FlyDie on South India

FlyDie left some excellent comments on the “Tamil” CMs post. I’m reposting them to increase the sabzi and reduce the masala.

The Nayak inheritance. Why does so much of Tamil Nadu’s elite traces to Telugu country? Vijayanagara’s military system let new men rise, and it minted the Nayaks. After Talikota they carved out autonomous states in Tamil lands as “Vadaka-rajahs” and assimilated over generations. The Thanjavur Marathas kept the pattern going. Ethnicity as the three L’s: Land, Lineage, Language.

Against “colonization.” Pre-colonial empires ran on a shared elite culture. Incoming rulers assimilated and left local custom alone. Krishnadevaraya is remembered above all for a Telugu work on the Tamil saint Andal. Telugu in Carnatic music is no stranger than Braj in Hindustani.

The reading list. Heirs of the Vijayanagara, the Nayaka chapter in The Architecture of Sovereignty, Joseph Martin on Telugu Catholic migration in Madras Presidency, and Cynthia Talbot’s Precolonial India in Practice.

India and China. India accepts foreign rulers without demanding assimilation, but never remakes itself for them. China resists outsiders, then lets them rule for centuries once established. The Yuan are a footnote. The Mughals define India’s monuments.

Kerala, the clingy. Onam began in Madurai. Vijayanagara’s caste consolidation passed Kerala by, and Bhakti arrived late. Nestorius was once a revered saint among its Christians, and the Mappilas follow the Shafi school. An ancient land holds on to what everyone else abandoned, communism included.

Are All Postcolonial Nations Brahmanical Constructs?

Note: Emotional comments are for the Open Season Thread. 

Every postcolonial elite preserves the borders it inherited. That is the reason we live in the world we live in: every succeeding elite has been very keen to preserve the boundaries of its state, and it is never the case, under a postcolonial elite, that nations go back to their original topographies. The map, once drawn, becomes sacred. The question in this title is whether the post-colonials are Brahmanical gatekeepers (I’m aware the Commentariat don’t like the nomenclature but it is particularly apt for an Apex Elite).

I. A Brahmanical construct

Continue reading Are All Postcolonial Nations Brahmanical Constructs?

Open thread: Open Season

Since all the other threads keep getting derailed by pointless arguing, Admin has decided to open a weekly Open thread for those discussions. This thread will be moderator free so please do not get Admin involved if conversations get nasty.  Any and all pointless arguments, insult trading are to be restricted to the “Open Season” thread alone.

What is the point of “pointless conversations?” Does it serve any purpose except reinforce stereotypes?

1. Endlessly relitigating the TNT does not change the present, so why bother?

2. Does it help to argue with “randos on the Internet” (I really liked that term thanks Kabir).

3. What about online safety concerns when the line crosses over to bullying like the Jason Arday case.

4. Is the polytheistic flexible mind clearly a winner over the inflexible Abrahamic one?

5. Do we leave happy with enriching conversations, yet empty and angry with meaningless ones?

6. Should someone be a grammar Nazi (thanks Indo) especially when the primary purpose of language is communication?

Even though this thread will not be moderated, request to all to keep conversations civil.

Open Thread: Nepal Floods + 20 months since Assad

It seems to be a new and very pragmatic Middle East. In a way the hybrid regimes, who don’t necessarily have democratic mandates, are able to be wily and nimble actors, who can balance the Great Powers.

So they need to integrate their economies into the Global, not antagonise either China or the US, and somehow weave in traditionalism.

Israel, India, which have very long democratic traditions and also see themselves as “Great Powers” seem to have a more grandiose foreign policy. Israel seems to have swung, reputation wise, in a single generation.

I’m just spitballing here. Of course India is on the scale of the EU, US, China & Russia in terms of geopolitical heft but as girmits says, India also *sees* itself that way.

The comment thread went bezerk after last night’s post but I guess the Commentariat enjoyed themselves?

Continue reading Open Thread: Nepal Floods + 20 months since Assad

“Tamil” CMs

Many chief ministers in the past have been of Andhra descent, representing the borderless existence of the Telugu and Tamil speaking people under the broad umbrella of Madras (presidency and then state) for generations. In fact, even today, those living on the border of Andhra and Tamil Nadu speak both languages, allow marriages between them and share several customs and rituals.

The first chief minister of Madras Presidency was Agaram Subbarayalu Reddiar (1920-21). He was born in a Telugu Reddy family domiciled in South Arcot district of Madras Presidency. He was succeeded by the Raja of Panagal Rajarayaningar, from a zamindari in Kalahasti in Andhra Pradesh. It is not clear if he was a pure Tamil, though he was associated with Tamil institutions.

https://www.news18.com/blogs/politics/vvp-sharma/after-series-of-outsider-chief-ministers-sasikala-to-be-first-tamil-cm-after-29-years-14329-1345645.html

It’s fascinating that India’s most “distinct” state has a very strong history of having non-Tamil leaders. It reminds me of Scottish or more saliently “Catalan” nationalism (without the political aspects). Highly civil and linguistic, with a very strong socialist element. The amount of Telugus in Chennai is pretty incredible though they’ve become a blended people.

Telugus from Rayalseema and Coastal Andhra were part of the Madras Presidency while the Telugus of Telangana form a very significant component of the diaspora of Indians in the US.

The Italian of the East: Is It Language or Music?

Why Can’t South Asia Move On?

South Asia, for the most part, makes the young old. The West keeps the old young.

In the East, life is fairly intergenerational. A boy grows up at the same table as his grandfather, so he inherits the old man’s quarrels whole. In the West, people live in age cohorts. The old are left to be old, and everyone else tries to stay young. Hyper-individualism has its costs, but it does one thing well. It lets the past rest.

I had forgotten this. My own context is selectively Western. My motto ordinarily is let ideas procreate, let them battle and let the best one win. This is what I try to apply in my daily life. Then I look at Brown Pundits and watch our conversations litigate events from 200 years ago as though they happened yesterday. Why can’t South Asia move on? Because almost nothing is lost between generations. The old wound arrives in each new mind at full strength.

It does not follow that the future-facing West wins. Forever young is the vanity of youth, furthermore weaker emotional health is a by-product of the intense loneliness prevalent in the West. One side cannot let go of the past and the other cannot remember it. Each is certain it is right, and that certainty is what makes these conflicts intractable. Nobody allows for the possibility of being wrong.

Jordan Peterson says that when you realise mid-argument that you are wrong, you dissolve in tears, because “the tears are grief for the part of you that has to die.” Tears reset the brain. For a moment it is plastic again, a child’s brain, and a child can still learn. You accept that some of what you believed was wrong.

That is the skill, and it belongs to no single culture. The values can stay eternal, rooted in divine law if you like. Everything else must stay nimble, soft enough to be rebuilt. The old ways are welcome to stay. They only have to be willing to weep every now and then.

3 Graphs of Karnataka

Image

It seems that many South Indian Muslims are “Urdufying.” It’s interesting to reflect that if Partition hadn’t happened; the same thing might have happened to East Bengal.

The Muslims of India rallied under the banner of Islam, which was a catch-all term, but instead they could have easily made a linguistic argument for Urdu & Persianate culture.

Continue reading 3 Graphs of Karnataka

Thoughts That Shape Power

This is an essay written by Varun (Bone of Empire @BotE85371688 on Twitter), an Indian-American friend who asked me to share it on brownpundits. I think it starts an important conversation..

Thoughts that Shape Power 

Once upon a time I worked in a defense think tank in New Delhi. It was a fun, fresh-out-of-college job. The pay sucked, but the conversation was always rich, and we had tea time twice a day. 

Every Friday morning we were encouraged to sit through a Research Briefing by one of our colleagues. Presentations lasted an hour and were divided into two parts – the presentation itself, and the question/critique period. Everyone — from fresh-faced interns (myself) to retired professionals — was encouraged to present their research or some other topic of interest and receive audience feedback. The variety of personal backgrounds at the institute guaranteed a range of quality for the presentations. What was most shocking to me, as an intern, was that senior researchers were often the sources of tremendous bullshit. 

One Friday, a scholar — whose name I will not mention — gave a presentation on the Indo-Bangladesh border. They offered detailed recommendations for securing the region, including drones, CCTV cameras, electrified fencing, checkposts, watchtowers, and more. The presentation lasted a full 30 minutes; the question period, which had been allotted the same amount of time, lasted only five.  Continue reading Thoughts That Shape Power

South India funds India?

For every Rs 100 paid in direct tax, how much each state gets back : r/india

It’s pretty astonishing to see that it’s the Southern fringe (and the erstwhile Punjab) that’s subsidising the rest of India. There is the Southern coastal theory that AASI moved via Sindh, Gujarat and then the Deccan-Dravidian spaces.

Furthermore what’s fascinating is that Partition, outside of South India, really was a contestation of some of the richest bits of the Subcontinent (Punjab and Bengal).

It would have been good to see the numbers for J&K but it’s fairly apparent the NorthEast aren’t going to see such a sweet deal. It’s tough being a Southerner these days (whether the US, India or even Iran). In Iran, it’s South Iran and her oil & gas fields, which subsidises the rest of the country.

Brown Pundits