this post was submitted on 03 Feb 2024
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Browsing through comments on youtube videos about India right now is crazy. Full of Islamophobic, racist rhetoric almost indistinguishable from white nationalist ones (example CW: Islamophobia).

I get that BJP is responsible for appealing to hindu nationalist sentiment and making it worse, but what are the material reasons that caused a former br*tish colony to become like this?

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[–] sooper_dooper_roofer@hexbear.net 15 points 9 months ago* (last edited 9 months ago)

1) India is a continent

2) The entire continent was invaded by Muslim powers (Bangladesh and Pakistan are still Muslim)
because of this, the Hindu perception of Muslims would be akin to the Black perception of Whites

Christians are a much smaller minority (5% vs 15%) and Christian conversions under Europeans were limited compared to Islamic conversions under Mughals etc. India is also bordered by an enemy Muslim nation, not a Christian one. And any terrorist attack in India over the last 50 years has been Islamic, not Christian

Also, European media is everywhere, while Arabs committed the crime of not colonizing enough places to become the worldwide linguistic/media/everything-else standard. This further tempers hatred towards Christians.

I'm not trying to justify anti-Muslim (anti-semitic? heh) hatred here, just explaining

3) Prior to the Islamic invasions, there were still problems which perhaps even made the Islamic conquests inevitable.

  • 4500 years ago, a group called the Indoeuropeans ("Aryans") invaded both Europe and Northern India.
  • In Europe, they committed total r*pe and genocide, leading to complete mixing/homogenization of the local population
  • In India, this was impossible due to better tech/higher populations, so they instead formed clans and "castes", with themselves on the top. This is what "Brahmins" originally were
  • For whatever reason, the Brahmins that migrated into the Gangetic Plain were especially nasty, while the ones that migrated into Gujarat and Dravidian regions were open to mixing. All Brahmins across all of India are genetically identical, but the ones in the Gangetic Plain have 70% Indoeuropean Y chromosomes, while the ones in the South/Gujarat have 30%. In other words, Gujarati/Southern Brahmins were open to mixing with local women AND men, while Gangetic Brahmins committed tons of female infanticide, (this is confirmed history, not just my theory) probably from being so racist that they didn't want the "lower castes" of men mixing with their women (this part is just my suspicion, but what other possible reason is there for widespread female infanticide?)

There is a long list of backwards trends which could be partially ascribed to either these Gangetic Brahmins, or their immediate ancestors in the Northwest:

  • Sati, the tradition of the wife immolating herself after her husband's death, arose around Punjab or Rajasthan, and was mostly confined to here and later the Gangetic plain. Contrary to what mayos say, this was a practice that only took place among royalty and was numerically insignificant.
  • Female feticide, the logical modern conclusion of female infanticide, is still practiced in the Northwestern + Gangetic states of India today, but not in the Southern Dravidian states.
  • Muslim invaders were extremely successful in gaining converts from Bengal, but not the South--despite both areas being equidistant from their initial starting area of Pakistan. A probable theory is that the Muslims were helped by low caste people in Bengal who "betrayed" their religion because they were desperate to escape the caste system.
  • There is currently, in year 2024, an epidemic of Punjabi Hindus converting to Christianity. Caste discrimination is cited as the major reason. Which lends more support to the above theory. Genetic tests of Punjabi Christians show that they have MUCH less "Indoeuropean" ancestry than the average Punjabi (5% vs. 35%). Punjabi Muslims average about 20%. Confirming that low caste Hindus abandon Hinduism to escape the rigid Northern caste system.
  • The South had reformations like Bhaktism in Tamil Nadu, 600 CE, and Lingayatism in Karnataka, 1100 CE, both of which were anti-caste and pro-people. Lingayatism's leader Basavanna, went even further by not only rejecting caste, but rejecting temple worship altogether and embracing individual worship (In other words he was the 400 year earlier progenitor of Martin Luther)
  • Historical conquests - North India had one major empire, the Mauryan empire, which is 2300 years old. After that, the South was consistently more successful despite having less land, and far fewer rivers. In other words, if the leaders (read: The ruling minority of Brahmins and other high castes) get their stuff by oppressing their own people, there is less need to conquer a neighbor for resources.
  • To this day, there is a stark material divide between the poor, polluted, "BIMARU" states (Gangetic states + Rajasthan) and Dravidian+Gujarat. The latter is more developed on basically every metric imaginable, and it exactly parallels the thing I wrote about earlier
  • Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, and Odisha account for 71% of caste-based hate crimes in India. All of these save Odisha are Gangetic states

Basically, the lack of Brahminical casteism in Dravidian India, and to some extent also Maharashtra and Gujarat, set these places up to have conditions more compatible with communism. Now that India is united as one country, majority rule takes place, which means the more reactionary Hindustani/Hindi-speaking politics prevail.