Who Created Harappan / Indus Valley Civilisation? | How Did It End? | Samvaad With Devdutt Pattanaik

[peagle]

@peagle @PAKISTANFOREVER

(Chapter 10: The Genomics of Race and Identity, emphasis added):

“In India, we learned that in order to get the work published, we had to make a compromise. We had to let the Indian researchers write the paper in a way that puts a gloss on what the genetic data actually show.

“The compromise was to describe the mixing of different groups in India as having occurred between ‘Ancestral North Indians’ and ‘Ancestral South Indians,’ a terminology that implies parity between the groups, rather than calling them what they really were: a mixture between West Eurasians (including Steppe migrants) and indigenous South Asians.

“It was a politically motivated maneuver to avoid inflaming what is perhaps the most politically sensitive topic in India: the origin of the caste system.”

Source - Who we are and how we got here : David Reich

That state is built on lies.

I had a tattered copy of The Indus Saga by Aitzaz Ahsan. So i requested a copy from India. As is my habit i quickly glanced through the content page, purely by habit because i already mostly knew the book. My eyes noticed something strange so i opened the original.

The original print shows the last chapter as "Towards a new Dawn" or something similar, working from memory.

In the Indian print the last chapter was titled "Towards Partition"

We are criminal in our use of words, we just do not understand the importance of how words are used and when they are omitted.

Partition,
Pakistan bana tha,
Pakistan was created,
india ko azadi mili,
we were one people,
and so on, all idiotic moronic words and statements.

My favourite is yeh hitta eik tha (this region use to be one) it's an oxymoron, so friggin stupid that on numerous occasions I have left expletive remarks for the speakers.
It was a region, today, it is still a region, regions by definition are a single descriptive term, it is still one. It's like Pakistanis just don't think.

These days they have started using the suffix "Ji" when mentioning indian leaders. But not when mentioning Pakistani leaders. It creates unconscious respect for the one who's been referred to as "Ji". it's by design from the Indian state and establishment. We are so stupid that our lot have started using it as well.
I am certain they have been asked by indian, everyone has contacts these days. Kar do nah yaar, kuch nahin hota, little sweet talk and Pakistanis are done for.

They have also started replacing the "R" sound with the "D". The R is part of the process in India where in Hindi they are actively expunging certain sounds, so R is replaced by the D, so Ladki rather then Larki. Z is replaced by the J, so Jindagi rather then Zindagi.
I have seen Pakistan channels and our so-called experts use the D, because they monkeys, monkey see monkey do. Not a single original brain cell between them.

My issue isn't with what India does, although it matters and deserves highlighting.
My issue is the stupidity of our own people. There are few so-called experts in this forum with their own YouTube channels, I've had numerous arguments them because they're lazy in their choice of words. When you point the deficiency they get their panties in a twist. it is so annoying, and the examples are endless.

 

[peagle]

Let me add though, context regarding why "South Asia" is sometimes problematic, which is perhaps what has been alluded to by others on other threads... we don't wish to be "lumped" together with Bharatis in the context of diaspora communities, as an example. Indeed, the term is deployed strategically by you know who, to create passive collateral benefit when a Pakistani achieves but when a Pakistani fails, naturally, the collective term South Asians is avoided. I get what critics mean about "South Asia" being harmful in this context. But you are 100% right that this term is correct when there is a need to avoid bias in historical and anthropological discourse.

I am going to enter a rare territoty lol
I strong disagree with this conclusion, your understanding of it or the conclusions as presented by others.

When you start picking and choosing words to suit your own end, we're no better then those we're accusing. This feels like a game of find the correct term.

Two terms already exist, it's like trying to reinvent the wheel, you just cannot do it.
Subcontinent and South Asia are used interchangeably, but in truth only one term applies, that's South Asia. By trying to pick a term acceptable to 260 million does not mean the 9.7 billion are going to adopt it. It's just not going to happen.

The choice is very clear.
Subcontinent and all it's baggage, or
South Asia and it's neutrality.

There is no other option, and South Asia makes sense, and it has internationally legal recognition.

How Indians use it is an entirely different issue, it's a totally different topic. By trying to confuse the two we'll go no further then internal confusion because the world certainly does not care.

Let's say, today we concluded on Pakistani subcontinent, write books on it and found scientific logic behind it. The world wouldn't give a damn. Because there's an element of continuity involved. New terms are not readily accepted unless they fall within existing parameters.
Regarding ANI/ASI there's still room to make changes, it's not a massive field and it's not a radical shift.

Outside of South Asia or subcontinent, anything else has less then zero chance of being accepted. We're just having arguments for sake of arguements while the Indians continue doing what they do.

 

[Master Chief]

I am going to enter a rare territoty lol
I strong disagree with this conclusion, your understanding of it or the conclusions as presented by others.

When you start picking and choosing words to suit your own end, we're no better then those we're accusing. This feels like a game of find the correct term.

Two terms already exist, it's like trying to reinvent the wheel, you just cannot do it.
Subcontinent and South Asia are used interchangeably, but in truth only one term applies, that's South Asia. By trying to pick a term acceptable to 260 million does not mean the 9.7 billion are going to adopt it. It's just not going to happen.

The choice is very clear.
Subcontinent and all it's baggage, or
South Asia and it's neutrality.

There is no other option, and South Asia makes sense, and it has internationally legal recognition.

How Indians use it is an entirely different issue, it's a totally different topic. By trying to confuse the two we'll go no further then internal confusion because the world certainly does not care.

Let's say, today we concluded on Pakistani subcontinent, write books on it and found scientific logic behind it. The world wouldn't give a damn. Because there's an element of continuity involved. New terms are not readily accepted unless they fall within existing parameters.
Regarding ANI/ASI there's still room to make changes, it's not a massive field and it's not a radical shift.

Outside of South Asia or subcontinent, anything else has less then zero chance of being accepted. We're just having arguments for sake of arguements while the Indians continue doing what they do.

We don't actually disagree here.

I agree that South Asia is the best generalised term except when strict dissociation is required in the conversation, in which case Pakistan is the best term.

Your point about "subcontinent" is well made and well understood, since it naturally takes the qualifying adjective "Indian". If it existed in common discourse as "Asian subcontinent", then it may have been acceptable. But it doesn't, so yes "South Asia" remains preferable.

 

[Master Chief]

You're now confusing three completely different things etymology, geographical usage, and modern territorial inheritance.

Sure India is an exonym or you can call yourselves India, go ahead nobody is stopping you. Although the British would've laughed their way to London if presented at the time. But you're a sovereign state you can, you got the indus, you got Sindh, so India maybe, but India wasn't partitioned based on boundaries of IV was it? Yet I agree with you.

What doesn't follow is that the geographical meaning of “India” was frozen forever at the boundaries of Hindus. Hecateus could already identify Indians in Gandhara despite Gandara and Hindi being distinct Achaemenid territories, and Herodotus knew of Indians outside Persian rule. By Megasthnees the matter is explicit. Say description of Pataliputra as “the greatest city in India.” So Gangetic being Indian isn't some Nehruvian reinterpretation invented in 1947. Greeks were applying India to the Gangetic world more than two millennia earlier.

Sure Pakistan has IVC sites it was first discovered by the British in Indus valley hence the name. But what Pakistan doesn't acquire from that fact is exclusive biological ownership of the Harappans. Ancient DNA shows IVC related ancestry contributed extensively to later South Asian populations on both sides of a border created thousands of years later. So if you want to push this disconnect further you should find your own skeleton remains with DNA, not kang on our scientific research and development based on our archeological excavation in our sites. Keep pushing we will get there.

Also none of your points establishes your actual proposition that Gangetic Indians connection to IVC populations is a Nehruvian illusion produced by a stolen name. Ancient DNA has made that argument obsolete.

If so what exactly is Pakistan, a land that's sparsely populated once, exploding in population only because British invented better irrigation canal system. Founded by a Gujarati, and still using language founded in Delhi now is claiming to be India, Sanskrit Vedas, IVC. We are not confused about our identity. We are Indians you should be Pakistani and create history for years to come, not try to claim you are this and that when you dropped any hint of the culture, you created Pakistan to prove Muslims are not Hindus take pride in breaking idols and erasing them. Now you took a 180 or maybe you're just trying to prove Hindus and Indians are not Hindus and Indians lol! However rare you guys are I do appreciate the hustle.

Your not wrong that the exonym "India" eventually was used to describe the eastern hinterlands well beyond the Indus. But we know this already! Why else did the British refer to the WHOLE region as India on their maps?

That does not obviate the original error. It simply fossilised the error. Naturally, Nehru took full advantage. Who wouldn't?

I have simply illustrated the original naming of the region of the Indus by Persians and their Greek subjects, and later by Greeks who took over those lands from Persians.

If you feel "India" ORIGINALLY referred to anything substantially beyond the Indus Valley, then do present evidence for this so it may be scrutinised. Megasthenes (who came AFTER those who originally referred to India as the Indus) did include Pataliputra, for example, as you have stated already, in his work on "India" but this is simple "lumping" of additional tribes into the original descriptor, partly because it was a contiguous and controlled empire under Maurya at the time. This practice is not unusual and is in fact the norm for anthropological classification by outsiders.

You tell me. Do contiguous empires automatically transform into a single unified nation in a cultural sense? Of course not. Look at any empire of your choosing, Roman, Holy Roman, Ottoman, Mughal, British etc.

Yes the genetics does maintain continuity between Pakistanis and NORTH Indians (southies are already excluded if you intend to use a genetic argument). But Herodotus , Megasthenes and the Persians didn't know that! Differences between the tribes of the Indus and the tribes of distal North India are specified in cultural AND anthropological terms by way of both references to "mleccha" within Vedic texts but also because you and I both know that the Rakhigiri specimen had ZERO Aryan contribution to her genome. The IVC existed before the Aryans came and probably collapsed before they arrived.

Lastly, you have made assertions on the purpose of the creation of the modern nation state of Pakistan in 1947 which are beyond the scope of this discussion. The suggestions made are patently false and slanderous and I would gladly discuss them with you in an appropriate thread. Furthermore, we are entirely cognisant of the genetics of modern Pakistanis, including migrants from coterminous India and many of our own founding fathers. There is good reason they chose to come here and help create the modern republic - again, a discussion for another thread.

 

[r3alist]

Nobody tried to steal anything. Do you think people are paying close attention to who gets Indus valley like the weight of the world shifts from one to another?

Why are you back?

When will you not care

 

[Vikramaditya1]

Your not wrong that the exonym "India" eventually was used to describe the eastern hinterlands well beyond the Indus. But we know this already! Why else did the British refer to the WHOLE region as India on their maps?

That does not obviate the original error. It simply fossilised the error. Naturally, Nehru took full advantage. Who wouldn't?


I have simply illustrated the original naming of the region of the Indus by Persians and their Greek subjects, and later by Greeks who took over those lands from Persians.

The British weren't remotely the first to apply “India” beyond the Indus, that usage is ancient. More importantly, nothing you've presented establishes your proposed civilizational divide between the people of Hindus and the populations farther east.

So what exactly is the claim? That the inhabitants of the Achaemenid territory called Hindus were the “real Indians,” while Indo-Aryan populations east of an imperial administrative boundary were something fundamentally different? What did those eastern populations call the supposed distinct Indus people? Where is the indigenous evidence for this boundary?

If you feel "India" ORIGINALLY referred to anything substantially beyond the Indus Valley, then do present evidence for this so it may be scrutinised. Megasthenes (who came AFTER those who originally referred to India as the Indus) did include Pataliputra, for example, as you have stated already, in his work on "India" but this is simple "lumping" of additional tribes into the original descriptor, partly because it was a contiguous and controlled empire under Maurya at the time. This practice is not unusual and is in fact the norm for anthropological classification by outsiders.

So what are you trying to say is, only history from 600BCE to 400BCE matters. Locked in, they are the Hindus and nobody else. ??? That doesn't make any sense, Hindus are older than 600BCE the word Sindhu itself comes from Vedas not Archemenid word. And well established in Indo gangetic plains. The question is quite simple who lived along Indus and towards eastern region. You need archaeological, linguistic or textual evidence for the boundary you're proposing, not simply the existence of the boundary itself.

You tell me. Do contiguous empires automatically transform into a single unified nation in a cultural sense? Of course not. Look at any empire of your choosing, Roman, Holy Roman, Ottoman, Mughal, British etc.

The Roman Empire contained Britain, Gaul, Egypt and Syria without making them one culture; nevertheless Europe, Asia and Africa remained meaningful geographical categories containing numerous peoples and states. Political or cultural heterogeneity doesn't invalidate geographical nomenclature.

You said "Megasthenes called Pataliputra Indian merely because the Mauryas had politically joined it to former Indus territories." Where is the evidence for that? That's your explanation for the expansion of the term, not something Megasthenes tells us. You interpret things for your convenience.

Yes the genetics does maintain continuity between Pakistanis and NORTH Indians (southies are already excluded if you intend to use a genetic argument). But Herodotus , Megasthenes and the Persians didn't know that! Differences between the tribes of the Indus and the tribes of distal North India are specified in cultural AND anthropological terms by way of both references to "mleccha" within Vedic texts but also because you and I both know that the Rakhigiri specimen had ZERO Aryan contribution to her genome. The IVC existed before the Aryans came and probably collapsed before they arrived.

Your genetic qualification is simply wrong.

South Indians are not excluded from IVC related ancestry. Narasimhan et al reconstruct ASI itself as deriving a minimum 55% of its ancestry from the Indus Periphery Cline, compared with 70% for ANI. So IVC related populations contributed heavily to BOTH ancestral streams from which most mainland South Asians descend.
And yes, the Rakhigarhi individual had no detectable Steppe ancestry. I agree. That shows Steppe ancestry entered later it doesn't show that people who subsequently mixed with Steppe derived groups ceased to descend from IVC related populations. In fact the ancient DNA model explicitly shows the opposite.

Finally, nobody needs the Mauryan Empire to have been a culturally homogeneous nation. India can be a geographical category containing different peoples. The claim under discussion is geographical nomenclature and population continuity, not whether Chandragupta created a modern nation state.

Lastly, you have made assertions on the purpose of the creation of the modern nation state of Pakistan in 1947 which are beyond the scope of this discussion. The suggestions made are patently false and slanderous and I would gladly discuss them with you in an appropriate thread. Furthermore, we are entirely cognisant of the genetics of modern Pakistanis, including migrants from coterminous India and many of our own founding fathers. There is good reason they chose to come here and help create the modern republic - again, a discussion for another thread.

You're the one who dragged Nehru into it and complained about his choices. Like he cheated y'all, if you don't want the discussion to be modern events then don't drag modern people into this.

 

[Vikramaditya1]

Can you post some links to GENUINE, CREDIBLE, INDEPENDENT and IRREFUTABLE evidence that confirms the above claims?

This is a forum, if you think otherwise you refute my claims with reason "so and so". I ain't wasting time for people like you, do your own research.

 

[PAKISTANFOREVER]

This is a forum, if you think otherwise you refute my claims with reason "so and so". I ain't wasting time for people like you, do your own research.

In other words, you have NO evidence.......

 

[Master Chief]

The British weren't remotely the first to apply “India” beyond the Indus, that usage is ancient. More importantly, nothing you've presented establishes your proposed civilizational divide between the people of Hindus and the populations farther east.

So what exactly is the claim? That the inhabitants of the Achaemenid territory called Hindus were the “real Indians,” while Indo-Aryan populations east of an imperial administrative boundary were something fundamentally different? What did those eastern populations call the supposed distinct Indus people? Where is the indigenous evidence for this boundary?

I didn't say the British were the first. They propagated an oversimplification, an error, well fossilised by then.

The evidence comes from archaeology, genetics, linguistics (you haven't even deciphered Indus script, yet somehow they are part of the same neighbourhood watch scheme as gangetics!), even your own religious texts which describe them as mleccha. By the way, let's not confuse ourselves here by overlapping our discussions on naming of India with that of the identity of Indians - the Achaemenids arrived when the IVC was long gone...maybe 1000 years after. The Ukrainian barhadari were ALREADY in the Hindush by then. We know the genetic story that the Persians did not. So the inhabitants AT THAT TIME were already genetically different (examining the genomics of the Achaemenid era is pointless). Hindush did overlay with the old IVC rather neatly though and this discussion relates only to the NAMING of India/Hindustan, which is what was achieved by the Persians, contradicting the nomenclature in Sanskrit texts.

The British weren't remotely the first to apply “India” beyond the Indus, that usage is ancient. More importantly, nothing you've presented establishes your proposed civilizational divide between the people of Hindus and the populations farther east.

So what are you trying to say is, only history from 600BCE to 400BCE matters. Locked in, they are the Hindus and nobody else. ??? That doesn't make any sense, Hindus are older than 600BCE the word Sindhu itself comes from Vedas not Archemenid word.

For NAMING purposes, yes! A name was given and it was retained thereafter by EVERYONE, including those who erroneously extrapolated the boundary of "Hindush" far beyond that which the Achaememids intended it for. I know "Sindhu" is from the Vedas and my earlier point explains the oddity of choosing ONE RIVER'S NAME as the notional descriptor for the supposed entity of the entirety of South Asia/Akhand Bharat (do you bother to even read my posts as I don't like repeating myself?)... No guru or high priest would possibly choose one river's name out of the numerous rivers, geographical features etc mentioned in Vedas to describe the whole world as known to them! It beggars belief that you find it a reasonable assertion. This is PRECISELY why it is never considered to represent the whole of Bharat in your scriptures. BHARAT is what the mythology enthusiasts wanted to call this entire new world known to them in their scriptures (according to some, Akhand Bharat even includes Burma and who knows what else?!). INDIA was nomenclature bestowed upon ancient Pakistan by Persians, lifted from the word for a SINGLE RIVER mentioned in Sanskrit texts. There is simply ZERO evidence that "India" was EVER INTENDED for lands to the east, either from the original Sanskrit texts or by those who eventually bestowed this word as a name.

The Roman Empire contained Britain, Gaul, Egypt and Syria without making them one culture; nevertheless Europe, Asia and Africa remained meaningful geographical categories containing numerous peoples and states. Political or cultural heterogeneity doesn't invalidate geographical nomenclature.

Yes, you have described continents, geographical expressions of regions of the earth's surface, notwithstanding political realities of nationhood that superimpose upon those regions. "India" was REPEATEDLY USED by numerous powers who ruled this area to describe a continent/subcontinent, within which multiple, disparate, warring tribes existed - we discussed this before. The usage of this term in this way is beyond what the Achaememids intended and is also not justified in original Sanskrit texts - it is a fossilised error of nomenclature when applied to the nation state of India as it exists today. You're right to infer that "India" when deployed by Brits, Mughals, or anyone after the Achaemenids is referring to a continent rather than a nation.

Your genetic qualification is simply wrong.

South Indians are not excluded from IVC related ancestry. Narasimhan et al reconstruct ASI itself as deriving a minimum 55% of its ancestry from the Indus Periphery Cline, compared with 70% for ANI.

I didnt exclude southies from IVC ancestry. I excluded them from the conversation regarding similarity to Pakistanis. Steppeland ancestry is shared between Pakistanis and modern North Indians moreso than with modern South Indians. Modern North Indians and Pakistanis are most similar. Of course modern southies still have plenty of genomic influence from the IVC. The diffusion patterns were well established. You misunderstood my inference.

You're the one who dragged Nehru into it and complained about his choices. Like he cheated y'all, if you don't want the discussion to be modern events then don't drag modern people into this.

Yes I did drag Nehru into it and have explained in detail hitherto why his choice of name is erroneous. That is precisely what we are discussing. I did not speculate on the "purpose of the creation of The Secular Republic of India", which is best served in another thread. You made several accusations about Pakistan's purpose that can easily be refuted but it has nothing to do with what we are discussing.

 

[peagle]

If you feel "India" ORIGINALLY referred to anything substantially beyond the Indus Valley, then do present evidence for this so it may be scrutinised.

How would this change the argument? In either direction.

Personally i don't hold any value in the original use of the name india, nor it's adoption by the British or when it was created as a country in 1947. Logically it has not relevance, except acting as an excerpt.

We're not even the same civilisation.
there exist vast below surface level differences between the
Dravidian civilisation,
Gangetic civilisation,
Indus civilisation (which did not die, it transformed and evolved. it still exists today).

Look at the classical music, Carnatic classical music is radically different from the Hindustani classical music, then you have other minor separate groups.
European classical music is uniformly same in it's structure across the continent. So many other unitary forces and same cultural uniformity exists in Europe. There is no fantasy country called Europe, because it would be a moronic claim. Yet in South Asia facts and truth can go to hell.

Cuisine, languages, cultures, dress/attire and so on. Nothing in South Asia is the same across this region.

The Indus region, post the Indus Valley civilisation period even developed it's own script.
Kharosthi script was written from right to left for a thousand years.
If i remember correctly, even the Indus script is recognised to have been written from right to left. Although, I'll have to double check this point.

The direction of script is an interesting topic, Indus vs rest of south Asia. I think someone like you will enjoy it. It's not a vast topic but very interesting.

Even before the arrival of Islam and the Persian linguistic influence, the Indus region has mostly used "right to left" scripts, not entirely but mostly. which contrasts sharply with the "left to right" scripts in the Gangetic plains.

There exists an actual history on the ground. There were no unitary forces, none, they never existed. Any discussion regarding Hindu religious text is pure fantasy. By that measure every child is born a Muslim (technically) as they are guaranteed heaven. Only after the age of puberty will they be judged.

We might as well through away history of the world and start judging history by all the religious texts. It's insane.
I have had hundreds of argument in various comment sections and none have presented anything worthwhile, they all just run away.

I think sometimes we pay too much attention in responding to points which hold extremely low value.