Comments on: India’s Eastern Face: Where Civilisation Dissolves Instead of Ending

By: sbarrkum

sbarrkum — Sat, 17 Jan 2026 01:14:05 +0000

In reply to girmit. The hill states of the northeast are completely unlike anything we think of as Indic. Also, I’m not sure if the diffusion of Indic religions went through the Assam to Myanmar land route, Exactly Good analysis

By: girmit

girmit — Fri, 16 Jan 2026 20:36:17 +0000

I’ve often thought of the eastern edge as being more of a sharp boundary than the northwestern one. Dense mountainous jungles are more forbidding than a well trodden road like the Khyber pass. The hill states of the northeast are completely unlike anything we think of as Indic. Also, I’m not sure if the diffusion of Indic religions went through the Assam to Myanmar land route, it seems to have been secondary by a long margin to the Bay of Bengal maritime and riverine trade networks. Then again, the Brahmaputra valley of Assam is in a category of its own, sort of the last outpost of Gangetic culture, but totally enclosed by eclectic hill tribes , most of whom are tibeto-burman, but with interesting exceptions like the Khasi who are austro-asiatic like the Khmer and Vietnamese and the Ahom, who until the early 1800’s were Tai-Kadai language speakers. From a population genetics and linguistic POV, there isn’t much continuity between Indics and Southeast Asians. In the northwest of the subcontinent, the indo-iranian languages straddle the hindukush and the political histories of Turan, Punjab and Hindustan are intertwined. The great empires of the west , from the achaemenids, sassanians, ghaznavids, timurids, to nader shah and the durranis, their stories have hindustan as peripheral, if not occassionally central character. The political histories of the Burmese and Thai and Khmer people have only the most transient interludes with India. As it is, Assam doesn’t factor in core Indic history until relatively recent centuries.

By: sbarrkum

sbarrkum — Thu, 15 Jan 2026 21:51:24 +0000

In reply to X.T.M.

Not all that dense.
CIA Overthrow of Democratically Elected govt, American Installed puppet shahs, Breakaway sects that went to Israel, Israel aligned Iranian Diaspora that should be a good starter.
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By: RecoveringNewsJunkie

RecoveringNewsJunkie — Thu, 15 Jan 2026 21:41:09 +0000

In reply to X.T.M.

and yet SE Asia does a much better job tapping the tourism market – of course being culturally and geographically closer to Singapore, HK, Seoul, Shanghai etc helps. Also the…….other incentives for travel to SE Asia. But India does a poor job catering even to its domestic tourism market. Just so much low hanging fruit. Its..slowly improving, but really too slow.

By: X.T.M

X.T.M — Thu, 15 Jan 2026 18:07:19 +0000

In reply to RecoveringNewsJunkie. Yes someone I knew, who worked in SE tourism, was astounded by India. He was like SE Asia doesn’t have a patch on India’s touristic potential.

By: RecoveringNewsJunkie

RecoveringNewsJunkie — Thu, 15 Jan 2026 17:53:49 +0000

In reply to X.T.M. Its...interesting how twitter handles and certain folks deliver hypotheses with certainty.

By: RecoveringNewsJunkie

RecoveringNewsJunkie — Thu, 15 Jan 2026 17:53:11 +0000

>>Southeast Asia is best understood not as a civilisation in isolation, but as a contact zone, a region shaped by the overflow of two great Asian civilisations, Indic and Sinitic; whose cultural weight spilled outward rather than stopping at hard borders.

This resonates. When I visited Cambodia, I was struck at the co-mingling of these influences. Almost every ‘pukka’ house in and around Siem Reap had the post-box sized chinese style ‘ancestor homes’. But then Siem Reap is overflowing with the history, architectural and sculptural ‘design language’ of India.

By: X.T.M

X.T.M — Thu, 15 Jan 2026 17:39:54 +0000

In reply to X.T.M.

Pakistan’s diplomatic game really is top notch:

https://x.com/shanaka86/status/2011796499710296549?s=20

By: X.T.M

X.T.M — Thu, 15 Jan 2026 16:45:33 +0000

I’m not really feeling to flow to write on a dense topic like Iran atm, hopefully that will change but I was finding the Commentariat’s interest in South Asia versus Indica to be interesting..

where does Indica end and lead to Indo-China