India: The Empire Strikes Back

Re: # 42

BJ Bhai,

Say that more clearly without wasting too much of band width that Islam is indeed the most racist of all the cults and has relegated slavery and second grade citizen ship to dhimmis and prescribes death to idolators.

http://www.williamdalrymple.com (His web page)

Read some of his most wonderful observations/reviews on Tipoo Sultan, The great Khilfats of Islam..especially Baghdad.

I have a feeling that he is fascinated by Islam & Muslims and all the grandeur & dynamism associated with it. I think he is trying to bring out to the western world what has yet been deliberately concealed by the Imperialists , Colonisers & the colonised (dogs) mindset of the Oooons.

This "article" was perhaps published in April 2007..maybe even earlier but I spotted it published somewhere with that dateline.

Will D has perhaps not even seen this site..though a formal permission was obtained from him by CHOWK STAFF.

It was not a bad idea to have him here for august but maybe only one article was enough & others could have been given
as suggestions but not for interacts...& then there was the wart-faced Phoodbhoy....

astaghfarullaaah

P.S: Is it possible that ROMAIR, now Bulleya, had anything to do with this Anniversary Special.

#52 Kaalchakra

Casey, you live in your own la-la land!

First, if the Rymple is not reading these interacts, he is not losing anything – especially his time!

Second, one can NEVER learn much about the subcontinent by watching people on this site – whose denizens are invariably fakers who are either a bunch of gutless expatriate cowards hanging on for dear life to bygone myths and prejudices of yester-decades while denying the existence of the same – or couch potatoes from the sub continent who are stuck inside their own honeycomb cells worse than any prisoners-for-life trapped inside Sing-Sing could ever be! The Rymple has been learning of India by mingling with the common folks of that country – not by clinking wine glasses with the obnoxiously fat, rich buffoons of its metropolises.

Third, I doubt he cares whether you envy the Brits. (Assuming Scots can be designated as such.) People who have settled among those of a different land usually have learnt to rise above such prejudices.

Fourth, his ancestors would not agree that they committed a folly by landing up in India. I think they made it good! (Looking at the old pictures, most of them look prosperous and fat!)

Fifth, since he is not spending his time here but WE are – who do you think is REALLY “paying” for it?

PS: You may be breaking some chowk guidelines by distorting his name!

Mr. Damnpimple,

It's your loss you probably don't read these interacts. If you did, you will learn a lot about us Indians and Pakistanis. :)
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Sincerely, I don't envy you Brits. You are paying for the folly of your ancestors landing up in India. But at least you are paying for it :)

#46 Salim Chauhan

Salim my dear,

Clearly, not every individual (in any group) is made from the same cloth. Lately, I have taken to a bit of sweeping statements and generalizations (because even tireless people like me do get lazy over time). :(

I use the term “racist” with relation to those Muslims (on either side of the border) who supported the separation of a people based on the religious label!

I do so because the term “racist” is the one that comes closest to my mind when I think of such people.

The worldwide trait of a racist is that racists make a distinction among “their kind” from the “other kind”. That was the underlying basis for the creation of Pakistan – no matter however else one (tries to) slice it and dice it and serve it!

In my opinion, there is little point in calling something “stupid” after the fact – which is how you are looking at it. It probably works fine as far as venting one’s feelings are concerned – but gives us no lessons for the future. However, when we try to give the problem a shape and outline that we can understand and recognize – we can use such understanding to prevent it from recurring later.

Since racism all over the world been has been pretty much discredited, clearly racists (by and large) are not “smart”! For example, within the USA, most of the racism permeates the stratum of society which is less educated, generally poor, and many times exploited by others – not the characteristics of a smart lot. But are racists – by definition, all stupid?! Unfortunately not! Some of those people are opportunists who can exploit the foolishness of others and bring about catastrophe! I prefer to call such people pure evil!

PS: Talking of getting rid of foolishness, have you made up yet with Ms. Saminasha on that most ludicrous, meaningless, and long-running chowk feud?

echoboom #43:

{{THe tragedy is that the Baboons came as traders, & not as mujahids..an act vilified & scorned by superior cultures...}}

Superior cultures by your definition … which has no particular claims to universality. So the pirates came to trade – but they found out soon enough that the structure was rotten, and they were smart enough to take full advantage of it. Face it, by 1800 they had dominance in practically every tangible field of human endeavour, from science to government to warmaking. They used those advantages to the hilt. Your favourite civilization’s alleged superiority is only in your head and nowhere else – its demise is a tragedy for you but not for me.

Will you ever realise that your exalting mujahids and despising baniyas and intellectuals may be a fatal weakness?

echoboom #43:

I don’t know why you brought up China and Japan. For the record, China has a long and very impressive record of steady technical innovation through about 1700. They were world leaders until the Europeans overtook them. India for that matter did originate some innovations like the technique for making wootz steel.

I asked about mathematics because this is a field where India was very competitive with other civilizations for a very long period. Almost all the early Indian mathematicians were astrologers/astronomers by trade. Ujjain down the centuries was a major centre for these people. Around 1200 CE mathematics in North India seems to peter out. I wonder what happened around that time?

It’s not as though Muslims were not interested in observational astronomy – they had to be, for fairly obvious reasons. Apparently Humayun built an observatory or two. Moreover Muslims down the centuries have not been averse to writing books. So why do we hear nothing of mathematics under the Mughals or their predecessors? Was there none, or were the records destroyed?

#43 Posted by echoboom on August 21, 2007 1:48:49 pm


look now we have billionaires & ITers".


Presence of billionaires in India represents opportunity, not prosperity. conversely, the lack of billionaires(or near billionaires) in pureland represents lack of opportunity.



There are Mujahids of all kinds . Some prefer labs & some prefer battle-fields.


You pakis are failures in labs and failures in battlefields...

#45 Posted by Salim_Chauhan
Masadi #35
You rock!


YOU SAID IT MAN! Mr. ahmed Madani , the most knowledgeable, non-intellectualised,, original, and un-cynical, non-westocicated interactor has told us that.

Do you know where the Ooons are? CHOWK-1997 to CHOWK 2007 what an ecstatic experience of mutiple-flinchisms by the Ooons.

Keep 'em comin'

bjkumar #42 {"one could point to the caste system (now beginning to disappear) among Hindus and one could point to the strong racism of the Muslims (the “we are different from other people of faith so we must be treated differently” mindset – which would later lead to Pakistan)."}

BJ Bhayya,
You are totally wrong. There was nothing racist about Muslims attitude leading to Pakistan - it was not racism, it was STUPIDITY.

Masadi #35
You rock!

Will you all stop it you making me feel guilty,next time I draw my dole I’ll be thinking if this is paid for by the blood of my forefathers.

This what our music teacher used to make us sing in school.

“Rule Britannia, Britannia rules the waves”

Jang:

The filth, poverty, and the immorality of US or India also cannot be attributed to the progress made by .." look now we have billionaires & ITers".

All over the world there waere monarchs..the Britto-Baboons monarch & their Kohinoor from ammaaN-India is a good example of their great civilization of producing Haraamis, Khusraas , & kanjarRs who are quite happy to recolonise India again via Follywood & the great advancement India is making in posting its Maader-Rates & Maader-RUNS for the world to see via sattelite.

AlephNull:
You switched the subject. Even today India, China, & even Japan are nowhere close to the Scientific R&D..the reasons are complex..but the ode-coolie syndrome & the urge to become Daakters or get Jaabs in Labs is the prefered route for the baniaa minds always looking for security & savings.

There are Mujahids of all kinds . Some prefer labs & some prefer battle-fields. THe tragedy is that the Baboons came as traders, & not as mujahids..an act vilified & scorned by superior cultures...it is called buGHal meiN churree , munh pay daam daam ( is there an equivalent in Baboon-babble?)

The administrative consolidation of the Indian subcontinent was not carried out with a view to bring any benefits to the natives – it was for the convenience of the ruling parties – therefore, it makes no sense to “praise” the British for that. It just happened. The British were not there for the good of the public – they were there to benefit themselves – and they tried to make life better – mostly for themselves!

Now, a couple of cents regarding the atrocities committed during the days of the Raj.

The goras who inhabited India back then were afflicted with the same disease of racism that goras all over the world were (and who remained that way) for at least three or four centuries. Racism was a widespread disease (and in certain pockets, it still is).

But one must be fair – racism came in many varieties back then and it does so today also. For example, one could point to the caste system (now beginning to disappear) among Hindus and one could point to the strong racism of the Muslims (the “we are different from other people of faith so we must be treated differently” mindset – which would later lead to Pakistan).

Which of those racisms is the worst? Actually they all are bad – but people criticize the one that THEY are at the receiving end of. Accordingly, one would find people of color complaining about color-based racism in the USA (and in other parts of the world) but seldom find goras doing so (at least back in those days (many Christians being notable exceptions – because their religious conviction overcame the prejudice)).

In the same way, in today’s Pakistan, you rarely find a Pakistani admit his or her religion-based racism – most would merely make excuses!

Regarding whether the British promoted religious intolerance – it is amply clear that the fault lines were present for a long time – well before the British arrived. There were some fair Mughal rulers and some who committed atrocities – but being fair was strictly upto the whim of an individual ruler (dictator). Those who were doing well under that setup wanted to keep the status quo – for their own personal benefit. As needed, the British played those fault lines to their own advantage – mostly propping up the likes of the Jinnah. But the British did not invent the religious intolerance previously present and vigorously built up by the Jinnah in the 1940’s – they merely took advantage of it. Therefore, the blame for that must be put on that head man – the dead man!

echo, you are right about akbars income. the problem is akbars income was pretty much half of entire indias income (well it costed entire india half its income to fill emperors treasury).