Aman Ka Tamasha

[Eskander]

I wasn't anyone's superior

Pakistani >>>> Indian

I hope it's clear

 

[villageidiot]

Well, one of the commendable aspects of your participation in this forum is the rational and insightful nature of your contributions and engagement. As we grow older, we inevitably gain a greater comprehension of complex topics, and your trajectory suggests that you are well on your way to achieving this. Discussion forums like this one can be invaluable in refining our comprehension of contentious issues, provided that we approach them in a productive manner.

Thank you, bhai. I am frankly surprised at your evaluation. I don't consider myself that insightful, Although I try to get the opposite point of view in a debate and try not to be too disrespectful or toxic. So, it is a net positive contribution I guess.

 

[Eskander]

Superiors dont general deign to spend their precious time with their inferiors.

Scoot away kind sir, lest our filth lessen your pedigree

Eat more meat so you can produce proper fast bowlers like Shoaib Aktar who can bowl at 161 km/h

See, I'm here to help you Endians

 

[Joe Shearer]

Our results show how ancestry from the Steppe genetically linked Europe and South Asia in the Bronze Age, and identifies the populations that almost certainly were responsible for spreading Indo-European languages across much of Eurasia.

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing
Drink deep or drink not of the Pierian spring.

These results relate specifically to the movement of central Asian people from a region known for a culture called the Yamnaya Culture (a Russian archaeological term, from 'pit'). These central Asian people are associated with those who spoke the Proto-Indo-European language.

The division among them can be described as a separation of the Centum languages, languages where the word for a hundred was 'centum', and the Satem languages, where the word for hundred was Satem (or Satam). The division took place roughly around the part of the Yamnaya Culture region known as the region of the BMAC - the Bactria Margiana Archaeological Complex, in the region of the Syr Daria and Amu Daria rivers. Here the descendant of PIE was Indo-Iranian.

Here there was some sort of religious divide, as the people who spoke Iranian spoke of Daiva as demonic, and Ahura as divine; the people who spoke Indo-Aryan spoke of Deva as divine, and Asura as demonic - the exact opposite.

Out of this BMAC region, the first to break away, around 2000 to 1500 BC, were the Mitanni, who finally are found in historical times ruling over the Anatolian Hittites (who spoke a language that dated back before the division of Anatolian languages from PIE).

The second to break away were the remaining Indo-Aryan speakers, who went south-east, instead of south-west, like the Mitanni, and entered India through the three main passes and another approximately seventeen minor passes.

The remaining people, the Iranian speakers, moved into the regions today known as Iran, and occupied it.

The date of this wave into India is between 2000 BC to 1500 BC, roughly parallel to the discovery of Mitanni artifacts in Anatolia.

The next incursion was by the Persians, around 535 BC, when they extended their rule over three Indian provinces, one of which, roughly corresponding to Multan and Sindh. This was nearly a millennium after their cousins had come to those parts.

The third was 327 BC, by Alexander III and his mixed Macedonian and Greek soldiers, who, after his conquest of the Achaemenid Empire, entered the province of Gandhara, and debouched into the plains from Takshashila.

The fourth was not an incursion but a diplomatic contact, between the Seleucids and the Mauryas.

The fifth was in 180 BC, by the Bactrian Greeks, a part of whom separated out, and formed and ruled, for a brief period, as an Indo-Greek kingdom.

The sixth was in 55 BC, by the Sakas, who were before that to be found in a belt to the north of the Achaemenid Empire, extending all the way through the steppes until nearly Thessaly in Greece. They were driven out of their homeland by the Yueh Chi, themselves fleeing the attacks of the Hiong Nu, a tribe of probably Hunnic type, and in their flight, fell on the Bactrian Greek cities, wiped them out, and established a kingdom in today's Afghanistan, and in two parts of India, one in the north, in the Punjab region, ruled by the Northern Satrap, and in the Gujarat-Malwa region, ruled by the Western Satraps. The first died out quite quickly, being defeated by another tribe, the second , the Western Satraps, lasting a much longer time, until they were conquered by the Satavahanas. The Sakas were part of the Iranian people and probably spoke a dialect of Eastern Persian.

The seventh was the Yueh Chi, who were ruled by their equivalent of the Chandravanshi, the kings of the Moon Cult, or, in their variation of Indo-European (not Indo-Iranian), the Kushan. They built a vast empire in Central Asia, starting to rule in India roughly around 30 AD, that lasted till 375 AD, It was under their rule that Buddhism spread in Central Asia.

The eighth incursion was by the Huns, possibly the Hiong Nu, who had driven out the Yueh Chi twice, Their entry into India, and their vicious and murderous rule, was around 475 AD. One wave, one tribe was driven out by the Gupta emperors, but another wave displaced and ruled over the first, and lasted until 528 AD.

The ninth incursion was from the sea, and not from the mountain passes, and that was the invasion of the Arabs, in 711 AD. I am sure I do not have to say much about this subject.

The tenth incursion was by the Turk, Mahmud of Ghazni, whose first expedition was in 1000 AD.

The eleventh incursion was by the Persian Mohammed of Ghor, who first entered India in 1175 AD.

The twelfth incursion (not counting the Mongols, who never managed to either win or to settle in India) was by ZahirudDin Babar, a Barlas Mongol, who won a key battle in 1526 AD.

I hope the point goes home. There was no homogeneity among the various invaders, and the period lasted (not counting the Indo-Aryans incursion as an invasion), from 535 BC to 1526 AD. Anybody who finds a pattern in this needs medical attention.

Ethnically, too, the early incursions were of Indo-Iranian people, from 1500 BC to 535 BC, Greek from 327 BC to 180 BC (lasting till 55 BC), Iranian again in 55 BC, then Tokharian, if their language is used to describe them, then Hun, then Arab, then Turk, then Persian again, then Mongolian. Anybody who finds a patter in this needs extensive medical attention.

May I invoke the @M. Sarmad . I see his is in the thread. You can have a serious conversation with him. He's as serious as they come (a compliment. )

Thank you very much for the introduction to @M.Sarmad. Most obliged.

Foreign trade is based on competitive advantage, Cost benefit analysis, Production & Consumption pattern and Supply Chain. Pakistan does not have anything that can not be sourced from other countries or not produced in India.

Not all Pakistani cotton are having the finest quality. Generally the finest quality cotton find it's way to the west including a large chunk of Indian cotton.

Australia mines rock salt too. Himachal Pradesh also has rock salt mines. We extract small quantity due to ecological/environmental issues. There are large deposits of salt in uttarakhand, Rajasthan but extracting is not the priority.

Now, trade does not happen on assumptions. It depends on Reliability, Security and Payment terms. Exchange rates are also critical. It is a viable option for Pakistan only if India imports goods from Pakistan.

So, trade with Pakistan is not in India's favor.

I think there is more to it than this rather dismissive summary. Not disagreeing; believe it will be useful to think this through.

Source ? I don't think this is true cause they established a caste system that prevented inter mixing at a great level.

Moreover, the affinity to Europeans is proportionate to caste rank, the upper castes being most similar to Europeans, particularly East Europeans. These findings are consistent with greater West Eurasian male admixture with castes of higher rank.

No.

This is why I thought you should read and study the subject more before commenting. The caste system, from genetic investigation, began to freeze only around 800 AD.

 

[Joe Shearer]

So the development of Sanskrit and Mahayana Buddhism is a small feat ???

No, but there were hugely significant developments elsewhere.

I suspect you don't even know what this Sanskrit that we are both referring to, is.

What stops the proud pathan from outwitting the baniya. You too can try to as you put it exploit the market by being competitive, its called a free market. Definately more satisfying to cause your competitor to close shop than to kill him. One kills the spirit the other just the body

Is it such an inconceivable scenario that a bussiness led by a pathan could forcebly cause his competitors to crash out or being bought under? Must always the Baniya triumph in matters of commerce?

Who said war can be fought only with bullets, trade is war.

Another soured individual to be ignored. His nick is a straight contradiction of his views.

 

[SecularNationalist]

Ok, hatred deleted, lets talk business now.

Do something practical to convince me.
Give a Muslim majority Kashmir it's right of self-determination. Allow Indian Muslims to eat and transport beef. Stop burning mosques.
And finally let me enjoy some delicious beef korma and biryani in front of you. If you will be respectful while I enjoy my meal with no hatred in your eyes towards me then the very next day I will start trading with you.

 

[Joe Shearer]

I'm not a expert on India and for that matter on Pakistan but this much l know that every time I've visited India and one has to make it clear pre-mumbai I've been welcomed very warmly even though one is treated differently on arrival by the immigration officials and once you somehow survive the police reporting it is smooth sailing. Once they find out you are from across the border, the drinks and the dosas are suddenly delicious and free sometimes. A taxi driver in new delhi wanted to know everything about Lahore from where his parents migrated during the upheaval of independence. He showed me most of delhi in 2 days and never took a rupee from me to my embarrassment. Finally I had to convince him with the help of the doorman at the brilliant Taj hotel to please take something. Hyderabad in the south was more of the same.

Good to see you here, Sir.

Well, one of the commendable aspects of your participation in this forum is the rational and insightful nature of your contributions and engagement. As we grow older, we inevitably gain a greater comprehension of complex topics, and your trajectory suggests that you are well on your way to achieving this. Discussion forums like this one can be invaluable in refining our comprehension of contentious issues, provided that we approach them in a productive manner.

So totally agree, Sarmad Sahib. I think that young gentleman has a lot of potential.

We are 8 pages in and so far, no one has actually discussed the merits of the aforementioned trade. Rather people are debating the validity of your assumption, which only goes to show how far we are from a solution.

I always respected you, but you've kept this thread going for this long and are still trying to keep things from going off the rails. RESPEKT.

Don't worry, this is a major movement. We have to get the undergrowth out of the way before moving on to basics. Note also that we have two heavyweights participating in the discussion. Not as much as we might wish, but still an honour.

 

[ghazi52]

A good read ..

Biker takes India by storm​

Abbas Nasir
May 7, 2023


WHILE the visit lasted barely a day and a half, the ‘analysis’ generated by Foreign Minister Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari’s decision to attend the Shanghai Conference Organisation’s Council of Foreign Ministers meeting in Goa will outlast any reasonable time frame.

You will have noticed the word ‘analysis’ was used in quotes above. One can be sure you have also figured out why. What we have a flood of is partisan comment and very little genuine analysis on what was always going to be a visit in pursuit of multilateral, rather than bilateral, goals, as the foreign minister himself stated.

This vitriol towards Pakistan and its foreign minister was unleashed by the right-wing Hindu nationalist government’s foreign minister Dr S. Jaishanker: “As a foreign minister of an SCO member state, Mr Bhutto -Zardari was treated accordingly. As a promoter, justifier and spokesperson of a terrorism industry which is the mainstay of Pakistan, his positions were called out and countered including at the SCO meeting itself.”

Mr Bhutto-Zardari may have calmly and firmly spelt out Pakistan’s stance on both India’s unilateral annexation of Indian-held Kashmir and how it was an obstacle to any bilateral dialogue and also rebutted New Delhi’s accusation of being a state sponsor of terrorism, but hyper-nationalists on the right in Pakistan attacked their own foreign minister rather than India.

What happens when Indians and Pakistanis meet unhindered by official positions and a media craving for controversies?

Myra MacDonald, Reuters’ former bureau chief in Delhi and an author of three books on the two countries including one on the Siachen dispute, saw the Jaishankar diatribe thus. “I am sympathetic to India’s complaints about terrorism emanating from Pakistan. And I am very dubious about CPEC. All that said, the choice of words here seems unnecessarily undiplomatic and focused on a domestic audience.

“There’s an element of being rude to a guest that India would not have done before. But it’s also striking that Jaishankar reserves his harshest language for Pakistan (the far weaker country) than for China (the far stronger country) nibbling away at its borders.

“All in all, it looks to me like a government that is letting its own nationalist domestic political imperatives get in the way of intelligent choices about foreign policy.” Her tweeted response was more aligned to independent thinking on the issue. This argument carried weight as Karnataka state elections are scheduled for next week and even national elections are due early next year.

However, the bulk of the Indian media reflected its own domestic political loyalties and priorities as well as regional and domestic polarisation, with many outlets and journalists shaming themselves in the process as they churned out partisan rubbish in the name of ‘informed analysis’.

Our own ultra-nationalists were not to be left behind. You have consumed enough of their garbage including objections to why the Pakistan foreign minister reciprocated his Indian counterpart’s greeting by holding both palms together with fingers pointed upwards because it was a ‘Hindu namaste’.

Of course, the peddlers of this nonsense have never travelled in Sindh, parts of Balochistan and further afield in Bangladesh and even Thailand just to cite a few examples of that gesture not being indicative of faith but more of a cultural tradition in each case. Russian as well as other SCO member states’ media had no such objection to their foreign ministers exchanging the same greeting, rather than a handshake, as they arrived for the formal sessions.

Let me now draw your attention to what happens when people (including Indians and Pakistanis) meet, unhindered by official positions and a media craving for controversies. Abrar is a Pakistan-born German national whose family lives in their Lahore home. Abrar does a travel vlog on social media and has over 1.2 million followers on YouTube alone.

I have watched his travels across Europe, the Middle East, West Asia and our own subcontinent. A truly soft-spoken, unpretentious, handsome young man in his 20s, with an endearing demeanour, he rides a BMW trail bike and films his travels with helmet-mounted/ hand-held professional cameras.

What is staggering is that within hours of his uploading the latest episode, views run into hundreds of thousands. His most recent series after ‘I somehow got lucky enough to be finally given an Indian visa’ is an eye-opener. Yes, an eye-opener because one seldom gets to see/read anywhere the sort of content Abrar presents through his ‘WildLens’ YouTube channel.

He has a huge fan following in India as well. This cuts across faiths, ethnicity, language and gender. His staggering visual accounts of his journey from the southern-most to western, central and north Indian states and most urban centres along his route hold you glued to the screen. He takes you to historic sites and shows you people in their own cultural environment as a good storyteller would.
He posts on social media more than once a day sometimes and also schedules ‘meet ups’ with followers along his route. The adulation he gets from young and old, men and women, girls and boys is a sight to behold. He can’t obviously carry a lot of luggage on his bike and gets overwhelmed by gifts.

While many insist on hosting him for a meal (he was treated to Sindhi biryani in Surat by a family originally belonging to Sindh), others show their affection by riding alongside on their own bikes or by waiting for and greeting him along his planned route that he posts.

I am almost tempted to suggest we should get Abrar (and a few more like him) drafted into the Foreign Office because he seems to be winning more Indian hearts and minds than anything else we seem to have tried.

The writer is a former editor of Dawn.
abbas.nasir@gmail.com

 

[Joe Shearer]

Enough for me.

I had made a presentation on the incursions into India for my school alumni group, and that had been put up on YouTube. I think it would be useful to revise it (using an obvious alias) to cover the huge gaps in knowledge on display by some who have posted. Their knowledge of archaeology, anthropology proto-history and history definitely qualify them for graduate studies in civil engineering.

We are 8 pages in and so far, no one has actually discussed the merits of the aforementioned trade. Rather people are debating the validity of your assumption, which only goes to show how far we are from a solution.

I always respected you, but you've kept this thread going for this long and are still trying to keep things from going off the rails. RESPEKT.

Further, have you noticed that there are a number of serious commentators (leaving aside the big guns) emerging from this discussion? Isn't that forward movement?

 

[Krptonite]

Do something practical to convince me.
Give a Muslim majority Kashmir it's right of self-determination. Allow Indian Muslims to eat and transport beef. Stop burning mosques.
And finally let me enjoy some delicious beef korma and biryani in front of you. If you will be respectful while I enjoy my meal with no hatred in your eyes towards me then the very next day I will start trading with you.

Not gonna lie, that sudden right turn from human rights to beef khorma biryani cracked me up

 

[Joe Shearer]

Once again, just because the Upanishads were composed near the Gangetic Doab doesn't imply it's their place of origin. The content of Upanishads was available and transmitted by my ancestors who wrote the Rig Veda in the form of oral tradition. Even then, the location of their composition is North India or Punjab specifically, which l do include in Pakistan

No, on both counts.

The Upanishads were composed in the Gangetic Doab (not near the Gangetic Doab), and you seem to have no clue about their age or antiquity. Look them up. Some of them are near contemporaries.

As for your remark about Hinduism, you again seem to have no clue. There is no monolithic faith system called Hinduism. Please try to get at least the bare basics on board first, before commenting.

Not gonna lie, that sudden turn from human rights to khorma biryani cracked me up

What bugged me is that apparently I am not allowed to have beef.

Let's put it this way; if he will be respectful while I enjoy my kababs and parathas with no hatred in his eyes towards me, I will forego the pleasures of trading with him.

 

[Pakistani E]

One of the most frustrating things about the discourse with Pak/India relations is that it's hard to hold civil conversations with the majority of either Pakistanis or Indians. When it comes to relations between the two countries, most people immediately start with the position that "their" side must dominate the other, or win some sort of plaudits for their exploits. There is little utilitarianism thought, little of mutual respect or empathy, and no desire to actually find any solutions.

Trade, dialogue or other social interactions between the two at a national level is governed by these ideals. There is a weird expectation built in the mindset of both sides that when two individuals engage with each other, one side must come out on top.

I see people here blaming shady actors or the "establishment" of respective countries as being the ones behind the derailing of approachment but the reality seems far more grim and ugly. South Asian psyche in general is a cesspit of unwarranted reactionarism, vindictiveness and pettiness.

The solution? I ofcourse present none, since the above symptoms are also rife within me. Maybe one day, after we've nuked each other, and destroyed our future generations, some people, somewhere may see sense in living side by side in peace without the desire to dominate the other.

 

[migflug]

We are 8 pages in and so far, no one has actually discussed the merits of the aforementioned trade. Rather people are debating the validity of your assumption, which only goes to show how far we are from a solution.

I always respected you, but you've kept this thread going for this long and are still trying to keep things from going off the rails. RESPEKT.

Benefit of free trade will help the consumers the most i.e. the general population on both side. That is the very fundamental of free trade is that it benefits the consumers as the one who produces more efficiently replaces the in-efficient ones and passes the delta of that efficiency to itself and the consumers.
With trade the Pakistani citizen will get the cheap Indian goods, this will reduce overall inflation of the state. India too will get some of the niche items like cottons or rock salt that it produces. But the Pakistani producer will suffer for sure, unless the Pak government put some tarrifs/ Quota on Indian imports.

With Trade the relationship will also get better and Pakistan will have a powerful ally in the form of Indian traders who would try their best not to escalate tensions better two countries.
Finally if things gets good enough, Pakistan may take part in various energy pipelines from Central Asia & Iran, which India desperately needs. Pakistan will gain a lot just by taking a transit fee.

 

[Krptonite]

One of the most frustrating things about the discourse with Pak/India relations is that it's hard to hold civil conversations with the majority of either Pakistanis or Indians. When it comes to relations between the two countries, most people immediately start with the position that "their" side must dominate the other, or win some sort of plaudits for their exploits. There is little utilitarianism thought, little of mutual respect or empathy, and no desire to actually find any solutions.

Trade, dialogue or other social interactions between the two at a national level is governed by these ideals. There is a weird expectation built in the mindset of both sides that when two individuals engage with each other, one side must come out on top.

I see people here blaming shady actors or the "establishment" of respective countries as being the ones behind the derailing of approachment but the reality seems far more grim and ugly. South Asian psyche in general is a cesspit of unwarranted reactionarism, vindictiveness and pettiness.

The solution? I ofcourse present none, since the above symptoms are also rife within me. Maybe one day, after we've nuked each other, and destroyed our future generations, some people, somewhere may see sense in living side by side in peace without the desire to dominate the other.

Valid points but i would counter the pessimism by stating that Perhaps a start in the right direction would be thinking about what such a peacefull scenario would look like

 

[-=virus=-]

I'm having good Iran genes

better than black south Indian ones.