Another Browncast is up. You can listen on Libsyn, Apple, Spotify, and Stitcher (and a variety of other platforms). Probably the easiest way to keep up the podcast since we don’t have a regular schedule is to subscribe to one of the links above!
The references for the podcast are:
1. Early History of Rajputs (750 to 1000 A.D.) by C.V Vaidya
2. History and Culture of the Indian People – Vol III, IV, V, VI & VII
3. Al-Hind, the Making of the Indo-Islamic World: Early Medieval India and the Expansion of Islam 7th-11th Centuries by André Wink
4. Al-Hind, Volume 2 Slave Kings and the Islamic Conquest, 11th-13th Centuries
by André Wink
5. The Political History of the Hunas in India by Atreyi Biswas
6. The Making of Early Medieval India by Brajadulal Chattopadhyaya
Another Browncast is up. You can listen on Libsyn, Apple, Spotify, and Stitcher (and a variety of other platforms). Probably the easiest way to keep up the podcast since we don’t have a regular schedule is to subscribe to one of the links above!
Mr. Tilak Devasher, Author, Member, National Security Advisory Board and former Special Secretary, Govt of India joins Maneesh, Somnath and Dr. Ali to talk about his latest book The Pashtuns- A Contested History.
Another Browncast is up. You can listen on Libsyn, Apple, Spotify, and Stitcher (and a variety of other platforms). Probably the easiest way to keep up the podcast since we don’t have a regular schedule is to subscribe to one of the links above!
In this episode, Prathamesh Godbole and Amit Paranjpe discuss the Maratha empire – spanning from its humble origins as a Jagir of Adilshahi to the largest power in the subcontinent before the British conquest. We discuss the great maratha rulers Shivaji Raje, Sambhaji Raje and the Peshwas.
Postscript (from Omar): At 1 hour 27 minutes on the youtube recording I was asked how they are perceived in Pakistan and i went on about their role against Tipu, but I should have mentioned Panipat first. THAT is, of course, taught as a great Muslim victory, but without too much background information.
References:
English
Solstice at Panipat, Era of Bajirao, Epoch of Nanasaheb Peshwa, Mastery of Hindustan – Uday Kulkarni
A New History of Marathas, Volumes I-III by G.S Sardesai
Shivbharat – Shivaji Raje’s biography in Sanskrit by a court historian – has been translated to English
History of Marathas- Grant Duff
History of the Maratha People – Kincaid
Translations done by Prathamesh, of selected letters from multiple Marathi sources regarding battles, diplomatic exchanges and other military matters.
Its about ~300 pages equivalent, and covers 1720-1803.
About 20 different Bakhars, Eg: Panipat – chronicles written by prominent nobles and about major battles. Not always fully reliable, but still a useful source.
About 45 million years ago, the Indian tectonic plate collided with the Eurasian plate. The union between these earthen pieces bore giants – the Himalayas. These soaring temples of stone would decide the fate of Indians for millions of years. The Himalayan earth wrapped by the highest winds in the world would give birth to water. Glaciers turned into rivers that turned into Goddesses as Indians would later dutifully worship these daughters of the Himalayas. The great mountains would breathe the monsoon winds across the subcontinent as each exhale and inhale covered the soil in greenery. Fertile river basins would flourish as different cultures thrived in this Petri dish of geography, which soon enough would evolve into civilization.
Of the 4 books of Dr Upinder Singh i have read, this is arguably the weakest. Firstly it doesn’t add much to the discourse – its largely summary of her earlier works thematically – with slight re-interpretation. The book is divided along four themes – Social inequality (Caste), Love, Gender relations, Violence and Religious freedom/plurality.
If you have been reading and following Dr Singh’s work and have good recollections, the ever present politics of this book can be jarring. The author starts with the anecdote of suicide of Dalit activist Rohit Vemula before embarking on the historic analysis of “Caste”. jAti-varna Matrix of Ancient India needed more in depth analysis as done for Political violence (in author’s previous book on Political Violence in Ancient India). The essay covers all the bases, but fails to enrich an informed reader – while making some unsubstantiated arguments.
eg: Caste in Sangam Era (or lack thereof). While the argument made holds for Vaidika concept of “Varna” it doesnt hold for Caste – a hybrid of jAti-Varna.
I felt the author played it very safe ending with “remains imperfectly understood”. Isn’t jAti-Varna system also an “old kin based” system ? Doesn’t it seem more natural to speculate that existing old kin based system merged with Vaidika abstraction of Varna ? Maybe – maybe not but the author doesn’t try to speculate.
The “desire and detachment” essay was refreshing, something i would definitely go back to. The next section “Goddesses and misogyny” covers the religious developments well enough but leaves the Economic(“Marxist?”) reasons for patriarchy out of the analysis. The role of economics in the patriarchal setup of agrarian and pre-industrialised societies doesn’t get more than a brief mention.
The next section, “Violence and Non-Violence” was a summary of her earlier book – good enough, but i would suggest interested parties to read that book – as it goes into the texts while making grand narratives and arguments. As a result the arguments in the previous book stick, this doesn’t (though its the same argument). Also some inconsistencies I had not noticed in earlier book came to my notice this time around. While comparing Ashok’s ideological espousal of Non-violence to Kautilya’s pragmatic approach (one may differ in the labels), the author doesnt fully challenge the above assumption even though it comes up in the text. Following is Kautilya’s recommendations for looking after animals.
How is looking after incapacitated horses pragmatic?
If one re-reads the subtext, ideology (empathy?) comes up again and again in Kautilya, whereas pragmatism and realpolitik in Ashok – the point the author notices in Ashok but not in Kautiya.
The last section was also enjoyable, if one manages to ignore the often jarring political undertone. The author lets slip a line
“These days, one dare not crack jokes about religion.”
Firstly, we cannot compare what we can glean of an ancient society from reconstruction to the documented 21st century realities. While trying to avoid the romantic reconstruction (or for contemporary politics), the author seems to have gone into the same. Yet I enjoyed the information I got from the last section, especially the Kshemendra’s satires from ancient Kashmir.
I would recommend the books for those who are really interested in Ancient India, but I would also recommend dozens of other books before this – especially the ones I havent read. Jarring and without original insights (unlike her previous works) I would still rate this book 3/5 for its readability and denseness.
What I had admired about Dr Singh’s work till now was her unwillingness to let politics and ideology rear its ugly head in her work – unlike other authors on ancient India (Including new emerging scholarship from the Hindu side). Though what saves the book is the author’s unwillingness to make “leaps of faith” – which become foundation for next scholarship – common in Ancient Indian History.
Another Browncast is up. You can listen on Libsyn, Apple, Spotify, and Stitcher (and a variety of other platforms). Probably the easiest way to keep up the podcast since we don’t have a regular schedule is to subscribe to one of the links above!
In this episode, Omar and Jay discuss the rise of the “Great” Mughals. We start from the rise of Babur and follow through the empire his descendants. We do not cover the challengers to the Mughal hegemony (Maharana Pratap, Chattrapati Shivaji and Lachit Borphukan) OR the fall of the Mughal empire or other softer aspects in this episode. All that will be covered in the coming episodes.
Another Browncast is up. You can listen on Libsyn, Apple, Spotify, and Stitcher (and a variety of other platforms). Probably the easiest way to keep up the podcast since we don’t have a regular schedule is to subscribe to one of the links above!
The podcast was a good experience – a free flowing discussion without much structure. Retrospectively I felt I could have intervened more on some points or countered some of the answers, but I am overall happy with the discussion.
I hope I have this opportunity again to discuss a few more things with Sai.
There is nothing that quite mimics the bloodsport and realpolitik of Game of Thrones like Indian politics. Hereditary houses and regional satraps are now collapsing as a dragon-bellied leviathan engulfs India in an unending fire. From the ashes of the old guard spawn new elites eager to stamp themselves into the saga of the saffron march. A peerless leader of ordinary origin puts storied royalty to the sword as internal rivals are bashed by his hilt and banished to the hills.
And yet neither fantasy prose nor bardic poetry can capture the chaotic current of India’s political maelstrom. For over 8 years, international commentary and their increasingly irrelevant local compradors have produced reams of toilet paper (single ply of course) that describe India as they want it – a failed state on the cusp of economic collapse – not as it actually is. According to them, the government is brewing a communal froth that overflows into a front-page genocide. A revolution of minorities and proletariat will soon shatter the state, as well as those pesky bigoted Gujarati politicians and profiteers, ushering in a return to the Nehruvian utopia that featured diversity, secularism, and abysmal development ripe for poverty porn.
Does that mean everything is rosy for the party of the lotus? Definitely not. In fact, prominent supporter ire has been a more pronounced theme than ever before in the past few years, yet the BJP maintains or even increases vote share as election victories abound and opposition governments fall to the quakes in the wake of the election juggernaut.
A potential watershed event in India’s modern economic history passed by recently. A state of the art, globally recognized, electronic product is to be made in India for export to the world.
Apple announced plans to make its latest phone model – iPhone 14 – in India, a significant milestone in the company’s strategy to diversify manufacturing outside of China.
Five percent of iPhone 14 production is expected to shift to the country this year, much sooner than analysts had anticipated.
While Apple is big, a more telling example of India’s potential is at the end of this post. But before that, how did India, a country that struggled to feed itself in the 1950s, get into the running for ‘factory of the world’ ?
In 1950, less than 1% of Indian college students studied science and engineering. By 2022, this number had risen to more than 30%. In fact, science and engineering have become so popular in India today, that a counter culture has arisen in the form of movies like 3 Idiots. Back in 1950, India’s best students were focused on subjects like law and social sciences, primed to manage the Empire. In fact, some have remarked that the independence movement was a result of the British producing too many lawyers in India.
Since independence, a concerted effort has been made by the Indian state to popularize science and engineering. This was done under the aegis of spreading a ‘scientific temper’, starting with the establishment of Vigyan Mandir in 1953. Subsequently, following in the legacy of medieval India’s Jantar Mantars, Nehru planetariums were established in major Indian cities. Further, the establishment of the IIT system gave a formal structure and high standard to engineering education. In 1976, the cultivation of scientific temper was included as a fundamental duty in the Constitution.
By the late 1970s, India’s growing pool of scientists and engineers had attracted attention from abroad, specifically Japanese automakers. This resulted in a dramatic increase in India’s automobile production, more than doubling from 700,000 to 2 million in the 1980s.An entire ecosystem of vendors producing automobile components came up around Suzuki’s Gurgaon factory. It is perhaps surprising that the Indian government did not think about replicating this success in the electronics sector. This oversight turned out to be an enormous missed opportunity.
The post 1990 period saw an acceleration in India’s economic growth, with the software and IT sector taking a prime position both in the export numbers and the economic narrative. However, India was a manufacturing star as well, particularly its pharma, petrochemical and automobile industries.
However, its potential in the wider manufacturing arena remained unrealized and indeed unrecognized. The late 2010s produced new exigencies in the global order, with Western countries trying to pivot away from their dependence on China. In this process, India has emerged as the only real alternative to achieve the technical complexity and economies of scale demanded by modern industry.
An equally important turn of events has been the precipitous decline in India-China relations. If Chinese support for Pakistan had made Indians wary of the CCP, its direct clashes with India on the border have made China enemy number one in the Indian public’s eye. There is a determination at the political and public level to not depend on Chinese manufacturing imports. This mark has already been achieved for toys, cell phones and PPE. Make no mistake, India wants to bring Chinese imports down to zero. This is what ‘Atma Nirbhar Bharat’ (self reliant India) really means.
On the other hand, Western business seems keen to move out of China. The LA Times describes the experience of one European manufacturer to move away from China,
In 2019, he began assessing the possibility of moving some manufacturing capabilities to Vietnam. But he abandoned the plan eight months later after price increases for about half of the company’s projects upset his customers. Product development also took longer — one prototype that would have been completed in three weeks in China required six months in Vietnam.
A review of other countries in Southeast Asia proved even less fruitful, he said.
By late 2020, Gaussorgues turned farther afield — to India. The local electronics and automotive ecosystem offered lower manufacturing costs and easy access to parts. With five employees so far, he aims to start assembly work next year, and hopes to host the majority of manufacturing there after five years.
What is important to note here is that India being able provide an alternative to China is not about the population. SE Asia, where the person in the article first when to has enormously populated countries, all with fantastic port access. India is able to provide an alternative because of the consistent emphasis on science and technology education over the past 70 years.
More than 2 years ago I had appeared on the Brownpundits podcast to elucidate a moderate liberal opposition to the Juggernaut of BJP under the prime ministership of Narendra Modi. My political position back then is clear in this interview. My political hope for the 2019 election was a reduced majority for BJP in 2019 to counter some of the nasty excesses which come up in Indian politics when a political party gains absolute power. I was sympathetic to moderate/liberal Hindutva – as in I would have preferred a Gadkari over Modi for what it’s worth. Being a skeptical person by nature, I had never swallowed the whole agenda driven home by Indian and Global Liberal Media viz Cow lynchings or Saffronisation of textbooks or so-called Intolerance debate. My primary criticisms of the BJP government from 2014 to 2019 were the abuse of independent institutions – especially the courts and reserve bank and especially the win-at-all costs mentality when it came to elections – including Hindu-Muslim polarization during elections.
In spite of all my public and social criticisms of the Government and Hindutva project, for most part of the election campaign I considered voting for BJP as the alternative to Modi appeared scarier than anything Modi offered. However, the nomination of Sadhvi Pragya from the Bhopal seat was something I could not digest.
It would be clear to the regular followers on this blog or my followers on twitter or elsewhere that my political orientation has somewhat changed, so let me attempt to flesh out what has been the change and how it came about. One blogpost which summarizes my political/social position in 2020 as liberal is here.
Article 370:
The position of Congress and a whole lot of “opposition” on changes to article 370 (apart from AAP/BSP) is objectively disconnected from ground reality (as was their criticism of Indian government action in Balakot). Nationalism in Indian context has never been associated with the bad odour of European Nationalism, but this reality seems increasingly lost on Indian Liberals.
CAA NRC protests and Delhi Riots:
I had described CAA as “the Straw that broke the camel’s back” back in 2020, but the CAA agitations themselves had raised serious doubts in my minds about the Liberal project wrt protests. In retrospect Islam wasn’t just the rock that broke liberalism, but Islam was the rock used by Liberals to attempt to break Hindutva while Liberalism itself became collateral damage. The unconstitutional and often violent protests which led to loss of crores worth of property and finally riots in the national capital were not merely supported but actively encouraged on by Indian Liberals. I had a written the following article calling out the illiberalism of the liberals over the Bloomsbury Delhi riots fiasco. In essence the position a huge segment of Indian liberals espoused was “Free speech till I like it”. I unsubscribed from Newslaundry after a lot of to and fro debates in the letters to Newslaundry section. I continued with my subscription of Swarajya and the Print. I would see this as my transition from Center-Left to Center.
Only the truly deluded would call a riot where 25+% dead are from the majority community (with apparent state support) a pogrom or carnage, but this was a fairly mainstream view in Indian liberal circles.
Covid:
The covid lockdowns truly brought out two extremes in Modi Government’s responses to the problem from the knee jerk overreaction in 2020 to the casual underreaction in March-April 2021. A lot of blame that the government received from all sides was justified, but where justified outrage gives way to sedition or atrocity-porn is often difficult to discern. Yet from the coverage of 2nd wave, it’s fair to say that Indian liberal media (in sync with western media) was extremely unfair in handling India – much to the detriment of Indian image worldwide.
While initial vaccine policy of the Modi government was rightly panned by commentators on all sides of the spectrum, till this day I have not come across a serious liberal voice who is happy with the vaccination program undertaken by the Modi government (an exercise unlike any other in the history for its sheer scale).
Farm Laws:
The Government subsidised policies like (i) Rice production in Northwest India, or the (ii) Sugar production in UP and MH have been among the worst agro-economic policies in the 21st century. There is almost a global economic consensus in the need jettison the MSP driven subsidies, for their economic as well as environmental impact. In early 2021, traders, landowners and farmers from 2.5 states with immense help from inside and outside the country, brought a government with majorities in both houses of the parliament on its knees. If a government with comfortable majorities, popular mandate cannot introduce reforms which are popular with the majority of Indian electorate (including farmers), it speaks volumes of the Negative Veto that immensely small minorities can hold over the strongest government this country has seen in 3 decades.
If a Modi government with 304 seats in the Lok Sabha (350 for NDA) cannot bring in much needed reforms, a BJP minority government wouldn’t even be able carry out attacks it carried out against Pakistan. So much for the moderate centrist position for checks and balances. In essence, India remains a democracy with extremely weak state where heckler’s veto is so mainstreamed that moderate centrism is nothing but naiveté at best.
Journalistic integrity (Eg: Lavanya suicide):
I had published this rant when the Lavanya controversy broke on social media. To this day I do not cannot say with certainty if the episode was exactly as represented in the Hindutva social media, but it did make the hypocrisy of coverage pretty clear to me. On its own, this episode isn’t a particularly outrageous one (among a pattern of Liberal media coverage) but this particularly made the Liberal media pattern clearer to me than it had ever been before. The constant gaslighting of atrocities on Hindus owing to fears of Hindu majoritarianism across the board has gone unnoticed for long enough.
Hijab Controversy:
The fact that in year 2022, a dozen girls under the influence of now banned PFI, can hold schools at an impasse over their “right” to drape themselves in a modesty garb (not the headscarf – Hijab is translated loosely as a modesty garment). On the liberal side, only Shekhar Gupta had understood the potential significance of controversy. Given the stance Indian liberals took during the Karnataka Hijab controversy, their silence on Iranian Anti Hijab protests isn’t surprising but consistent with the Faustian bargain they have committed.
Kashi Vishwanath – Nupur Sharma controversy:
The court verdict of the Kashi Vishwanath excavations notwithstanding, the claims of the Hindu side regarding the existence of Shivling in the Wuzu khana is something difficult to digest for even the most irreligious Hindus (like myself). While it’s imperative to disassociate the acts of medieval religious fanatics from Muslim population today, all the actions of the previous 300 years (if the continued existence of Shivling in Wuzu khana is proven) cannot be wished away. I had personally never been a fan of so-called Truth and Reconciliation program, as I favored the view that contemporary problems don’t need to have their solutions in the history, but this episode has thrown a heavy wrench into that pet-theory of mine.
The Nupur Sharma episode which followed, particularly the antics of “Fart-Checkers” made the binary even clearer with principles being were jettisoned wholesale. An example below:
Munawar Faruqi continues to gain meaningful livelihood in India, Nupur Sharma has no option but to spend the rest of her life as Salman Rushdie did in the 90s and 2000s. A dozen or so Hindus who have committed the act of “blasphemy” have already given up their lives in last 10 years of Hindu resurgence. 100 years after the ethnic cleansing of Kohat Hindus over blasphemy the house of Congress MLA was torched in BJP ruled Karnataka over Newton’s Third Law Blasphemy. What has changed in last 100 years? Additionally, in 2022 the Umesh Kolhe and Kanhaiyalal murders are objectively worse as they weren’t even accused of blasphemy themselves.
An important point worth noting here is, Umesh Kolhe was murdered on 21st June, the news of his death at hands of Islamists only became public on 2-3rd July after Shinde-Fadnavis wrestled the political reins of Maharashtra from the hands of the “Secular” MVA.
Indic/Bharatiya movements:
While I have my disagreements with the Decoloniality movement – crystalized in J Sai Deepak’s India that is Bharat series (my reviews: book 1 – book 2), the movement is one of immense consequence. My own views have changed a lot over last 3-4 years on topics like Temple control, “Coloniality and its legacy” etc after honest engagements (with disagreements) with these thoughts. The colonial hangover is something which has impacted minds of all Indians growing up to a large extent – be it due to Textbooks, Media, Pop-culture. However, once we become aware of some of the inherent biases of these institutions, the impact they had in shaping us will be somewhat eroded with time.
Objectively speaking Kashmir files can be proved to be less biased than Haider. While Kashmir files has no positive Muslim character, Haider has no positive Pro-India Kashmiri. Haider was a concoction of imagination while Kashmir files is based entirely on facts (though it can be accused of being selective). Yet Haider was well received by Indians of all ideological spectrum (when it was initially released) while every attempt to discredit Kashmir files was made by the almost the entire Liberal Media and Entertainment industry. Clearly a film like Kashmir files could not have been released hadn’t it been for the overwhelming majority enjoyed by BJP at the Centre.
Love Jihad:
Data points about Cow theft lynching in the range of noise were enough to make India “Lychistan” globally, while statistically significant cases (in the range of hundreds over last 7-8 years) of inter-faith abuse/fraud – more colloquially known as Love-Jihad, was looked at as a conspiracy theory by even Hindutvavadis till a few years ago. Now thanks to the fearless reporting by the likes of Swati Goel among others, “Love Jihad” cases are coming to light at a truly alarming rate. Personally, I have been hearing such cases for at least 2 decades, but I have never taken these rumors or conspiracies seriously. From a purely sociological perspective, it seems an inevitability given the trajectories of various communities in India.
History and perspective:
What one gains out of reading world history is context. Systemic Oppression was a norm and not an outlier in all societies just its flavor varied according to culture. A member of so-called Oppressor Group, guilt tripped into the real and imagined sins of his ancestors will inevitably gain a different perspective about his/her history once he/she reads world history more thoroughly. The “enlightened” position of jettisoning all traditions – lock stock and barrel, appears over the top after getting 30000 feet view of history. As a result, one learns to love and own their own culture without the necessity to always feel ashamed for the past, thus being more committed to defending it.
Coming to recent history, the Pakistan movement remains incompletely studied in school curriculums as well as pop history. Books like Creating a New Medina, MJ Akbar’s Tinderbox (Review by Maneesh Taneja) and now J Sai Deepak’s India Bharat and Pakistan are shattering the hold of mainstream and popular historians the popular discourse. After reading both sides of the history of Islamic exceptionalism in India, one can’t help noticing the unnerving parallels in the events leading to the Khilafat movement in 20th century to events in 21st century.
Being judgmental of the Indian leaders of the 20th century may be unfair, but not learning from their mistakes would be downright foolish. For all the mistakes they may have committed with the benefit of hindsight, the likes of Gandhi, Nehru and Patel in all likelihood understood the unique problem posed to Indian civilization by Islamic exceptionalism. Their tactics and strategies may have been proven wrong, but one can at least say they understood the problem they were facing. Can the same be said about the “Secular” leadership today? Or does the RSS with its moderate face in 2022 play the role of Indian national congress in 1940s and 1950s? Maybe – Maybe not, but the “Secular opposition” today is far removed from the position of even Nehru, let alone Gandhiji or Sardar Patel.
the Other side:
All the points mentioned above cannot whitewash any of the fair criticism (of which bucket load exists) of the Hindutva movement in general and the Modi government in particular. I continue to hold the view that the Abrahamisation of Hinduism is undesirable. I also continue to think the Hindu view of Cow-protection is extremely unpragmatic in the 21st century market driven economy with a population of 1.3 billion. The Bilkis Bano remission cannot be anything but a blot on Indian civilization as a whole. I am extremely skeptical of the apparent resurgence of Hindu orthodoxy visible on Twitter (though one can’t be sure of its implications on the ground). My reservations around the cult of personality of the Narendra Modi remain as strong as ever but it would be childish to deny the fact that Hindutva needs Modi. Almost all the criticisms of authoritarian tendencies one can make of the BJP are criticisms one can make of the opposition with more fervor. (Ketaki Chitale, Arnab Goswami, Bengal violence etc etc).
the Die is cast:
I had read Rajiv Malhotra’s “Breaking India” 7 years ago, I had agreed 50% with his thesis (though I was a BJP supporter back then). More importantly I had found the remaining 50% far-fetched, overstated and conspiratorial. I don’t think I need to re-read the book to claim that I would agree with around 80-90% of the book’s thesis today. From celebrity activists expressing solidarity with Farm law protestors to 9/11 being chosen for Dismantling Global Hindutva, the global anti Hindu/India conspiracy angle doesn’t appear far-fetched if one keeps an open mind and consumes information from all sides of the spectrum. Links of the Communist-Missionary nexus with protests like Sterlite copper plant or the Dravidian or Ambedkarite movements is now out in the open. The manufactured controversies around Mohammad Shami and Arshdeep Singh were so transparent that I am astounded more honest people from the Liberal side haven’t picked it up. Ditto for the call of Arab intervention in Indian domestic affairs – an act even Owaisi condemns in public.
I generally avoid using larger than life words like civilizational cause and arc of history or existential crisis. But the 2.5 front war is here, and it is not a merely political war but a civilizational one. In this context, Liberal Idealism which I once espoused appears to be just another face of pompous and self-righteous naiveté.
As Christopher Hichens famously put it
The barbarians never take a city until someone holds the gates open to them.
The DIE is CAST, Indian liberalism is dead. We might as well pick sides.
