London museum showcases India’s contribution to science

[Pakistani E]

@Peshwa

I know what you are saying, you are trying to define a unified "Indian" culture while there is no such thing. You also still have not presented which political reality of before you are comparing Modern state of India with.

 

[Peshwa]

Okay let me try to explain it this way. Assume tomorrow Pakistan changes it's international style to "Asia". Since there is a continent called Asia. Since it has existed and been known as such for millenias. Would it follow thart "Asia Republic of Pakistan" could now unilaterally claim every Asian's countries heritage and claim that it represents all of Asia? Do you think rest of Asia would just accept our representation of them on the guise of being "Asian"? The infographic below sums up my point nicely.

Why don't we start with how much shared history does Pakistan have with say Japan or Korea? Or say Russia?
Were there any commonalities such as religion, ethnicities, languages, cultures?
Was there any mass migration of populations between these places?
Are there any historical sites that are common between the rest of Asia and Pakistan?

If you can answer those question, sure change your name to Asia as being representative of the entire continent.
Until then, my point stands.

@Peshwa

I know what you are saying, you are trying to define a unified "Indian" culture while there is no such thing. You also still have not presented which political reality of before you are comparing Modern state of India with.

No I'm not!
I'm not talking of any political union or "Indian" culture.
I am talking of taking a sample of all cultures, ethnicities, languages or other factors that form the geographical entity that is the Indian subcontinent.
Then overlay this with the modern nation states and tell me which country would truly have the best representative sample of the overall geographical unit.
In my opinion it is India. It covers majority of cultures, religion, historical sites etc. that formed the 5000 years old history of the subcontinent.

 

[jetray]

We choose our own names, not like some of our neighbours who take after the names their masters give them.

Thats what every usurper says. India has always been called by different names in the past like bharat, jambu dwipa, hindustan ..etc.

this is a verse we use in our prayer chanting ,

"The river Sindhu (Indus) too is flowing with a current of fresh blood." (3:223) "The seven large rivers including the Sindhu (Indus) though flowing eastwards then flowed in opposite directions. The very directions seemed to be reversed and nothing could be distinguished. Fires blazed up everywhere and the earth trembled repeatedly." (5:84) "The spot where the Sindhu mingleth with the sea, is that tirtha of Varuna." (3:82)

In our literature we have mention of kings who ruled sindhu and tributaries as well

why dont you provide evidence of such things from your literature/culture? you ppl only occupied the land but not culture or heritage. It rightfully belongs to us.

So where are you from in Pakistan as you say you are the original inhabitants of the land?

you ppl are partly converts and invaders from beyond the afghanistan/ME/central asia.

There are other countries which have converted like iran (persian culture), egypt , indonesia...etc but they all retain their culture and heritage. So where/what/which is your culture that you claim as yours? Why isnt most of the language or culture has no reference to the past history of the land?

Greeks/romans are christians so are vikings who have their past history/culture. show me yours , your history wont extend even for more than 500-400 years. Your history is only filled with invaders destroying the locals.

Did any one write a novel in 6th century about pakistan or river sindu in urdu or arabic?

 

[RISING SUN]

IVC. Harrapa, Mohenjo Daro. Mehr Garh. Sirkap. Taxila. The zero. That is us. Our contribution tio civilization.

@Kaptaan Saab, perhaps it was missed by you that there are artifacts, and many other things which show the continuity of scientific research & development throughout last 5000 years right from Afghanistan border till north east. It's as much about the lands where it happened as the people who kept researching and evolving. Why don't we look for evidence what happened to people who inhabitated all of the Indian subcontinent? Did they just disappeared from world or they migrated to other safer places? If they disappeared then how were so many things happening in past documented and available in museums. It's not about one time civilization only, it's about the civilization which has survival instincts and kept evolving. Did they believe in homogeneous entities or were they people from diverse backgrounds? How many of Pakistan people tried to look for answers beyond the IVC or start of Islam till date? It was always either Aaryavart, Bharat, India or whatever you want to call, kept evolving and kept enriching its knowledge which not only gave us these documentary evidence after 2-3-4-5000 years but also gave us survivability. Ask any Pakistani people here, most of them will be eager to sacrifice themselves if it means people living on Eastern border are erased, even though that will also means it is end of them also. But they have strong belief that their religion and culture will survive being spread all over the world in billion people. Does anybody think is that survival instinct? No it's suicidal instinct, whether you believe it or not. History not just made of bricks and other things, we have unlimited of them everywhere, from Sarnath, Kalinga to Vaishali to Somnath & Gujarat. Evolution is not limited to land only, people also. @Joe Shearer Hope I didn't came out rudely. Thank you.

I find it insulting that Pakistan is not even mentioned with Bakhshali manuscript, as if the people of Pakistan suddenly dropped out of the skies. And before someone says we were Indian, nah, this name is alien to my people and we have been here for thousands of years. India is a name given by invaders, I refuse it, only slaves take names given by their masters.

Did you know any other name of river Indus? Really interested in knowing something different on widely used name.

 

[Mentee]

now a Maratha and mallu would culturally represent a Punjabi , kashmiri, pakhtoon , sindhi , Balochi ? What has this world come to ? It's like equating Spaniards with the English , French and germans---------

 

[AUSTERLITZ]

The fact is Pakistan is inheritor of Indus region - it has the real estate and the peoples of that region and therefore is the modern iteration of a 8,000 year long story.

Hahahaha. So "Asia" it is then !

You are not the sole inheritor of the Indus-saraswati civilization,nor do you have best real estate,you only have the ones discovered first
The biggest site in the IVC - Rakhigarhi in India.Bigger than Mahenjodaro.

Only 4 out of 11 of the major IVC sites are in pakistan .7 are in India.So you can come out of your delusion.
You have Mahenjodaro,Harrappa,Chanhudaro and Ganweriwal.
We have the biggest site - Rakhigarhi.Others are Kalibangan,Lothal,Rupar,Baniwal,Bhor sadan,Dholavira.

The water reservoir system of dholavira is more advnaced than that found in mahenjo daro.Its stepwell is 3 times larger.
Kalibangan is the site known for the discovery of the worlds first ploughed field,not found in other sites.
Lothal has the world's first dock ,used for international seaborne trade.And all these fall in sites found in india.So ,no you don't have the real estate -we have the better part of it .Even though its stupid to curve up a 5000 yr old civilization on the basis of modern boundaries,its you who resorts to this.

Kalibangan and Lothal show evidence (fire altars) of worship of agni,suggesting he was not a god brought from outside by aryan invasion theory.Moreover most scholars argue IVC script is a proto-dravidian script,so what does a modern day pakistani have to do with a dravidian whom they regularly abuse as 'black skinned'.

Some pak posters claim themselves to be aryans.Fair skinned martial race.By supposed aryan invasion theory they destroyed ivc.So are you aryans or are you IVC.Make up your mind.

You need to seriously stop trying to invent history as it suits you and actually read non-pakistani sources.You were IVC(apparently only you were ivc no one else although some of the biggest sites are in Indian punjab, haryana, rajasthan and gujarat and we havn't even excavated further east yet).So you were IVC,then your history stops ..blank.Then you were porus and the small tribal states.You take claim for puru even though he was a suraseni and claimed descendant of krishna,even though that surname is borne by puris of india. You believe you stopped alexander when it was the fear of the enormous nanda army that scared his soldiers.You don't have to believe me,-read up on the ancient greek historians -ptolemy,megasthenes -they themselves said it was the enormous army waiting on the ganges that scared him.Puru was merely the teaser.It was Chndragupta maurya that ended the greek empire in india and defeated seleucus.He also conquered all the territories of modern day pak and afghanistan which ofcourse you don't want to remember.

Your number one enemy is chanakya - the 'hindu serpent'.But he was actually if real estate is something to go by - a pakistani.He was born and spent much of his life in Taxila.

Again after puru you have no history until the coming of mohd bin qasim.No history for 1000 years.Perhaps because this area was a periphery area during India's golden age under guptas.It was conquered and annexed by parthians,sakas and hepthalites/hunas even though they failed to penetrate into the gangetic heartland and were defeated there.

Who was the fisrt to fall before the arabs? Sind - in modern day pakistan.Who defeated the arabs?Rajput gurajara pratiharas,rastrakutas and chalukyas.For 4 centuries in the height of their power they couldn't do anything,only penetrated into the heartland after turks came with their horse archers and pratihara empire broke up into smaller rajput kingdoms.Now every invader you glorify went through your ancestors first- burning and slaughtering.Ghazni burned lahore ,babur made minarets of skulls of pathans on his way through your tribal belt area and bragged about it in his autobiography.Now who were these people?Pakistanis?

Mughals- Turco-mongol .Khiljis -turk,sher shah- afghan,lodis- afghan,Ghurids - afghan.Ghaznavids -Turk.
You hate afghans these days ,yet name your symbols of national pride after afghans?Confused?
You look to the records of the main nobility of these empires -where are the conquering muslims of subcontinental descent?All major nobles and generals iranians,uzbeks,tajiks,turks and afghans.And after akbar - rajputs.Indian muslims were in the lower bureaucracy.Sultan Balban refused to meet any of them.Where did ashraf altaf come from?

So you have to figure out for yourselves who you are .You can't be everybody whenever it suits you.Its better you remain concerned about your own identity and not try to tell Indians who we are.We have embraced who we are,with all our historical failings and successes together.You only remember IVC,Puru and Qasim as history.

 

[Joe Shearer]

ugh actually I beg to differ.

Pakistan in its present form is one small representative sample of the larger Indian civilization that focusses on the Islamic history and people of the subcontinent.
India in its present form, on the other hand is the true representation of what India was as a geographical entity (before the concept of nation states) as described by the historians.
India not only houses, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism AND Islam that represents the evolution of religion and culture in the subcontinent, but being secular actually gives you an insight into the melting pot that was an undivided India before the politics of religion took over.
Apart from having historical sites both religious and archeological, India also is a trade powerhouse, something India of the past was and has one of the largest GDPs in the world today, which also is indicative of the Indian subcontinent under different rulers in time.

The simple fact is, the subcontinent was amputated. But lets be clear that when the arm is amputated from the body, the amputated part does not take on the identity of the person. That person still remains who he/she was...In this case India being the person. Pakistan and BD being the amputated parts. They may have/want their own identity but cannot represent the 5000 year old history of the subcontinent in its entirety.

@Joe Shearer @AUSTERLITZ

I read it, just now, I am enjoying this thread, and I have no intention of getting involved. There are too many mistakes, on both sides, along with the most eloquent and detailed defences of their respective positions; this is one to enjoy and put away for future reference.

My own position won't suit anyone in particular. Under the impact of Modi and his counterparts on the other side, I am gradually getting more and more to think wistfully of Tagore and his views on nationalism. He was right, the nation-state people were wrong.

 

[Peshwa]

I read it, just now, I am enjoying this thread, and I have no intention of getting involved. There are too many mistakes, on both sides, along with the most eloquent and detailed defences of their respective positions; this is one to enjoy and put away for future reference.

My own position won't suit anyone in particular. Under the impact of Modi and his counterparts on the other side, I am gradually getting more and more to think wistfully of Tagore and his views on nationalism. He was right, the nation-state people were wrong.

You Sir, were invited so you could correct my mistakes. If I can improve upon my arguments and corrected where I'm wrong, Id be a better person everyday. Who better to do this than a learned giant as yourself.
So please don't hold back. This is isn't personal. Its simply a debate and I'm here to learn. I have no problem conceding where Ive erred. (of course after a healthy dose of explaining my position )

Nevertheless, I understand if the topic at hand does not suit your taste.

 

[Joe Shearer]

You Sir, were invited so you could correct my mistakes. If I can improve upon my arguments and corrected where I'm wrong, Id be a better person everyday. Who better to do this than a learned giant as yourself.
So please don't hold back. This is isn't personal. Its simply a debate and I'm here to learn. I have no problem conceding where Ive erred. (of course after a healthy dose of explaining my position )

Nevertheless, I understand if the topic at hand does not suit your taste.

I am anything but a 'learned giant'; that would be Niaz Sahib, or Oscar, or Kaptaan. And I am emphatically not saying that you are wrong, or that Kaptaan or Sher Shah Awan are wrong; I am saying that both sets of people have taken extreme positions that build on core truths and over-extend them.

The topic suits my taste extremely well; you got the hint in my previous post. However, as I grow older and older, and more and more mentally decrepit, it becomes nicer and nicer to watch the slash and thrust of finely honed wits debating an interesting topic without descending to personalities and to vulgar abuse.

This is a rare pleasure, and I really am enjoying myself, and the standard of discussion.

A postscript: I am biased, of course; part of my pleasure comes from reading the posts of those who are among my favourites among the membership. How nice to have such a civilised debate that is nevertheless infused with fierce partisan advocacy of the respective points of view! And how nice also that wit (albeit a ribald wit) is present; most of our discussions are so deathly dull!

 

[Suriya]

Srinivasa Ramanuja was one of most genius mathematicians ever lived. Never formally trained, he made quite a few ground breaking discoveries in math. Forget 0. How about -1/12? Ramanujan discovered the famous (or infamous ) identity called Ramanujan Summation which says 1+2+3+4+... = -1/12. Yes you're reading it right. Somehow he figured out that the sum of all the positive integers is actually "equal to" -1/12! If such an idea bothers you, try Einstein's theory of relativity. Shouldn't you be equally surprised that time can actually "slow down"??? This identity along with the new thinking brought forth with it laid in part the mathematical foundation for string theory and quantum mechanics. He was a once in a millennium genius who lived well ahead of his time. Too bad he died at just the age of 32. Who knows what he could've done had he lived 30 more years!

Ramanujan: Making sense of 1+2+3+... = -1/12 and Co.

 

[Pakistani E]

Did you know any other name of river Indus? Really interested in knowing something different on widely used name.

Does it matter? All rivers are called different things at different point in history by different people. Sorry, I am not in a class that I am going to list down all the recorded names. What is the point you are making?

you ppl are partly converts and invaders from beyond the afghanistan/ME/central asia.

There are other countries which have converted like iran (persian culture), egypt , indonesia...etc but they all retain their culture and heritage. So where/what/which is your culture that you claim as yours? Why isnt most of the language or culture has no reference to the past history of the land?

Greeks/romans are christians so are vikings who have their past history/culture. show me yours , your history wont extend even for more than 500-400 years. Your history is only filled with invaders destroying the locals.

Did any one write a novel in 6th century about pakistan or river sindu in urdu or arabic?

Yeah, of course I descend from mostly converts with a bit of South West Asian dna thrown in. So I am a mongrel, is that your point of contention with me? Are you a pure Indo Aryan? Or are you perhaps a pure Pre Indo Aryan person? Are you even pure Homo Sapian? And why does that matter?

As for my culture? Well, depends what you mean? Pakistanis living in the four provinces and other territories have their own unique blend of cultures and customs, which sometimes lap over with another in somethings and go the other in others.

Your point about Egyptians keeping their culture is hilarious, are they still burying their Presidents in pyramids? And then even this point opens up another Pandora box, which point in time are you actually asking about culture? The Greco-Egyptian culture? Or the Romano-Egyptian culture under the Romans? The Arab-Egyptian culture or the one from archaic times?

My history is full of invasions sure, please tell me which country, nation or people have not been invaded? Successive invasions/migrants always build on the previous civillisations, unless it's a genocide of the magnitude of European expansion in the new world, the people of Pakistan will no doubt have great affinity to the local people who have always lived here. For example, my paternal haplogroup is J2b2, this is supposed to have in to the Sub-continent around 5k-10k years ago. Does that make me native enough?

And Pakistan is a modern nation state, founded by people who have lived here for thousands of years. What we choose to call ourselves is irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. Unless you scribe to the belief that Pakistanis are Aliens and only the people of modern day India are the inheritors of everything that happened in now what is Pakistan and the Aliens suddenly reached Wagah border and were refused entry by Modi.

No I'm not!
I'm not talking of any political union or "Indian" culture.
I am talking of taking a sample of all cultures, ethnicities, languages or other factors that form the geographical entity that is the Indian subcontinent.
Then overlay this with the modern nation states and tell me which country would truly have the best representative sample of the overall geographical unit.
In my opinion it is India. It covers majority of cultures, religion, historical sites etc. that formed the 5000 years old history of the subcontinent.

What a strange argument, so because India apparently has a sample of people from what is now Pakistan, they can rightfully claim all it's history and the bloody people who sweat and toil in their lands can't? That's a ridiculous notion.

I have not gone and claimed the history much farther east then maybe north west India, because I know for a fact that the forays in to those lands by people were mostly for adventuring etc and did not put down any roots there. You on the other hand believe that an Indian who has never probably even seen the Salt Range is the rightful inheritor of the history of this tract that thousands of my kinsmen have died defending.

@jetray

Also, please answer where you are from in India so I can also dismiss you on some fallacy like you dismissed me.

@Joe Shearer

Contrary to most opinions here, I believe that IVC and most other parts are shared history of both India and Pakistan and putting them in to modern day boundaries is the height of intellectual dishonesty. But extreme points must be met by extreme points so people realise that they will have to come to the middle ground or they will continue arguing for eternity.

 

[Suriya]

@AUSTERLITZ

.Now every invader you glorify went through your ancestors first- burning and slaughtering.Ghazni burned lahore ,babur made minarets of skulls of pathans on his way through your tribal belt area and bragged about it in his autobiography.Now who were these people?Pakistanis?

Even Abdali , they named a missile after him,
When Punjabi poet Warris Shah wrote devastation he wrought in Punjab as :

Khade peeta lahe da
Baki Ahmed Shahe da

 

[Peshwa]

What a strange argument, so because India apparently has a sample of people from what is now Pakistan, they can rightfully claim all it's history and the bloody people who sweat and toil in their lands can't? That's a ridiculous notion.

What's strange here is the tangential deductions you draw from a pretty straightforward line of thought.
No one is claiming ANY History! Please do not be so insecure and on edge all the time.
I'm only suggesting that the various facets of what is the 5000 year old history of the subcontinent is most well represented through the present day India.
This means not just a cross section of people that form the subcontinent, but representation of every religion, empire, culture, ethnicity that form what is the Indian subcontinent through the prism of time and history.

The argument I'm making is to your point about the naming convention and your perception of India hijacking history through the name India. I'm merely offering my position on why India is the right name for my country and if flipped over (Pakistan is named India lets say) would not be a true representation of the history of the subcontinent. The area that is Pakistan now of course is rich with history, but a small slice of that history, and in its current form focusing more on the Islamic history of the subcontinent.

I have not gone and claimed the history much farther east then maybe north west India, because I know for a fact that the forays in to those lands by people were mostly for adventuring etc and did not put down any roots there. You on the other hand believe that an Indian who has never probably even seen the Salt Range is the rightful inheritor of the history of this tract that thousands of my kinsmen have died defending.
.

You keep getting bent out of shape about an argument I'm not even making here!
My stance is pretty clear, lets assume you start calling Pakistan, Islamic Republic of India starting tomorrow.
It wont be a wrong name mind you, but the two words before India in that name are more representative of your nation than what Indian sub continent is as a Geographic entity as a whole.

India the nation represents both Islamic and Dharmic history of the subcontinent. Covers historical sites, religious and archeological from empires that were not limited to the western part of the subcontinent. India has elements of all of its neighbors and a lot more, but the same cannot be said vice versa.

 

[Pakistani E]

What's strange here is the tangential deductions you draw from a pretty straightforward line of thought.
No one is claiming ANY History! Please do not be so insecure and on edge all the time.
I'm only suggesting that the various facets of what is the 5000 year old history of the subcontinent is most well represented through the present day India.

How? Please tell me which political entity of ancient times best matches the modern day state of India? This is a question you have not answered. You keep saying samples of people living there means that India is the best representative, what does that even mean? History is tied to the land and people, how can a nation claim to be a representative of the people of a different nation? And who made this criteria of best representation? What is this criteria for?

This means not just a cross section of people that form the subcontinent, but representation of every religion, empire, culture, ethnicity that form what is the Indian subcontinent through the prism of time and history.

Here you try to claim once again that there is such thing as "Indian" culture. You want to put all these different cultures under the modern state of India just because it suits your own self defined marker of representation. That's not how history works, you don't take a nation and say, ah yes, this will fit the representation best. You take the land from whence the history comes from, you take the people that live there. Not transport it across the Wagah border over some self made "representation".

The argument I'm making is to your point about the naming convention and your perception of India hijacking history through the name India. I'm merely offering my position on why India is the right name for my country and if flipped over (Pakistan is named India lets say) would not be a true representation of the history of the subcontinent. The area that is Pakistan now of course is rich with history, but a small slice of that history, and in its current form focusing more on the Islamic history of the subcontinent.

Calling yourself India is not the problem, my issue was not mentioning Pakistan in the OP, when Bakhshali is in Pakistan. The people who wrote this were more than likely the ancestors of Pakistanis, yet magically it becomes the contribution of the modern state of India.

And it doesn't matter what we choose to focus on, aren't most Indians very excited to tell us of our converted past? I've already been told that once on this thread, yet it is you folks yourselves who want to completely not mention Pakistan or Pakistanis as if we are aliens. Bakhshali is in Pakistan, the manuscript was found in Pakistan, for all purposes and intents, it represents the history of ancient Pakistan and some parts of North west India. That would be closer to the truth.

You keep getting bent out of shape about an argument I'm not even making here!
My stance is pretty clear, lets assume you start calling Pakistan, Islamic Republic of India starting tomorrow.
It wont be a wrong name mind you, but the two words before India in that name are more representative of your nation than what Indian sub continent is as a Geographic entity as a whole.

India the nation represents both Islamic and Dharmic history of the subcontinent. Covers historical sites, religious and archeological from empires that were not limited to the western part of the subcontinent. India has elements of all of its neighbors and a lot more, but the same cannot be said vice versa.

So you accept India takes the history of western parts of the subcontinent and calls itself the true representation, does India also claim the Cave paintings from tens of thousands of years ago in what is now Pakistan. Were those people Dharmic too? And as mentioned in the post you quoted, most Pakistanis, at least on this forum, do not try to claim any history of central or south or east India. It is the other way around, why can't you be fair and say both nations represent the history of the sub continent instead of creating your own "representations"?

 

[Joe Shearer]

Does it matter? All rivers are called different things at different point in history by different people. Sorry, I am not in a class that I am going to list down all the recorded names. What is the point you are making?



Yeah, of course I descend from mostly converts with a bit of South West Asian dna thrown in. So I am a mongrel, is that your point of contention with me? Are you a pure Indo Aryan? Or are you perhaps a pure Pre Indo Aryan person? Are you even pure Homo Sapian? And why does that matter?

As for my culture? Well, depends what you mean? Pakistanis living in the four provinces and other territories have their own unique blend of cultures and customs, which sometimes lap over with another in somethings and go the other in others.

Your point about Egyptians keeping their culture is hilarious, are they still burying their Presidents in pyramids? And then even this point opens up another Pandora box, which point in time are you actually asking about culture? The Greco-Egyptian culture? Or the Romano-Egyptian culture under the Romans? The Arab-Egyptian culture or the one from archaic times?

My history is full of invasions sure, please tell me which country, nation or people have not been invaded? Successive invasions/migrants always build on the previous civillisations, unless it's a genocide of the magnitude of European expansion in the new world, the people of Pakistan will no doubt have great affinity to the local people who have always lived here. For example, my paternal haplogroup is J2b2, this is supposed to have in to the Sub-continent around 5k-10k years ago. Does that make me native enough?

And Pakistan is a modern nation state, founded by people who have lived here for thousands of years. What we choose to call ourselves is irrelevant in the grand scheme of things. Unless you scribe to the belief that Pakistanis are Aliens and only the people of modern day India are the inheritors of everything that happened in now what is Pakistan and the Aliens suddenly reached Wagah border and were refused entry by Modi.



What a strange argument, so because India apparently has a sample of people from what is now Pakistan, they can rightfully claim all it's history and the bloody people who sweat and toil in their lands can't? That's a ridiculous notion.

I have not gone and claimed the history much farther east then maybe north west India, because I know for a fact that the forays in to those lands by people were mostly for adventuring etc and did not put down any roots there. You on the other hand believe that an Indian who has never probably even seen the Salt Range is the rightful inheritor of the history of this tract that thousands of my kinsmen have died defending.

@jetray

Also, please answer where you are from in India so I can also dismiss you on some fallacy like you dismissed me.

@Joe Shearer

Contrary to most opinions here, I believe that IVC and most other parts are shared history of both India and Pakistan and putting them in to modern day boundaries is the height of intellectual dishonesty. But extreme points must be met by extreme points so people realise that they will have to come to the middle ground or they will continue arguing for eternity.

The quality of the discussion is indeed very high, and I am so glad to have been present and reading the exchanges. In real time.