61–70 of 80 posts
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As someone interested in coinage, India is fascinating. Coins from the Sultanates and Mughal periods are just beautiful.
Great to see a fellow numismatist! Old coins are on my bucket list of stuff to buy once I hit the lottery.
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Ignoring your snark, I'm in agreement with what you said. It is indeed a complex topic and I see no John Fairbanks like figure championing the cause.
There is a community of those kinds of scholars now, but most of them are generally affiliated with Econ departments (eg. Subramanian) or Business Schools (eg. Rajan) and when given the opportunity, leave academia to take an Indian government position at the WB, IMF, NITI Aayog, or a national or state level economic adviser like Krishnamurthy Subramanian or Nirupam Bajpai. I knew one back at my Alma mater who if they…
You seem to be in the arena and have skin in the game. Would love to read your blog on these topics.
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I have nothing against Mughals, they had a great impact on the subcontinent history esp during 17th century. However the center of gravity was the Indian Ocean Spice trade network which was the South. This is what the Portuguese and various EICs wanted to connect to. We have records of the vast riches of these Deccan cities from these travelers. > few dynasties were comparable to the vastness of Mughals The Mauryas p…
Yeah, the south was one of the most economically prosperous regions in the Indian subcontinent at the time. They were the centres of the spice trade, and a lot of colonial interest began there first. Because of the trade networks, a lot of outside cultural influence was part of the area's history. Judaism, Christianity, and Islam all came to the Malabar and Konkan coast just a few decades or tens of decades after the…
Still is, tbh
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Also when discussing Mughals the most important elephant in the room is ignored. Their intention to totally Islamise India. But this is more about Indian history being editorialised by few communists and others as they hate the notion of a caste system filled India and prefer the Mughal & British rule in their sanitised version. The historic animosity in different groups exists and persists to this day and is reflect…
>>Their intention to totally Islamise India. Given their military superiority during their zenith, if they really wanted to do that, they could have. But we didn't see that happen even within their core territories.
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As someone that’s studied the Mughals quite a bit, but hasn’t studied Indian history more broadly as extensively, here are a few thoughts: - the monuments are obvious points; the Taj Mahal is probably one of the few buildings that the average Western person has heard of - there is more of a connection, or appears to be, with other empires that Westerners are more familiar with. For example, the Mughals were functiona…
May I ask what kind of study did you do on the Mughals? What stands out the most for you? Fun fact: They called themselves "Gurkhaniye" and not "Mughals". It was a term mostly popularized by rivals like Marathas (which is also an exonym)
The poet Ghalib, who was the emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar’s contemporary, considered himself a descendant of the aristocracy and referred to himself as a “Mughal baccha” in a well-known quote (sourced from his letters, I believe).
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>>Their intention to totally Islamise India. Given their military superiority during their zenith, if they really wanted to do that, they could have. But we didn't see that happen even within their core territories.
like arguing Hitler could have killed all the Jews but was nice enough to let some escape
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>>Their intention to totally Islamise India. Given their military superiority during their zenith, if they really wanted to do that, they could have. But we didn't see that happen even within their core territories.
That's nuanced, they were always challenged every few decades, from Marathas to Ahoms in North East. Fighting with all Hindu princely state instead of making them ally would've surely might have been counter productive. While it was their intention to Islamise, and many did, but it was impossible without an extremely cultural backlash that they also feared.
Remember, most Indians who converted did so due to the influence of wandering Sufi mystics who were regarded with suspicion by the court-aligned clerics.
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like arguing Hitler could have killed all the Jews but was nice enough to let some escape
This is a silly analogy, and ahistorical to boot.
Just because the world doesn't recognize how awful that Islamic rule of India was to the actual people living there doesn't mean we don't get to criticize those who continue to glorify it.
When you can't criticize someone you should ask why.
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This is a silly analogy, and ahistorical to boot.
Half of my ancestors were kept in the dungeons at Seringapatam for decades for the crime of being Christian by a Muslim ruler, which resulted in 2/3 of them dying. What gracious overlords we had to let the other 1/3 not die even though they could have killed them. I remain eternally grateful to their magnanimity. Just because the world doesn't recognize how awful that Islamic rule of India was to the actual people li…
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Captivity_of_Mangalorean_Catho...
* https://www.jstor.org/stable/44147210
Should this behaviour be generalised to all Islam rule all the time, or was it more specific to Tippu Sultan in he Kingdom of Mysore ?
Should we generalise the Albigensian Crusade as an example of typical Catholic rule over christians (but heretics!!) - that saw 200,000 killed (not imprisoned).
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As someone that’s studied the Mughals quite a bit, but hasn’t studied Indian history more broadly as extensively, here are a few thoughts: - the monuments are obvious points; the Taj Mahal is probably one of the few buildings that the average Western person has heard of - there is more of a connection, or appears to be, with other empires that Westerners are more familiar with. For example, the Mughals were functiona…
There are a lot of architectural marvels in India from Sun temple to Ajanta and Ellora caves and Kailasa Temple. I personally never understood why more was not written about them, very few know about them. Mughals never ruled India for more than 200-300 years, and were challenged by many regional players including Maratha's. India has far more to offer beyond Taj, and I would say if not more equally interesting archi…
Compare that to the innumerable number of Chinese texts on nearly every topic from politics and history and governance to science and engineering (fun fact, the current Indian civil service was a product of the English civil service, which in turn was inspired by the Chinese one).
Compare that to the English, where you might even be able to find the exact amount of tax owed by some Yorkshire peasant in the 16th century.
Even the Indian and South East Asian monastic orders stuck to the oral tradition, in spite of writing material being significantly more abundant over the past millennia.
If you read the Baburnama, you'll even find him lamenting about India's poor record at tax keeping records and historical records relying on oral traditions, where the narrators are prone to exaggerations and embellishments.
Thankfully India's ancient temples are much more resilient than its books, which is why rock carvings themselves are also a rich source of Indian history. The Ashoka pillar in Mehrauli being a fine example (and in effect being a historical record in itself, which is how we know a lot about the Mauryas than some later kingdoms).