Indian Interests

brihaspati · Post by **brihaspati** » 13 Dec 2009 00:52

The genes that determine colour occupy a very small and almost negligible length of the total genome. Moreover the colours are all present in every human. Whether and how many are turned on depends on two opposing factors. The total intensity and annual exposure to available sunlight at that place, must balance two things. On the one hand there has to be the the right amount of "shade" to protect from likelihood of melanoma. On the other sufficient UV to convert pro-vit D into usable Vit D that is necessary for bone growth and proper shape of the pelvis for women to have easier childbirth. These two factors have to be fine tuned through natural selection to settle at an optimum sustainable population.

The less the pressure of this solar factor, the greater the probability of random combinations of colour in eyes or hair to survive even after natural selection. Dark eye colours will prevent retinal cancers and problems when sunlight is more plentiful.

Skin colour of following generations will follow from an average of both parental gene switching states. So over time colours average out to the natiral equilibrium for that location.

Rahul M · Post by **Rahul M** » 13 Dec 2009 00:57

So over time colours average out to the natiral equilibrium for that location.

how much time does it take ?

brihaspati · Post by **brihaspati** » 13 Dec 2009 01:27

Still a matter of debate and research. Estimates range from semi/sub-tropical "dark" to North European "fair" in around 13000 years to roughly 30,000 years. One single amino acid determines 30-40% of the total variation, and approx 4 mutation nucleotide per 13 generations.

sanjaykumar · Post by **sanjaykumar** » 13 Dec 2009 01:41

That may be for Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium given spontaneous mutation rates.

There may be strong sexual selection pressure on mutations for skin colour.

And to complicate matters further, desirability of certain skin tones is culturally determined. (I don't think anyone finds overweight fish belly complexioned women attractive currently, unlike 100 years ago).

brihaspati · Post by **brihaspati** » 13 Dec 2009 02:31

Omitting Capuccino?

Sexual selection pressures could slow down the process of geographical adaptation but not accelerate beyond the "selectable" variations turning out of random mutations. There are some studies going on about already significant levels of "shading" happening in n-generations of "fair skinned" immigrants into "down under". I will ask one of my students currently in Sydney for the latest results.

sanjaykumar · Post by **sanjaykumar** » 13 Dec 2009 05:34

Assume twenty genes coding for skin colour. Mutations in any five produce cafe-au-lait. But perhaps when all five are coexpressed in someone whose ancestors liked their coffee, their expression is very light skin. ie we don't know enough about skin colour gene expression to assume that it results in a continuously variable phenotype.

Jarita · Post by **Jarita** » 13 Dec 2009 05:46

RayC wrote:I am no expert on genetics, but then I always wondered if we Indians were genetically same, then why the disparity in features, skin colour, eyes etc amongst the various regions?

Older the population group the greater the diversity. This is a scientific fact. Longer timeframes enable greater mutations which drive the diversity.
As a result Africa esp east and south east have greatest diversity followed by India as a close second.

sanjaykumar · Post by **sanjaykumar** » 13 Dec 2009 05:49

Humans tend to migrate. I don't think it is possible to identify diversity endemic to non-isolated populations (Australian aborigines of course being the best example of the latter).

Added later:Unless they are reproductively isolated like the Ashkenazim.

Yogi_G · Post by **Yogi_G** » 13 Dec 2009 14:32

I have always wondered, how are the Arabs (the real ones that is) still fair complexioned? Given that they live in hot deserts with very little shade. And its not that they have migrated recently, historical mention of Arabs first happened 2000 years ago.

ps: I can understand Arab women being fair, they are always under the shade, burkha.

sanjaykumar · Post by **sanjaykumar** » 14 Dec 2009 00:04

Arabs vary from the dark Yemeni to the Syrian/Lebanese in complexion. Arabs of course consider the latter to be most attractive. Further they accept people Indians would not classify as Arabs as being legitimate Arabs.eg northern Sudanese.

There was also a healthy slave trade in European women until about 150 yrs ago.

Jarita · Post by **Jarita** » 14 Dec 2009 02:50

Yogi,
Arabs had a healthy slave trade with Europe and Western India (sindh etc). The women they considered beautiful (Light skinned) were concubines, part of harams etc. Such men were also part of harams.
The African slaves were almost always castrated. They were used for labor.
There is a lot of material abt the slave trade with Africa since the inception of Islam. However, you will find little to no African bloodlines unlike the US, because the Arabs did not want these genes to be perpetuated.

Rony · Post by **Rony** » 14 Dec 2009 03:02

Arabs in Mediterrean coast were under roman rule for a long time. North Africa saw a significant migrations from European barbarians (vandals) during the early middle ages. Arabs in those areas are lot more fairer than in yemen !

brihaspati · Post by **brihaspati** » 14 Dec 2009 03:53

Slave trade should never be dubbed "healthy", even in sarcasm. India suffered a lot from Islamic/Arabic slave trade. Moreover, the trade in "white slave" was primarily due to conquests and raids in the "white" etrhnicities north of Caucasus. Arab slave traders access to white Europeans were primarily though areas of Georgia or southern Russia, and this increased in volume under Turkish expansion to the west in Anatolia. From mainland Europe slave trade was confined to the occasional successful raids on unprotected coastal communities in western Mediterranean and Spanish or Irish coasts.

In spite of "skin colour" preferences, we have on good authority that Indian girls were in high demand over other ethnicties - because of their "beauty" and other entertainment, especially dancing skills. In Islam dominated areas of central Asia, the proportion of "Indian" origin slaves could possibly make up a significant proportion of certain population centres. Most of the Delhi sultans, and our famous compassionate liberal Mughal emperors engaged in export of non-Muslim Indians as slaves into central Asia. The fiscal value of this trade and its effect as export of capital (labour and reproductive resources as capital in pre-modern times) on th eceonomy of India, has not yet been properly researched.

Slavery is divine law as revealed in the Quran. Arabs, Turks, Afghans, Persians have never been explicitly put before the challenge about their attitude towards "slavery" in the context of Islam. They have never ever paid the price. Since slavery is divine ordination in Islam, maybe they should be subjected to the same in a future time!

sanjaykumar · Post by **sanjaykumar** » 14 Dec 2009 09:54

Hindu kush mountains stand in witness to the eternal shame of Indians.

Do they teach the slave routes to central asia in NCERT approved syllabus or is it too inconvenient?

Stan_Savljevic · Post by **Stan_Savljevic** » 14 Dec 2009 09:58

What about our lost brothers, the Romany people? At least some of the indentured laborers' next gen get invited to the Pravasi Bhartiya divas, the Romanis dont get.

sanjaychoudhry · Post by **sanjaychoudhry** » 14 Dec 2009 10:04

Talking about skin color, here is something interesting:

Scientists Find A DNA Change That Accounts For White Skin
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 01728.html

Yogi_G · Post by **Yogi_G** » 14 Dec 2009 22:12

Thanks for the info on the slave trade, dint know abt it before. Pretty Interesting, being the difference in skin colour amidst Arabs.

Have there ever been thought lines on reservations for non-Muslims in India since they were exploited under Muslim kingdoms having had to pay Jizya. I mean this is extending the concept of reservation to all affected parties in India, including the "forward" castes in India who were exploited through the Jizya concept.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 14 Dec 2009 23:27

The black and white movie "Anarkali" with Bina Rai and Pradeep kumar has a slave market in one of the scenes. It was quite revolting to see that it was there during the 'enlightened' period of Akbar.

gandharva · Post by **gandharva** » 14 Dec 2009 23:45

Muslim Slave System in Medieval India

K.S. Lal
Aditya Prakashan, New Delhi

http://voiceofdharma.org/books/mssmi/

brihaspati · Post by **brihaspati** » 15 Dec 2009 02:27

ramana wrote
The black and white movie "Anarkali" with Bina Rai and Pradeep kumar has a slave market in one of the scenes. It was quite revolting to see that it was there during the 'enlightened' period of Akbar.

All the first five Mughal emperors in India indulged in enslavement. None were an exception. Jahangir and Shah Jehan were however the most enthusiastic and Alamgir continued their tendencies. They actively engaged in slave taking and export of slaves for profit. Jehangir and Shah Jehan personally took initiatives to get women as slaves, and especially from non-Muslims. Alamgir intensified and revived the Sultanate policy of enslavement as an economic tool, and a tool for Islamization.

Enslavement, was a key component of the decline of Mughal dominated agriculture. Mughals made inordinate taxation a burden and a curse, by decreeing that defaults in taxes by the peasants could be redeemed by the local Mughal official by selling the peasant and his entire family as slaves. There are eyewitness accounts from the foreign travellers in Bengal about this. The latter Mughals - one of them enshrined as the ultimate "lover" and his "icon" touted as an icon of India - took special care to ensure that peasants and especially their wives and daughters were sold to Muslim buyers only. This particular icon of love also launched expeditions to gather beautiful women as slaves from non-Muslims for his personal use.

There are good accounts of how such treatment forced peasants ultimately to abandon their lands (something similar to what happened in tughlaq times when some of the illustrious sultans actually went out "hunting" escaped "peasants"), and the economy declined.

One interesting angle here is that we know that conversion of tax debts into bondage/bonded labour contracts began to increase under punitive sultanate and Mughal taxation. So the modern form of land-alienation-bonded-labour could be a direct result of Sultanate and Mughal policy. The British who themselves had profited from slave trade, and whose planters are known to have actively practised slavery and slave-labour in the south of India, interpreted such mutual dependency relations as "slavery" and they advanced the monetarization of the debt-contract.

In some studies the modern form of debt-bondage has been directly traced to such a British conversion of a process initiated at the hands of Mughals.

Yogi_G · Post by **Yogi_G** » 16 Dec 2009 21:23

http://indiatoday.intoday.in/site/AskPr ... ?Qid=74853

Now that genetic studies have proven that the Aryan-Dravidian concept is a lie, what do you have to say to the leaders of the Dravidian parties in South India whose party names still use the term "Dravida"?

Politics is not a science based on logic. It is game of convenience. Don't expect the Dravidian parties to disown their political blood group.

- Asked by Bharat
[email protected]

Not bad for a reply.

Yogi_G · Post by **Yogi_G** » 20 Dec 2009 00:41

Sigh, more of the Aryan - Dravidian nonsense, now from the Indian army website. Shame!
http://indianarmy.nic.in/Site/FormTempl ... uI=&flag=p

However, the Indus Valley Civilisation’s two urban centres at Mohenjodaro and Harappa gradually declined in the second millennium BC, and almost completely disintegrated around 1500 BC with the advent of the Aryans from the north - west. The coastal cities disintegrated due to massive floods. The north-western invasion route, however, remained unguarded and from the earliest times immigrant people crossed the passes of the Hindu Kush Mountains. In due course the Greeks and then the Turks, Huns, Mongols and Persians came the north-western way.

The military history of India dates back to nearly 2000 BC, when the Aryans poured into the subcontinent en masse through these passes. According to historians, the Aryans were an Asian-European people, closely related by language, customs and religion to the Persians and Iranians. Though scanty details are available of the early conflicts between the Aryans and the native inhabitants, mostly Dravidians, but evidence shows that the Aryans slowly overran northern India, forcing the dark-skinned Dravidians to move southwards.

Stan_Savljevic · Post by **Stan_Savljevic** » 25 Dec 2009 13:05

For every hour when parliament is in session, the government spends nearly Rs.14 lakhs (Rs. 1.4 million) of tax payers’ money. And just imagine how much the state exchequer must have lost during the just concluded winter session when there was not a single 100 percent productive day with full attendance? An analysis of the winter session of the 15th Indian parliament done by PRS Legislative Research, a unit of the Centre for Policy Research, shows that 48 percent of Lok Sabha MPs didn’t participate in any debate. The productive time in the lower house was 106 hours - only 76 percent of what had been scheduled, due to repeated disruptions.
...
And there were many MPs, including Congress leader Rahul Gandhi, who didn’t ask even a single question. Ditto for Samajwadi Party president Mulayam Singh Yadav and his son Akhilesh Yadav, Jaganmohan Reddy of the Congress and Shatrughan Sinha of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP).

http://beta.thehindu.com/news/national/article70242.ece

ShauryaT · Post by **ShauryaT** » 27 Dec 2009 03:25

India not in the same league as US and China, says Bharat Karnad

He said the obstacles to India's emergence as a great power were "self-defeating obstacles," and said particularly when it came to military power, had four major deficits -- having a vision about India, being convinced about India, having a will, and lack of a strategy.

RamaY · Post by **RamaY** » 27 Dec 2009 06:01

^^^

having a vision about India, being convinced about India, having a will, and lack of a strategy.

While I completely agree with above statement, I guess even to settle as a mid-level player a nation requires a purpose, will, and strategy. I hope GOI has that part covered atleast .

Rony · Post by **Rony** » 27 Dec 2009 07:33

Tathagata Sarkar on nineteenth century intellectuals

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 27 Dec 2009 09:05

ShauryaT wrote:India not in the same league as US and China, says Bharat Karnad

Karnad said perhaps India could become a major power, "but not a great power. Only the US and China have that status right now."
"I may be unduly harsh, but like I tell my audiences in India, it's better to be unduly harsh than be like India and be self-congratulatory."
Karnad said, "It's being autarchic really," that's key "to be a great power. A great power has a capacity to be an autarchic system. The basic potential to be autarchic basically defines the great power status of a country."

Bharat Karnad says that India should become a great military power first. While I agree with him I believe he is missing a fundamental defect among Indians that prevents that. All his criticism about the Indian government can be applied all the way down to individual Indians who all lack national vision and who are prone to blame extraneous and historic (unchangeable) factors for their present plight. "If only X had not been there" or "We are like this because Y stole everything" Both these feeble excuses are common among Indians and are a variant of the argument "It is our karma"

We need to make our karma, not accept it.

munna · Post by **munna** » 27 Dec 2009 09:35

shiv wrote:We need to make our karma, not accept it.

Shivji I am tired of repeating this to my circle and other acquaintances. Instead of R&D about oppressor "X" or oppressor "Y" we need to step up confidently to engage the former oppressors to ultimately make them our vassals. Karma is only one part of our philosophy we need to reinforce with some real "purushartha" now instead of

.

Yogi_G · Post by **Yogi_G** » 27 Dec 2009 09:47

ShauryaT wrote:India not in the same league as US and China, says Bharat Karnad
He said the obstacles to India's emergence as a great power were "self-defeating obstacles," and said particularly when it came to military power, had four major deficits -- having a vision about India, being convinced about India, having a will, and lack of a strategy.

Bharat Karnad, considered one of India's [ Images ] leading strategists and a strong proponent of a more vigorous foreign and military policy for several years, has said that India is by no means a major power in the league of the United States or China, and will not acquire great power status unless it becomes a military power.

It is not in India's interests to become a major league power such as the US and China. Our immediate mandate is quick economic growth and the lifting of millions from the shackles of poverty. As Girish himself mentions later in the article, it will be 15 to 20 years before we even start thinking in such lines, for now the first priority is to become a economic big power.

He was particularly dismissive of the recent Legatum Index, which in listing eight variables from Economic Fundamentals to Safety and Security and Entrepreneurship and Innovation to Social Capital, had India coming out ahead of China.

Frankly it does matter. A free and open society with unrestrained entrepreneurship is the the most viable model for long term innovation and productivity. It also ensures that the fruits of economic growth trickle down to the masses. This explains the difference in Gini index between India and China. Also rural growth is what drives Indian economy as against urban growth in China. Gandhi would have attained Moksha by now given his vision of Indian model being driven by village level growth. Mao must be turning in his grave as I type this. I would love to live and work in a country like India or US as against one like China.

This is just a kind of feel-good kind of index for India, nothing more," he said, and added, "It just shows a trend path.

This is a trend we have acquired as a result of an open society. This is something I am extremely proud of and cherish. We are not a hypocritical system like the Chinese who self proclaim that they are Communists at the same time fielding one of the most capitalist economies.

it's hard power that's the basis for power. You don't get it by selling Bollywood movies and musicals.

Whilst we strive to life ourselves out of poverty and provide our people with a decent standard of living, we do not need hard power on the scale that Girish demands. Soft power is something we have achieved without any conscious effort in the first place. Again a product of an open society. Chozha naval might and military power is long gone but Ramayana is still the national epic in Indonesia. That, sir, is soft power for you.

He said the obstacles to India's emergence as a great power were "self-defeating obstacles," and said particularly when it came to military power, had four major deficits -- having a vision about India, being convinced about India, having a will, and lack of a strategy.

While I agree that when it comes to a vision we are clearly lacking. The goal of zero poverty is leading to equitable growth and a rough common vision which again is influencing all other factors and bringing them to the line. This is acceptable as against a national vision of world hegemony and a worker's paradise. Apart from the leftists, terrorists and the naxalites I am yet to see one entity in India which thinks India is a lost cause.

Seventy percent of its military hardware is imported, and the reason is that the Indian government has still not gotten down to liberalising its defense industry

This is an excellent point and the author must be appreciated for this. I think the Govt has slowly woken upto this point.

He acknowledged that in terms of becoming a major economic power, "India is getting there by sheer momentum," but reiterated that "there is no grand strategic plan by the government -- no concerted plan."

I am not sure what he means of a concerted plan. The more the govt tries to dictate the way the economy runs the more we step back to the socialist ways of the 50's to 80's. At best the Govt of India can set targets in the 5 year plans and expect the PSUs and other govt orgs to live up to them and for the private sector, tax holidays, SEZs, stimulus packages etc which the govt is already doing. We cannot step towards the Chinese model which necessitates govt owned entities manufacturing low tech goods cheaply, with the govt and its apparatus manipulating the currency keeping it artificially low, not allowing the fruits of economic benefit to reach the masses. All US dollars in China are confiscated by the Govt with payment done in Yuan, the Chinese govt then uses these $$ as a leverage in its diplomacy. If this is what concerted action is, then I want none of it, sorry.

Karnad said perhaps India could become a major power, "but not a great power. Only the US and China have that status right now."

China has become a great power by necessity and not by choice. Its ideological split with SU in the 50's-60's and deep hatred towards US ensured that it needed to have large numbers to thwart any military attack by these 2 powers. Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Vietnam and India added to the takleef. It is arguable that China would still have invested so much into the military to ensure the successful conduct of "proletarian takeover in every capitalist country" but again a moot point which I wish to not discuss here. India is a different story, only China and Pakistan are its headaches and India has a military which is more than capable to deal with these 2 threats. With our current economy there is no way we can fund a great power military for at least the next 10 years without greatly compromising on social growth and evening of incomes across the spectrum of Indian society. That Indian military is qualitatively better than China is again a moot point and cannot be dismissed. As the Indian economy expands and the need for resources heats up we are inevitably going to end up with hostile powers beyond our immediate borders, but again, thats 15-20 years down the line and our proejcted miltary growth is reassuring provided we ensure that no deals are scrapped, shelved or delayed.

I may be unduly harsh, but like I tell my audiences in India, it's better to be unduly harsh than be like India and be self-congratulatory

Indeed. But again the equivalent of psedu-secularism should not take hold in that self-flagellation becomes the norm.

Karnad said, "There are the makings of a larger security architecture but India is reticent in coming out and saying, we are a major Indian Ocean power -- that it's Indian naval diplomacy that calls the shots in the area."

Indian navy may really call the shots in the Indian Ocean region but we should not forget that the US Navy is still the pre-eminent power in the region. Our self-trumpeting and grandstanding
will serve no cause and we should desist from doing so. Let the West turn its cross-hairs on China while we grow in a chankian manner, quietly that is. We have always been a passive military power in the past and wish to remain so.

He said, "The US was first a great military power before they acquired great power status. Look at any great power in the past -- Napoleonic France [ Images ]. So, military power comes first and historical evidence proves that. India has always been doing things from the other side."

Let us take the example of a recent power, the Soviet Union. Its economy of 2 trillion was a hollow shell in that govt led entrepreneurship could not ensure high growth after the 70's and a lot of baggage in terms of supporting the failed economies of "communist" allies in Eastern Europe eventually brought it down. Immediately before dissolution of SU Gorbachev asked for 35 billion $$ from the West while its submarines and strategic missiles were still pointed at it. Russia to this day is repaying the Germans for all the debt accumulated during the initial years after collapse of the SU. In the modern economy economic power trumps military power provided the military power is potent, minimal and credible like India's. Having a military like Kuwait's only but welcomes tyrant's tanks.

Pakistan is integral to India's security," he said. "If there is no Pakistan, we would have had to invent it

How many times have we raised the bogey of Pakistan to build a military-industrial complex? Not that we possess the best complex that is. Even Kargil war has not prompted the Babus to go beyond chai-biskoot sessions so the assertion of the author that Pakistan is being milked by India as a justification for its military-industrial complex is incorrect. Just fulfilling the basic requirements of the Indian armed forces provided all the equipment had been indegenized by now would have ensured that the complex wud have been booming by now (MRCA, Conv.Subs, artillery etc), ergo, we dont need Pakistan. Pakistan needs us more to use as a bogey to milk money from Unkil.

If nuclear weapons have made Pakistan feel more secure, that's a wonderful thing

Sure how wonderful, the Pakistanis shoot and scoot, hid behind the nuclear umbrella and we run to Unkil. How exactly is it wonderful? Call it semantics, but I see the author implying that India's "hegemonistic" ambitions would have over-run Pakistan if it were not for the nuclear weapons, wonderful indeed. Bhay Ho!

Thus, he argued that resolving the Kashmir [ Images ] issue was imperative for India, if only to strengthen Pakistan's security. In turn, without the albatross of Pakistan hanging around its neck, India would have the chance to acquire great power status.

Just yesterday I read a dawn article that India would nt budge on Kashmir and that Pakistan is wasting men and material on the issue. Why dont I find Girish saying that Pakistan can tide past its existential crisis partly by giving up on the Kashmir cause? Isnt his statement on the same lines as the Pakis when they say that India is the big brother and hence must make concessions? Obama said in Cop that India and CHina must be flexible on the deal. Why is the onus on India always? Because we are the broad-minded power who gave the world the concepts of Dharma, Karma and Sadhana? The same people would be breathing down on India if it indeed had been a great power militarily and put Pakistan in its rightful place. The comments in such a scenario is what the British resort to these days. India is a poor country onlee. Why does it need such a big militarily and why does it provoke Pakistan? Self-flagellation at its best, I must say!

Karnad implied that if not for Pakistan, India could very well have been facing this existential threat from Islamists.

More wonderful statements isn't it? How does the author forget that if Pakistan dint exist then Islamism would have been close to non-existent in the world? Let us not delude ourselves that Pakistan dint use terrorism as a policy. The same terrorists have turned on their masters. It is Girish's opinion that without Pakistan India would have faced the brunt of Islamists. It is my opinion that if the current peoples of Pakistan had been under a United India, the overwhelming secular ethic of the nation would have trickled down to those regions as well and Islamism wud not have been rampant, aided by economic growth that most of India is today seeing. Is it so difficult to see this point? Girish assumes that all factors in the region would be the same if one were to remove Pakistan from the picture. Thats a conjecture. The factors would not have been the same had Pakistan never existed in the first place.

Thus, he argued that resolving the Kashmir [ Images ] issue was imperative for India, if only to strengthen Pakistan's security. In turn, without the albatross of Pakistan hanging around its neck, India would have the chance to acquire great power status.

Sigh

. We still have gotten to where we are with this "albatross" around our neck. We did not contribute to Pakistan's existential crisis. We need not fix it. Pakistan is to India what a suggestion box in Tiananmen square is to the CCP. It does not matter. We will move on as Pakistan hops from one crisis to another. Our secular fabric and dynamic democracy will be able to take on any challenge, let alone the Islamists. If we could face the sevent fleet head-on we can face anything.

Karnad said he had advocated that India "unilaterally remove all medium range missiles from the Pakistani border. I call them SCBMs -- security confidence building measures. I have been pushing the Indian government to do it."

"But we have a great flaw in not doing the right thing at the right time. We are remiss. Our security is not going to be compromised one bit if we unilaterally demilitarise the border. What can Pakistan do? Nothing," he said.

I see. I am glad this man does not make the calls on India's security. Such naiveté is indeed surprising for one of "India's leading strategists and a strong proponent of a more vigorous foreign and military policy for several years".

Karnad lamented that "both India and Pakistan's armies are turned inward -- seeing each other as a threat. There is mutual navel-gazing, when India should be turning outward."

He asked, "Doesn't Pakistan's existential problems really become India's existential problem? It is in the same region."

He also warned, "Ultimately if this nuclear threat does emanate and the Islamists do acquire Pakistan's nuclear weapons arsenal, we'll have to work together."

Hari Seldon · Post by **Hari Seldon** » 27 Dec 2009 10:18

Yogi dude,

Why do you keep referring to poor Bharat as Girish? Conflating Bharat Karnad with Girish Karnad, are you?

That said, Sri Karnad's views are welcome. We need countervailing voices on the hard right telling us to pump in more hard muscle in military terms lest we only let the leftish voices dominate all discourse, resource allocation and eventually, the mindset of future generations.

/Have a nice day.

RamaY · Post by **RamaY** » 27 Dec 2009 11:42

munna wrote:
shiv wrote:We need to make our karma, not accept it.
Shivji I am tired of repeating this to my circle and other acquaintances. Instead of R&D about oppressor "X" or oppressor "Y" we need to step up confidently to engage the former oppressors to ultimately make them our vassals. Karma is only one part of our philosophy we need to reinforce with some real "purushartha" now instead of .

Munna-ji

that transformation is happening at individual level in India. It could be speeden up and standardized if there is a nationalistic education system. That is the difference.

Yogi_G · Post by **Yogi_G** » 27 Dec 2009 14:48

Hari Seldon wrote:Yogi dude,

Why do you keep referring to poor Bharat as Girish? Conflating Bharat Karnad with Girish Karnad, are you?

That said, Sri Karnad's views are welcome. We need countervailing voices on the hard right telling us to pump in more hard muscle in military terms lest we only let the leftish voices dominate all discourse, resource allocation and eventually, the mindset of future generations.

/Have a nice day.

Yup I messed up the names, thanks for pointing that.

With you on the point that Karnad's views are welcome. I only am wary where the Suzannes of our nation get high on such reports and use it for national self-flagellation. Media wont be behind on that one. We need to be strong militarily but supreme economically.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 27 Dec 2009 18:16

munna wrote: Shivji I am tired of repeating this to my circle and other acquaintances. Instead of R&D about oppressor "X" or oppressor "Y" we need to step up confidently to engage the former oppressors to ultimately make them our vassals. Karma is only one part of our philosophy we need to reinforce with some real "purushartha" now instead of .

Munnaji educated Indians are a nation of diffident people who have internalised the idea that we are newly freed slaves and that our pathetic condition is because we were enslaved. We are convinced that within ourselves we are pristine and pure, and all faults and evil have come from this enslavement and our masters. All remnants and reminders of that enslavement are blamed for today's ills and there is a widespread belief that the removal of that evil hangover will somehow make us revert back to that pristine glory. Nothing that is ancient "Indic" can be bad it is all uniform good, in this worldview - all goodness has been spoilt by evil slave masters and their conspirators who live among us. This is a lovely and convenient way to blame external agencies. And we see it happening on here too. Bharat Paindabad.

I am bound to cause irritation and anger, but just like Pakistan. Indians too suffer from a collective mental disease of a different sort that makes us whine and complain about all the external faults imposed on us rather than looking at what we need to clean up and set right. You cannot set anything right if your sole belief is that all things that are bad today are "external influences" and remnants from enslavement and removal of those influences to revert to an old ideal will set everything right. So there is denial of the need to move ahead with what we have without trying to reverse history. That is so eerily like Pakistan that it frightens me.

Our media and our elite and many among us are so enamored of this "former slaves" belief that it reflects in two ways. One is the caterwaul that we are zeros because of others. The other is constant irrational fear of those whom we see as masters or potential masters such as the Americans and the Chinese. A headline I saw on TV not 10 minutes ago was "US cold-shoulders India". (by not agreeing to extradite Headley). I am not even sure if an extradition request has been made, but the headline seems to pine for a warm American shoulder to support this nation of discarded slaves. I sometimes wonder if I am the only person who see this kind of nuance - but the language of grovelling, fear and slavery from the Indian media has been discussed before on this forum.

India is a mentally shackled nation. It's not "other Indians", "the Congress" or "psecs". It is every one of us in a sense. And being told this will not make anyone happy. I am beginning to feel that BRFs so called ability to stay ahead of the curve will gradually get whittled down as we settle into the comfortable conclusion that external agencies are to blame and all would be well with India and Indians minus those influences. We then have in BRF yet another variant of PakDef or Chowk.com or something. All good things must come to an end. Already BRF is so unrepresentative of India that it is getting laughable. I suppose letting it get worse is not a problem. The forum's former greatness (if any) must die sometime. I have mixed feelings. In a way I think BRF's cockiness must die before a better and more representative group of younger and more net savvy Indians can serve as a nidus for moving forward rather than being mired in a caterwaul about our pathetic history.

Hari Seldon · Post by **Hari Seldon** » 27 Dec 2009 20:06

^^^The more I think about it, the more convinced I am about the essential truth underlying Sri Shiv's thesis above.

He seems to say that BRF is becoming a paki-lite forum. At least just as unrepresentative and cocky. I am unable to refute that in toto. He may actually be bang-on on this one.

It is indeed a great fortune that a clear thinker, far-seer and dispassionate visionary such as Sri Shiv has chosen to continue to associate with so degenerate a forum in a noble and nishkam attempt to correct its wayward direction. He also indicates that perhaps it is beyond redemption.

Don't know about the others here, but for my part, sir, I thank thee. Your perspective and insight was indeed valuable.

/Have a nice day.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 27 Dec 2009 20:44

Hari Seldon wrote: It is indeed a great fortune that a clear thinker, far-seer and dispassionate visionary such as Sri Shiv has chosen to continue to associate with so degenerate a forum in a noble and nishkam attempt to correct its wayward direction. He also indicates that perhaps it is beyond redemption.

Appreciate the sarcasm Hari Seldon ji, but I have been associated with the forum for a long time. BRF was first off the mark to get Pakistan and Islamism sussed out. But now the world has caught up. BRF has little new to offer as far as I can tell. I will stay on here because I have no place else to go. But I am guessing a smarter, and possibly younger and mentally unfettered bunch will be able to come up with a more representative and forward looking forum that is capable of reading India with all its warts and suggest ways of moving India forward. Pakistan was easy.

BRF is predominantly a forum of highly educated forward community English speaking Hindu males with a healthy sprinkling of NRIs in which it is easy to be sarcastic or scathing about SC/STs and Muslims and where sarcasm about Hindus is not considered funny. On the ground in India this type of crowd usually means cocktail circuit of a particular restricted number of communities. I am guessing this will change when a different type of Indian gets empowered.

ShauryaT · Post by **ShauryaT** » 27 Dec 2009 21:13

shiv wrote: BRF is predominantly a forum of highly educated forward community English speaking Hindu males with a healthy sprinkling of NRIs in which it is easy to be sarcastic or scathing about SC/STs and Muslims and where sarcasm about Hindus is not considered funny. On the ground in India this type of crowd usually means cocktail circuit of a particular restricted number of communities. I am guessing this will change when a different type of Indian gets empowered.

Is there another forum out there, which is predominantly resident Indians, that represent more diverse walks of life?

ShauryaT · Post by **ShauryaT** » 27 Dec 2009 21:21

Yogi_G: A 26/11 every three years will ensure that the chanakian dream of riding it free and coming out on the top economically, will never succeed. Security is paramount to economic progress, one way or the other. There is no other way.

Also, please do an economic analysis (presuming there is a will and vision) of what this type of security will cost us and can India afford it.

Rony · Post by **Rony** » 27 Dec 2009 23:49

What caste actually was like

Old India had castes but not casteism. In its present form, casteism is a construct of colonial period, a product of imperial policies and colonial scholarship. It was strengthened by the breast-beating of our own “reformers”. Today, it has acquired its own momentum and vested interests.In the old days, the Hindu caste system was integrating principle. It provided economic security. One had a vocation as soon as one was born.- a dream for those threatened with chronic unemployment. The system combined security with freedom; it provided social space as well as closer identity; here the individual was not atomised and did not become rootless. There was also no dearth of social mobility; whole groups of people rose and fell in the social scale. Rigidity about the old Indian castes is a myth.

Ziegenbbalg writing on the eve of the British advent saw that at least one-third of the people practised other than their traditional calling and that “official and political functions, such as those of teachers, councillors, governors, priests, poets and even kings were not considered the prerogative of any particular group, but are open to all”.

Nor did India ever have such a plethora of castes as became the order of the day under the British rule. Megasthenes gives us seven fold division of the Hindu society; Hsuan Tsang, the Chinese pilgrim (650 A. D.) mentions four castes. Alberuni too mentions four main castes and some more groups which did not strictly belong to the caste system.

Even the list of greatly maligned Manu contained no more than 40 mixed castes, all related by blood. Even the Chandals were Brahmins on their father’s side. But under the British, Risley gave us 2,378 main castes, and 43 races! There is no count of sub-castes. Earlier, the 1891 census had already given us 1,156 sub-castes of chamars alone. To Risley, every caste was also ideally a race and had its own language.

Caste did not strike early European writers as something specifically Indian. They knew it in their own countries and saw it that way. J. S. Mill in his Political Economy said that occupational groups in Europe were “almost equivalent to an hereditary distinction of caste”.

To these observers, the word caste did not have the connotation it has today. Gita Dharampal Frick, an orientalist and linguist tells us that the early European writers on the subject used the older Greek word Meri which means a portion, share, contribution. Sebastian Franck (1534) used the German word Rott (rotte) meaning a “social group” or “cluster”. These words suggest that socially and economically speaking they found castes closer to each other than ordo or estates in Europe.

The early writers also saw no Brahmin domination though they found much respect for them. Those like Jurgen Andersen (1669) who described castes in Gujarat found that Vaishyas and not the Brahmins were the most important people there.

They also saw no sanskritisation. One caste was not trying to be another; it was satisfied with being itself. Castes were not trying to imitate the Brahmins to improve social status; they were proud of being what they were. There is a Tamil poem by Kamban in praise of the plough which says that “even being born a Brahmin does by far endow one with the same excellence as when one is born into a Vellala family”.

There was sanskritisation though but of a very different kind. People tried to become not Brahmins but Brahma-vadin. Different castes produced great saints revered by all. Ravi Das, a great saint, says that though of the family of chamars who still go around Benares removing dead cattle, yet even the most revered Brahmins now hold their offspring, namely himself, in great esteem.

With the advent of Islam the Hindu society came under great pressure; it faced the problem of survival. When the political power failed, castes took over; they became defence shields and provided resistance passive and active. But in the process, the system also acquired undesirable traits like untouchability. Alberuni who came along with Mahmud Ghaznavi mentions the four castes but no untouchability. He reports that “much, however, as these classes differ from each other, they live together in the same towns and villages, mixed together in the same houses and lodgings.”

Another acquired another trait; they became rigid and lost their mobility. H. A. Rose, Superintendent of Ethnography, Punjab (1901-1906), author of A Glossary of Punjab Tribes and Castes’ says that during the Muslim period, many Rajputs were degraded and they became scheduled castes and scheduled tribes. Many of them still retain the Rajput gotra of parihara and parimara. Similarly, G. W. Briggs in his The Chamars tells us that many chamars still carry the names and gotra of Rajput clans like Banaudhiya, Ujjaini, Chandhariya, Sarwariya, Kanaujiya, Chauhan, Chadel, Saksena, Sakarwar, Bhardarauiya, and Bundela, etc. Dr.K. S. Lal cites many similar instances in his recent “Growth of Scheduled Tribes and Castes in Medieval India”.

The same is true of bhangis. William Crooke of Bengal Civil Service tells us that the “rise of the present Bhangi caste seems from the names applied to the castes and its subdivisions, to date from the early period of Mohammedan rule”. Old Hindu literature mentions no bhangis of present function. In traditional Hindu rural society, he was a corn-measurer, a village policeman, a custodian of village boundaries. But scavenging came along with the Muslim and British rule. Their numbers also multiplied. According to 1901 Census, the bhangis were most numerous in the Punjab and the United Provinces which were the heartland of Muslim domination.

Then came the British who treated all Hindus equally – all as an inferior race – and fuelled their internal differences. They attacked Hinduism but cultivated the caste principle, two sides of the same coin. Hinduism had to be attacked. It gave India the principles of unity and continuity; it was also India’s definition at its deepest. It held together castes as well as the country. Take
away Hinduism and the country was easily subdued.

Caste in old India was a cooperative and cultural principle.; but it is now being turned into a principle of social conflict. In the old dispensation, castes followed dharma and its restraints; they knew how far they could go. But now a caste is a law unto itself; it knows no self-restraint except the restraint put on it by another class engaged in similar self-aggrandisement. The new self-styled social justice intellectuals and parties do not want castes without dharma. This may be profitable to some in the short run but it is suicidal for all in the long run.

In the old days, castes had leaders who represented the culture of the land, who were natural leaders of their people and were organic to them. But now a different leadership is coming to the fore; rootless, demagogic and ambitious, which uses caste slogans for self-aggrandisement.

Paul · Post by **Paul** » 28 Dec 2009 01:39

Appreciate the sarcasm Hari Seldon ji, but I have been associated with the forum for a long time. BRF was first off the mark to get Pakistan and Islamism sussed out. But now the world has caught up. BRF has little new to offer as far as I can tell. I will stay on here because I have no place else to go. But I am guessing a smarter, and possibly younger and mentally unfettered bunch will be able to come up with a more representative and forward looking forum that is capable of reading India with all its warts and suggest ways of moving India forward. Pakistan was easy.

Nepal/China would be something to look at...the CT theorists have driven the quality of the analysis into the shitholes...except for Stan, nobody has anything worthwhile to write about on Nepal.

Paul · Post by **Paul** » 28 Dec 2009 01:39

Appreciate the sarcasm Hari Seldon ji, but I have been associated with the forum for a long time. BRF was first off the mark to get Pakistan and Islamism sussed out. But now the world has caught up. BRF has little new to offer as far as I can tell. I will stay on here because I have no place else to go. But I am guessing a smarter, and possibly younger and mentally unfettered bunch will be able to come up with a more representative and forward looking forum that is capable of reading India with all its warts and suggest ways of moving India forward. Pakistan was easy.

Nepal/China would be something to look at...the CT theorists have driven the quality of the analysis into the shitholes...except for Stan, nobody has anything worthwhile to write about on Nepal.