Pakistan, Bharat, British India - What came first, what came after?

[Manas]

^^ Have you read Romila Thappar or Irfan habib yet ??I'm sure you'll love them.

 

[Joe Shearer]

^^ Have you read Romila Thappar or Irfan habib yet ??I'm sure you'll love them.

Part of my college curriculum. At that time, none of the revisionists had started publishing, which is why I have not read them, or later publications, as thoroughly as I have read these. Oh, by the way, R. C. Majumdar was also a prescribed text.

I don't understand 'loving' them. Academic study is a detached study, not an attempt to get backing for prejudices and political points of view.

Presumably you have read all of them.

 

[veer bhogya vasundhara]

This is deep in the territory of the AIT VS. OOI (or OIT) controversy, and much dust has to settle before we can draw conclusions from hypotheses that have been put forward recently. These independent publications, by independent scholars working outside the sphere of academic discipline, have simply not gone through the peer review that academic publications Or academic work does. It might yet be that his views are borne out and vindicated other than by the self-referential claque that surrounds OOI theories, but that time is not yet. He has been attacked by Winzel, whose work he addresses at great length, and by Erdosy, but won back considerable credibility by pointing out inaccuracies in Winzel's review. No one has as yet engaged with him, and the main publicity he has got has been from OOI groupies like Rajaram, Koenraad Elst and everyone else in the revisionist school.

Until these views are examined critically and subjected to thorough examination, they remain views, very interesting because of the apparent detail in which the material surroundings in which the Vedas were composed were examined, but unproven, unaccepted views.

In writing this, I am considerably amused at the thought that the stricture of self-referential claque might be used against western academicians by Indian revisionists and their western trophy authors. Until there is a greater effort to engage with each other, and to bring in some common understanding of the rules of engagement, this will remain political literature, not academic finding. I say this on the understanding that the western methods are more reliable at present, in a manner that they were not two centuries ago, on this subject. Further, that Indian writing on the subject is today, whether Rajaram or others of his generation, or the new team of Talageri and Elst, more a matter of seeking evidence to bear out preconceived conclusions, just as some of the original western speculation used to be.

For the purposes of this discussion, a school of thought apparently developed hand-in-hand with a political ideology that demanded such academic explanations is not going to find much common ground. This school of thought resonates with a political ideology that resents and rejects European criticism of the decayed state of Indian culture and society in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, seeks vindication in the transcendent virtues of its inherited culture, including its vast literature, and rejects any parallel between their culture and other, subsequent Conquistador cultures by proclaiming that it arose entirely within the geographical boundaries of India. It is in order to justify this Brahminical counter-attack that a mass of literature has been generated, mostly by autodidacts in the fields, whose education and training was otherwise elsewhere (mathematics and statistics for Rajaram, in Chinese healing for Frawley), and who have never won acceptance of their views in western academic circles. This failure to gain acceptance has led, ironically, to a situation where western sympathisers enjoy an enormous premium, Frawley earlier, the rather more sinister Elst currently.

In general, it has to be acknowledged that both Talageri and Elst are more credible figures, in terms of scholarship and knowledge of their subject, than perhaps Rajaram and Frawley were.

Caveat: I have not read Talageri yet.

so what came first..... bharat, india or pakistan??????????

 

[vsdoc]

Just as we have found, when we considered the Indian Vedas, that scholars are not agreed as to the date of the Vedic hymns, so also in the case of the Zend-Avesta, scholars differ as to what dates are to be ascribed to the sacred books of Parsis. Dr. Haug assigns a not much later date than 1200 B. C. to the Gathas, and fixes that of the much larger part of the Vendidad at 900 or 1000 B. C. Pike, however, thinks "that the Gathas are much older, even, than that, and perhaps older than the Rig Veda."

He says: Cauis Plinius the Second, tells us, in the Thirtieth Book of his Natural History, that Eudoxus said that Zarathustra lived 6,000 years before Plato (who was born 429 years before Christ); and that so it is asserted also by Aristoteles. Hermippus, Pliny informs us, who made a diligent study of the works of Zarathustra, explaining an immense number of verses, stated that he lived 5,000 years before the Trojan War (which is supposed to have taken place about 1,190 years before Christ).

In the Sacred Books and Early Literatures of the East, however, the date for the Gathas is placed about 2000 to 600 B. C, and that for the Vendidad at 600 to 400 B. C. If Pike is right, then the Zend-Avesta is a source of ancient ideas which date back to around 6000 B.C., and thus are around 8000 years old. Thus we are about to examine some ancient ideas of origin, some of which may antedate those of the Rigveda, which together with the Vedic notions were derived from still more ancient Aryan ideas.

Source:
SOME ANCIENT COSMOGONIES AND EVOLUTION.
GEORGE J. DUDYCHA,
Ripon College, Ripon, Wisconsin.
P.S. This is a paper from 1929-1930 I guess.

 

[Joe Shearer]

Just as we have found, when we considered the Indian Vedas, that scholars are not agreed as to the date of the Vedic hymns, so also in the case of the Zend-Avesta, scholars differ as to what dates are to be ascribed to the sacred books of Parsis. Dr. Haug assigns a not much later date than 1200 B. C. to the Gathas, and fixes that of the much larger part of the Vendidad at 900 or 1000 B. C. Pike, however, thinks "that the Gathas are much older, even, than that, and perhaps older than the Rig Veda."

He says: Cauis Plinius the Second, tells us, in the Thirtieth Book of his Natural History, that Eudoxus said that Zarathustra lived 6,000 years before Plato (who was born 429 years before Christ); and that so it is asserted also by Aristoteles. Hermippus, Pliny informs us, who made a diligent study of the works of Zarathustra, explaining an immense number of verses, stated that he lived 5,000 years before the Trojan War (which is supposed to have taken place about 1,190 years before Christ).

In the Sacred Books and Early Literatures of the East, however, the date for the Gathas is placed about 2000 to 600 B. C, and that for the Vendidad at 600 to 400 B. C. If Pike is right, then the Zend-Avesta is a source of ancient ideas which date back to around 6000 B.C., and thus are around 8000 years old. Thus we are about to examine some ancient ideas of origin, some of which may antedate those of the Rigveda, which together with the Vedic notions were derived from still more ancient Aryan ideas.

Source:
SOME ANCIENT COSMOGONIES AND EVOLUTION.
GEORGE J. DUDYCHA,
Ripon College, Ripon, Wisconsin.
P.S. This is a paper from 1929-1930 I guess.

I suspect that a more reasonable answer would be post the dates of the Andronovo-Bactria_Margiana_Archaeological_Complex (Andronovo-BMAC) culture, which is datable to 2100-1400 BC, tempting dates, plumb bang in the middle of the dates for the Rg Veda early hymns and the injection of Indo-Aryan language into trans-Hindu Kush south Asia.

This has been identified as a location for Indo-Iranian speaking people, without any physical evidence. Circumstantially, it fits the bill very well, for the ur-heimat from which Indo-Iranians took their respective treks. It is very clear that the numbers of Indo-Aryan speakers who entered trans-Hindu Kush south Asia were not in such numbers as to overwhelm the genetic make-up of the autocthones, but were enough to impose their language as a language of command and control. Rather like Persian in later days, under the Mughals.

This barely meets the dates for Zarathustra, as the commentaries on the Gathas must have happened before the Achaemenids, which is no later than Cyrus the Great, around 550 BC. We are left with 1500 or 1600 years in which to pack in the life of the prophet, and the exegesis that was added, or modified to accommodate his Gathas. Possible. Also a very good fit for a date of composition of the Rg Veda of around 1700 to 1000 BC.

I could go on but it is doubtful that anyone is interested.

 

[indushek]

Can anybody tell me if the time lines in our ancient texts (read in some obscure book some time back, don't remember spare me for this) are factual (and practical) or not and the logic behind. As i found them too long a shot, basically it was explaining what a yuga meant like kaliyuga, kruta treta dwapara etc etc and others like manvantara kalpa....

These run into some lakhs of years, current i think its Vaivasvata Manvantara.

I was like

 

[vsdoc]

Can anybody tell me if the time lines in our ancient texts (read in some obscure book some time back, don't remember spare me for this) are factual (and practical) or not and the logic behind. As i found them too long a shot, basically it was explaining what a yuga meant like kaliyuga, kruta treta dwapara etc etc and others like manvantara kalpa....

These run into some lakhs of years, current i think its Vaivasvata Manvantara.

I was like

You must be referring to the paper by Das et al. 20,000+ years if fading memory serves me correctly. Don't know about lacs.

 

[Joe Shearer]

Can anybody tell me if the time lines in our ancient texts (read in some obscure book some time back, don't remember spare me for this) are factual (and practical) or not and the logic behind. As i found them too long a shot, basically it was explaining what a yuga meant like kaliyuga, kruta treta dwapara etc etc and others like manvantara kalpa....

These run into some lakhs of years, current i think its Vaivasvata Manvantara.

I was like

Not those, no, not unless we are also waiting impatiently for the release of the Towers of Midnight, but there is a significant amount of proto-history in Indian Vedic, Puranic and epic literature, in Buddhist literature, and in Jain literature.

This is proto-history, and its proud Indian proponents keep claiming it to be history, while many Europeans are completely unable to deal with it. The sensible ones sat down and battled their way through intricate king-lists and came up with a wealth of information - all strictly proto-historical. The calendars that you are referring to are philosophical concepts rather than material ones.

It is worthwhile in these studies to retain a firm grasp on the technical differences between pre-history, proto-history and history.

Off to see the doctor. BRB.

 

[indushek]

Not those, no, not unless we are also waiting impatiently for the release of the Towers of Midnight, but there is a significant amount of proto-history in Indian Vedic, Puranic and epic literature, in Buddhist literature, and in Jain literature.

This is proto-history, and its proud Indian proponents keep claiming it to be history, while many Europeans are completely unable to deal with it. The sensible ones sat down and battled their way through intricate king-lists and came up with a wealth of information - all strictly proto-historical. The calendars that you are referring to are philosophical concepts rather than material ones.

Guessed as much i mean lakhs of years ... that was a good one Towers of Midnight

You must be referring to the paper by Das et al. 20,000+ years if fading memory serves me correctly. Don't know about lacs.

Don't know doc it was some spiritual stuff wali book along with patanjali yoga sutras or some thing.

 

[Rig Vedic]

This is deep in the territory of the AIT VS. OOI (or OIT) controversy ...

True.

AIT partisans might, perhaps with greater justification, be accused of forming politically motivated self-referential claques.

Not infrequently, it is the people outside the establishment (Arun Shourie and Rajiv Malhotra are other figures that come to mind) who show a greater clarity of thought, more intellectual vigour, and a willingness to engage with the other side.

The AIT side would be well advised to stop running away from the debate. In the information age, their opponents have as much, if not greater, reach than they do, despite all their establishment backing.

But anyway, we digress much.

 

[Joe Shearer]

It is pleasant to come to the fullness of one's days, and be cited as an authority not merely by one's own faction, but by others, sometimes bitterly inimical others, as well.

This is deep in the territory of the AIT VS. OOI (or OIT) controversy, and much dust has to settle before we can draw conclusions from hypotheses that have been put forward recently. These independent publications, by independent scholars working outside the sphere of academic discipline, have simply not gone through the peer review that academic publications Or academic work does. It might yet be that his views are borne out and vindicated other than by the self-referential claque that surrounds OOI theories, but that time is not yet. He has been attacked by Winzel, whose work he addresses at great length, and by Erdosy, but won back considerable credibility by pointing out inaccuracies in Winzel's review. No one has as yet engaged with him, and the main publicity he has got has been from OOI groupies like Rajaram, Koenraad Elst and everyone else in the revisionist school.

Until these views are examined critically and subjected to thorough examination, they remain views, very interesting because of the apparent detail in which the material surroundings in which the Vedas were composed were examined, but unproven, unaccepted views.

In writing this, I am considerably amused at the thought that the stricture of self-referential claque might be used against western academicians by Indian revisionists and their western trophy authors.

Until there is a greater effort to engage with each other, and to bring in some common understanding of the rules of engagement, this will remain political literature, not academic finding. I say this on the understanding that the western methods are more reliable at present, in a manner that they were not two centuries ago, on this subject. Further, that Indian writing on the subject is today, whether Rajaram or others of his generation, or the new team of Talageri and Elst, more a matter of seeking evidence to bear out preconceived conclusions, just as some of the original western speculation used to be.

For the purposes of this discussion, a school of thought apparently developed hand-in-hand with a political ideology that demanded such academic explanations is not going to find much common ground. This school of thought resonates with a political ideology that resents and rejects European criticism of the decayed state of Indian culture and society in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, seeks vindication in the transcendent virtues of its inherited culture, including its vast literature, and rejects any parallel between their culture and other, subsequent Conquistador cultures by proclaiming that it arose entirely within the geographical boundaries of India. It is in order to justify this Brahminical counter-attack that a mass of literature has been generated, mostly by autodidacts in the fields, whose education and training was otherwise elsewhere (mathematics and statistics for Rajaram, in Chinese healing for Frawley), and who have never won acceptance of their views in western academic circles. This failure to gain acceptance has led, ironically, to a situation where western sympathisers enjoy an enormous premium, Frawley earlier, the rather more sinister Elst currently.

In general, it has to be acknowledged that both Talageri and Elst are more credible figures, in terms of scholarship and knowledge of their subject, than perhaps Rajaram and Frawley were.

Caveat: I have not read Talageri yet.

True.

AIT partisans might, perhaps with greater justification, be accused of forming politically motivated self-referential claques.

In writing this, I am considerably amused at the thought that the stricture of self-referential claque might be used against western academicians by Indian revisionists and their western trophy authors.

Was there any reason for quoting me back at me, other than an exquisitely honed sense of irony?

Not infrequently, it is the people outside the establishment (Arun Shourie and Rajiv Malhotra are other figures that come to mind) who show a greater clarity of thought, more intellectual vigour, and a willingness to engage with the other side.

Until there is a greater effort to engage with each other, and to bring in some common understanding of the rules of engagement, this will remain political literature, not academic finding. I say this on the understanding that the western methods are more reliable at present, in a manner that they were not two centuries ago, on this subject. Further, that Indian writing on the subject is today, whether Rajaram or others of his generation, or the new team of Talageri and Elst, more a matter of seeking evidence to bear out preconceived conclusions, just as some of the original western speculation used to be.

Yes, that lack of engagement has been noticed, even noted. But the reasons why have not, and hence seem to have undergone some elision. It may be time to correct that.

The AIT side would be well advised to stop running away from the debate. In the information age, their opponents have as much, if not greater, reach than they do, despite all their establishment backing.

But anyway, we digress much.

A tightly-argued, strongly logical position is usually easier to respond to, either in positive or negative terms, than another, tightly-argued, but far less logical position. Both might be of the same length, the same degree of development or length, but while one carries only the burden of the argument, the other, less rational one has to answer for

1. Assumptions that are faulty;
2. Lack of comprehension of technical terms or of the peculiar usages of that subject matter;
3. Definitions that are defective;
4. Gaps in the argument, assumed to be self-evident, but in fact, not so;
5. A combination of any of these.

All this is a desperate attempt to stave off the boredom of readers, since the response may take some time.

 

[Joe Shearer]

True.

AIT partisans might, perhaps with greater justification, be accused of forming politically motivated self-referential claques.

Not infrequently, it is the people outside the establishment (Arun Shourie and Rajiv Malhotra are other figures that come to mind) who show a greater clarity of thought, more intellectual vigour, and a willingness to engage with the other side.

The AIT side would be well advised to stop running away from the debate. In the information age, their opponents have as much, if not greater, reach than they do, despite all their establishment backing.

But anyway, we digress much.

I read a lot when I was much, much younger, and my father got all the military books to review, and Liddell Hart and Fuller made quite an impression on me. So, here is a localised version of the Strategy of Indirect Approach: Why a Professional Can Never Answer The Intelligent Questions of a Gifted Amateur.

......one perspective that is missed when we talk of aircraft design is how history has played a role in such a way that each new development in flying is based on an earlier improvement. This has been a continuous chain of innovation going back more than a century to the first aircraft that were built.

The earliest aircraft that flew were not designed for amy military requirement. They were recognized as being useful by militaries for reconnaissance. Early military aircraft had a man with a bomb to be thrown by hand in the open back cockpit or a man witha gun. This was clearly so unsatisfactory that militaries looked for better armament.

The next step was (IIRC) the machine gun in a gunner's cockpit. But by the time this innovation came, aircrfat were already flying. The basic design, the engine, the materials etc were already known. Adding a gun added complications that were made easier if you already knew how to build a plane.

The next step in evolution was the forward firing machine gun. One idea was to have a pusher propeller to bypass the problem of firing through the propeller. But I think it was the Germans who came up with a timer that mechanically linked the gun to the propeller so that the gun would not fire when there was a prop blade in front of the barrel. By the time this complexity was added, they knew how to build flying aircraft and design them to fly with the extra weight of guns.

Further steps would be the development of ways of carrying underslung bombs and releasing them. These would have require new designed with strengthened wings. So by the time world war 2 came - all the European and American (and japanese) companies had solved these initial issues. Tens of thousands of planes had been built by tens of thousands of engineers and factory workers at a time when India had just a handful of engineers of any kind.

The fierce fighting and research and numerous production lines set up for world war 2 spurred new aircraft designs, armament, radar and jet engines. By the time WW2 ended the warring nations were past masters at building reliable flying aircraft with reliable engines. The newest post WW2 designs used the old knowledge of aircraft with the new jet engines. By this time India had HAL, but it was under American control during WW2 and was mainly overhauling and repairing.

By 1951 HAL had designed its own first aircraft - the HT-2 which was apparently modern in capability as a basic trainer but in reality its power, performance etc were not even equal to that of a German Me-109 built in the mid 1930s. In contrast the Canberra bomber was entering service in Britain in 1951. Can you picture the technology gap between HT 2 and the Canberra? And the HT-2 had an imported engine of course.

The HF 24 first flew in 1961. Although it was a big achievement for India, compare with what was being done in Europe and USA: The Alouette II that we still fly flew in 1957, An 12-1957, Vulcan Bomber 1956, Boeing 707 1955, B-52 in 1955, KC-135 in 1956, Ouragan 1952, Dassault Etendard (just retired or about to be retioted French navy) 1958, Mirage III, (still in service) 1956, A-4 Skyhawk 1956 the list is in the link below - see for yourself and check the tech capability gap.
Military Aircraft ... 0-1959.asp
Heck MiG 21 was 1959!!

By 2015 we will have the LCA in service. The MiG 21 will just have retired. The Mirage III may have retired. The B 52 will not have retired. But the Tejas uses technology similar to the F-16 and Mirage 2000. The F-16 entered service in 1978 but I would rate the Tejas as probably having newer flight control and other tech than the early F-16s. The Mirage 2000 entered service in 1982.

If you look back you find that France took from 1956 to 1982 (26 years) to graduate from HF-24/Mirage III level to Mirage 2000. The US did the same leap from Skyhawk (1956) to F-16 - 1978 - 22 years. But both countries had been building engines from the 1800s and jet engines soon after they were invented. India has taken 50 plus years to graduate from HF-24 to Tejas. But the US and France already had 50 years of experience to reach the Skyhawk/Mirage III level. India got there in 10 years - minus the engine tech. It was surely the Kurt Tank effect.

Still, if you look at the history of the last 60 years of Indian aircraft manufacture, we remain about 30 years behind the top countries of the world in technology. We are of course decades ahead of many countries who are incapable of doing what we have done, but if choose to compare ourselves with the top 3, then we are anywhere from 20 to 35 years behind. From the early years of aviation around 1900, the US and France took about 80 years to reach F-16/Mirage 2000 level. India's "early years" started in 1950 and we have taken about 65 years to get to F-16/Mirage 2000 level.

It is worth remembering that countries like Britain and the US have probably had more accident deaths from test flying since the early 1900s than the total number of test pilots ever trained by India. And the US, Britain and Germany, probably had more aircraft engineers working in 1940 than we have in 2012.

So when you compare, please be aware of the history of your own country. People who work in Indian industry do not deserve contempt. They deserve support so that they too can work, make mistakes and learn. No one will teach us any other way. As a nation we have been so enamoured of foreign tech that we have been fooled into thinking that the people who are 30 years ahead will just give is the experience they have. You cannot transfer experience. "Deep" technology transfer, an expression that we on *** went ga ga over a few years ago means little. We just have to learn the hard way.

Try to understand the parallel that I am drawing.

That our amateur historians and analysts and journalists-become-history-experts don't have a clue about how history is done.

That history is not about bravura intellect, it is a process of study, and selection of a hypothesis that fits the facts fairly, and submission of this hypothesis, with relevant authorities cited, for peer review in an academically rigorous way, leading to acceptance or modification and acceptance, or rejection.

That history is not a 'pure' discipline, unlike mathematics or theology, where no other extraneous material facts intrude, and intellect is all.

That as in aviation design, so in history, the previous cumulative body of knowledge and expertise imbibed through a formal programme is really not even comprehensible by our first- and second-generation amateurs.

That just as a professional aircraft designer is unable to answer the bright young questions of a schoolboy with attitude, or even a grown scholar with attitude, so too is a trained historian unable to 'engage' with one of the latter-day crop of home-grown but entirely untrained Indologists, for lack of common ground.

But no doubt you will have many defensive things to say.

 

[Rig Vedic]

It is pleasant to come to the fullness of one's days, and be cited as an authority not merely by one's own faction, but by others, sometimes bitterly inimical others, as well.
...
Was there any reason for quoting me back at me, other than an exquisitely honed sense of irony?

Hmm ..?

Yes, the description of establishment historians as a "self referential claque" was from your post ... the additional remark was the "greater justification".

Compulsory reading for every serious student of Indian history -

Eminent Historians: Their Technology, Their Line, Their Fraud: Arun Shourie: 9788172233556: Amazon.com: Books

That our amateur historians and analysts and journalists-become-history-experts don't have a clue about how history is done.

In mathematics, that is called "proof by appeal to authority". Usually it is meant to hide absence of proof by valid argument.

Both sides are calling each other self-referential claques, but one of the sides is trying to run away from free debate.

As a general rule, it is the side trying avoid debate whose credibility must suffer.

 

[Joe Shearer]

Hmm ..?

Yes, the description of establishment historians as a "self referential claque" was from your post ... the additional remark was the "greater justification".

Compulsory reading for every serious student of Indian history -

Eminent Historians: Their Technology, Their Line, Their Fraud: Arun Shourie: 9788172233556: Amazon.com: Books



In mathematics, that is called "proof by appeal to authority". Usually it is meant to hide absence of proof by valid argument.

No, that was proof by appeal to process. You can't arrive at instant history the way you do instant journalism. And Arun Shourie has had a vested interest in disproving Eminent Historians, because none of them said what he wanted them to say. The two blades of his scissors were denigration of history, disguised as denigration of biased historians, and manufacture of his own history, subject to nothing more taxing than his proof-reader's scrutiny.

 

[Indus Pakistan]

There are people still going on about us wanting the name 'India'. Guy's drop that. Maybe I made a mistake with the way I went with my argument or possibly the title of this thread needs amending. I might contact the Mods., to see if they canm assist. You have got India and we have Pakistan. No problems.

Since I am clearly failing to convey my message, let me try another approach. I want you guy's to consider the following points:-

1. The name India has been around for a long time, it was a generic term. It described an entire region and everything that went on there was described in the generic term India rather similar to the name Europe.

2. No culture or people exist within a vacuam. No realm is hermetically sealed. That even applies to the islands in the Pacific. So saying to me that X from Bihar shifted to Taxila, or Y shifted from Taxila to Cape Comorin or Z from Shillong invaded Madras does not impress anything. Unless I stated somewhere that Indus Valley [Pakistan] has been vaucuam sealed for 5,000 years ago.

3. Did you know that Roman's built cities in North Africa? Did you know that modern Roman characters evolved from Middle Eastern sources. At differant levels there is always interplay going on and in a region like South Asia that would expected. So our claim on Indus does not have to first establish that it existed like a island floating in the air. You have the local, you have the national, you have the regional, you have the continental and you have the world. There is interaction at all levels.

4. My previous posts addressed only the Indus region because that is where Pakistan is. At that level I am not interested what the British were doing in Bengal in 1780. Of course as a South Asian I might take interst, as a Muslim I might take interest in what happened in Turkey or Algeria.

5. Yes, indeed it is true that 'Punjab' in a sense was rejoined to Ganges plain in 1849, although it was done with Punjab screaming and crying. If you follow that logic the area that is Punjab had been at various times part of western based empires. If the Greeks had come in 1849 would you call that being 'rejoined' with a previous conqueror? Before 1849 the Indus Valley had gone through conquests many times in it's history. The reason I used 1849 as the baseline is because was I supposed to back to the Kushan Empire in covering 1947?

6. My logic was that 1849 event was direct precursor to 1947. Nobody can say it was not. I described it as a marriage - That was an example. I do know the differance. The reason I called it forced marriage was because it was akin to that. I doubt Punjab voted to join British India but it did vote for the divorce. 1849 was the expression of brutal imperial will, 1947 was expression of the electorate. Why are you crying about 1947 will of the people? Are you validating the forced subjugation of Punjab?

7. I suppose there are two aspects to the issue. First which has nothing to do with India, which is how do we sway the public in Pakistani to what we are advocating and undoing the mistakes of the past. It is going to be long hard trek but a journey of 1,000 miles begins with the first step.

8. The second does to a degree involve you guy's. India was a generic term. Had it remained a generic term we would not have had any issues with being called Indian ( whilst being proud Pakistani ) and accept that we have influenced and been influenced the/by Indic world.

9. Today however we have to recognize that 'India' is a brand, wholly owned by Bharat - Please don't go into 'it was your fault'. That is a fact in 2012. Brand India rightly belongs to the republic on the east of Pakistan. I notice the India GP team is called 'Force India'. Excellant. Bravo.

10. In 2012 if you insist on using the term India as a generic term, I am afraid we can't agree to that. That is why if you say to me 'Do I belong to the Indic world' I will say NO. If you say do I belong to South Asia I will say YES.

11. We have to begin changing over to the generic term South Asia, if we don't we are always going to be losers because the mix up betwen generic term India and brand India is detrimental to our interests.

12. We all know what oranges are. I go to the local supermarket and on display are Jaffa, Maroc, Nefertiti, Sunstar. These are branded oranges from Isreal, Marocco, Egyptian and USA respectively. Can you imagine if a brand managed to patent the generic orange? The result would be it would brand it's oranges as Orange Trademark. Can you imagine the trouble it would cause with rest of the producers? This is probably a poor example but I hope it convey's my point.

13. I am avoiding making any comments on anything to do with scriptures. I already said scriptures have a place but as source of facts. Please no. Next thing you will have idiots quoting from Quran, the Torah etc. Those hold value as belief systems so please keep them out. Let us stick to secular sources.

And somebody said 'I am a secret admirer'. With due respect my biggest downfall is I spit out what I feel and if feel something I will say it. I don't keep things inside.