Brown Pundits favorite Kushal Mehra explains the National Register of Citizens (NRC) and Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA).
I don’t understand why the NRC and CAA are controversial among some. Can anyone explain this to me?
Category: British India
DoubleQuoting Myanmar and Assam..
It’s the first quote that carries the implication of genocide, but what of the rest?
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It’s not a joke, is it? Myanmar..
The United Nations Office on Genocide Prevention warns of certain indicators that “provide an environment conducive to the commission of atrocity crimes,” including “increased politicization of identity” and discriminatory “measures or legislation” targeting protected groups. In addition to certain prohibited acts, such as killing members of a group, genocidal States often use legal and administrative tools to facilitate the destruction of a targeted group “in whole or in part.”
In Myanmar, successive governments have implemented measures and legislation to erase Rohingya Muslims’ identity and rights, creating an enabling environment for genocide.
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It’s not a joke, is it? Assam..
UN High Commissioner for Refugees Filippo Grandi today expressed his concern over the publication of a National Register of Citizens (NRC) that may put large numbers of people in India’s north-eastern state of Assam at risk of becoming stateless.
It is too early to say what the nationality status of those left off the National Register, some 1.9 million according to the authorities, may ultimately be. UNHCR is concerned, however, that many are at risk of statelessness if they do not possess another nationality.
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That’s a DoubleQuote — but it’s also pattern recognition, and the start of a possible concatenation of such quotes — a mala of urgencies.
BTW, it’s more than possible, as Myanmar >> Bangladesh migration illustrates, that mass migration across national borders may be a pragmatic alternative to genocide — but that threatens national sovereignty, doesn’t it?
Browncast Episode 53: Memories of partition: Amrik Chattha
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On this episode, we talk with Dr Amrik Chattha. Dr Chattha is the author of “Safar: A Child’s Walk To Freedom During the Partition of India“, available on Amazon. He talks about life in a Punjabi village before partition and the horrors that followed partition.
Did the Brits “Indianise” the NorthWest?
I was picking up the comment thread on the linguistics podcast. To my mind there are some inconsistencies about modern-day Pakistan:
(1.) Ever since MBQ conquered Sindh in 712; Sindh has remained under Muslim rule. When it did have local rule it was essentially a tussle between the Baloch and Muslim Rajputs, which has replicated itself to this day. Benazir Bhutto is of Rajput ancestry (Bhatt) while her husband Zardari is a Baloch. The Hindu minority were either merchants or serfs and as far as I know the caste Hindus of Sindh are a basically heteregenous lot (there is only one Brahmin surname among the Amils and the castes tends to have strong geographic regions).
(2.) As for Baluchistan and KPK; It’s basically seen the incursion of Iranian speakers the past millennia or so.
So the real question left is Punjab (the 5th major Indus region Kashmir is out of scope). Continue reading Did the Brits “Indianise” the NorthWest?
Chutzpah- celebrating HM the Queen’s birthday in the Punjab on the eve of the 100th anniversary of Jallianwala Bagh
https://www.facebook.com/32040/posts/10107138523039401?sfns=mo
Punjab Governor declines to attend reception for Queen's Birthday hosted by British Dy High Commissioner in Chandigarh, citing Jallianwala Bagh massacre's 100th anniversary.@IndianExpress pic.twitter.com/VI3M1UfI78
— Man Aman Singh Chhina (@manaman_chhina) April 10, 2019
https://www.facebook.com/551630878316505/posts/1773624729450441?sfns=mo
Jallianwala Bagh; 100 years on
One hundred years since the Amritsar massacre, probably among the worst violations in all of Britain's tenure in India and the phrases uttered still don't contain the word 'SORRY'. So much for the paragon of civility and refinement in the world. #shame
— Vidhi Lalchand (@VRLalchand) April 11, 2019
Never forget – Comments of the Day
This may be related to a phenomenon Razib and Omar and their guests observed in the last couple of podcasts: of academics and others on the left in western countries having (and expressing) a really dim view of Hinduism and Hindu civilization, even vis a vis Islam and Islamic civilization.
My guess is that whenever a colonial atrocity is pointed out, even with sufficient evidence, people automatically think of the caste system, untouchability, Sati, etc. at the back of their minds, and that makes them come up with excuses for the coloniser. (Almost no other religion or civilization seems to have so many negatives associated with it in the Western mind, Yoga and stuff notwithstanding.)
Blame Bengal Famine on anyone but the British
The central policy challenge of the Bengali famine was that there was more than enough food WITHIN India but that food was not equitably distributed. Hence the British government's reluctance to import food to solve the problem. Plus the small matter of a existential total war.
— John Duffield (@jfwduffield) February 15, 2019
or maybe that British rule in India was profoundly destructive and shameful?
— Zac X (@XerxestheMagian) February 15, 2019
I was flirting with a lot of topics on what to write but I’m just going to leave these tweets out here. We continued the exchange but my blood is now boiling; Vidhi always like to say “calm is a super-power” but I dislike the presumptuousness and arrogance when dispensing on the evil doings of colonialism in South Asia.
I notice many Indian commentators decry UP/Bihar backwardness but it has to do with British policy of bleeding India through her port cities.
British Development in the Subcontinent wasn’t centred in the most populous areas but rather the most productive. Say what you will about the Mughals (and John makes an uncharitable dig at them in a following tweet) but their development focus remained the UP-Bihar.
They may have been a rentier state par excellence but at the very least at least their wealth flowed back into the geographical territories that comprises modern day India
Babri Masjid & our shared Macaulay Caste
I was trying to reach out to RajMohan Gandhi for a podcast on his new book on South India. As an aside I’m trying to find people to interview for the podcasts since I want to plan out my schedule where I can.
Also Mr. Gandhi has a blog up called Himmat and I linked to his thoughts on Babri Masjid:
The bare bones of a settlement are not hard to identify. One, the Hindu side admits the error in demolishing the mosque. Two, the Indian state admits its failure to prevent the demolition. Three, the Muslim side acknowledges the Hindu community’s wish to see a Ram temple rise on the site as also the Hindu community’s belief that a temple had once stood where the Babri Masjid was built. Four, not far from the site, and yet not too close to it, space for a new mosque is made available by the Hindu side and the Indian state. If necessary, the four steps can be simultaneous. In this dream-like scenario, acknowledgment of wrongdoing and restitution leads to justice as well as reconciliation.
I googled to see the state of the “ruins” of Babri Masjid at the moment and this is what I found:
Below is the original, which if I say so myself is a rather majestic piece of architecture. Simple and striking.
BrownCast Podcast episode 13: The British Indian Army
Another BP Podcast is up. You can listen on Libsyn, iTunes and Stitcher. Probably the easiest way to keep up the podcast since we don’t have a regular schedule is to subscribe at one of the links above. You can also support the podcast as a patron (the primary benefit now is that you get the podcasts considerably earlier than everyone else).
If you aren’t in a position to be a patron, please give us 5-star ratings and a positive review!
In this episode Omar talks to Major Agha Humayun Amin and Dr Hamid Hussain. Both gentlemen are deeply interested in military history and know everything there is to know about the British Indian army and its daughter armies in India and Pakistan. We talk about the army of the East India Company and its domination of the Indian subcontinent, the 1857 mutiny, the army after 1857 and finally a few words about partition and in particular about the role played by British officers in the Pakistani army and in the capture of Gilgit and Baltistan (a region that is now central to our plans to form an alliance with China). We hope to have more podcasts in the future about the various India-Pakistan wars.
