* Initially I really liked the new name Prince Louis but I’ve now realised they’ve named him after Lord Mountbatten. That’s in incredible poor taste to the British Asian population; as Lord Mountbottom was as bad as Churchill when it came to India. Partition is ultimately in his conscience, speeding the division of India was probably one of the greatest human disasters in history. A very poor showing by the Royal Family and a complete insensitivity to their Asian citizen-subjects.
Forgive my obligatory Mughalophilia but I haven’t indulged Pak psychosis in a while on this blog. Too busy getting worked up over my black/AASI heritage. I have a habit from flitting/flirting with causes; my personality type is apparently ENFP the “Activist” so forgive my armchair activism..
Speaking of Pak psychosis I have a small WhatsApp group of the Pakistani Literati. For our first London meeting when I selected an IndoPak restaurant there wasn’t really much uptake, as soon as I selected a trendy Persian place everyone got into it. The Pak psych is a thing of wonder though Persianate halflings like me probably contribute it with our excessive partiality for Hijaz & Shiraz!
The whole thing about genetics has been very oriented around “whiteness.” Just as we had the historical supposition that most cultures were created by vigorous Northern races that degenerated after mixture with decadent Southern ones (which conveniently was appropriated by Euro-colonialists).
I do think in simple language. While the AASI seem to be related to the initial Negrito coastal waves that spread across Yemen, Southern Indo-Pak, parts of Malaysia, Melanesia, Papua New Guinea and the Aboriginals (hints of these genes are said to be in the Amazon); it’s important to realise that we are “brown” because of these ancestors.
The Aryans were fair & lovely; the Eastern Anatolian/ Elamitic (Iranian farmers is a misnomer) were probably olive & tanned (related to J2 population sort of look like modern day Caucasians; fair skinned but darkish colourings) but it was the AASI (the Dalit/untouchable) who gave us our swarthier complexions.
Maybe the race movement/ black lives movement in the US is needed in South Asia so that we can love our black ancestors.
It’s interesting Hollywood has an amazing and vibrant black Afram entertainment community. None of the cinemas in Latam and/or South Asian put darker skinned/Dalits front and centre.
In other words, the preprint observes that the migration from the steppes to South Asia was the source of the Indo-European languages in the subcontinent. Commenting on this, Rai said, “any model of migration of Indo-Europeans from South Asia simply cannot fit the data that is now available.”
At this point, we need to move to other things. I think the broad genetic framework is pretty clear.
1) The Indus Valley Civilization (IVC) people were a mix of eastern West Asian (from modern Iran) people and native South Asian peoples (~80% of South Asian mtDNA are haplogroup M).
2) ~1500 BC a major incursion from the steppe occurred and overlaid upon #1 to various extents as a function of region, language, and caste.
3) ~0 to 500 AD the strong endogamy that characterizes modern South Asians seems to have established itself.
Vijay makes a very important contribution on the Aryan-Dravidian debate and how all of it was cooked up by the British (Hindu/Muslim divide, caste system, martial races etc).
It is the absurdity and arrogance of the British to imagine they created/united India; India has always existed from the times of our AASI/Andamese/Negrito ancestors (maybe we should go back to 80’s Britain and call the AASI black so we are basically black according to one-drop rule).
Colonialism was an absurdity and travesty and did so much to hold back Hindustan (I define this from the Hindu Kush to the Indian Ocean). Even Lord Curzon mentions (again I go quoting colonial authorities; I’m such a munafiq) that Rivers are not real boundaries; India does not stop at the Indus but at her mountains (Hindu Kush, Himalaya) and oceans.
“3) Indian politics –<br />a) North South divide – North = Arya, South = Dravida or Non-Arya aka Natives”<br /><br />You are overemphasising the so-called North-South ‘Divide’ . ‘ Dravida’ referred ethonologically to the Pancha Dravida brahmins ; this included brahmins of Gujarat and Maharastra. 19th Century ametuer linguist Rev Caldwell mistakenly thought it referred to the four large south Indian languages and named the linguitic group as ‘ Dravidian family’ and as was the prevalent notion of 19th century thinkers , he conflated the linguistic group with a racial group. From a purely linguistic angle , his identification of the linguistic group is right, but wrongly named it and even more atrociouly mistook it for a race.<br /><br />It is testament to the success of the the 19th century colonial categories that western mistakes have become creed for a section of Indians.<br /><br />However , the bald ‘ Arya-Dravida’ division is prevalent only in Tamilnadu, and not in other south India states; that too it is politically hyped up. The irony is the Tamil literature knows no word called Dravida till late 19th century under colonial instruction. <br /><br />Political froth from Tamilnadu should not be mistaken as the opinion of majority of people. The majority of Hindus have refrained from taking control the social and historical narrative or even challenging the prevalent narratives which are of 19th century western provenance. That is their mistake. I don’t think the so-called ‘Out of India’ theory is the solution. One nonsense cannot be fought with another nonsense. Wherever you see nonsense , be relentless in challenging and exposing it.<br /><br />The so-called ‘arya-dravida’ divide has no histotical basis – however such toxic narartives need exposing . The narrative of “arya-dravida” divide in Tamilnadu is high decibel and aggressive – it gets more aggressive as it’s historical basis is non-existant and it is running on empty. History is made by aggressive lies in the short run – Satyameva Jayate is a pious hope
Bharata Bharatavanshi · April 27, 2018 · 25 comments
Where and how did this difference begin, is there anything universal to this or is it due to certain historical condition to how things developed in Europe. The founder of Heterodox Academy Jonathan Haidt gave this talk of incompatible sacred values between truth and social justice. And how the telos of Universities ought to be ‘Truth’.
In my view, this distinction begins with The role of church in European History.The distinction of secular and religious. The aim of the church had to do with what people believed. So, the eventual marxist world view simply took over the hole left behind by the long irrelevance of church in academia in many european societies.Present role of Humanities dept in I believe comes from the role of the church, if one were to consider their aim was to spread their belief system. Church still has an impressive anthropological division, translations into many native languages etc.
In other worldviews, like stoicism or buddhism,jainism,advaita,ajivika had a more cosmic oriented worldview. I see the differences in universities as an evidence of deeper epistemological differences between christian worldview and their greeko roman heritage. This model has now been transported to other places and is leading to similar problems. I was reminded of this view once again by the tweet storm of nassim taleb. One cannot read the history or even consider the ideas of west without asking in what ways has the role of church been in shaping the west and its impact in development of every idea that has come from the west, claims of universalism needs to be independently checked.It maybe that the church has found ways and means to keep itself out of the scrunity in different ways to be able to survive and adapt to developments of science, this could be in the role of the institutions or the kind of rhetoric deployed or organisations at community level or perhaps in academia itself.Perhaps this the crucial difference in comparison with other societies , they didnt have time enough to adapt and this is leading to further troubles.
Hence I do wish for other people of different beliefs or none to have their own independent study of the west and test the ideas and the claims.All Ideas,claims need to be independently tested. Otherwise one might find oneself undone by some future eventuality that one didnt consider beforehand and suffer a mighty loss.
Here is how nassim taleb connects these,
EDUCATION. Distilling the conversation with @bryan_caplan hosted by @tylercowen 1) There has been a traditional separation between: + "liberal education" for free men, (liber), who didn't work for a living, & +"technical education", for those who labor.
5a) The problem of the peer review system is selecting professors on theories abt subject never checked for basic knowledge of subject. It is common for people to know the "post colonial gender theory" of Levant, teach it, but never the actual facts.
5b) The French solved the problem with knowledge exams for educators ("aggregation"); you never end up having people judged solely by peers (See #SkininTheGame ).
(Same problems: "know economics" is interpreted as knowing theories by economists, not economic facts).
6) The educational model is now imploding as the only thing people seem to learn at colleges is ideology by losers who became professors because they aren't good enough to create things & got together to BS in a citation ring #RentSeekers (not just in economics, but everywhere)
8) The idea that liberal education makes free thinkers is about the greatest myth: empirically, liberal education creates the exact opposite of "thinkers" and "free": indoctrinated and slaves.https://t.co/JaoiDNftG7
9) Remember that the "University" system for this "liberal education" (trivium/quadrivium) was historically closely associated with, and supervised by, the Church.
I am doing a round-up of the past 10 posts excluding my own since ordinarily I tend to write more. I try to judge the tempo of BP and when it’s moving on it’s own momentum I hum down and do other stuff. Incidentally I have excerpted the last twenty articles (the pages display ten articles at a time) and I was surprised that in 3 days we generated so much content.
Revisiting Somnath–A Review: Kabir revisits Somnath academically and I do agree that British historiography somehow intensified Hindu-Muslim political rivalry. Of course it was a complex equation but I’m surprised no one senses the nefarious hands of Imperialism!
Jaydeepsinh Rathod on the historocity of Sanskriti:AnAn compiles all of JR’s thoughts on the historocity of Sanskriti. In the Aryan threads there are some very knowledgeable comments; I remember Allama Iqbal ending his thesis that the reason Hinduism survived and Zoroastrianism did not was because the Brahmins obsessively discussed every detail of their philosopy and mythology whereas the Magis did not. I sometimes feel like my Magian ancestors and I like to hold on to my cherished notions..
Toxic textbooks and social engineering in Pakistan:AMA investigates how the Pakistani psychosis came to be. I myself of course thoroughly indoctrinate in the Pakistani psychosis; I am rather a bit too proud of my Hijazi camel trader ancestors (nos ancetres les Hijazissounds a lot less glamorous than the Moghuls).
Madeeha Gauhar, Pakistan’s most famous Theatre Director passes away:Kabir mourns the passing of Madeeha Gauhar, I had remembered Ajoka Theatre coming to London for Dara Shikoh but I didn’t watch the play on principle. When I was in London I used to go to the theatre weekly (sometimes twice or thrice a week) but I got annoyed when I saw all the Pakis rushing to the National Theatre. I am quite white in my inclinations (I am a pretty good rock climber, love a good Oxbridge formal and enjoy the theatre – ergo I have to interact with far too many liberal Wasps). RIP Madeeha Khanum and thank you for your services to Pak Theatre!!!
The water rises and Canute drowns:Razib writes a short piece touching on Genes, Aryans & India. Result, one of our viral threads. I don’t really know too much to comment on the matter; it’s sad how ill-informed I am about Indus Valley Civ and anything before Mo Bin Qasim. Pakistani psychosis and all that!
Rajneesh and Sheela Ambalal Patel, a question by sbarrkum, on the new Netflex docuseries about the Rajneeshess cult. I’m shocked to realise that Osho is actually no more; I thought he was still alive! ZackThought: I was pondering over this that the older a religion, the more reliant it is on charismatic individuals (gurus, popes, Imams) to guide the religion. The younger the religion the more institutionalized it is (Protestantism, Mormonism, Ahmediyyah, Sikhism, Baha’i Faith).
X.T.M · April 26, 2018 · Comments Off on How to argue
LV sent this to me and I found this a useful guide to blog debate..
I am very sensitive to “tone” so I probably am between Step 2 & Step 3 on the 7 step path to Aristotle.. IRL I tend to shy away from much discussion or debate, except with the better half, as I’m a very kinesthetic learner.
