We asserted that West crushed and humiliated the Mughals. 0M-3 answered that the humiliation was an inside job: it was the Marathas who broke Mughal power, and when Delhi passed to the Company in 1803 the treaty was signed with the Marathas, the emperor not even a party to it.
Did the British take India from the Muslims or from the Hindus? The empire the British inherited had already fallen apart, and it had fallen apart along lines that almost had nothing to do with faith.
The British conquered successor states, not an empire.
Aurangzeb died in 1707, and within a generation the Mughal map was a fiction. Hyderabad went its own way under the Nizam by the 1720s, Bengal and Awadh became nawabis in all but name, and the Marathas took the centre. The spectacular blows did not come from London. Nadir Shah of Persia sacked Delhi in 1739, carried off the Peacock Throne and the Koh-i-Noor, and left tens of thousands dead in the streets in a single day. The Afghan Ahmad Shah Durrani came back to plunder again and again after him. By 1788 the emperor Shah Alam had been blinded by an Afghan adventurer and was living as a pensioner of his Maratha keepers. When General Lake walked into Delhi in 1803 he collected a prisoner the Marathas had been holding, not a throne. The British did not topple the Mughals. They arrived to read the will.
The frontiers were not religious frontiers.
Press the communal map onto the eighteenth century and it tears at once. Tipu Sultan, the Muslim tiger of Mysore, ruled a country that was mostly Hindu and ran his revenue through a Brahmin, Purnaiah. Ranjit Singh, the Sikh lion of Lahore, ruled a Punjab that was mostly Muslim. The Maratha and Nawabi states alike were administered by Hindu clerks and financed by Hindu bankers. There was no Muslim India and no Hindu India waiting to be defeated. There were states, and the faith of the man at the top told you very little about the people beneath him, still less about the men who ran his treasury.
The conquest was paid for and fought by Indians.
Plassey in 1757 is remembered as a battle. It was closer to a purchase. Siraj-ud-Daula lost because his own commander, Mir Jafar, stood aside, and Mir Jafar stood aside because the Jagat Seths, the richest Hindu banking house in Bengal, had decided their Nawab was bad for business and bought his army out from under him. Seven years later at Buxar the Company beat the Nawab of Awadh, the deposed Nawab of Bengal, and the Mughal emperor himself, all three together, and then took the right to tax Bengal to pay for the next war. The armies that did this work were Indian, sepoy and Hindu and Muslim in the great majority, marching on credit raised against Indian land. The Company was paramount because Indians found it paid to make it so.
The disunity is the story.
The faith of each beaten ruler is almost beside the point. The British did not conquer a religion. They completed a hostile takeover of a bankrupt estate, with Indian money, Indian troops, and a long row of victories over rulers who were Muslim, Hindu, and Sikh by turns and who would never combine.
This isn’t completely true either. Aurangzeb’s conquests of the deccan were sponsored by his Jain bankers as well. Many of his most competent generals were Rajput and Hindu such as Mirza Raja Jai Singh I. Aurangzeb is widely recognized as a bigot at this point despite having Hindus he relied on for the upkeep of his empire. Similarly, Tipu is also known for wanton massacres he committed in the name of faith when it was convenient for him.
The Marathas for their own part might’ve fought under the banner of Hind Swaraj but they never hesitated to hire outsiders such as Turk, Croats, or Americans as generals or officers. The religion of the man at the top always told us a limited amount about the state that they controlled. However, the state’s greater objectives, their raison d’être was set by the man on top.
Excellent comment – thank you for the correction
The Mughals fell in 1858. The Marathas did not even exist then. The Marathas even when they were ascendant were mostly seen as thuggish plunderers in North India.
The British took India from the Muslims. This is why after 1857, they mostly blamed the Muslims not the Hindus. That in of itself shows who they considered their primary rival in India.
If we were to read history like Hindutva does, the Hindus do not have any major significant victories in the last 1000 years which changed the face or empire which is why an ethno centric Maratha empire which could not even rule Delhi directly and got merked by the EIC half a century before the Mughals or the Nawabs or the Khalsa. This is why I think Hindutva should just hype up 1971, that’s the best they got which was also delivered by a dynasty they hate.
Fortunately, we dont read history like Hindutva. The Mughal Empire was pretty Rajput in nature unlike the Delhi Sultanate. It was quintessentially Indian.
No, they blamed the Muslims because the primarily soldiers from Awadh was where the 1857 mutiny began. As it was retinue of the poorly integrated former Nizam’s forces that began the rebellion. Regardless, you could still find Maratha figures participating in the 1857 rebellion, Jhasi ki Rani was a Maratha descendent along with Tatya Tope. Maratha Royal Remnants were around in India until Indira Gandhi decided to dissolve their privy purses and titles. The Scindias, Holkars, Bonsles, and Shindes are still around in important political positions. Regardless, most of the history of the 1857 mutiny was uncovered by Hindutva’s founder Savarkar in his book the first war of independence so even the sole Muslim claim over that event is tenuous.
Q you really need to get your facts together because otherwise your bigotry is meaningless. Most of the Mughal court remained Turkic until long into their decadent phase. It is written in the Akbar-nama that most of the courtiers in mughal courts were of foreign origin. Native Indians were a minority who were not preferred above Turks, Gokturks, Abyssinians, etc.
If not sugarcoating the truth is considered bigotry so be it.
I understand why you want to give token representation to the Marathas for 1857 to show that they were anti colonial but the fact is that the Schindes Holkar and Bhonsales all fully supported the British and provided military support to them. Rani if Jhansi was only fighting to save her Kingdom as it was on the British chopping block since she failed to produce an heir. Any remnant marathas fighting were fighting to restore the Mughal Emperor. Just this fact alone should disqualify any Maratha Kang made by modern Indians.. when it mattered they made a Mughal their king.
The Punjabi Sikhs also fully supported the British and were eager to sack Delhi.
The sepoy rebels were 80% Hindu, mostly Brahmin and Rajputs. Yet the British did not blame the Hindus, either Brahmins or Rajputs. They blamed the one whose banner they were fighting under even if the monarch was a reluctant rebel. They executed Mughal princes, they killed Muslim nobles, they cannoned Muslim maulvis and they singled out Muslim women to rape. They also banned Muslims from Delhi for over 10 years.
So lets not deny the fact that the British marked out Muslim monarch and the Muslim religion as their primary enemy.
The entire Deobandi sect came out as a result of the loss of 1857. You have no such revivalist Hindu sect because Hindus were never blamed or punished by the British.
This is just to show that there was no Indian nation pre 1857, it was just a region with different nations.. many who actually supported the foreigner from 4000 miles away of another race entirely, against other “Indians” and this is a pattern that repeats often in “Indian history”.
that’s quite a leap that there was no nation etc..
There was no “nation-state” of India but a bunch of different kingdoms.
We’ve had this debate multiple times before.
So be it, then perhaps next time talk about whether the Mughals intended to change the religion of each individual Kingdom…Punjab, Sindh, Kashmir, Uttar Pradesh etc.
Don’t make statements such as “80% of India is still Hindu, hence the Mughals didn’t come to change anyone’s religion”.
You contradict yourself.
Yes good future posting..
West UP is very heavily Muslim.. so Muslims are concentrated in certain regions and urban areas..
West UP is about 30% Muslim. A significant number of them are rural/semi-urban. There are lots of Muslim only villages. My father’s village is surrounded by 4-5 Muslim villages.
There are several reasons the significant Muslim population – not least of which is that this was the promised land for the H1-Bs of the late Mughal era (basically the Rohillas and their retinue) – lots of (apparently unclaimed) incredibly fertile land and people to be ruled over and extract from if you promised allegiance to Delhi.
There are of course those who predate this – primarily the Barha who were basically the rulers of Northern India in the early 18th century. My great grandfather served the descendants of as a munim in the early 20th century. From my grandpa’s recollections, they were not particularly caring but not nasty either. Perhaps also explains my mother’s family’s being more Urdu than Hindi in their language and culture despite being fiercely Hindu.
very interesting comment – thank you!
You clearly don’t understand the difference between empires and nation-states.
You previously gave me statistics from the modern-day nation-state of democratic India when we were talking about the Mughal Empire, yet you supposedly understand the difference & I do not.
And the books you read are probably selected according to your own agenda to begin with.
I am sorry that I used the words ‘You contradict yourself’ in my original comment on this thread, that was harsh.
But I agree with you…that the modern-day nation-state of India did not exist before 1947. Hence, my request that we do not use stats from modern day India when we talk about the Mughal Empire, but rather kingdom by kingdom, especially when referring to Muslim populations.
You chose to attack my intellectual capacity for the above stance, rather than rationally explaining whether you agree or not & why; which is funny considering you are well educated, well read & an intellectual!
Apologies Anika.
The Muslim population remained pretty static during core Mughal period, outside of Muslim immigrants.
Most conversion to Islam happened either before the Mughals took charge, or it happened in the fringes during the 18th and 19th century.
Sindh only became Muslim majority in the 16th century, Brtish Punjab became Muslim majority in the early 20th century although West Punjab was Muslim by the 17th century.
Mughals actually tried to stop conversions to Islam in Bengal but it happened anyway.
Its simply a conversion to the dominant religion. Most Hindus today have converted to Western modernism without even knowing. The only reason why people identify as Hindu is because the British created this idenity and all identities are sticky once adopted en masse.
Hinduism has very few core beliefs like Varna, and maybe cow worship. Everything else is acceptable which makes them susceptible to accepting the dominant religion over a certain period of time. The biggest defender of modern Western religion (democracy, feminism, socialism etc) are all Hindus even today. Many other societies have the same issue.
Not really – Hinduism is the only ideology that effectively stayed true to its roots.
Christian Middle East & Zoroastrian Persia..
Dharma is an impenetrable wall.
Are you saying that christianity is not part of the middle east?
The Middle East became predominantly Muslim. The great Civilisational centres were Greek-speaking (Syria, Egypt) but all were Christian (Yemen, Iraq)..
If we’re not mistaken the entire *settled* Middle East was Christian..
I mean, the core greek speaking zones were still christian even after the coming under the control of the ottoman empire.
Overall, it is wrong to say that christianity fell or the hinduism prevailed, much of malaysia and indonesia were hindu majority and became muslim. Spain was christian majority and became muslim majority and then christian again. Egypt and Syria still had large christian populations centuries after islamization and the demographic dominance is very recent.
Overall, local factors rather than some inherent characteristic helped in play the role of persistence of christianity and hinduism and stopping the spread of Islam.
it took a pretty brutal Inquisition to bring Spain into the Christian Fold?
For someone who enjoys repeatedly asserting that Indians (Hindus) ‘do not understand Islam’, you ………..really have no clue about how clueless you are about Hinduism – the religion and the culture.
And no, mainlining Bollywood movies and mingling with diaspora Indians doesn’t quite qualify.
Interesting how BP has its own brown diaspora version of that convicted Andrew Tate fella.
Maybe in pakistan most muslims conversion happened prior to the mughals
In bangladesh mughal empire coincided with the growth of islam. Similarly in rest of north india many muslim communities trace their presence to mughal empire.
In south india as well the local sultanates and immigration had a greater role to play in growth of islam but thst is only because the mughals never penetrator the south.
That was settlement into East Bengal. There is a paper on this
I believe you are referring to the paper by Richard Eaton.
if yes, the main crux of this was the shifting rivers, migration of sufi missionaries and relatively less hinduized and mostly buddhist and isolated population enabled the spread of Islam, but even with this it also coincides with the advent of the mughal empire control of the region.
yes so the Mughal Empire was incentivised to use Muslim peasants as the Founding Stock..
“Race? It is a feeling, not a reality. Ninety-five per cent, at least. Nothing will ever make me believe that biologically pure races can be shown to exist today.”― Benito Mussolini
An Indian Race didn’t exist until the outsider made it known that they weren’t from it. The Marathas had already begun on that effort up long ago during the rule of the sultanates. They began targeting the Mughals as Turks, that is the reason for all the squirming about making the Mughals into Rajputs in your comment.
The reality is the Indian race as you put it is built using the Maratha mold of Hindavi Swarajya and that is the reason you’re so quick to dismiss it. The reality is the title of Chhatrapati survived until 1974 and stayed in Satara while the Mughals title of King of Delhi was dissolved by the British in 1857. This was because Shah Zafar was a hostage in the munity, the sepoys had held him to the sword to make their claim seem important. Where as the title for Emperor of India had lapsed from the Mughal hand in the 1700s when the Mughal king became a pensioner for the Marathas.
Very rich of you to say this when you have the caste system that actively segregated the dominant and servile races in the region over 2500 years.. even neighbours did not intermarry and now we have different sets of genetics for each group found nowhere else on Earth.
A completely modern interpretation, Indian race consciousness only developed during late EIC rule. For the first time a dominant power would not induct locals as officers in its army due to race and actively treated Indians as subhumans based on skin color and race.
The Brahmins literally went to war with the English because they thought they had been demoted to casteless status grouped with other untouchable & lower castes. They clearly did not see themselves as same other Indians. Most Brown Sahibs after 1857 were also Brahmins.
In the end, Chhatrapati is always subservient to Shahenshah-e-Hind. Chattrapathi never took on that status, because they did not have the legitimacy. Even they knew it. The title passed from the Mughal Emperor to the British Crown directly.
Your Maratha kanging is of no help, the Marathas killed more Hindus than they ever killed Muslims. It’s akin to Muslims kanging on Taimur, very cringey.
Their status is elevated by modern Hindus from plundering bandits to some mightly Indian warriors in a revisionism of History.
Absolutely. The Marathas were nothing compared to the Mughals.
Even today, the tourist site that draws most foreigners to India is the Taj Mahal– a monument built for a Muslim Empress by a Muslim Emperor.
No one outside of India has even heard of the Marathas. The Mughals are famous the world over.
WD wrote a book called “White Mughals”. Now why didn’t he think to write “White Marathas”?
Its ….indicative that “WD” himself chose to write ‘Golden Road’ next instead of more books on mughals.
The grift has started to shift along with the Overton Window. And no matter how much kicking and screaming the Hinduphobes and Indophobes indulge in, the direction and velocity will keep on building.
We rarely pay attention to WD & SD; he writes for a particular audience alas
Took the words out of my mouth! I think for WD’s case it is more likely a case of trying to get ahead of the curve or at least stay on it.
There are some incredible amateur historians who have done stellar work in the last decade to showcase ancient India’s fascinating history. The tide in interest has visibly started to shift. Indian society has already been fed a gluttonous diet of Mughal history and there’s nothing the self-styled goat-herd of Mehrauli craves more than attention.
He can now claim he has always been writing about Indian civilization as a whole rather Company-Mughal era times that he is so fond of. I recall him boasting about his pedigree on some Twitter thread – apparently belonging to the lineage of an EIC officer is something to be proud of.
He continues his old agenda though – listen to him speak about his book and he ascribes everything good to Buddhist philosophy/culture with nary a mention of Hindu thought. Loathsome fellow.
He’s related to someone who made legit contribution to Indology. Princep.
But yes, he’s a shrewd hustler and has realized which way the winds are blowing.
Oh didn’t know that. Quite the downfall for the Prinsep family, I say even if WD continues to do well in his coterie.
what was their decadent phase
Post-Aurangzeb
They really enjoy drinking their own Kool-Aid. To quote Goebbels, tell a big lie a hundred times and it becomes the truth.
The propaganda that the Pakistani public believes in is just absurd and even more absurd is them calling known facts fiction.
I mean you need to just look at the incredible fiction passing off as science in their textbooks. History is truly a fairy tale for them.
well India was there for the taking alas..
The Marathas under Shivaji were fighting against both the Mughals and the sultantes since the reign of Aurangzeb. I also did not know Ranjit Singh or the Holkars or Scindias or the numerous Rajput principalities and local Rajas in Tamil Nadu, and North India were muslims or the numerous jat kingdoms in present day Haryana and Western UP as well.
They were plenty of non muslim victories against muslims in any plain reading.
The British may have had their own reasons for blaming some muslim elites due to the stated goal being to restore the Mughal emperor but by and large they simply went after those who had participated in the revolt, which included not only some muslim fighters but also some principilaties like Jhansi. Other who had supported them like the Nizam, or the various trading communities including muslim ones like the Bohras and Khojas benefitted immensely.
I have reviewed WD’s book “The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company” which is relevant in this context.
On Tipu, WD writes:
https://kabiraltaf.substack.com/p/review-william-dalrymples-the-anarchy
On 1857 itself, WD’s “The Last Mughal” remains one of the most accessible and engaging treatments.
interesting review- yes one would argue a very high level of Muslim rulers had syncretic beliefs.. Hinduism is an extremely attractive religion + ideology
You mean like Panini being claimed by pak?
Panini would roll in his metaphorical grave at such an insult.
They are releasing a postage stamp
Good move or not remains to be seen. Are the lobotomized natives smart enough to take offence to this glorification of the “evil Hindoo”? Given how all pre-Islamic history is treated as some sort of shame.
Panini is a direct genetic ancestor of Pakistanis.
Not sure why Indians are getting offended.
It’s a good thing to feature him on the stamps. It would be better to learn his language and scriptures.
We already speak language descended from Sanskrit and we have better scriptures to follow. But blood cannot be muddied, and Panini is an Ancient Pakistani, a direct ancestor of modern Pakistanis.
Why should we learn any non-Islamic scriptures?
This is your agenda not the agenda of 97% of Pakistanis who are staunchly Muslim.
your entire SS is about English lit..
What’s your point?
English Literature is not in any way against Islam.
Pakistanis don’t want to read Hindu scriptures. Why should we? We are a 97% Muslim country.
Lol 😆 I like the partial appropriation of the father of Sanskrit, a language extinct in Pakistan.
Pakistan did not exist at the time of Panini, nor did Muslims. So ya, you can’t appropriate him. If you claim the legacy of Panini, you need to claim it all, not just the convenient parts.
I also like the – not even partial – but complete appropriation of Buddhism when most Indians aren’t even Buddhist and actively rejected the teachings of Buddha.
1) As per Islamic texts, Muslims have always existed. The first human was a Muslim.
2) Pakistan was peopled 70,000 years ago, it always existed.
3) Hinduism was created by the British in their census. Not sure why people identifying with Panini, you must be Brahmin to do so.
You are welcome to believe in your absolutely ludicrous fairy tales. Spare us the absolute nonsense.
Next you’ll claim Panini was Muslim.
Clearly you do not see the ridiculousness of your claims.
Maybe Panini was Muslim, his work was corrupted by Gangetic Indians
We don’t know, we will review this angle of history as well.
baby steps
You chaps don’t even even have Paani but are busy worrying about Panini..
this is a little droll but we hope it’s not a warmongering joke (that is that the taps are switched off).
No it is not a warmongering joke.
First some background: In may, there was a conference in South Africa to which some researchers from the Aga Khan university were also sponsored to attend. These researchers were detained in Dubai because the immigration there had doubts about the authenticity of their visa. They were detained for several hours and it required intervention by their American sponsors to help them continue their journey. I know this because I know the sponsors very well. They told me how humiliated the Pakistanis felt. Meanwhile, Kabir with an American passport is busy fighting for the honour of the Islamic republic of Pakistan. Querishi is sitting in Canada and fighting for appropriating Panini of all people! First take up a pakistani passport, give up your foreign allegiances, and then fight.
Let us take water: Forget about IWT, first handover land to the tillers who toil day and night for the scumbag zamindars who own all land in Pakistani Punjab. These scums don’t pay tax, they use their own people like bonded labour, they send their children abroad, meanwhile their own people rot. But never mind all that, keep war mongering over water while comfortably living abroad and holding foreign passports.
I will end with two more examples of these elites:
Mishal Hussain: Now at Bloomberg, live happily in the UK. Her grandfather was the first DG of ISI.
Aamna Nawaz : She is on PBS, USA. Her father is the brother of a former army chief of Pakistan.
No coincidence this. Symptomatic of the Pakistani elite.
How are Kabir and Querishi any different? Their own fellow Pakistanis can go to hell but these chaps will continue to live the high life.
I can go on but the bottom line is one can only indulge in low level jokes and some banter with such people. Nothing serious and meaningful can ever be discussed.
The response will be to point out similar issues in India but give us a break. India is light years not because of economic growth etc, it is ahead because despite similar proclivities within its own elite, especially the Punjabi bureaucratic elite, Democracy has truly taken root here and given Indians the opportunity to build their own lives rather than be held hostage by a handful. In that sense, we are way ahead of even countries like China.
Anyway, I am preaching to the choir. Your article more or less pointed all this out but much more politely.
Wait, what makes you think I don’t have a Pakistani passport?
Imagine, threatening to starve your neighbours and stop their water, endangering hundreds of millions of people, and then expect them to not poison your water and your very air in return.
And what is worse is the act like you care about the common people of Pakistan after threatening them. 😂
Please put a stop to this pity party..
Nothing is going to happen with IWT. India has no grounds to stand on. All dams being constructed illegally are legitimate war targets, Pakistan is already preparing political grounds for that internationally. And there is no shortage of domestic will. India will go back soon enough to the IWT, let the events play out.
The entire Kashmir issue exists because Indians want to threaten Pakistan’s water. The script keeps repeating.
we just wrote on the IWT
India has complete rights over the three Eastern Rivers, which now flows straight to Pakistan..
Under IWT,
a. 100% of the water from Ravi, Beas and Sutlej belongs to India.
b. Of the western rivers, Indus, Jhelum and Chenab – India is entitled to store 0.13 TMC out of 4.94 TMC.
c. India has all rights to build ROR dams on all rivers, which it what it has announced on the Chenab.
d. India is entitled to 20% of Indus waters for irrigation.
e. India is entitled to store 0.0106 TMC on the Jhelum for navigation purposes.
f. Chenab has 0.812 TMC of water, out of which India is entitled to 0.07 TMC. India wishes to build a barrage on the Chandra river for for storing 0.03 TMC.
Even these legitimate rights, India has not executed unilaterally and always tried talking to the Pakistanis about but that was also protested by the Pakistanis till date. In fact, the Pakistanis are so stupid with their maximalist positions that they are even opposing desilting of the salal dam, an existing dam on the Chenab which if desilted will result in more water for Pakistan and more electricity for India. In fact, they went to the Hague over such ridiculous issues, which is what India disregarded.
If Pakistanis are so desperate for every drop of water that they are opposed to even India’s legitimate rights, then they are screwed.
Rhetorical question: Najam Sethi says Pakistan will use a missile and blow up an ROR dam if it is built on the Chenab. Are all Pakistani elites this illiterate?
Despite Pahalgam, not a drop due to Pakistan has been stopped. Even flood warnings were conveyed to the Pakistani side on time.
We are a civilized people. I know its an alien concept for you chaps but at least try to practise it before shooting your mouths off about nuclear holocausts.
But somehow river flows weren’t communicated, which could potentially poison crops.
Very high signal comment btw.
India has stopped sharing hydrological data with Pakistan, which will indeed hurt but this was never covered by the IWT and was a unilateral goodwill gesture from the Indian side, which it has since withdrawn.
do you want to repost IWT related matters to the IWT thread?
I have reposted it to the IWT thread.
Nice joke man.
People will certainly claim that too. Look at this X user and the seething Indian replies:
https://x.com/LassiKangz/status/2070540811549266210
This is like a Reverse UNO card whenever you guys miraculously find a temple under a muslim landmark in India.
The theatre of the absurd has now devolved into utter inanities.
You need help, seriously.
“Pakistan did not exist”. Neither did India. Both nation-states were created on August 15, 1947.
The “Saffroniate” is really starting to verge on the absurd.
Q is absolutely correct that “Hinduism” is a term the British created as a census category. Anyone who did not state that they were Muslim or Christian was lumped into the default “Hindu” category. This is simply a matter of historical fact.
It’s amazing how every post on this blog somehow becomes a referendum on Pakistan.
Just like Hinduism is negation of Islam & Christianity, similarly, India is a negation of Pakistan
Without Pakistan and without Muslims, the idea of India falls apart and we would return to the 18th century hodge podge.
this feels like trolling
Did we not have a hodge podge in the 18th century? This was the natural state of affairs.
The only reason India exists today as a united entity is that the British built it on the ruins of the Mughal Empire.
All institutions are British, political system is British, the borders inherited from the British, even the language is from Britian.
Absolutely.
It was the British that created “India”.
This simple historical fact deeply upsets the “Saffroniate”.
It is not like people around the world dont pick and choose what they like to claim and whst they dont
It is good that Pakistan is moving away from TNT and owning its culture.
It should lead to better treatment and empathy towards those who do follow descendants of the culture Panini practised
I don’t think they’re moving away from TNT. The theory had already failed them in the 70s, if they were moving away from it for a principled reason they would’ve done so long ago.
This move is clearly limited to the elite and I don’t see it having any positive impact towards the followers of Panini’s traditions.
If the Pakistanis on this site are anything to go by, the view is that India rather than the failure of the TNT is why they lost bangladesh, overall islamism has helped to keep the different ethbic communities together with India as a common enemy to unite against. As long as the military reigns supreme and India is the enemy the hindu would always be the other.
The only thing, initiatives like do is begin weakening it from the inside, it become difficult to hate hindus on one hand and consider a Sanskrit grammarian as one of your icons.
It may not be the end of TNT but it is a beginning if it’s weakening.
If they were like the Persians who recognised that they were converted by the sword and are still proud of their ancient Persian heritage, it would be the right path forward. I seriously doubt that’s the case.
I’m inclined to agree with OM-3 on this.
I dont think many modern day Pakistanis were converted by the sword.
It is a long gradual process due to sufi missionaries, professional advancement and changing circumstances that culminated in a muslim majority in the 19th century itself. Same with most Sindhi, pashtun and balochi muslims.
What is different between subcontinental muslims and muslims elsewhere, is that muslims here went through a period of revivalism that saw lack of faith as a reason for their failures, and had the british pit one community against another. The identification with panini, Gandhare, and the indus valley civilization pushes against this kind of trends that culminated with the TNT, it wont overwrite everything at once but it is a start of something at least.
The lands of present-day Pakistan were repeatedly invaded and raided for literally thousands of slaves taken over the ‘Hindu kush’. Conversion offered at least offered some hope from escaping enslavement. Pretending that it was all Sufis and Qawwalis is…..unrealistic.
The majority of conversion occured at the time of settled empires like the mughals or the successors of the delhi sultanate not the ghaznavids and ghorids who did most of the raiding and that too in peninsular India, not in balochistan and khyber pakhtuwoon, that had their own trajectories different from Punjab and Sindh.
There is no indication of a Muslim majority directly after the ghaznavids and ghorids in punjab and sindh. Keep in mind punjab at the time was sparsely populated with lesser population that eastern punjab which was hindu majority till partition, and that it is only in the 13th to 15th centuries that sindh became muslim majority due to a combination of factors like islam.having been hegemonic for centuries, sufi missiomaries that were helped and supported by the state in comparison to Buddhism, and policies like jizya. Same with punjab.
TLDR: The violence only helped to establish a hegemonic islamic state, but like most pre modern states it lacked the capacity to meaningfully impose its will on all the inhabitants under its influence. So even if islam was present in the 8th-10th centuries, it is only after sufi missionaries from central asia came under its protection that islam could meaningfully spread throughout the hinterland. The sufis are a primary factor while state violence is a secondary one.
Pakistanis have many great Indians as ‘direct genetic ancestors’. Its not at all something for ‘Indians’ to get offended about.
Yes but you can’t reject what your Ancestors actually did and claim them..
Never mind ancients like Panini. S Chandrasekhar was born in Lahore. Har Gobind Khurana was born in Raipur, Pakistan. Never mind all these kafirs, What about Dr. Abdus Salam? First Muslim and Pakistan’s first and only Nobel prize winner. During the prize ceremony, he recited from the Koran when beginning his speech. When he won the prize, he sought the Govt of India’s help to locate Professor Anilendra Ganguly, who had taught him at Sanatan Dharma College in Lahore. Incidentally, SD college was uprooted during partition and today in its place stands the govt graduate M.A.O college. Abdus Salam was rejected by Pakistan because was not a “Muslim”. His Nobel prize is preserved at Aligarh Muslim University along with his Portrait.Pakistanis should first undo the desecration of Abdus Salam’s grave and honour him properly for his contributions because of which two Pakistanis can go every year to Italy on a full scholarship to pursue research in theoretical physics and Math. Before somebody tells me that LUMS offers scholarships named after Abdus Salam, I will pre-empt by mentioning the name Malik Saleem Latif, Dr. Salam’s cousin, who was murdered for his faith. I will also mention Atif Mian, who was removed from his post because of his faith. How can such jokers embrace ancient Sanskrit scholars and geniuses like Panini, who were first and foremost devout Hindus (Shiva worshippers are Hindus before some numbskull disputes this as well citing some British rubbish).
Bro the case of Atif Mian is especially damning. For all intents and purposes the guy is just another sane sounding economist but for some reason his faith is more important than his expertise. Honestly, that entire situation is like circus show.
I find the clumsy trolling attempts by the likes of Q … quite amusing.
अर्धो घटो घोषमुपैति नूनं
https://shloka.sanskrit.today/tag/?slug=empty%20vessels%20make%20more%20noise
lovely poem..
1) Poorniah was on hyderali’s staff, who came into tipu’s court. Apart from him there were no Hindus in the top tier. Poorniah’s descendents are still around.
2) tipu was two faced. In his kingdom he was tolerant, out side like coorg and Malabar he was a Muslim fanatic.
White historians and their brown followers are picking and choosing.
Everyone is picking and choosing wrt to Tipu tbh. The opponenets to the historians you mention almost always refer to his campaigns outside of Mysore state.
Though tbh, trying to cast certain rulers as tolerant or intolerant is the primary mistake, you dont be a king or an emperor by being a good person and many muslim rules seemed to have been using Islam and conversion to it as a way to secure loyalty amongst what they percieved as hostile forces.
Forced conversion and humiliation would buy loyalty? How?
Loyalty among the inner court not the outsiders.
By breaking their spirit and separating them from their community/ allies to whom one shared religious ties which he diagnosed as source of opposition.
If mangalorean catholics are helping portuguese and british because of their common religion breaking these ties and turning towards islam would help deal with this issue.
In modern times because of secualrism and nationalism we can conceive of other possibilities of kinship but Tipu Sultan lacked these and may not have abided by these even if he knew about them.
Fair point. I would wager that the harsh punishment meted to the new converts who might have secretly followed their old religion also ensured a clean cleave from their original religion.
I also must add that the ritual purity amongst Hindus served as a barrier to those wanting back within the Hindu fold, thus making it challenging to bridge the gap.
Might’ve been a problem in ancient India but the reality is even prior to independence guys like Savarkar were conducting mass shudhikaran programs to convert backward groups into Brahmans to avoid discrimination. These kinds of mass rituals to restore purity are much more common in today’s India. You could easily find people of Muslim ancestry having converted to a Hindu sect through ghar wapsi as they call it.
Yes, true. Savarkar was ahead of his time.
[…] the previous thread argues about whether Panini held a Pakistani passport, a more useful quarrel is flowing past us. In April 2025, after the Pahalgam […]
#What India can do lawfully is quieter and duller. It is finishing dams on the eastern rivers, Shahpur Kandi on the Ravi above all, to capture water that was always India’s under the treaty but had run unused into Pakistan for decades.#—-
The real problem lies here. Pakistani farmers are used to this extra water getting ‘gratis’ and now if and when India stops this, there will be real crisis.
This is the same situation in Tamilnadu w. R. T makedatu dam karnataka wants to build, Andhra’s objections to karnataka over rising of almatti dam height.
I’m thinking of creating a post about how Geography is power again. I’ve been reading up on my Mackinder and Spykman recently.
Glad to hear a Mackinder reference here. Looking forward to seeing your piece.
Amen
I’m thinking of releasing my post on 2nd July. That would be the right date for it considering 2 days have passed your post.
That’s fine u can also release even sooner to stimulate comments . We are going to judge posts on a post by post basis.
You are very thought-provoking.
It’s a pity that BB has left; we should reach out to him as his presence is missed..
I saw the last comment (now deleted) you made to BB – you humiliated him. The same with Indosaurus. Why would such people come back? They did make a serious effort and Indo in particular was exceptional with his contributions on BP.
mea culpa
Why don’t you along with other admin just directly reach out to them and say exactly this. Small but non-zero chance they might listen.
Perhaps
“It’s a pity that BB has left”– What did BB really add? He was focused on being nasty about Pakistan and nasty to me personally. He was the only person on this site to actually make a threat of violence. He also repeatedly sexualized Muslim women.
For all the flak that Q gets (and I don’t necessarily always agree with him), he is nothing like BB.
we don’t know who Spykman is. look forward to your thoughts; we want long-form posts to breathe for 48 hours or hit 50 comments.
we think that way. it gives each piece luxuriation but yes we do love it when our contentions are comprehensively rebutted as it gives us a chance to grow and engage..
I find even the much hated Samuel Huntington ‘s clash of civilizations interesting and accurate. here geography also plays a significant role.
Inspite of any reverses the Ukrainian part Russia holds will never be returned back.
Ghaznavi’s plundering route is today’s Pakistan.
it is a very good conception but overwrought
Geography is VERY important but it depends on how powerful the State is..