srikanth

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Some notes on the accession of Junagadh vs. Kashmir

Why the usual Pakistani comparison between the accessions of Junagadh and Kashmir is less sound than it looks.

srikanth15 February 202166 comments
On language diversity in India – North vs South

The author argues that North India’s lower linguistic diversity, with some 450 million people speaking closely related tongues, explains why Khariboli Hindi became a lingua franca there, while the Deccan’s…

srikanth24 September 202046 comments
On Language wars and the rise of the Vernacular in history

The author traces today’s Indian language wars to the rise of the vernaculars after about 1000 CE, when Sanskrit held literary prestige, comparing it with Latin’s dominance in Europe, and…

srikanth9 September 202039 comments
On Indians in East Africa

Drawing mainly on Thomas Sowell’s Migrations and Cultures, the author argues that Indians have played a larger role in East Africa than in the Western diaspora, citing Zanzibar, where Indians…

srikanth27 September 202031 comments
Notes on the religious demography of Punjab and Bengal

The author compares the religious demography of Punjab and Bengal after 1947, noting Indian Punjab’s Muslim share fell to 1.6% while Indian Bengal’s is 27.1%, with Muslim-majority districts such as…

srikanth6 September 202024 comments
Reflections on Nadir Shah’s exploits in India

Marking the 280th anniversary of Nadir Shah’s sack of Delhi, the author argues it shows the perils of a weak state, coming only 32 years after Aurangzeb’s death, when six…

srikanth20 October 202021 comments
Some musings on the Bengal riots of 1949-50

Drawing on TCA Raghavan’s The People Next Door, the author notes that Bengal’s partition violence peaked in early 1950, especially in East Pakistan, prompting Nehru’s hawkish stance, and suggests Gandhi’s…

srikanth7 September 202010 comments
Correlating ancestral legends with Genetic data

The author highlights a project to collect Y-haplogroup data from Brahmins and correlate it with claimed gotra and pravara descent from ancient sages, explaining how gotra records male-line descent, and…

srikanth15 November 20209 comments
Liberalism – A brief history

Introducing himself to Brown Pundits, the author traces the history of liberalism, starting from Meghnad Desai’s claim that Brexit and Trump mark the collapse of the liberal order, asking what…

srikanth5 September 20207 comments
Some tidbits on the state of United States in 1800

Drawing on Henry Adams’s history of the Jefferson and Madison administrations, the author describes the United States in 1800: about 5.3 million people, a fifth enslaved, strung along the Atlantic…

srikanth28 September 20205 comments