‘“Being a girl from Chennai myself, I’m always interested when I see Tamilians on the screen,” she said. “It really resonated because it was the first time that we were seeing representation of Tamilians on a TV show in the United States. Every time you see Indian representation, it’s very stereotypical. … India is not just butter chicken and naan.” ‘
Well there could be more S-Indians in America (within Indian diaspora) than they are in India, proportionally
Well then just like Sikhs, their idea of homeland will shift to the West.
The lack of viable pop culture is what’s holding all the big diasporas tethered to India. N-Indians ones still look towards Bollywood. Once pop culture evolves to mirror Canadian-Punjabi or British Punjabi culture, its a small step towards breaking the final link to India. Especially less Hindu regions who operate more on cultural axis (the Chennai girl in the article, is Christian) rather than religious axis. The more-Hindu diasporas will be last to break free, since all Hindu-dom sites are in India.
What does “More Hindu” and “Less Hindu” mean in this context?
Chennai is a pretty seriously Hindu place, judging from the number of street-corner shrines you see (and everyone I talk to says there are more of them today than there were in the 1960s and 1970s).
Saurav considers you “less Hindu” if you vote for those dastardly regional parties like the DMK or the YSRCP instead of those Hindu Rashtra folks.
In all seriousness, I don’t think he’s completely off-base (being from AP myself). I wouldn’t say that TN or AP or even KL are “non-Hindu” or “less Hindu” per se, but I do think that you could maybe regard the cow belt (maybe adding in Gujarat) as a sort of “core region” of what we traditionally conceive of as Hindu/Indic civilization. Vedic Hinduism entered South India later, varna vyavastha was not fully implemented (varna vyavastha, not jaativaad), we aren’t Indo-Aryan speakers and we (mostly) escaped Islamic conquest.
I would say that we could maybe be considered something like the Balkans of India in terms of our relationship to the rest of the country. The political trends that Saurav cites are just one symptom of this fact. Things may well change if we remain within the construct of the Indian Republic for an extended period of time in this modern era, but nonetheless for now we remain significantly culturally distinct to resist the Hindu assimilationist impulses of the BJP-RSS. Their priorities, values, and mindset are simply completely alien and unrecognizable to the vast majority of South Indians (despite the no doubt vociferous protests of a few of our resident South Indian Sanghis here on Brown Pundits).
Its so simple, that i sometimes wonder that people knowingly don’t acknowledge it. So simple, in fact that even a ex Hindu can understand.
Just one last thing, i wouldn’t consider less Hindu region as magically becoming more-Hindu if they vote for BJP tomorrow. Politics is downstream of culture. So what we see as voting trends, are just cultural trends and not vice versa.
Oh yea, I completely agree with you on most of your points. I use the “Core India” vs. “Peripheral India” concept a lot when i’m trying to talk about India to white Americans as well, and I think there’s a lot of truth to it- linguistically, racially, culturally and historically. I think some of the early Sanskrit writers also used that language as well. I would definitely consider the south to be “Peripheral India”, but of course that doesn’t make us inferior in some way, and it doesn’t make us “less Hindu”. Hinduism (like Christianity, Islam, etc.) is a religion, not just a culture or a civilization. If you worship (one or many) Hindu god(s), abstain from beef etc., believe in reincarnation, think that some or all of the core Hindu narratives are true, then you’re as Hindu as anyone else (in my book), even if you totally reject the varna stuff, some of the patriarchal beliefs about sex and gender, the BJP political and cultural narratives, etc.. The south is mostly religiously Hindu even if they are culturally not part of the “core”.
I wouldn’t call myself either Hindu, non-Hindu or ex-Hindu, to be upfront about that: I’m a religious syncretist, although I do there are truths IN Hinduism, as well as in some other religions.
“Their priorities, values, and mindset are simply completely alien and unrecognizable to the vast majority of South Indians (despite the no doubt vociferous protests of a few of our resident South Indian Sanghis here on Brown Pundits).”
yes, i take some pride in the fact that the BJP doesquite poorly in TN (and Kerala).
Aren’t all the Sikh holy sites in India as well? So the last argument applies to them as well. Even the Jews preferred to return after 2000 years to their distant ancestral land and kick out the local Arabs than colonizing emply lands of Americas, Africa, or Oceania.
Pokerodu
1 year ago
Nice. So Khalistan banega in Canada with some regions in USA/UK as remote territories administered from Canada?
Ugra
1 year ago
Also more Sikhs in Punjab than in India proportionally……..
Hector_St_Clare
1 year ago
“Politics is downstream of culture.”
this is at best half true- politics *shapes* culture to a large extent. Even something as basic as the language in which people think and speak is in many cases the result of political choices.
Just one more reason why I fear for the fate of my native cultural and linguistic heritage in a unified India. Already I have heard that some Telugu kids whose families migrated to other Indian regions no longer know how to properly read or write Telugu.
Cultural genocide mask fully off, no surprise being that you are a Sanghi retard.
Ideally in a world that made sense Indians would have formed states based on language in 1947 instead of religion (which never historically mattered in India as much as people think it does). In such a world, these Telugus wouldn’t be in Mumbai or Delhi in the first place, they would be living in Hyderabad or Visakhapatnam. No need to learn stupid Hindi, they could be educated using their ancestral language just fine. Maybe they would learn English or French or something if they wanted.
Cultural genocide mask fully off, no surprise being that you are a Sanghi retard.
Rich coming from the guy who openly types slurs against Brahmins and Rajputs.
1. I’m not UC/Bania/Rajput or whatever else you think I am.
2. None of my grandparents had Hindi as their first language.
3. You clearly have zero idea about the lives of people who don’t live in their native states.
4. I’ve never voted for BJP, stop malding.
Had secondhand embarrassment seeing you proudly call yourself “Dravidian” the other day. Lol.
There are more “Dravidians” who respect me (and vice-versa) than you’ll ever meet in your life.
You are literally supporting erasure of indigenous languages for stupid Indian nationalism. And you idiots want to lecture the West about colonialism and indigenous rights, lol. Well I guess it takes one to know one…
The only cultural genocide I see happening is the destruction of Hindi films at the box office by Telegu cinema. RRR, Pushpa etc highest grossing films in India in recent years.
Languages will tend to homogenize and coalesce.
I notice Indian use a lot of English loan words when speaking their native languages now.
Saurav
1 year ago
‘I would definitely consider the south to be “Peripheral India”, but of course that doesn’t make us inferior in some way, and it doesn’t make us “less Hindu”. Hinduism (like Christianity, Islam, etc.) is a religion, not just a culture or a civilization.’
On the contrary, i would argue that there is nothing actually like “Peripheral India” outside of North East and Kashmir. No one considers S-Indians for example as Peripheral Indians. But if you ask N-Indians Hindus what they think about Mallu or Tamil Hindus, that’s a different matter.
Going forward, one has a better chance of being accepted as Indian, than as a Hindu.
85% of people surveyed (in the monumental 2021 Pew survey) in north-central India (i.e. the Hindi belt) and 66% of BJP fans nationwide said that speaking Hindi is an important component of being “truly Indian”. So, yes, I’d say that lots of people do draw a distinction between “core” and “peripheral” India.
That aside, I was referring to India not in the sense of the modern country but in the “Indic civilization” sense: probably I should have used that term instead.
If we just go by numbers then 100 percent of all North Indian Hindus believe that non consumption of Beef is essential part of being Hindu. Wonder where does it leave Mallu Hindus then?
I still stick to my point. You have a better chance of being accepted Indian than being accepted as Hindu at this point. While the former is still lax on its boundaries, the latter is being codified as we speak.
Codified by whom? There is no Hindu equivalent of the Pope, the Archbishop of Canterbury or the Southern Baptist Convention, so who is doing the codifying?
And if the people setting up the streetcorner shrines in Chennai aren’t Hindu, what religion are they? They certainly aren’t Muslim, Christian, Jain or Sikh. I doubt they care what North Indian BJP fans think of their religious practices, for what it’s worth.
Well if it doesn’t worry the S-Indian what N-Indian Hindus think of them, then why does the S-Indian worry that its seen as ‘Peripheral Indian’ ?
On the codifying part, the BJP/RSS has codified most of N-Indian Hindu heritage already. And the Ram temple movement is fruition to that. And sooner or later, the S-Indian Hindus will have to fall in line too ( parts of them are already)
I don’t worry, I’m not stating Core vs. Periphery in judgmental terms, just calling them like I see them.
There are lots of European peoples who I’d say are peripherally European as well, either geographically or ethnoracially/historically/culturally.
BasedExHindu
1 year ago
What makes us an organic part of India though if not our “Hindu” heritage? The whole concept of India, especially with the removal of Muslim-majority regions during partition, was based on this whole idea of civilizational unity around some kind of vague Vedic/Hindu historical/cultural legacy.
Nothing was organic when India liberated in 47. The regions which where ‘peripheral Indian’ in 47 have become more and more ‘core Indian’ today (if that’s the term one has to use).
Are Indians tribal heartland more Indian? Yes. Is Dravida-land more Indian? Yes. Has parts of even North East and Kashmir become more Indian? Yes.
Has all these areas become essentially more Hindu? I would argue not.
BasedExHindu
1 year ago
@Hector_St_Clare:
Thanks for the upvote. Based on some of your previous comments here on Brown Pundits I think you are a Tamil nationalist? As a Dravidianist, I believe I have similar views on many of these issues to you, although as you may have surmised I am far more skeptical of Hinduism and I find this whole varna-jati apparatus we currently have (sustained by widespread endogamy) to be wholly incompatible with the formation of the kinds of organic ethnic/racial bonds that I desire to see one day blossom in a potential independent Dravidian state(s). Frankly I believe that the social life of caste is something which has probably ironically kept the Indian Republic united as well as it has been up to this point by weakening what would otherwise likely be far more strident ethnolinguistic identities, but that’s an issue for another day.
“I wouldn’t call myself either Hindu, non-Hindu or ex-Hindu, to be upfront about that: I’m a religious syncretist, although I do there are truths IN Hinduism, as well as in some other religions.”
Tbh I wouldn’t mind if Hinduism/Hindu identity just became more of a cultural heritage/storied historical legacy for South Indians than a functional religion, like cultural Christianity in Europe or Islam for many modern Turks. I myself am an ex-Hindu who nonetheless abstains from eating beef lol (Don’t need to throw the baby out with the bathwater, you know). Dravidians need an Ataturk!
I really hope people like you were more upfront with South Indians and Dravidians about what you think of them. That would do a great job of accelerating the contradictions within your political project, and would tear the mask off.
I’d say whether beef eating people in Kerala are Hindus or not is between them and their god(s).
Well I am not sure which mask you are refereeing to here. Despite what i may think or what you may think, the Indian/Hindu project is going great guns in Southern India. Yes it will face some issues from time to time, but without any real ideological resistance like Dravidian-ism of Periyar or Karunanidhi (Stalin isnt made up of that stuff) , it will win the war.
Sooner or latter all or the majority will homogenize to an ‘acceptable Hindu’ template. Just like N-Indians fell in line. Just like Kannadigas, Assamese and the Bengalis are falling in line everyday. Those who don’t will be cast out.
+1000 to all this. I find the Dravidianist historical narrative very convicing, really. I think one of the coolest things about India is the fact that so much of our genetic ancestry is *native* to the subcontinent and has been there for 40k years or however many. I identify a lot more with that component of my ancestry than with the Indo-European invasion/migration.
I also entirely agree with you that caste- especially the varna hierarchy, but also in general- is a pernicious institution that I hope, in time, is overriden. In the meantime, I think the reservation policy to take at least some steps to leveling the playing field is a historical necessity, just like affirmative action is in North AMerica.
I think that “elite” Hinduism and “popular” Hinduism are really quite different, and I’m more sympathetic to the popular aspect. For a start, reincarnation- at least in some situations- makes more sense to me than the Abrahamic conception of one shot, then you’re done. There were of course heretical CHristians (many gnostic groups) that believed in reincarnation as well. But I would not call myself a Hindu, there’s too much there that I reject as well. Syncretist is probably the best term.
BasedExHindu
1 year ago
@IsThisReal
1. I’m not UC/Bania/Rajput or whatever else you think I am.
Lol! So you’re just an opportunist bootlicker, nice to know. You’re right man, you win, mind fucking blown. “I’m not a UC, please! I’m just one of their spineless doormat hangers-on!”
2. None of my grandparents had Hindi as their first language.
Cool, not sure what that has to do with anything. Your identity (if you are in fact even what you say are in the first place) doesn’t matter to me, only your agenda. And your agenda is North Indian Brahminical domination.
3. You clearly have zero idea about the lives of people who don’t live in their native states.
Man, you are just so completely ideologically possessed and high on your own fumes you think anyone who doesn’t just repeat Sanghi talking points verbatim just doesn’t understand the nUaNcEs of your precious Hindutva/Hinduism/Indian nationalism. Such nuanced, galaxy brain takes like “erasing regional languages is good, actually.” You are the epitome of what braindead right-wing propaganda does to a mfer.
4. I’ve never voted for BJP, stop malding.
You literally repeat their every last talking point verbatim, but sure, whatever dude. The only way this is true if you also live abroad. lol
Just accept what you are dude, I could literally copy-paste any random comment from IndiaSpeaks or Bakchodi and convince people that it is you. You think my comments aren’t original, well at least unlike you I don’t hide my ideological bias, I’m a Dravidianist loud and proud. Your stupid movement could learn a thing or two.
“There’s this Pakistani nationalist (been banned multiple times, currently goes by the name Canadian_786) on Reddit who runs this garbage site called “Materia Islamica”, he keeps posting that BBC link about penis sizes all the time in the comments while spreading his anti-India and anti-Hindu propaganda on Reddit.”
“aNtI-iNdIa AnD aNtI-hInDu PrOpaGaNdA” Who the fuck talks like this lol?
IsThisReal
1 year ago
3. You clearly have zero idea about the lives of people who don’t live in their native states.
Man, you are just so completely ideologically possessed and high on your own fumes you think anyone who doesn’t just repeat Sanghi talking points verbatim just doesn’t understand the nUaNcEs of your precious Hindutva/Hinduism/Indian nationalism. Such nuanced, galaxy brain takes like “erasing regional languages is good, actually.” You are the epitome of what braindead right-wing propaganda does to a mfer.
Insane how retarded this guy is.
Moron literally can’t see anything other than BJP/RSS/Hindutva.
He’s on par with K@bir, if not worse. Will give IT cell a run for their money.
Clown wants Telugu kids across the country to learn how to read and write Telugu simply because he thinks it’s super important.
How many years have you spent in India outside of AP?
Average kid raised in another state generally gets to learn (verbal) their mother tongue at home.
English is the standard for any economic migrant in the country, and every parent out there wants their kid to go to an English medium school. Naturally the kid also ends up learning English.
And then you also slowly pick up the state’s language talking to the natives (unless you’re super rich or happen to reside in cantonments and such, in that case your exposure is very limited).
That’s 2-3 languages learnt verbally already. Expecting the average kid to go out of their way and learn how to read and write their mother tongue is not possible for most of them. Even if they do learn, they will not be using it anywhere in their daily lives.
Indian schooling is a rat race to top it all, there’s enough to learn as it is.
Almost every single non-Tamizhan I’ve met in 20+ years in TN cannot read or write their mother tongue, this includes plenty of Telugu and Mallu friends of mine.
They can all converse in their mother tongue, Englsh and Tamil fluently, but none of them have the time nor the interest to learn how to read and write in their mother tongue, but I suppose they probably should learn, because “ExBaSeDhInDu” on brownpundits[dot]com is rattled by this behaviour.
But then again, why bother knowing all this when you can be a keyboard Dravidian who lives halfway across the planet, only learns about India through NYT/WaPo and goes “REEEEE BRAHMIN RAJPUT UC BOOTLICKER GENOCIDE BJP RSS NATIONALISM HINDUS” every 2 seconds?
Amazing how the human brain works.
It’s very telling when you see based/chad/sigma in someone’s username.
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/asian-america/never-ever-fans-say-goodbye-south-indian-american-milestone-rcna88845
‘“Being a girl from Chennai myself, I’m always interested when I see Tamilians on the screen,” she said. “It really resonated because it was the first time that we were seeing representation of Tamilians on a TV show in the United States. Every time you see Indian representation, it’s very stereotypical. … India is not just butter chicken and naan.” ‘
Well there could be more S-Indians in America (within Indian diaspora) than they are in India, proportionally
Wait until Chennai girl finds out how many Tamil actresses there are in Kollywood.
Well then just like Sikhs, their idea of homeland will shift to the West.
The lack of viable pop culture is what’s holding all the big diasporas tethered to India. N-Indians ones still look towards Bollywood. Once pop culture evolves to mirror Canadian-Punjabi or British Punjabi culture, its a small step towards breaking the final link to India. Especially less Hindu regions who operate more on cultural axis (the Chennai girl in the article, is Christian) rather than religious axis. The more-Hindu diasporas will be last to break free, since all Hindu-dom sites are in India.
What does “More Hindu” and “Less Hindu” mean in this context?
Chennai is a pretty seriously Hindu place, judging from the number of street-corner shrines you see (and everyone I talk to says there are more of them today than there were in the 1960s and 1970s).
Saurav considers you “less Hindu” if you vote for those dastardly regional parties like the DMK or the YSRCP instead of those Hindu Rashtra folks.
In all seriousness, I don’t think he’s completely off-base (being from AP myself). I wouldn’t say that TN or AP or even KL are “non-Hindu” or “less Hindu” per se, but I do think that you could maybe regard the cow belt (maybe adding in Gujarat) as a sort of “core region” of what we traditionally conceive of as Hindu/Indic civilization. Vedic Hinduism entered South India later, varna vyavastha was not fully implemented (varna vyavastha, not jaativaad), we aren’t Indo-Aryan speakers and we (mostly) escaped Islamic conquest.
I would say that we could maybe be considered something like the Balkans of India in terms of our relationship to the rest of the country. The political trends that Saurav cites are just one symptom of this fact. Things may well change if we remain within the construct of the Indian Republic for an extended period of time in this modern era, but nonetheless for now we remain significantly culturally distinct to resist the Hindu assimilationist impulses of the BJP-RSS. Their priorities, values, and mindset are simply completely alien and unrecognizable to the vast majority of South Indians (despite the no doubt vociferous protests of a few of our resident South Indian Sanghis here on Brown Pundits).
Its so simple, that i sometimes wonder that people knowingly don’t acknowledge it. So simple, in fact that even a ex Hindu can understand.
Just one last thing, i wouldn’t consider less Hindu region as magically becoming more-Hindu if they vote for BJP tomorrow. Politics is downstream of culture. So what we see as voting trends, are just cultural trends and not vice versa.
Oh yea, I completely agree with you on most of your points. I use the “Core India” vs. “Peripheral India” concept a lot when i’m trying to talk about India to white Americans as well, and I think there’s a lot of truth to it- linguistically, racially, culturally and historically. I think some of the early Sanskrit writers also used that language as well. I would definitely consider the south to be “Peripheral India”, but of course that doesn’t make us inferior in some way, and it doesn’t make us “less Hindu”. Hinduism (like Christianity, Islam, etc.) is a religion, not just a culture or a civilization. If you worship (one or many) Hindu god(s), abstain from beef etc., believe in reincarnation, think that some or all of the core Hindu narratives are true, then you’re as Hindu as anyone else (in my book), even if you totally reject the varna stuff, some of the patriarchal beliefs about sex and gender, the BJP political and cultural narratives, etc.. The south is mostly religiously Hindu even if they are culturally not part of the “core”.
I wouldn’t call myself either Hindu, non-Hindu or ex-Hindu, to be upfront about that: I’m a religious syncretist, although I do there are truths IN Hinduism, as well as in some other religions.
“Their priorities, values, and mindset are simply completely alien and unrecognizable to the vast majority of South Indians (despite the no doubt vociferous protests of a few of our resident South Indian Sanghis here on Brown Pundits).”
yes, i take some pride in the fact that the BJP doesquite poorly in TN (and Kerala).
+4
Aren’t all the Sikh holy sites in India as well? So the last argument applies to them as well. Even the Jews preferred to return after 2000 years to their distant ancestral land and kick out the local Arabs than colonizing emply lands of Americas, Africa, or Oceania.
Nice. So Khalistan banega in Canada with some regions in USA/UK as remote territories administered from Canada?
Also more Sikhs in Punjab than in India proportionally……..
“Politics is downstream of culture.”
this is at best half true- politics *shapes* culture to a large extent. Even something as basic as the language in which people think and speak is in many cases the result of political choices.
“Even something as basic as the language in which people think and speak is in many cases the result of political choices.”
Indeed. Case in point, 50% of Frenchmen in the year 1789 did not speak the language which we now generally refer to as “French”.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/7u8oyk/how_true_is_this_claim_in_1789_50_percent_of_the/
Just one more reason why I fear for the fate of my native cultural and linguistic heritage in a unified India. Already I have heard that some Telugu kids whose families migrated to other Indian regions no longer know how to properly read or write Telugu.
Already I have heard that some Telugu kids whose families migrated to other Indian regions no longer know how to properly read or write Telugu.
And why exactly should they?
Cultural genocide mask fully off, no surprise being that you are a Sanghi retard.
Ideally in a world that made sense Indians would have formed states based on language in 1947 instead of religion (which never historically mattered in India as much as people think it does). In such a world, these Telugus wouldn’t be in Mumbai or Delhi in the first place, they would be living in Hyderabad or Visakhapatnam. No need to learn stupid Hindi, they could be educated using their ancestral language just fine. Maybe they would learn English or French or something if they wanted.
Cultural genocide mask fully off, no surprise being that you are a Sanghi retard.
Rich coming from the guy who openly types slurs against Brahmins and Rajputs.
1. I’m not UC/Bania/Rajput or whatever else you think I am.
2. None of my grandparents had Hindi as their first language.
3. You clearly have zero idea about the lives of people who don’t live in their native states.
4. I’ve never voted for BJP, stop malding.
Had secondhand embarrassment seeing you proudly call yourself “Dravidian” the other day. Lol.
There are more “Dravidians” who respect me (and vice-versa) than you’ll ever meet in your life.
You are literally supporting erasure of indigenous languages for stupid Indian nationalism. And you idiots want to lecture the West about colonialism and indigenous rights, lol. Well I guess it takes one to know one…
How would you feel if North Indians today were all speaking natively Persian (or English) instead of Hindi?
The only cultural genocide I see happening is the destruction of Hindi films at the box office by Telegu cinema. RRR, Pushpa etc highest grossing films in India in recent years.
Languages will tend to homogenize and coalesce.
I notice Indian use a lot of English loan words when speaking their native languages now.
‘I would definitely consider the south to be “Peripheral India”, but of course that doesn’t make us inferior in some way, and it doesn’t make us “less Hindu”. Hinduism (like Christianity, Islam, etc.) is a religion, not just a culture or a civilization.’
On the contrary, i would argue that there is nothing actually like “Peripheral India” outside of North East and Kashmir. No one considers S-Indians for example as Peripheral Indians. But if you ask N-Indians Hindus what they think about Mallu or Tamil Hindus, that’s a different matter.
Going forward, one has a better chance of being accepted as Indian, than as a Hindu.
85% of people surveyed (in the monumental 2021 Pew survey) in north-central India (i.e. the Hindi belt) and 66% of BJP fans nationwide said that speaking Hindi is an important component of being “truly Indian”. So, yes, I’d say that lots of people do draw a distinction between “core” and “peripheral” India.
That aside, I was referring to India not in the sense of the modern country but in the “Indic civilization” sense: probably I should have used that term instead.
https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/06/29/nationalism-and-politics/
https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/2021/06/29/nationalism-and-politics/
If we just go by numbers then 100 percent of all North Indian Hindus believe that non consumption of Beef is essential part of being Hindu. Wonder where does it leave Mallu Hindus then?
I still stick to my point. You have a better chance of being accepted Indian than being accepted as Hindu at this point. While the former is still lax on its boundaries, the latter is being codified as we speak.
Codified by whom? There is no Hindu equivalent of the Pope, the Archbishop of Canterbury or the Southern Baptist Convention, so who is doing the codifying?
And if the people setting up the streetcorner shrines in Chennai aren’t Hindu, what religion are they? They certainly aren’t Muslim, Christian, Jain or Sikh. I doubt they care what North Indian BJP fans think of their religious practices, for what it’s worth.
Well if it doesn’t worry the S-Indian what N-Indian Hindus think of them, then why does the S-Indian worry that its seen as ‘Peripheral Indian’ ?
On the codifying part, the BJP/RSS has codified most of N-Indian Hindu heritage already. And the Ram temple movement is fruition to that. And sooner or later, the S-Indian Hindus will have to fall in line too ( parts of them are already)
I don’t worry, I’m not stating Core vs. Periphery in judgmental terms, just calling them like I see them.
There are lots of European peoples who I’d say are peripherally European as well, either geographically or ethnoracially/historically/culturally.
What makes us an organic part of India though if not our “Hindu” heritage? The whole concept of India, especially with the removal of Muslim-majority regions during partition, was based on this whole idea of civilizational unity around some kind of vague Vedic/Hindu historical/cultural legacy.
Nothing was organic when India liberated in 47. The regions which where ‘peripheral Indian’ in 47 have become more and more ‘core Indian’ today (if that’s the term one has to use).
Are Indians tribal heartland more Indian? Yes. Is Dravida-land more Indian? Yes. Has parts of even North East and Kashmir become more Indian? Yes.
Has all these areas become essentially more Hindu? I would argue not.
@Hector_St_Clare:
Thanks for the upvote. Based on some of your previous comments here on Brown Pundits I think you are a Tamil nationalist? As a Dravidianist, I believe I have similar views on many of these issues to you, although as you may have surmised I am far more skeptical of Hinduism and I find this whole varna-jati apparatus we currently have (sustained by widespread endogamy) to be wholly incompatible with the formation of the kinds of organic ethnic/racial bonds that I desire to see one day blossom in a potential independent Dravidian state(s). Frankly I believe that the social life of caste is something which has probably ironically kept the Indian Republic united as well as it has been up to this point by weakening what would otherwise likely be far more strident ethnolinguistic identities, but that’s an issue for another day.
“I wouldn’t call myself either Hindu, non-Hindu or ex-Hindu, to be upfront about that: I’m a religious syncretist, although I do there are truths IN Hinduism, as well as in some other religions.”
Tbh I wouldn’t mind if Hinduism/Hindu identity just became more of a cultural heritage/storied historical legacy for South Indians than a functional religion, like cultural Christianity in Europe or Islam for many modern Turks. I myself am an ex-Hindu who nonetheless abstains from eating beef lol (Don’t need to throw the baby out with the bathwater, you know). Dravidians need an Ataturk!
These are one of those days, where i hope the Dravidians do rise to challenge the Indian state. 😛
I really hope people like you were more upfront with South Indians and Dravidians about what you think of them. That would do a great job of accelerating the contradictions within your political project, and would tear the mask off.
I’d say whether beef eating people in Kerala are Hindus or not is between them and their god(s).
Well I am not sure which mask you are refereeing to here. Despite what i may think or what you may think, the Indian/Hindu project is going great guns in Southern India. Yes it will face some issues from time to time, but without any real ideological resistance like Dravidian-ism of Periyar or Karunanidhi (Stalin isnt made up of that stuff) , it will win the war.
Sooner or latter all or the majority will homogenize to an ‘acceptable Hindu’ template. Just like N-Indians fell in line. Just like Kannadigas, Assamese and the Bengalis are falling in line everyday. Those who don’t will be cast out.
+1000 to all this. I find the Dravidianist historical narrative very convicing, really. I think one of the coolest things about India is the fact that so much of our genetic ancestry is *native* to the subcontinent and has been there for 40k years or however many. I identify a lot more with that component of my ancestry than with the Indo-European invasion/migration.
I also entirely agree with you that caste- especially the varna hierarchy, but also in general- is a pernicious institution that I hope, in time, is overriden. In the meantime, I think the reservation policy to take at least some steps to leveling the playing field is a historical necessity, just like affirmative action is in North AMerica.
I think that “elite” Hinduism and “popular” Hinduism are really quite different, and I’m more sympathetic to the popular aspect. For a start, reincarnation- at least in some situations- makes more sense to me than the Abrahamic conception of one shot, then you’re done. There were of course heretical CHristians (many gnostic groups) that believed in reincarnation as well. But I would not call myself a Hindu, there’s too much there that I reject as well. Syncretist is probably the best term.
@IsThisReal
1. I’m not UC/Bania/Rajput or whatever else you think I am.
Lol! So you’re just an opportunist bootlicker, nice to know. You’re right man, you win, mind fucking blown. “I’m not a UC, please! I’m just one of their spineless doormat hangers-on!”
2. None of my grandparents had Hindi as their first language.
Cool, not sure what that has to do with anything. Your identity (if you are in fact even what you say are in the first place) doesn’t matter to me, only your agenda. And your agenda is North Indian Brahminical domination.
3. You clearly have zero idea about the lives of people who don’t live in their native states.
Man, you are just so completely ideologically possessed and high on your own fumes you think anyone who doesn’t just repeat Sanghi talking points verbatim just doesn’t understand the nUaNcEs of your precious Hindutva/Hinduism/Indian nationalism. Such nuanced, galaxy brain takes like “erasing regional languages is good, actually.” You are the epitome of what braindead right-wing propaganda does to a mfer.
4. I’ve never voted for BJP, stop malding.
You literally repeat their every last talking point verbatim, but sure, whatever dude. The only way this is true if you also live abroad. lol
Just accept what you are dude, I could literally copy-paste any random comment from IndiaSpeaks or Bakchodi and convince people that it is you. You think my comments aren’t original, well at least unlike you I don’t hide my ideological bias, I’m a Dravidianist loud and proud. Your stupid movement could learn a thing or two.
@IsThisReal:
https://www.brownpundits.com/2020/05/23/open-thread-brown-pundits-80/
You on May 23, 2020:
“There’s this Pakistani nationalist (been banned multiple times, currently goes by the name Canadian_786) on Reddit who runs this garbage site called “Materia Islamica”, he keeps posting that BBC link about penis sizes all the time in the comments while spreading his anti-India and anti-Hindu propaganda on Reddit.”
“aNtI-iNdIa AnD aNtI-hInDu PrOpaGaNdA” Who the fuck talks like this lol?
3. You clearly have zero idea about the lives of people who don’t live in their native states.
Man, you are just so completely ideologically possessed and high on your own fumes you think anyone who doesn’t just repeat Sanghi talking points verbatim just doesn’t understand the nUaNcEs of your precious Hindutva/Hinduism/Indian nationalism. Such nuanced, galaxy brain takes like “erasing regional languages is good, actually.” You are the epitome of what braindead right-wing propaganda does to a mfer.
Insane how retarded this guy is.
Moron literally can’t see anything other than BJP/RSS/Hindutva.
He’s on par with K@bir, if not worse. Will give IT cell a run for their money.
Clown wants Telugu kids across the country to learn how to read and write Telugu simply because he thinks it’s super important.
How many years have you spent in India outside of AP?
Average kid raised in another state generally gets to learn (verbal) their mother tongue at home.
English is the standard for any economic migrant in the country, and every parent out there wants their kid to go to an English medium school. Naturally the kid also ends up learning English.
And then you also slowly pick up the state’s language talking to the natives (unless you’re super rich or happen to reside in cantonments and such, in that case your exposure is very limited).
That’s 2-3 languages learnt verbally already. Expecting the average kid to go out of their way and learn how to read and write their mother tongue is not possible for most of them. Even if they do learn, they will not be using it anywhere in their daily lives.
Indian schooling is a rat race to top it all, there’s enough to learn as it is.
Almost every single non-Tamizhan I’ve met in 20+ years in TN cannot read or write their mother tongue, this includes plenty of Telugu and Mallu friends of mine.
They can all converse in their mother tongue, Englsh and Tamil fluently, but none of them have the time nor the interest to learn how to read and write in their mother tongue, but I suppose they probably should learn, because “ExBaSeDhInDu” on brownpundits[dot]com is rattled by this behaviour.
But then again, why bother knowing all this when you can be a keyboard Dravidian who lives halfway across the planet, only learns about India through NYT/WaPo and goes “REEEEE BRAHMIN RAJPUT UC BOOTLICKER GENOCIDE BJP RSS NATIONALISM HINDUS” every 2 seconds?
Amazing how the human brain works.
It’s very telling when you see based/chad/sigma in someone’s username.