Please keep the other posts on topic. Use this for talking about whatever you want to talk about.
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QRT123
5 years ago
Hi Razib,
I need suggestions for a good book on how Punjab became Muslim similar to Eaton’s Bengal frontier book. I couldn’t find anything comprehensive on the internet and a god book on Jain history. Most historians don’t really separate Jainism and Hinduism when they write about Indian history.
Sorry if I am overstepping some bounds but I assume this open topic might be the best way to put this across?
Milan Todorovic
5 years ago
INTRO (0/3)
I believe that many readers from SA, regardless if they are of Aryan or non-Aryan descent, would be interested to know more about their ancestors, about people which in ancient time lived between Scotland and Aral Sea (and later further to China), between Baltic and Sahara. In this and some future comments will be presented less known information about ancestors who lived in North Africa where left thousands of their toponyms. Let mention only couple – Tripoli, Serbian region (Regio Sirtica-Tunisia), Serbica bay (Gulf of Sirte), lake Chad. One of Out of Africa things will be interesting to read (not now) about big ancient expedition of 600 thousand of warriors, 24000 horsemen, 27000 chariots from Africa who invaded Europe and India.
Sesostris led the above-mentioned war expedition to India. I read that ancient Hindu writings record his invasion of India. I don’t know if Sesostris Bank, a submerged bank or sunken atoll belonging to the Amindivi Subgroup of islands of the Union Territory of Lakshadweep, India, 1,800 km south of Delhi got its name from him.
Milan Todorovic
5 years ago
RE: VANDALS – a Serbian tribe (1/3)
Vandals were one of famous Serbian (NOT Germanic as wiki says) tribes. In 429, the Vandals, estimated to number 80,000 people, had crossed by boats from Spain to N. Africa. In 439 the Vandals renewed their advance eastward and captured Carthage, the most important city of N. Africa. The fledgling kingdom then conquered the Roman-ruled islands of Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica in the Mediterranean Sea. In the 460s the Romans launched two unsuccessful military expeditions by sea in an attempt to overthrow the Vandals and reclaim N. Africa. Although primarily remembered for the sack of Rome in 455 and their persecution of Nicene Christians in favour of Arian Christianity, the Vandals were also patrons of learning. Grand building projects continued, schools flourished and N. Africa fostered many of the most innovative writers, musicians and natural scientists of the late Latin Western Roman Empire.
From the beginning of their invasion of N. Africa in 429, the Vandals – who were predominantly followers of ARIANISM – persecuted the Nicene church. This persecution began with the unfettered violence inflicted against the church during Genseric’s invasion but, with the legitimization of the Vandal kingdom, the oppression became entrenched in ‘more coherent religious policies’. Huneric, Genseric’s son and successor, continued and intensified the repression of the Nicene church and attempted to make ARIANISM the primary religion in N. Africa.
The Vandal Kingdom ended in 534 when it was conquered by a Serbian military leader from Constantinople, Belisarius, in the Vandalic War and incorporated it into the Eastern Roman Empire. Belisarius was sent by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian, who was also a Serb from the city of Pec, Kosovo and his original name was Upravda.
SIDE NOTE: Justinian is a Latin translation of his Serbian name Upravda (=justice). It is also a root word for JUSTICE, Justin, etc. In Russian is still its archaic meaning (= truth). Some remember the well-known Russian paper PRAVDA.
(U)Pravda (=justice) is in the title of the Serbian national anthem: “Boze, Pravda” = ‘O God (give us) Justice!’
The island Serba (Tunisian pronunciation is Djerba) was a central part of Vandals’ kingdom.
Milan Todorovic
5 years ago
RE: Island SERBA = Djerba (Tunisia) (2/3)
Serba, i.e. Djerba is an island were ancient Serbs lived and gave their name to this island. Djerba (Arabic: جربة About this soundˈʒɪrbæ) is the largest island of N. Africa, located in the Gulf of Gabès, off the coast of Tunisia. The Battle of Djerba (Turkish: Cerbe) took place in May 1560 near the island of Djerba (Serba), Tunisia. The Ottomans under Piyale Pasha’s command overwhelmed a large joint Christian Alliance fleet. The allies lost 27 galleys and some smaller vessels as well as the fortified island of Serba. This victory marked perhaps the high point of Ottoman power in the Mediterranean Sea. The victory in the Battle of Djerba represented the apex of Ottoman naval domination in the Mediterranean, which had been growing since the victory at the Battle of Preveza 22 years earlier.
As many as 8000 men aboard the ships were killed or drowned. The 5000 men of the Christian garrison held out for the three months against 14000 Turks before starvation forced their capitulation. Nearly the entire the garrison died in the 80-day siege or were subsequently executed.
After Djerba (Serba) battle, the Maltese channel remained open and it was inevitable that the Ottomans soon turned on the new base of the Knights of St John in Malta in 1565 but failed in taking it.
The victorious Ottomans erected a 30-foot-high pyramid of skulls of the defeated Spanish defenders, which stood until the late nineteenth century. A small monument now stands in its place at Borj Ghazi Mustafa, Homt Souk.
In Algeria in 1558 an expedition of 12000 Spaniards led by Count Alcuadete went on Mostagnem but the force was destroyed by Algerian-Ottoman Army. Alcudete and 6000 of his men were killed and the rest captured. One of the captured was a future famous Spanish writer of Serbian origin, Miguel Servantes (i.e. Serbantes). Servantes subsequently spent five years as a prisoner and a slave and made several failed attempts to escape during his imprisonment. He was finally able to return home after a ransom was paid for his release. His captivity was described in the book “Cervantes in Algiers: a captive’s tale by María Antonia Garcés” (free on Internet).
Milan Todorovic
5 years ago
RE: NIS (Serbia) (3/3)
NIS is the second largest city in Serbia. It is known as the place where the First Aryan expedition, led by Nino Belov-Nimrod, went to SA in 2025BC. Many ancient cities in SA later got the same name (Including the first name of modern Tehran). It is also known as the city where a Serbian Roman Emperor Constantine legalised Christianity religion in 313AC.
250 years after Ottomans erected a pyramid of skulls of the defeated Spanish defenders on the Serba island, there was a battle in the Nis.
The Battle of Čegar (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_%C4%8Cegar) was a battle of the First Serbian Uprising against Ottoman forces near the Niš Fortress in 1809, which ended in an Ottoman’s victory. Serbian Commander Stevan Sinđelić famously blew up the gunpowder storeroom when the Ottomans overtook his trench, killing everyone in it.
Heads of dead Serb victims were collected, skinned and that the skulls built into the “Skull Tower”. This tower was built along the road to Constantinople, as a warning to anyone revolting against the Ottoman Empire in same way as in the ancient Serbian island, Serba (today’s Tunisia), several hundreds of years before that.
Mosty nothing special, just the usual nonsense the West puts out about India. Though you do get the author (an Evangelical Christian) adding the usual canards about conversion-don’t get that from NYT lol.
I’ve noticed that a lot of ‘Intellectual Dark Web’ are wont to take the usual lefty-liberal position on India/Hindus.
There’s no one coming to help you.
What about Sam Harris, Stephen Hicks, Joe Rogan, Jordan Peterson. What they have is ignorance. In general the intellectual dark web are more interested in a high resolution exchange with eastern philosophy than visa versa.
Obviously Russel Brand does not count because he is a self identified Hindu.
The ideas or values of the IDW are very similar to eastern philosophy.
The “IDW” position on India is more one of apathy rather than antipathy. I looked at Quillette and they barely talk about India at all (for good or ill). Areo is a bit different, because Iona Italia basically copypastes the Left party line, but it doesn’t seem to come up much in the actual magazine.
It does explain why so many young Indian Americans are on the left side of the American political spectrum.
Believe it or not, the Western right is far more non-inclusive than the Indian one. Only that its violent elements are constrained by a much better system of rule of law. Otherwise, pogroms against Jews were so commonplace in Europe, up to the modern era, that there is little surprise that things ended in a Holocaust there.
Let Bandow speak after an American president delivers a speech on an American Muslim becoming a Grand Mufti at a major Middle Eastern mosque: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3ExsIIj3fM
@H.M.Brough
“Mosty nothing special, just the usual nonsense the West puts out about India. Though you do get the author (an Evangelical Christian) adding the usual canards about conversion-don’t get that from NYT lol. ”
Sigh, I hear this too much, everything from the west is nonsense when the hindutva sympathetic wish to dismiss any criticism of their ideal selves. I think you are very selective on deeming nonsense in the West, being that you’re in the West, in I’m assuming from your other comments, in a profession as an M.D. whose present day incarnation as standardized occupation was formed in the West. It’s not nonsense when you make use of all the amenities formed in the west and copied the world over, such blueprints of good university, the many inventions of technology, rule of law, protection of (including religious) minority rights, relatively better infrastructure and definitely excellent opportunities as your prescence attests. All the knowledge that you learn in academics which was mostly derived from west was not so much nonsense to you as a non-native born that you came to take advantage and all the while exhibit your passive aggressive prejudice against your fellow indians who happen to have chosen or stayed in a faith that is not your own and then try to disingenously lead others to believe that the hindutva agenda is so benign. Please feel free to leave the West, India seems to be missing doctors and you could do so much more good there, and you then do not have to encounter all this “nonsense” in the west.
Is Dr. Roshini Raj(apaksa), who appears on CBS This Morning and other American television shows related to the Rajapaksa political family of Sri Lanka? An internet search did not bring up anything.
Definitely not a close relative. She was born in the US, that means her parents arrived in the US in the 60’s (MOM IS A GASTROENTEROLOGIST, like me, and my dad’s a lung specialist.)
OK, NOT a relative. Rajapakse is common name and spelt in different ways. (Sometimes spelling indicates caste).
Anyway this family seem to be Christian and intermarried with Eurasians (Burghers) and Colombo Chettys.
The bride is the daughter of Dr. Anura and Dr. Mrs. Trikante Nalini Rajapakse (born 10/05/1945) , and is herself a doctor and is an attending Gastroenterologist on Faculty at New York University School of Medicine, and the senior medical correspondent for the WB 11 Morning News television programme. She is a graduate of the Harvard University and NYU School of Medicine.
Her parents are natives of Colombo, Sri Lanka who have been domiciled in the United States for many years. The Groom Vivek Manohar Nasta, is the son of Drs. Manohar and Sucheta Nastar, and is a corporate development executive at Nokia. He is a graduate of Stanford University and the Harvard Business School and his parents are from Mumbai, India.
Support for the American Revolution was not limited to Europe.
South Indian Mysore rebellion against the British East India Company was organized by pro-American Muslim leader Hyder Ali which tied up British troops from being deployed to America. Ali was so admired that American poems were written about him and in 1780 a sixteen gun war ship was set from Philadelphia to do battle with the British Navy named the Haidar Ali.
In Africa, under Emperor Sidi Mohammed’s direction, Morocco was the first nation to recognize American independence in 1777. The nation also harbored American ships, protecting them from British-controlled Barbary pirates with George Washington later writing letters of thanks to the Sultan of Morocco.
Today is a Saint George day, who is a patron of my family. Every Serbian family has its saint patron which is inherited by male lineage since the beginning of Christianity. This day is called ‘slava’ (feast, celebration, glory). It is only present at Serbs among all Christian nations in the world and it is registered at UNESCO as non-material cultural heritage. ‘Slava’ is a day when the head of family usually go to church service in the morning with bread, wine and wheat and after that their home is open for a whole day for extended family and friends for visits, usually with very rich table of meals and drinks. Family and friends get together and enjoy this day to socialize and be together. They return visit to friends when is their saint day i.e. slava.
‘Slava’ originated from pre-Christianity when Serbs for thousands of years celebrated many gods. Christianity could not eradicate this worshiping and accommodated their saints to be close to pagan celebration days to make this switch to new religion smoothly. It was only needed for Serbs because they had thousands of years of previous history and it was not needed for younger ‘instant’ nations such as Germans, Romans and even Greeks. Some Serbian deities, for e.g. their top deity, Ilia (i.e. Perun or Indra) were directly co-opted to Christianity under the same name and now is celebrated as a Christian saint. Serbian god Ilia is known to the rest of the world as the name given to Babylon (‘the gate of Ilia’) given by its Serbian founder Nimrod, as Indra which Aryans brought to India, as the name of Troy (i.e. Ilion – Iliad) and as the god which Jesus called during his crucifixion (Ilia, Ilia, have you forgotten me?).
St George served in Diocletian’s army in Serbia and was tortured and murder because of preaching Christianity. Even Diocletian’s wife, empress Alexandra (they both were Serbs and lived in the Roman Empire capitol Sirmium in Serbia) based on George’s example converted to Christianity and she was also condemned to death. Diocletian’s co-inheritors, Constantine and Lycinius, both Serbs, were at war where Constantine won. Only few years after George’s sacrifice Constantine legalized Christianity in Roman Empire.
If you ask any American for e.g. even devoted Evangelical, about who was St. George (or St. Nicolas, or St. John, etc) hardly anyone can say anything meaningful. At the best, they can quote Wiki as many do here. Previous couple sentences are only for thinking Pundits to push further the envelope of our knowledge. We will continue this story when become appropriate. Happy ‘slava’ to everyone who celebrate today! All Pundits are welcome to visit my home!
Original letters from India; containing a narrative of a journey through Egypt and the author’s imprisonment at Calicut by Hyder Ally. To which is added, an abstract of three subsequent voyages to India. By Mrs. Fay. Calcutta, 1817.
While researching ancient Serbian presence in North Africa and historical connections with SA I found some new interesting directions for research related to JAT people in India. Before I present my findings, let see what WIKI says about JAT people:
World Jat Aryan Foundation is an organization of the Jats that aims to serve the Jat community around the world,[1] in various aspects. It was founded in 2001 by Hoshiar Singh was its first president.[2]
The foundation is presided by Navjot Singh Sidhu.[1] Sahib Singh Verma served the World Jat Aryan Foundation, as its former president.[1]
In September 2003, the foundation hosted the World Jat Aryan Congress at BELGRADE.[2] However, the foundation attracted the outburst from the External Affairs Minister, Yashwant Sinha, as the foundation was directly in touch Serbia-Montenegro Embassy at India, while the Ministry of External Affairs had no clue about this.[2] As the Delhi elections were just approaching, the Prime Minister of India, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, got involved to convince Sahib Singh Verma to cancel his scheduled program to attend the World Jat Congress.[2] Following the controversy, Vajpayee issued a written appeal to all the Cabinet Ministers of India to consult the Ministry of External Affairs on “issues concerning India’s projection or representation abroad, and initiatives involving foreign governments” before scheduling such events.[2] As a consequence, the congress was held in September later that year which had been scheduled to be held July.[2]
Professor B. S. Dhillon states that Jat people are mainly of Indo-Scythian lineage with composite mixing of Sarmatians, Goths & Jutes in History and study of the Jats. Historian James Tod agreed in considering the Jat people to be of Indo-Scythian Stock.[61] Moreover, Sir Alexander Cunningham, Former Director-General of the Archeological Survey of India, considered the Jat people to be the Xanthii (a Scythian tribe) of Scythian stock who he considered very likely called the Zaths (Jats) of early Arab writers.[62] He stated “their name is found in Northern India from the beginning of the Christian era.” These people were considered by early Arab writers to have descended from Meds and Zaths.[63][64] Sir Cunningham believes they “were in full possession of the valley of the Indus towards the end of the seventh century.[65] The Kipling Society has certified and advocated that, “The Rajputs proper were of mixed origin – pre-Muslim invaders such as Scythians, Bactrians, Parthians, Hunas and Gurjaras who came in before, say, the end of the 7th century.”[66]
Sir Alexander Cunningham, (Former Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India) wrote: The Xanthii (a Scythian tribe) are very probably the Zaths (Jats) of the early Arab writers. As the Zaths were in Sindh to the west of the Indus, this location agrees very well with what we know of the settlement of the Sakas (Scythians) on the Indian frontier.[67]
Sir John Marshall, (Former Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India) wrote: “These Scythian invaders came principally from the three great tribes of Massagetae (great Jats), Sacaraucae, and Dahae (still exists as a Jat clan of Punjab)[68], whose home at the beginning of the second century B.C. was in the country between the Caspian sea (sea) and the Jaxartes river (Central Asia).[69]
H. Bingley wrote: “It is from these Scythian Immigrants that most of the Jat tribes are at any rate partly descended.”[71]
Professor Henry Smith Williams wrote: “The extent of the Scythian invasion has been variously estimated. Some scholars believe that they virtually supplanted the previous population of India (means Punjab), and there seems little doubt that by far the most numerous section of the Punjab population is of Scythian origin.”[73]
Professor Pritam Singh Gill wrote: “There is a general concensus of opinion that Jats, and with them Rajputs and Gujjars were foreigners who came from their original home, near the Oxus, Central Asia.”[74]
Professor Tadeusz Sulimirski wrote: “The evidence of both the ancient authors and the archaeological remains point to a massive migration of Sacian (Sakas)/Massagetan (“great” Jat) tribes from the Syr Daria Delta (Central Asia) by the middle of the second century B.C. Some of the Syr Darian tribes; they also invaded North India.”[75]
I. Sara wrote: “Recent excavations in the Ukraine and Crimea. The finds points to the visible links of the Jat and Scythians.”[78]
J. Daniell wrote: “Jats, who describe their ancestors as being immigrants from the west.”[79]
Sir Mountstuart Elphinstone Grant Duff wrote: “My conclusion, therefore, is, that the Jats may be of Scythian descent.”[80]
Ujagir Singh Mahil wrote: “Jat were called Scythians; because they were the inhabitants of the ancient country of Scythia. The Jats who invaded the Punjab and conquered India up to Benares were called Indo-Scythians.”[81]
James Francis Katherinus Hewitt wrote: “Further evidence both of the early history and origin of the race of Jats, or Getae, is given by the customs and geographical position of another tribe of the same stock, called the Massagetae, or great (massa) Getae.”[82]
Syed Muhammad Latif wrote: “A considerable portion of the routed army of the Scythians settled in the Punjab, and a race of them, called Nomardy, inhabited the country on the west bank of the Indus (river). They are described as a nomadic tribe, living in wooden houses, after the old Scythian fashion, and settling where they found sufficient pasturage. A portion of these settlers, the descendants of Massagetae, were called Getes, from whom sprung the modern Jats.”[84]
Dr. Gopal Singh wrote: “The Jats of the Panjab, are Scythians in origin and came from Central Asia, whose one branch migrated as far south in Europe as Bulgaria. “[85]
N. Singh wrote: “The Scythians appear to originate from Central Asia. They reached Punjab between 50 B.C. and A.D. 50. It seems probable that the Scythian ancestors of the Jats entered the Sindh Valley (presently in Pakistan Kashmir) between 100 B.C. and A.D. 100.”[86]
Satya Shrava wrote: “The Jats are none other than the Massagetae (Great Getae) mentioned in Diodorus as an off-spring of the ancient Saka tribe…. a fact now well-known.”[87]
S. Nijjar wrote: “The Jats are the descendants of Scythians, whose kingdom’s capital was Scythia, in the present Ukraine.
>>>>>>>>> Identification as Massagetaeans >>>>>>>
Steven M. Collins advocates the identification of Massagetaeans as “Great Jits or Jats” of Asia.[89][90]
Weer Rajendra Rishi advocates that the Jats are none other than the Massagetaeans (Maha/Great Getae).[91]
Rahul Sankrityayan had identified the Jats as Massagetaeans.[92]
Arnold Joseph Toynbee wrote: “It may not be fantastic to conjecture that the Tuetonic-speaking Goths and Gauts of Scandinavia may have been descended from a fragment of the same Indo-European-speaking tribe as the homonymous Getae and Thyssagetae and Massagetae of the Eurasian Steppe who are represented today by the Jats of the Panjab.”[93]
Arnold Joseph Toynbee, also wrote: “It had been carried from the Oxus-Jaxartes Basin into the Indus Basin by the Massagetae themselves, together with their tribal name (the Jats), in their Volkerwander- ung in the second century BC”[94]
George Rawlinson has identified the Massagetaeans as “Great Jits or Jats” of Asia.[95][96][97][98][99][100]
Sir Richard Francis Burton wrote: “The Massagetae (greater Jats or Goths) are opposed to the Thyssa (or lesser) Getae, and both used the sagaris.”[101]
Mayuresh Madhav Kelkar
5 years ago
Azmat Gharani Amazings (sic) Reply to DG ISPR Asif Ghafoor and ISI
Good to read you again, MMK. Please have a look my previous comment (the main text is running late and probably is still sitting in Razib’s ass bin) and try to answer. I wasn’t there in 2003 and I did not know about this until this morning. The question is for all BPs:
1. Why India’s Prime Minister intervened as he did?
2. Why was the Jat Aryan Foundation Congress cancelled?
3. Why the Congress was, however, held 2 months after cancellation?
The Indo-Aryan origin of Jats has been advocated on the basis of ethnological, physical and linguistic standards by many historians like Ernest Binfield Havell,[42] Qanungo,[43] Chintaman Vinayak Vaidya,[44] Sir Herbert Risley,[45] Thakur Deshraj,[46], Dr Natthan Singh[47], Mangal Sen Jindal[48], etc. Sir Herbert Risley declared the Jats to be the true representatives of the Vedic Aryans.
According to Maheswari Prasad of Banaras Hindu University, Jats belong to the Proto-Vedic Aryan stock. But being on the periphery of Madhyadesha, the cradle of Vedic culture, they did not undergo the social transformation on the line of varna system and monarchial political organizaion.
Professor B. S. Dhillon states that Jat people are mainly of Indo-Scythian lineage with composite mixing of Sarmatians, Goths & Jutes in History and study of the Jats. Historian James Tod agreed in considering the Jat people to be of Indo-Scythian Stock.[61] Moreover, Sir Alexander Cunningham, Former Director-General of the Archeological Survey of India, considered the Jat people to be the Xanthii (a Scythian tribe) of Scythian stock who he considered very likely called the Zaths (Jats) of early Arab writers.
Sir Alexander Cunningham, (Former Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India) wrote: The Xanthii (a Scythian tribe) are very probably the Zaths (Jats) of the early Arab writers. As the Zaths were in Sindh to the west of the Indus, this location agrees very well with what we know of the settlement of the Sakas (Scythians) on the Indian frontier.[67]
Sir John Marshall, (Former Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India) wrote: “These Scythian invaders came principally from the three great tribes of Massagetae (great Jats), Sacaraucae, and Dahae (still exists as a Jat clan of Punjab)[68], whose home at the beginning of the second century B.C. was in the country between the Caspian sea (sea) and the Jaxartes river (Central Asia).[69]
Arthur Edward Barstow wrote: “The Medii, Xanthii, Jatii, Getae and other Scythian races, were gradually working their way from the banks of the Oxus into Southern Afghanistan and the pastoral highland about Quetta (a Pakistani city)
A. H. Bingley wrote: “It is from these Scythian Immigrants that most of the Jat tribes are at any rate partly descended.”[71]
Milan Todorovic
5 years ago
RE: About Jat people (2/3)
Professor Joyce Pettigrew wrote: “Another view holds that the Jats came from Asia Minor and Armenia in the successive invasions during the period 600 B.C. to A.D. 600.”[72]
Professor Henry Smith Williams wrote: “The extent of the Scythian invasion has been variously estimated. Some scholars believe that they virtually supplanted the previous population of India (means Punjab), and there seems little doubt that by far the most numerous section of the Punjab population is of Scythian origin.”[73]
Professor Pritam Singh Gill wrote: “There is a general consensus of opinion that Jats, and with them Rajputs and Gujjars were foreigners who came from their original home, near the Oxus, Central Asia.”[74]
Professor Tadeusz Sulimirski wrote: “The evidence of both the ancient authors and the archaeological remains point to a massive migration of Sacian (Sakas)/Massagetan (“great” Jat) tribes from the Syr Daria Delta by the middle of the second century B.C. Some of the Syr Darian tribes; they also invaded North India.”[75]
I. Sara wrote: “Recent excavations in the Ukraine and Crimea. The finds points to the visible links of the Jat and Scythians.”[78]
C. J. Daniell wrote: “Jats, who describe their ancestors as being immigrants from the west.”[79]
Sir Mountstuart Elphinstone Grant Duff wrote: “My conclusion, therefore, is, that the Jats may be of Scythian descent.”[80]
Ujagir Singh Mahil wrote: “Jat were called Scythians; because they were the inhabitants of the ancient country of Scythia. The Jats who invaded the Punjab and conquered India up to Benares were called Indo-Scythians.”[81]
James Francis Katherinus Hewitt wrote: “Further evidence both of the early history and origin of the race of Jats, or Getae, is given by the customs and geographical position of another tribe of the same stock, called the Massagetae, or great (massa) Getae.”[82]
It’s interesting that the Scythians settlements were in the agricultural East Punjab and Haryana region. The Iranians of the East seeking refugee in India.. an old story…
The Rajputs, Gujjars are said to be Iranic too..
Milan Todorovic
5 years ago
RE: About Jat people (3/3)
Syed Muhammad Latif wrote: “A considerable portion of the routed army of the Scythians settled in the Punjab. A portion of these settlers, the descendants of Massagetae, were called Getes, from whom sprung the modern Jats.”[84]
Dr. Gopal Singh wrote: “The Jats of the Panjab, are Scythians in origin and came from Central Asia, whose one branch migrated as far south in Europe as Bulgaria. “[85]
Satya Shrava wrote: “The Jats are none other than the Massagetae (Great Getae) mentioned in Diodorus as an off-spring of the ancient Saka tribe…. a fact now well-known.”[87]
B. S. Nijjar wrote: “The Jats are the descendants of Scythians, whose kingdom’s capital was Scythia, in the present Ukraine.
Steven M. Collins advocates the identification of Massagetaeans as “Great Jits or Jats” of Asia.[89][90]
Weer Rajendra Rishi advocates that the Jats are none other than the Massagetaeans (Maha/Great Getae).[91]
Rahul Sankrityayan had identified the Jats as Massagetaeans.[92]
George Rawlinson has identified the Massagetaeans as “Great Jits or Jats” of Asia.
Sir Richard Francis Burton wrote: “The Massagetae (greater Jats or Goths) are opposed to the Thyssa (or lesser) Getae, and both used the sagaris.”
@Milanković from another thread to keep that one on topic:
“A question for you – is it true that some assertions exist that the Theory of relativity is not universal, i.e. there were some findings (theoretical/experimental?) that some particles traveled faster than the speed of light. ”
Relativity is not a theory — it is a requirement one imposes on consistent physical theories. Notice how the length of something, say a pencil, is the same no matter which orientation you choose to look at it in space (rotational invariance). The equivalent statement in spacetime implies a variety of things, including the constancy of the speed of light for all observers (rotational invariance in spacetime = special relativity).
You can choose to relax this requirement in any theory you’d like to write down, but it won’t correspond to the universe we observe. Every few years there’s always someone that claims relativity is violated, only for it to turn out to be a mistake in their measurement (or in the case of the `superluminal neutrinos’ purportedly seen by the Opera experiment back in ’11, the result of some faulty wiring) that resulted in the spurious claim. No evidence so far that special relativity has been violated. In fact, it’s one of the most accurately constrained properties of the universe — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_searches_for_Lorentz_violation#Threshold_constraints
Having said that, theoretical physicists like to entertain what things might look like in any consistent universe even if it isn’t ours. One can indeed re-introduce an ether to provide a fixed frame of reference (look up Einstein-Aether theory if you’re interested). Here, you can have signals that propagate faster than the speed of light, but it takes infinite energy to create closed timelike curves so the consistency of the theory is saved. Of course, this is not our universe, and there isn’t a shred of evidence that such an ether exists now or in the past.
Good attempt SP. Just one correction – “rotational invariance in spacetime = special relativity” is not a factually correct statement. The invariance in special relativity is known as Lorentz Invariance. By calling this invariance rotation you can present misleading picture. This is really 4-D Minkowsky spacetime we are talking about, and there is no rotational axis as understood in 3-D space.
LOL mate, please. I was trying to break it down into a simple enough analogy that could fit into a comment box without resorting to technical jargon. You’re welcome to sit in on any of my lectures if you really want to understand how it works though 😉
“”They [military] train militants here and then the militants carry out attacks in my country and other countries of the world. With PTM’s emergence as a movement, the military can no longer operate with impunity to do that and their so-called business has been faced with difficulties,” he added.”
Dheeraj
5 years ago
A career-related dilemma I wish to seek advice on from the commentators here(i’m sorry if such posts aren’t germane to this blog, request the admins to delete if it is so) :
What seem to be the job prospects in South Asian archaeology in the near future?
I’d be pursuing a masters in archaeology which commences this fall, and I’m really nervous about whether i’d ever be able to secure any gainful employment.
Such despondency arises from the horrible job stories in the archaeological arena in the west that I’ve read about on internet forums. I don’t know what the scene is over here in South Asia because I’m not aware of any blogs or websites run by local archaeologists or academicians; so my knowledge about the sector is restricted to the western discourse, and as I said its not very motivating.
I later plan to pursue doctoral work on the archaeology of pilgrimage in the Central and Western Himalayan landscapes, if that helps. This is an area which hasn’t been comprehensively researched in the past, since much of the archaeological research in the North has been constrained to the Indus regions due to obvious reasons. And anthropological scholarship on the Himalayas has been restricted to the Eastern Himalayas(Nepal) and the Tibetan plateau(the reasons of which i’m never able to fathom), so there is a lot to be explored(though when i say anthropological in this context, I’m particularly talking about archaeological scholarship, not about biomedical-anthropological or cultural anthropological scholarship; the latter two sub-fields have been extensively researched in the central and Western Himalayan regions, especially ethnographical work on the upper Himalayan tribes such as the Bhotias or Kinnauris). I’m also intrigued by the Trans-Himalayan regions, especially by the cave burials in some sites there. I foresee I’d be applying to some archaeology departments in the west which have a research focus on himalayan archaeology, such as the University of York and Univ of Cambridge(does anyone know of any other such departments?).
So at this point in my career, would it be wise to continue studies, or should I change tracks?
Can I also inquire whether doctoral degrees in such fields can be fully-funded ones? I ask that because I doubt I’d be able to self-fund my graduate work. And how difficult is it to land a permanent tenure position in the west in anthropological fields? Thank you.
Dheeraj, I do not have answers to your queries, but I bow to your choice of career, and offer my heartfelt encouragement.
As someone who has seen far too many bright IIT engineers getting buried unknown and unsung in the cubicles of US IT industry, your post comes as a fresh breeze. I must say, go for it. If you like your job, then the job simply becomes an extension of your hobby. If you don’t like your job, then it is a drudgery even though it may be paying big bucks.
So by all means break free of cubicles and soar over Himalayas!
Scorpion Eater ji, can’t thank you enough for those encouraging words.
Yeah I think even though I foresee myself being a broke-ass in my later 20s, working at lower-than-median wages as a shovelbum(being proverbial here, I’d prefer working in academia anyday) and knocking at the doors of myriad faculties for that one lucky adjunct position(I think its better to not even dream about securing a permanent tenure somewhere someday haha), I’d still end up going down that road, because I just can’t imagine myself doing anything else, except maybe selling postcards and books on the roadside.
Perfect! If you have that kind of a deep attachment – which may arise from anything ranging from a sense of possession of innate natural talent for this subject and this alone, to a desperation sprung from realising the fact that you don’t know anything else, you will not be totally destroyed definitely; someone will provide the necessary opportunities at some point and lift you up when you fall to the rock-bottom (of course all this falling to the rock-bottom does not get repeated with you or anybody else). But you have to make sure that you are competent at what you want to do. If both of the above (competence and sticky, viscous attachment) are there, then everything should be fine, I guess.
Haha I know next to nothing about this particular aspect as I have never thought about it so far. (For me personally though, I always wish that God may so kindly drop me an easy little child from the sky whom I can single-dad very comfortably and enjoyably lol. Or if it is deemed unacceptable that a child have a single dad without a mother, then I will get that baby adopted as child/grandchild by my parents and make them the major guardians and me a minor guardian lol. muMduMdi mosaLLa paMDaga nAku (‘the worst of my life is yet to come’) lol).
Hello Dheeraj, I don’t have any answers to your questions too but if it is the case that you think that you might be capable of dealing with the hardships – of all kinds, like financial, emotional, etc. – you may face (which hopefully does not happen) over the course of this type of career (others have their own problems too but theirs might be of a more done-and-dusted kind and relatively more easily surpassable), then please pursue it by all means. This type of a career also may mean that if you excel in your job (this one must always try to do), your growth may be more steep and you may be able to lead a more peaceful life more soon compared to other fields with a lot of skilled-labour supply.
I really wish I could be of more help. In my own field of electrical engineering, though I don’t have much direct experience because I wrecked my chances of pursuing a doctorate and even a more meaningful graduate study in the United States, I tend to sense that research funding has been becoming more difficult to obtain over the years. Have you tried contacting any researchers in archaeology from the West working in India and also Indian archaeologists themselves regarding this? (I only have big names like Dorian Fuller, Vasant Shinde, etc. in mind but maybe you know people at various stages of practice?) I am sure that will help you most certainly if the other parties have a habit of reading emails and helpfully responding to them. At least some of them might have that habit. Also, very importantly, keep on looking for more archaeology-related academic forums and such on the internet and simply make new threads on forums without any shame to see if anyone joins the party! Sorry if you have already done all these things though lol. Also, in general, be very open-minded and don’t reject good and able company when it comes to you. A good group is always better than an individual is the mantra. Sorry if this does not apply to you lol (it does to me as I am a radical introvert who is also very timid lol; the mantra was also kindly given to me by God and not philosophically arrived at and consequently put into practice by self; he simply forced some good people into my life and I simply had the good presence of mind at the time not to reject it).
One major policy-related problem that I tend to get aware of as a layman corresponding to Indian archaeology is the neglect of archaeological sites and not taking care of them properly – like the stuff about destruction of south Indian neolithic sites due to political, commercial interests and otherwise, etc. I don’t know to what extent this may be relevant to you though.
>”In my own field of electrical engineering”
I always thought you were a linguist haha, just saying.
>”This type of a career also may mean that if you excel in your job, your growth may be more steep and you may be able to lead a more peaceful life more soon compared to other fields with a lot of skilled-labour supply.”
Yeah i do realise that, and think the most important thing in such a field(though that is the case with every other field too) is to make new and worthful contacts, so that you’re approached for participating in excavations and in that way insured of year-round employment of some sort, and also to keep publishing in prestigious journals, just to be sure that universities do not fire you or rescind your grant.
>”I tend to sense that research funding has been becoming more difficult to obtain over the years.”
Yeah i sense the same, and it is even more prevalent in the arts and humanities.
>”Have you tried contacting any researchers in archaeology from the West working in India and also Indian archaeologists themselves regarding this?”
Santosh garu, Shinde ji is the VC of the department I join as a student this fall, but I do not know him personally. Though he is a juggernaut in himself in the field of South Asian archaeology, his work has been mostly focused on the Indus valley research. The two of the three people whose work is apropos of Himalayan anthro(and they have been my primary source of motivation)and whom I feel fortuitous to know personally are Dr. William Sax, department chair at the Dept. of Anthropology, Heidelberg University and Dr. Luke Whitmore, who is a professor of south asian religion studies at the UW-Stevens Point. Both of them have extensively researched Himalayan belief systems and their research work would fall in the field of cultural anthro and theology(kind-of-like); so both of them aren’t trained archaeologists. Dr. Sax has always implored me to work in this much neglected field, though he tells that he won’t be of much assistance since Heidelberg’s south asian dept. doesn’t have archaeology as a research track.
The third of them is Dr. Vinod Nautiyal, dept head at the archaeo dept, HNB Garhwal University, Srinagar(he suggests to do whatever the hell i wish to but attend the Garhwal university’s archaeo dept. haha)
>”keep on looking for more archaeology-related academic forums and such on the internet and simply make new threads on forums without any shame to see if anyone joins the party”
Yeah i did think of doing so, but most of the internet forums, the askanthropology subreddit being an example, don’t pay much heed to South Asian archaeology; though Tibetan studies are an exception, there is quite a heavy traffic in scholarship in that particular area I observe. And who could be better to rely on for advice than my very own brown folks:)
>”be very open-minded and don’t reject good and able company when it comes to you”/”as I am a radical introvert”
Certainly Santosh garu, I’ll keep that in mind. And well I believe I’m one too(introvert), so also applies to me:)
>”the neglect of archaeological sites and not taking care of them properly”
That is a grim actuality, and I’ve observed that the government of late has not been heedful of heritage preservation, part of the reason why archaeo/anthro are relatively small and rare departments in South Asia(a result of which is that none of my stemmie peers(and even those from the liberal arts in my cohort) are aware of the word anthropology, let alone discerning between anthro and something more popular such as sociology or philosophy lol.)
I’m very grateful to you for the detailed reply Santosh garu.
Am a bad electrical engineer and a bad linguist like a reNTikI ceDDa rEvaDu (‘a guy who failed at both the schemes’) lol.
And yes about the importance of networking, exactly; I cannot emphasise it enough. It’s unfortunate that the situation is as you mention in Reddit (and others), but why don’t you consider building/developing a subreddit associated with the specific topic of interest yourself? You must have already developed vast amounts of knowledge about the current situation in the field and you can enjoyably share over there? Without spending a lot of time on it of course and incrementally developing it; maybe a next Tibetan studies will result out of the effort and the future Dheerajs will also benefit a lot out of it.
I’d also suggest you consider the proposal of the Dr. Vinod Nautiyal that you mention. Of course depending on the quality of infrastructure that the university has and the relative ease with which you get access to research publications, etc. and the quality of important fundamental coursework, and other such factors, and also the (dreaded) future prospects. I don’t know much else though; I may not be helping here very much; it just seemed like a good and kinda rare thing that this Dr. Nautiyal told you – to do whatever you want – does it imply that he is willing to give a lot of academic freedom and he is also kinda desirous of attracting talented young people into his department and strengthening it?
Yes the neglect and destruction situation of sites is quite grim and I can’t even make any helpful suggestions to curb it in terms of policy, law, etc. but as an amateur linguist, I can say that just as linguists try their best to record languages before they go extinct, archaeologists should also collect as much data as possible, and with an increased sense of urgency, from sites before they disappear faster than legally allowed, to certain kinds of criminal practices in many places.
Santosh garu, actually there has been a mistake that you can ascribe to me. I didn’t phrase what I wished to convey in a felicitous manner, and have seemingly ended up misinforming you. I’m sorry for having wasted your time.
I rather wanted to say that Dr. Nautiyal warned me against joining the department as a student because of the abysmal state it is in for the only archaeological department solely committed to Himalayan archaeology; part of the reason why I’m headed south for the masters, and then the I’ll be attending is the best here in South Asia.
>”the main question to ask Dheeraj is if he is single or not?
If he is planning to get married and have children, it’s an entirely different paradigm..”
Zach, I turn 22 this year, so marriage and children can of course wait. Though I realise that had I been in my later 20s or early 30s, the story would have been completely different.
Of course! A considerable number of people these days are beginning to consider marriage in the very late 20s and early-late 30s though a typical middle class family pressure phenomenon starts beginning from 25-26, if not earlier. I wish people somehow have the strength to trick parents (if it’s okay) into postponing marriage till at least the super-late 20s and early 30s if job satisfaction and the associated well-being is at stake. (But then I also have this folk anxiety that people may not produce high-IQ and otherwise healthy children if they marry too late; no free lunches I guess.)
doctoral degrees in such fields can be fully-funded ones?
I would do one check, i.e you can get a RA or TA say from start of PhD programs or at least second year. Possible in Science and Engineering, dont know in archaelology. In my time (1982) it was book (cant recall the name) at the American Center, something like the Petersen’s guide. It listed the various Unis PhD programs and info like GRE score needed for acceptance, and most importantly which Unis give TA/RA and tuition waivers from 1st or 2nd year.
I checked this stuff after I did my BSc in Sri Lanka.
Now to Archeology, some aspects have become quite Technical . Eg a lot of GIS (Geographic Info Systems) and Remote Sensing and Image Processing, high value technical fields. i.e easy to find a job.
My personal advice is go for it, Bachelors and PhD. Tenure track who knows. At least you will enjoy 4 years, another 6 years in PhD.
My personal experience:
I did precious little at BSc level.
When doing O/L (year 9-10) I wanted to be Chemist. By A/L (year 11-12) I wanted to be an Chemical/Geological Oceanographer, and do offshore Petroleum research of the coast of Mannar. There were no courses in Oceanography or Geology if you entered Sri Lankan state university as a Chem, Physics and Applied Math A/L student.
Chemistry PhD, I had two cousins who had done that plus another cousin sister from my mothers side who was doing PhD in Physics. However, by the time I was doing A/L had chat with the Physics PhD’s brother (a diver) friend who was doing PhD in Oceanography. I was all gungho doing stuff to serve my country etc and was given the suggestion Oceanography.
Anyway to cut a long story short two points
a) Some of the best years of my life was as a PhD student for 8 years. I would love to have continued as a student but the Uni thought other wise. As as one says, shit happens. My late wife was diagnosed with cancer when she arrived in the US, so none of those Amazon or Tropical Western Pacific trips for me. Just at max 2 day outdoor research around Long Island sound etc.
b) There was no oil exploration in Sri Lanka because of the war.
Anyway,
Dheeraj, if you have passion some will recognize and help you along the way.
I have friend, a Japanese who was a student in Archeology while I was in the US. Send the little write up here + a little more and CV to
my email sbarrkum@gmail.com
I will forward it to her and MAYBE she can give you advice guidance.
I really dont know if she is Archeology anymore as she has children.
By the time I had met her in the US Uni, she had spent 2+ years in small village in Sri Lanka. She could read, write and speak fluent Sinhalese. When she called me over the phone (1990 or so) I thought she was a Sinhalese. Done digs in Northern China/Siberia?, Africa and she was fluent in those language. To me I was getting a headache (and jealous) keeping where she kept travelling
I will forward it to her.
>”you can get a RA or TA say from start of PhD programs or at least second year”
Yeah that is indeed the case with most of the graduate students in the top-tier or mid-tier depts in the US/UK varsities, but I’m not sure whether that is true for archaeo/anthro students too. Actually it is as such that, because of the nature of this field(long-term travel to faraway places), the doctoral topics are, in most cases, pre-selected(based on the projects the department is involved in), and this is almost always the case when the doctoral position is supplemented by RAs which are bursaries in return for teaching assistantships or heritage preservation jobs at the university museums. So it is highly unlikely that one would be able to secure an allowance while also getting to work in the sub-field of his/her choice. And almost all of the UK depts are majorly focused on Near Eastern archaeology, Egyptology, Greek/Roman archaeology etc, while in the case of US depts, its mostly Andes archaeology(Mayan); so that means the advertised positions never have a research focus on South Asian archaeological themes, let alone Himalayan ones. So someone unfortunate can either sit back and relax with the bursary aiding in his newfound area of research(after having departed from the topic he/she always dreamed of working on), or continue to work on his/her preferred research track in the night hours, having spent the day working at the local cafetaria/bookstore. I actually know someone who, a decade back, attended the same college which I’ll be attending, and landed a graduate position at Oxford, researching ancient pottery around Syria, and if I were to guess his doctoral work focus based on the two different MA dissertations of his, I’d never say he’d be dealing with Near Eastern archaeo for the next 5-6 years, that’d be baffling. So I can imagine what might have happened in his case.
>”Now to Archeology, some aspects have become quite Technical”
I concur with you here, and would even say that its majorly technical now, thanks to prolonged interaction with biological sciences, advancement in field technology and dating methods. A result is the stemming of various sub-fields such as Archaeobotany, Archaeozoology, Environmental Archaeology, Osteology, Maritime archaeo and some others. Though one other problem i can think of is the absence of field schools here, the training in which is a prerequisite for admission to graduate departments in the west. GIS is a part of the curriculum, and practical training in the same would be taken care at the Wadia Institute, Dehradun. But i might lack field school experience, so will have to think what could be done about it.
>”Send the little write up here + a little more and CV”
Can’t thank you enough; I’ll do so.
Beyond a certain threshold level of gatekeeping (which you have already passed), gainful employment has little to do with degrees, but more to do with attitude and initiative.
20s is the age to explore. Maybe your sojourn into archaeology will end in success, maybe it will be mixed. The point is that you cannot know until you have tried.
Again, I wont worry about employment, your communication skills and reflective attitude already make you a good fit for most jobs.
You may also take inspiration from figures like DD Kosambi who excelled in multiple fields.
After UNSC ban on JeM, Pakistan’s ISI sets up new terror group Jaish-e-Mutqi
“Ever since the UNSC imposed a ban on Jaish chief Azhar, Pakistan has been facing global pressure to take action against such terror outfits. And hence, their Inter-Services Intelligence has been engaged in the formation and strengthening of the new faction Jaish-e-Mutqi. ”
“So, who is afraid of PTM? The answer is neither straight nor simplistic. The doings of decades cannot be wished away. The harvest has to be reaped. Either through dialogue, a far more permanent solution or through force, a path paved with more bloodshed, ruin and perdition; the state has a choice.”
H. M. Brough
5 years ago
Best of luck Dheeraj.
I am also glad that we can take a rest from sh*tposting and culture wars to try to help a young brown man.
Thanks HM Brough, and though the arguments here tend to get pretty much intense and heated on occasions(though that happens quite often here, a side-effect of extraordinary erudition with disparate and opposite polarities I believe haha) and Kabir bhai gets reviled at left, right, and centre, I’d wish they continued till an eternity as I learn a lot from them; I can’t think of enjoying reading any other forum as much as BP(thanks Zach). I especially enjoy getting to know the experiences of the diaspora, one precious source of which happens to be you, and the take on brown issues from the diaspora lens:)
And i’ll take this opportunity to wish you the best of luck for your marriage.
haha I’m surprised that you aren’t appreciated enough for engendering the ideas that gave rise to a wonderful platform like this, a platform where “brownitude” could flourish. thanks again(its me again the second time too haha)
I was waiting for more qualified to give you tips regarding your future career (and marriage). I’ll give you just briefly my general and specific opinion:
Specific: I believe you are familiar with archaeologist Aurel Stein and his excavation in India 100 years ago. I read some of his books. They can be found online in Public Library of India and only few people, included me, downloaded them. The guy did a detailed archaeological work in Norther India, Tibet, Innermost Asia, Xinjiang. You can find many maps and some photos. Some could probably make a PhD reviewing his books. It is interesting his capital work-book SERINDIA (very indicative name?) although wiki gives mickeymouse explanation about this. I will write one comment soon. However, you can use wiki as an initial source for Stein’s bio. Serindia (and other books) can be downloaded:
Specific: You should study archaeological work conducted in Vinca (and Lepenski Vir). This is simply a belly of human civilization. Western countries were trying to suppress excavation and making strong pressure on Serbian government not to explore further. They also trying to hide excavation results so far. There are many photos on Web, you can see the first alphabet in the world, the first calendar, swastika which is 7000 years old, etc, etc. It is good to know mythology as well, you will find many almost identical Serbian and Indian mythology and it is reflected in archaeology as well. It cannot be written any ancient topic (language, mythology, genetics) without reference on Vinca. There is strong resistance, even here at BP, to even mention or discuss anything about Vinca.
General: regarding previous, you are young guy and you should have open mind. If you try to push the envelope of knowledge, you should know, it will be an uphill battle. If you read some of my comments you can disagree, but you should not ignore them. Try to prove that they are wrong or without substance (or right). In regard to this:
Specific: Considering that you are interested in Tibet I already provided hundreds of Serbian toponyms in Tibet and other parts of India and Central Asia (and Persia and Asia Minor and Assyria). These toponyms can be a starting point for research considering that some of these toponyms are almost unchanged or slightly changed. Some these places may still have archaeological remains (e.g. see Stein’s photos). More than 1000 toponyms I published on BP were unanimously ignored without any comment or objection what is very indicative. Some are maybe disappointed, expecting perhaps some (archaic) Lithuanian or Scythian or even German, names -?.
General: everything what I said for mythology is applicable for languages (Sanskrit, the term ‘Indo-European’ is a crap) and history, too. You should know basics, at least, to know what you are digging and what are you expecting to find.
Good luck!
justanotherluker
5 years ago
Dheeraj,
I don’t have any specific advice on your chosen field, however, I wanted to compliment you on your communication skills and reflective attitude (borrowing these terms from someone else on this forum). You are impressive already, and if you give your best to whatever you choose, you will do very well (since you have the horsepower).
As someone who has always been a religion and history buff, but who ended up in tech and business, I can’t stress enough the importance of doing what you are passionate about. Yes, you may never make big money in Anthro or whatever, but your life can be happier and your self more fulfilled if you do want you want to, and because of that are able to excel in that chosen field. Young people underestimate how important the higher layers of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs are for a man (or woman) to feel fulfilled, accomplished and happy. A part of that is being recognized, valued for your skills and contribution, and that will only happen with superior performance which is conditional on passion and true interest.
Another thing as an NRI I will advise is that you should make choices about where you live very carefully. As someone who left India for the US just because I could but never really wanted to, I have always wished I had not taken that step, or moved back before it was too late (which now it is for me). As some writer said, I will be forever in mourning at what I lost and left behind in India….So choose wisely
The usual derp, also Swain’s arguments tell more about Swain than about us. As I said on Twitter, the main reason diaspora types like the BJP is because they hate INC. As Dr. Khan mentioned, economics is another reason.
But I have literally never, ever heard a diaspora Indian say something along the lines of “I’m backing BJP because they’ll give those Muslims what for.” Even when I talk to avowed Hindu nationalists, the conversation turns to “Congress is a political machine and nothing more,” “Congress is corrupt and looting our nation,” and for those from UP, some (justified) Mayawati-bashing is involved too (though she’s from a regional enemy of the BJP rather than INC).
Though I don’t have evidence for this next part, I think it’s possible that latent anti-Muslim sentiment drives a small amount of diaspora support for the BJP. But it’s a tertiary factor at most.
Mayuresh Madhav Kelkar
5 years ago
Pakistan: where the daily slaughter of women barely makes the news
Mohammed Hanif
“Populists come in two stripes: those who are of the people they represent (Erdogan in Turkey, Bolsonaro in Brazil), and those who are merely exploiting the passions of those they are not actually part of (the champagne neo-fascists: the Brexiteers, Donald Trump, Imran Khan in Pakistan). Narendra Modi belongs very firmly to the first camp. He is the son of a tea seller, and his election was nothing short of a class revolt at the ballot box.”
The author’s confusion is apparent from the above quote. If Modi indeed rose from a tea seller to the Prime Minister how can he be accused of promoting caste bigotry? And how is Donald Trump a neo fascist?
“Modi’s record on women’s issues is spotty. On the one hand, he made opportunity for women and their safety a key election issue (a 2018 report ranked the country the most dangerous place on earth for women);”
That is just rubbish. Sushma Swaraj, Nirmala Sitharaman and Smriti Irani are very high profile members of Modi’s cabinet.
“a 2018 report ranked the country the most dangerous place on earth for women);””
The report does not mention actual statistics. One has to be careful comparing numbers from a country with 1.3 billion people with those with much smaller populations.
“Violence against women in India has caused national and international outrage and protests since the 2012 gang-rape and murder of a student on a bus in New Delhi.”
The author neglects to mention that the perpetrators of this horrendous crime were Muslims.
“Hardly a month goes by without the nation watching agog on their smartphones as yet another enraged Hindu mob falls upon a defenseless Muslim.”
Month after month? Hyperbole, no specifics other than the one isolated case, again from a country that has the world’s second largest Muslim population 172 million.
“(Modi made the so-called Triple Talaq instant divorce a punishable offense through an executive order in 2018.)”
Of course. No Sharia Law in a democracy.
“I knew, as someone of Muslim parentage (my father was a Pakistani Muslim) and a member of India’s English-speaking elite, that the country Modi would bring into being would have no place for me.
The author’s motivations and biases are clear. Then what is he still doing living in India? Would he like to say a few things about the condition of the Mohajir’s in Pakistan and the MQM movement?
“India’s English-speaking elite”!!
So one has to be able to speak English to be considered an elite in India? Then guess who is diving the country and advocating going back to the colonial era?
“Modi, inadvertently or deliberately, has created a bewildering mental atmosphere in which India now believes that the road to becoming South Korea runs through the glories of ancient India.”
Again, rubbish. India has acquired the most modern weapons in recent years including the SPICE bombs that were used in Balakot airstrikes which are the real reason for Modi’s popularity that the author glosses over.
“Modi is lucky to be blessed with so weak an opposition–a ragtag coalition of parties, led by the Congress, with no agenda other than to defeat him. ”
That is not “lucky” and “blessed.” The BJP under Modi’s leadership routed the Congress in 2014. Just sour grapes for a loser. Congress has nothing more to offer than the mediocrity of a dying dynasty.
Time has just solidified their image as “fake news” by publishing a poorly researched and unabashedly biased article. The article ignores numerous international awards received by Modi including the Zayed Medal from the UAE and the Order of St Andrew the Apostle from Russia.
As a sidebar, Trump recently boycotted the White House Correspondent’s dinner. Now we know why.
Mayuresh Madhav Kelkar
5 years ago
Fire at New Haven Mosque Was Intentionally Set, Fire Chief Says
See this Twitter feed about huge protest rallies in the border town of Chaman. There have been reports of the Pakistani Army firing at PTM activists. They are trying to supress news reports.
“In an alleged act of moral policing, Kerala junior football team vice-captain Jithu Mohan, 23, was set on fire for being in love with a girl belonging to another religion. ”
Another religion?
“The footballer, a degree student, succumbed to his injuries at General Hospital in Kochi late on Tuesday night. In his statement before his death, Mohan told the magistrate that the girl’s brother-in-law Wahad, a constable, with the help of others se…”
Mayuresh Madhav Kelkar
5 years ago
The Pashtuns vs Pakistan Army: Another Disaster in the Making?
Hi Razib,
I need suggestions for a good book on how Punjab became Muslim similar to Eaton’s Bengal frontier book. I couldn’t find anything comprehensive on the internet and a god book on Jain history. Most historians don’t really separate Jainism and Hinduism when they write about Indian history.
Sorry if I am overstepping some bounds but I assume this open topic might be the best way to put this across?
INTRO (0/3)
I believe that many readers from SA, regardless if they are of Aryan or non-Aryan descent, would be interested to know more about their ancestors, about people which in ancient time lived between Scotland and Aral Sea (and later further to China), between Baltic and Sahara. In this and some future comments will be presented less known information about ancestors who lived in North Africa where left thousands of their toponyms. Let mention only couple – Tripoli, Serbian region (Regio Sirtica-Tunisia), Serbica bay (Gulf of Sirte), lake Chad. One of Out of Africa things will be interesting to read (not now) about big ancient expedition of 600 thousand of warriors, 24000 horsemen, 27000 chariots from Africa who invaded Europe and India.
Sesostris led the above-mentioned war expedition to India. I read that ancient Hindu writings record his invasion of India. I don’t know if Sesostris Bank, a submerged bank or sunken atoll belonging to the Amindivi Subgroup of islands of the Union Territory of Lakshadweep, India, 1,800 km south of Delhi got its name from him.
RE: VANDALS – a Serbian tribe (1/3)
Vandals were one of famous Serbian (NOT Germanic as wiki says) tribes. In 429, the Vandals, estimated to number 80,000 people, had crossed by boats from Spain to N. Africa. In 439 the Vandals renewed their advance eastward and captured Carthage, the most important city of N. Africa. The fledgling kingdom then conquered the Roman-ruled islands of Sicily, Sardinia and Corsica in the Mediterranean Sea. In the 460s the Romans launched two unsuccessful military expeditions by sea in an attempt to overthrow the Vandals and reclaim N. Africa. Although primarily remembered for the sack of Rome in 455 and their persecution of Nicene Christians in favour of Arian Christianity, the Vandals were also patrons of learning. Grand building projects continued, schools flourished and N. Africa fostered many of the most innovative writers, musicians and natural scientists of the late Latin Western Roman Empire.
From the beginning of their invasion of N. Africa in 429, the Vandals – who were predominantly followers of ARIANISM – persecuted the Nicene church. This persecution began with the unfettered violence inflicted against the church during Genseric’s invasion but, with the legitimization of the Vandal kingdom, the oppression became entrenched in ‘more coherent religious policies’. Huneric, Genseric’s son and successor, continued and intensified the repression of the Nicene church and attempted to make ARIANISM the primary religion in N. Africa.
The Vandal Kingdom ended in 534 when it was conquered by a Serbian military leader from Constantinople, Belisarius, in the Vandalic War and incorporated it into the Eastern Roman Empire. Belisarius was sent by the Byzantine Emperor Justinian, who was also a Serb from the city of Pec, Kosovo and his original name was Upravda.
SIDE NOTE: Justinian is a Latin translation of his Serbian name Upravda (=justice). It is also a root word for JUSTICE, Justin, etc. In Russian is still its archaic meaning (= truth). Some remember the well-known Russian paper PRAVDA.
(U)Pravda (=justice) is in the title of the Serbian national anthem: “Boze, Pravda” = ‘O God (give us) Justice!’
The island Serba (Tunisian pronunciation is Djerba) was a central part of Vandals’ kingdom.
RE: Island SERBA = Djerba (Tunisia) (2/3)
Serba, i.e. Djerba is an island were ancient Serbs lived and gave their name to this island. Djerba (Arabic: جربة About this soundˈʒɪrbæ) is the largest island of N. Africa, located in the Gulf of Gabès, off the coast of Tunisia. The Battle of Djerba (Turkish: Cerbe) took place in May 1560 near the island of Djerba (Serba), Tunisia. The Ottomans under Piyale Pasha’s command overwhelmed a large joint Christian Alliance fleet. The allies lost 27 galleys and some smaller vessels as well as the fortified island of Serba. This victory marked perhaps the high point of Ottoman power in the Mediterranean Sea. The victory in the Battle of Djerba represented the apex of Ottoman naval domination in the Mediterranean, which had been growing since the victory at the Battle of Preveza 22 years earlier.
As many as 8000 men aboard the ships were killed or drowned. The 5000 men of the Christian garrison held out for the three months against 14000 Turks before starvation forced their capitulation. Nearly the entire the garrison died in the 80-day siege or were subsequently executed.
After Djerba (Serba) battle, the Maltese channel remained open and it was inevitable that the Ottomans soon turned on the new base of the Knights of St John in Malta in 1565 but failed in taking it.
The victorious Ottomans erected a 30-foot-high pyramid of skulls of the defeated Spanish defenders, which stood until the late nineteenth century. A small monument now stands in its place at Borj Ghazi Mustafa, Homt Souk.
In Algeria in 1558 an expedition of 12000 Spaniards led by Count Alcuadete went on Mostagnem but the force was destroyed by Algerian-Ottoman Army. Alcudete and 6000 of his men were killed and the rest captured. One of the captured was a future famous Spanish writer of Serbian origin, Miguel Servantes (i.e. Serbantes). Servantes subsequently spent five years as a prisoner and a slave and made several failed attempts to escape during his imprisonment. He was finally able to return home after a ransom was paid for his release. His captivity was described in the book “Cervantes in Algiers: a captive’s tale by María Antonia Garcés” (free on Internet).
RE: NIS (Serbia) (3/3)
NIS is the second largest city in Serbia. It is known as the place where the First Aryan expedition, led by Nino Belov-Nimrod, went to SA in 2025BC. Many ancient cities in SA later got the same name (Including the first name of modern Tehran). It is also known as the city where a Serbian Roman Emperor Constantine legalised Christianity religion in 313AC.
250 years after Ottomans erected a pyramid of skulls of the defeated Spanish defenders on the Serba island, there was a battle in the Nis.
The Battle of Čegar (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_%C4%8Cegar) was a battle of the First Serbian Uprising against Ottoman forces near the Niš Fortress in 1809, which ended in an Ottoman’s victory. Serbian Commander Stevan Sinđelić famously blew up the gunpowder storeroom when the Ottomans overtook his trench, killing everyone in it.
Heads of dead Serb victims were collected, skinned and that the skulls built into the “Skull Tower”. This tower was built along the road to Constantinople, as a warning to anyone revolting against the Ottoman Empire in same way as in the ancient Serbian island, Serba (today’s Tunisia), several hundreds of years before that.
https://www.google.com/search?q=cele+kula&biw=1366&bih=657&tbm=isch&source=iu&ictx=1&fir=aslkjcy47ist1M%253A%252CyezyPt6lYSqFXM%252C_&vet=1&usg=AI4_-kRrmyJ7pZHUHzGSVFdJvxKfg6VDyw&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwjDoI3a4PvhAhWFYysKHViICiUQ9QEwA3oECAYQCg#imgrc=aslkjcy47ist1M:
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/india-will-never-be-great-until-it-protects-religious-freedom/
Whaddy’all think?
Mosty nothing special, just the usual nonsense the West puts out about India. Though you do get the author (an Evangelical Christian) adding the usual canards about conversion-don’t get that from NYT lol.
I’ve noticed that a lot of ‘Intellectual Dark Web’ are wont to take the usual lefty-liberal position on India/Hindus.
There’s no one coming to help you.
Prats,
This is not my personal observation.
What about Sam Harris, Stephen Hicks, Joe Rogan, Jordan Peterson. What they have is ignorance. In general the intellectual dark web are more interested in a high resolution exchange with eastern philosophy than visa versa.
Obviously Russel Brand does not count because he is a self identified Hindu.
The ideas or values of the IDW are very similar to eastern philosophy.
The “IDW” position on India is more one of apathy rather than antipathy. I looked at Quillette and they barely talk about India at all (for good or ill). Areo is a bit different, because Iona Italia basically copypastes the Left party line, but it doesn’t seem to come up much in the actual magazine.
It does explain why so many young Indian Americans are on the left side of the American political spectrum.
Believe it or not, the Western right is far more non-inclusive than the Indian one. Only that its violent elements are constrained by a much better system of rule of law. Otherwise, pogroms against Jews were so commonplace in Europe, up to the modern era, that there is little surprise that things ended in a Holocaust there.
Let Bandow speak after an American president delivers a speech on an American Muslim becoming a Grand Mufti at a major Middle Eastern mosque: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3ExsIIj3fM
@H.M.Brough
“Mosty nothing special, just the usual nonsense the West puts out about India. Though you do get the author (an Evangelical Christian) adding the usual canards about conversion-don’t get that from NYT lol. ”
Sigh, I hear this too much, everything from the west is nonsense when the hindutva sympathetic wish to dismiss any criticism of their ideal selves. I think you are very selective on deeming nonsense in the West, being that you’re in the West, in I’m assuming from your other comments, in a profession as an M.D. whose present day incarnation as standardized occupation was formed in the West. It’s not nonsense when you make use of all the amenities formed in the west and copied the world over, such blueprints of good university, the many inventions of technology, rule of law, protection of (including religious) minority rights, relatively better infrastructure and definitely excellent opportunities as your prescence attests. All the knowledge that you learn in academics which was mostly derived from west was not so much nonsense to you as a non-native born that you came to take advantage and all the while exhibit your passive aggressive prejudice against your fellow indians who happen to have chosen or stayed in a faith that is not your own and then try to disingenously lead others to believe that the hindutva agenda is so benign. Please feel free to leave the West, India seems to be missing doctors and you could do so much more good there, and you then do not have to encounter all this “nonsense” in the west.
India will never be great irrespective of whether it protects religious freedom or not.
China bans Muslims from fasting Ramadan in Xinjiang
https://www.aljazeera.com/amp/news/2015/06/china-bans-ramadan-fasting-muslim-region-150618070016245.html?__twitter_impression=true
Upcoming super-hit Bollywood movie ‘Student of the Year 2’ might have a cameo from Will Smith. He made a vlog on it. Some entertainment:
https://www.facebook.com/willsmithsbucketlist/videos/376106403118086/
Question for Sbarrkum
Is Dr. Roshini Raj(apaksa), who appears on CBS This Morning and other American television shows related to the Rajapaksa political family of Sri Lanka? An internet search did not bring up anything.
Roy,
Definitely not a close relative. She was born in the US, that means her parents arrived in the US in the 60’s (MOM IS A GASTROENTEROLOGIST, like me, and my dad’s a lung specialist.)
OK, NOT a relative. Rajapakse is common name and spelt in different ways. (Sometimes spelling indicates caste).
Anyway this family seem to be Christian and intermarried with Eurasians (Burghers) and Colombo Chettys.
Search for Trikante
http://www.worldgenweb.org/lkawgw/gen3729.html
===================================================================
The bride is the daughter of Dr. Anura and Dr. Mrs. Trikante Nalini Rajapakse (born 10/05/1945) , and is herself a doctor and is an attending Gastroenterologist on Faculty at New York University School of Medicine, and the senior medical correspondent for the WB 11 Morning News television programme. She is a graduate of the Harvard University and NYU School of Medicine.
Her parents are natives of Colombo, Sri Lanka who have been domiciled in the United States for many years. The Groom Vivek Manohar Nasta, is the son of Drs. Manohar and Sucheta Nastar, and is a corporate development executive at Nokia. He is a graduate of Stanford University and the Harvard Business School and his parents are from Mumbai, India.
Sbharrkum,
Thank you.
Support for the American Revolution was not limited to Europe.
South Indian Mysore rebellion against the British East India Company was organized by pro-American Muslim leader Hyder Ali which tied up British troops from being deployed to America. Ali was so admired that American poems were written about him and in 1780 a sixteen gun war ship was set from Philadelphia to do battle with the British Navy named the Haidar Ali.
In Africa, under Emperor Sidi Mohammed’s direction, Morocco was the first nation to recognize American independence in 1777. The nation also harbored American ships, protecting them from British-controlled Barbary pirates with George Washington later writing letters of thanks to the Sultan of Morocco.
The Tiger Aids the Eaglet: How India Secured America’s Independence
by Richard Sambasivam
https://allthingsliberty.com/2016/04/the-tiger-aids-the-eaglet-how-india-secured-americas-independence/
via my favorite financial blog
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-05-05/how-real-america-harmony-chinas-belt-and-road-initiative
Today is a Saint George day, who is a patron of my family. Every Serbian family has its saint patron which is inherited by male lineage since the beginning of Christianity. This day is called ‘slava’ (feast, celebration, glory). It is only present at Serbs among all Christian nations in the world and it is registered at UNESCO as non-material cultural heritage. ‘Slava’ is a day when the head of family usually go to church service in the morning with bread, wine and wheat and after that their home is open for a whole day for extended family and friends for visits, usually with very rich table of meals and drinks. Family and friends get together and enjoy this day to socialize and be together. They return visit to friends when is their saint day i.e. slava.
‘Slava’ originated from pre-Christianity when Serbs for thousands of years celebrated many gods. Christianity could not eradicate this worshiping and accommodated their saints to be close to pagan celebration days to make this switch to new religion smoothly. It was only needed for Serbs because they had thousands of years of previous history and it was not needed for younger ‘instant’ nations such as Germans, Romans and even Greeks. Some Serbian deities, for e.g. their top deity, Ilia (i.e. Perun or Indra) were directly co-opted to Christianity under the same name and now is celebrated as a Christian saint. Serbian god Ilia is known to the rest of the world as the name given to Babylon (‘the gate of Ilia’) given by its Serbian founder Nimrod, as Indra which Aryans brought to India, as the name of Troy (i.e. Ilion – Iliad) and as the god which Jesus called during his crucifixion (Ilia, Ilia, have you forgotten me?).
St George served in Diocletian’s army in Serbia and was tortured and murder because of preaching Christianity. Even Diocletian’s wife, empress Alexandra (they both were Serbs and lived in the Roman Empire capitol Sirmium in Serbia) based on George’s example converted to Christianity and she was also condemned to death. Diocletian’s co-inheritors, Constantine and Lycinius, both Serbs, were at war where Constantine won. Only few years after George’s sacrifice Constantine legalized Christianity in Roman Empire.
If you ask any American for e.g. even devoted Evangelical, about who was St. George (or St. Nicolas, or St. John, etc) hardly anyone can say anything meaningful. At the best, they can quote Wiki as many do here. Previous couple sentences are only for thinking Pundits to push further the envelope of our knowledge. We will continue this story when become appropriate. Happy ‘slava’ to everyone who celebrate today! All Pundits are welcome to visit my home!
Another Book to be read
Original letters from India; containing a narrative of a journey through Egypt and the author’s imprisonment at Calicut by Hyder Ally. To which is added, an abstract of three subsequent voyages to India. By Mrs. Fay. Calcutta, 1817.
https://archive.org/details/originalletters00forsgoog/page/n7
While researching ancient Serbian presence in North Africa and historical connections with SA I found some new interesting directions for research related to JAT people in India. Before I present my findings, let see what WIKI says about JAT people:
WIKI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Jat_Aryan_Foundation
World Jat Aryan Foundation is an organization of the Jats that aims to serve the Jat community around the world,[1] in various aspects. It was founded in 2001 by Hoshiar Singh was its first president.[2]
The foundation is presided by Navjot Singh Sidhu.[1] Sahib Singh Verma served the World Jat Aryan Foundation, as its former president.[1]
In September 2003, the foundation hosted the World Jat Aryan Congress at BELGRADE.[2] However, the foundation attracted the outburst from the External Affairs Minister, Yashwant Sinha, as the foundation was directly in touch Serbia-Montenegro Embassy at India, while the Ministry of External Affairs had no clue about this.[2] As the Delhi elections were just approaching, the Prime Minister of India, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, got involved to convince Sahib Singh Verma to cancel his scheduled program to attend the World Jat Congress.[2] Following the controversy, Vajpayee issued a written appeal to all the Cabinet Ministers of India to consult the Ministry of External Affairs on “issues concerning India’s projection or representation abroad, and initiatives involving foreign governments” before scheduling such events.[2] As a consequence, the congress was held in September later that year which had been scheduled to be held July.[2]
More from WIKI: (stay tuned for my findings soon)
WIKI: https://www.jatland.com/home/Origin_of_the_Jats
Professor B. S. Dhillon states that Jat people are mainly of Indo-Scythian lineage with composite mixing of Sarmatians, Goths & Jutes in History and study of the Jats. Historian James Tod agreed in considering the Jat people to be of Indo-Scythian Stock.[61] Moreover, Sir Alexander Cunningham, Former Director-General of the Archeological Survey of India, considered the Jat people to be the Xanthii (a Scythian tribe) of Scythian stock who he considered very likely called the Zaths (Jats) of early Arab writers.[62] He stated “their name is found in Northern India from the beginning of the Christian era.” These people were considered by early Arab writers to have descended from Meds and Zaths.[63][64] Sir Cunningham believes they “were in full possession of the valley of the Indus towards the end of the seventh century.[65] The Kipling Society has certified and advocated that, “The Rajputs proper were of mixed origin – pre-Muslim invaders such as Scythians, Bactrians, Parthians, Hunas and Gurjaras who came in before, say, the end of the 7th century.”[66]
Sir Alexander Cunningham, (Former Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India) wrote: The Xanthii (a Scythian tribe) are very probably the Zaths (Jats) of the early Arab writers. As the Zaths were in Sindh to the west of the Indus, this location agrees very well with what we know of the settlement of the Sakas (Scythians) on the Indian frontier.[67]
Sir John Marshall, (Former Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India) wrote: “These Scythian invaders came principally from the three great tribes of Massagetae (great Jats), Sacaraucae, and Dahae (still exists as a Jat clan of Punjab)[68], whose home at the beginning of the second century B.C. was in the country between the Caspian sea (sea) and the Jaxartes river (Central Asia).[69]
H. Bingley wrote: “It is from these Scythian Immigrants that most of the Jat tribes are at any rate partly descended.”[71]
Professor Henry Smith Williams wrote: “The extent of the Scythian invasion has been variously estimated. Some scholars believe that they virtually supplanted the previous population of India (means Punjab), and there seems little doubt that by far the most numerous section of the Punjab population is of Scythian origin.”[73]
Professor Pritam Singh Gill wrote: “There is a general concensus of opinion that Jats, and with them Rajputs and Gujjars were foreigners who came from their original home, near the Oxus, Central Asia.”[74]
Professor Tadeusz Sulimirski wrote: “The evidence of both the ancient authors and the archaeological remains point to a massive migration of Sacian (Sakas)/Massagetan (“great” Jat) tribes from the Syr Daria Delta (Central Asia) by the middle of the second century B.C. Some of the Syr Darian tribes; they also invaded North India.”[75]
I. Sara wrote: “Recent excavations in the Ukraine and Crimea. The finds points to the visible links of the Jat and Scythians.”[78]
J. Daniell wrote: “Jats, who describe their ancestors as being immigrants from the west.”[79]
Sir Mountstuart Elphinstone Grant Duff wrote: “My conclusion, therefore, is, that the Jats may be of Scythian descent.”[80]
Ujagir Singh Mahil wrote: “Jat were called Scythians; because they were the inhabitants of the ancient country of Scythia. The Jats who invaded the Punjab and conquered India up to Benares were called Indo-Scythians.”[81]
James Francis Katherinus Hewitt wrote: “Further evidence both of the early history and origin of the race of Jats, or Getae, is given by the customs and geographical position of another tribe of the same stock, called the Massagetae, or great (massa) Getae.”[82]
Syed Muhammad Latif wrote: “A considerable portion of the routed army of the Scythians settled in the Punjab, and a race of them, called Nomardy, inhabited the country on the west bank of the Indus (river). They are described as a nomadic tribe, living in wooden houses, after the old Scythian fashion, and settling where they found sufficient pasturage. A portion of these settlers, the descendants of Massagetae, were called Getes, from whom sprung the modern Jats.”[84]
Dr. Gopal Singh wrote: “The Jats of the Panjab, are Scythians in origin and came from Central Asia, whose one branch migrated as far south in Europe as Bulgaria. “[85]
N. Singh wrote: “The Scythians appear to originate from Central Asia. They reached Punjab between 50 B.C. and A.D. 50. It seems probable that the Scythian ancestors of the Jats entered the Sindh Valley (presently in Pakistan Kashmir) between 100 B.C. and A.D. 100.”[86]
Satya Shrava wrote: “The Jats are none other than the Massagetae (Great Getae) mentioned in Diodorus as an off-spring of the ancient Saka tribe…. a fact now well-known.”[87]
S. Nijjar wrote: “The Jats are the descendants of Scythians, whose kingdom’s capital was Scythia, in the present Ukraine.
>>>>>>>>> Identification as Massagetaeans >>>>>>>
Steven M. Collins advocates the identification of Massagetaeans as “Great Jits or Jats” of Asia.[89][90]
Weer Rajendra Rishi advocates that the Jats are none other than the Massagetaeans (Maha/Great Getae).[91]
Rahul Sankrityayan had identified the Jats as Massagetaeans.[92]
Arnold Joseph Toynbee wrote: “It may not be fantastic to conjecture that the Tuetonic-speaking Goths and Gauts of Scandinavia may have been descended from a fragment of the same Indo-European-speaking tribe as the homonymous Getae and Thyssagetae and Massagetae of the Eurasian Steppe who are represented today by the Jats of the Panjab.”[93]
Arnold Joseph Toynbee, also wrote: “It had been carried from the Oxus-Jaxartes Basin into the Indus Basin by the Massagetae themselves, together with their tribal name (the Jats), in their Volkerwander- ung in the second century BC”[94]
George Rawlinson has identified the Massagetaeans as “Great Jits or Jats” of Asia.[95][96][97][98][99][100]
Sir Richard Francis Burton wrote: “The Massagetae (greater Jats or Goths) are opposed to the Thyssa (or lesser) Getae, and both used the sagaris.”[101]
Azmat Gharani Amazings (sic) Reply to DG ISPR Asif Ghafoor and ISI
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JABySBvh-vo
Sounds very heartfelt.
Good to read you again, MMK. Please have a look my previous comment (the main text is running late and probably is still sitting in Razib’s ass bin) and try to answer. I wasn’t there in 2003 and I did not know about this until this morning. The question is for all BPs:
1. Why India’s Prime Minister intervened as he did?
2. Why was the Jat Aryan Foundation Congress cancelled?
3. Why the Congress was, however, held 2 months after cancellation?
Thanks and keep good work!
RE: About Jat people (1/3) (from their web site)
https://www.jatland.com/home/Jats
The Indo-Aryan origin of Jats has been advocated on the basis of ethnological, physical and linguistic standards by many historians like Ernest Binfield Havell,[42] Qanungo,[43] Chintaman Vinayak Vaidya,[44] Sir Herbert Risley,[45] Thakur Deshraj,[46], Dr Natthan Singh[47], Mangal Sen Jindal[48], etc. Sir Herbert Risley declared the Jats to be the true representatives of the Vedic Aryans.
According to Maheswari Prasad of Banaras Hindu University, Jats belong to the Proto-Vedic Aryan stock. But being on the periphery of Madhyadesha, the cradle of Vedic culture, they did not undergo the social transformation on the line of varna system and monarchial political organizaion.
Professor B. S. Dhillon states that Jat people are mainly of Indo-Scythian lineage with composite mixing of Sarmatians, Goths & Jutes in History and study of the Jats. Historian James Tod agreed in considering the Jat people to be of Indo-Scythian Stock.[61] Moreover, Sir Alexander Cunningham, Former Director-General of the Archeological Survey of India, considered the Jat people to be the Xanthii (a Scythian tribe) of Scythian stock who he considered very likely called the Zaths (Jats) of early Arab writers.
Sir Alexander Cunningham, (Former Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India) wrote: The Xanthii (a Scythian tribe) are very probably the Zaths (Jats) of the early Arab writers. As the Zaths were in Sindh to the west of the Indus, this location agrees very well with what we know of the settlement of the Sakas (Scythians) on the Indian frontier.[67]
Sir John Marshall, (Former Director-General of the Archaeological Survey of India) wrote: “These Scythian invaders came principally from the three great tribes of Massagetae (great Jats), Sacaraucae, and Dahae (still exists as a Jat clan of Punjab)[68], whose home at the beginning of the second century B.C. was in the country between the Caspian sea (sea) and the Jaxartes river (Central Asia).[69]
Arthur Edward Barstow wrote: “The Medii, Xanthii, Jatii, Getae and other Scythian races, were gradually working their way from the banks of the Oxus into Southern Afghanistan and the pastoral highland about Quetta (a Pakistani city)
A. H. Bingley wrote: “It is from these Scythian Immigrants that most of the Jat tribes are at any rate partly descended.”[71]
RE: About Jat people (2/3)
Professor Joyce Pettigrew wrote: “Another view holds that the Jats came from Asia Minor and Armenia in the successive invasions during the period 600 B.C. to A.D. 600.”[72]
Professor Henry Smith Williams wrote: “The extent of the Scythian invasion has been variously estimated. Some scholars believe that they virtually supplanted the previous population of India (means Punjab), and there seems little doubt that by far the most numerous section of the Punjab population is of Scythian origin.”[73]
Professor Pritam Singh Gill wrote: “There is a general consensus of opinion that Jats, and with them Rajputs and Gujjars were foreigners who came from their original home, near the Oxus, Central Asia.”[74]
Professor Tadeusz Sulimirski wrote: “The evidence of both the ancient authors and the archaeological remains point to a massive migration of Sacian (Sakas)/Massagetan (“great” Jat) tribes from the Syr Daria Delta by the middle of the second century B.C. Some of the Syr Darian tribes; they also invaded North India.”[75]
I. Sara wrote: “Recent excavations in the Ukraine and Crimea. The finds points to the visible links of the Jat and Scythians.”[78]
C. J. Daniell wrote: “Jats, who describe their ancestors as being immigrants from the west.”[79]
Sir Mountstuart Elphinstone Grant Duff wrote: “My conclusion, therefore, is, that the Jats may be of Scythian descent.”[80]
Ujagir Singh Mahil wrote: “Jat were called Scythians; because they were the inhabitants of the ancient country of Scythia. The Jats who invaded the Punjab and conquered India up to Benares were called Indo-Scythians.”[81]
James Francis Katherinus Hewitt wrote: “Further evidence both of the early history and origin of the race of Jats, or Getae, is given by the customs and geographical position of another tribe of the same stock, called the Massagetae, or great (massa) Getae.”[82]
It’s interesting that the Scythians settlements were in the agricultural East Punjab and Haryana region. The Iranians of the East seeking refugee in India.. an old story…
The Rajputs, Gujjars are said to be Iranic too..
RE: About Jat people (3/3)
Syed Muhammad Latif wrote: “A considerable portion of the routed army of the Scythians settled in the Punjab. A portion of these settlers, the descendants of Massagetae, were called Getes, from whom sprung the modern Jats.”[84]
Dr. Gopal Singh wrote: “The Jats of the Panjab, are Scythians in origin and came from Central Asia, whose one branch migrated as far south in Europe as Bulgaria. “[85]
Satya Shrava wrote: “The Jats are none other than the Massagetae (Great Getae) mentioned in Diodorus as an off-spring of the ancient Saka tribe…. a fact now well-known.”[87]
B. S. Nijjar wrote: “The Jats are the descendants of Scythians, whose kingdom’s capital was Scythia, in the present Ukraine.
Steven M. Collins advocates the identification of Massagetaeans as “Great Jits or Jats” of Asia.[89][90]
Weer Rajendra Rishi advocates that the Jats are none other than the Massagetaeans (Maha/Great Getae).[91]
Rahul Sankrityayan had identified the Jats as Massagetaeans.[92]
George Rawlinson has identified the Massagetaeans as “Great Jits or Jats” of Asia.
Sir Richard Francis Burton wrote: “The Massagetae (greater Jats or Goths) are opposed to the Thyssa (or lesser) Getae, and both used the sagaris.”
I believe the Croats are Iranic; what about the Serbs?
Bosniacs are ethnically Serbs – Muslim converts and Croats are Catholic converts. When the term ‘Iranic’ was originated and who is assumed Iranic?
Can you speculate why India’s Prime Minister and government influenced the postponing the World JAT Foundation Congress in Belgrade in 2003?
WIKI: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Jat_Aryan_Foundation
Stay tuned for my comments re Jat, etc.
@Milanković from another thread to keep that one on topic:
“A question for you – is it true that some assertions exist that the Theory of relativity is not universal, i.e. there were some findings (theoretical/experimental?) that some particles traveled faster than the speed of light. ”
Relativity is not a theory — it is a requirement one imposes on consistent physical theories. Notice how the length of something, say a pencil, is the same no matter which orientation you choose to look at it in space (rotational invariance). The equivalent statement in spacetime implies a variety of things, including the constancy of the speed of light for all observers (rotational invariance in spacetime = special relativity).
You can choose to relax this requirement in any theory you’d like to write down, but it won’t correspond to the universe we observe. Every few years there’s always someone that claims relativity is violated, only for it to turn out to be a mistake in their measurement (or in the case of the `superluminal neutrinos’ purportedly seen by the Opera experiment back in ’11, the result of some faulty wiring) that resulted in the spurious claim. No evidence so far that special relativity has been violated. In fact, it’s one of the most accurately constrained properties of the universe — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_searches_for_Lorentz_violation#Threshold_constraints
Having said that, theoretical physicists like to entertain what things might look like in any consistent universe even if it isn’t ours. One can indeed re-introduce an ether to provide a fixed frame of reference (look up Einstein-Aether theory if you’re interested). Here, you can have signals that propagate faster than the speed of light, but it takes infinite energy to create closed timelike curves so the consistency of the theory is saved. Of course, this is not our universe, and there isn’t a shred of evidence that such an ether exists now or in the past.
i’m writing a sci-fi novel; i shall consult you for sure!
You’re welcome to hit me up!
Good attempt SP. Just one correction – “rotational invariance in spacetime = special relativity” is not a factually correct statement. The invariance in special relativity is known as Lorentz Invariance. By calling this invariance rotation you can present misleading picture. This is really 4-D Minkowsky spacetime we are talking about, and there is no rotational axis as understood in 3-D space.
@Scorpion Eater
LOL mate, please. I was trying to break it down into a simple enough analogy that could fit into a comment box without resorting to technical jargon. You’re welcome to sit in on any of my lectures if you really want to understand how it works though 😉
Baap re…now will we have brown interstellar or something here or what 😛
Pakistan Data Darbar: Bomber kills eight outside Sufi shrine in Lahore
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-48197260
Few days back , the oldest Muslim place of worship in Ghanzi was blown up by Taliban
https://www.indiablooms.com/world-details/SA/19805/taliban-militants-blow-up-oldest-shrines-in-afghanistan-s-ghazni-city.html
It is so common it is no news anymore.
Test post:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C0DPdy98e4c
Pashteen: PTM Hurt Pakistan Military’s Terror-Sponsoring Industry
Voice of America
https://www.voanews.com/a/pashteen-ptm-hurt-military-s-terror-sponsoring-industry/4906721.html
“”They [military] train militants here and then the militants carry out attacks in my country and other countries of the world. With PTM’s emergence as a movement, the military can no longer operate with impunity to do that and their so-called business has been faced with difficulties,” he added.”
A career-related dilemma I wish to seek advice on from the commentators here(i’m sorry if such posts aren’t germane to this blog, request the admins to delete if it is so) :
What seem to be the job prospects in South Asian archaeology in the near future?
I’d be pursuing a masters in archaeology which commences this fall, and I’m really nervous about whether i’d ever be able to secure any gainful employment.
Such despondency arises from the horrible job stories in the archaeological arena in the west that I’ve read about on internet forums. I don’t know what the scene is over here in South Asia because I’m not aware of any blogs or websites run by local archaeologists or academicians; so my knowledge about the sector is restricted to the western discourse, and as I said its not very motivating.
I later plan to pursue doctoral work on the archaeology of pilgrimage in the Central and Western Himalayan landscapes, if that helps. This is an area which hasn’t been comprehensively researched in the past, since much of the archaeological research in the North has been constrained to the Indus regions due to obvious reasons. And anthropological scholarship on the Himalayas has been restricted to the Eastern Himalayas(Nepal) and the Tibetan plateau(the reasons of which i’m never able to fathom), so there is a lot to be explored(though when i say anthropological in this context, I’m particularly talking about archaeological scholarship, not about biomedical-anthropological or cultural anthropological scholarship; the latter two sub-fields have been extensively researched in the central and Western Himalayan regions, especially ethnographical work on the upper Himalayan tribes such as the Bhotias or Kinnauris). I’m also intrigued by the Trans-Himalayan regions, especially by the cave burials in some sites there. I foresee I’d be applying to some archaeology departments in the west which have a research focus on himalayan archaeology, such as the University of York and Univ of Cambridge(does anyone know of any other such departments?).
So at this point in my career, would it be wise to continue studies, or should I change tracks?
Can I also inquire whether doctoral degrees in such fields can be fully-funded ones? I ask that because I doubt I’d be able to self-fund my graduate work. And how difficult is it to land a permanent tenure position in the west in anthropological fields? Thank you.
Dheeraj, I do not have answers to your queries, but I bow to your choice of career, and offer my heartfelt encouragement.
As someone who has seen far too many bright IIT engineers getting buried unknown and unsung in the cubicles of US IT industry, your post comes as a fresh breeze. I must say, go for it. If you like your job, then the job simply becomes an extension of your hobby. If you don’t like your job, then it is a drudgery even though it may be paying big bucks.
So by all means break free of cubicles and soar over Himalayas!
Scorpion Eater ji, can’t thank you enough for those encouraging words.
Yeah I think even though I foresee myself being a broke-ass in my later 20s, working at lower-than-median wages as a shovelbum(being proverbial here, I’d prefer working in academia anyday) and knocking at the doors of myriad faculties for that one lucky adjunct position(I think its better to not even dream about securing a permanent tenure somewhere someday haha), I’d still end up going down that road, because I just can’t imagine myself doing anything else, except maybe selling postcards and books on the roadside.
Atidhanyawad Vrischika-bhOjaka ji.
Best of luck Dheeraj, we need more people like you
Perfect! If you have that kind of a deep attachment – which may arise from anything ranging from a sense of possession of innate natural talent for this subject and this alone, to a desperation sprung from realising the fact that you don’t know anything else, you will not be totally destroyed definitely; someone will provide the necessary opportunities at some point and lift you up when you fall to the rock-bottom (of course all this falling to the rock-bottom does not get repeated with you or anybody else). But you have to make sure that you are competent at what you want to do. If both of the above (competence and sticky, viscous attachment) are there, then everything should be fine, I guess.
the main question to ask Dheeraj is if he is single or not?
If he is planning to get married and have children, it’s an entirely different paradigm..
Haha I know next to nothing about this particular aspect as I have never thought about it so far. (For me personally though, I always wish that God may so kindly drop me an easy little child from the sky whom I can single-dad very comfortably and enjoyably lol. Or if it is deemed unacceptable that a child have a single dad without a mother, then I will get that baby adopted as child/grandchild by my parents and make them the major guardians and me a minor guardian lol. muMduMdi mosaLLa paMDaga nAku (‘the worst of my life is yet to come’) lol).
Hello Dheeraj, I don’t have any answers to your questions too but if it is the case that you think that you might be capable of dealing with the hardships – of all kinds, like financial, emotional, etc. – you may face (which hopefully does not happen) over the course of this type of career (others have their own problems too but theirs might be of a more done-and-dusted kind and relatively more easily surpassable), then please pursue it by all means. This type of a career also may mean that if you excel in your job (this one must always try to do), your growth may be more steep and you may be able to lead a more peaceful life more soon compared to other fields with a lot of skilled-labour supply.
I really wish I could be of more help. In my own field of electrical engineering, though I don’t have much direct experience because I wrecked my chances of pursuing a doctorate and even a more meaningful graduate study in the United States, I tend to sense that research funding has been becoming more difficult to obtain over the years. Have you tried contacting any researchers in archaeology from the West working in India and also Indian archaeologists themselves regarding this? (I only have big names like Dorian Fuller, Vasant Shinde, etc. in mind but maybe you know people at various stages of practice?) I am sure that will help you most certainly if the other parties have a habit of reading emails and helpfully responding to them. At least some of them might have that habit. Also, very importantly, keep on looking for more archaeology-related academic forums and such on the internet and simply make new threads on forums without any shame to see if anyone joins the party! Sorry if you have already done all these things though lol. Also, in general, be very open-minded and don’t reject good and able company when it comes to you. A good group is always better than an individual is the mantra. Sorry if this does not apply to you lol (it does to me as I am a radical introvert who is also very timid lol; the mantra was also kindly given to me by God and not philosophically arrived at and consequently put into practice by self; he simply forced some good people into my life and I simply had the good presence of mind at the time not to reject it).
One major policy-related problem that I tend to get aware of as a layman corresponding to Indian archaeology is the neglect of archaeological sites and not taking care of them properly – like the stuff about destruction of south Indian neolithic sites due to political, commercial interests and otherwise, etc. I don’t know to what extent this may be relevant to you though.
Santosh garu, thank you for replying.
>”In my own field of electrical engineering”
I always thought you were a linguist haha, just saying.
>”This type of a career also may mean that if you excel in your job, your growth may be more steep and you may be able to lead a more peaceful life more soon compared to other fields with a lot of skilled-labour supply.”
Yeah i do realise that, and think the most important thing in such a field(though that is the case with every other field too) is to make new and worthful contacts, so that you’re approached for participating in excavations and in that way insured of year-round employment of some sort, and also to keep publishing in prestigious journals, just to be sure that universities do not fire you or rescind your grant.
>”I tend to sense that research funding has been becoming more difficult to obtain over the years.”
Yeah i sense the same, and it is even more prevalent in the arts and humanities.
>”Have you tried contacting any researchers in archaeology from the West working in India and also Indian archaeologists themselves regarding this?”
Santosh garu, Shinde ji is the VC of the department I join as a student this fall, but I do not know him personally. Though he is a juggernaut in himself in the field of South Asian archaeology, his work has been mostly focused on the Indus valley research. The two of the three people whose work is apropos of Himalayan anthro(and they have been my primary source of motivation)and whom I feel fortuitous to know personally are Dr. William Sax, department chair at the Dept. of Anthropology, Heidelberg University and Dr. Luke Whitmore, who is a professor of south asian religion studies at the UW-Stevens Point. Both of them have extensively researched Himalayan belief systems and their research work would fall in the field of cultural anthro and theology(kind-of-like); so both of them aren’t trained archaeologists. Dr. Sax has always implored me to work in this much neglected field, though he tells that he won’t be of much assistance since Heidelberg’s south asian dept. doesn’t have archaeology as a research track.
The third of them is Dr. Vinod Nautiyal, dept head at the archaeo dept, HNB Garhwal University, Srinagar(he suggests to do whatever the hell i wish to but attend the Garhwal university’s archaeo dept. haha)
>”keep on looking for more archaeology-related academic forums and such on the internet and simply make new threads on forums without any shame to see if anyone joins the party”
Yeah i did think of doing so, but most of the internet forums, the askanthropology subreddit being an example, don’t pay much heed to South Asian archaeology; though Tibetan studies are an exception, there is quite a heavy traffic in scholarship in that particular area I observe. And who could be better to rely on for advice than my very own brown folks:)
>”be very open-minded and don’t reject good and able company when it comes to you”/”as I am a radical introvert”
Certainly Santosh garu, I’ll keep that in mind. And well I believe I’m one too(introvert), so also applies to me:)
>”the neglect of archaeological sites and not taking care of them properly”
That is a grim actuality, and I’ve observed that the government of late has not been heedful of heritage preservation, part of the reason why archaeo/anthro are relatively small and rare departments in South Asia(a result of which is that none of my stemmie peers(and even those from the liberal arts in my cohort) are aware of the word anthropology, let alone discerning between anthro and something more popular such as sociology or philosophy lol.)
I’m very grateful to you for the detailed reply Santosh garu.
Am a bad electrical engineer and a bad linguist like a reNTikI ceDDa rEvaDu (‘a guy who failed at both the schemes’) lol.
And yes about the importance of networking, exactly; I cannot emphasise it enough. It’s unfortunate that the situation is as you mention in Reddit (and others), but why don’t you consider building/developing a subreddit associated with the specific topic of interest yourself? You must have already developed vast amounts of knowledge about the current situation in the field and you can enjoyably share over there? Without spending a lot of time on it of course and incrementally developing it; maybe a next Tibetan studies will result out of the effort and the future Dheerajs will also benefit a lot out of it.
I’d also suggest you consider the proposal of the Dr. Vinod Nautiyal that you mention. Of course depending on the quality of infrastructure that the university has and the relative ease with which you get access to research publications, etc. and the quality of important fundamental coursework, and other such factors, and also the (dreaded) future prospects. I don’t know much else though; I may not be helping here very much; it just seemed like a good and kinda rare thing that this Dr. Nautiyal told you – to do whatever you want – does it imply that he is willing to give a lot of academic freedom and he is also kinda desirous of attracting talented young people into his department and strengthening it?
Yes the neglect and destruction situation of sites is quite grim and I can’t even make any helpful suggestions to curb it in terms of policy, law, etc. but as an amateur linguist, I can say that just as linguists try their best to record languages before they go extinct, archaeologists should also collect as much data as possible, and with an increased sense of urgency, from sites before they disappear faster than legally allowed, to certain kinds of criminal practices in many places.
Santosh garu, actually there has been a mistake that you can ascribe to me. I didn’t phrase what I wished to convey in a felicitous manner, and have seemingly ended up misinforming you. I’m sorry for having wasted your time.
I rather wanted to say that Dr. Nautiyal warned me against joining the department as a student because of the abysmal state it is in for the only archaeological department solely committed to Himalayan archaeology; part of the reason why I’m headed south for the masters, and then the I’ll be attending is the best here in South Asia.
Wow! Deccan College, Pune? Seems like it; I did not realise. Have a great time there, man!
>”the main question to ask Dheeraj is if he is single or not?
If he is planning to get married and have children, it’s an entirely different paradigm..”
Zach, I turn 22 this year, so marriage and children can of course wait. Though I realise that had I been in my later 20s or early 30s, the story would have been completely different.
yes my only suggestion is that if you want to choose the esoteric bohemian part it is best not to *settle down*.
we should do a podcast on this..
Of course! A considerable number of people these days are beginning to consider marriage in the very late 20s and early-late 30s though a typical middle class family pressure phenomenon starts beginning from 25-26, if not earlier. I wish people somehow have the strength to trick parents (if it’s okay) into postponing marriage till at least the super-late 20s and early 30s if job satisfaction and the associated well-being is at stake. (But then I also have this folk anxiety that people may not produce high-IQ and otherwise healthy children if they marry too late; no free lunches I guess.)
Dheeraj,
doctoral degrees in such fields can be fully-funded ones?
I would do one check, i.e you can get a RA or TA say from start of PhD programs or at least second year. Possible in Science and Engineering, dont know in archaelology. In my time (1982) it was book (cant recall the name) at the American Center, something like the Petersen’s guide. It listed the various Unis PhD programs and info like GRE score needed for acceptance, and most importantly which Unis give TA/RA and tuition waivers from 1st or 2nd year.
I checked this stuff after I did my BSc in Sri Lanka.
Now to Archeology, some aspects have become quite Technical . Eg a lot of GIS (Geographic Info Systems) and Remote Sensing and Image Processing, high value technical fields. i.e easy to find a job.
My personal advice is go for it, Bachelors and PhD. Tenure track who knows. At least you will enjoy 4 years, another 6 years in PhD.
My personal experience:
I did precious little at BSc level.
When doing O/L (year 9-10) I wanted to be Chemist. By A/L (year 11-12) I wanted to be an Chemical/Geological Oceanographer, and do offshore Petroleum research of the coast of Mannar. There were no courses in Oceanography or Geology if you entered Sri Lankan state university as a Chem, Physics and Applied Math A/L student.
Chemistry PhD, I had two cousins who had done that plus another cousin sister from my mothers side who was doing PhD in Physics. However, by the time I was doing A/L had chat with the Physics PhD’s brother (a diver) friend who was doing PhD in Oceanography. I was all gungho doing stuff to serve my country etc and was given the suggestion Oceanography.
Anyway to cut a long story short two points
a) Some of the best years of my life was as a PhD student for 8 years. I would love to have continued as a student but the Uni thought other wise. As as one says, shit happens. My late wife was diagnosed with cancer when she arrived in the US, so none of those Amazon or Tropical Western Pacific trips for me. Just at max 2 day outdoor research around Long Island sound etc.
b) There was no oil exploration in Sri Lanka because of the war.
Anyway,
Dheeraj, if you have passion some will recognize and help you along the way.
I have friend, a Japanese who was a student in Archeology while I was in the US. Send the little write up here + a little more and CV to
my email sbarrkum@gmail.com
I will forward it to her and MAYBE she can give you advice guidance.
I really dont know if she is Archeology anymore as she has children.
By the time I had met her in the US Uni, she had spent 2+ years in small village in Sri Lanka. She could read, write and speak fluent Sinhalese. When she called me over the phone (1990 or so) I thought she was a Sinhalese. Done digs in Northern China/Siberia?, Africa and she was fluent in those language. To me I was getting a headache (and jealous) keeping where she kept travelling
I will forward it to her.
cheers sereno/barr
Sereno ji, thank you for the detailed reply.
>”you can get a RA or TA say from start of PhD programs or at least second year”
Yeah that is indeed the case with most of the graduate students in the top-tier or mid-tier depts in the US/UK varsities, but I’m not sure whether that is true for archaeo/anthro students too. Actually it is as such that, because of the nature of this field(long-term travel to faraway places), the doctoral topics are, in most cases, pre-selected(based on the projects the department is involved in), and this is almost always the case when the doctoral position is supplemented by RAs which are bursaries in return for teaching assistantships or heritage preservation jobs at the university museums. So it is highly unlikely that one would be able to secure an allowance while also getting to work in the sub-field of his/her choice. And almost all of the UK depts are majorly focused on Near Eastern archaeology, Egyptology, Greek/Roman archaeology etc, while in the case of US depts, its mostly Andes archaeology(Mayan); so that means the advertised positions never have a research focus on South Asian archaeological themes, let alone Himalayan ones. So someone unfortunate can either sit back and relax with the bursary aiding in his newfound area of research(after having departed from the topic he/she always dreamed of working on), or continue to work on his/her preferred research track in the night hours, having spent the day working at the local cafetaria/bookstore. I actually know someone who, a decade back, attended the same college which I’ll be attending, and landed a graduate position at Oxford, researching ancient pottery around Syria, and if I were to guess his doctoral work focus based on the two different MA dissertations of his, I’d never say he’d be dealing with Near Eastern archaeo for the next 5-6 years, that’d be baffling. So I can imagine what might have happened in his case.
>”Now to Archeology, some aspects have become quite Technical”
I concur with you here, and would even say that its majorly technical now, thanks to prolonged interaction with biological sciences, advancement in field technology and dating methods. A result is the stemming of various sub-fields such as Archaeobotany, Archaeozoology, Environmental Archaeology, Osteology, Maritime archaeo and some others. Though one other problem i can think of is the absence of field schools here, the training in which is a prerequisite for admission to graduate departments in the west. GIS is a part of the curriculum, and practical training in the same would be taken care at the Wadia Institute, Dehradun. But i might lack field school experience, so will have to think what could be done about it.
>”Send the little write up here + a little more and CV”
Can’t thank you enough; I’ll do so.
Beyond a certain threshold level of gatekeeping (which you have already passed), gainful employment has little to do with degrees, but more to do with attitude and initiative.
20s is the age to explore. Maybe your sojourn into archaeology will end in success, maybe it will be mixed. The point is that you cannot know until you have tried.
Again, I wont worry about employment, your communication skills and reflective attitude already make you a good fit for most jobs.
You may also take inspiration from figures like DD Kosambi who excelled in multiple fields.
whatever one does one must do it 110%..
https://zeenews.india.com/world/after-ban-on-masood-azhars-jaish-e-mohammad-pakistans-isi-sets-up-new-terror-group-jaish-e-mutki-2201918.html
After UNSC ban on JeM, Pakistan’s ISI sets up new terror group Jaish-e-Mutqi
“Ever since the UNSC imposed a ban on Jaish chief Azhar, Pakistan has been facing global pressure to take action against such terror outfits. And hence, their Inter-Services Intelligence has been engaged in the formation and strengthening of the new faction Jaish-e-Mutqi. ”
Comment: Same old, same old.
Who is afraid of PTM?
https://www.pakistantoday.com.pk/2019/05/06/who-is-afraid-of-ptm/#.XNP-bK82uHB.twitter
“So, who is afraid of PTM? The answer is neither straight nor simplistic. The doings of decades cannot be wished away. The harvest has to be reaped. Either through dialogue, a far more permanent solution or through force, a path paved with more bloodshed, ruin and perdition; the state has a choice.”
Best of luck Dheeraj.
I am also glad that we can take a rest from sh*tposting and culture wars to try to help a young brown man.
I hope you are not referring to me hahah 🙂
Hahaha, actually I was thinking about someone else.
Open Threads are one of the umpteen of the brilliant ideas of Dr. Razib Khan!
Thanks HM Brough, and though the arguments here tend to get pretty much intense and heated on occasions(though that happens quite often here, a side-effect of extraordinary erudition with disparate and opposite polarities I believe haha) and Kabir bhai gets reviled at left, right, and centre, I’d wish they continued till an eternity as I learn a lot from them; I can’t think of enjoying reading any other forum as much as BP(thanks Zach). I especially enjoy getting to know the experiences of the diaspora, one precious source of which happens to be you, and the take on brown issues from the diaspora lens:)
And i’ll take this opportunity to wish you the best of luck for your marriage.
Wow this is the first time anyone at BP has actually complimented me; my black heart is softening a touch..
haha I’m surprised that you aren’t appreciated enough for engendering the ideas that gave rise to a wonderful platform like this, a platform where “brownitude” could flourish. thanks again(its me again the second time too haha)
Hi Dheeraj,
I was waiting for more qualified to give you tips regarding your future career (and marriage). I’ll give you just briefly my general and specific opinion:
Specific: I believe you are familiar with archaeologist Aurel Stein and his excavation in India 100 years ago. I read some of his books. They can be found online in Public Library of India and only few people, included me, downloaded them. The guy did a detailed archaeological work in Norther India, Tibet, Innermost Asia, Xinjiang. You can find many maps and some photos. Some could probably make a PhD reviewing his books. It is interesting his capital work-book SERINDIA (very indicative name?) although wiki gives mickeymouse explanation about this. I will write one comment soon. However, you can use wiki as an initial source for Stein’s bio. Serindia (and other books) can be downloaded:
https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.45711/page/n7
Specific: You should study archaeological work conducted in Vinca (and Lepenski Vir). This is simply a belly of human civilization. Western countries were trying to suppress excavation and making strong pressure on Serbian government not to explore further. They also trying to hide excavation results so far. There are many photos on Web, you can see the first alphabet in the world, the first calendar, swastika which is 7000 years old, etc, etc. It is good to know mythology as well, you will find many almost identical Serbian and Indian mythology and it is reflected in archaeology as well. It cannot be written any ancient topic (language, mythology, genetics) without reference on Vinca. There is strong resistance, even here at BP, to even mention or discuss anything about Vinca.
General: regarding previous, you are young guy and you should have open mind. If you try to push the envelope of knowledge, you should know, it will be an uphill battle. If you read some of my comments you can disagree, but you should not ignore them. Try to prove that they are wrong or without substance (or right). In regard to this:
Specific: Considering that you are interested in Tibet I already provided hundreds of Serbian toponyms in Tibet and other parts of India and Central Asia (and Persia and Asia Minor and Assyria). These toponyms can be a starting point for research considering that some of these toponyms are almost unchanged or slightly changed. Some these places may still have archaeological remains (e.g. see Stein’s photos). More than 1000 toponyms I published on BP were unanimously ignored without any comment or objection what is very indicative. Some are maybe disappointed, expecting perhaps some (archaic) Lithuanian or Scythian or even German, names -?.
General: everything what I said for mythology is applicable for languages (Sanskrit, the term ‘Indo-European’ is a crap) and history, too. You should know basics, at least, to know what you are digging and what are you expecting to find.
Good luck!
Dheeraj,
I don’t have any specific advice on your chosen field, however, I wanted to compliment you on your communication skills and reflective attitude (borrowing these terms from someone else on this forum). You are impressive already, and if you give your best to whatever you choose, you will do very well (since you have the horsepower).
As someone who has always been a religion and history buff, but who ended up in tech and business, I can’t stress enough the importance of doing what you are passionate about. Yes, you may never make big money in Anthro or whatever, but your life can be happier and your self more fulfilled if you do want you want to, and because of that are able to excel in that chosen field. Young people underestimate how important the higher layers of Maslow’s hierarchy of needs are for a man (or woman) to feel fulfilled, accomplished and happy. A part of that is being recognized, valued for your skills and contribution, and that will only happen with superior performance which is conditional on passion and true interest.
Another thing as an NRI I will advise is that you should make choices about where you live very carefully. As someone who left India for the US just because I could but never really wanted to, I have always wished I had not taken that step, or moved back before it was too late (which now it is for me). As some writer said, I will be forever in mourning at what I lost and left behind in India….So choose wisely
India’s Liberal Expats Are Modi’s Biggest Fans
https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/05/07/indias-liberal-expats-are-modis-biggest-fans/
Any thoughts? 😛
The usual derp, also Swain’s arguments tell more about Swain than about us. As I said on Twitter, the main reason diaspora types like the BJP is because they hate INC. As Dr. Khan mentioned, economics is another reason.
But I have literally never, ever heard a diaspora Indian say something along the lines of “I’m backing BJP because they’ll give those Muslims what for.” Even when I talk to avowed Hindu nationalists, the conversation turns to “Congress is a political machine and nothing more,” “Congress is corrupt and looting our nation,” and for those from UP, some (justified) Mayawati-bashing is involved too (though she’s from a regional enemy of the BJP rather than INC).
Though I don’t have evidence for this next part, I think it’s possible that latent anti-Muslim sentiment drives a small amount of diaspora support for the BJP. But it’s a tertiary factor at most.
Pakistan: where the daily slaughter of women barely makes the news
Mohammed Hanif
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/may/09/pakistan-murdered-women?CMP=share_btn_tw
Islam delenda est
Time magazine cover story on Modi
http://time.com/5586415/india-election-narendra-modi-2019/
It is just the leftist frustration of loosing election after election in major democracies around the world.
http://time.com/5586415/india-election-narendra-modi-2019/
“Populists come in two stripes: those who are of the people they represent (Erdogan in Turkey, Bolsonaro in Brazil), and those who are merely exploiting the passions of those they are not actually part of (the champagne neo-fascists: the Brexiteers, Donald Trump, Imran Khan in Pakistan). Narendra Modi belongs very firmly to the first camp. He is the son of a tea seller, and his election was nothing short of a class revolt at the ballot box.”
The author’s confusion is apparent from the above quote. If Modi indeed rose from a tea seller to the Prime Minister how can he be accused of promoting caste bigotry? And how is Donald Trump a neo fascist?
“Modi’s record on women’s issues is spotty. On the one hand, he made opportunity for women and their safety a key election issue (a 2018 report ranked the country the most dangerous place on earth for women);”
That is just rubbish. Sushma Swaraj, Nirmala Sitharaman and Smriti Irani are very high profile members of Modi’s cabinet.
“a 2018 report ranked the country the most dangerous place on earth for women);””
https://poll2018.trust.org/country/?id=india
The report does not mention actual statistics. One has to be careful comparing numbers from a country with 1.3 billion people with those with much smaller populations.
“Violence against women in India has caused national and international outrage and protests since the 2012 gang-rape and murder of a student on a bus in New Delhi.”
The author neglects to mention that the perpetrators of this horrendous crime were Muslims.
“Hardly a month goes by without the nation watching agog on their smartphones as yet another enraged Hindu mob falls upon a defenseless Muslim.”
Month after month? Hyperbole, no specifics other than the one isolated case, again from a country that has the world’s second largest Muslim population 172 million.
“(Modi made the so-called Triple Talaq instant divorce a punishable offense through an executive order in 2018.)”
Of course. No Sharia Law in a democracy.
“I knew, as someone of Muslim parentage (my father was a Pakistani Muslim) and a member of India’s English-speaking elite, that the country Modi would bring into being would have no place for me.
The author’s motivations and biases are clear. Then what is he still doing living in India? Would he like to say a few things about the condition of the Mohajir’s in Pakistan and the MQM movement?
“India’s English-speaking elite”!!
So one has to be able to speak English to be considered an elite in India? Then guess who is diving the country and advocating going back to the colonial era?
“Modi, inadvertently or deliberately, has created a bewildering mental atmosphere in which India now believes that the road to becoming South Korea runs through the glories of ancient India.”
Again, rubbish. India has acquired the most modern weapons in recent years including the SPICE bombs that were used in Balakot airstrikes which are the real reason for Modi’s popularity that the author glosses over.
“Modi is lucky to be blessed with so weak an opposition–a ragtag coalition of parties, led by the Congress, with no agenda other than to defeat him. ”
That is not “lucky” and “blessed.” The BJP under Modi’s leadership routed the Congress in 2014. Just sour grapes for a loser. Congress has nothing more to offer than the mediocrity of a dying dynasty.
Time has just solidified their image as “fake news” by publishing a poorly researched and unabashedly biased article. The article ignores numerous international awards received by Modi including the Zayed Medal from the UAE and the Order of St Andrew the Apostle from Russia.
As a sidebar, Trump recently boycotted the White House Correspondent’s dinner. Now we know why.
Fire at New Haven Mosque Was Intentionally Set, Fire Chief Says
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/13/nyregion/new-haven-mosque-fire.html
See this Twitter feed about huge protest rallies in the border town of Chaman. There have been reports of the Pakistani Army firing at PTM activists. They are trying to supress news reports.
https://twitter.com/hashtag/PTMCondemnsAttackOnQayum?src=hash
Protests in Chaman. The Pakistani Army has reportedly fired at civilians. News reports are being censored.
https://twitter.com/hashtag/Chaman?src=hash
“Please watch and share this video of #PakistanArmy #FC directly firing at #Pashtuns in #Chaman “
US Intelligence report (Operation Freedom’s Sentinel) on terrorist groups operating in Afghanistan and Pakistan
https://twitter.com/francescam63?lang=en
Moral police kill footballer
Read more at: https://www.deccanherald.com/content/282865/moral-police-kill-footballer.html
“In an alleged act of moral policing, Kerala junior football team vice-captain Jithu Mohan, 23, was set on fire for being in love with a girl belonging to another religion. ”
Another religion?
“The footballer, a degree student, succumbed to his injuries at General Hospital in Kochi late on Tuesday night. In his statement before his death, Mohan told the magistrate that the girl’s brother-in-law Wahad, a constable, with the help of others se…”
The Pashtuns vs Pakistan Army: Another Disaster in the Making?
https://www.thequint.com/voices/opinion/the-pashtuns-vs-pakistan-army-another-disaster-in-the-making
same author in Washington Post behind paywall
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/01/08/im-journalist-who-fled-pakistan-i-no-longer-feel-safe-exile/?utm_term=.55fe879af93f
https://www.dawn.com/news/1485493
MNA Mohsin Dawar arrested from North Waziristan, remanded in CTD custody for 8 days.