressions 7.34.
3. Sri Lanka – Apé Amma – 1.43 million subscribers, 429340 daily viiews, $94500 monthly earnings, cost per 1000 impressions 7.34.
4. India – CarryMinati – 22.7 million subscribes, 7871489 daily views, $66100 monthly earnings, cost per 1000 impressions 0.28.
I find this quite amazing – the Indian channel is the lowest earning, and by a good margin, though it gets far more views and subscribers, basically because CPM (cost per 1000 impressions) is much lower. Why is this so, I mean, what explains this CPM difference? Indian advertisers pay lesser?
The most popular channel might not be the one that earns the most. You’ll earn more if your views come from countries with higher ad rates and maybe also the age demographic of the viewers.
Could be the case that the most popular Pakistani/Bangladeshi channels get a lot of views from the diaspora or from an older age group with higher purchasing power.
I also think that Carryminati is not the highest earning YouTuber in India. His videos keep getting demonetized due to vulgarity or use of copyrighted music.
(In any case, the article mentions that the amount given is not accurate. I am basing my explanation on it being in the right ballpark)
Thanks Prats. Regarding: Could be the case that the most popular Pakistani/Bangladeshi channels get a lot of views from the diaspora or from an older age group with higher purchasing power.
It will be interesting if one can offer heuristic support for this hypothesis, and some suggested explanation for why this could be so. That all the three of these countries do much better than India seems very fascinating.
1. Pakistan has half the internet penetration of India (17% vs 34%) in a smaller market. They had also banned YouTube for a few years so there might be a lag in adoption vs potential (I don’t have data to back this up)
2. Pakistani diaspora is large (8.8 million) and comparable to the total number of Pakistanis on the internet (34 million). The diaspora folks are also expected to have better access to internet. This is very different from India (18 million vs 400 million internet users in India).
3. NRPs are also more engaged with Pakistan than NRIs with India due to dual citizenship.
I think a good way to test this hypothesis would be to see earnings of Punjabi language YouTubers if you can get ahold of the data. They’ll have higher earnings than Bhojpuri channels like Wave Music because of relatively more views from the diaspora.
There’s a small time Bollywood actor Garima Goel who has a popular YouTube channel called Garima’s Good Life. In this one video she talks in detail about how much money she makes and how it works. Might be useful to you.
In general, it’s a fun channel if anyone’s looking to learn more about how B-tier actors in Bombay live their lives.
I read somwhere the youtube views and ad money is region specific. So for even less views, u might earn more in the west. Was wondering what happens if a channel is ‘registered’ in the West and videos are mostly watched by Indians (or asians)
” Kaira, Shyra, Akira, Kia, Tia, Sia. Shanaya. These are Bollywood’s cool new names, broadly classified into the “ya” or “ra” nomenclature. The Poojas, Nishas, Anjalis and Nehas of the 1990s are déclassé. These new names carry an unmistakable aspiration to be global.They are unrooted to place, community or any kind of identity except class. They are almost never longer than three syllables and easy to pronounce. They float on coolness and lightness. An ex-colleague memorably christened them “First-World Yoga Names—FWYN”.
Perhaps this business of the FWYN is another form of this impulse—the desire/anxiety to fit in with a globalized world shaped by neo-liberalism. Indeed, Bollywood’s Kairas, Shyras and Shanayas are shaped from their slice of lived reality. For the list of Bollywood star children itself comprises several unusual names—Akira, Shakya, Anya, Diva, Czar, Saira, Viaan, Kiaan, Riaan, Nysa, Renee and Maira. It is significant to point out that the Chinese retain their traditional names and take on an Anglicised name as a second identity. The posh Indian demographic, however, doesn’t do this. They seem happy to change their nomenclature itself.”
States to rank districts on export competitiveness, says commerce ministry
principia
3 years ago
A few scattered thoughts.
—
Asian-American solidarity seems elusive. I’m seeing lots of woke Asians slap down people who start hashtags like “AsianLivesMatter”. A certain “Saira Rao” claims that only BLM needs to trend and if BLM becomes reality, then Asian Lives will matter automatically. But it isn’t just brown Asians. I’m seeing similar takes from woke yellow Asians. It seems that the community’s embrace of wokeness is now biting it in the ass, even as many Asians want to see stepped-up police presence.
It also underlines the point that I’ve made many times with regards to Indian-Americans but which applies even more so to the broader Asian-American community. Namely, it is severely undermined by heterogeneity.
—
Someone asked why Hinduism is targeted for such attacks. The reason is simple. Neoliberals in the West views Hindus as a religious analogue to whites, but in religious terms. Moslems are mostly used as golems for Israel’s aims (e.g. ISIS in Syria) or they are used as a club against geopolitical rivals (Uighurs in China). But Hindus don’t have the same use. China was/is the big sell, but India’s stubborn clinging to non-alignment and refusal to be a servile puppet of the US the way Pakistan is to China, creates annoyance. So Hindus have to be taken down a peg.
There is nothing extra which white or brown woke say about Hinduism which brown folks back in India havent said about Hinduism. But since the agitated brown Hindus living in the west cant call out their own (lesser-Hindu) ethncity back home they have found these brown and white wokes a convient punching bag.
Whether fairly or unfairly, Muslims are demonised and subjected to abuse to a far larger extent than Hindus and Sikhs in the West. They largely only get harassed if they are mistaken for being Muslim.
Could one frame it as follows –
Muslims face more street level discrimination than Hindus but practising Hindus face more discrimination than practising Muslims among the intelligentsia?
At the adult level, Muslims get it more post 9/11. But Indians are often used to portray MENA in American media. So Hindus get the targeted hate directed at Muslims quite often.
In the early 2000s, my parents were stopped on three separate occassions in publoc places, twice by whites and once hy blacks, asking something along the lines of “Why are you doing this to is?!” And “Why don’t you go back where you came from?”
This was in nyc metro area. Then therr was the case of yhe Indian engineer murdered hy white supremacist who thought he was Iranian when the dude was hella S Indian looking.
Really? Hindus are not sacralised like African-Americans are but I have seen very little overt criticism of them and only some of Hindutva nationalists. Intelligentsia mostly does not care.
“The resignation of one of India’s most prominent intellectuals and a fierce government critic from a top university has sparked student protests. Host
@ejazhaider
asks Dr. Yaqoob Bangash for his analysis on this.”
Concern from Pakistan on India’s academic freedom.
Good thing for India. The quicker the Kashmir thing is normalized, better for India. India has to go thru this motions till some other part of the world blows up. Till then virus will do fine, to keep every country’s mind occupied.
In years hence Pakistani uncles will recite the tale of how our brave armed forces convinced India to make peace on our terms by capturing an Indian pilot and giving him tea and mithai before sending him home.
I hope peace does break out and relations improve, would love to spend a couple of months traveling all over India.
This is similar to how English speaking Indians are often obsessed with Trump/Biden instead of the shit show in their own country.
Ali Choudhury
3 years ago
Great article on why east Asia and south India have outstripped north India with regards to growth. Comes down to severe lack of willingness to allow women to work outside the home to maintain control over them, particularly with regards to letting outsiders becoming intimate with them.
How does she explain Punjab and Haryana? They are high-growth, aren’t they? But they are also among the most (if not the most) regressive even in North India when it comes to women’s status.
Among the two, i think only Haryana is high growth, which could possibly be explained by a significant chunked of it being part of the greater NCR. That said, while the female workforce participation rate is an interesting metric and worth factoring, its far from complete (is attrition from farm labour the same as attrition from white collar jobs?).
For whatever faults some percieve they have, NW subcontinentals are quite industrious and operate in a relatively “higher trust” market environment than downstream gangetics. This could be a quirk of present day conditions and demographic flux, not trying to caste a theory of enduring cultural traits. Also worth considering is whether higher female workforce participation leads to greater intra-class wealth disparity. Capable females from the upper-middle class block opportunies for lower classes of males to ascend. Along with class-based assortive pairing, this sets the conditions for the current economic divergences that we are seeing. Something similar could be hypothesized in the US post 60’s. White women and capable immigrants blocked opportunities for black men who would have moved from the factory line or unskilled services into management.
Industriousness, yes perhaps, compared to Biharis and Bengalis (who I’m familiar with in my home region). But I saw no evidence of higher trust when I lived a few years in the NCR. The levels of dishonesty and dissembling were probably more than in JH or WB, and on top of that, there was palpable aggression in the air all the time.
yes, not considering delhi as proper NW. Looking at punjab, and adjacent haryana in particular. And I think the yeoman farmer angle is illustrative and often cited as reasons for the higher trust networks. The conditions for zamindari land revenue management weren’t there among the biradari clans as is was among the more culturally elaborated core ganges. My armchair hypothesis is that modernity makes certain characteristics of high and continuous civilizations weaknesses. Whether egypt or bihar, old civilizational cores often lag behind peripheries in per capita GDP
“My armchair hypothesis is that modernity makes certain characteristics of high and continuous civilizations weaknesses.”
This is something that I have felt as well. Even in Europe, Italy and Greece seem to be the laggards and even within Italy, it’s the late settled northern Po valley that drives their economy.
“Whether egypt or bihar, old civilizational cores often lag behind peripheries in per capita GDP”
I often joke that Italy and Greece are the UP and Bihar of Europe.
I think two factors have a lot to do with Haryana’s and Punjab’s prosperity relative to the Gangetic belt. Unlike in the latter, where British rule firmly entrenched an exploitative (and non-progressive) zamindari system, a sort-of yeoman farmer culture was allowed to spread in British Punjab. Add to that massive state investment in the region (infrastructure in British times, subsidies in independent India) has always given them an advantage over their Gangetic cousins. That’s why those guys are protesting the farm laws now, because they are in danger of losing their privileges (and which is why I support those laws.)
When you get some things for free, it’s easy to prosper even with a shitty culture. The Saudis are similarly prosperous because they happened to be sitting on lakes of oil.
I didn’t read the article but I had read the Twitter thread Dr. Evans had posted a few weeks back.
“Comes down to severe lack of willingness to allow women to work outside the home to maintain control over them”
The cause and effect are not very clear to me here.
IIRC, she said that labour intensive industrialisation created market conditions where labour was desperately required and hence women were incentivised to enter the work-force. This has not happened in the north, which is still very agricultural.
The fundamental reason then doesn’t seem to be so much that women are not allowed to work as it is that enough opportunities don’t exist to compel them to work.
On the other hand, you do have examples of high growth industrial states like Gujarat and Haryana that have very low urban female workforce participation.
Alice Evans should look a little bit further east into Japan. Outcomes should not be viewed narrowly. There is now a societal push in Japan to limit female labor force participation to 30%. It is now at 76% and will lead Japan to a dead society in less than 5 decades.
India’s female labor force participation has fallen since the 1990’s (from 30% to 20%). Why? Can it not be a evolution of attitudes towards modernity?
Alice Evans seeks to push preconceived notions with limited data. It’s the classic Indology approach. They somehow think the natives are unable to figure out sustainability on their own.
There may be a push to limit female workforce participation in Japan now (I don’t follow that news; will take your word for it), but otherwise, the experience of Japan actually strengthens her case. Women’s participation in the workforce is hardly a recent thing there. It picked up big time in the late Meiji era. There are papers comparing the Indian textile industry to Japan’s from the early 20th century that show how both countries had a similar level of productivity early on, but Japan got closer to the West because of (1) following the capitalist logic of demanding more from workers in return for higher wages, and (2) more females in the workforce, who were both more pliant and were not inclined to strike the way male workers in Bombay would.
The correlation between female participation in the workforce and economic growth (and general societal prosperity) is extremely strong if you look at the data. Whether in Asia or in the West.
The example of Japan weakens Alice Evans case in the long run. If you want the current generation to be prosperous at the cost of the future generations, then indeed Alice Evans is selling you a shiny bridge.
This kind of debate occupied Indian society in the 80s. There is a very fine Visu movie on this exact topic – Kudumbam oru Kadambam (Family, the Flower). Some people have obviously made up their minds – that’s why the Indian female labor force participation has fallen.
Alice is unable to digest that rational choices could also be driving the fall. She thinks Indian women are the sheep on her logical mountain.
Alice is picking all the good bits from East Asia and comparing them to the bad bits from South Asia. Classic sleight of hand meant to impress dorks.
Japan is in shit right now – dependency ratio is 69. It’s not a ratio for the future. Start talking about how not having enough children and more women in jobs is a good thing for Japanese society. Then your research is complete.
What do the raw numbers (not percentages) say? One conjecture is that much of the growth in jobs in the past couple of decades has been inter-state migrant labor, the lion’s share of such migrants probably being men. So it’s not that women have been leaving the workforce but that a lot more men are getting jobs.
But I don’t know (and my conjecture above could be bunk). Looking at the numbers will probably shed more light.
Narasingha Deva
3 years ago
‘Braveheart, fanatic anarchist’ — what Bhagat Singh wrote of Savarkar, and their common cause
Did Curzon Wyllie deserve to get assassinated? From Wikipedia links, all I can get is that he may have a hand in blocking Savarkar’s ambition of qualifying for the Bar (because of his revolutionary activities). Was that is or is there something else?
you are anachronistically applying the rules of a politically free and just regime to a colonizer regime. your question would be valid if the victim and the perpetrator lived in a regime where both of them had equal rights, but obviously it wasn’t so.
these early indian revolutionaries were inspired by russian anarchists and revolutionaries. for them, every member of ruling british elite was an enemy because they had subjugated their motherland and deprived indians of their rights. as simple as that.
No, I get this. I was just wondering what Wyllie did in particular to get assassinated. Surely there were a lot of British people to select from? Wyllie himself doesn’t seem to have been responsible for any brutalities or for people starving in famines, etc.
If you look at the people who were assassinated by various revolutionaries, they were selected for specific acts. People like Khudiram Bose made mistakes, but they were not indiscriminate in their targets, even though they did consider the British as a whole to be an oppressor class.
I was also wondering (and I know this will be provocative) if this guy was selected purely because of Savarkar’s personal grievance against him. Was Savarkar the type of person who got others to do his dirty work? It was also suggested, though never proven, that he was the guiding hand behind Godse et al murdering Gandhi.
” I was just wondering what Wyllie did in particular to get assassinated. ”
this is from a cursory reading of dhingra’s wikipedia entry – looks like dhingra was targeting british officials connected with the partition of bengal. wyllie was just a second, or even third choice. i guess he was just unlucky to be present at the wrong place at the wrong time.
amazingly, wyllie was a close friend of dhingra’s father. (i learnt these things newly myself). dhingra’s family was so upset by this murder that they completely disowned him. and incredibly enough, the family’s 4th generation descendants still maintain this position. take a look at this link.
“It was also suggested, though never proven, that he was the guiding hand behind Godse et al murdering Gandhi.”
not just suggested but formally accused. savarkar was actually charged and tried for conspiring to murder gandhi. he was a defendant in gandhi’s assassination trial. he was acquitted because of lack of evidence. most people believed he did encourage godse, if not actually participate in the project.
“you are anachronistically applying the rules of a politically free and just regime to a colonizer regime. your question would be valid if the victim and the perpetrator lived in a regime where both of them had equal rights, but obviously it wasn’t so.”
This pretty much overturns the central principle of the Independence Movement, which revolves around personal responsibility and morality. My grandfather worked in the Indian Botanical Service, would you consider him a fair target as well ? Such a thoughtless basis for political action would have likely led to very high levels of violence long after the British departed.
// They would also do well to reflect on whether attaching religious import to the use of such a contraption amounts to a reprehensible novelty called bid’at, — that is, an innovation which distorts the religion//
The writer does not know much about Islam it seems. This is like saying ”don’t use Quran on cellphone because it’s bidd’at” or ”don’t look at the 24 hour clock in your fast because that is bidd’at, but look at the sun” No Muslim would take this seriously. Bidd’at is used specifically in the context of introducing religious practices that did not exist before in religion. Visiting dargahs for example is clearly bidd’at because this practise did not exist in the prophetic phase of Islams formation.
Interestingly, the use of loudspeakers or the use of clocks to keep time for fasting was considered ”bidd’ah” by some fundamentalist molvis in the 19th century (mostly Salafis) but this concept was not widely accepted. Similarly, some fundamentalists denounced TV and social media/internet as tools of the devil, but they now use TV and social media to proselytize, with great effect.
The thing is that these types of articles are very low effort that any 16 year old Muslim would see right through, but perhaps the audience is not Muslim but Hindu who are unaware of these nuances in Islam.
u are right. I think the issue is not what biddat and what isnt. Its competetive relegiosity with more and more Hindu temples now trying to assert themselves thru the same way by using loud speakers.
So its just a way to defuse tension from the muslim side so that there is at least one irritant removed from the relegious tension prevailing in India. And just like when u need to convince the Hindu side on something u go back to Hindu text, the author goes back to muslim text (and practices)
“So its just a way to defuse tension from the muslim side so that there is at least one irritant removed from the relegious tension prevailing in India.”
You’re reading too much into it. Najmul Hoda is a principled liberal and wants to reform Islam. This falls in line with that approach. He’s been writing such stuff for a while.
You can google a speech he gave at Maulana Azad National Urdu University a few years ago where he criticises Muslims of the subcontinent for not focussing on ilm (knowledge).
Seemed like a brave thing to call that out in a room full of people at a self-congratulatory event.
Problem is that criticism of religion and orthodoxy can only come from within for it to have any real effect on the majority of believers, and on top of that the argument needs to have a sound basis in scripture (at least this is the case with Islam). Muslims will not reform some practice that is tradition unless the reform is coming from within, and scripture is being used to justify the reform. In this case, the author uses a very weak scriptural argument because he demonstrates lack of understanding of what bid’ah is. So this argument will be discarded by most Muslims at face value. Secondly, the author needs to be at least a practicing Muslim (I am not sure if Najmul Hoda is) but he should appear to be, for his arguments to hold weight and for common Muslims to trust his judgement and accept his point of view.
“Secondly, the author needs to be at least a practicing Muslim (I am not sure if Najmul Hoda is) but he should appear to be, for his arguments to hold weight and for common Muslims to trust his judgement and accept his point of view.”
That seems like a very chicken and egg problem. If someone does profess liberal reformist views, will he be considered Muslim enough at all?
Imam Tawihidi comes to mind. He dresses like a traditionalist but I don’t think he’s taken very seriously.
It is clear that Tawhidi is not a Muslim, although he pretends to be one and that too from the Shia sect. Just like Tarek Fateh is not Pakistani no matter what he claims. This is why we don’t take them seriously. These people have found their niche (appealing to far right or Hindutva) and their bread and butter depends on that.
Islamic reformers that have any chance of reformation of religion from within are usually very knowledgeable, use primary scripture to justify their arguments, and appear to be advocating for their own community.. The reason why Deobandi movement or the Aligargh movement in India succeeded at reforming Islamic practises in India was because they appealed to these concepts and their founders at least were seen by common Muslims as ”one of us” or ”working for our betterment”.
“Islamic reformers that have any chance of reformation of religion from within are usually very knowledgeable, use primary scripture to justify their arguments, and appear to be advocating for their own community.. The reason why Deobandi movement or the Aligargh movement in India succeeded at reforming Islamic practises in India was because they appealed to these concepts and their founders at least were seen by common Muslims as ”one of us” or ”working for our betterment”.
Do you think this will change with attempts by MBS to re-interpret the official versions of scriptures?
Saudi fundamentalism and funding did play a role in shaping the Islamic society in the Indian subcontinent. But not sure if it will work again.
I mean if 20 years from now Saudi Arabia is some sort of Beirut style party destination, will that lead to Muslims here turning more liberal or will that mean they’ll start looking for religious leadership elsewhere?
//Do you think this will change with attempts by MBS to re-interpret the official versions of scriptures? Saudi fundamentalism and funding did play a role in shaping the Islamic society in the Indian subcontinent.//
Saudi monarchs were never considered Islamic leaders nor did they hold much sway in the Islamic world except through the use of oil money. The last monarch that had any wide public appeal outside Arabia was King Faisal who was assassinated in 1975.
MBS does not have much hard or soft power outside the Arabian peninsula, nor is he considered a religious reformer or even a political reformer. Outside GCC, he is seen as just another Saudi monarch (which he is defacto). He even lost credibility in the West after the Kashhoggi murder and I think that is irreparable.
What I think will happen is that MBS may stop funding Salafists outside of Arabia, which may hinder Salafism in the short term at least, especially in Europe and South Asia. But Salafi movement is much older than Saudi Arabia and I don’t think it’s going away anytime soon, especially in the age of the internet where the Salafists have a clear advantage as scripture which they heavily rely on can be quoted easily to support their arguments.
“On March 26 and December 16, 1971, East Pakistan rejected the state structure of the original edifice of Pakistan. However, by becoming Bangladesh, the people of what once used to be East Bengal reaffirmed with passion their abiding belief in the Two-Nation Reality; that Muslims and Hindus are two distinct, separate nations.
Muslims of South Asia — notwithstanding their numerous internal diversities of languages and ethnicities — were long possessed of a sense of being a nation, co-existing with a broad Hindu nation — with its own vast internal diversities — in the same region
The evolution of the Two-Nation Reality has been taking place in two major dimensions and phases. The first dimension is territorial and pre-Muslim. It began about 7,000 years ago with Mehergarh in Balochistan preceding Moenjodaro in Sindh by about 2,000 years as part of the Indus Valley civilisation, which gave way to the ascent of Buddhism as seen in Taxila and Swat. Except for about 700 years (Mauryan BC — Turko-Mughal-British ) the areas that now constitute Pakistan were autonomous, locally-ruled or mostly dominated by forces from West and Central Asia.
The second phase commenced about 1,300 years ago. It added a new religious Muslim dimension to the territorial, ancestral, cultural heritages already there
“In the five Northern Provinces of India, out of a total population of about forty millions, we, the Muslims, constitute about thirty millions. Our religion, culture, history, tradition, economic system, laws of inheritance, succession and marriage are basically and fundamentally different from those of the people living in the rest of India. The ideals which move our thirty million brethren in-faith living in these Provinces to make the highest sacrifices are fundamentally different from those which inspire the Hindus. These differences are not confined to the broad basic principles — far from it. They extend to the minutest details of our lives. We do not inter-dine; we do not inter-marry. Our national customs and calendars, even our diet and dress, are different”.
The Reality and Theory are sometimes misrepresented by detractors as a vision based on hatred of Hindus. At not a single point in their contributions to the process did Allama Iqbal, Chaudhri Rehmat Ali or Muhammad Ali Jinnah ever express hatred. Nor did they stoke xenophobia against Hindus or Sikhs or the followers of other faiths. They simply stressed the stark difference of identity markers between the two communities
So inclusive and pluralist is the Two-Nation Reality and Theory that even in May 1947, just three months before independence, Mr. Jinnah strongly and urgently requested British Prime Minister Clement Atlee to reject the partition of Punjab and Bengal that was being urged by the Congress and Viceroy Mountbatten. The Quaid wanted large numbers of non-Muslims — Hindus and Sikhs — to remain in their ancestral homes and become citizens of the new state of Pakistan without facing sudden displacement and insecurity. His speech of August 11, 1947, unequivocally projected the synergestic dimension of the philosophy of Pakistan.”
There is no mainstream Pakistani discourse about some “Indus civilization”. This is a meme invented on the internet, specifically in the English language forums that you feed your energy into. This idea could not exist in Urdu or any other local language because the name of this civilization would then be ”Sindh”, and Pakistan is much more than just Sindh. How do you even translate ”Indus Valley Civilization in Urdu? It’s called ”tehzeeb e darya e-sindh” or tehzeeb e Sindh. Kinda hard to make a case for all areas of Pakistan called ”Sindh” don’t you think? Which is why nobody has ever put forth this theory in a local language. And if some thing is not being used in Urdu, it literally has no real substance in Pakistan given that everyone uses Urdu to spread any idea in the country.
The only time I have heard someone talk about this on TV was on Aftab Iqbal’s Urdu show where he was interviewing some journalist who talked about ”how we need to talk about history of our land to differentiate from India”. Funnily enough, even though he was speaking in Urdu he used the term ”indus valley civilization”.
Expect to see more of this ”Indus stuff” 20 years from now, because it came about in response to Indian nationalists online doing \sem2sem\. However I doubt it will gain any traction in Pakistan because it is against the state’s interest to promote it right now.
I think you are articulating the deep seated fear that Pakistanis are somehow going to fall in love with the ancient past. That is Jahil. Hence the attempt to tar it as something provincial (Sindhi).
In India, there is ample ownership of the IVC at the elite and the prole levels. We call it the Sindhu Sabhyata. And we own it.
You have to give it to Pakistani cultural custodians. They have somehow completely stranded themselves from the geography (Indus), from the history (Sindhu), from the language (IE) and the culture (Sanskritic).
Just like ”India” claims IVC, Pakistan claims the history of Islamic Hindustan as it’s own. I see the drafting of an IVC narrative by some diaspora Pakistanis as an attempt to put Pakistan on defensive, trying to restrict us geographically, marking nationhood based on rivers and ruins, very much like the Hindus. Perhaps the Pakistani establishment thinks like me, which is why they have not yet made an attempt to draft Pakistan as an ”indus nation”..
IVC is pretty irrelevant apart from academic historical interest, most Pakistanis could not care less about which shows in the decrepit state of it’s sites. And I see their point, it was 4,000+ years ago, those people looked different, ate different, talked in an incomprehensible language, and if the British hadn’t discovered them, you wouldn’t have even known because you had no local memory of them. You don’t see the Irish being obsessed about the Celts, or the English about the Saxons, or the Egyptians about ancient Egypt because those are long gone.
Interestingly the word ‘Jahil’ comes from the Arabic word ‘Jahilliya’ which is used to denote the pre-Islamic era of darkness, referred to someone who was holding pre-Islamic customs before Islam. Now this term is used pejoratively to denote someone ignorant ofcourse. So who is the Jahil here? 😛
As Ali has mentioned, we have just adopted more Persianate culture while I would add, we have retained some portion of Sankritic culture. Seems quite reasonable given our geography and recent history.
Ali Chaudhary is right. Sanskrit (its literature and associated culture, languages, scripts) plays little part in Pakistan today. In fact, a lot of India-Pak bonhomie between occurs precisely with the Indians who are distant from Sanskrit culture, intentionally or otherwise.
The curious case is that of literary and culturally active Indian Muslims. They are not as distant from Sanskrit as Pakistanis might assume. Rahi Masoom Raza wrote the dialog for the television Mahabharata, SRK gave his kids Sanskrit names (Suhana, Aryan) and a lot of modern Indian Muslim poets and lyricists lean a lot more on Sanskrit vocabulary than their predecessors.
Thats what I meant. The Pakistani cultural establishment uses the concept of “Jahilliya” to figure out the correct cultural role models for its population. And you are just echoing that logic.
….it was 4,000+ years ago, those people looked different, ate different, talked in an incomprehensible language, and if the British hadn’t discovered them, you wouldn’t have even known because you had no local memory of them.
Because we are on BP, I would like to tell you that modern Pakistanis look exactly like the Harappans – there is phenotypic continuity from the IVC skeletal record for all of North India, attires were the same (cotton garments, headgear, footwear), building methods, genetic inheritance (IVC cline is the largest predominant source for all of South Asians: Reich).
Modern Pakistani groups don’t even look like each other, so it’s such a stretch to say they looked like the Harappans. It’s stretching the meaning of what is considered ”look alike”.
Some of the clearest markers of culture are languages, religion, architecture, cuisine and music. These are completely and entirely different today than 4000 years ago.
I think the Pakistani state is correct about IVC, it’s taught about to students as ”ancient history of Pakistan” but given as much importance as events 4000 years ago should be given – that is – very little. I understand why Indians give it extra importance, for them it is about their religion.
If u are talking within India, than IVC gets a tad more mention then it does in Pakistan. Its actually outside India that all this IVC arguemnts are taking shape. In India there is no controversy on IVC
Lurker
3 years ago
Female workforce participation is definitely not a complete positive given impact on family and birth rates. Also, rushing prosperity and incomes are one of the factors d icing lower female workforce participation.
Perhaps there is a model that improves female autonomy and security without requiring them to have their own outside of home income. Inheritance from.parents ( North is very bad at this) and some legal right on husband’s monthly income and transfer thereof could be steps in that direction. The devil will be in the implementation details.
We need to optimize for the future and not just the present, and for the family and society and not just the individual. Happiness is more than just money. Would it be so bad if India stagnated at $15K per capita GDP in 30 years vs 25k with full female workforce participation if the society is healthier and families happier? To give an example of the trade offs consider Indian migrants to the US: materially way better off but at least half of them have a bit of a regret around their decision due to cultural and legacy factors.
Female workforce participation is definitely not a complete positive given impact on family and birth rates.
North India very much needs its birthrate to fall, so women going to the workforce in droves and earning money independent of their male family members can’t happen fast enough as far as I’m concerned.
Don’t compare India to the West (or Japan), where falling birthrates are indeed a social concern. Much good can happen in India if our TFR goes well below 2, and almost nothing good will happen in India unless out TFR goes well below 2.
We need to optimize for the future and not just the present, and for the family and society and not just the individual.
You are talking like someone who lives in a high-trust developed country. And perhaps you do! Let we in India solve our basics first, things that the OECD countries figure out a while ago. Then, when our present looks and smells nice, we can express angst over the future.
[North India very much needs its birthrate to fall, so women going to the workforce in droves and earning money independent of their male family members can’t happen fast enough as far as I’m concerned.
Don’t compare India to the West (or Japan), where falling birthrates are indeed a social concern. Much good can happen in India if our TFR goes well below 2, and almost nothing good will happen in India unless out TFR goes well below 2.]
Not disagreeing with you but we need to keep the long-term in mind and not end up like the Chinese where a single couple has the care burden of four parents and sometimes four or more grandparents. Also, nobody can replace the bond between siblings and having a safety net of at least one sibling is important for the material and emotional well being of people. I’m all for female autonomy and equality but there may be a middle path between the atomization of the West and the family-collectivism of the India of the past. I’m also saying that it is OK to be a mid income, family oriented, stable society than to be a economic machine with social problems. It is not so bad to be an Italy with a sense of community and family compared to a cold, individualistic Germany or heck America.
I say this as someone living in an OECD country. Many of us chased careers and money, and now that we are a bit older we miss India, family, community, culture etc. Yes, we have these rose tinted glasses we live away, but there is no denying that a lot had to be given up for our material progress.. I’m advocating for the middle way, and the choices have to be made now, long before these will become issues.
Family and community is a little overrated, you spend all your time either meeting relatives, going to weddings, condoling their deaths or having to invite them to your place. WhatsApp groups are enough for me plus meeting every couple of years.
As opposed to being stuck in Western consumer rat race working all day, living in a nuclear family, possibly divorce on the horizon, with disobedient kids?
Nah. Family/community are important, most humans yearn for identity and sense of belonging
We don’t appreciate enough what we do have. I am only belatedly realising this, especially after the pandemic.
Extended kinship network is social capital that is much more robust than anything the state can provide in the long term. Seems true at least for India and probably for the west as well.
Story time:
One night a few months ago, my mom started having breathing difficulties. This must have been at 3am at night. The wife of one of my dad’s closest friend is a senior doctor. She drove to our place in the middle night, checked my mom and immediately asked us to rush her to the hospital. She also called the hospital so they knew there was an emergency. Later we learnt that she had had a cardiac episode and that there was a possibility of irreversible damage had we been late.
Now, my nani (grandma) had been stranded alone at her place in Patna due to the lockdown. My mom was extremely worried. This was not at all good in her state. She couldn’t go and meet her because of the heart issues. And none of us wanted to risk taking a flight and accidentally infecting my grandma. So my mom’s cousin who lives in a different city in Bihar got herself RT-PCR tested and took my nani to stay with her, where she’s happily spending lockdown since.
None of this would have happened without a strong kinship network. The western solution to this is a mix of using technology and making the state more efficient. You fit your grandparents with smart watches that detect atrial fibrillation and you have cameras with algorithms to detect falls. Then you hope that the APIs will work well so that if there’s an issue, it will be relayed to 911. Then you hope that your NHS or whatever will have free ambulances and also sufficient capacity and urgency to act on it immediately. All this while hoping that the insurance company doesn’t block something in between.
All these are fine but we do not live in an Iain M. Banks tech utopia yet so they are no replacements for actual humans who care for you and can go the extra step without worrying about getting anything in return.
Meeting relatives etc are rituals that keep those bonds intact. They seem like inconveniences but pay themselves off handsomely in times of need. It doesn’t take much to lose touch and become atomised.
(Saying this as someone who’s spend most of my life as a ‘rebel’ who mocked things that seemed irrational and stayed deliberately aloof from the extended family)
There is a lot less general stress in the West compared to living in Pakistan, even if you have to do your own laundry, cooking, cleaning etc. Working culture is also far more respectful of you compared to Pakistan from what I know. And the freedom and independence of living in a nuclear family tastes great. In any case I have the best of both worlds in the UK in that we live on our own, my parents and both our siblings are fairly close by and there is a lot of extended family dotted around various cities. Being in Pakistan is a never-ending sequence of family events, 3 to 5 day weddings etc.
I used to be more like Ali (thats the reason i ran away to US, the first instance i got) , but i have been haing 2nd thoughts espically during the pandemic. Many of my extended family who had outdoor jobs back in India have lost their loved ones. And my immediate family is saved only becuase they have either retried or work in sectors which are mostly WFH. Meanwhile i have gotten so home sick and anxious about my family back in India , that can;t wait for Nov- Dec to visit them.
Generally agree with Ali here, though Prats’ experiences hit home with me. We’ve had many such experiences where family, friends, and neighbors have provided crucial assistance in times of need.
On the flipside, the fact that institutions outside our kinship network can suck really bad compared to the West can have serious and sometimes fatal consequences. I’ve mentioned on this forum that my mother passed away due to cancer last year. I’m not sure she got the best care possible, or anywhere close to that. Of course, the pandemic didn’t help, but there are a lot of inbuilt inefficiencies and blockers in our healthcare (and other) systems that make their quality sub-optimal.
For example: my mom’s blood count remained low much of the year, requiring blood transfusions prior to treatment. But the hospital wouldn’t lift a finger here. It was up to my old dad to run around to blood banks, and also use “connections”, to ensure she got blood. Not sure how this happens in the West, but I doubt they’d let a patient suffer and possibly even die while demanding that family members arrange for blood.
Saurav:
I never had a particular urge to run to the West, as I was quite happy in India growing up. But America grew on me while I lived there, and it never soured. (I am a geek and an introvert, a personality that may fit in better there than in India, unlike Type A people.) I moved back to India precisely because of family ties. Overall, my experience moving back has not been a happy one, though eventually I made my peace with India. Your expectations of thick family ties may or may not pan out, as people change and how people treat you as an NRI may differ from how they treat you as an Indian (but of course, this varies from family to family). If family doesn’t pan out, and you live a mostly isolated life, then what you are left with is living in a country with a crappy infrastructure but with no better family support than you got back in the States. So be warned.
Totally get in Numnious. Thats why i have been dithering on moving back 2 India for the last couple of years. Its just the Pandemic sort of broke something within me. I know i will miss the west, but perhaps i am more mentally prepared than i was couple of years back.
Right, let’s make future look and smell nice by making a whole lot of women suffer more while that happens.
It’s no fun being a working mother as pandemic has shown and most women want to be mothers and *actually* love their children to spend time with them. It’s burning candle from both ends without male partner sharing domestic chores.
But yeah, let’s tout economic progress on the backs of female work force participation norm where they don’t get a slack on any of the domestic chores. Not that work place abuse is any less (my sister’s colleague had a suicide due to work place sexual harassment).
Many of my female cousins in India are in a situation where in-laws expect them to have a child and also earn income of their single days. The latest generation husbands do nothing when child shows up. But blatantly promoting this situation for majority population is just clueless for some hypothetical nice smelling future influenced by many other macroeconomic factors.
There is a lot to be said for inheritance laws for women to improve their lot. There is no point in economic activity without financial independence.
You and I live in different worlds. My Hindutva- and Modi-supporting dad has done a fair amount of domestic chores, more so since he retired. Men sharing in chores (at least some of them) is a well-settled norm in the West, and urban India is moving in that direction too.
Nowhere did I demand that women need to be be doing both outdoor and indoor work while men twiddle their thumbs; it’s simply an assumption you made.
Siddharth
3 years ago
This Indus civ business is news to me, and quite interesting to read about. There do seem to be a fringe bunch who are trying hard to cast a separate identity for Pakistan, and godspeed to them. 1947 was a definite point of no return and there’s now enough coherence and momentum to take the NW of the subcontinent down it’s own track.
OTOH literally every Mirpuri taxi driver I’ve come across in the midlands town that I live in makes it a point to emphasise how similar we are when they realise I’m from India and can speak Hindi fluently.
Maybe this Indus civ stuff is just a meme for the elites. Or its a serious intellectual movement which is on its way to becoming mainstream. Who knows. But if it brings some stability and self confidence, it should be cheered on. Ditto for hindutva in India, despite some elements of it that I’m not in favour of. All identities after all are artificial to a large extent
Forget Mirpur i have met Pasthun uber drivers in US who emphasize how similar we are. I was like no bro, we aint, and then he started speaking in brokern urdu and singing some Bollywood songs.
An Ethiopian taxi driver did that once with me. Until then, I had no idea how far and wide Bollywood’s reach was. But reached it has: to the Middle East and Africa, based on what I’ve heard from citizens of those countries.
One Ethiopian taxi driver once wanted me to guess where he was from. He fancied that he looked Indian (some East Africans can look vaguely Indian, but barely so) but I immediately recognized him as an East African. When I told him that I always guessed East African, he was mighty upset and it made for an uncomfortable ride to my destination.
Suppose this is analogous to a Punjabi Paki taxi guy driving a Turkish or Iranian customer and hoping to be mistaken as one of those nationalities, then getting upset when the passenger refuses to play the game. This sort of thing happens in internet forums all the time 🙂
“His friend Krishna Kumar Mandal, also a TMC worker now, butted in saying, “We Hindus cannot raise our voice anymore. This vote will be an outlet of our anger.” The sheer complexity of political affiliations were on display when Mandal said his heart is with the left, he works for TMC out of compulsion, but will vote for BJP.
The saffron party, which is often accused of weakening democratic institutions at the national level, has emerged in a unique avatar here. Bengal is looking for a new boss, asserted Prasenjit Das from South 24 Parganas. “We are looking up to the BJP to restore our democratic right to vote and end corruption.” Residents of his village, including Muslims, said they were able to move around freely only after the remarkable performance of the BJP in the 2019 elections.”
It’s both sad and hilarious how so many brown rooms on Clubhouse end up turning into online versions of Fight Club.
First rule of fight club. We don’t take about fight club 😉
But seriously, I’m wondering, if its worth joining
If you have an iPhone, I can send you an invite. Information bandwidth is an order of magnitude higher there vis-a-vis Twitter. Will need a phone number though.
What are the odds that we are going to have the first Brahmin president of the United States in the next 3 months?
Is three months the over/under now? ?
Highest odds for exactly 3 months 🙂
Hope a brahmin doesn’t become pm of india soon?
If I remember correctly, the current PM is the only non-Brahmin candidate who has completed the full 5 year term successfully in the last 70 years (let’s put Sikhs in a category for the moment). Other OBC candidates have been pushed out quite early on in their terms.
This puts the whole vitriol against Modi in a different light, doesn’t it? 🙂 Hindutva!!!
The Chinese have come up with a new term to refer to the woke crowd: “Baizuo”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baizuo
the term evolved to criticize some people among the left who seemingly advocate for positive slogans like peace and equality to boast their sense of moral superiority, but are ignorant of real-world consequences, and utilize destructive behavior like political sacrifice and identity politics
… term came to be more widely used in reference to perceived double standards of Western media, as well as in relation to the tolerance of left-wing activists for manifestations of Islamism
offsping’s caste gets defined by the fathers’ cast.
Ooh…the trads have arrived with their sorting hat.
https://m.economictimes.com/tech/tech-bytes/india-may-see-more-local-manufacturing-foxconns-josh-foulger/amp_articleshow/81598895.cms
India may see more local manufacturing: Foxconn’s Josh Foulger
He said India has a “leg-up” in terms of talent and cost.
When you look at the competing geographies or countries, China, India, Brazil, Vietnam, Indonesia, India kind of checks all of the right boxes. It really is a conducive environment,” he said.
I suggested this in a previous Open Thread, but the thought cropped up in my mind again as I listened to the latest BP podcast with Hindu students about the Truschke affair.
Is it the case in American academia that Hinduism is singled out for this kind of critical “scholarship” or is that the norm for all religions other than Islam? Mukunda and his guests seemed convinced that this is all because of a mix of ignorance and Hinduphobia. But aren’t American academics (and elites in general) quite Christophobic too? Critically examining Islam (and its founder) is what seems taboo; if, for example, Truschke had called Mohammad a pedophile (an accurate statement if we believe the writings from that era), she’d probably have been fired pronto.
Sure but Americans know a lot about Christianity and until recently it was a highly Christian nation.
It’s a bit like a comedian making jokes about their own race vs other races.
Punching down so to speak.
A very woke, pro-deplatforming person I know defended the “hunduphobia” as academic freedom.
The total number of Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, Buddhists combined are less than 5% of America’s population.
The rest of the country is either Christian or liberal, which is basically a secular version of Protestantism.
It is easy to grandstand in such a case. We’ll see how the west behaves once any of the minority religious groups hits 10%. Signs from Europe certainly do not scream ‘freedom’ 🙂
On the students’ observations about their parents’ having done a crummy job of teaching them Hindu traditions and history, I think the bigger reason is the lack of the metaphorical “village”, or at least extended family; in particular, grandparents. I grew up in a multi-generational household, and I learned all of this (Ramayana, Mahabharata, many Vedic concepts) from my grandparents. My parents didn’t teach me zilch about this, though my mom did point me toward Amar Chitra Katha, which became my reservoir of knowledge about historical and mythical India.
So it’s not surprising to me that Indian-American kids don’t learn these things, and instead have a “come to Jesus” moment when they encounter them in adulthood. Probably many kids in India who don’t have close ties with grandparents have similar experiences. Might explain the popularity of the Hindu right today, way beyond its original milieu.
For my part, I absorbed all of that when I was a toddler, so I have no identity confusion. Instead, I gradually lapsed into my present agnosticism (or atheism if you will). The conservatism of Indian society, of Hindusim, and of religion period, seemed to me to substantially limit my personal growth (and in macro terms, inhibit the progress of mankind). Religious traditions have their uses in grounding kinds in a strong system of ethics, but IMHO they are not something adults should be taking very seriously. Science and rationality ought to trump religious thought.
A nice article on Khushwant Singh.
https://www.dawn.com/news/923614/profile-the-sardar-of-hadali
@Razib, although Japanese have Jomon admixture(who are believed to have significant West Eurasian), why are they genetically further away from West Eurasians than that of Han Chinese in PCA maps?
https://www.discovermagazine.com/health/genetic-map-of-east-asia
Is the West Eurasian in East Asia mostly European-like or West Asian-like?
“significant” No. There might have been a small amount a long time ago vs. maybe a slightly higher but still small amount much more recently in China.
Though Jomons were not homogenous, 14% West Eurasian is significant. Also, Ainus are hairy and many look radically West Eurasian. So it hints towards a significant West Eurasian input IG.
Can’t hairiness just be convergent evolution?
Yes but they are not only hairy but also look quite West Eurasian
That can all still be convergence. Hard to say without actual genetic data showing high degree of support with high proportion west eurasian genes.
Genes should be used to suss out the nuances of the origins of phenotype. Not the other way around.
Where are you getting the 14% value from?
You still haven’t told me how you arrived at that 14% number. Did you pull it out of thin air?
This is probably the root source:
https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/ase/advpub/0/advpub_190415/_pdf/-char/en
“When 10 different simple or admix tree
models were tested to add F23 into the three-population tree,
two trees were supported: (1) the simple tree, in which F23
first clustered with Han (Z = 2.073); and (2) the admix tree,
in which the admixture of East Eurasian Han (86%) and
West Eurasian Sardinian (14%) explained the ancestor of
F23 (Z = 0.011). When we used French instead of Sardinian,
both the simple tree and the admix tree became the best
model (Z = –0.241 for both trees and the proportion of the
admixture was 99% and 1% in the admix tree model)”
So it can be down to 1%, which is similar to or less than the recent west Eurasian in Chinese. Not only that, it was using Chinese for reference so that may be the reason for such variable results. A more proximate population, maybe like pre-jomon minatogawa, will likely support a low admixture of something like a couple of percent.
If I am not wrong,Jomon in fact are close to South Eurasians,with AASI being particularly close.
I dont remember where I read it though.
That’s correct. They are closer to aasi than they are to say Han
So far AASI has not been sampled so it is hard to place Jomon with that reference. What is known is that Jomon aren’t as divergent as Papuans from east Asians, but that isn’t saying much.
https://www.opindia.com/2021/03/radical-islamic-groups-extend-support-to-hinduphobic-audrey-truschke/
Disgusting. The radicalislamo-leftist nexus rears its ugly head again.
Halal haleem owaisi
https://www.opindia.com/2021/03/congress-others-demand-implementation-of-one-of-the-three-farm-laws/
Modi is winning
https://www.google.com/amp/s/menglish.sakshi.com/amp/news/national/west-bengal-polls-aimim-chief-quits-party-support-mamata-nandigram-132271
Lol they are getting scared now
https://www.opindia.com/2021/03/muslims-in-bangladesh-protest-against-visit-by-hindu-nationalist-pm-modi/
“We will rise with roar of Osama bin Laden, we are Rasul soldiers’: Muslims in Bangladesh protest against visit by ‘Hindu Nationalist’ PM Modi”
Halal haleem owaisi
Indian-origin man in New Zealand arrested for allegedly threatening Sikh youth on social media
He reportedly called the Sikh man a ‘Khalistani terrorist’, and posted his photos and phone number online.
The police in New Zealand’s Auckland city on Friday arrested a man of Indian origin for allegedly threatening a Sikh youth on social media and posting derogatory messages against him, The Times of India reported. The accused also abused a few other people.
The man allegedly made the offensive remarks on a Facebook group. He reportedly called the Sikh man a “Khalistani terrorist” and posted his photos and phone number online. The man accused the youth of running a hate campaign against Indians, and urged people to complain to the police about him.
The accused also told the youth that he would come to his house to teach him a lesson, according to The Times of India. The police have filed a case against the man based on the youth’s complaint. They are also likely to investigate the role of some other people in making hateful comments.
Sikh community leaders in Australia have also noted a growing divide within the Indian-Australian community, according to The Guardian. They alleged that Facebook and WhatsApp were being used to disseminate rhetoric against religious minority groups, amid the farmers’ protest in India.
Last month, armed men had attacked four Sikh students in Sydney. It was suspected to be a hate crime.
https://scroll.in/latest/990062/indian-origin-man-in-new-zealand-arrested-for-allegedly-threatening-sikh-youth-on-social-media
https://www.opindia.com/2021/02/sikh-radio-host-harnek-singh-new-zealand-farm-laws-attack-recovering/amp/
The violence on both sides is very sad.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.livemint.com/news/world/protest-in-canada-s-burnaby-against-attacks-on-hindus-by-khalistan-supporters/amp-11614319548707.html
I saw the Netflix adaptation of The White Tiger a couple of weeks back with my wife and really enjoyed it to the point I am reading the book now. Unlike the BBC adaptation of A Suitable Boy, it felt like it had been made by a creative team who really knew India.
I don’t think the book was particularly popular in India largely I suppose because of its treatment of a largely taboo subject, the absolutely brutal treatment which servants, domestic workers and anyone further down the ladder get.
It is the same in Pakistan where it would be rather unremarkable for a family with servants to care more about its pets than those cooking and cleaning for them. Seeing that plus the stark poverty always makes me really uncomfortable when I am in Lahore visiting family. When there you are expected as a matter of course to lock your bedrooms when you leave to prevent domestic staff from stealing your passports, valuables, money etc. It is also really unhealthy for kids to grow up in an environment where they can order adults around and insult them and have them at their beck and call to do whatever they feel like.
A White Tiger was by no means the first book to talk about the abuse of servants in India. In fact, one woman in such a position (Baby Halder) actually wrote a book about her experiences (Aalo Aandhari – A Life Less Ordinary). Good read.
I’d never heard of this book until you mentioned it. Looking at its Wikipedia entry, it does sound like a good (and informative) read.
There are several reasons why a book by someone like Adiga would gain immediate fame as compared to a book like this. First, it is written in English rather than going through a translation. It is written in an idiom that the “people who decide what books are good and fit to read” can understand (this is not a criticism, just a fact). Adiga is also someone who has lived in the West and looks at India through semi-foreign eyes, so the international readers of his book can relate to his writing. His book was mostly about servant abuse but occasional broader critiques of Indian society also slipped in; just like in Naipaul’s books.
(I remember The White Tiger being one of the first books I read after moving back to India, in an effort to try and understand the country I had totally lost touch with. And since I’d chosen to move to Delhi, a place hitherto alien to me, what the book said squared with my personal observations.)
Numinous, I discussed this book on my personal blog a few years ago. The discussion contains spoilers, so be forewarned.
https://vikramvgarg.wordpress.com/2011/07/30/reflections-on-a-a-life-less-ordinary/
Never heard of it before, but the trailer looks great. I will check it out. Thanks for the recommendation.
https://indianexpress.com/article/explained/essential-commodities-amendment-act-2020-farmers-protests-parliamentary-panel-bjp7237327/lite/
Explained: Why House panel wants govt to implement this farm law despite protests
In its report on ‘Price Rise of Essential Commodities- Causes and Effects,’ the committee has given reasons for the implementation of the law. “The Committee note that although the country has become surplus in most agricultural commodities, farmers have been unable to get better prices due to lack of investment in cold storage, warehouses, processing and export as entrepreneurs stated to be get discouraged by the regulatory mechanisms in the Essential Commodities Act, 1955,” says the report of the committee.
The 30-member committee has members from both the houses and 13 parties. The names of the members are: Bhagwant Mann (AAP); Girish Bhalchandra Bapat, Gangasandra Siddappa Basavaraj, Pratima Bhoumik, Anil Firojiya, Sanganna Amarappa Karadi, Ajay (Teni) Misra, Khagen Murmu, Mitesh Rameshbhai (Bakabhai) Patel, Subrata Pathak, Himadri Singh, Satish Chandra Dubey, Roopa Ganguly and Sakaldeep Rajbhar (all BJP); Saptagiri Sankar Ulaka, Rajmohan Unnithan, Vaithilingam Ve. and Rajmani Patel (all Congress); Ganesan Selvam (DMK); Kavita Singh (JD(U)); K.G. Kenye (Naga Peoples Front); Farooq Abdullah (NC; Fauzia Tahseen Ahmed Khan (NCP); M.C. Mary Kom(Nominated); Anbumani Ramadoss (PMK); Rajendra Dhedya Gavit (Shiv Sena); Shafiqur Rahman Barq (SP) Shanta Chhetri (TMC); and Nandigam Suresh (YSRCP).
While most of the parties, which have members on this committee, have opposed the three farm laws, none of the 30-member has given a dissent note in the report.
> While most of the parties, which have members on this committee, have opposed the three farm laws, none of the 30-member has given a dissent note in the report.
I am confused. Is Bhagwant Mann (therefore AAP) in favour of the laws i.e. are they asking the government to implement them?
@fragment_and_activities
I think most of the leaders against farm laws realize that it’s needed but they are opposing it for political reasons. I think kejriwal will do a farmers rally in punjab in coming days and mann has said things like this-
Repeal of farm laws only solution, not forming of committee: Bhagwant Mann
https://www.google.com/amp/s/indianexpress.com/article/cities/chandigarh/repeal-only-solution-not-forming-of-committee-bhagwant-mann-7143853/lite/
why is it difficult for bjp to have an ‘intellectuals’ barat as congress has? i feel they need to fish out side the delhi environment. after all abvp is spread all over india.
‘
Their base is aggrieved mid-tier castes not smarty-pants upper castes.
Not really. BJP known as a brahmin bania party for a long time, one of upper caste privilege. Recent greater OBC participation is new.
Agree. That there are many prominent brahmins in centrist and leftist poltical camps speaks more to the fact that they are overrepresented among intellectuals. In my experinece, the less anglophone a brahmin is, the more likely they are solid hindu nationalist. The core BJP was middle-class/upper caste and both of these were once essentially the same thing. OBC involvement in the hindu nationalist project probably correlates with their entry into/ or aspiring to the middle class and concommitant urbanisation. They were able to convince their country cousins that aligning with the BJP is no longer taboo, and that it has good-faith intentions for the OBC block.
Indian intellectual is necessarily a person who is a fluent speaker and writer of english language. His parents and grandparents have also gone to english medium schools. Over time, this generation has become more anglicized and has stopped seeing any utility in Indian culture. This generation is very different from say – Rajaji type generation that was at home with english and vernacular and was actually well read and knew what they were talking about. A reason could be that they probably did not start their childhood going to English medium schools.
A lot of these intellectuals have studied in US/UK universities and come back to India armed with language, right accent, and scholarly competency. Any discussion of secularism that happens in India happens in English. This fact itself is telling. In fact, the original languages will not even have translations of words like secularism. These are newly made up words. The old bania-brahmin nexus is not that conversant with English language and as a consequence has stayed closer to its Indic roots. I think that the BJP debaters make a big mistake by responding in english and thereby losing their advantage. Just being fluent in English gives you points in India. There is strong correlation between language competency and the intellectual debate that happens in India.
People in liberal arts globally are predominantly leftists and they control the media narrative disproportionately
https://www.yahoo.com/news/real-reasons-u-t-win-103057654.html
https://www.quora.com/Ive-noticed-that-whites-are-physically-larger-and-stronger-than-Asians-Indians-in-particular-Is-this-a-demographic-fact-or-is-it-just-observational-bias-If-it-is-indeed-true-what-are-the-reasons?ch=10&share=9cd75afc&srid=u6vS8
LMFAO. The cope is hilarious, that too by the group we would all predict…
Delhi needs to ramp up vaccination. I don’t want to go through another peak and lockdown. Don’t know why the centre is insisting on limiting vaccines to 60+ and 45+ with co-morbidities. It should let states decide.
Ideally, the best strategy is to vaccinate randomly and rapidly to achieve herd immunity. My hunch is that the government doesn’t think that SII can ramp up production fast enough. So it’s rationing the doses.
The fastest way to reduce deaths is to vaccinate by age and co-morbidity prevalence.
That is assuming you can roll out vaccines to all vulnerable people faster than you can to 60% of overall population. I doubt that. Lot of spare capacity in India right now that is going wasted ~ 10%
Letting states figure out some hybrid strategy would be better.
https://www.indiatv.in/delhi/mob-creates-ruckus-in-harijan-basti-delhi-after-harijan-basti-boy-marries-muslim-girl-watch-video-779724
“Unhappy with the wedding of the Muslim girl, her family, relatives and her community reached Harijan Basti at around 10.30 pm and vandalized the street in which the boy lives.
Harijan Basti boy marries Muslim girl, creates fiercely at 10:30 pm – India TV Hindi”
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.indiatoday.in/amp/india/story/pm-narendra-modi-india-pakistan-imran-khan-corona-wishes-speedy-recovery-1781667-2021-03-20#scso=_pexXYIG_H4nJtQbRkI-wBw18:225.90475463867188
https://www.sahforum.org/2020/06/12/the-hidden-genocide-post-demolition-of-babri-masjid/
50 years of Bangladesh independance coming up.
https://twitter.com/malik_anushay/status/1373686261563621383
“From Ayub Khan’s autobiography where he is comparing the history of Bangladesh and Pakistan (former East and West Pakistan) in Friends Not Masters (1967 Oxford University Press) on p. 187: They “have been and still are under considerably Hindu cultural and linguistic influence1/4
“…Their popular complexes, exclusiveness, suspicion and a sort of defensive aggressiveness probably emerge from this historical background….The population in West Pakistan, on the other hand, is probably the greatest mixture of races found anywhere in the world.”End quote 2/4
What does “greatest mixture of races found anywhere in the world” means
Non Indian, white-shifted races.
Interestingly the more secular leaning pakistanis tend to be more interested in racial makeup of pakistani pops and ethno geographical elements of the country. While more religious pakistanis see things more in light of all human beings being equal and look at things from muslim vs non muslim angle.
Aitzaz Ahsan the guy who started this indus nationalism stuff , that is now reaching mainstream apeal among young pakistanis was also secular
His book
The Indus saga and the making of Pakistan
Makes perfect sense. Humans are tribal. If one tribal identity weakens, another takes hold.
I don’t mind the ethnic promotion types so as long as they are not supremacists and/or disingenous about degree of connection to rest of S Asia. The issue is that thr loudest voices are. The same can be said about the “akhand bharat” types.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.thehindu.com/news/national/other-states/kashmir-valleys-healing-gardens-are-in-bloom/article34124022.ece/amp/
https://caravanmagazine.in/history/hindu-right-cannot-debate-me-audrey-truschke
” I teach in northern New Jersey, and my scholarship is compelling. That is not to say that I am always correct, but my colleagues generally find my ideas thoughtful and thought-provoking. This makes me dangerous to the Hindu right-wing because I can and do undercut their mythology about the Indian past. Also, in their view, I am the wrong colour and the wrong sex. “
Also, in their view, I am the wrong colour and the wrong sex.
Claims victimhood while also claiming that her scholarship is compelling.
Can’t take this socioeconomically privileged White Affirmative Action beneficiary (at the expense of a brown Hindu American applicant) seriously.
I disagree with Truschke and her “scholarship”, but both sides are playing the victim card here.
Aurangzeb’s girlfriend is overly attached to modern political trends. Find it amusing that Indian “atheists” and “liberals” are disowning her. After all she is only the “current” girlfriend. They don’t display the same scorn for his earlier partners in Liberal India.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/theprint.in/pageturner/excerpt/my-memories-of-being-in-rss-shakha-very-different-milind-soman/378196/%3famp
Interesting
https://www.livemint.com/opinion/online-views/a-privatization-plan-that-heralds-the-rise-of-the-indian-elephant-11614787401401.html
Great work!
https://www.theaustraliatoday.com.au/sydney-floods-hindu-community-opens-their-homes-and-temples-to-help-and-support-affected-people/
https://tribune.com.pk/story/2290484/ottoman-obsessions-and-bedouin-fascinations?amp=1&__twitter_impression=true
“This process is amplified by the very nature of nation building. States need stories and creation myths, and while these may or may not have a strong foundation in real events, the narrative is less concerned with accuracy and more with justifying its own existence.
As a political identity, Pakistani is a relatively young one. While the history of our land is ancient, there have been at most five generations of people who could identify themselves as ‘Pakistani’. What is more is that only starting with the millennial generation are Pakistanis growing up with no concept of being anything other than Pakistani.
All cultures and communities have a need for tracing their lineage. For most young Pakistanis, a lack of emphasis on our actual history creates an impetus to latch onto alternate regional narratives.”
Queue Indus Larp aka Birdari Ethnosupremacy w/ a healthy dose of radicalislamoapologism. Add in a solid dose of hatred of dharmic peoples, especially those of the gangetic plains.
Nobody really regards the Hindoos as a threat since Pakistan got nukes. The US, Israel and whatever country last was perceived to have insulted Islam (currently France although everyone has forgotten that now) are much more popular targets for ire. As for “dharmic” peoples it would be news to most Pakistanis that Buddhists and Jains still exist in India.
“Nobody really regards the Hindoos as a threat since Pakistan got nukes.”
This is good news. A more secure generation of Pakistanis means less recruitment for Lashkar and other terrorist organizations.
This ”indus gang” you keep shouting about only exists online. There is no discussion of Pakistan being Indus civilization in Pakistani media or academia. The reason? Because Indus river is called ”Darya-e- SINDH” in Urdu so it would be a bit weird to say Pakistan = Sindh for Pak Punjabis. The whole notion seem to have sprung only online, and in response to Indian nationalists trying to ”we wuz sem2sem” Pakistanis at every turn online which is relentless and nauseating. Most Pakistanis have no conception of some Indus civilization, nor do they care about ‘Gangetic’ civilization enough to hate it… Amongst Pakistan’s intelligentsia, civilizations are not based on rivers and pilgrimage sites, but on ideology. “Nazariya” as they call it.
Pakistan’s intelligentsia:
https://goatdroppingsofwisdom.wordpress.com/2011/02/14/how-to-make-your-own-ejaz-haider-at-home/
The bit about Indus and Sindh is interesting. Every nation in South Asia is either a ethnonym, exonym or endonym – India, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Nepal, Sri Lanka.
“Amongst Pakistan’s intelligentsia, civilizations are not based on rivers and pilgrimage sites, but on ideology. “Nazariya” as they call it.”
Ironically the use of the root ‘Nazar’ (sight) to mean ideology strikes me as one of those deep seated Indic things that still exist as an unwanted stain on Pakistani culture despite decades of cleansing.
Brief google search seems to confirm my suspicions that Persians don’t use the word “Nazar” in this context.
The sanskrit equivalent of the word i.e. Darsana is used to mean ideology within Hinduism and Buddhism.
//Ironically the use of the root ‘Nazar’ (sight) to mean ideology strikes me as one of those deep seated Indic things that still exist as an unwanted stain on Pakistani culture despite decades of cleansing.//
The word ”Nazariya” is a direct borrowing from Arabic which literally means “theory” and can also mean ideology. This word is present in Persian, Turkish and Urdu. Hint: any word with ‘Z’ or ‘F’ or ‘Q’ or /Kh/ or /Gh/ and like half the vocabulary of common Hindi is ”foreign” not Indic.
It’s amusing you say that Pakistan cleansed off its Urdu vocabulary from Indic influence, when this is patently false because all these words existed pre-partition in the language, perhaps for centuries, whereas it is India that cleaned (or tries to) its Hindi vocabulary from ”foreign” influences. Urdu has retained pretty much all of its Indic vocabulary, you can’t say the same for Hindi.
//Brief google search seems to confirm my suspicions that Persians don’t use the word “Nazar” in this context.//
Modern Persians don’t use a lot of terms that Urdu uses because modern Persian (especially the Tehrani version) contains much more loan words from Arabic, English and French. Urdu/Hindi however borrowed words from Old Persian, it uses those terms that you will likely find in modern Dari.
”Nazariye” is the term you are looking for in Persian and it literally is the first word that props up when you type in ”theory”
//The sanskrit equivalent of the word i.e. Darsana is used to mean ideology within Hinduism and Buddhism.//
Are you sure darshan means ideology (in general) when as far as I recall, it means sight
If you are talking about religious ideology or theory or viewpoint, we also have another word for that: It’s called ”mazhab”
Thanks! S.quereshi
Quick google searches not always comprehensive. Haha
Seems Sight or view is used for theory / ideology on many languages (incl. sort of in English “viewpoint” )
Wrt to Dasana meaning ideology/ philosophical view, yes I am sure…
http://www.hindupedia.com/en/Darsana
Mahzab they way I have seen it used I think translates to “religion” more or less. Maybe the closest translation is “dharma”
Well Mazhab is colloquially used for ‘religion’ in the subcontinent, but it means literally a ”religious path” or figuratively ”religious school of thought”..
//All cultures and communities have a need for tracing their lineage. For most young Pakistanis, a lack of emphasis on our actual history creates an impetus to latch onto alternate regional narratives.”//
Disagree with the writer here about ”tracing lineage”. It seems the writer is implying that one needs to trace some kind of genetic or geographic lineage to arrive at what is considered ”our” history or ”their history”. This is not how most nations on earth arrive at what they consider ”our” history. Americans, despite living on another continent, appeal to greco-roman ideals and considering that their history despite sharing little genetics with ancient greeks or romans. Arabs have little regard for their pre Islamic history, and while secular atheist Turks might tell everyone how badass their Tengri ancestors were, most Turks are also very uninterested in that period. Egyptians don’t consider ancient Egyptian relics as anything but tourism money.. What is considered ”our history” is very much manufactured using mythology.
What we are seeing in Pakistan is a formation of singularly a ”Pakistani” identity.. based on common religion and a common language. I would say currently this is much more grounded than India’s which hasn’t yet decided whether it wants to be retain its diversity or become a Hindu nation, and I’m not sure they can easily decide that.
Lastly, Ertugrul became popular because its a big budget production with good cinematography, good acting, engrossing story line and a show where Islamic values are promoted.. it’s nothing revolutionary, it just gave people what they wanted to see on TV
Bang on regarding Ertugral , I can bet if you remove nude scenes from spartacus and game of thrones and give them a bit of religious touch , they would be equally popular.
These intricate power struggle type shows rooted in history can garner lot of interest in masses. Some people are just making a big fuss out of it.
It’s also very popular as it was dubbed in Urdu, had attractive leads and was different from 95% of Pakistani drama which consists of saas-bahu/extended family conflicts featuring lots of women crying.
Perhaps folks here know all this, so you can clear my confusion:
From
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/internet/indian-youtubers-lag-in-earnings/articleshow/78304673.cms?from=mdr
I came to the google spreadsheet at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/17z3G4Iw3hDnW4TvtqVjpUXBKoAdaMmlH1lQon4_kuwA/edit#gid=841346809
So here are the top earning youtubers in four brown countries:
1. Bangladesh – Farjana Drawing Academy – 4.58 million subscribers, 1023027 daily views, $225000 monthly earnings, cost per 1000 impressions 7.34.
2. Pakistan – Kitchen with Amna – 3.42 million subscribers, 461670 daily views, $101600 monthly earnings, cost per 1000 impressions 7.34.
3. Sri Lanka – Apé Amma – 1.43 million subscribers, 429340 daily viiews, $94500 monthly earnings, cost per 1000 impressions 7.34.
4. India – CarryMinati – 22.7 million subscribes, 7871489 daily views, $66100 monthly earnings, cost per 1000 impressions 0.28.
I find this quite amazing – the Indian channel is the lowest earning, and by a good margin, though it gets far more views and subscribers, basically because CPM (cost per 1000 impressions) is much lower. Why is this so, I mean, what explains this CPM difference? Indian advertisers pay lesser?
The most popular channel might not be the one that earns the most. You’ll earn more if your views come from countries with higher ad rates and maybe also the age demographic of the viewers.
Could be the case that the most popular Pakistani/Bangladeshi channels get a lot of views from the diaspora or from an older age group with higher purchasing power.
I also think that Carryminati is not the highest earning YouTuber in India. His videos keep getting demonetized due to vulgarity or use of copyrighted music.
(In any case, the article mentions that the amount given is not accurate. I am basing my explanation on it being in the right ballpark)
Thanks Prats. Regarding:
Could be the case that the most popular Pakistani/Bangladeshi channels get a lot of views from the diaspora or from an older age group with higher purchasing power.
It will be interesting if one can offer heuristic support for this hypothesis, and some suggested explanation for why this could be so. That all the three of these countries do much better than India seems very fascinating.
1. Pakistan has half the internet penetration of India (17% vs 34%) in a smaller market. They had also banned YouTube for a few years so there might be a lag in adoption vs potential (I don’t have data to back this up)
2. Pakistani diaspora is large (8.8 million) and comparable to the total number of Pakistanis on the internet (34 million). The diaspora folks are also expected to have better access to internet. This is very different from India (18 million vs 400 million internet users in India).
3. NRPs are also more engaged with Pakistan than NRIs with India due to dual citizenship.
I think a good way to test this hypothesis would be to see earnings of Punjabi language YouTubers if you can get ahold of the data. They’ll have higher earnings than Bhojpuri channels like Wave Music because of relatively more views from the diaspora.
Very interesting. Thanks for sharing.
I would have thought T Series would be top.
The report was about solo YouTubers like PewDiePie, Mr. Beast etc.
There’s a small time Bollywood actor Garima Goel who has a popular YouTube channel called Garima’s Good Life. In this one video she talks in detail about how much money she makes and how it works. Might be useful to you.
In general, it’s a fun channel if anyone’s looking to learn more about how B-tier actors in Bombay live their lives.
‘Indian Youtuber’s Income Revealed | 1 Million Subs = How Much Money? | Garima’s Good Life’
(The video is in Hindi)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c9pGBidPDT0
I read somwhere the youtube views and ad money is region specific. So for even less views, u might earn more in the west. Was wondering what happens if a channel is ‘registered’ in the West and videos are mostly watched by Indians (or asians)
https://www.yahoo.com/news/court-could-reimpose-boston-marathon-134057593.html
Excellent! Hope he gets the chair
https://www.livemint.com/Leisure/TcVedrnJxqu6b1ylDr6D0I/The-class-of-Kaira-Shyra-and-Shanaya-in-Bollywood.html
” Kaira, Shyra, Akira, Kia, Tia, Sia. Shanaya. These are Bollywood’s cool new names, broadly classified into the “ya” or “ra” nomenclature. The Poojas, Nishas, Anjalis and Nehas of the 1990s are déclassé. These new names carry an unmistakable aspiration to be global.They are unrooted to place, community or any kind of identity except class. They are almost never longer than three syllables and easy to pronounce. They float on coolness and lightness. An ex-colleague memorably christened them “First-World Yoga Names—FWYN”.
Perhaps this business of the FWYN is another form of this impulse—the desire/anxiety to fit in with a globalized world shaped by neo-liberalism. Indeed, Bollywood’s Kairas, Shyras and Shanayas are shaped from their slice of lived reality. For the list of Bollywood star children itself comprises several unusual names—Akira, Shakya, Anya, Diva, Czar, Saira, Viaan, Kiaan, Riaan, Nysa, Renee and Maira. It is significant to point out that the Chinese retain their traditional names and take on an Anglicised name as a second identity. The posh Indian demographic, however, doesn’t do this. They seem happy to change their nomenclature itself.”
The weird obsessions of NRIs.
https://wap.business-standard.com/article/beyond-business/states-to-rank-districts-on-export-competitiveness-says-commerce-ministry-121032201081_1.html
States to rank districts on export competitiveness, says commerce ministry
A few scattered thoughts.
—
Asian-American solidarity seems elusive. I’m seeing lots of woke Asians slap down people who start hashtags like “AsianLivesMatter”. A certain “Saira Rao” claims that only BLM needs to trend and if BLM becomes reality, then Asian Lives will matter automatically. But it isn’t just brown Asians. I’m seeing similar takes from woke yellow Asians. It seems that the community’s embrace of wokeness is now biting it in the ass, even as many Asians want to see stepped-up police presence.
It also underlines the point that I’ve made many times with regards to Indian-Americans but which applies even more so to the broader Asian-American community. Namely, it is severely undermined by heterogeneity.
—
Someone asked why Hinduism is targeted for such attacks. The reason is simple. Neoliberals in the West views Hindus as a religious analogue to whites, but in religious terms. Moslems are mostly used as golems for Israel’s aims (e.g. ISIS in Syria) or they are used as a club against geopolitical rivals (Uighurs in China). But Hindus don’t have the same use. China was/is the big sell, but India’s stubborn clinging to non-alignment and refusal to be a servile puppet of the US the way Pakistan is to China, creates annoyance. So Hindus have to be taken down a peg.
There is nothing extra which white or brown woke say about Hinduism which brown folks back in India havent said about Hinduism. But since the agitated brown Hindus living in the west cant call out their own (lesser-Hindu) ethncity back home they have found these brown and white wokes a convient punching bag.
lol American Hindus lack the political capital to make any group metaphorical “punching bag”
It’s the other way around, if anything. The elites on all sides are against them
Every south Asian seems to think he and his tribe are being unjustly discriminated against.
Hindus are treated worse than desi moslems. For the reasons explained above. Moslems are useful to neoliberals. Hindus increasingly are not.
Whether fairly or unfairly, Muslims are demonised and subjected to abuse to a far larger extent than Hindus and Sikhs in the West. They largely only get harassed if they are mistaken for being Muslim.
Could one frame it as follows –
Muslims face more street level discrimination than Hindus but practising Hindus face more discrimination than practising Muslims among the intelligentsia?
Yes, Prats phrased it well. I’d argue though in schools, S Asian kids, regardless of religion are bullied equally. Data, out of the UK, support that.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/001318800363845?journalCode=rere20
At the adult level, Muslims get it more post 9/11. But Indians are often used to portray MENA in American media. So Hindus get the targeted hate directed at Muslims quite often.
In the early 2000s, my parents were stopped on three separate occassions in publoc places, twice by whites and once hy blacks, asking something along the lines of “Why are you doing this to is?!” And “Why don’t you go back where you came from?”
This was in nyc metro area. Then therr was the case of yhe Indian engineer murdered hy white supremacist who thought he was Iranian when the dude was hella S Indian looking.
Really? Hindus are not sacralised like African-Americans are but I have seen very little overt criticism of them and only some of Hindutva nationalists. Intelligentsia mostly does not care.
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/001318800363845?journalCode=rere20
https://www.yahoo.com/news/sf-school-board-member-said-201450957.html
The Far Left is self destructing on this lmfao
https://www.hindustantimes.com/cities/chandigarh-news/himachal-to-legalise-cannabis-cultivation-to-boost-economy-101616413074575-amp.html
Himachal to legalise cannabis cultivation to boost economy
https://twitter.com/indusdotnews/status/1374041061924954113
“The resignation of one of India’s most prominent intellectuals and a fierce government critic from a top university has sparked student protests. Host
@ejazhaider
asks Dr. Yaqoob Bangash for his analysis on this.”
Concern from Pakistan on India’s academic freedom.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/3/22/bb-uae-brokering-secret-india-pakistan-peace-roadmap
all part of the plan
Good thing for India. The quicker the Kashmir thing is normalized, better for India. India has to go thru this motions till some other part of the world blows up. Till then virus will do fine, to keep every country’s mind occupied.
In years hence Pakistani uncles will recite the tale of how our brave armed forces convinced India to make peace on our terms by capturing an Indian pilot and giving him tea and mithai before sending him home.
I hope peace does break out and relations improve, would love to spend a couple of months traveling all over India.
If u are a Brits citizen or have family in India u can visit still.
I had a Canadian-Pakistani colleague who visited sometime around 2019.
This is similar to how English speaking Indians are often obsessed with Trump/Biden instead of the shit show in their own country.
Great article on why east Asia and south India have outstripped north India with regards to growth. Comes down to severe lack of willingness to allow women to work outside the home to maintain control over them, particularly with regards to letting outsiders becoming intimate with them.
https://www.draliceevans.com/post/how-did-east-asia-overtake-south-asia
How does she explain Punjab and Haryana? They are high-growth, aren’t they? But they are also among the most (if not the most) regressive even in North India when it comes to women’s status.
Among the two, i think only Haryana is high growth, which could possibly be explained by a significant chunked of it being part of the greater NCR. That said, while the female workforce participation rate is an interesting metric and worth factoring, its far from complete (is attrition from farm labour the same as attrition from white collar jobs?).
For whatever faults some percieve they have, NW subcontinentals are quite industrious and operate in a relatively “higher trust” market environment than downstream gangetics. This could be a quirk of present day conditions and demographic flux, not trying to caste a theory of enduring cultural traits. Also worth considering is whether higher female workforce participation leads to greater intra-class wealth disparity. Capable females from the upper-middle class block opportunies for lower classes of males to ascend. Along with class-based assortive pairing, this sets the conditions for the current economic divergences that we are seeing. Something similar could be hypothesized in the US post 60’s. White women and capable immigrants blocked opportunities for black men who would have moved from the factory line or unskilled services into management.
Industriousness, yes perhaps, compared to Biharis and Bengalis (who I’m familiar with in my home region). But I saw no evidence of higher trust when I lived a few years in the NCR. The levels of dishonesty and dissembling were probably more than in JH or WB, and on top of that, there was palpable aggression in the air all the time.
yes, not considering delhi as proper NW. Looking at punjab, and adjacent haryana in particular. And I think the yeoman farmer angle is illustrative and often cited as reasons for the higher trust networks. The conditions for zamindari land revenue management weren’t there among the biradari clans as is was among the more culturally elaborated core ganges. My armchair hypothesis is that modernity makes certain characteristics of high and continuous civilizations weaknesses. Whether egypt or bihar, old civilizational cores often lag behind peripheries in per capita GDP
“My armchair hypothesis is that modernity makes certain characteristics of high and continuous civilizations weaknesses.”
This is something that I have felt as well. Even in Europe, Italy and Greece seem to be the laggards and even within Italy, it’s the late settled northern Po valley that drives their economy.
“Whether egypt or bihar, old civilizational cores often lag behind peripheries in per capita GDP”
I often joke that Italy and Greece are the UP and Bihar of Europe.
I think two factors have a lot to do with Haryana’s and Punjab’s prosperity relative to the Gangetic belt. Unlike in the latter, where British rule firmly entrenched an exploitative (and non-progressive) zamindari system, a sort-of yeoman farmer culture was allowed to spread in British Punjab. Add to that massive state investment in the region (infrastructure in British times, subsidies in independent India) has always given them an advantage over their Gangetic cousins. That’s why those guys are protesting the farm laws now, because they are in danger of losing their privileges (and which is why I support those laws.)
When you get some things for free, it’s easy to prosper even with a shitty culture. The Saudis are similarly prosperous because they happened to be sitting on lakes of oil.
I didn’t read the article but I had read the Twitter thread Dr. Evans had posted a few weeks back.
“Comes down to severe lack of willingness to allow women to work outside the home to maintain control over them”
The cause and effect are not very clear to me here.
IIRC, she said that labour intensive industrialisation created market conditions where labour was desperately required and hence women were incentivised to enter the work-force. This has not happened in the north, which is still very agricultural.
The fundamental reason then doesn’t seem to be so much that women are not allowed to work as it is that enough opportunities don’t exist to compel them to work.
On the other hand, you do have examples of high growth industrial states like Gujarat and Haryana that have very low urban female workforce participation.
Detailed government statistics on women in workforce can be found here:
http://mospi.nic.in/sites/default/files/reports_and_publication/statistical_publication/social_statistics/WM17Chapter4.pdf
Alice Evans should look a little bit further east into Japan. Outcomes should not be viewed narrowly. There is now a societal push in Japan to limit female labor force participation to 30%. It is now at 76% and will lead Japan to a dead society in less than 5 decades.
India’s female labor force participation has fallen since the 1990’s (from 30% to 20%). Why? Can it not be a evolution of attitudes towards modernity?
Alice Evans seeks to push preconceived notions with limited data. It’s the classic Indology approach. They somehow think the natives are unable to figure out sustainability on their own.
There may be a push to limit female workforce participation in Japan now (I don’t follow that news; will take your word for it), but otherwise, the experience of Japan actually strengthens her case. Women’s participation in the workforce is hardly a recent thing there. It picked up big time in the late Meiji era. There are papers comparing the Indian textile industry to Japan’s from the early 20th century that show how both countries had a similar level of productivity early on, but Japan got closer to the West because of (1) following the capitalist logic of demanding more from workers in return for higher wages, and (2) more females in the workforce, who were both more pliant and were not inclined to strike the way male workers in Bombay would.
The correlation between female participation in the workforce and economic growth (and general societal prosperity) is extremely strong if you look at the data. Whether in Asia or in the West.
The example of Japan weakens Alice Evans case in the long run. If you want the current generation to be prosperous at the cost of the future generations, then indeed Alice Evans is selling you a shiny bridge.
This kind of debate occupied Indian society in the 80s. There is a very fine Visu movie on this exact topic – Kudumbam oru Kadambam (Family, the Flower). Some people have obviously made up their minds – that’s why the Indian female labor force participation has fallen.
Alice is unable to digest that rational choices could also be driving the fall. She thinks Indian women are the sheep on her logical mountain.
Japan is an example of her argument. Remember, she’s talking about history and explaining what has already happened, not forecasting the future.
@ principia
Alice is picking all the good bits from East Asia and comparing them to the bad bits from South Asia. Classic sleight of hand meant to impress dorks.
Japan is in shit right now – dependency ratio is 69. It’s not a ratio for the future. Start talking about how not having enough children and more women in jobs is a good thing for Japanese society. Then your research is complete.
India’s female labor force participation has fallen since the 1990’s (from 30% to 20%). Why? Can it not be a evolution of attitudes towards modernity?
one of the explanations given is that the women are staying back in eduction longer than what was earlier.
What do the raw numbers (not percentages) say? One conjecture is that much of the growth in jobs in the past couple of decades has been inter-state migrant labor, the lion’s share of such migrants probably being men. So it’s not that women have been leaving the workforce but that a lot more men are getting jobs.
But I don’t know (and my conjecture above could be bunk). Looking at the numbers will probably shed more light.
‘Braveheart, fanatic anarchist’ — what Bhagat Singh wrote of Savarkar, and their common cause
https://theprint.in/india/braveheart-fanatic-anarchist-what-bhagat-singh-wrote-of-savarkar-and-their-common-cause/626451/
Did Curzon Wyllie deserve to get assassinated? From Wikipedia links, all I can get is that he may have a hand in blocking Savarkar’s ambition of qualifying for the Bar (because of his revolutionary activities). Was that is or is there something else?
“Did Curzon Wyllie deserve to get assassinated?”
you are anachronistically applying the rules of a politically free and just regime to a colonizer regime. your question would be valid if the victim and the perpetrator lived in a regime where both of them had equal rights, but obviously it wasn’t so.
these early indian revolutionaries were inspired by russian anarchists and revolutionaries. for them, every member of ruling british elite was an enemy because they had subjugated their motherland and deprived indians of their rights. as simple as that.
No, I get this. I was just wondering what Wyllie did in particular to get assassinated. Surely there were a lot of British people to select from? Wyllie himself doesn’t seem to have been responsible for any brutalities or for people starving in famines, etc.
If you look at the people who were assassinated by various revolutionaries, they were selected for specific acts. People like Khudiram Bose made mistakes, but they were not indiscriminate in their targets, even though they did consider the British as a whole to be an oppressor class.
I was also wondering (and I know this will be provocative) if this guy was selected purely because of Savarkar’s personal grievance against him. Was Savarkar the type of person who got others to do his dirty work? It was also suggested, though never proven, that he was the guiding hand behind Godse et al murdering Gandhi.
Savarkar came out quite messed up from Andamans. So wouldnt put it past him.
” I was just wondering what Wyllie did in particular to get assassinated. ”
this is from a cursory reading of dhingra’s wikipedia entry – looks like dhingra was targeting british officials connected with the partition of bengal. wyllie was just a second, or even third choice. i guess he was just unlucky to be present at the wrong place at the wrong time.
amazingly, wyllie was a close friend of dhingra’s father. (i learnt these things newly myself). dhingra’s family was so upset by this murder that they completely disowned him. and incredibly enough, the family’s 4th generation descendants still maintain this position. take a look at this link.
https://indianexpress.com/article/india/punjab-and-haryana/family-continues-to-boycott-madan-lal-dhingra-even-as-country-celebrates-his-martyrdom/
“It was also suggested, though never proven, that he was the guiding hand behind Godse et al murdering Gandhi.”
not just suggested but formally accused. savarkar was actually charged and tried for conspiring to murder gandhi. he was a defendant in gandhi’s assassination trial. he was acquitted because of lack of evidence. most people believed he did encourage godse, if not actually participate in the project.
“you are anachronistically applying the rules of a politically free and just regime to a colonizer regime. your question would be valid if the victim and the perpetrator lived in a regime where both of them had equal rights, but obviously it wasn’t so.”
This pretty much overturns the central principle of the Independence Movement, which revolves around personal responsibility and morality. My grandfather worked in the Indian Botanical Service, would you consider him a fair target as well ? Such a thoughtless basis for political action would have likely led to very high levels of violence long after the British departed.
https://analyticsindiamag.com/isro-quantum-communication-breakthrough-india-qkd/
ISRO Makes A Quantum Communication Breakthrough: India Joins An Elite List Of Nations
https://www.google.com/amp/s/nypost.com/2021/03/22/spring-breakers-arrested-for-allegedly-drugging-raping-woman-who-later-died/amp/
https://youtu.be/q5qTrN7_LfM
Video about the other side of the story of theranos (elizabeth holmes hadn’t wanted to build a ponzi scheme)
https://www.thehindu.com/news/international/unhrc-adopts-resolution-against-sri-lankas-rights-record/article34141087.ece
India abstains from vote on Sri Lanka resolution at UNHRC
https://theprint.in/opinion/muslims-must-give-up-azaan-loudspeakers-even-prophet-rejected-it/626407/
Muslims must give up azaan by loudspeakers. Even Prophet would have rejected it
Najmul Hoda is a very sensible person. So he will eventually be cancelled by India’s progressives and liberals.
// They would also do well to reflect on whether attaching religious import to the use of such a contraption amounts to a reprehensible novelty called bid’at, — that is, an innovation which distorts the religion//
The writer does not know much about Islam it seems. This is like saying ”don’t use Quran on cellphone because it’s bidd’at” or ”don’t look at the 24 hour clock in your fast because that is bidd’at, but look at the sun” No Muslim would take this seriously. Bidd’at is used specifically in the context of introducing religious practices that did not exist before in religion. Visiting dargahs for example is clearly bidd’at because this practise did not exist in the prophetic phase of Islams formation.
Interestingly, the use of loudspeakers or the use of clocks to keep time for fasting was considered ”bidd’ah” by some fundamentalist molvis in the 19th century (mostly Salafis) but this concept was not widely accepted. Similarly, some fundamentalists denounced TV and social media/internet as tools of the devil, but they now use TV and social media to proselytize, with great effect.
The thing is that these types of articles are very low effort that any 16 year old Muslim would see right through, but perhaps the audience is not Muslim but Hindu who are unaware of these nuances in Islam.
u are right. I think the issue is not what biddat and what isnt. Its competetive relegiosity with more and more Hindu temples now trying to assert themselves thru the same way by using loud speakers.
So its just a way to defuse tension from the muslim side so that there is at least one irritant removed from the relegious tension prevailing in India. And just like when u need to convince the Hindu side on something u go back to Hindu text, the author goes back to muslim text (and practices)
“So its just a way to defuse tension from the muslim side so that there is at least one irritant removed from the relegious tension prevailing in India.”
You’re reading too much into it. Najmul Hoda is a principled liberal and wants to reform Islam. This falls in line with that approach. He’s been writing such stuff for a while.
You can google a speech he gave at Maulana Azad National Urdu University a few years ago where he criticises Muslims of the subcontinent for not focussing on ilm (knowledge).
Seemed like a brave thing to call that out in a room full of people at a self-congratulatory event.
Problem is that criticism of religion and orthodoxy can only come from within for it to have any real effect on the majority of believers, and on top of that the argument needs to have a sound basis in scripture (at least this is the case with Islam). Muslims will not reform some practice that is tradition unless the reform is coming from within, and scripture is being used to justify the reform. In this case, the author uses a very weak scriptural argument because he demonstrates lack of understanding of what bid’ah is. So this argument will be discarded by most Muslims at face value. Secondly, the author needs to be at least a practicing Muslim (I am not sure if Najmul Hoda is) but he should appear to be, for his arguments to hold weight and for common Muslims to trust his judgement and accept his point of view.
“Secondly, the author needs to be at least a practicing Muslim (I am not sure if Najmul Hoda is) but he should appear to be, for his arguments to hold weight and for common Muslims to trust his judgement and accept his point of view.”
That seems like a very chicken and egg problem. If someone does profess liberal reformist views, will he be considered Muslim enough at all?
Imam Tawihidi comes to mind. He dresses like a traditionalist but I don’t think he’s taken very seriously.
It is clear that Tawhidi is not a Muslim, although he pretends to be one and that too from the Shia sect. Just like Tarek Fateh is not Pakistani no matter what he claims. This is why we don’t take them seriously. These people have found their niche (appealing to far right or Hindutva) and their bread and butter depends on that.
Islamic reformers that have any chance of reformation of religion from within are usually very knowledgeable, use primary scripture to justify their arguments, and appear to be advocating for their own community.. The reason why Deobandi movement or the Aligargh movement in India succeeded at reforming Islamic practises in India was because they appealed to these concepts and their founders at least were seen by common Muslims as ”one of us” or ”working for our betterment”.
“Islamic reformers that have any chance of reformation of religion from within are usually very knowledgeable, use primary scripture to justify their arguments, and appear to be advocating for their own community.. The reason why Deobandi movement or the Aligargh movement in India succeeded at reforming Islamic practises in India was because they appealed to these concepts and their founders at least were seen by common Muslims as ”one of us” or ”working for our betterment”.
Do you think this will change with attempts by MBS to re-interpret the official versions of scriptures?
Saudi fundamentalism and funding did play a role in shaping the Islamic society in the Indian subcontinent. But not sure if it will work again.
I mean if 20 years from now Saudi Arabia is some sort of Beirut style party destination, will that lead to Muslims here turning more liberal or will that mean they’ll start looking for religious leadership elsewhere?
//Do you think this will change with attempts by MBS to re-interpret the official versions of scriptures? Saudi fundamentalism and funding did play a role in shaping the Islamic society in the Indian subcontinent.//
Saudi monarchs were never considered Islamic leaders nor did they hold much sway in the Islamic world except through the use of oil money. The last monarch that had any wide public appeal outside Arabia was King Faisal who was assassinated in 1975.
MBS does not have much hard or soft power outside the Arabian peninsula, nor is he considered a religious reformer or even a political reformer. Outside GCC, he is seen as just another Saudi monarch (which he is defacto). He even lost credibility in the West after the Kashhoggi murder and I think that is irreparable.
What I think will happen is that MBS may stop funding Salafists outside of Arabia, which may hinder Salafism in the short term at least, especially in Europe and South Asia. But Salafi movement is much older than Saudi Arabia and I don’t think it’s going away anytime soon, especially in the age of the internet where the Salafists have a clear advantage as scripture which they heavily rely on can be quoted easily to support their arguments.
https://www.jagran.com/uttar-pradesh/meerut-city-pornographic-videos-made-after-blackmailed-and-got-converted-case-filed-21489481.html
Worst is that the family helped him, including his parents and sisters. This is plain vile. This is Rape Jihad.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1614173/the-two-nation-reality-versus-theory
Some nuggets
“On March 26 and December 16, 1971, East Pakistan rejected the state structure of the original edifice of Pakistan. However, by becoming Bangladesh, the people of what once used to be East Bengal reaffirmed with passion their abiding belief in the Two-Nation Reality; that Muslims and Hindus are two distinct, separate nations.
Muslims of South Asia — notwithstanding their numerous internal diversities of languages and ethnicities — were long possessed of a sense of being a nation, co-existing with a broad Hindu nation — with its own vast internal diversities — in the same region
The evolution of the Two-Nation Reality has been taking place in two major dimensions and phases. The first dimension is territorial and pre-Muslim. It began about 7,000 years ago with Mehergarh in Balochistan preceding Moenjodaro in Sindh by about 2,000 years as part of the Indus Valley civilisation, which gave way to the ascent of Buddhism as seen in Taxila and Swat. Except for about 700 years (Mauryan BC — Turko-Mughal-British ) the areas that now constitute Pakistan were autonomous, locally-ruled or mostly dominated by forces from West and Central Asia.
The second phase commenced about 1,300 years ago. It added a new religious Muslim dimension to the territorial, ancestral, cultural heritages already there
“In the five Northern Provinces of India, out of a total population of about forty millions, we, the Muslims, constitute about thirty millions. Our religion, culture, history, tradition, economic system, laws of inheritance, succession and marriage are basically and fundamentally different from those of the people living in the rest of India. The ideals which move our thirty million brethren in-faith living in these Provinces to make the highest sacrifices are fundamentally different from those which inspire the Hindus. These differences are not confined to the broad basic principles — far from it. They extend to the minutest details of our lives. We do not inter-dine; we do not inter-marry. Our national customs and calendars, even our diet and dress, are different”.
The Reality and Theory are sometimes misrepresented by detractors as a vision based on hatred of Hindus. At not a single point in their contributions to the process did Allama Iqbal, Chaudhri Rehmat Ali or Muhammad Ali Jinnah ever express hatred. Nor did they stoke xenophobia against Hindus or Sikhs or the followers of other faiths. They simply stressed the stark difference of identity markers between the two communities
So inclusive and pluralist is the Two-Nation Reality and Theory that even in May 1947, just three months before independence, Mr. Jinnah strongly and urgently requested British Prime Minister Clement Atlee to reject the partition of Punjab and Bengal that was being urged by the Congress and Viceroy Mountbatten. The Quaid wanted large numbers of non-Muslims — Hindus and Sikhs — to remain in their ancestral homes and become citizens of the new state of Pakistan without facing sudden displacement and insecurity. His speech of August 11, 1947, unequivocally projected the synergestic dimension of the philosophy of Pakistan.”
Lmfao. This better than The Onion. Sounds like a Pakdefense troll wrote this.
Indus Buddhist larp continues and now it is even going Pre IVC lol. And Quereshi claimed this is not in main Pak Intellegista…
There is no mainstream Pakistani discourse about some “Indus civilization”. This is a meme invented on the internet, specifically in the English language forums that you feed your energy into. This idea could not exist in Urdu or any other local language because the name of this civilization would then be ”Sindh”, and Pakistan is much more than just Sindh. How do you even translate ”Indus Valley Civilization in Urdu? It’s called ”tehzeeb e darya e-sindh” or tehzeeb e Sindh. Kinda hard to make a case for all areas of Pakistan called ”Sindh” don’t you think? Which is why nobody has ever put forth this theory in a local language. And if some thing is not being used in Urdu, it literally has no real substance in Pakistan given that everyone uses Urdu to spread any idea in the country.
The only time I have heard someone talk about this on TV was on Aftab Iqbal’s Urdu show where he was interviewing some journalist who talked about ”how we need to talk about history of our land to differentiate from India”. Funnily enough, even though he was speaking in Urdu he used the term ”indus valley civilization”.
Expect to see more of this ”Indus stuff” 20 years from now, because it came about in response to Indian nationalists online doing \sem2sem\. However I doubt it will gain any traction in Pakistan because it is against the state’s interest to promote it right now.
@SQuerishi
I think you are articulating the deep seated fear that Pakistanis are somehow going to fall in love with the ancient past. That is Jahil. Hence the attempt to tar it as something provincial (Sindhi).
In India, there is ample ownership of the IVC at the elite and the prole levels. We call it the Sindhu Sabhyata. And we own it.
You have to give it to Pakistani cultural custodians. They have somehow completely stranded themselves from the geography (Indus), from the history (Sindhu), from the language (IE) and the culture (Sanskritic).
Persianate culture and language and then Urdu for the elites plus local vernacular languages subsumed Sanskrit in what is now Pakistan long ago.
@ Ugra
Just like ”India” claims IVC, Pakistan claims the history of Islamic Hindustan as it’s own. I see the drafting of an IVC narrative by some diaspora Pakistanis as an attempt to put Pakistan on defensive, trying to restrict us geographically, marking nationhood based on rivers and ruins, very much like the Hindus. Perhaps the Pakistani establishment thinks like me, which is why they have not yet made an attempt to draft Pakistan as an ”indus nation”..
IVC is pretty irrelevant apart from academic historical interest, most Pakistanis could not care less about which shows in the decrepit state of it’s sites. And I see their point, it was 4,000+ years ago, those people looked different, ate different, talked in an incomprehensible language, and if the British hadn’t discovered them, you wouldn’t have even known because you had no local memory of them. You don’t see the Irish being obsessed about the Celts, or the English about the Saxons, or the Egyptians about ancient Egypt because those are long gone.
Interestingly the word ‘Jahil’ comes from the Arabic word ‘Jahilliya’ which is used to denote the pre-Islamic era of darkness, referred to someone who was holding pre-Islamic customs before Islam. Now this term is used pejoratively to denote someone ignorant ofcourse. So who is the Jahil here? 😛
As Ali has mentioned, we have just adopted more Persianate culture while I would add, we have retained some portion of Sankritic culture. Seems quite reasonable given our geography and recent history.
Ali Chaudhary is right. Sanskrit (its literature and associated culture, languages, scripts) plays little part in Pakistan today. In fact, a lot of India-Pak bonhomie between occurs precisely with the Indians who are distant from Sanskrit culture, intentionally or otherwise.
The curious case is that of literary and culturally active Indian Muslims. They are not as distant from Sanskrit as Pakistanis might assume. Rahi Masoom Raza wrote the dialog for the television Mahabharata, SRK gave his kids Sanskrit names (Suhana, Aryan) and a lot of modern Indian Muslim poets and lyricists lean a lot more on Sanskrit vocabulary than their predecessors.
@ S Qureishi
Thats what I meant. The Pakistani cultural establishment uses the concept of “Jahilliya” to figure out the correct cultural role models for its population. And you are just echoing that logic.
….it was 4,000+ years ago, those people looked different, ate different, talked in an incomprehensible language, and if the British hadn’t discovered them, you wouldn’t have even known because you had no local memory of them.
Because we are on BP, I would like to tell you that modern Pakistanis look exactly like the Harappans – there is phenotypic continuity from the IVC skeletal record for all of North India, attires were the same (cotton garments, headgear, footwear), building methods, genetic inheritance (IVC cline is the largest predominant source for all of South Asians: Reich).
The online Pakistani horde is actually correct.
Modern Pakistani groups don’t even look like each other, so it’s such a stretch to say they looked like the Harappans. It’s stretching the meaning of what is considered ”look alike”.
Some of the clearest markers of culture are languages, religion, architecture, cuisine and music. These are completely and entirely different today than 4000 years ago.
I think the Pakistani state is correct about IVC, it’s taught about to students as ”ancient history of Pakistan” but given as much importance as events 4000 years ago should be given – that is – very little. I understand why Indians give it extra importance, for them it is about their religion.
If u are talking within India, than IVC gets a tad more mention then it does in Pakistan. Its actually outside India that all this IVC arguemnts are taking shape. In India there is no controversy on IVC
Female workforce participation is definitely not a complete positive given impact on family and birth rates. Also, rushing prosperity and incomes are one of the factors d icing lower female workforce participation.
Perhaps there is a model that improves female autonomy and security without requiring them to have their own outside of home income. Inheritance from.parents ( North is very bad at this) and some legal right on husband’s monthly income and transfer thereof could be steps in that direction. The devil will be in the implementation details.
We need to optimize for the future and not just the present, and for the family and society and not just the individual. Happiness is more than just money. Would it be so bad if India stagnated at $15K per capita GDP in 30 years vs 25k with full female workforce participation if the society is healthier and families happier? To give an example of the trade offs consider Indian migrants to the US: materially way better off but at least half of them have a bit of a regret around their decision due to cultural and legacy factors.
Female workforce participation is definitely not a complete positive given impact on family and birth rates.
North India very much needs its birthrate to fall, so women going to the workforce in droves and earning money independent of their male family members can’t happen fast enough as far as I’m concerned.
Don’t compare India to the West (or Japan), where falling birthrates are indeed a social concern. Much good can happen in India if our TFR goes well below 2, and almost nothing good will happen in India unless out TFR goes well below 2.
We need to optimize for the future and not just the present, and for the family and society and not just the individual.
You are talking like someone who lives in a high-trust developed country. And perhaps you do! Let we in India solve our basics first, things that the OECD countries figure out a while ago. Then, when our present looks and smells nice, we can express angst over the future.
[North India very much needs its birthrate to fall, so women going to the workforce in droves and earning money independent of their male family members can’t happen fast enough as far as I’m concerned.
Don’t compare India to the West (or Japan), where falling birthrates are indeed a social concern. Much good can happen in India if our TFR goes well below 2, and almost nothing good will happen in India unless out TFR goes well below 2.]
Not disagreeing with you but we need to keep the long-term in mind and not end up like the Chinese where a single couple has the care burden of four parents and sometimes four or more grandparents. Also, nobody can replace the bond between siblings and having a safety net of at least one sibling is important for the material and emotional well being of people. I’m all for female autonomy and equality but there may be a middle path between the atomization of the West and the family-collectivism of the India of the past. I’m also saying that it is OK to be a mid income, family oriented, stable society than to be a economic machine with social problems. It is not so bad to be an Italy with a sense of community and family compared to a cold, individualistic Germany or heck America.
I say this as someone living in an OECD country. Many of us chased careers and money, and now that we are a bit older we miss India, family, community, culture etc. Yes, we have these rose tinted glasses we live away, but there is no denying that a lot had to be given up for our material progress.. I’m advocating for the middle way, and the choices have to be made now, long before these will become issues.
Family and community is a little overrated, you spend all your time either meeting relatives, going to weddings, condoling their deaths or having to invite them to your place. WhatsApp groups are enough for me plus meeting every couple of years.
As opposed to being stuck in Western consumer rat race working all day, living in a nuclear family, possibly divorce on the horizon, with disobedient kids?
Nah. Family/community are important, most humans yearn for identity and sense of belonging
We don’t appreciate enough what we do have. I am only belatedly realising this, especially after the pandemic.
Extended kinship network is social capital that is much more robust than anything the state can provide in the long term. Seems true at least for India and probably for the west as well.
Story time:
One night a few months ago, my mom started having breathing difficulties. This must have been at 3am at night. The wife of one of my dad’s closest friend is a senior doctor. She drove to our place in the middle night, checked my mom and immediately asked us to rush her to the hospital. She also called the hospital so they knew there was an emergency. Later we learnt that she had had a cardiac episode and that there was a possibility of irreversible damage had we been late.
Now, my nani (grandma) had been stranded alone at her place in Patna due to the lockdown. My mom was extremely worried. This was not at all good in her state. She couldn’t go and meet her because of the heart issues. And none of us wanted to risk taking a flight and accidentally infecting my grandma. So my mom’s cousin who lives in a different city in Bihar got herself RT-PCR tested and took my nani to stay with her, where she’s happily spending lockdown since.
None of this would have happened without a strong kinship network. The western solution to this is a mix of using technology and making the state more efficient. You fit your grandparents with smart watches that detect atrial fibrillation and you have cameras with algorithms to detect falls. Then you hope that the APIs will work well so that if there’s an issue, it will be relayed to 911. Then you hope that your NHS or whatever will have free ambulances and also sufficient capacity and urgency to act on it immediately. All this while hoping that the insurance company doesn’t block something in between.
All these are fine but we do not live in an Iain M. Banks tech utopia yet so they are no replacements for actual humans who care for you and can go the extra step without worrying about getting anything in return.
Meeting relatives etc are rituals that keep those bonds intact. They seem like inconveniences but pay themselves off handsomely in times of need. It doesn’t take much to lose touch and become atomised.
(Saying this as someone who’s spend most of my life as a ‘rebel’ who mocked things that seemed irrational and stayed deliberately aloof from the extended family)
There is a lot less general stress in the West compared to living in Pakistan, even if you have to do your own laundry, cooking, cleaning etc. Working culture is also far more respectful of you compared to Pakistan from what I know. And the freedom and independence of living in a nuclear family tastes great. In any case I have the best of both worlds in the UK in that we live on our own, my parents and both our siblings are fairly close by and there is a lot of extended family dotted around various cities. Being in Pakistan is a never-ending sequence of family events, 3 to 5 day weddings etc.
I used to be more like Ali (thats the reason i ran away to US, the first instance i got) , but i have been haing 2nd thoughts espically during the pandemic. Many of my extended family who had outdoor jobs back in India have lost their loved ones. And my immediate family is saved only becuase they have either retried or work in sectors which are mostly WFH. Meanwhile i have gotten so home sick and anxious about my family back in India , that can;t wait for Nov- Dec to visit them.
Generally agree with Ali here, though Prats’ experiences hit home with me. We’ve had many such experiences where family, friends, and neighbors have provided crucial assistance in times of need.
On the flipside, the fact that institutions outside our kinship network can suck really bad compared to the West can have serious and sometimes fatal consequences. I’ve mentioned on this forum that my mother passed away due to cancer last year. I’m not sure she got the best care possible, or anywhere close to that. Of course, the pandemic didn’t help, but there are a lot of inbuilt inefficiencies and blockers in our healthcare (and other) systems that make their quality sub-optimal.
For example: my mom’s blood count remained low much of the year, requiring blood transfusions prior to treatment. But the hospital wouldn’t lift a finger here. It was up to my old dad to run around to blood banks, and also use “connections”, to ensure she got blood. Not sure how this happens in the West, but I doubt they’d let a patient suffer and possibly even die while demanding that family members arrange for blood.
Saurav:
I never had a particular urge to run to the West, as I was quite happy in India growing up. But America grew on me while I lived there, and it never soured. (I am a geek and an introvert, a personality that may fit in better there than in India, unlike Type A people.) I moved back to India precisely because of family ties. Overall, my experience moving back has not been a happy one, though eventually I made my peace with India. Your expectations of thick family ties may or may not pan out, as people change and how people treat you as an NRI may differ from how they treat you as an Indian (but of course, this varies from family to family). If family doesn’t pan out, and you live a mostly isolated life, then what you are left with is living in a country with a crappy infrastructure but with no better family support than you got back in the States. So be warned.
Totally get in Numnious. Thats why i have been dithering on moving back 2 India for the last couple of years. Its just the Pandemic sort of broke something within me. I know i will miss the west, but perhaps i am more mentally prepared than i was couple of years back.
Right, let’s make future look and smell nice by making a whole lot of women suffer more while that happens.
It’s no fun being a working mother as pandemic has shown and most women want to be mothers and *actually* love their children to spend time with them. It’s burning candle from both ends without male partner sharing domestic chores.
But yeah, let’s tout economic progress on the backs of female work force participation norm where they don’t get a slack on any of the domestic chores. Not that work place abuse is any less (my sister’s colleague had a suicide due to work place sexual harassment).
Many of my female cousins in India are in a situation where in-laws expect them to have a child and also earn income of their single days. The latest generation husbands do nothing when child shows up. But blatantly promoting this situation for majority population is just clueless for some hypothetical nice smelling future influenced by many other macroeconomic factors.
There is a lot to be said for inheritance laws for women to improve their lot. There is no point in economic activity without financial independence.
You and I live in different worlds. My Hindutva- and Modi-supporting dad has done a fair amount of domestic chores, more so since he retired. Men sharing in chores (at least some of them) is a well-settled norm in the West, and urban India is moving in that direction too.
Nowhere did I demand that women need to be be doing both outdoor and indoor work while men twiddle their thumbs; it’s simply an assumption you made.
This Indus civ business is news to me, and quite interesting to read about. There do seem to be a fringe bunch who are trying hard to cast a separate identity for Pakistan, and godspeed to them. 1947 was a definite point of no return and there’s now enough coherence and momentum to take the NW of the subcontinent down it’s own track.
OTOH literally every Mirpuri taxi driver I’ve come across in the midlands town that I live in makes it a point to emphasise how similar we are when they realise I’m from India and can speak Hindi fluently.
Maybe this Indus civ stuff is just a meme for the elites. Or its a serious intellectual movement which is on its way to becoming mainstream. Who knows. But if it brings some stability and self confidence, it should be cheered on. Ditto for hindutva in India, despite some elements of it that I’m not in favour of. All identities after all are artificial to a large extent
Forget Mirpur i have met Pasthun uber drivers in US who emphasize how similar we are. I was like no bro, we aint, and then he started speaking in brokern urdu and singing some Bollywood songs.
An Ethiopian taxi driver did that once with me. Until then, I had no idea how far and wide Bollywood’s reach was. But reached it has: to the Middle East and Africa, based on what I’ve heard from citizens of those countries.
One Ethiopian taxi driver once wanted me to guess where he was from. He fancied that he looked Indian (some East Africans can look vaguely Indian, but barely so) but I immediately recognized him as an East African. When I told him that I always guessed East African, he was mighty upset and it made for an uncomfortable ride to my destination.
Suppose this is analogous to a Punjabi Paki taxi guy driving a Turkish or Iranian customer and hoping to be mistaken as one of those nationalities, then getting upset when the passenger refuses to play the game. This sort of thing happens in internet forums all the time 🙂
These guys just want a good tip (or a repeat paying customer, if the taxi is paid for as part of work). They will say whatever
https://www.livemint.com/elections/assembly-elections/field-report-a-groundswell-of-anti-incumbency-in-mamata-s-bengal-11616488328088.html
“His friend Krishna Kumar Mandal, also a TMC worker now, butted in saying, “We Hindus cannot raise our voice anymore. This vote will be an outlet of our anger.” The sheer complexity of political affiliations were on display when Mandal said his heart is with the left, he works for TMC out of compulsion, but will vote for BJP.
The saffron party, which is often accused of weakening democratic institutions at the national level, has emerged in a unique avatar here. Bengal is looking for a new boss, asserted Prasenjit Das from South 24 Parganas. “We are looking up to the BJP to restore our democratic right to vote and end corruption.” Residents of his village, including Muslims, said they were able to move around freely only after the remarkable performance of the BJP in the 2019 elections.”