Mughals are good because after coming and taking over India, they stayed in India. ✅
Jews are good because after coming and taking over Palestine, they stayed in Palestine. ❌
Mughals are good because they adopted India as their motherland and buit lot of good stuff and made India rich, despite upsetting the demography of India. ✅ Jews are good because they consider Israel as their holy land and built lot of good stuff and made Palestine rich, despite upsetting the demography of Palestine ❌.
Mughals did not commit genocide because Hindus are still there. ✅
Israeli Jews have not been committing genocide because the population of Arabs has only been exploding in Gaza and the West Bank. ❌
Muslim rulers enforced jizya on Hindus for centuries but that is okay and was a process of empire building. ✅
Israel’s security checkpoints or barriers to stop suicide bombings are a process of their nation building.❌
Mughals destroyed thousands of temples and built mosques on many sites, this is just "political necessity” and a process of settling political scores and even some Hindu kings did that.✅
Jewish construction in disputed areas of the West Bank is just "political necessity" and just a process of settling political scores and even some Muslim rulers did that. ❌
Mughals had Hindu wives who had full religious freedom and had many Hindu generals. ✅
Israelis give Arabs full citizenship rights including voting and Arabs even form a part of administration. ❌
No decent historian of the early modern world should have anything to gain from the heroes vs villains, wrt Mughal history. To be stuck in this framework is to not think like a historian. The Mughals matter bcz of the world they built and its relevance today, not their excesses! ✅
No decent historian of the modern world should have anything to gain from the heroes vs villains, wrt the history of Israel-Palestine conflict. To be stuck in this framework is to not think like a historian. The Israelis matter bcz of the world they built and its relevance today, not their excesses! ❌
Police under the Congress govt in Telangana - whose Chief Minister recently threatened to strip journalists in public - have invoked the dreaded UAPA against the media handle @TeluguScribe, demanding account info, usage logs, and activity details.
Today is Press Freedom Day.
@anmol_naithani @sushantsareen It's not injustice it's called consequences of not implementing policies recommended by the central government over the past 50 years. Southern states implemented those policies and they are expecting they don't get punished for it.
I am going to tell you a deep secret of the English language. When we want to tell the truth, we use Germanic-derived words. When we want to lie, we use Latin-derived words.
- Germanic (Old English) words → concrete, direct, sensory, testable
- Latinate/French words → abstract, bureaucratic, distancing, often euphemistic
Death / harm
Germanic (plain, testable):kill, die, hurt
Latinate (distancing, euphemistic):terminate, expire, neutralize, collateral damage
👉 “We killed civilians” vs “There was collateral damage”
Lying / deception
Germanic:lie, cheat, hide
Latinate:misrepresent, obfuscate, prevaricate
👉 “He lied” vs “He misrepresented the facts”
Money / exploitation
Germanic:take, steal, pay
Latinate:appropriate, extract, leverage, monetize
👉 “They’re taking your money” vs “They’re extracting value”
War / violence
Germanic:fight, bomb, burn
Latinate:engagement, kinetic action, force projection
👉 “We bombed them” vs “We conducted kinetic operations”
Bureaucracy / responsibility
Germanic:you broke it, you did it
Latinate:mistakes were made, systemic failure occurred
👉 Notice how the subject disappears.
Money / exploitation
Germanic:take, steal, pay
Latinate:appropriate, extract, leverage, monetize
👉 “They’re taking your money” vs “They’re extracting value”
War / violence
Germanic:fight, bomb, burn
Latinate:engagement, kinetic action, force projection
👉 “We bombed them” vs “We conducted kinetic operations”
Bureaucracy / responsibility
Germanic:you broke it, you did it
Latinate:mistakes were made, systemic failure occurred
👉 Notice how the subject disappears.
If you see a public statement filled with Latin-sounding words, you are being fooled, tricked, manipulated, or lied to.
*BJP promised toilets before Election under Swachh Bharat Mission*
>Congress mocked women saying, “They want phones, not toilets! they’re comfortable going out in open”.
>Mocked BJP saying “Toilet wale wahi tak soch payenge”.
>Mocked Ram Lalla saying, “Toilet hi bana do waha”.
There’s been a Raisina Dialogue in Delhi every March since 2016. It’s the brainchild of Subrahmanyam Jaishankar, Narendra Modi’s long-serving foreign minister. Like other global gatherings, it brings together political leaders, senior military commanders, prominent business people, leading journalists, and think tank chiefs to discuss key issues; but it’s better than Davos because it’s not so dominated by politically correct plutocrats; and better than the longer-running Chinese Boao Forum, because it not essentially an exercise in homage to the host government.
I started attending virtually, during the pandemic, and have been there in person since 2022.
My reflections on Raisina, Modi, and why India matters more than ever in my latest at The Tony Abbott Newsletter: https://t.co/fsro4QFrI9
Religion A: Our goal is to conquer the world. Not a single millimetre on earth can belong to another religion. We will subjugate you; rape you; enslave you; forcibly convert you; kill you. This is the ultimate goal of our religion.
Religion B: Our religion does not allow us to harm any living being. We believe in live and let live. We are not allowed to harm an ant.
US constitutional lawyers: Both religions fully qualify for constitutional protection. Once you call something a religion, we are impotent to fight back. You win.
Suicidal empathy will end our civilization.
Shameful surrender by @ncert. The mention of judicial corruption in its textbook was factual, given that 11 Chief Justices and 2 Law and National Commission reports have themselves highlighted rampant judicial corruption.
It is the Supreme court that should have apologised.
Traditional indigenous religions (termed 'Animism' in western demographic studies) had a majority status in 24 countries in 1950 - mostly in parts of Africa - but by 2015 no country had 'Animism' as a majority religion anymore. They had all converted to either Christianity or Islam within 65 years. It is facetious to study religious diversity limited to only 7 faiths, and by ignoring major religions like Taoism, Sikhism etc.
... and then there is China!
@darab_farooqui Actually it is the other way round. Muslims have usually voted for communal politics and BJP is now seeking a counter-consolidation of Hindu votes. Hindus always react after Muslims start the process...
If you want to protest for “your people” in Gaza, while living in India, then it’s natural that the responsibility of Hindus killed by “your people” abroad rests on you. You can’t have it both ways. Choose.
Most people don’t know this, but the Diversity Visa (DV) program was created largely for Europeans.
After the Immigration Act of 1965 ended non skilled random country-based quotas that favored Europe, immigration patterns flipped:
European immigration (Ireland, Italy, Poland, etc.) dropped hard
By the 1980s, Europeans were:
Less competitive in employment-based categories as U.S. labor needs shifted
This triggered lobbying, led by Irish-American advocacy groups.
In 1986, Congress passed a temporary program for countries “adversely affected” by the 1965 law. Ireland became the single largest beneficiary.
That program later became today’s Diversity Visa lottery.
So when people attack the DV program without knowing its origins, they’re often criticizing a system that was literally designed to help Europeans re-enter U.S. immigration flows when they were no longer qualifying in large numbers.
History has receipts.