Mahesh

Woke is the most evil experiment ever conducted in human history. A woke is an artificial being whose sense of reality has been irreparably, irreversibly, distorted. Indeed, one shudders to even imagine an actual woke becoming a Head of State. dharmadispatch.in/the-global…

Thanks to the chatter on X, I found my way to Sharjeel’s interview. It is a thoughtful interview, if anyone cares to read it. I do not agree with everything he says, but he raises substantial questions about our postcolonial constitutional culture and the Indian state’s practice of secularism, both of which have histories extending well before Independence. What struck me particularly was the discussion of decentralisation. Anyone familiar with Indian constitutional history will know that Partition fundamentally altered the negotiations over the distribution of power. Once accommodating the Muslim League ceased to be a consideration, the preference for a powerful Centre became explicit. I hate to sound like a schoolma’am, but some of today’s constitutional gatekeepers might be startled to discover the United Bengal proposal associated with Suhrawardy, Sarat Chandra Bose and Abul Hashim, including the agreement signed by Bose and Hashim in May 1947. Yes, an undivided, independent Bengal was once a serious political proposition. The Constitution we know emerged from competing proposals, contested settlements and possibilities that were ultimately abandoned and it does a disservice to critical thinking to be oblivious to that history. Multiple visions of India preceded the Constituent Assembly and contended within it. Reading those arguments does not oblige us to endorse every alternative. It might, however, discourage the rather tedious habit of treating the eventual settlement as the only arrangement anyone could legitimately have imagined.

Hindutva as an ideology is structurally incompatible with a friendly and stable South Asia.

To term Navi Pillay an ‘indentured servant’ is historically false and profoundly demeaning. Her forebears endured indenture. Their suffering is neither an insult nor a hereditary status to pin on a descendant. You may disagree with her judgments if you wish, but do engage with them. Reducing a distinguished jurist to the colonial subjugation suffered by her ancestors betrays contempt for the dignity of labour and for a painful chapter of our own history. A seasoned Indian journalist should know better.

To understand how the Election Commission of India could get away with the SIR, one needs to assess the evolution of the Supreme Court in India, something Prannv Dhawan and I have done recently. @CERI_SciencesPo @KingsIndiaInst @YaleSouthAsia @SAsiaLSE ippjournal.org/what-checks-a…

“The UN has become a useless organization that serves only to feed a caste of fatally arrogant parasites disguised as well-intentioned bureaucrats. Good people do not think about controlling the lives of their fellow men.” ​Attribution: Javier Milei to the UN General Assembly

Eid of Horrors for Princesses and Noblewomen Who Missed Jauhar. Ibn Battuta describes the Eid celebrations of Sultan Muhammad bin Tughluq, who ruled the Delhi Sultanate from 1325 to 1351. He says: “Then enter the musicians, the first batch being the daughters of the infidel rajas — Hindus — captured in war that year. They sing and dance, and the sultan gives them away to the amirs and a'izza. (The amirs are commanders or high-ranking nobles, and the a’izza are other powerful men in the sultanate). Then come the other daughters of the infidels who sing and dance; and the Sultan gives them away to his brothers, his relations, his brothers-in-law and the maliks' sons. This court is usually held in the afternoon; and on the following day also it is held at the same time and in the same order when female singers are brought in. They sing and dance, and the sultan gives them away to the chief slaves. And on the third day the sultan gets his relatives married, and gifts are made to them. And on the fourth day the male slaves are manumitted; on the fifth day the female slaves are manumitted, and on the sixth day he makes the male slaves marry the female slaves. On the seventh day he gives away alms on a very large scale.” Ibn Battuta was a 14th-century Moroccan Muslim explorer who travelled from Africa to India and the Middle East to China. He wrote a travelogue, The Rihla of Ibn Battuta. The Arabic word rihala or rehala means ‘journey’ or ‘voyage’, or ‘travelogue’. Rihalas often recorded a traveller’s experiences, local customs, politics, and historical events across the Islamic world and beyond. In his book, he describes the pitiable condition of Hindu princesses, noble women, and other girls. Manumitted means released from slavery or servitude by an owner. This usually occurs when slaves convert to Islam, not otherwise. This was a part of jihad on Hindus. In these cases, the slaves were likely held in captivity for a while. Since males older than 12 were killed, it is quite certain that they were converted and circumcised. They could also be the children of slave men and women whose children were also born as slaves, as per Islamic law at the time. Perpetual slavery till eternity was allowed by their law. The Islamic jihad on Hindus has been so brutal that many researchers call it ‘the largest genocide in human history.’ Koenraad Elst explains how the genocides were executed. He says: “Apart from actual killing, millions of Hindus disappeared by way of enslavement. Slaves were likely to die of hardship; e.g. the mountain range Hindu Koh, ‘Indian mountain’, was renamed Hindu Kush, ‘Hindu-killer’, when one cold night in the reign of Timur Lenk (1398-99), a hundred thousand Hindu slaves died there while on transport to Central Asia. Though Timur conquered Delhi from another Muslim ruler, he recorded in his journal that he made sure his pillaging soldiers spared the Muslim quarter, while in the Hindu areas, they took ‘twenty slaves each’. Hindu slaves were converted to Islam, and when their descendants gained their freedom, they swelled the numbers of the Muslim community. It is a cruel twist of history that the Muslims who forced Partition on India (1947) were partly the progeny of Hindus enslaved by Islam." grok.com/imagine/post/5473ea…

This is going to be unbearable.