From the inception of Indian statecraft, political theorists were aware of the dangers of corruption. Arthashastra recommends that all senior officials be tested by secret agents.
Temples, military labour markets, and land-grant regimes structured medieval caste hierarchies. Today, access to education, employment, bureaucratic categories, and media platforms do.
As early states developed in the Iranian plateau and northern India, ideas continued to circulate between the steppe and the settlements of the Iranian plateau and the Punjab plains.
Migration in North India isn’t just due to lack of development today. It was shaped by the evolution of labour markets under Sher Shah, Mughals, and the East India Company.
The Indian Right and Liberals all accepted the British conception of Hindu, Muslim and British India and the country's eventual decline. What they disagreed on was its cause.
From Mughal ports to Dutch wars to Bombay’s merchant dynasties, Gujarati Muslims once shaped the Indian Ocean world — long before one of their descendants took New York.
Dice have been found dating to the Bronze Age in various Harappan sites in present-day northwest India and throughout Pakistan. And it’s very possible that some had female owners.
In Medieval India, the late Prof Satish Chandra demonstrates how Muslim rulers in India quickly grasped that pristine notions of Halal and haram did not hold up to the realities of statecraft.
Nepal called itself ‘world’s only Hindu kingdom’ for much of the previous century. However, for most of history, the country was religiously, politically, and ethnically fragmented.
In tactical terms, the shirtless protest was worse than a self-goal. Suddenly, the fiascos of the AI Summit were forgotten, and the Youth Congress’s disruption became the issue.
IAF is fine with accepting the aircraft with 'must-haves', even if some other steps remain pending, which may take at least another year, it is learnt.
Thank you for this very informative piece. I am a Sri Lankan researcher, and much of the lack of modern scholarship you mention here, is same in Sri Lanka as well. There is lots more to be studied about our shared ‘medieval past’ (that is if ‘medieval’ is the right terminology). Sri Lankan scholars also unfortunately look only at the island, instead of a pan-southern Asian history. Here too there are references to ‘navies’ in the chronicles and historians take them at face value with the modern concept of Navy, thereby obscuring the real situation.
Thank you for this very informative piece. I am a Sri Lankan researcher, and much of the lack of modern scholarship you mention here, is same in Sri Lanka as well. There is lots more to be studied about our shared ‘medieval past’ (that is if ‘medieval’ is the right terminology). Sri Lankan scholars also unfortunately look only at the island, instead of a pan-southern Asian history. Here too there are references to ‘navies’ in the chronicles and historians take them at face value with the modern concept of Navy, thereby obscuring the real situation.