“OBC” in West Bengal a social construct?

Razib Khan · September 25, 2019 · 4 comments

Recent population history inferred from more than 5,000 high-coverage South Asian genomes:

Next, we developed a novel method for estimating the genome-wide average divergence time between a single individual and a focal group. This method focuses on extremely rare variants, which should be the most informative about very recent demographic events, and is robust to demographic events affecting the particular individual studied. We focused this work on samples from Birbhum district, West Bengal due to the presence of additional metadata on caste and religion. We used 704 general-caste individuals from Birbhum as the focal group, and estimated divergence times for all other individuals. Mean divergence times ranged from ~2,600 years for the Santal, an Austro-Asiatic language speaking tribal group, to 850 years for “scheduled castes” (i.e., Dalits), 625 years for Bangladeshis and 225 years for “Other Backward Castes” (OBC) individuals. The recent divergence times for OBC individuals confirms that this category is more of a political construct than a long-lived social grouping, while the other divergence times suggest a substantial amount of gene flow between groups. Finally, we extended our approach to thousands of other genomes from around the world. We show how patterns of rare variation can be used to detect asymmetrical migration, and document evidence for more migration from East Asia into Bengal than the converse.

Browncast Episode 68, Conversation with Pratik Chougule

Razib Khan · September 25, 2019 · 4 comments

Another BP Podcast is up. You can listen on Libsyn, iTunes, Spotify,  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. I am toying with the idea of doing a patron Youtube Livestream chat, if people are interested, in the next few weeks.

Would appreciate more positive reviews!

This episode we talked to  Pratik Chougle, a conservative and a proud globalist. From being on Trump’s policy team, Chougle has become a critic and envisions a future conservatism sharply at odds with parochial nationalism.

Book Review: The Anarchy (William Dalrymple)

Omar Ali · September 24, 2019 · 23 comments

A longer version of this review is now up at this link.

A short review from Major Amin. I have not yet read the book, but Dalrymple’s recent books have an increasing tendency to play to the gallery. I would not descirbe this as “irrational hatred” (see review below), it is entirely rational. He knows his audience and frames his books to pander to that audience. He is a good writer and is not ignorant, but his books are spoiled by his urge to frame his story in ways that will appeal to his audience (educated Indians who are happy to hear bad things about the EIC and Westerners who want to appear virtuous). Again, I have not read this book, but his other recent books and interviews all exhibit this tendency..

The Anarchy-Dalrymple– Book Review

The Anarchy-Dalrymple Book Review

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335881689_The_Anarchy-Dalrymple_Book_Review

Firstly English East India Company did not cause anarchy in India as Dalrymple repeatedly tries to prove.

India was in complete anarchy when the British company became a serious player.

Delhi was sacked more than 40 times between 1737 and 1800 by non British forcces, but Dalrymple is blind to this hard fact. All the bad things he sees are only to be found in English East India Company.

His military knowledge is myopic and he constantly distorts military history and uses bits and pieces to prove or disprove as he wills at whim.

As a matter of fact the company restored order in India .First three universities in Indian history were founded at Calcutta ,Madras and Bombay in 1856-57.

Outmoded customs like widow burning , infanticide etc were abolished by the company.

A hereditary class of feudal was created by Lord Cornwallis in 1792 as a result of which political stability was introduced and strengthened in India.

The company had many reformers, philanthropists and utilitarians but Dalrymple in his irrational hatred is blind to all these people.

To Dalrymple all that British East India Company did was bad and he has an extremely jaundiced and twisted vision.

Dalrymple gives no weightage to the fact that British parliament and system prosecuted Clive and Warren Hastings and tried to regulate India.

Above all Dalrymple forgets that without the driving spirit of corporate enterprise of the company the British would never have conquered India.

While personal interest has constantly dominated human conduct in history , whether it was a company or a state , Dalrymple wears coloured glasses and his perception is cloudy as well as confused.

JustKnecht’s Loom of Form & Meaning

Charles Cameron · September 20, 2019 · 3 comments

Brilliant, IMO — and hopefully of use to Ali Minai and others in the field of artificial intelligence — here the Loom is, as JustKnecht presents it on Medium:

**


9 categories can be used to classify how forms, meanings and the connections between them change, develop and evolve in relation to each other. Put anything at the top left of this table, then:

  • re-express the idea of it in a different form (horizontal movement towards the right of the loom, e.g. from Mercury the Roman god to Greek Hermes and Egyptian Thoth), or else

  • reinterpret that particular form with a different idea (vertical movement towards the bottom of the loom, e.g. from Mercury as god to the metal or planet of exactly the same name), or

  • vary both the form and the meaning (with ideas and forms both contrasting towards the bottom right of the loom, e.g. follow Mercury into the domain of trees, according to standard tables of correspondence in European culture, to the fast-growing hazel — hazel groves often being associated with gateways to the underworld, and Mercury himself being a guide to the underworld).

    • **

    Further readings:

    The Loom of Form and Meaning
    The Loom of Verbal Reasoning
    Rattlesnake Games – Introduction and Example
    Connecting forms to contexts in Rattlesnake Games

    **

    My own HipBone Games, like JustKnecht’s Rattlesnake Games, are inspired by Hermann Hesse’s Glass Bead Game as described in his novel of that name — and there’s enough kinship between them that Derek Robinson’s comments on my own games and Ai may be of use, mutatis mutandis, in setting a context for Rattlesnake Games, too:

    Derek Robinson, HipBone Games, AI and the rest

    **

    Few things in life are as delightful as finding kinships of mind and heart.

    Modernization leading toward confessionalization

    Razib Khan · September 19, 2019 · 25 comments

    From the comments:

    I think what’s underappreciated is that hindu nationalism is partly caused by the collapse of the caste system. I know that may not intuitively make sense at first, but compared to when I was a boy the caste system has significantly weakened. People are finally starting to look at each other as hindus rather than by caste – and this has never been the case in the past. Obviously caste is still here and we all have a long way to go but it is substantially weakened and weaker than its ever been. I believe this is the major cause for the rise of hindu nationalism.

    One of the strange things that surprises many people is that modernization often produces stronger and more robust confessional identities. In Eric Kaufmann’s Shall the Religious Inherit the Earth? Demography and Politics in the Twenty-First Century he talks about the fact that urbanization and increased access to educational opportunities for the rural middle-class in Muslim countries resulted in gains in power to Islamist movements. The reasons are manifold, but one issue is that local power blocs centered around customary and traditional relationships and patronage networks were disrupted by development. In a flatter and more deracinated landscape simple and universal Islamist messages were appealing.

    You see the same process happening in Indonesia. Traditional Islam among the Javanese is syncretistic. But its power and strength are in the solidities of the rural cultural order which has deep local roots. Development and migration to urban areas result in a shift toward more world-normative (santri) Islam which is not contingent on local cultural and social frameworks.

    In this model then the economic liberalization ushered in by the Congress Party in the early 1990s sowed the seeds for the emergence of a broad-based Hindu nationalism, as economic dynamism and urbanization begins to erode the older caste-based solidities.

    The Indian cultural Left is in India, but not of India

    Razib Khan · September 18, 2019 · 53 comments

    A comment on Twitter about the lack of the Islamic world’s own Arundhati Roys, and therefore the lack of Leftism. My own reaction is that this is wrong. There is plenty of Leftism in the Islamic world, just not the sort of cultural criticism that Arundhati Roy specializes in.

    To give an example, the PLO has several Communist member parties, and its largest element, Fatah, is Left-nationalist. Though the high-tide of Marxism in the Islamic world, and the developing world in general, was in the 1970s, the ghost of Left-nationalism haunts us to this day (the Syrian Ba’ath party has its origins on the Left, though today it is basically an Assad family enterprise). India, there remains to this day a militant Marxist movement.

    So what’s going on with people like Arundhati Roy? I think the best way to understand her is that she is part of the global English-speaking intelligentsia, and as such caught up in cultural currents which are beyond, and above, her Indian milieu. She applies the tools and concerns which are validated among the global cultural Left to an Indian context.

    It’s not just an English-speaking phenomenon. There is a global elite cultural movement united by share mores and disposition. Consider the movements for gay rights in East Asia, which seem to be clearly shaped by Western precursors. But, I think the Indian English-speaking elite exhibits the tendency to imitate and replicate far faster than in other developing societies because of its shared cultural presuppositions and linguistic fluency with the Anglosphere.

    The maritime origins of the Munda

    Razib Khan · September 17, 2019 · 4 comments

    A reader pointing me to a paper whose hypothesis is novel to me. But, I have to say that reading the paper, I am now convinced this is highly likely. The paper is The Munda Maritime Hypothesis:

    On the basis of historical linguistic and language geographic evidence, the authors advance the novel hypothesis that the Munda languages originated on the east coast of India after their Austroasiatic precursor arrived via a maritime route from Southeast Asia, 3,500 to 4,000 years ago. Based on the linguistic evidence, we argue that pre-Proto-Munda arose in Mainland Southeast Asia after the spread of rice agriculture in the late Neolithic period, sometime after 4,500 years ago. A small Austroasiatic population then brought pre-Proto-Munda by means of a maritime route across the Bay of Bengal to the Mahanadi Delta region – an important hub location for maritime trade in historic and pre-historic times. The interaction with a local South Asian population gave rise to proto-Munda and the Munda branch of Austroasiatic. The Maritime Hypothesis accounts for the linguistic evidence better than other scenarios such as an Indian origin of Austroasiatic or a migration from Southeast Asia through the Brahmaputra basin. The available evidence from archaeology and genetics further supports the hypothesis of a small founder population of Austroasiatic speakers arriving in Odisha from Southeast Asia before the Aryan conquest in the Iron-Age.

    For me, the Brahmaputra migration always implied that Bangladeshis should have lots of Munda ancestry. And yet that is not clear from genetics (though a few individuals are shifted in that direction). In contrast, they do have a strong affinity to the Khasi. This paper proposes that the Khasi are quite distinct from the Munda.

    Rather, the Munda are placed further south, and their arrival in South Asia was through maritime means. One of the possibilities suggested is a relation to the Aslian subgroup of Austro-Asiatic languages in central Malaysia. This could actually help explain the enrichment for AASI in the Munda: the indigenous Negritos of Malaysia are similar to the people of the Andaman islands!

    Remember, the arrival of Austro-Asiatic farmers in northern Vietnam dates to ~4,000 years ago. The Munda could be relative latecomers to South Asia…

    Browncast Episode 67, Conversation with freelance academic Justin Murphy

    Razib Khan · September 17, 2019 · Comments Off on Browncast Episode 67, Conversation with freelance academic Justin Murphy

    Another BP Podcast is up. You can listen on Libsyn, iTunes, Spotify,  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. I am toying with the idea of doing a patron Youtube Livestream chat, if people are interested, in the next few weeks.

    Would appreciate more positive reviews!

    This episode we talked to Justin Murphy. A very online “post-academic,” Murphy was until recently a political scientist in the UK. Today he has a popular YouTube channel and has relocated to the USA (where he’s from).

    We talked about being an academic-without-institution, the recent embracing of his Roman Catholic background, and the general trends in culture, online and offline.

    Last Will of Guru Gobind and Emperor Aurangzeb

    Omar Ali · September 16, 2019 · 15 comments

    From @parikramah ‘s blog, some comments on the last will and testament of Guru Gobind and Emperor Aurangzeb.  (I am mostly interested in the two wills and posted those here.. if you are interested in the dharmic vs adharmic discussion you can to to the link above for the full post)

    Fatehnamah – A Tale of two Wills

    Guru Gobind had earlier written in the Zafarnama

    چه ها شد که چون بچگان کشته چار
    که باقی بماند است پیچیده مار
    che ha shod keh chon bachegaan koshteh chaar
    keh baaqi bemaand ast peycheedeh maar

    “What happened that you have killed four children (my sons, the sahibzadas)? For the coiled snake (in the form of my Khalsa) still remains…”

    It is interesting that the Ten Gurus of Sikhism spanned an epoch of India’s recent history that coincided with the Moghal dynasty. Guru Nanak was imprisoned by the invader Babur, the first Moghal. And Guru Gobind Singh faced off with Aurangzeb, who died rather pathetically shortly thereafter. The Last Guru was called Sacha Patshah (The True Emperor) by Indians at that time, while Aurangzeb isn’t.

    It is just 24 verses, the Guru boldly declares the facts of time, and is still advising and admonishing Aurangzeb. Its remarkable that, having just escaped against overwhelming odds from a siege and assassination attempt, the Guru was able to write – in verse no less! – to his persecutor and the murderer of his father and sons, with words of wisdom and warning. He was still willing to meet with the old Moghal and accept his apologies. There can be no doubt who is Guru here.

    به نام خداوند تیغ و تبر
    خداوند تیر و سنان سپر
    be naam e khodaavand e tegh o tabar / khodaavand e teer o sanaan o separ!

    1. In the Name of the Lord of the sword and shield! Lord of arrow, battleaxe and spear!

    خداوند مردان جنگ آزما
    خداوند اسپان پا در هوا
    khodaavand e mardaan e jang-aazmaa / khodaavand e aspaan paa dar havaa!

    2. Lord of those men that try the test of battle! Lord of their horses that fly through the air!

    همان کو ترا پادشاهی بداد
    بما دولت دین پناهی بداد
    hamaan koo toraa paadshaahi bedaad / bemaa dowlat e deen-panaahi bedaad!

    3. The same Lord that granted you a material kingdom, To me He entrusted the protection of the Dharma.

    ترا ترک تازی با مکر و ریا
    مرا چاره سازی با صدق و صفا
    toraa Tork-Taazi ba makr o riyaa / maraa chaareh-saazi ba sedq o safaa!

    4. Whereas you engaged in plunder by deceit and hypocrisy, To me was left the responsibility of creating the Way of truth and purity!

    [Note: The word Tork-Taazi, which literally means “Turk-Arab” in Farsi, but is a term used to mean plunder and vandalism, pillage and rape in that language.]

    نه زیبد ترا نام اورنگزیب
    ز اورنگزیبان نه یابد فریب
    na zeebad toraa naam e Aurangzeb / ze aurangzeebaan na yaabad fareeb!

    5. The name “Aurangzeb” does not befit you, Since one doesn’t find fraud in that which is supposed to bring “honor to the throne”!

    تسبیحات از شجه و رشته بیش
    کزان دانه سازی وزان دام خویش
    tasbeehat az shojeh o reshteye beesh / kazaan daaneh saazi vazaan daam e kheesh!

    6. Your rosary is nothing more than tangled beads and thread, With every movement of your beads you only expand your snare of entanglements!

    [Note: Here the Guru is referring to the test of sanity of will and purpose. It is an inferred fact that Aurangzeb would have not been able to experience any peace and bliss in his tasbeeh (japa), even if he carried one wherever he went. He may have clung to it for a sense of security, but there was no immediate experience of bliss in it, nor any clarity and ability gained from it. For Aurangzeb, the Holy Name was a co-dependency. For the Guru, it was a relationship based on pan-determinism.

    A dharmaarthic system should foster pan-determinism between individual contributors, not co-dependency on or between elites and subjects.]

    تو خاک پدر را با کردار زشت
    با خون برادر بدادی سرشت
    to khaak e pedar ra ba kerdaar e zesht / ba khoon e baraadar bedaadi seresht!

    7. Your nature and disposition is from your grisly deeds, Moulded by the dust of your father and the blood of your brothers.

    وزان خانه خام کردی بنا
    برای در دولت خویش را
    vazaan khaaneye khaam kardi banaa / baraaye dar e dowlat e kheesh ra!

    8. And from that (by imprisoning your father and murdering your brothers) you have laid a weak foundation for your kingdom.

    من اکنون با افضال پرش اکال
    کنم ز آب آهن چنان برشگال
    man aknoon ba afzaal e Purush e Akaal / konam ze aab e aahan chonaan barshgaal

    9. “Now by the grace of the Eternal Oversoul (Akaal Purush), I have made the water of steel (Amrit for my warriors) which will fall upon you like a torrent.”

    که هرگز از آن چاردیوار شوم
    نشانی نماند بر این پاک بوم
    ke hargiz az aan chaardeevaar e shoom / neshaani namaanad bar een paak boom!

    10. And with this torrent your sinister castle will vanish from this holy land without a trace!

    ز کوه دکن تشنه کام آمدی
    ز میوار هم تلخ جام آمدی
    ze kooh e dakkan teshneh-kaam aamadi / ze mewaar ham talkh e jaam aamadi

    11. You came thirsty (defeated) from the mountains of Deccan; the Rajputs of Mewar have also made you drink the bitter cup (of defeat).

    [Note: Throughout the ten-generation span of the Gurus, they took a pan-Indic view in terms of political and social mobilization, and even the panj-piare came from all parts and strata of society. In ideological and spiritual terms, they took a global view, as Guru Nanak did.]

    بر این سو چون اکنون نگاهت رود
    که آن تلخی و تشنگی ات رود
    bar een soo chon aknoon negaahat ravad / ke aan talkhi o teshnegee at ravad

    12. Now you are casting your sight towards this side (the Punjab). Here also your thirst will remain unquenched.

    چنان آتش زیر نعلت نهم
    ز پنجاب آبت نه خوردن دهم
    chonaan aatash e zeer n’al at naham / ze panjaab aabat na khordan daham

    13. I will put fire under your feet when you come to the Punjab and I will not let you even drink water here.

    چه شد گر شغال با مکر و ریا
    همین کشت دو بچه شیر را ؟
    che shod gar shaghaal ba makr o riyaa / hameen kosht do bacheye sher ra?

    14. What is so great if a jackal kills two cubs of a tiger by deceit and cunning?

    چون شیر ژیان زنده ماند همی
    ز تو انتقام ستاند همی
    chon sher e zhiyaan zendeh maanad hamee / ze to enteqaam setaanad hamee!

    15. Since that formidable tiger is still alive, he will definitely extract revenge on you!

    نه دیگر گرایم با نام خدا ات
    که دیدم خدا و کلام خدا ات
    na deegar garaayam ba naam e khodaat / ke deedam khodaa va kalaam e khodaat!

    16. I no longer trust you or your ‘God’ since I have now seen your ‘God’ as well as his Word.

    با سوگند تو اعتبار نه ماند
    مرا جز با شمشیر کار نه ماند
    ba saugand e to e’tebaar na maanad / maraa joz ba shamsheer kaar na maanad

    17. I do not trust your oaths any more and now there is no other way for me except to take up the sword.

    توی گرگ باران کشیده اگر
    نهم نیز شیر ظ دام بدر
    tuye gorg e baaraan kesheedeh agar / naham neez sher ze daam bedar

    18. If you are an old fox, I, too, will keep my tigers out of your snare.

    اگر باز گفت و شنیدت با ماست
    نمایم ترا جاده پاک و راست
    agar baaz goft o shoneedat ba maast / namaayam toraa jaadeye paak o raast

    19. If you come to me for detailed and frank talks, I shall show you the path of purity and truthfulness.

    به میدان دو لشکر صف آرایی شوند
    ز دوری به هم آشکارا شوند
    be maidaan do lashkar saf-araee shavand / ze doori be ham aashkaaraa shavand

    20. Let the forces from both sides array in the battlefield at such a distance that they are visible to each other.

    میان هر دو ماند دو فرسنگ راه
    جون آراسته گردد این رزمگاه
    miyaan e har do maanad do farsang e raah / chon aaraasteh gardad een razm-gaah

    21. The battle field should be arranged decoratively in such a manner that both the forces should be separated by a reasonable distance (of two furlongs).

    از آن پس در آن ارصه کارزار
    من آیم به نزد تو با دو سوار
    az aan pas dar aan arseye kaarzaar / man aayam be nazd e to ba do savaar

    22. Then I will advance in the battle field for combat with your forces along with two of my riders.

    تو از ناز و نعمت ثمر خورده
    ز جنگی جوانان نه بر خورده
    to az naaz o ne’mat samar khordeh / ze jangi javaanaan na bar khordeh

    23. So far you have been enjoying the fruits of a cosy and comfortable life but haven’t yet collided with fierce warriors (in the battle field).

    به میدان بیا خود با تیغ و تبر
    مکن خلق خلاق زیر و زبر
    be maidaan biyaa khod ba tegh o tabar / makon khalq e khalaaq zir o zebar

    24. Now come into the battle field with your weapons and stop tormenting the people who are the creation of the Lord.

    According to internal Moghal reports, Aurangzeb was old and senile by this time. He had been a fratricidal bigot who acted on the encouragement of a jealous priesthood hardened by ethnic and theological differences. Apparently, he could not tell the difference between Dharma and Adharma, and so his sense of duty was imbued with this lack of ethical discrimination. He dies in the hope of redemption, and had even apologized and invited the Guru to come see him on his deathbed. Here is his last will and testament (link):

    “Praise to be God and blessing on those servants [of Him] who have become sanctified and have given satisfaction [to Him]. I have some [instructions to leave as my] last will and testament:

    FIRST – on behalf of this sinner sunk in iniquity [i.e. myself] cover [with an offering of cloth and capital] the holy tomb of Hasan (on him be peace), because those who are drowned in the ocean of sin have no other protection except seeking refuge with that Portal of Mercy and Forgiveness.

    SECOND – Four Rupees and two annas, out of the price of the caps sewn by me, are with Aia Bega, the mahaldar. Take the amount and spend it on the shroud of this helpness creature. Three hundred and five Rupees, from the wages of copying the Quran, are in my purse for personal expense. Distribute them to the faqirs on the day of my death.

    THIRD – Take the remaining necessaries [of my funeral] from the agent of Prince Alijah; as he is the nearest heir among my sons, and on him lies the responsibility for the lawful or unlawful [practices at my funeral]; this helpless person (i.e. Aurangzeb) is not answerable for them, because the dead are in the hands of the survivors.

    FOURTH – Bury this wanderer in the Valley of Deviation from the Right Path with his head bare, because every ruined sinner who is conducted bare-headed before the Grand Emperor (i.e. God), is sure to be an object of mercy.

    FIFTH – Cover the top of the coffin on my bier with the coarse white cloth gazi. Avoid the spreading of a canopy and uncanonical innovations like [processions of] musicians and the celebration of the Prophet’s Nativity (maulud)

    SIXTH – It is proper for the ruler of the kingdom (i.e. my heir) to treat kindly the helpless servants who in the train of this shameless creature [Aurangzeb] have been roving in the deserts and wilderness [of the Deccan]. Even if any manifest fault is committed by them, give them in return for it gracious forgiveness and benign overlooking [of the fault].

    [SEVENTH, EIGHT, NINTH – His assessment of the Irani, Turani, and the Saiyid nobles and his advice how to treat them keeping in mind their qualities and weaknesses.]

    TENTH – As far as possible the ruler of a kingdom should not spare himself from moving about; he should avoid staying in one place, which outwardly gives him repose but in effect brings on a thousand calamities and troubles.

    ELEVENTH – Never trust your sons, nor treat them during your lifetime in an intimate manner, because, if the Emperor Shah Jahan had not treated Dara Shukoh in this manner, his affairs would not have come to such a sorry pass. Ever keep in view the saying, ‘The words of a king are barren’.

    TWELFTH – The main pillar of government is to be well informed in the news of the kingdom. Negligence for a single moment becomes the cause of disgrace for long years. The escape of the wretch Shiva took place through [my] carelessness, and I have to labour hard [against the Marathas] to the end of my life, [as the result of it].

    Twelve is blessed [among numbers]. I have concluded with twelve directions. (Verse).
    “If you learn [the lesson], a kiss on your wisdom.

    If you neglect it, then alas! alas!”

    Ahkam-i-Alamgir, (Eng. Tr. J.N. Sarkar, Text in Ir. Ms. 8b-10a).

    There is another will of Aurangzeb in India Office Library MS.1344 p.49b (Sarkar, Aurangzeb, Vol.V, 201). Its chief interest lies in the suggested method of partitioning the empire among his three surviving sons.

    Continue reading Last Will of Guru Gobind and Emperor Aurangzeb

    Brown Pundits