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The Emissary

@TheEmissaryCo

Mar 22

Indian Civilization's 3-Body Doctrine

In Hinduism, the Jivatman is said to be composed of 3 aspects:

-Sthula: Physical
-Sukshma: Mental
-Kāran: Causal

The Upanishads & Yoga Sutras explore this doctrine in-depth.

But what if we applied this doctrine to India itself? 🧵

Sthula

Regarding the Jivatman, sthula refers to the physical body that we use to engage with our senses & feelings.

It is the physical matter of our body. Our sensory organs help us observe the world.

Our Prana, the life force that sustains us & physiological processes.

For Indian civilization, this is its geography, structures, & people itself.

"The county north of the ocean & south of the snowy mountains..." as the Vishnu Puran says.

India is pilgrimages & structures made by its most important sthula element - its people.

Even those not in the Republic of India today still descend from those who, at one point in time, identified as Indians or were under the local rule of those who did. Genetics will forever display "Indianness" on their faces and cells in one way or another.

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The Emissary

@TheEmissaryCo

Mar 4

One of my most fascinating visits in India was going to Jama Masjid in Delhi.

Some confirmations & other surprises from my priors 🧵

Walking up to Jama Masjid firstly consists of walking through a bazaar up till the main gate & stairs.

Saw both Muslims & Hindus in the bazaar (more of former while latter were less & mostly shopping).

The grandness of the gate is the first thing that stands out to you once you reach. This theme of size & grandness is an important spark of thought as I walked across the mosque.

The mosque is Mughal architecture par excellence.

My visits in Istanbul, Jordan, & Dubai gave me a taste of Turkish & Arab styles, but here is where you really see the “Indo” in Indo-Islamic architecture.

The chhatris, ramparts, gates, “kalashes,” etc… all gave a distinctly Indian feel

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The Emissary

@TheEmissaryCo

Dec 4, 2023

The Jewel in the Crown 🧵

The Making of the British Raj

With the Marathas enduring a catastrophic result at the Third Battle of Panipat, an opening formed. Pink men dressed in funny coats who had no business in the Indian heat began to show up at the edge of Indian waters.

They wanted to trade.

They were obsessed with measuring. Their curiosity was amusing to many local Indians, but these pink men or angrezis (Englishmen) would pay no mind and would continue to write and exchange.

Some parts of India were rough for them, so they hired local security in addition to bringing their own foreign units. They paid better than the permanently drunk nawab or opium-addled raja and were much more reliable.

The English were rivaling the mercantile castes in their money-making abilities. Arcane foreign financial methods and obsessive measuring grew their rich chests as if they were employing a Miami-based plastic surgeon.

From the rattle of the coin purse eventually grew the rattle of sabers. Humble operations in Calcutta in the early 18th century would transform into a financial juggernaut that possessed the most fearsome army in India by 1815.

The British East India Company combined financial power, military discipline, and most importantly, institutional brilliance to conquer India in its entirety.

The Anglo was the new Ashoka.

Some say that the British “made” India with their imperialism. If you’ve read this far, you know that’s not the case. But why the British are essential in the idea of India is twofold.

Firstly, British bureaucracy and administration proved to be a better way to organize government than many earlier Indian editions.

This doesn’t point to an inherent superiority of the English or the deficiency of Indians; it’s just to say that there is something special about how the British organized society and state.

It’s one of the biggest reasons the British Empire succeeded. Compared to many Indian crowns, the British East India Company brought better rule of law, less corruption, and even better public infrastructure, as more reliable transport meant easier trade.

Money that was spent on a kingdom’s defense and courtly excesses was now routed to commercial pursuits. Early days proved more peaceful under the East India Company, but over time the operations became increasingly extractive.

More consequential, though, was the eventual meddling in Indian internal affairs and society. This, combined with the aforementioned economic extraction, would bring tumult to the British Raj.

In the aftermath of the 1857 Sepoy Mutiny, the British grew a penchant for the stick rather than carrots. Increased onus on divide-and-rule tactics would find a perfect foil in the caste system.

Caste was bureaucratized like never before as the British used policies to discriminate against certain castes and create enmity between different ones.

Religion too was used to powerful effect with the bloody conclusion of incitement being the Partition of India.

This is not to say there wasn’t already caste and religious conflict before the British, but the bureaucratization of these identities added new economic and political dimensions to these social battles.

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The Emissary

@TheEmissaryCo

Nov 28, 2023

The Call of Swaraj 🧵

Indian Proto-Nationalism in the Maratha Empire

While great kings such as Rana Sanga, Krishna Devaraya, Lachit Borphukan, Mihira Bhoja, and others all resisted the Islamic advance, there is one ruler who stands out.

The Tiger of the Deccan, Shivaji Bhonsle possessed a vision that would become the prototype of Indian nationalism centuries later.

At 15 years of age, Shivaji sought to create a “Hindavi Swaraj” or a country based on the self-rule of Hindus.

This is a stark ideological departure from previous Hindu kings primarily attached to land or caste, with a recent exception being from the still smoldering ruins of an adjacent Vijayanagara, an empire that, in many ways, is an ideological antecedent for the Marathas.

After a bit of dancing between vassal and rebel for the Adilshahi Sultanate and Mughal Empire, Shivaji launched his mission for self-rule.

What initially began as a territorial tussle soon evolved into a war for survival as Aurangzeb sought to eradicate the Marathas from root to branch.

The Western Ghats would soon roar “Har, Har Mahadev!” as Maratha guerrilla tactics made the hills appear to have eyes and bushes possessing swords sharpened by the armor of Mughal soldiers.

The war would drain both the coffers and spirit of the Mughal Empire. With the Mughals in retreat, the Marathas began a marathon in pursuit.

The reality of Maratha sovereignty would strive for Shivaji’s dream Hindavi Swaraj as the Marathas looked to free the Ganga and the Indus from the clutches of those they saw as foreigners of the land and oppressors of their religion.

Shivaji would appeal to Hindu kings to rebel against the “Turk.” His descendants would reaffirm this call as they blew the conch of war becoming a saffron sea across the subcontinent.

Maratha kings and queens would rebuild Hindu temples and reinvigorate Hindu sentiments across their empire, with Ahilyabai Holkar being particularly charitable in restoring Hindu temples.

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The Emissary

@TheEmissaryCo

Nov 27, 2023

The Scourge of the Sultanates 🧵

How the Advent of Islam Calcified Indian Identity

Chinese pilgrims to India did not note any violence between Hindus and Buddhists during their visits. Barring a few exceptions, Indians had no problem bowing to Buddha or Bhairav, Madhav or Mahavir, and so on.

The concept of religion itself was very different from modern Western or medieval Middle Eastern notions. This is why the arrival of Islam caused such a shock.

An “Other” was indeed recognized.

While early Indians had the concept of “Mleccha” denoting people who did not follow Vedic lifestyles, there were no mass mandates for violence against them.

This contrasted with the levels of religious persecution and conflict that appeared as Islam entered India. Waves of Islamic invasions from Central Asia would leave parts of India as wastelands.

Temples were destroyed and looted, Hindus were enslaved and carried off to the steppe, and many Indians were faced with the choice of conversion or death.

Nomadic horse archers invading from the grasslands of central Asia were a regular feature for India. And indeed, each wave was laced with cruelty.

But the Scythians, Huns, and other invaders who came to India prior assimilated, becoming Indians themselves as they bowed to Indian gods.

But this recent bout of Muslim Turks was different.

Across their own chronicles, Islamic invaders gloat about the terror they wrought upon India and its unbelievers.

A holy war envelops each campaign into the subcontinent. The killings of Hindus and the looting of their temples are recounted with glee and pride.

When Turks actually started to settle in India, they would adopt a caste system of their own, this time based on ethnicity, with Turks and other Muslim Middle Eastern ethnicities at the top.

They would not tolerate being ordered around by a dark, wretched Indian even if they were their Muslim brother in faith.

Beneath converted Muslims was the mass of Hindus who frivolously obsessed over their own increasingly calcifying caste system.

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The Emissary

@TheEmissaryCo

Oct 10, 2023

Indian Politics as the Ultimate Game of Thrones 🧵

The Transformation of the BJP into India's Big Tent Party

I’ve written much about modern Indian politics, and I don’t think I’ve encapsulated it better than this:

“There is nothing that quite mimics the bloodsport and realpolitik of Game of Thrones like Indian politics. Hereditary houses and regional satraps are now collapsing as a dragon-bellied leviathan engulfs India in an unending fire. From the ashes of the old guard spawn new elites eager to stamp themselves into the saga of the saffron march. A peerless leader of ordinary origin puts storied royalty to the sword as internal rivals are bashed by his hilt and banished to the hills.”

Like Indira Gandhi before him, Modi has become the nucleus of Indian politics. The BJP has become the most potent political machine on the planet under the helm of Narendra Modi and his trusted lieutenant, Amit Shah.

Term 2 of the NDA began with a bang, three to be precise.

Since independence, Kashmir had a temporary law that enabled it more autonomy than most other Indian states. Combine this with the latent supremacist and secessionist sentiments mentioned earlier, and the state has always gone through fits of rebellion as a result.

The government abruptly removed this act, Article 370, as well as removing the statehood of the province of Jammu and Kashmir.

Terrorism has plummeted since then with a trickle of Indians from other states moving in, something not allowed prior.

As critics raged against this decision, the BJP would celebrate another controversial and emphatic victory via the Supreme Court.

Over a century in the making, the Supreme Court gave a unanimous decision in favor of establishing a temple on Ram’s birthplace in Ayodhya while allocating funds for a mosque elsewhere.

The fulfillment of this bloody struggle was jubilation for many Hindus and etched Modi not just into the Indian Republic’s history, but into Indian civilization’s history. Finally, the BJP would pass a law called the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) in December.

This law essentially granted accelerated citizenship for non-Muslim refugees of several South Asian countries. It would be twinned with another law called the National Register of Citizens (NRC), which was essentially a citizenship confirmation exercise.

Both were innocent on their own, but combined they stoked fears of Indian Muslim citizens being disenfranchised of their voting and citizenship rights.

Indian Muslims had enough and began large-scale protests across India, which soon went awry into riots.

The CAA would be delayed and the NRC shelved. What appeared to be a tactical victory for Indian Muslims transformed into a strategic catastrophe.

Hindus viewed these riots not as a fight for rights but an assertion of supremacy and petulance that stopped a humanitarian law aimed at some of the most oppressed people on the planet.

CAA was seen as addressing one of the errors of the partition, leaving non-Muslims to the wolves in these Islamic states, something even the godfather of secularism, Nehru, acknowledged as a grave wrongdoing.

The pulverization of non-Muslims in these states and apartheid-like laws were well observed as the internet penetrated Indian eyes.

The alienation of Indian Muslims has accelerated greatly since.

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