Share this page!

vakibs Profile picture
Twitter logo
Feb 9 • 5 tweets • 2 min read
ASI is doing its job precisely as it was expected to, and in line with the intentions with which it was set up. It was set up by a crooked British racist, Alexander Cunningham, with the objective of distorting India’s past and separating Buddhism from Indian living culture.
General Cunningham set the precedent for how the ASI is supposed to operate: he himself ransacked and looted a wide array of archeological artifacts, which are now in the possession of the British museum.
“This notion of a Buddhist golden age as having preceded the corrupt Hindu present ultimately served as a ‘legitimizing discourse about Britain’s civilizing mission in India’.”

This is precisely the motive for which the ASI was established.

brown.edu/academics/arch…
“The rock solid reputation of his works could not be undermined even by modern ‘nationalist’ critics of Orientalism.  They might criticize William Jones and Max Muller but leave Alexander Cunningham (1814-1893) alone without criticism..”

Coz we are fools!
ajithkumar.cc/history/alexan…
In this thread, I gave a historical view of how the distortions on Buddhism got piled up. General Cunningham was one of the most important characters who contributed to the colonial project of distorting Buddhism and thereby Indian history.

• • •

Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to force a refresh
　

Keep Current with vakibs

vakibs Profile picture

Stay in touch and get notified when new unrolls are available from this author!

Read all threads

This Thread may be Removed Anytime!

PDF

Twitter may remove this content at anytime! Save it as PDF for later use!

Try unrolling a thread yourself!

how to unroll video
  1. Follow @ThreadReaderApp to mention us!

  2. From a Twitter thread mention us with a keyword "unroll"
@threadreaderapp unroll

Practice here first or read more on our help page!

More from @vakibs

vakibs Profile picture
Feb 15
There is a great gap between the spoken “Hindi” and the literary Hindi. Unfortunately, few people have the reading habit in Hindi, especially for books.

It would really help if we prepare word lists to extend the used vocabulary in Hindi, like those in English for the GRE exam.
The same can be said for other Indian languages. The reading habit in Hindi is perhaps a bit stronger than other Indian languages, which are at a still more advanced state of decay. Focused interventions and supporting material, like word lists, grammar and composition will help.
I lost count of the number of times I started listening to a Hindi conversation on a podcast or video, and got put off by the obscene adulteration of language by the speakers. Sometimes half the sentence is in English. How is that acceptable to native speakers, I don’t know!
Read 5 tweets
vakibs Profile picture
Feb 12
Today, I realized that I know several Telugu people who talk to their children only in English. They don’t even live abroad in an Anglophone country. Just in India. The children talk to the parents in English. These are the elite section of the society. I’m pissed off man!
A lot of the times, it is just about showing off their Anglobabies. Every middle-class Telugu family has a dozen people in the circle of relatives or friends who are settled abroad, mostly in the USA. It is all about trying to identify with that in-group of Phoren kids.#facepalm
I get so annoyed just thinking about these Anglo-wannabes. Why!? The children can easily pick up English if they spend a couple of years abroad at some time. They are the fricking elite. But they are raising deracinated children who will be clueless and lost in life afterwards.
Read 4 tweets
vakibs Profile picture
Feb 12
We have our fair share of stupid fanatical Islamists in India, but this assessment is way off the mark. There are dozens of countries in the world which are ~ 100% Islamic: Iran, Uzbekistan, Egypt and so on. Would it be ok for those people if their country collapses? Not at all.
We should seriously take a chill pill in India and reason with the Muslims like they are Indians. Being Indian is what they are. They cannot rub it off. If they go to the Gulf, they are called Hindi (Indians). Heck, even Pakistanis are called that. They cannot rub it off.
Despite the fanatical idiots, the vast majority of Muslims in India are quite comfortable in their Indian skin and want to see their country progress as a civilization. If we look east, they will see Indonesians, Malaysians who all own up to their full civilizational history.
Read 4 tweets
vakibs Profile picture
Feb 12
“Hum Burqa pehnenge” doesn’t sound as chic and glamorous as a slogan, although that is precisely what those cute cartoon figures are wearing.
Hijab, in contrast to Burqa, is something so trivial and accepted every single place in India that there is no point asking for permission for it. India is not like Europe where covering the hair of a woman makes her stand out.
I mean, we have to credit the authors of this psyops for making the requisite effort for choosing the right vocabulary & associated toolkit. In other news (which is not even news anymore), a girl in Tamil Nadu committed suicide on account of the pressure to convert. Nobody cares.
Read 4 tweets
vakibs Profile picture
Feb 3
This would be under the Peshwas just prior to the British colonization of India.
But anyway, the Indian concept of Chakravarti is not similar to the Chinese concept of Heaven’s throne, or the Islamic concept of the Caliph, or the European concept of Ruler of Christendom. They are all different. We must understand how the Indian kings called themselves.
See this example of Raghu’s Digvijaya, that is narrated by Kālidāsa in his Raghuvamśa. The Chakravarti typically reinstates the same kings as rulers in the territory that is conquered by him. See the examples of Raghu’s exploits in Vanga and Kalinga.
Read 11 tweets
vakibs Profile picture
Feb 3
Thanks for this articulated viewpoint. The only problem with it is that 100% rubbish view of Indian history manufactured by the British colonial Raj. Did Indians never have a strong native power that unified the geography? Only foreign invaders unified it, Mughals or the British?
The idea that India is a disjoint jigsaw puzzle of a geography, that was barely ever unified except by the (superhumanly) strong external powers and that too for only brief periods of time: this was just a convenient and self-congratulatory propaganda prepared by the British Raj.
The British needed this propaganda to impose their rule on Indians, which they did for a period of 90 years (1857-1947). That’s a tiny blip in Indian history. Even during this period, we must remember they were only indirectly administering 50% of the land under princely states.
Read 11 tweets

Did Thread Reader help you today?

Support us! We are indie developers!

This site is made by just two indie developers on a laptop doing marketing, support and development! Read more about the story.

Become a Premium Member ($3/month or $30/year) and get exclusive features!

Become Premium

Don't want to be a Premium member but still want to support us?

Make a small donation by buying us coffee ($5) or help with server cost ($10)

Donate via Paypal

Or Donate anonymously using crypto!

Ethereum

0xfe58350B80634f60Fa6Dc149a72b4DFbc17D341E copy

Bitcoin

3ATGMxNzCUFzxpMCHL5sWSt4DVtS8UqXpi copy

Thank you for your support!

Like this author's thread?

Get emails when @vakibs has new unrolls!

Check out other threads from @vakibs!

Read all threads by @vakibs

:(