Reddit mentions: The best india history books

OP, I would suggest spending the next one year of your life dedicating yourself to learning about India. I do not mean superficial learning about empty customs and rituals - I mean actually learning about the history of India over the last 5000 years.

I hate, hate, hate to use quotes from Westerners who have studied India (because it goes to show that we take pride when Westerners say something good about India) - but because you have such a huge inferiority complex about your race and wish you were White, I shall resort to using these examples.

>1. If I were to look over the whole world to find out the country most richly endowed with all the wealth, power, and beauty that nature can bestow – in some parts a very paradise on earth – I should point to India. If I were asked under what sky the human mind has most full developed some of its choicest gifts, has most deeply pondered on the greatest problems of life, and has found solutions of some of them which well deserve the attention even of those who have studied Plato and Kant – I should point to India. And if I were to ask myself from what literature we, here in Europe, we who have been nurtured almost exclusively on the thoughts of Greeks and Romans, and of one Semitic race, the Jewish, may draw that corrective which is most wanted in order to make our inner life more perfect, more comprehensive, more universal, in fact more truly human, a life, not for this life only, but a transfigured and eternal life – again I should point to India. - Max Muller

>2. J. Robert Oppenheimer, American physicist and director of the Manhattan Project, learned Sanskrit in 1933 and read the Bhagavad Gita in the original form, citing it later as one of the most influential books to shape his philosophy of life. Upon witnessing the world's first nuclear test in 1945, he later said he had thought of the quotation "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds", verse 32 from chapter 11 of the Bhagavad Gita.

>3. In the introduction to The World as Will and Representation, written in 1818, Arthur Schopenhauer stated that "the access to [the Vedas], opened to us through the Upanishads, is in my eyes the greatest advantage which this still young century enjoys over previous ones, because I believe that the influence of the Sanscrit literature will penetrate not less deeply than did the revival of Greek literature in the fifteenth century".

>4. In 1789 Jones published a translation of Kālidāsa's The Recognition of Sakuntala. The translation captured the admiration of many, notably Goethe, who expressed his admiration for the Sanskrit play Shakuntala. Goethe went on to borrow a device from the play for his Faust, Part One.


Spend the next one year reading about how rich your culture is. I don't mean Bollywood culture - you don't need to learn anything about that - read about History, Philosophy, the various art forms. I know India is a messed up place in many, many ways but things will improve. Every country/region goes through ups and downs. You think the US is going to be a great country 300 years from now? There was a time when the Greeks were a mighty nation and now they are reduced to nothing. There was a time when the Arabs contributed a lot to mathematics and art - now they don't have that kind if culture.

You are never going to have true self-confidence if you don't feel proud about your origins. You are lucky that you are from India - because there are many things you can find about India's glorious past to feel pride in.

I recommend this book to get started - 'The Wonder That Was India'

http://www.amazon.com/Wonder-That-India-A-L-Basham/dp/033043909X

You will see how in the Indus Valley there was actual town planning - this was when most of Europe was a complete mess. I agree that we shouldn't just find comfort in the past and the present is most important. The present day India is a complete, complete, complete mess. But how can we expect to get out of the mess if the youth do not even have self-confidence about their heritage? In the case of Indians, we need to teach our children about our glorious past so that they feel pride and then are able to dream big and change the country.

I don't know what your story is and whether or not your parents ever discussed Indian History with you beyond the British rule. Anyway, you are an adult now and live in a country where you have access to excellent public libraries. Go and immerse yourself in some serious study. You will come out a different person.


EDIT 1 - Regarding women : Just have self-confidence and try to be a good human being. Don't give a damn about what another person thinks of you, and this quality will attract women.

Most of the answers here are providing opinions, rather than actual historical context. I am a practicing Hindu, so let me add my own voice to this.

Most Hindus believe in the supreme authority of the Vedas, the four sacred books written in Sanskrit. There are many other supplementary works around them.

The three main concepts are

• Anant Brahma - The Unending Supreme Being, not to be confused with Brahma, the creator in the holy trinity of Brahma, Vishnu and Mahesh(another name for Shiva). Brahma is the ultimate god for all Hindus. The difference is in the attributes assigned to the other god and their position relative to the Supreme Being.
  
• Atman - The soul that is within everyone.
  
• Maya - The all encompassing illusion cast by the Supreme Being on all creation. The goal of all creation is to dispel the illusion and know the true nature of the Supreme Being.
  
  The religious belief and practices can be divided into roughly four categories -
  
  
• Dvait - Dualism. The belief that everyone's soul is unique and different and distinct from god. In this belief system, any deity can be considered to be unique as well as supreme by their followers. They believe in Maya but believe all creation and souls are separate. Within Dvait, the concept of Bhakti (Knowing god through worship) was made popular among the masses by saints like Chaitanya Mahaprabhu and Purandardas and is the closest to Christianity.
  
  
• Vishishta Advaita - Special Dualism. All creation is one, with everyone thinking they are distinct due to the Supreme Being's Maya. Made popular by Ramanujacharya but I don't know much more about this.
  
• Advaita - Non-dualism. This is the ultimate monotheistic idea in Hinduism, where all creation and the Supreme Being are one, the idea being if god is omniscient and omnipresent then nothing can be distinct from god. In this belief system, everything is one with the Supreme Being but Maya makes us think we are distinct. Adi Shankaracharya brought prominence to this belief system.
  
• Samkhya - What the previous three have in common is belief in the Vedas. People who refused to believe in the authority of the Vedas as the word of god but considered them to be just moral precepts to be adapted as necessary. One main reason for the Samkhyas opposition to the Vedas was due to their use to create and sustain the caste system, where the majority of the population was considered lower caste and barred from reading any religions books, entering temples or in any practice which would let them get higher than a menial existence. Anyone managing that was promptly found to actually have been of higher birth and just needed purification.
  
  Hindus believe there are 330 million gods, which is assumed that it is the founder's estimate of number of unique creatures in nature.
  
  Most Hindus will consider either Shiva or Vishnu or one of Vishnu's incarnations - Krishna, Ram etc. to be supreme. Among others, most will consider the goddess Durga in that position
  All belief systems in Hinduism can be seen through this lens. Some like Swami Vivekananda tried to thread the needle by saying it is hard to envision and believe in a formless omnipresent being so most people find it easier to worship through a physical form, like an idol, with the thought of eventually graduating to more complex forms of worship.
  
  Such a complex belief system means Hindus just assume they are Hindu at birth. There was no process of converting to Hindu (which has changed with ISKCON and some other institutions having rituals to convert people to Hinduism) When Hinduism is under threat, they simply absorb the other religion's ideas. When Buddhism was on the rise, Hindus decided being vegetarian was an important part of the religion and Buddha was made into one of the Avataras(appearings) of the God Vishnu. Hindus will also go and worship in a mosque or church or have the idol of Mother Mary or Jesus Christ next to their own religions idols in their house place of worship.
  
  Lastly, this post is not really worthy of being in r/history but hope the mods will let it stand or at least inform me before deleting.
  
  I am from Goa, a state in India which was ruled by the Portuguese, rather than the British. While the Portuguese managed to convert most people to Christianity, some people escaped by going deep in the jungles and establishing their temples and deities there. You can see it today, with most temples within a few square miles of each other.
  
  Here are some sources
  
  
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindu_philosophy
  
• http://www.ramakrishnavivekananda.info/vivekananda/complete_works.htm
  
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/religions/hinduism/history/history_1.shtml
  
• https://www.amazon.com/India-History-Revised-John-Keay/dp/0802145582
  
  I find history is deeply murky on Hinduism and pre-colonial India but this is what I could find.
  
  Personally, I am a follower of Vivekananda.
  
  
  Edit - Edited for formatting.
  
  Edit 2 - Adding a link to the Goa Inquisition by the Portuguese https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goa_Inquisition This was used to punish those who had been converted to Christianity but had secretly returned to their original rituals and beliefs. I don't know about Muslims but converting Hindus was relatively easy. The Brahmins of the time believed in the superiority of their own religion and had numerous restrictions on the populace and ways one could be outcast. For example, traveling by sea or drinking tea in a porcelain cup or even eating bread. The Portuguese and the British missionaries would simply drop bread in the community village and whoever drank water from that would be ostracized by their own brethren and considered to have converted to Christianity. Ironically, it took the British unification of India and the liberalization of the religion to enable it to survive the onslaught.
  
  Even today, in Goa, if someone visits the temple and mentions their overseas trip, they have to go through a purification, involving a ritual bath, cleansing chanting by a priest and being sprinkled with a drop of cow urine before entering the inner sanctum and worshipping.

warning. this is a long post. please don't read unless you read the entire thing.

in my opinion it was pretty disgusting. Jinnah used religious differences that had not prevented over 900 years of coexistence to fuel the drive to create a country. A great example of this coexistence is described in 'Empires of the Indus' by Alice Albinia (http://www.amazon.com/Empires-Indus-The-Story-River/dp/0393338606) that is instructive:

"Whatever Latif (referring to Shah Abdul Latif Bhittai) was, his Risalo is not the work of a dogmatist. It contains few tenants of any kind, whether Sufi, Shia, or Sunni. It is certainly the work of a Muslim - but no more stridently than Shakespeare's plays are coloured by Christianity. Just as Shakespeare has been called a Protestant, Catholic, atheist, and the inventor of romantic love, so, according to the Sindhi historian Hussamuddin Rashdi, the same fate has befallen Latif.

Shah Abdul Latif has always been as beloved by Sindhi Hindus as Sindhi Muslims, and every year Hindu scholars from India are invited to the government-sponsored literary festival, held during the urs. Latif himself spent some three years in the company of Hindu yogis, and he praises them in his poetry:

I find not today my Yogi friends in their abodes;
I have shed tears all the night, troubled by the pang of their parting;
The Holy Ones for whom my heart yearneth, have all disappeared.

Latif's Risalo, then, exemplifies the easy spiritual interaction that exists between the two faiths, an easiness that has been acquired after centuries of cohabitation. This legacy is an irony in a country based on the separation of Muslim and Hindu (referring to Pakistan), and it is wonderful that this syncretism has survived....

..I arrive at Urderolal at dusk. As I climb down from the bus I can hear that the mela, the fair, has begun: through the loudspeakers mandatory to any subcontinental religious event, bhajans - Hindu devotional songs - are being chanted; and in the background is a steady wall of noise, the coming and going of pilgrims. I turn the corner in the road and see the massive Mughal fort, with its five-foot-thick walls, which enclose a mosque, a temple, and the tomb of a man whom Muslims call Shaikh Tahir and the Hindus call Jhulelal or Urderolal - and whom everybody calls Zindapir. Today it is Zindapir's birthday.

As I am circumambulating Zindapir's tomb with the crowd, a Hindu family arrives, bearing a traditional green Muslim cloth, inscribed with Quranic verses, which they drape over the tomb in thanksgiving. In the adjacent room, devotees are queuing up to pray to a roomful of Hindu images. In the room next to that are the graves of the four Muslim Shaikhs who - according to the Hindu legend - granted Zindapir the land, free of charge, on which to build a temple in the 10th century. Outside in the courtyard, is a tree the branches of which are hung with pieces of coloured cloth, the wishes of supplicants of both faiths.

I have been invited to the Hindu-only festivities by Diwan Lekraj, a member of the Evacuee Trust Property Board set up after Partition to protect the monuments of the absent 'minorities'. Diwan is a Hindu, but he is almost indistinguishable from the Muslims around him. There is nothing in his dress (shalwar kameez) or his language (Urdu) or his car or his house to draw attention to his 'minority' faith. Perhaps the horrors of Partition taught Pakistan's Hindus that it was wiser thus. Or maybe there really is not much to distinguish them after all, as the story of Zindapir's two faiths suggest...

• Empires of the Indus, pp. 94-99.
  
  Can a Hindu really be a Pakistani, if Pakistan was founded on the basis that Hindus and Muslims are different civilizations? Events like the one described in the book run counter to the popular narrative surrounding Pakistan’s creation. Many Pakistanis will claim that they bear ill will against Hindus or any religion, and as a Pakistani I can say that this is true. However, this does not change the fact that our founding narrative treats Hindus and by extension Sikhs as fundamentally different and that had partition not happened we would live in existential fear of imminent extinction at their hands.
  
  
  

Do you have access to classes at your local community college? There might be an intro-level cultural anthropology class that you could enroll in there.
The reading list that BentNotNroken linked to looks excellent, but if I was a high school student interested in learning about the field, I would find it very overwhelming! If you'd like a shorter list, here are the books I read in my first intro to anthropology class:

Core Concepts in Cultural Anthropology by Lavenda & Schultz

This is a super basic primer that will introduce you to a lot of the basic concepts and terms of cultural anthropology. It's very easy to read, and I still come back to it often if I can't think of a well worded definition/explanation of a term.

Coming of Age in Samoa by Margaret Mead

This is sort of a classic example of an ethnography. If you don't choose to read this now, you will absolutely read it at some point once you start taking anthropology classes. It's not too dry, interesting to read, and will give you a good idea of what anthropologists study and do.

White Saris and Sweet Mangoes by Sarah Lamb

This is another book that you will likely read at some point if you take cultural anthropology classes! Like the last book, it's just a basic ethnography that will help you understand the point of anthropology.

Coming of Age in Second Life by Tom Boellstorff

This ethnography is still one of my favorites! It basically takes the concept of ethnography that is used in the previous two books and applies it to an online community rather than a real-life one. I found it to be a fresh and modern example of the possible applications of anthropology. If you find the previous two books boring, you will probably enjoy this one more, because it's on a topic that you might find more interesting, since you participate in online communities yourself!

The books I listed are focused mostly on cultural anthropology, which is one of the four basic subfields of anthropology as a whole. The other three subfields are explained here if you are curious. If you are interested in one of those, perhaps someone else here can suggest some basic books to start with! If you are interested in archaeology, I can provide you with some readings, but my studies focus more on classical archaeology, which some would argue has little to do with anthropology.

Good luck with your studies - if you have any other questions feel free to ask!

Waheguru Ji Ka Khalsa, Waheguru Ji Ki Fateh!

> Can I just go there and join in or should I find a way to announce my visit?

You can just go there, however, if you want someone to give you a tour of the Gurdwara then it's best to call in advanced and let them know.

> When is the best day and time to visit?

The Gurdwara is open every day, but the peak rush hours will be on the weekend, specifically Sundays, usually 9am to 3pm.


> Anything I need to keep in mind besides behaving respectfully, covering my head and taking off my shoes?

Other than basic things such as being respectful, covering the head, taking off shoes, no not really. Also, substances such as drugs & alcohol are not allowed on Gurdwara property.


> being interested in learning more about the Sikh faith


If you would like to learn more about the Sikh faith, then Basics of Sikhi is a great YouTube channel with general videos on Sikhi, and Nanak Naam is a great Chanel that focuses more on the Spiritual/Philosophical side of Sikhi. I would highly suggest you take a look at "The Why Guru Course" which is a free video series that is a great introduction to Sikhi, and talks about Sikh history, culture, language, music, poetry, and much more. For a more in-depth cover on Sikh history read up on "A History of Sikhs" by Kushwant Singh. To access the Siri Guru Granth Sahib Ji online go to SearchGurbani.com. For Q&As check out LearnSikhi.com, and for everything else you're already at the right spot: r/Sikh.


If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to ask!

It was suggested I post here. I have to say it's pretty outside of my location and timeframe. Most of my reading is centered around Buddhism and what I know about India that's not political in nature is mostly centered around Buddhism. Even the concepts I know of Hinduism are usually through a Buddhist lens.

What I do know about the development I also can't provide a source. I studied at the Royal Thimphu College and once sat down with a Bengali professor who explained her own dissertation to me about the development of the Varna system in India, which ended up being a primer on "Brahmanism." (Which then led to a long discussion on the inaccuracy of the term "Hinduism" which was developed post-independence as a response to the development of Pakistan for Muslims, India for Hindus. When I presented the irony that "India" and "Hindu" both stem from the "Indus River" which is currently in Pakistan, Runa, aforementioned professor, winked at me and said "Exactly. Hindus are political, Brahmanists are religious." The logic being that Brahmanists derive religious authority from the Brahmin Varna, just as Christians derive religious authority from Christ, and Muslims from submission to God.)

Anyway, I'll just point out some of the books that have helped me in understanding this complex religion and maybe you can go on with your search from there.

Originally I was interested in Wendy Doniger's The Hindus: An Alternative History but found out it was full of selective information and skewed perspectives. I was more interested in a general history of India and fell upon John Keay's India: A History which he describes as "A historiography of India as well as a history." And he does go over developments of Brahmanism threaded with the rise and fall of conquerors through the region.

My introduction to Brahmanism (though he DOES refer to it as Hinduism) was Huston Smith's The World's Religions which doesn't go over the history as much of any of the religions, but is a nice starting point, especially when comparing say Buddhism with Brahmanism, which most people regularly do. It's also a good outliner for the different Brahmanist traditions (or at least the major trends in Brahmanism).

Finally, probably the most accurate to your original question though it has a broader focus and a point to make, Karen Armstrong's *The Great Transformation remains one of my favorite books on the Axial Age in which she covers the religious shifts that occurred more or less simultaneously in Greece, the Levant, India, and China. Of interest to you would be the Vedic response to the growth of Buddhism and Jainism, the development of the Mahabharata, and the changing understandings of the Vedas and Upanishads. It's a pretty great book, and Karen Armstrong can of course lead you further down the path of Indian religious history.

Hope that helps at all.

The Mughal Throne: The Saga of India's Great Emperors by Abraham Eraly

Its a really good book, but certainly not the best. Lots of good information and the book is easy to read. The book details, not only Mughal emperors, but culture, family life, legendary stories associated with Mughal figures and key political players during that time.

The only thing that I didn't like about the book is that in many parts, the writer lets his own personal views get in between the content and the reader. Instead of having the reader formulate his own opinions, he sort of dictates how you should feel, especially in the latter parts of the book. Now, a lot of historians do that, but quite subtly, he made no qualms about his own views. At some points, his own opinions sounded almost hypocritical.

However, I think the positives outweigh the negatives, and to date its one of the easiest and enjoyable books I've read on the Mughal Empire. One thing you'll start to appreciate about the Mughals is their impact on Indian society and culture. They may have been outsiders in the beginning, raining down from the mountains of Afghanistan and Central Asia into North India, but their legacy continues to this day. The art and architecture of the Mughals, the jewels and riches, poetry, language, and my favorite, Mughlai cuisine, which is pretty much modern Indian and Pakistani cuisine.

You'll learn about historical figures you never even heard of, but should probably get more recognition like Sher Shah Suri, etc.

The book ends with the reign of Aurangzeb, India's last great emperor. The Mughal Empire would continue for a 150+ years, but it would only be a shadow of its past. It doesn't go into details of how the Mughal Empire fell or who were the emperors after the Aurangzeb.

A lot of other things happened after that, such as the rise of the Maratha Empire, the rise of the Sikh Empire, the short-lived conquest of North India by the Safavid Emperor, Nadir Shah, the Kingdom of Mysore, Nizam of Hyderabad, and of course, the establishment of the British Raj. For all that, you'll have to find another book, probably more specific to those time periods and Empires.

Thanks for the link. God of Small Things ranks in my top 20. Just such a gorgeous and at times heart breaking novel--a must read.

I was visiting family in India in 2010 and found myself in a used bookstore. At some point my eye fell on [The Algebra of Infinite Justice] (http://www.amazon.com/Algebra-Infinite-Justice-Arundhati-Roy/dp/014302907X/ref=la_B000AP7ZT4_1_10?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1394144576&sr=1-10) which, published in 2001, is a collection of her political non-fiction writing up to that point. Algebra actually included a few of the essays referenced in the NYT piece.

Until I started reading the book I was not aware of how political active Roy was and how much she had written on wide ranging topics. While I did not always agree with every stance she took in the book it was abundantly clear that she was a fierce advocate for the some of the most downtrodden in India. Through a lot of that writing she spoke for those that either didn't have a voice or who's interests were in direct conflict (and hence likely to be drowned out or ignored) with some of the most wealthy and affluent people in India. I grew up in America and while I tried to occasionally keep up with the big picture happenings in India I don't think my knowledge even really scratched the surface of Indian political life or speech. That said, one thing about India that becomes abundantly clear very quickly is that anyone that speaks out either against the wealthy and powerful or against popular opinion can be subject to various forms of push back that can make life very difficult. This push back can be as tame as a stinging rebukes from various media outlets to more insidious and harmful threats against a person's personal or economic interests.

So agree or disagree with her advocacy or agree or disagree with the rather strident tone in which she wrote, I think you have to respect her courage and willingness to go out on a limb to advocate for people that no one with nearly Roy's platform was advocating for. Especially since, as she alludes, it would have been a lot easier her to continue writing fiction and being an award winning author getting accolades and making big money on her books and speaking tours. She likely threw away significant earning potential to stand up for people in need--much respect to her for that.

Oooooohhh coooooool. I hope you update us on your progress! This sounds super cool.

I only have one particular recommendation, Sarah Lamb; White Saris and Sweet Mangoes: More about gender and aging, but Lamb goes into some interesting nuance regarding subsistence, cooking and gender/age (including gender fluidity and caste navigation). Also, check out Susan Rasmussen's books on the Tuareg. She doesn't focus so much on food, but heavily on gender, religion, ritual and language. I never ran across a whole lot of early anthropology that focused exclusively focus on the constellation of topics you are looking for, but TONS can be extracted from it, especially subsistence-based ritual, such as from Malinowski ("Coral Gardens and their Magic"). Taboo is also (obviously, through Douglas) a subject richly covered all over the place.

Have fun! Sounds like an awesome project.

Book reco - https://www.amazon.in/Nucleus-Nation-Scientists-International-Networks/dp/0226019756

One thing very important about his story is understanding the value of networks of people. He had feet in political, scientific and business networks of the country. From Tagore to Gandhi to the Tatas to the Gujju business community to the Congress high command to Nobel laureates he was always surrounded by people at the top of the food chain.

This plays a big role in how people think about the world, what they think is possible and how to get things done. All the famous institution builders in India usually have that feature. Some people like Sarabhai, Dhirubhai, Gandhi etc are born into these networks while others work their pants off to get into them like Kalam and Modi.

The Network is super critical in making big things happen. If you are confident in your skills and the ambitious kind, don't waste time and effort working for people who don't understand that.

There's the reading list in the side-bar, but that doesn't really have secondary books on Hinduism.

There's Gavin Flood's An Introduction to Hinduism. I haven't read it yet, but it's the only thing I got off the top of my head. If you want, I can look through the copy I found on the sidewalk and tell you about it.

But Flood seems to have a pretty good pedigree. But I don't know if he's a Hindu. I would also recommend Eknath Easwaran's translation of the Bhagavad Gita. I have it, and his intro goes into Hindu concepts. This book also seem well-received, though I don't have it.

There's a public domain book called The Religion of the Veda: The Ancient Religion of India. There's also The Wonder that was India, which is good. And apparently the same guy wrote The Origins and Development of Classical Hinduism.

Most Indian history books talk about Hinduism, so maybe the Cambridge History of India?

You say that like the defense industry isn't worth hundreds of billions of dollars annually, or that Arundhati Roy isn't an award-winning author who's book has sold millions of copies and has been translated into 40 languages.

https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/sofex-the-business-of-war-full-length

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arundhati_Roy#Advocacy

By all means, please link to your published works so we can know that you're in a position to judge Ms. Roy. I'm sure you're busy winning literary prizes and not wanking and playing video games. Certainly you're not a nameless, faceless internet nobody who's highlight every day is the small dopamine rush you get from upvoted comments on Reddit?

Could you post your collection of published essays or articles so we can know you're older than 14 yourself, Spencer? Or is it Chad?


https://www.amazon.com/Algebra-Infinite-Justice-Arundhati-Roy/dp/014302907X

For modern India, Ramachandra Guha's India After Gandhi. The dude digs up every memo, every administrative note, personal letter available, to narrate the story of India from around independence till current times (still have to get there). Lots of details, but it is sometimes quite gripping. The whole correspondence between Chou En Lai and Nehru, culminating in the War of '62, is particularly worth reading. Highlights the different governance of the two countries, and causes for India's defeat. There's a lot more. The story of Partition, and how Vallabhai Patel and his secretary (VP Menon) worked to accomplish the daunting task of integrating the over 500 princely states into one, democratic Indian Union is essential.

For ancient India, I am just starting. I just got into John Keay's India: A History. This is a beautiful book. Starts with India's most ancient known civilisation, the Harappas, and proceeds to chronicle the evolution of the country ever since, from the consequential "invasion" of Arya, to the skirmish with Alexander, the rise of Mauryan empire (and Ashoka the great) and the Indian "Dark Age" (that's as far as I have gotten!), and beyond (emergence of the Gupta empire is just around the corner). It is pragmatic, unbiased, thorough narrative of this subcontinent. I really enjoyed the chapter on Vedic era; finally got to know what is reliable and what isn't from that era, and a brief glimpse into how historians work to check the veracity of all the bold claims in the two great epics of Indian literature, Mahabharata and Ramayana. There is also frequent mention of the lineage of kings in Puranas (it is mostly unreliable, with little to know details of the time periods).

This is a novice beginning for me, and I will have to re-read these two books alone several times, to cement any idea of the complexity and diversity of Indian history. Maybe someday, I will get to move on to European history and everything in between!

I really like Horseshoe Crabs and Velvet Worms or any book by Richard Fortey, really if paleontology and the biological history of the earth is interesting to you.

Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded is also great, especially if you like volcanoes. And sort of similarly is Eruptions that Shook the World.

I also second The Seashell on the Mountaintop that /u/ap0s suggested. It's very good!

It's unfortunately hard to find good books on Indian history that do justice to its cultural diversity and philosophy. Most western perspectives bring all Hindu beliefs under the banner of 'Hinduism', for example, which warps one's viewpoint when comparing it to Abrahamic faiths. Indian perspectives tend to suffer from a puerile jingoism centered around the idea that India is the oldest surviving civilization in the world.

Having said that, here's a set of books I found fairly well balanced:

• The wonder that was India - A. L. Basham: If you're going to read just the one book, let it be this one. Covers Indian history until the Mughal period.
  
  
• The wonder that was India (Vol 2) - S. A. A. Rizvi: Covers India from the Mughal period to the British occupation.
  
  
• Gem in the lotus - Abraham Eraly: One of the better books on Indian history I have read, focusing largely on Buddhism and its impact. In my opinion, a must read. While I haven't read them, I suspect Eraly's other books to be equally worth reading.
  

Yes! Apart from playing India's Hindu-Muslim divide, the Brits did play on this caste divide. They stayed here for like 200 years, their arrival saw the falling of Mughal Empire and departure, the creation of the Republic of India. Two centuries are enough to entrench it. Assuming you are from the USA, may I recommend you these two books, if you are interested to know more about the British rule in India by Shashi Tharoor. Inglorious Empire and An Era of Darkness.

Apologies if these have been posted already, but I'd highly recommend Simon Winchester's work, particularly The Professor and the Madmad and Krakatoa.

Well researched, well written and thoroughly enjoyable.

As an English major in college, I've been inundated with fiction for years. Now I'm on a big non-fiction and essay kick.

At present I would recommend Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo, a marvelous piece of literary non-fiction set in the slums of Mumbai, and a tidy selection of Foucault that I like to take chunks out of between other books.

Exploding Mangoes was the first book I read about Pakistan. Here's a list:

• Pakistan - Social and Cultural Transformations in a Muslim Nation
  A little dry for my taste but I couldn't recommend this more. This book charts the social consequences of state policies and economic factors over the whole time period from '47 to now.
  
  
• Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil and Fundamentalism in Central Asia
  Very important book if you want to avoid the conspiracy theories floating about Taliban and our role in their rise.
  
  
• Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military
  Interested in Pakistan army's relationship with mullahs over the years? This is a must-read.
  
  
• Magnificent Delusions: Pakistan, the United States, and an Epic History of Misunderstanding
  Title is self explanatory.
  
  
• Beyond Belief: Islamic Excursions Among the Converted Peoples & Among the Believers: An Islamic Journey
  A very informative and interesting two part series on what joins the non-Arab muslims of the world, with a large portion about Pakistan. Written by Nobel Laureate for Literature Naipaul, behnoi of Maj. Gen. Ameer Faisal Alvi who was assassinated in 2008 in Islamabad.
  
  
• Pakistan: A Hard Country
  A good overview of what makes Pakistan run the way it does.
  
  
• The Reluctant Fundamentalist
  Haven't read it but have heard good things about it.
  
  
• The Army and Democracy; Military Politics in Pakistan
  Haven't read it yet.

This is everywhere in Mumbai, incredibly rich surrounded by incredibly poor. I really suggest reading the absolutely excellent (and easy read) book "Behind the Beautiful Forevers" by Katherine Boo,

https://www.amazon.com/Behind-Beautiful-Forevers-Mumbai-Undercity/dp/081297932X

This does not fit exactly, but in Behind the Beautiful Forevers by Katherine Boo, the first time it is mentioned what the "Beautiful Forevers" are really paints a very vivid picture for me.

thebetterindia.com website has a good list on Indian history based on its readers response.

Following are the books in no particular order. I personally recommend India:A History - John keay

• Discovery of India by Jawaharlal Nehru
  
• Freedom at Midnight by Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins
  
• The Argumentative Indian by Amartya Sen
  
• India after Gandhi: The History of the World’s Largest Democracy by Ramachandra Guha
  
• The Wonder That Was India by A L Basham
  
• The Great Indian Novel by Shashi Tharoor
  
• A Corner Of A Foreign Field by Ramachandra Guha
  
• The Last Mughal: The Fall of a Dynasty: Delhi, 1857 by William Dalrymple
  
• India: A history by John Keay
  
• Alberuni’s India by Alberuni (Translated by Edward C. Sachau)
  

This is not true. I read the book about Krakatoa http://www.amazon.com/Krakatoa-World-Exploded-August-1883/dp/0060838590

They actually heard Krakatoa over 3000 miles away but people that were close did not report it as being that loud, really muffled sounding, probably having to do with the way acoustic waves work but interesting either way. That book has some really interesting stuff in it. Krakatoa was the first truly global event since the telegraph lines had just been laid across the oceans.

Read the book - In the Shadow of the Great Game - basically how creation of Pakistan was engineered by the British as continuation of the Great Game. Jinnah etc were pawns.

Brits of what I would describe as Officer status tended to stop marrying Indians around the period from 1815-1825, ish. Before then it was very common, including Indian men marrying British women. Indeed, until the mid-Eighteenth century nearly all Brits in India who married would have married an Indian or an Anglo-Indian, or a "Portuguese", by which they meant somebody who was genuinely Portuguese, or who was an Indian Christian, who were mostly descendants of earlier Portuguese. By the 1820s more British women were coming to India, and there was also more chance of Brits being able to seriously consider the chance of coming home to Britain rather than dying in India. Consequently, marrying another Brit became both more possible and, possibly, more desirable. Certainly, by the 1830s Officer Class Brits were most unlikely to marry an Indian. Brits of lower status never stopped marrying Indians, or Anglo-Indians, right up to the end of British India.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/White-Mughals-Betrayal-18th-century-Eighteenth-century/dp/0006550967 is pretty good on this area.

Absolutely awesome book, about a Mumbai slum. I mean: one of the best books I have read in years. (And I read a lot of books.)
http://www.amazon.com/Behind-Beautiful-Forevers-Mumbai-undercity-ebook/dp/B004J4X7JO/ref=la_B0052Y2JJE_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1419963352&sr=1-1

Are you interested in a particular aspect of geology?

Are you perhaps interested in sub/related disciplines? If so, I have some paleoclimate, geochemistry, etc. recommendations.

It might be blasphemy on this subreddit, but in a similar thread a ways back, a few people were really singing the praises of The Map That Changed the World by Simon Winchester. I frankly found it to be more than a little boring, even taking Winchester's digression-heavy style into account.

I recently started Krakatoa (also by Winchester) and it seems a bit more like what I was hoping for.

"Light" geology reading is kind of a tough needle to thread, I think.

For an overview of India's history, I'd recommend India: A History by John Keay.

Midnight's Descendants also by John Keay. This covers South Asia's history since Independence. I prefer this over Ramachandra Guha's India After Independence (I've read both), as Guha comes across as a Nehru fanboy in his book (IMO).

Blood Telegram about the 1971 war.

Since you mentioned South Indian history, The Illustrated History of South India by Nilakanta Sastri. It's quite old, and you may find the text a bit dull, but this is the best book about South India I could find.

Kaoboys of R&AW by B. Raman. For a behind-the-scenes look at India's intelligence agencies.

As far as materials, not that I'm aware. That is the course, and here is the course text we used. It is a pretty easy read, easy enough that I still have it on my shelf.

I am a Historian I think many of those books highlighted are not really a master list but a good jumping off point to delve into the region. I would suggest for India to read " India after Gandhi" http://www.amazon.com/India-After-Gandhi-History-Democracy/dp/0060958588.

Also a good primer would be: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0802145582/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_2?pf_rd_p=1944579842&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe-1&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_i=0060958588&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=1NYR2DTB6GR13K5JBN1S

Simon Winchester is really good. I enjoyed Krakatoa and The Professor and the Madman.

Yeah, it's true. Nonfiction wasn't included in their list. How about:

Is Katherine Boo a [poor, Indian, slum-dweller] (http://www.amazon.com/Behind-Beautiful-Forevers-Mumbai-Undercity/dp/1400067553/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1375289859&sr=8-1&keywords=katherine+boo)?
Is Emory Thomas a [confederate sympathizer] (http://www.amazon.com/Robert-E-Lee-A-Biography/dp/0393316319/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1375289595&sr=8-1&keywords=robert+e+lee+biography)?
Etc., etc.

It could be argued that to write about what you're faithfully familiar with is perhaps more detrimental to objective journalism or historical storytelling than what is foreign to you!

One thing to note -- the narrative you mention of Hinduism having some sort of "Golden Age" prior to the arrival of Islam is a narrative largely constructed by the British in order to justify their rule in India. They wanted to help Indians return to a more "civilized" time when issues like women's rights were "better" somehow.

Also, by framing issues in India as a product of Muslim influence, they could further deepen the Hindu-Muslim divide and increase their "divide and rule" policy.

See "A Concise History of Modern India" by Metcalf and Metcalf. Amazon link.

This is also the thesis of The White Mughals, by William Dalrymple. It's meticulously-researched history, wrapped around a moving and genuinely romantic love story. I cannot recommend this book highly enough.

I enjoyed Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded by Simon Winchester.

Also, and this one isn't strictly geo, but it's awesome, The Disappearing Spoon by Sam Kean. Basically a history of the periodic table. And it's really funny too.

1. KA Nilkanth Shashtri
   
   
   A History of South India: From Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar - Amazon Link
   
   
   The Illustrated History of South India: From Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar - Amazon Link
   
   
   Foreign Notices Of South India - Google Archives
   
   
   
2. A S Altekar
   
   
   Rashtrakutas And Their Times - Google Archives
   
   
   
3. AL Basham
   The Wonder That Was India: 1
   
   
   You can read this book for free on Anybooks app.
   
   
   Edit your post and add all these links.

Oh, never mind clean drinking water, rampant corruption at every level of government, industrial pollution, crushing poverty and a lack of basic sanitation.

Nice priorities there. think everyone should read Behind the Beautiful Forevers before swallowing this tripe which would not directly effect the majority of Indian people.

E: Just to be clear, my criticism is based on my love of India, warts and all. I have many Hindustani friends and their opinions also inform my own.
Also here is some video taken by Katherine Boo while she was in Mumbai.

Try these written by ex- Pakistan's Ambassador to United States, Hussain Haqqani

1. Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military
   
2. Magnificent Delusions: Pakistan, the United States, and an Epic History of Misunderstanding
   
   And perhaps The Blood Telegram, a memoir of Archer Blood who was an American Diplomat in East Pakistan.

That was the thing that always blew me away about the event: That the effects of Krakatoa on the atmosphere are observable today in landscape paintings made at the time from as far away as England.

There's a really good book on the event called Krakatoa: The Day The World Exploded by Simon Winchester in case anyone is interested.

Edit:correction to book title

You can start by learning about the history of The great game. The anglo-russian rivalry in central asia and afghanistan started way back in the 1800's and continued at least till the fall of the soviet union. If you see this as a series of events across the whole region then it all makes sense. The India-pakistan angle is mostly glossed over though so I recommend you doing some original research in this domain. You may also read the book, The Shadow of the Great Game: The Untold Story of Indias Partition, written by Narendra Singh Sarila, the former ADC to the last Viceroy of British India, Lord Mountbatten. This book provides a different perspective than usually put forth. Here is a short review of the book. There is more material on the internet and in british archives but you will have to dig it out.

I really recommend reading Behind the Beautiful Forevers. It's an ethnography about a group of people living in the slums near the Mumbai airport. I'd always seen / passed by people living in the slums in Mumbai, but I got a much deeper appreciation for how difficult the day to day is.

Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded: August 27, 1883 is a great read.

India: A History by John Keayis a good place to start


The Story of Islamic Imperialism in India by Sita Ram Goel

The Mughal Empire by John Richards is also good

Unfortunately there are few books and even fewer in print that cover India pre-east India company, partly I guess because unlike the same period in European history, few people were writing it down as it happened.

Any who are interested in this stuff would love Simon Winchester's book on Krakatoa. The man makes the story come alive from both the personal and historical context of it all.

Also holy hell, it was heard on an island 3000 miles away. Imagine hearing something from New York while standing on the Santa Monica pier.

It's not on ancient India but is about the history of India

https://www.amazon.in/India-History-John-Keay/dp/0007307756

Mythological fiction has been a favourite in India for the past decade.

You can read up on Amish Tripathi's Meluha series for mythological fiction.

Devdutt Patnaik is a good author to understand Indian mythology.

Hi! You can start with the book linked above for a summary of the events leading upto 1984. The book is quite detailed. I would also recommend this article on The Gill Doctrine.


For more Sikh history Khushwant Singh's book "History of the Sikhs" first written in 1963 remains a compelling read.

If you're looking for a historical, text book type source, then you want A History of the Sikhs Volume 1, 1469-1839 and Volume 2, 1839-2004 by Khushwant Singh. Comprehensive and well researched with plenty of footnotes.

This here is good. [Empires of the Indus: The Story of a River] (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393338606?ie=UTF8&tag=vlogbrothers-20&linkCode=shr&camp=213733&creative=393185&creativeASIN=0393338606&ref_=sr_1_4&s=books&qid=1328216396&sr=1-4)

Simon Winchester wrote a really good book about it.

For history of India .. a good place to start is john keay's India
http://www.amazon.in/India-History-Revised-John-Keay/dp/0802145582

Part 2:


People often read Horkheimer and think, do these imbeciles think some group of evil people is controlling society (in a conspiracy type of manner)? how idiotic of them.

actually, individuals in the collective are the cause of this,

parents push engineering on to you because it will lead to a good life

people choose majors for extrinsic reasons now

men view themselves in monetary value because they need to be providers (this is true, howev,er the happy normal life exacerbates this)

as a student success is by grades not by what you learned

the moment you ask a kid, what do you want to be when you grow up?

these are all examples of how we, the collective of individuals, cause it

More:

Impact of Colonial Rule on Todays Educational System of Pakistan

>The British ruledIndia for more than 150 years. They came as a separate entity with a different religion, language, culture, style of politics and economic system. They colonize India for financial benefits. They institutionalized the systems more efficiently. Their focus was more on to facilitate their own rule than to work for the social welfare of the natives. They came to India as traders, however within short span of time they realized the weaknesses in then system of governance and planned to capture India. Local segments joined them to weakening the cohesive forces and asthey succeeded in capturing Indian lands bit by bit and weakening the existingsystem, ultimately capturing Indian sub content in 1857. They built their own kind of education system. The aim was to produce work force which follow the mindset of the rulers without causing any problems. They philosophy behind the system was to educate the people in such a way to think like rulers and oppress their own countrymen. In the beginning they adopted the language and culture of India and their tone was liberal and neutral but as they got dominating force they became harder in promulgating their systems. In 1835 English was made the mediumof instruction and whole of the education system was handed over to the missionaries. It is a general perception that educational system of Pakistan is still under the influence the colonial mind set.This system does not give the sense of independence as the educated people try to enslave their own countrymen. This system teaches to hate fellow beings. This study aims at to see the impact of colonial rule on today’s educational system of Pakistan.

The Lingering Impact of Colonization on Pakistan: Negative or
Positive?

>The British rule had a lasting Impact on the lives of the Indian people. They exploited the
Indian territory for their own interests and left the land in more disorder and confusion than
they found it in as (1) their attitude of superiority shattered the confidence of the people, (2)
their agrarian revolution did not help improve yield and caused landholdings to become
more fragmented, (3) the Indian industry was not protected and many traditional ones were
ruined , (4) education was not made easily accessible , (5) construction of railways although
improved transportation however was not done keeping the Indian interests but the British
interests in mind and (6) the new political system which lacked personal element was not
more effective than the old one.


also to relate the objective mind to colonialism,

the quote "The British rule had a lasting Impact on the lives of the Indian people. They exploited the
Indian territory for their own interests and left the land in more disorder and confusion" is the product of thinking with an objective mind

basically okay how can we the brits make hella alot of money in India


the root cause of the objective mind is from enlightenment style thinking which is why Frankfurt school is also called critical theory.

i gave a mini khutba about this how we cannot understand the Quran because of the underlying assumptions that are in a society that are the byproducts of enlightenment style thinking (NOT THAT WAY SPECIFICALLY). Like today in in my religious class, i went toe to toe with stark atheist on the meaning of "evidence"

because Horkheimer says "Our minds are closed to a different world, we will get upset of people to violate the rules of the game, but we do not question those rules"

basically we don't question the rules, for example, what is and is not evidence and why is it that way, instead we are on the defensive with the Quran like omg we're nice people stop hating on us, look Scientific miracles, we're rationally scientific people like you!

edit:

Excellent Sheep: The Miseducation of the American Elite and the Way to a Meaningful Life

>A groundbreaking manifesto about what our nation’s top schools should be—but aren’t—providing: “The ex-Yale professor effectively skewers elite colleges, their brainy but soulless students (those ‘sheep’), pushy parents, and admissions mayhem” (People).

>As a professor at Yale, William Deresiewicz saw something that troubled him deeply. His students, some of the nation’s brightest minds, were adrift when it came to the big questions: how to think critically and creatively and how to find a sense of purpose. Now he argues that elite colleges are turning out conformists without a compass.

>Excellent Sheep takes a sharp look at the high-pressure conveyor belt that begins with parents and counselors who demand perfect grades and culminates in the skewed applications Deresiewicz saw firsthand as a member of Yale’s admissions committee. As schools shift focus from the humanities to “practical” subjects like economics, students are losing the ability to think independently. It is essential, says Deresiewicz, that college be a time for self-discovery, when students can establish their own values and measures of success in order to forge their own paths. He features quotes from real students and graduates he has corresponded with over the years, candidly exposing where the system is broken and offering clear solutions on how to fix it.


Edit

read the articles/studies/journal entries for sure, then pick a book that interests you the most and run with it and have fun!


edit:

related kinda but in a different way,

Inglorious Empire: what the British did to India

>In the eighteenth century, India’s share of the world economy was as large as Europe’s. By 1947, after two centuries of British rule, it had decreased six-fold. Beyond conquest and deception, the Empire blew rebels from cannon, massacred unarmed protesters, entrenched institutionalized racism, and caused millions to die from starvation.

>British imperialism justified itself as enlightened despotism for the benefit of the governed, but Shashi Tharoor takes on and demolishes this position, demonstrating how every supposed imperial “gift”―from the railways to the rule of law―was designed in Britain’s interests alone. He goes on to show how Britain’s Industrial Revolution was founded on India’s deindustrialization and the destruction of its textile industry. In this bold and incisive reassessment of colonialism, Tharoor exposes to devastating effect the inglorious reality of Britain’s stained Indian legacy.

This dude did something amazing (i can go into detail why it was amazing given the ethnocentrism, academic, power, and cultural structure present and just uh it makes me drool in awe) but basically he questioned what people view as a genocide and said mister Winston Churchill, the one who helped stopped the genocidal Nazis promoting freedom and democracy committed a genocide himself in continental India

relevant article https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/world-history/winston-churchill-genocide-dictator-shashi-tharoor-melbourne-writers-festival-a7936141.html

because other people came out and rebuked him which shows he challenged a pharaoh

edit:


sorry but here's an interview of the Indian historian and the lady who supports him says about the Britain education about their vicious imperial past till 6:11

Anyone who claims that the US is the most corrupt country in the world needs to get a sense of perspective. I recommend reading about India.

A Feast for Crows by George R. R. Martin. Not enjoying it as much as the first 3.

I bought The Little Book of Hindu Deities for someone based on recommendations on reddit (illustrations are awesome) and have read a few pages. Will probably finish it today.

I want to read about the Mughals and plan to buy The Mughal Throne. Any better recommendations?

Strongly recommended book if you want to learn more about Krakatoa.

John Keay covers this in his book, India: A History. Whenever this fact is mentioned I feel the urge to post because he makes it clear that the mistake was remedied ASAP but the pre-existing sentiment caused rumors to linger.

The woder that was India - https://www.amazon.com/Wonder-That-Was-India/dp/033043909X

http://www.amazon.com/Behind-Beautiful-Forevers-Mumbai-Undercity/dp/1400067553

This might not be in the same vein, but check out Krakatoa by Simon Winchester. It's a book on the legendary volcano explosion in the late 19th century that temporarily disrupted global weather pattern in that year.

Link to the book https://www.amazon.com/Krakatoa-World-Exploded-August-1883/dp/0060838590

China: A History and India: A History by John Keay.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Sikhs-History-Religion-Society/dp/0231068158/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1344217958&sr=8-6&keywords=sikhism+mcleod

http://www.amazon.com/History-Sikhs-Volume-1469-1839-Collection/dp/0195673085/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1344217976&sr=8-1&keywords=sikhism+khushwant+singh

http://www.amazon.com/History-Sikhs-v2-1839-1988-corrections/dp/0195626443/ref=sr_1_5?ie=UTF8&qid=1344217976&sr=8-5&keywords=sikhism+khushwant+singh

The wonder that was India by a l basham.

here is an amazon link.

http://www.amazon.com/India-A-History-Revised-Updated/dp/0802145582

• Between Silk and Cyanide: A Codemaker's War by Leo Marks
  
  
• Night of Stone: Death and Memory in Russia by Catherine Merridale. I linked to Amazon.co.uk here because it actually has a description of the book.
  
  
• Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded
  
  
• Labrador by Choice by Benjamin W. Powell Sr. Since Amazon doesn't have a description, I'll link a newspaper article on Ben instead. Labrador by Choice is his autobiography, telling of an extraordinary life in a hostile environment.
  
  You might also be interested in r/history's recommended reading list (on their side bar).

I've actually had really mixed feelings about child labor after reading Behind the Beautiful Forevers. The mixed feelings come because we get to feel all smug that something is made without child labor, but all that means is that they either starve or go work in trash piles / unregulated work where they are exposed to toxic materials or other issues that are every bit as dangerous.

Atleast we agree on the middle east issue (Big image file). The fact that "muslims" are the most alienated and divided community today has more to do with imperialism than it is understood. One cannot just bunch together all the population in a common basket of muslim ideals, it would always be inaccurate.

You may want to look beyond the history of India to see how it played out. Middle east is a oil rich region, an essential commodity for fuelling the industry and modern economy. However Middle east is the most divided region among the world powers. America and Russia(Soviet Union) and Europeans have competing interests over there.

The same does not apply for India because India of more of a market and provider of services for cheap labour. Geography, demographics and the politics have more profound effect than ideologies. Having a dictator does not help market economy. Most economies which provide essential raw materials just need a dictatorial state even in Africa. It is not out of some virtue of hinduism that hindu fundamentalism does not exist. The agricultural sector of India is yet to consolidate/collapse in India, in Afghanistan it gave rise to guerilla force called Taliban. Indonesia has much more moderate muslims because they too are a market and cheap labouring house. An industrial capitalist's who manufactures goods historically fought for people out of slavery to have wage labour to consume his goods, the fact that slavery exists under capitalism is only because the capitalist expects that there some other capitalist is paying wages to consume his goods. It all can come down to looking at which stage of capitalism that region serves.

> That is a very defeatist attitude.

What is your solution ? A religious state ? We all know how zionism has ended up betraying the genuine jewish victims of holocoust and jewish working people today while Israel is serving as a garrison for western powers in the middle east. It was known that Israel was a death trap for jews. We know how Pakistan has become a perpetual rogue state competing in an arms race, training radicals etc. had more to do with "the great game" than religion.

The point is looking beyond the lines of religion. How most lefties look is by their class interest. I agree that there are many "comrades" out there who pander religious nonsense. You are clearly annoyed at them, so am I. Atleast don't bunch them together in one basket like muslims and make gross generalisations.

I'm a climate change skeptic; I should probably mention that off the bat.

But ecological disturbances (droughts, epidemics, etc.) often trigger mass migrations, which in turn trigger wars when people migrate somewhere where there are already people.

Interestingly, there's a fair amount of evidence that they can also trigger fundamentalist movements. In Krakatoa the author talks about how Islamic fundamentalism took off in Indonesia right after the famous volcano. A lot of people's lives had been completely destroyed and they were looking for something hard to hold onto.

Responding again because I've been reading this book and it just happened to cover this topic. The authors agree with what they call "fresh scholarship" which says that the varnas from Sanskrit Vedic texts and jati subcastes only had "loose regional or occupational meaning" and featured "[more] individual mobility than most commentators since the colonial period have recognized."

They argue that caste only really started to become rigidly hierarchical in the Mughal period, when the Hindu kshatriyas used the Hindu texts to show the Mughals that they were higher ranked in order to move up/gain advantage in their era's socio-economic ladder. However, the authors argue the way these kshatriyas used the texts was not how they were used previously. In other words, as the CNN article claimed, it was kshatriya culture in the Mughal era that used caste this way, not Hinduism itself that taught such discrimination. The authors sum up:

>..the image of pre-colonial India as a land of self-sufficient villages, rigid caste hierarchies, and overall stagnation, reads characteristics of colonial society into the pre-colonial past.

Now we can say "Well I disagree," but we have to admit that these scholars have studied this issue far more than we have. If they find the above argument persuasive, then I will have to side with them on it. I just don't have the expertise to challenge it, nor do I believe they have any reason to mislead us on it--especially given these authors and scholars are usually Western and not Hindu apologists of some sort.

However let's return to the question you raised on this: if the caste system wasn't so rigid or discriminatory, if it was really as loose and occupational as scholars claim, then why did people prior to the British condemn or criticize it?

I would return to the point made before: yes certain cultures in Indian history used caste as a tool for discrimination, but was it rooted in Hinduism itself? Buddha criticized the brahmins of his day, but were they too just doing what the kshatriyas during the Mughal period did: (mis)use the texts merely to enforce a socio-economic hierarchy that advanced/maintained their own power? Did the Buddha criticize Hinduism, or the corrupt priests of his day? Not saying which is which, but I think that's a key question. (I'm not as familiar with Kabir or the Gurus you mentioned, though I believe they emerged in the 14th-15th century which is just before the Mughal period/16th century.)

And also: levels of discrimination can vary within a geographic or political area, yes? As you yourself pointed out in our previous debate on racism toward Sikhs, all of America isn't one thing. Certain regions (more rural, Southern areas) have more, some (more coastal, urban areas) have less. A person who emerges as a critic of the discrimination he sees in his area may not reflect the majority of people in an entire country, right?

Anyway just throwing all this out there, as always I welcome your response.