Understanding The 5-point Indian Compact
The boycott of Simon Commission by Indian negotiators sounded the death knell of the British Raj in India. (Cartoonist - David Low (1891-1963) Published - Evening Standard, 11 Feb 1928). Click for larger image.
Beginning of the end
With the rejection of Simon Commission and the death of Lala Lajpat Rai, a triumphant Congress took pole position, in the race among Indians, to throw the British back into the sea. As the British realized their futile position, and the Indian leadership took over initiative from the British, a few things happened.
British favored the Congress
The Congress leadership (especially Gandhiji) was favored with a significant negotiating position by the British.
During these negotiations with the British Raj, the Congress adopted some unorthodox ideas, in the Indian political context of that time. These Congress proposals were momentous and path-breaking for India. Though Western opinion was uniformly derisive and dismissive, Indians suspended their judgment on these Congress proposals.
Asuric maya against the asurs
Based on the collaborative-school of ideology, promoted by Gokhale-Chiplunkar-Phule and Arya-Brahma-Samaj, Congress proposed that Indians must embrace the Western-Asuric model of the State as a pivot of their future.
August 1942 - Subhash Bose gains strength; Gandhiji and other Indian leaders call for Quit India. (British Cartoon - Cartoonist - Leslie Gilbert Illingworth, 1902-1979; Published - Daily Mail, 12 August 1942). Click for larger image.
Whatever elements that remained of भारत-तंत्र Bharat-tantra based on a defined, limited, narrow concept of polity related to rule as per dharmashastras, would take a back-seat, the Congress proposed.
Instead, the Congress strongly pressed its claim that the Western system of governance was what India needed to end and recover from the 100-odd years of ‘peak’ British misrule.
Congress writes its own ticket
After a few decades of debate and discussions, so be it, was the Indian decision on this Congress model. Since, the Congress seemed to be in a position to best deliver the ‘goods’, they got a carte-blanche from Indians.
The ways of the West
The Congress model was based on 5-points of significant departure from Indic model of polity.
- Common currency for India based on legal tender laws. Private coinage or multi-currency system would no longer be legal practice.
- English language and culture would be used extensively – even in independent India. Vishnu Shastri Chiplunkar (1850-1882), a Marathi essayist thought that English language and education were vaghiniche doodh or tigress’ milk.
- Democracy and Republicanism in. Princes and Rajas out. India is one of the few countries (less than 7) which survived the initial 50 years of Republican Democracy.
- Centralized powerful State rather the village level government – including the judiciary.
- Adoption of Western models of education – schools, colleges and universities.
India's political stability and smooth leadership changes happened against all odds - and predictions of disaster. (Cartoonist - David Low (1891-1963) Published - The Guardian, 27 Oct 1959). Click for larger image.
The one success
Republican Democracy has been a signal success, in providing a platform for:-
- Competitive electoral politics,
- Co-opting or exiling violent dissent
- Global respectability – precluding external overt interference (e.g. Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, et al.)
- Most importantly continuity, without a power-vacuum
20:20 hindsight
The failure (partial success, if you must) of the State on 4 of the 5 parameters is clear and sure. Every Indian success has been hobbled by the remaining four elements of this compact.
Whether it was the Anglo-Jinnah idea of Pakistan or the significant corruption in the Indian system (like in any system based on concentration of power), each are a result of this 5-point compact that Congress sold to Indians.
Nehru, Patel, Ambedkar – all saw a need for a strong centre. Inspite of Gandhiji’s push for Ram-Rajya (his description of भारत-तंत्र Bharat-tantra) and village panchayats, decentralized governance was finally deemed as outdated, ancient and ‘inefficient.’
Where Sher Shah Suri failed
Never in India’s 5000 years of known-and-accepted history have Indians accepted fiat currency. From at least Sher Shah Suri onwards, many tried imposing a fiat currency on Indians, including the British. And failed.
The British started deifying Gandhiji. This cartoon titled "The saint and the tiger" (Cartoonist - David Low (1891-1963) Published - Evening Standard, 20 Jan 1948). Click for larger image.
But the newly independent Indian State was allowed to implement the system of fiat currency without much ado. Morarji Desai’s hare-brained gold control laws were accepted with a slight whimper.
As the existence of a pan-Indian currency is seen as an essential to the well-being of the Indian nation, enthusiasm for the Indian currency idea remains strong. Witness the steady public demand for RBI’s periodic issues of commemorative coins and notes.
Indians have enrolled with the State system of education, using English language, in stupendous numbers. Indians have hesitantly used the Indian judicial system – as a measure of faith and participation in nation building.
All these point towards a certain trust and space that Indians have vested with the Indian Government. Some may say, it is not faith, trust and hope, but a long rope given to the Indian Government.
The time has come when Indians must do two things:-
- Plan to phase out this 5-point compact. This was not an endless, open-ended agreement by both sides.
- Hold the GOI’s feet to fire on defence preparedness. After 63 years of British departure, this is the last thing that the State must deliver to India.
The idea of co-opting India into the Anglo-Saxon Bloc is apparent from this cartoon. India - a source of 'immi-grunts'. (Cartoonist - David Low (1891-1963) Published - Evening Standard, 10 Jan 1950). Click for larger image.
Empty shell of a giant crustacean
India and Indians must come out from the shell of this now irrelevant compact. This compact has proved three things clearly:-
- The ‘erstwhile’ Muslim rulers of India, who claimed they were superior to Indians and the nation of India. After more than 6 decades, they have demonstrated themselves to be the inept rulers of Pakistan.
- The British stand, naked and shivering in fright, at their emerging irrelevance. The British claim of superiority, based on how they had ‘built’ England to Great Britain can now be seen as false and hollow. British misrule of Britain, has presided over the downhill ride of Britain. From super-power status to a situation where British themselves question British claim as a P5 State in the UN Security Council – with gross national debt (public, individual and corporate) of 500%.
- Indian capability to rebuild – after salvaging whatever of value was left from the wreckage of colonialism, the Partition, the Great Bengal Famine, impoverishment, hunger, disease, social destruction on an unprecedented scale.
Cartoon courtesy - timesofindia.com. Click for larger image.
India’s 5-point compact is in its terminal stage of irrelevance – having outlived its usefulness to India. Time to junk it – and all those who propose its continuation.
Be as it may, the turning point is still some distance away. It is early days to start work on a road-map for a smooth transition from the democratic Republican State to an India based on भारत-तंत्र Bharat-tantra.
2ndlook at British Empire
- Rise of the British Empire – A 2ndlook
- Indian Ships – British Navy
- British Empire & The Anglo Saxon Bloc
- Indian Gunpowder – the Force Behind Empires
- How Britain ‘lost’ America. Really!
- Indian Railways – The British Legacy
- 1945 Britain – Imperial ambitions of a starving nation
- Looking back at India’s Partition
- Where would India be without the British Raj
- David Hume on British character
- How 1857 changed world history …
- 1857 – Some History … Some Propaganda
- The Debt That India Owes Britain
- Quick … When Did India Become Free
- Asuras and Slavery – The Indic Disconnect
American aid came at a price; recalcitrant nations had a 'regime' change'; India became closer to Soviet Russia. (Cartoonist - David Low (1891-1963) Published - The Manchester Guardian, 20 Aug 1957). Click for larger image.
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- Indians talk about their dreams (search.japantimes.co.jp)
David Hume on British character
The Philosophy of death and genocide - (Cartoon title - Kant_Hume_Hobbes by Bob Row; uploaded on August 20, 2009; courtesy - toonpool.com). Click to enlarge.
On British character
Indian attempts to show imperial British character as exploitative fail on one count. Apart from adjectives and inferences, there is usually little else. The terminal narrative is to a large degree propaganda – forethought and afterthought.
Been there and done that
David Hume (1711-1776), whose historiography shaped British outlook for the next 200 years, sheds some light on events during this period. Hume’s influence provoked a latter-day philosopher to note that “Hume is our Politics, Hume is our Trade, Hume is our Philosophy, Hume is our Religion.” (statement by 19th century British idealist philosopher James Hutchison Stirling).
Hume’s argument about the ‘progress’ that British brought to the colonies lives in the colonial narrative even today. In the context of Ireland Hume wrote, “A more than equal return had been made [the slothful and barbarous Irish], by [the planters] instructing the natives in tillage, building, manufactures, and all the civilized arts of life”
Hume’s views on White superiority persist till date. Hume wrote,
I am apt to suspect the Negroes to be naturally inferior to the Whites. There scarcely ever was a civilized nation of that complexion, nor even any individual, eminent either in action or speculation. No ingenious manufactures amongst them, no arts, no sciences. On the other hand, the most rude and barbarous of the Whites, such as the ancient Germans, the present Tartars, have still something eminent about them.
Thoughts and ideas that were later echoed by Immanuel Kant and Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel.
A testimony to British ‘character’
To David Hume, an investor in slave trade, Britishers from East India Company in India ‘manifested the immense superiority of the British character’. This British ‘character’ according to Hume, of ‘the servants of this company of merchants [was] formed in a great degree by the habits and conditions of the masters’. Hume says, it was this British ‘character’ that was the reason why
a mercantile company, in less than ten years, [could] acquire by war and policy, more extensive possessions, and a richer revenue, than those of several European monarchs.
Proudly, Hume described ‘British character’. What Hume said, Indians experienced, first hand. Hume described how Britishers of East Indian Company
David Hume was spot on regarding British (and European, too) behaviour!
considered, in every transaction of war, peace, or alliance, what money could be drawn from the inhabitants. … Before they planned aggression, they calculated the probable proceeds, the debts that they might extinguish, and the addition, on the balance of accounts, which they might make to the sum total. They considered war with the natives, merely as a commercial adventure: by so much risk encountered, a certain quantity of blood spilt, and a certain extent of territory desolated, great sums were to be gained. (read more via The history of England: from The history of England: from the invasion of Julius Cæsar, to the revolution in 1688 – Volume 12 By David Hume).
Having assured supplies of gunpowder from India, numerical superiority in navy based on Indian shipyards, Britain started a blood-soaked 200-year military campaign in India – and the world.
Related Articles
- David Hume’s Rejection of The Enduring Self (socyberty.com)
- A tournament of atheists, then and now (theglobeandmail.com)
- The Forgotten Radicalism of the European Enlightenment (3quarksdaily.com)
- Wicked Company (blogs.discovermagazine.com)
Emerging India – ‘Immi-grunt’ supplier to English speaking world
The Komagata Maru in Vancouver harbor, surrounded by police boats. (Picture courtesy - bhagatsinghthind.com.) Click for larger picture.
Brave, new world?
On May 23, 1914, a Japanese tramp steamship, S.S. Komagata Maru, steamed into Burrard Inlet, near Vancouver, Canada. Chartered to carry a few hundred Indian immigrants into Canada, it arrived with a list of some 376 immigrant-passengers – mostly Sikh. The Canadian Government decided that these Indian-immigrants were not White enough – and disallowed entry into Canada.
When asked to sail out of Canadian waters, mutinous Indian passengers relieved the Japanese captain of the command. The Canadian authorities engaged a tug-boat, Sea Lion to tow the ship back into international waters. Sent back to India, the ship departed from Canada on July 23 and landed at Kolkatta (then Calcutta) on September 27th – only to be harassed by the British Raj. 26 of the passengers who returned to India were executed by the British.
Indians in Canada and USA, from the Ghadar movement, like Barkatullah, Tarak Nath Das (of letter to Tolstoy fame), and Sohan Singh publicised the incident giving momentum to the Ghadar movement for a massive uprising in India – against the British Raj. More than 90 years later, the Canadian authorities apologized.
SS Komagata Maru - Image via Wikipedia
One of the passengers on Komagata Maru was Jagat Singh Thind. His brother was Dr. Bhagat Singh Thind – an Indian-immigrant to the USA. Bhagat Singh Thind further tested immigration laws in the West – this time in the USA. Bhagat Singh Thind’s bid for US citizenship-by-naturalization finally landed at the US Supreme Court. The US Supreme Court rejected Bhagat Sngh Thind’s claim saying,
It may be true that the blond Scandinavian and the brown Hindu have a common ancestor in the dim reaches of antiquity, but the average man knows perfectly well that there are unmistakable and profound differences between them today … Our own history has witnessed the adoption of the English tongue by millions of Negroes, whose descendants can never be classified racially with the descendants of white persons notwithstanding both may speak a common root language … What we now hold is that the words “free white persons” are words of common speech, to be interpreted in accordance with the understanding of the common man, synonymous with the word “Caucasian” only as that word is popularly understood.
whatever may be the speculations of the ethnologist, it does not include the body of people to whom the appellee [Thind] belongs. It is a matter of familiar observation and knowledge that the physical group characteristics of the Hindus render them readily distinguishable from the various groups of persons in this country commonly recognized as white. The children of English, French, German, Italian, Scandinavian, and other European parentage, quickly merge into the mass of our population and lose the distinctive hallmarks of their European origin. On the other hand, it cannot be doubted that the children born in this country of Hindu parents would retain indefinitely the clear evidence of their ancestry. It is very far from our thought to suggest the slightest question of racial superiority or inferiority. What we suggest is merely racial difference, and it is of such character and extent that the great body of our people instinctively recognize it and reject the thought of assimilation. (excerpts from judgment on United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind 261 U.S. 204 (1923); delivered by Associate Justice George Sutherland; parts excized for brevity; text within […] supplied for clarity.).
Escaping to the West is an option ... for some! Click for larger image
In the post-War world
After WWII, with more than 50 million dead in Europe, European immigration to the US dried up. Without much ado, USA changed its immigration policy. Simultaneously, African-American activism created a market for Welfare Reform. The expanding Welfare State in the USA, created labour shortages. Many among the poor in USA, on welfare, soon stopped full-time work altogether. Faced with acute labour shortages, the West needed to something – and fast.
Back home, in India
Coinciding with this on the opposite side of the world was JN Nehru, trying to build ‘temples of modern India‘.
IIT-Chennai and Kharagpur with German collaboration were kick-started; IIT-Mumbai with assistance from UNESCO and the Soviet Union. The Anglo-Saxon Bloc jumped onto this bandwagon. They decided to ‘help’ India by setting up more IITs and IIMs. IIT-Kanpur, with US-aid in 1960; and IIT-Delhi with UK-assistance in 1961 followed. IIM-Calcutta with collaboration from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USA. More recently, to keep this flow coming into the US, American companies have tied up for virtual classrooms.
The Resident Non-Indians are a part of the problem. Click for larger image.
And where do graduates from these centres go? Need I answer!
The Anglo-Saxon Bloc pushed disguised labour-recruitment programs as development aid. For instance, the Colombo Plan was pushed in the sub-continent – by the US, UK, Canada and Australia to bring English speaking populations of the Indian sub-continent up to scratch, for use by the Anglo-Saxon Bloc.
Ten years after … the Colombo Plan, … the four advanced countries who are members of the Plan, namely, the U.S., the U.K., Australia and Canada … member countries, which have good training facilities to offer, are willing to make them available to others that still lack them. Under the Colombo Plan Technical Cooperation … training is provided at the cost of the host Government. (via This day that age-The Hindu; parts excised for brevity and clarity.).
The USA overturned Thind vs US Govt judgment by the US Supreme Court. As a result of this policy tweak, Indian students suddenly were welcome to the USA. Earlier, the US Supreme Court, in Thind vs US Govt supported US Government immigration policies which barred Asian immigration.
Suddenly Indians could land at USA shores and airports as immigrants. Soon, for Indians, USA became: –
- A liberal, egalitarian, non-racist society – based on meritocracy. A land of opportunity.
- Eager, grateful, hard-working, no-questions asked, English speaking, qualified, low-cost employees became available to US industry.
- US gained brownie points on global platforms in a world fighting the Cold War. A leg-up to USA propaganda.
- On the slippery slope of post-colonial India, the IITs and IIMs gave USA diplomatic traction in India.
- Net result – The most apparent result. 2.5 million Indians have come to occupy 10% of high-income, high-end jobs, professions, positions, careers in the USA, making them the richest sub-group in modern USA.
- All this at zero cost to the US taxpayer. The entirely amount was to the account of the Indian taxpayer.
- The Indian taxpayer is left with a 7% fiscal deficit. And Government debt equal to 60% of GDP debt.
- It provided USA with a steady stream of workers. US got it work-force from India. The expat and immigrant Indian workforce has become the richest sub-group in India.
With success at home, NRIs are not as hot as they once were!
Immi-grunts
Many ‘desi‘ Indians who migrate, believing that they can expect ‘superior’ systems in the West. All that these ‘desi‘ ’immi-grunts’ have to then do is take ‘advantage’ of opportunities in the West – they believe! Is it surprising that these ‘desi’ Indian ‘immi-grunts’ hit ‘glass-ceilings’, encounter ‘racism’?
Nation-building is a tough job – and someone’s gotta to do it! We can’t ‘escape from backward’ India to the ‘forward’ West. Not without becoming second-class citizens. The Indian ‘immi-grunt’ has seen some level of acceptance – after India itself achieved some modicum of success.
Importance of Indian immi-grunts to the US of A
Each year, India loses more than 1,00,000 doctors, engineers, other post graduates to the US alone and another 3,00,000 to other Western countries – commonly, referred to as ‘brain drain.’
To get a real handle on this number, project this number to the 25-65 age group in the USA. India currently sends 100,000 students and professionals, every year to the USA. With lesser numbers earlier, there are nearly 2.0-3.0 million Indians – mostly highly qualified, between the ages of 25-65 – holding up the US industry.
Opportunistic use of 'immi-grunts'?
To get a perspective, assume that a worker is a tax paying worker. The IRS of the USA processed under 100.5 million individual tax returns – from a US population of 300.5 million. Thus, these highly skilled Indians are 2 million of the 100 million tax-paying workers – approximately 2% of the total US working population.
If we further gate people typically, white-collar workers, high technology work force, earning more than US$ 100,000 per annum, we are at about 20-30 million Americans (24% of US taxpayers). Put that way, Indians comprise an estimated 8%-12% of the highly qualified and (highly paid) workforce in the US. What would the US have done without this skilled and qualified labour force? Is it surprising that Bill Gates lobbies for H1B visas for Indians?
This message is not lost to others. Businessweek reported how even “the French and German governments, faced with declining numbers of engineers, are trying to attract grads through exchange programs.” More recently, Australia recruited, under a migration scheme of the Australian government, nearly 450 technicians (plumbers, masons, carpenters, electricians and heavy and light-vehicle mechanics) from the Industrial Training Institute (ITI) at Pune.
Give me your tired, your poor whites, Your huddled white masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched white refuse of your teeming shore. Send these, the white homeless, tempest-tossed, to me: I lift my lamp for these whites beside the golden door. - The real meaning of Emma Lazarus words.
Remittances
As an article pointed out, India does not gain from these high-skill workers. Unlike
“less skilled workers, highly educated professionals tend to account for little in terms of remittances. Skilled Indian professionals in the U.S. have also failed, by and large, to contribute large levels of foreign direct investment (FDI) required by India. In contrast, China, which along with India is the largest exporter of students to the U.S., has greatly benefited in this regard from its skilled emigrants. The Financial Times (January 18, 2003) noted that China “has managed to attract 10 times more FDI than India on the back of strong in-flows from the Chinese diaspora.”
Interestingly, the IITs and their web sites are coy about the number of alumni who go abroad to study and work. Despite receiving substantial budgetary allocations from the Central government, the failure to collect systematically data on the sensitive point of the brain drain suggests an attitude of non-transparency. IIT managements and alumni networks tend to avoid initiating a public debate on the destination of IIT graduates and who benefits directly from the IIT system. (From The IIT Story: Issues and Concerns By KANTA MURALI; Frontline magazine.).
India is proud of its English language heritage - while English language itself is a declining force.
Chains made of words
What is making this easy is the subsidy given to higher education in English by the Government of India (GOI). This system of English language education turns out near-perfect candidates for absorption by the West.
Will India’s new generation get the perspective?
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Linguistics of the Jewish diaspora
Our knowledge of Jewish life in the second century B.C.E. comes mainly from Flavius Josephus (37/38-95/100 C.E.), the great Jewish-Roman historian who wrote in Greek, the scholarly language of his time. The hellenization of the Jews had been thorough.The King of Judea and the High Priest of Yahweh had Greek names. (page 240).
During the third century B.C.E., the Tobiads were the principal advocates of hellenization among the Jews (Grayzel 1969:49). The Jewish family called the Tobiads (the sons of Tobias) traced their ancestry to Tobias the Ammonite, governor of the Persian province of Ammon (now Jordan), east of Jordan River, during the tenure of Nehemiah in Judea in the fifth century B.C.E. One of them, Joseph ben Tobias, became very prominent during the second half of that century. (page 219).
By the beginning of the third century B.C.E. the Jews were being hellenized rapidly. They no longer spoke Hebrew or Aramaic, but Greek. Their religious services were conducted in Greek. Their personal Hebrew names were hellenized: Honio became Onias, Ezra became Esdras, Yeshua became Iesous (Jesus), and Joshua became Jason. Some Jews had Greek names only, such as Antigonus, Hyrkanos, Aristobolus, or Philon (Philo).The choice of such names by Jews for their children indicated the degree of their hellenization. (page 219).
During the reign of Ptolemaios Philadelphos (Ptolemy II, 308-246 B.C.E.), the Torah and other Jewish holy scriptures were translated into Greek by a synod of scholars. (page 215).
During the years that he was the High Priest and ethnarch (175-171 B.C.E.) Jason promoted Greek sports at the expense of Temple worship. Jason did not last long in the office of High Priest. He was unseated in 171 B.C.E. by Menelaos, a member of the noble Jewish Tobiads and a more extreme Hellenizer than Jason himself.(page 224-225).
By the first century, Greek had become the language of the Jews in the”diaspora”. The Jews of the Hellenic world spoke Greek the way present-day American Jews speak English. During the Greco-Roman and the Byzantine periods, from the late fourth century B.C.E., to the early seventh century C.E. most Jews were thoroughly Hellenized.(page 454).
By the third century B.C.E the Jews of Syria, Palestine, and Egypt had become thoroughly hellenized. They worshipped Zeus, Hera, and the rest of the Greek pantheon. There were images of Greek sun god Helios, the wine god Dionysos, and the demigod Heracles on Jewish synagogue floor mosaics at Sepphori an other Gallilean cities as late as the sixth century C.E. But the Orthodox Jews violently resisted Hellenism. The conflict between Helenism and Judaism, or rather between hellenized and Orthodox Jews, was to lead to major trouble in the second century BCE, after Palestine was captured from Egypt by the Seleucid Greeks of Syria. (page 215).
Just as in modern America most Jews use English rather than Hebrew in their religious services and rituals, so Greek was used by the Jews of Egypt, including Judea, in their religion (page 215).
Hellenic culture was much more attractive to the young Jews of Judea than the rigid strictures of their own religion. The Greek myths and deities, projections of the deepest infantile conflicts and family relations, etched into the unconscious mind of every person, deeply appealed to the people, just as the Canaanites myths had to their ancestors. The Tobiads led the wave of hellenization among the Jews. (page 220)
Jews always spoke the language of the land which was their home. When expulsions and persecutions eventually brought about a wider separation between the Jews and the non-Jews, the result was a growing dissimilarity between the intimate languages spoken by each group.(Grayzel quoted on page 458).
in the early fourth century, the Jews were divided into three main groupings. Those living in the Western Roman Empire of Italy, which comprised much of Western Europe, spoke mainly Latin, the lingua franca of the West, and the native European languages of the ethnic groups amongst whom they lived. The Jews of the Eastern Roman Empire of Byzantium, with its capital at Constantinople spoke mainly Greek, the language of the East. The Jews living in Sassanian Neo-Persian empire east of the Euphrates spoke mainly Aramaic. Hebrew continued to be spoken by Jewish scholars and by the people in their prayers. (page 337).
During the seventh and eighth centuries the lands inhabited by Jew in the Middle East and North Africa were conquered by the Muslim Arabs. Arabic became the language of the these Jews. (page 454).
Text extracts from A psychoanalytic history of the Jews By Avner Falk.
Judaism – an existential challenge
Jews - the eternal victims
The Jewish population, followers of one of the oldest religions in the world, across countries and in Israel, today faces an existential challenge. With 0.25% of world population, i.e. less than 1.5 crore Jews left, in a world of more than 600 crore people, they have made enemies of their neighbours around their country.
The Jewish state, dependent on US largesse, hangs by a thin thread. Without Hitler, the world population of Jews would possibly have been not much better. Maybe 2.5 crores instead of 1.5 crores (at the risk of sounding insensitive). Maybe 0.5% of world population, instead of 0.25%. Also, must be remembered that Jewish studies in the modern context are affected by the ‘Jews as the eternal victims’ syndrome.
Genetic analysis of the Jewish populations
So, what is the reason for this fragile position of the Jewish population? One recent study states that
Admixture analysis based on binary and Y-STR haplotypes indicates a high mean proportion of ancestry from North African (10.6%) and Sephardic Jewish (19.8%) sources. Despite alternative possible sources for lineages ascribed a Sephardic Jewish origin, these proportions attest to a high level of religious conversion (whether voluntary or enforced), driven by historical episodes of social and religious intolerance, that ultimately led to the integration of descendants.
(from The Genetic Legacy of Religious Diversity and Intolerance: Paternal Lineages of Christians, Jews, and Muslims in the Iberian Peninsula by Susan M. Adams, et al; Copyright
2008 The American Society of Human Genetics, The American Journal of Human Genetics, Volume 83, Issue 6, 725-736, 04 December 2008).
Another study concludes that the Jewish population shares a high level of common paternal similarities.
Several lines of evidence support the hypothesis that Diaspora Jews from Europe, Northwest Africa, and the Near East resemble each other more closely than they resemble their non-Jewish neighbors. The only exception was the Ethiopian Jews, who were affiliated more closely with non-Jewish Ethiopians and other North Africans.
Second, despite their high degree of geographic dispersion, Jewish populations from Europe, North Africa, and the Near East were less diverged genetically from each other than any other group of populations in this study. At the most basic level, the genetic distances observed among Jewish and non-Jewish populations can be interpreted as reflecting common ancestry, genetic drift, and gene flow. The latter two processes will tend to increase genetic distances among Jewish populations, whereas admixture will also have the effect of decreasing genetic distances between Jewish and non-Jewish populations.
Our results suggest that common ancestry is the major determinant of the genetic distances observed among Jewish communities, with admixture playing a secondary role. (from Jewish and Middle Eastern non-Jewish populations share a common pool of Y-chromosome biallelic haplotypes By M. F. Hammer, et al )
Of course, it begs the question, was the Jewish population ever a significant part of global population? One writer who has addressed this question is James Carroll, in his book, Constantine’s sword. He estimates,
Jews accounted for 10 percent of the total population of the Roman Empire. By that ratio, if other factors had not intervened, there would be 200 million Jews in the world today, instead of something like 13 million. (He goes onto recount that the) potential demographic crisis facing the Jewish people is defined by the loss of the murdered millions, not only in the twentieth century, but in all others. (from Constantine’s sword By James Carroll, page 26-27, texts in brackets, mine).
Population growth and changes (of not just the Jews) are subject to interplay of complex demographic factors – like assimilation, disease, migration, reproduction rates and proselytization. Since these factors affect all human populations, further analysis of these factors may just reinforce current red herring theories.
The Israel and USA tango - who is using whom!
Jews – the eternal victims?
Of course, Jews have not been the only population group in the world who have had to face the problems of epidemics, migration, assimilation, and conversion. What could have been a significant reason for the decline in the Jewish population over the centuries?
A 2ndlook at history points out (extracts above) that the Jewish populations gave up their language and culture ab initio. Within a few centuries of its foundation, they were giving up on their culture.
Interestingly, and apparently, language plays an important and crucial role in the expansion and growth of populations – as the Jewish case seems to suggest.
Those who don’t learn from history …
The Jewish history has invaluable lessons for Indians. For one, all those who think that English is God’s special gift to India (and mankind), should look at the eclipse of the Greek language. I am yet to discover the logic which shows that English will fare better than Greek, Spanish, Persian or Urdu.
Reducing the role of the Indian State
The massive subsidy given by the Indian state towards English language education needs to be phased out. Indian languages (all of them) should start getting back on their feet. The people of India, each individual will choose their language. No bureaucrat, politician, ‘intellectual’ will decide that. Finito. Completo. Terminato. Endlich. Eindig. ändlig.
The Indian language basket also calls for diversification. India needs to learn more foreign languages. The great ‘software success story’ is actually two countries – US and UK who give between 70%-80% of Indian software business? This is coolie labour! We are missing out on the massive Japanese, French and the Spanish markets because we have not invested in those foreign languages. And we have missed out on computing in Indian languages, because we have not invested there either.
The Israel and USA tango - who is using whom!
Indo Pak Relations – What Will It Take
The Detritus
As Britain (and the West) was forced out of various colonies, left behind was the garbage of colonialism. This post-colonial debris has become the ballast, that is dragging down many newly de-colonized countries. The Cyprus problem between Turkey, Greece and the Cypriots has been simmering for nearly 100 years. The role of the Anglo Saxon Bloc, in Indonesia, the overthrow of Sukarno, installation of Suharto and finally the secession of East Timor is another excellent example. The many issues in the West Asia and Africa are living testimony to the British gift to the modern world. The entire Arab-Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a creation of the Anglo-French-American axis.
Closer home is the Kashmir problem. After 60 years of negotiations, India-Pakistan relations have remained hostage to the Kashmir issue.
Jagmohan Dalmiya
A Precedent
Till the 1983, world cricket was run by the UK and Australia. These countries, of course, had veto power, had the funding, to control the game. In 1983, however, Britain and Australia hit a financial roadblock – the 1987 World Cup sponsorship. They did not have a sponsor in place for the 1987 World Cup. And then India stepped in. India roped in Dhirubhai Ambani for the sponsorship. India roped in Pakistan to put in a joint bid for the 1987 World Cup.
What was Special
This was, simply, without a precedent. For three reasons.
Imran Khan
First, this was a unique case, where rich and developed countries could not find a sponsor for a sporting event, which they dominated. And a poor country could.
India, in 1987, still had a waiting period for Bajaj Scooters. Maruti cars had just been introduced. Colour TV sets were rare and colour TV transmission had started a few years old – and a luxury. Competitive bidding for TV rights was not possible – and could be sold only to a public sector TV transmission monopoly. Computers in India were rare and far in between. Private sector as we knew it was non-existent. Licenses were required for everything. Foreign exchange situation was precarious. Hence, for a poor country to bid for a World Cup was unprecedented.
Sunil Gavaskar
The second major challenge was the organization. Indian bureaucracy was then (much more than now) a minefield. Myriad laws made any kind of complicated organization a nightmare. Private sector was seen with suspicion. Indian films still portrayed businessmen as villains. Indian software industry was nowhere in sight. India did not have even one (private sector) company in the Fortune 500 list. To say the least, it was audacious, at a time when India dominated by stereotypes (more then than now).
But the third element that has remained unrecognized was the working of the India Pakistan partnership. The World Cup bid was a joint bid (1985) by India and Pakistan. No one would have bet that India Pakistan could have worked together. But together they did. And successfully. This Indo-Pak relationship has now survived for more than 20 years.
What Changed
India and Pakistan, went ahead and moved cricketing headquarters from UK to Dubai. Unlike Bro.Manmohan Singh at the high table, BCCI and Pakistan just took away the veto powers of UK and Australia over cricketing matters. In spite of best efforts of ‘divide-and-rule’ by the ECB (UK’s cricketing authority) and Cricket Australia. UK, in a case of sour grapes, went ahead and stopped its players from participating in the Indian Premier League. Australia broke ranks, and participated. South Africa started with its first official post-apartheid series in India – the post-apartheid ‘coming out’ party.
In the UK and Australia, this loss of power rankles.
Shahriyar Khan
Use The Experts
This India Pakistan Cricketing relationship is very healthy – and has been managed by four people. Of course, there has been no case study, or a book or even a news report on this partnership. So some of this is my perception based on media interaction.
The four people in this complex relationship have been Jagmohan Dalmiya and Shahriyar Khan at the administration level. Between these two, they have managed a consensus between the Asian cricketing countries and South Africa. Jagmohan Dalmiya has a business background – and a career in cricket administration. Shahriyar Khan is a career diplomat and also a cricket administrator.
The other two are Sunil Gavaskar and Imran Khan – two well known and respected players in each of the countries. Between, these four, they have managed this complex cricketing relationship. Some of it is visible – but mostly, below the line. Especially, significant is the management of agreements. Recently, Asif Ali Zardari dismissed written agreements with his coalition partners, PML (N) headed by Nawaz Sharf, claiming agreements were not “holy like the holy Koran.”
The Learning
Now, if these four can overcome the complex political situation and the minefield of history, is there a learning for others? Especially, for those who manage the India-Pakistan political relationship.
Hidden in this cricketing relationship, is the solution to the sub-continental peace.
Post Script
This lesson seems to be dawning. Seven months after this post, a leading Indian newspaper carried an article on how Asian cricket needs to continue on the India Pakistan axis, which has been so successful in the last two decades. It points out how when cricket Indian administrators like
“I S Bindra … suggested that India is capable of hosting the 2011 World Cup on its own … (they) have sacrificed the much-used paradigm of subcontinental unity, which has seen India and its neighbours dominate international cricket politics for almost a decade.” It furthers links how ” it is inevitable that the West, rocked by the Stanford disaster recently, will try and regain composure and mount a counter-attack. Statements like English players may not be released for the IPL by the English Cricket Board and Tim May’s urging that a thorough security assessment is necessary to convince international cricketers to consider playing in IPL are evidence that such an offensive has already begun.”(ellipsis and bold text mine).
It is time that the Indian Foreign Service establishment took this learning – and start running.
Come June 2009, Shahriyar Khan (mentioned and pictured above) alongwith Shashi Tharoor came out with a book on Sub-continental cricket. Indian media, since it was not led by the nose, have this book cursory coverage.
Shashi Tharoor and Shahryar Khan in Shadows Across the Playing Field tries to provide answers by analysing 60 years of this intense cricketing rivalry, one, which has, on occasions superseded the intensity of the Ashes. (via something to hope for, and look forward to).
2ndlook 
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