Thread by @shrikanth_krish

Something is afoot in the Gangetic plain

The story of the next 100 years will probably be the relative rise of the Gangetic plain after roughly 1300 years of almost continual decline after the fall of Harshavardhana

https://twitter.com/kumar_rithika/status/1114948122017435648

This has implications for the Indian Union

Large parts of the Deccan and Bengal have started aging, and will continue to age

Also the Deccan faces a huge brain-drain with its erstwhile elite looking up to the US as the future home for its progeny

So demographically, culturally and also economically what we will likely see over the next 100 years is the retreat of Deccan after an ascendancy that began with the Chalukyas and Pallavas in the 6th-7th century

Already we see that Bengal and Deccan are likely over-represented in the Lok Sabha relative to their populations, if I'm not wrong

That will get corrected in the course of the next few decades

That will further increase the pre-eminence of Gangetic plain at least politically

Culturally, the Deccan has enjoyed a big enough edge over North at least in the world of Hindu ideas, since the 6th century or so

That will change. In part because the elites of Deccan are not so much interested in India anymore

The visa queues at consulates tell us something

Let's take a field like Yoga

In early 20th cen, the pioneering figures were from the South - Krishnamacharya, BKS Iyengar. Mysore was a Yoga capital

But in 21st cen, the most influential figure is Baba Ramdev. In fact Ramdev in many ways epitomizes the shift in epicenter

Even in the bureaucracy and corporate India, we see this shift in action.

The dominance of the Bengali bhadiralok and Tamil brahmin circa 1950-60 is now clearly a thing of the past

Many communities have now caught up, mostly from the North

I'd be interested to look at the % of Bengalis/ South Indians in say UPSC / IAS Top 100 ranks in say 1960 vs today

I expect a big decline

Even within North India there is a subtle shift not noticed by many

If one looks at North Indian history from say 1850 to 1950, we can sum it up in terms of a cultural decline of the Gangetic plain and the rise of the Indus plain

The decline of Benares and the rise of Lahore

In 1891 census, Benares with a population of 220K was significantly larger than Lahore at 175K

By 1941, Benares still stagnated at around 300K, while Lahore was close to 700K. Over 2 times larger!

So the story of late 19th / early 20th century is conveyed in this statistic

The rise pf Punjab. The decline of Ganga-Jumna plain

It had implications for culture. Language. Many many things

Post Partition, much of the Lahore elite moved to Delhi / Bombay.

And they dominated our perception of the cultured North Indian.

Bollywood for eg exuded Punjabi culture

That again is changing now.

The Punjabi elite who moved to India post partition are again a demographic with low fertility, and with significant migration to US / Canada

Even the state of Punjab taken as a whole is older, less vibrant than say 50 yrs ago

The decline of Punjab is a story in itself

One of the richest states in the country 40 years ago. Not anymore.
The state that has receded the most in the past 40 years

So within North India we see a shift. A cultural and a demographic shift

From West to the East

Postscript : The idea of viewing the early 20th century in terms of the decline of Benares and the rise of Lahore was hinted at by @Chandrapida1 in a twitter exchange