Another BP Podcast is up. You can listen on Libsyn, Apple, Spotify, and Stitcher (and a variety of other platforms). Probably the easiest way to keep up the podcast since we don’t have a regular schedule is to subscribe to one of the links above!
In this episode Srikant, Akshar and I talk to Sri Thiruvadanthai, who goes by @teasri on Twitter and is a very erudite finance and economics guy with much to say about the Indian economy, reforms, China, etc.. Well worth listening.
Patrick Wyman’s Tides of History podcast is tackling South Asia and prehistory. He wrote up a Substack for it too, Ancient South Asia – Farming and People in India and Pakistan. I agree with Patrick here, though my confidence is low:
…It seems unlikely that a group living 1400 miles to the east would have chosen precisely the same suite of domesticated plants and animals as their related brethren in the Fertile Crescent. It’s intriguing that a fourth distinct group, as yet unsampled by geneticists, might have been living in the Fertile Crescent alongside their relatives 10,000 years ago or more. But the most likely, in my opinion, is that the group ancestral to later South Asians was living somewhere between the Indus Valley and the Zagros, perhaps on the Iranian Plateau: close enough to adopt some pieces of the Fertile Crescent farming package, close enough to head a short distance east, through the Bolan Pass, and into South Asia.
My confidence in this part is higher:
Yet they were not alone in South Asia, nor were they the only ones engaged in farming. Further to the east, along the Ganges River, the indigenous foragers were also experimenting with plant cultivation. In fact, there were no fewer than five places in South Asia where we see evidence of independent plant domestication. Mung bean, urd bean, horsegram, several varieties of millet, and rice were all cultivated extensively. These crops had the benefit of being able to grow during the summer monsoon season. South Asia was actually home to multiple Neolithics of its own.
In Southeast Asia and Europe, the hunter-gatherer populations contributed 20% or less to the ancestry of modern groups, who descend mostly from farmers and pastoralists. In South Asia the “Ancient Ancestral South Indian” (AASI) ancestry is ~50%. What’s the difference? I think the likelihood is that AASI populations were moving toward agriculture is a likely reason why they were much more demographically robust and impactful.
Another BP Podcast is up. You can listen on Libsyn, Apple, Spotify, and Stitcher (and a variety of other platforms). Probably the easiest way to keep up the podcast since we don’t have a regular schedule is to subscribe to one of the links above!
Akshar chats with Gaurav on the coronavirus’ impact in India, societal permutations, and a special tour of the Marathi political landscape. Gaurav writes on the Brown Pundits blog and features an eclectic array of positions across the Indian political spectrum.
My piece on India was hated by the Left and far Right (“Trad” Twitter). Both were pretty incoherent and smug too.
An old post written by Dr Asif Javed (who has also included this in his book, an interesting collection of articles published as “The Doctor from the East”
Bhutto Legend: Myth and Reality
By Dr Asif Javed
Williamsport, PA
“I feel that your services to Pakistan are indispensable. When the history of our country is written by objective historians, your name will be placed even before that of Mr. Jinnah.” The writer of this infamous piece of consummate flattery was a young Z.A. Bhutto, and the recipient, Sikander Mirza, who should be in the political hall of shame, if one were ever to be erected in Pakistan.
Balawal Zardari has recently made a lot of noise about Z.A. Bhutto’s trial and demanded apology for the unjust verdict handed out to his grandfather. It has become very fashionable lately to call it a “judicial murder”. This writer is not a lawyer nor am I a politician; I do, however, belong to the unfortunate generation that witnessed the events of his grandfather’s time in power, and fall from it. It is said that legends ossify over time; in Bhutto’s case, certainly that appears to be so. Bhutto worship has become a relentless train that shows no signs of slowing down; instead, it keeps gathering speed. In the process, the established historical facts are being denied or distorted, and myths are being created. KK Aziz may easily write another volume of Murder of history based upon what we have seen recently.
Z.A. Bhutto was widely admired for his genius. Henry Kissinger may not have been way off the mark when he remarked, “Elegant, eloquent, subtle. . . .I found him brilliant, charming, of global stature in his perceptions. . . .He did not suffer fools gladly.”It is however, the other side of ZAB—the dark one—that needs to be revisited. In the process, perhaps we, as a nation, may learn some lessons and see things in the right perspective. Khalid Hasan, a life long admirer, who knew ZAB first hand, and worked as his press secretary, may have written the most balanced and insightful short biography of ZAB. He has summed it up eloquently: “ZAB had all the makings of a classical hero, carrying the seeds of self destruction in him—he was a flawed genius, a god who turned out to have feet of clay. . . .ZAB had many personal failings, including an inability to trust others, a congenital suspicion of friends and high sensitivity to personal criticism.”
With rare insight and objectivity, KH writes: “There is no evidence that US government or any of his agencies played a role in the overthrow of Bhutto—the time has come for us to accept that much of what has happened to our country and our leaders has been the result of our own mistakes. . . .ZAB believed that a country should have only one central figure as leader and all power should flow from him. It is a tragedy that a man of Bhutto’s intelligence, education and sense of history did not appreciate that Pakistan could only survive as a federal state with the provinces enjoying the maximum autonomy. Bhutto could not abide rival claimants to power even if they were elected to their office. He could not work with the opposition run provincial governments in Quetta and Peshawar and squeezed them out; that was his undoing. Bhutto forgot that power in order to be kept, must be dispersed.” KH also notes that it was Bhutto who revised ISI’s charter to include domestic political intelligence.
It is widely believed that Bhutto was hanged for a crime that he did not commit. It is rarely, if ever, asked, who then was the real perpetrator? Continue reading Zulfi Bhutto of Pakistan; the dark side chronicles
Another BP Podcast is up. You can listen on Libsyn, Apple, Spotify, and Stitcher (and a variety of other platforms). Probably the easiest way to keep up the podcast since we don’t have a regular schedule is to subscribe to one of the links above!
This episode is somewhat unique in that the guest is anonymous. “Frank” tweets on twitter as @Frankisalegend1 and has a background in business and finance. He is well informed and well read and we had an interesting chat about Indian politics, recent history and his fascination with Steve McQueen.
Much of the ire of Indian elites and those left of the Indian political center simply boils down to one thing – the poor and lower-castes aren’t voting the way they want them to. Over decades, an assorted motley crew of political parties has taken the votes of India’s subalterns for granted. Through sops and social engineering, a steady support was built over the years. If you are of X caste, you must vote for Y party. And don’t ask why.
Yet, a party that venerates the idols of old has now become an iconoclast breaking the idea of voting one’s caste rather than casting one’s vote. The BJP, for years known as a “Brahmin-Baniya” party reserved for the privileged and so-called upper-castes, has shattered traditional caste calculus and come up with a new formula making established Indian political equations void. Today’s BJP is one that has been given a brute mandate by India’s Bahujans (the so-called lower-castes of India) along with its old upper-caste base. A united Hindu vote is beginning to coalesce, something that is sending shivers along the spines of the BJP’s political opponents.
But to truly understand the magnitude of these ramifications, we must peer into the past and understand the tradition of caste to grasp the revolution we are witnessing today.
Continue reading How the BJP Became the Bahujan Janata Party
Another BP Podcast is up. You can listen on Libsyn, Apple, Spotify, and Stitcher (and a variety of other platforms). Probably the easiest way to keep up the podcast since we don’t have a regular schedule is to subscribe to one of the links above!
In this episode Mukunda and guest-host Shahada talk to Dr Seema Anand. Dr Anand according to her Times of India intro is “a London-based mythologist and a practising storyteller. She lectures on the Kama Sutra and Eastern erotology”.
Check it out.
Given the responses I received from my previous post, I feel a detailed clarification explaining my stance and reasoning behind it is due.
First of all, as I do not advocate any ban due to my instinctive gut feelings. I like most humans, feel strong instinctive visceral reactions for a range of things from ugly tattoos to plastic surgeries to the latest Hollywood fashions. But no one in their right mind would advocate any regulations on clothing, lifestyle, or anything else for mere aesthetics or reactions, no matter how strong the reaction is.
By Burqa here I mean the combination of the Burqa + Niqab and not just the Burqa in isolation
History of Indian law and the Greater Good:
Currently, in India, there exist a number of laws (and their application) aimed at social justice where the burden of proof at times lays on the accused not the accuser. Examples of these being the SC/ST atrocity act, Dowry law, Domestic violence laws, etc. Not getting into the legalities of these laws, it is fair to note that the system is rigged against the accused to prove his/her innocence, unlike most other cases. But weighing the pros and cons, considering the state Indian society finds itself in, these laws are generally accepted across the board.
Till now (2021) it is fair to assume that significantly more cases under these laws have been Unreported than the cases where these laws are abused (though it may not always remain so).
Why should the benefit of the doubt be given to the women in case of Dowry/Domestic abuse cases & Scheduled castes/tribes in case of Atrocity-related conflicts? We all know why. I am extending the same argument here.
UCC and Burqa:
Generally in the world, we have accepted that legal polygamy is not an acceptable practice. In India with Muslim personal law, there continues to be legal polygamy for Muslims. But looking at the numbers, the practice is not even followed by a very small fraction of the Muslim population (as opposed to the practice of Burqa which is ubiquitous). Yet most nativists (Hindutvavadis) in India & *true liberals acknowledge the need for a Uniform Civil code. There are multiple valid reasons for the UCC, but one of them certainly is that Muslim personal law creates a feeling of separation among the Muslim community which is bad for a cohesive society. The same argument along with a few others can be made much more convincing against the Burqa than for UCC in my view.
Arguments against the Burqa:
The Other side:
Some of the defenses of Burqa which find some purchase in my mind are:
Out of these two, I empathize to an extent with argument 1, yet it doesn’t tip the scale in my mind.
Closing thoughts:
I see the point made by many that such a law is counter-effective to the aim of reform. While I concede this point to a degree, I don’t think it needs to be counter-effective in all cases. The same can be argued for most reforms.
The views I hold here may appear extreme in some respects, but it’s anything but a mere reflexive extension of my gut feeling, it’s an internally reasoned and argued position. I don’t advocate bans, especially in the current state of Indian affairs, but I do rejoice when I hear this happening in Sri Lanka, Denmark, or France.
Post Script:
My views on the Sabrimala controversy and menstruation taboos are also in concurrence with the Supreme court judgment. Not stating it to engage in monkey balancing, but merely stating it for context. You can find my piece which covers some of these topics here – What is “Brahmanical” in Indian Patriarchy?
This posted started off as a reply to Siddarth’s comment and his visit to two temples in Sri Lanka.
First, three old Sinhala words out of many. Gokkana, DeviNuwara, Upulvan
Gokkana. The old Sinhala name for Trincomalee. Trincomallee is Derived from the recent name, Tri-Kona-Malaya. Malaya (=Malai in Tamil) is an old word used for hill/mountain. eg the Hill country is Malaya Desaya and first ref to that term that I know around 1BC. I suspect that word is from Pali. The common sinhalese word is Kanda for mountain. eg Kanda-Uda-Rata-Nuwara Hill-Top-Country-City. Now in English Kandy and in Sinhala Nuwara. Is Kanda Tamil or really old Sinhala? Who knows,
Dondara: Devapura and Devanagara. In Sinhalese it has been referred to as Devundara and Devinuwara, meaning City of Gods and Devundara is Southern most point in Sri Lanka
Until the late 16th century a historic temple port town complex housed merchants from around Asia. . A multi-religious site, its primary deity was the Buddhist god Upulvan and at its zenith was one of the most celebrated religious sites of the island, containing a thousand statues of the various sects of Hinduism and Buddhism.
Upulvan* Upul=Dark Blue Van=Vanna (pali)=Varna. Sinhala: උපුල්වන් දෙවියෝ, Pali: Uppalavanna; Sanskrit: Utpalvarna. Now used to mean Vishnu. First mentioned in Mahavamsa as Vijaya (500 BC) being blessed by god Upulvan (see foot note 2) on arrival in Sri Lanka. Upulvan is considered the god whom the Buddha entrusted with the guardianship of Sri Lanka and Buddhism in the country. At the end of the 15th century, god Upulvan was identified with god Vishnu of Hinduism. Thereafter images of Upulvan as Vishnu were set beside the images of Buddha
So now to the Temples Tenavaram in Dondra/Devundara and Koneswaram in Trinco/Gokkana
Koneswaram in Gokkana
Apparently King Mahasen (277-304 AD) destroyed the Hindu Temple. According to the Mahavamsa to quote
and founded three viharas, destroying temples of the (brahmanical) gods: the Gokanna (vihara), (and another vihara) in Erakavilla, (and a third) in the village of the Brahman Kalanda;13
King Mahasen, initially a Mahayanist and later went back to Theravada. Built 16 reservoirs including Minneriya. Minneriya reservoir is now the site of the largest gathering of Elephants. Mahasen was regarded as a god or deity, and was called Minneri Deviyo (God of Minneriya).
In that same chapter “At the place of the yakkha Kalavela14 he built a thupa”, which reiterates the claim the Yakkas were real people.
The deep ocean where Portuguese are reputed to topple the Temple, there are Buddhist and Hindu ruins
Just a few years later in 1956, the famous Arthur C Clarke uncovered underwater masonry, architectural and idol images of the original temple. In his 1957 book ‘the Reefs of Taprobane’, Clarke identified at least 3 Hindu temples as having been build on or around Swami rock over the millennia. At that time, he said they were probably the most photographed underwater ruins in the world.
Arthur C Clarke description of first sights underwater.
https://www.penn.museum/sites/expedition/ceylon-and-the-underwater-archaeologist/
Recent Dive clip
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yRIhTEHThwc
Tenavaram in Dondra/Devundara/DeviNuwara.
DeviNuwara is dotted with many temples, Buddhist and Hindu. Pothgul and Galge are the lesser known but ancient buildings.
Devundara is multi-religious complex, the Buddhist temple and the Upulvan devale (shrine) was started by King Dappula II in the 7th century AD.
*I suspect a lot of merging of pre Buddhist gods with Hindu Gods. Much like the dynamics in the Caribbean African Gods being merged with Catholic Saints. See Link below for synopsis.
https://scholar.library.miami.edu/emancipation/religion1.htm