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

[Rig Vedic]

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.

Let's not get into the merits of your diatribe against Shourie.

My point is simple - the "eminent historians" cannot avoid being judged by people outside their establishment coteries. Either they engage in debate and refute Shourie, in public, or their running away from debate will tell its own story.

 

[Joe Shearer]

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.

Nobody is disagreeing. Perhaps something I said? If so, all I was trying to say was that India stands for three things at one and the same time today, and did so fairly often in the past: a geographic India, a cultural and civilisational India and a political India.

For the purposes of this discussion, we can accept the first two and avoid discussing the third. Works for me.

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.

Keep your shirt on. All that I was trying to say, and probably Rig Vedic as well, was that

1. Differences between one Indus Valley location and another were probably less than those between any Indus Valley location and another elsewhere in south Asia;
2. Differences between any Indus Valley location and any location in south Asia were probably less than differences between any Indus Valley location and any location anywhere outside south Asia.

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.

Hmmm.....now that you mention it......

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.

But that's the whole point, don't you see? Pakistan, like (political) India, is an artificial construct. It had no distinguishing trait or cultural distinction from the rest of south Asia except for the fact that it had a majority of one religious grouping in its population. Even there, it was not unique. So why need we consider the Indus Valley unique? Because in 1947, there was a majority of Muslims there? Is that as good as it gets?

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?

Everybody was screaming and crying about being bolted on. Want a list?

1. Rajasthan;
2. Indore;
3. Gwalior;
4. Chattisgarh;
5. Odisha;
6. Hyderabad;
7. Nagpur;
8. the Konkan, and Bombay with it;
9. Mysore;
10. the Carnatic;
11. Kerala, largely the bits other than Travancore;

These were not traditionally part of the Ganges plain, unless I was sleeping through undergrad classes in history.

Further, your argument about it being accidental that Punjab was joined to the Ganges plain (although I don't agree that it was), and about it belonging to various western empires is not tenable. Count for yourself, from the beginning (may I assume the Mauryas? If not, I could get further back):

1. Pre-Achaemenid;
2. Maurya;
3. Gupta;
4. post-Gupta;
5. Gurjara-Pratihara;
6. Sultanate;
7. Mughal;
8. Sikh;

And the years under western empires?

1. Achaemenid;
2. Macedonian;
3. Indo-Greek;
4. Indo-Scythian;
5. Kushana;
6. Ephthalite Hun;
7. Ghorid;
8. Durrani;

Putting the two together gives a complete list, I think; correct me if I'm wrong.

The point? Punjab was under rule by a south Asian power far more than under a western south Asian power. If you want a base-line, by all means, use a base-line, but then I am entitled to point out that the base-line is merely that, an artificial means of reckoning, and that other base-lines would yield interesting alternative results.

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?

The problem with deciding to fight a fight with facts is that you then live or die by the facts.

In EVERY election, the Indus Valley regions of the British Colony voted against the Muslim League, and for its own sectional interests. Only in the last election, when the feudal chiefs of the Punjab and of the Sind decided that it suited them to opt for a fresh new deal with Pakistan, where they would preserve their class-interests, they voted for the League, or rather, for Pakistan. At that time, the frontier DID NOT vote for Pakistan. So the vote was just Punjab and Sind in what is now Pakistan.

Don't you think the bit about brutal imperial will and the expression of the electorate hugely misplaced? What expression of the electorate? Check the results, and suddenly the juxtaposition doesn't seem so stark. Are you validating the rule of the feudals? Please be fair, not to those who find themselves asking awkward questions, but to the facts.

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.

Sure. It is a wonderful thing to start, and you and other liberals have started. It is inspiring.

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.

Sorry, don't want to talk about this. It's not about us using the name India, as you keep saying, so let's not talk about India.

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.

Thanks. Feels good. It was kind of accidental. We never intended to eat into cultural India or to geographical India. And I doubt that we can do much about it.

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.

EMPHATICALLY not a problem. But again, the heavy weight of tradition.....

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.

Sure. Please promote the brand south Asia - it already exists - and popularise it, and you won't find any resistance on this side. But it isn't our problem if the rest of the world continues to act its confused self.

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.

Not exactly a poor example, but a bad one from your point of view.

Effectively, you are saying that there are various brands of India, Bharat India, Pakistan India, Nepal India, Sri Lanka India, Burma India, Bhutan India, and Nepal India, and Bangladesh India (oooh, how the Bangladeshis will love this!). This being the situation, we can't have Bharat India hogging the name India.

The problem is that we are really talking about three distinct entities, geographic, cultural and political. We can and do own the political name, the geographic and cultural ones are not owned by us, but are generic. What do we do about that? It is others using it that is proving to be a bother. And it doesn't always work; what do we call Cambodia, Java and Thailand, leave alone the Buddhist element in Korea and Japan, or the linguistic links to the Philippines? South Asian? I can't see that horse running.

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.

Most of us will agree. Perhaps you might be referring to the discussion about the Avesta, the Rig Veda and so on. That was just time-pass (south Asian for playing noughts and crosses while waiting for the next session to begin), and nothing serious.

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.

??

If anyone objected to transparency and clarity of communications, you shouldn't listen to such an idiot.

 

[Joe Shearer]

Let's not get into the merits of your diatribe against Shourie.

My point is simple - the "eminent historians" cannot avoid being judged by people outside their establishment coteries. Either they engage in debate and refute Shourie, in public, or their running away from debate will tell its own story.

Why not? Why must not merit be a criterion when it comes to Shourie, but always the shining, pre-eminent virtue when he - or you - attack the historical profession?

And the professional historian has never run away from debate. They can't afford to. In this case, you are asking for a debate in the newspapers, and on the Internet. There is no reason why an academician should bother with such preposterous demands.

After all, they don't have to win elections or influence the gullible by spouting Islamophobic, Hindu-centric garbage.

 

[Vinod2070]

Bharat came first, then British India and then Pakistan.

 

[takeiteasy]

Bharat came first, then British India and then Pakistan.

But others want to argue that, since Bharat has hundreds of small princely states, how can it be still Bharat? How to explain? :S

 

[Vinod2070]

But others want to argue that, since Bharat has hundreds of small princely states, how can it be still Bharat? How to explain? :S

Bharat was united and divided into multiple princely states at various times of history.

That doesn't take away from the fact that Bharat came first.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Bharat was united and divided into multiple princely states at various times of history.

That doesn't take away from the fact that Bharat came first.

The 'United Bharat' does not exist anymore, and in fact ceased existing the first time it was 'divided' - so when referring to this 'historical Bharat', we are merely referring to a 'large Kingdom/Empire' created through conquest by a ruler/rulers, which has nothing to do (as a political entity/nation-State) with the contemporary Nation-State called India, created in 1947.

You might as well point out that the 'Greek, Roman, Mongol, British Empires came first, and then British India, and then Pakistan and India'.

The 'historical united Bharat' you refer to is no different in nature than the Roman, Greek, Mongol, Durrani, Islamic etc. empires that existed and fell throughout history.

 

[KS]

The 'United Bharat' does not exist anymore, and in fact ceased existing the first time it was 'divided' - so when referring to this 'historical Bharat', we are merely referring to a 'large Kingdom/Empire' created through conquest by a ruler/rulers, which has nothing to do (as a political entity/nation-State) with the contemporary Nation-State called India, created in 1947.

You might as well point out that the 'Greek, Roman, Mongol, British Empires came first, and then British India, and then Pakistan and India'.

The 'historical united Bharat' you refer to is no different in nature than the Roman, Greek, Mongol, Durrani, Islamic etc. empires that existed and fell throughout history.

And what has your post got to do with his claim Bharat came first ?

I dont recall he saying that United Bharat exists any more.

But others want to argue that, since Bharat has hundreds of small princely states, how can it be still Bharat? How to explain? :S

Well there is an idea and then there is the physical form of that idea.

After all, they don't have to win elections or influence the gullible by spouting Islamophobic, Hindu-centric garbage.

This is the crux of the problem. Any attempt at challenging the established 'version' of history becomes automatically an Islamophobic, Hindu-centric garbage that is not worth the time of the 'superior intellectuals'. A cop-out if you may.

 

[Joe Shearer]

This is the crux of the problem. Any attempt at challenging the established 'version' of history becomes automatically an Islamophobic, Hindu-centric garbage that is not worth the time of the 'superior intellectuals'. A cop-out if you may.

Not at all.

Any attempt at challenging the established version of history is likely to win a hearing if conducted on the lines that have proved, over the years, effective in eliminating conjectures based on unstructured prejudice. But if people demand that they be respected on the simple grounds of being in existence, then we are inviting the same kind of mumbo-jumbo that intelligent design represents.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

And what has your post got to do with his claim Bharat came first ?

I dont recall he saying that United Bharat exists any more.

My post was meant to clarify the context in which 'Bharat came first' was mentioned - as in the 'historical Bharat' is not to be conflated with the contemporary Nation-State of India. If Vinod agrees with my argument (and it was not completely clear from his post if he does) then I have no need to pursue the point further.

I take it then, from your response here, that you do agree with the argument that the 'Historical Bharat' is nothing more than yet another Empire/Kingdom confined to the dustbin of history, as were the Roman, Greek, Mongol and Islamic Empires.

The World, Humans, Tribes, Fiefdoms, Alliances, Kingdoms and Empires existed long before any of the above Empires came into existence and faded away, and they will exist long after (provided we don't annihilate the planet first) the current geo-political landscape of the world.

 

[LaBong]

This is the crux of the problem. Any attempt at challenging the established 'version' of history becomes automatically an Islamophobic, Hindu-centric garbage that is not worth the time of the 'superior intellectuals'. A cop-out if you may.

Professionals, not limited just to History but in all subjects, will be more reluctant to accept anything that challenges the established, while the amateurs will sway whichever the wind blows.

 

[Rafi]

Pakistan has been influenced as much by Persia, and the greater middle east, Central Asia than it has been by south asia, being at the cross roads of various civilizations have given us that unique situation.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Professionals, not limited just to History but in all subjects, will be more reluctant to accept anything that challenges the established, while the amateurs will sway whichever the wind blows.

Why start and stop merely at one point in time (historically)? What of the 'Human Migration Theory' that suggests that the globe was populated by humans migrating out of Africa and settling across the world? Was 'Bharat/Vedic Culture' the first and only empire/culture/civilization to pop out of nowhere in South Asia? Why ignore the cultures that came before and after?

How is it intellectually honest or objective to 'cherry pick' one phase in the settlement of South Asia and its cultural, religious and 'civilizational' evolution, and claim 'That is the one true, pure culture/civilization' of South Asia?

 

[KS]

....

Any attempt at challenging the established version of history is likely to win a hearing if conducted on the lines that have proved, over the years,.....

You have it, completely the other way around.

Only if there is a 'hearing', then you have the opportunity to prove something that is still a hypothesis.

Professionals, not limited just to History but in all subjects, will be more reluctant to accept anything that challenges the established, while the amateurs will sway whichever the wind blows.

There is no harm in being reluctant. But 'reluctancy' must not transform into an 'idealogical aversion', that prevents a free exchange of ideas.

Once the alternative hypothesis that is proposed is labelled as Islamophobic, Hindu-centric 'garbage' even before there is a debate on that what is chance of a fair debate ?

Why start and stop merely at the a point in time (historically)? What of the 'Human Migration Theory' that suggests that the globe was populated by humans migrating out of Africa and settling across the world? Was 'Bharat/Vedic Culture' the first and only empire/culture/civilization to pop out of nowhere in South Asia? Why ignore the cultures that came before and after?

Your point is valid is the title of the thread is "Human migration out of Africa, their intermittent stop over in Central Asia, Bharat"....which came first ?

But the title is "Pakistan, Bharat, British India..which came first ?".

So I think you are kinda offtopic.

My post was meant to clarify the context in which 'Bharat came first' was mentioned - as in the 'historical Bharat' is not to be conflated with the contemporary Nation-State of India. If Vinod agrees with my argument (and it was not completely clear from his post if he does) then I have no need to pursue the point further.

I take it then, from your response here, that you do agree with the argument that the 'Historical Bharat' is nothing more than yet another Empire/Kingdom confined to the dustbin of history, as were the Roman, Greek, Mongol and Islamic Empires.

Would it answer your question if I said, the idea which characterized the 'Historical Bharat' is still alive and flourishing in modern India , as opposed to the Greek or Roman empires ?

 

[LaBong]

Why start and stop merely at the a point in time (historically)? What of the 'Human Migration Theory' that suggests that the globe was populated by humans migrating out of Africa and settling across the world? Was 'Bharat/Vedic Culture' the first and only empire/culture/civilization to pop out of nowhere in South Asia? Why ignore the cultures that came before and after?

How is it intellectually honest or objective to 'cherry pick' one phase in the settlement of South Asia and its cultural, religious and 'civilizational' evolution, and claim 'That is the one true, pure culture/civilization' of South Asia?

Because Vedic civilization is by far one of the most complex and advanced among various that South Asia has seen, also it being mostly indigenous, gives an identity of their own to South Asians.

There have been three large scale migration to India and each brought along wealth in terms of culture and knowledge.

The first wave of migration was that of modern day Adivasis, Dravidians came next following the coastal route from Africa, Indo-Aryan speakers followed the Central Asian route. The Islamic conquest also brought it own values and hues to what now is India.