Surviorship bias and meritocracy in India
I am sure our patriots can read out a list of Indian origin CEOs of major corporations across the world. And use that to promote meritocracy and lambast reservations.
I personally am for meritocracy in principle. Obviously the most qualified individual should get the seat in college or job in the company. Especially in a hyper competitive society such as India. But there is a caveat to this. With regard to college admissions the vast majority of colleges require an acceptable grade (this is subjective) in school boards and entrance exams. The vast majority of these exams are a crammer's delight. I personally was bored to death in high school as I absolutely started to hate a subject that I loved- physics. The information overload was unbearable, and most students walked around like zombies. They couldn't get a chance to enjoy the subject but had to cram and solve problems from door stopper sized "guides". I find it incredibly amusing that they were termed guides as they were anything but. If I had the equivalent of this "guide" trekking through the desert or an alpine mountain, I would be dead in a matter of days.
These guides were in reality a tsunami of confusion due to information overload. And once somehow, they got through this, they had other entrance exams to look forward to. And then they would get into a college where much of the time was spent whiling around until the final exam.
What is required for clearing a lot of these exams is not so much smarts but time and money- to buy the guides, tuitions and so on. This type of system undermines the idea of meritocracy. Say what you want about the SATs these are accessible to every high school student in America as is the subject matter- 10th grade level mathematics and reading comprehension at a high school level. The point of SAT obviously is not solve partial differential equations but to assess strictly the analytical ability and capacity to digest a large of amount of information in a limited amount of time- thereby simulating the American academic semester.
A really cringe article in The Quint had the title "Why Indian CEOs are awesome". Let us leave aside the fact that this was written by two adult men, whose profession is writing, in their 30s use the lingo of teenagers without any sense of embarrassment whatsoever. They claimed that life in India is so strenuous and hyper competitive due to the heaving population and the attendant pressures, stresses, pollution, filth and societal and psychological abuse that those who make it are the cream of the crop.
Forgotten in this vile calculus are the 10s of millions of those who DIDNT make it. But succumbed to a life of mediocrity and despair because the stresses of an indifferent, hyper materialistic society which pretends to be spiritual had broken them. These two cretins far from taking India to task for utterly failing its citizens by not providing them with what is required to live up to their potential, actually gloated over the shortcomings as if they are some sort of bootcamp where only the strongest survive. This is the sick vile mentality that one sees with too many heavy breathing patriots, most of whom live abroad or live in gated communities far from the "riff raff".
Let us leave aside the blatant favouritism in schools and colleges whether on basis of caste, religion, gender or other factors. In my schoolteachers favored students of the opposite sex. Sometimes in a very weird creepy way. Yes that applies to female teachers as well. The golden boy in school was similar to the golden child dynamics in dysfunctional families. And where there is a golden child there is a scapegoat and teachers like dysfunctional parent's heap abuse and scorn on them nonstop. Sometimes the scapegoat is an entire class. I myself have witnessed a teacher praise her beloved student in these terms "sometimes a lotus is found only in the marshes and mud", wow thanks for that boost of self-esteem. Appreciated. Having been both a golden child and scapegoat in different eras of my school days, I am all too familiar with the dynamic. I was also the unfortunate object of non-pedagogic attention of one or two female teachers in my teen years. Put aside the Naughty America/Brazzers imagery please, it is nowhere as sexy as you imagine it to be. It led nowhere because it was just icky.
Well, that is the "meritocracy" that everyone talks about. It is odd that the same people who claim India is meritocratic, also as mentioned sneer over those who couldn't overcome the start Darwinian struggle to get ahead in India. Granted, it is nowhere as bad as it was before the 1990s but thanks to feudal lord Modi who wants serfs rather than citizens, it seems Zomato and Uber delivery driver is far as meritocracy gets you these days.
Hi YSV, do you wlecome the proposal by CBSE to opt for open book exams or at least try out the option for now?
ReplyDeletesorry I just saw this comment.
DeleteI like open book exams in principle but that entails an education system which is not dependent on cramming but meaningful analysis and strong grasp of the fundamentals.
If the teacher is not upto the task, then the student would fare very poorly.
Before simply copy pasting some aspects of successful American pedagogy, we should have serious and drastic reforms of our education system. Some of which would entail changing cultural and societal structures and expectations- the guru shishya parampara is just toxic and counter productive in the modern world.
Students should have the courage to challenge their teachers and teachers shouldnt hide behind the mantle of gurudom to protect their fragile ego.
YSV, I hope you don't mind a little feedback from your long time reader. Would you consider making more blogs on Indian history? Your politics and contemporary culture posts are great, but you have so much insight and unconventional thinking to offer about our history.
ReplyDeletehi Prem Chand. sorry for my dissapearance. There was a death in the family and also got locked out of my account somehow. Only recently bothered to get it fixed.
Deleteoften on matters of the blog i am reactive than active. if there is any particular query or queries rather. I will select which i know about the most and expand on that.
@YSV
DeleteDo you think "Indian hate" as it's now being called is a real thing? Is it just an American problem?
This was one of my many aborted blog posts lol.
DeleteI will expound more on this when I complete it this week. As it is rather complicated with many factors
However for now i will say this
Bigots are bigots I am not making any excuses for them. But let us put some things in perspective. Indians are very visible online. Which is understandable given their population, the ubiquity of smart phones and availability of affordable ISP.
but we were not ready for prime time. bobs and vagene type characters aside, there are many Indians who are shrill, hostile, defensive and combative and engaged in casual racism about whites being barbaric , imperialist etc even before this anti Indian sentiment gained traction. A lot of this stuff is just push back
some of it is certainly pushed by bad actors- Pakistani and Chinese intelligence as well as independent actors. Many Pakistanis often maquerade as whites and Israelis and use that front to abuse Indians but they are usually rather stupid and get caught when they go out of their way to defend or praise Pakistan!
the rape of tourists in India and overwhelming number of Indians in Canada didnt really warm westerners to India either.
Then there is the odd tendency of Hollywood to promote the most offputting and irritating Indian people out there- Mindy Kaling, Lilly Singh, Hari Kandabolu, Aziz Ansari among others
And October 7th gave this tendency a very vile and malevolent impetus. Indian supporters of Israel of which there is no shortage basically bore the brunt of anti semitism and anti Zionism and this translated into anti Indian/anti Hindu sentiment. The amount of hatred and viciousness I encountered online in various platforms against Indians for standing in support of Israel is indescribale- its a bottomless pit. I understood for the first time what anti semitism really is- it has no rational basis at all.
It is not really an American problem per se, they just tend to be more open about it. The average American has no problem with Nikki Haley, Vivek Ramaswamy (though he didnt ingratiate himself with recent comments), Kash Patel etc. What they dont like is people who are condescending and who act superior, Indians often fall in this category
here is a rather funny compilation of scenes from David Mamets Glenn Garry GlenRoss from 1991 with scammy salesmen expressing frustration with Indian clients
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdr_GiWXRws&ab_channel=Movic06
also Indian scammers targetting senior citizens and milking them off their life saving really enraged Americans. If the indian government would have taken swift action and shut them down, it wouldnt have contributed to the anti India sentiment already lingering.
DeleteBut it would appear that these scammers seem to have the blessing of the Indian government and most people taking them down are American white hat hackers on youtube.
As someone who has been the victim of some scams myself, I can say that Americans are not the only target of Indian scammers. We can't go to the police to solve this problem, since the police are not the solution, they are part of the problem.
ReplyDeleteOver the years, mexicans(wetbacks), blacks(niggers), Asians(gooks), arabs(ragheads), jews(kikes) have all been the targets. I guess now it's the Indians' turn.
apologies for posting the comment this late. Apparently the feature on approved commenters isnt working as well as it should. So I had to manually greenlight this comment.
DeleteThis may be a tad unpopular but I see racism in the American context as sort of hazing process- you arent really a part of the club unless you get it good and hard. Only then you are a real American lol. There may be more truth to this than one realizes
Indeed the scammers operate with impunity because they are protected probably because the same business interests who operate them are in bed with the government.
Ive been a part of an investment scam way back in 2011 a trusted "fixer" dealing with immigration issues with UAE government( I fell on the wrong side of a business deal where the partner unwittingly made bad trades and shut the company down and hence I was unable to open another company due to my association) in 2022.
In the former I lost $30,000 but in the latter "just" $5000. The former was a company in Taiwan and was remote. The latter was face to face with a smooth talking Mallu who seemed incredibly reliable.
In context there were many microexpressions which seemed incredibly shifty but I ignored them. Since I confronted him after it was exposed, he went underground . His linked, facebook etc, dormant, phone shut off.
When I was studying in Germany, I occasionally bumped into Americans and sometimes received dirty looks. But nothing like that from the Germans themselves. But these were mild compared to what you see online these days.
DeleteI dont know Americans in Germany but those in U.S are quite personable and affable in general. But certainly there is often a hollowness to it, unless they are from the south, then the friendships are genuine and lasting.
DeleteThe sources of online hate are often opaque, could be intelligence agencies at work . A lot of these anti India content forms are Pakistani for instance. But apart from that there is certainly a groundswell on anti India sentiment.
That does have a real life corollary. in some U.S cities places, smiles arent as warm as they used to be for Indians. Ironically the rural areas are less hostile as they are insulated from all this.
While it's true many anti-India trolls are Pakistani or Chinese, you can usually tell from their comments. When the troll starts talking about caste system and untouchability, you know they're American because they're usually not well informed about India. Whereas Pakistani trolls are surprisingly knowledgeable about Indian culture.
DeletePakistani trolls of Indian culture is above a mile wide and an inch deep. And they are not very well informed at all on south Indian culture. They would know some superificial things about south having Dravidian languages and Vijaynagar empire but thats it.
DeleteTheir comfort level is with north India extending from Punjab to Ganga Yamuna tehzeeb and not beyond that.
The really racist westerners do actually appreciate caste system and untouchability lol. Because they see that in terms on racial purity and heirarchy.
But they dont realize it is far more complicated than that. The people with the highest r1a dna , Jats were little more than peasants a 100 years ago. Generally higher percentage of IVC ancestry was positively correlated with elite status.
Of course this too is a generalization with many exception in a country as complex and diverse as India
Pakistani trolls knowledge* of Indian culture...
DeleteAlso Jats were peasants about 300 years ago, not 100 . Either way Jats will come up with all sorts of cooked up geneologies and history to counter this fact even associated themselves with not just Chandragupta Maurya and the Gupta dynasty but also Rama and Krishna etc but to be fair lots of communities do the latter
The neo-nazis types do appreciate caste system as blond blue eyed Aryans keeping the natives in their place. But the anti-India westerners are not always neo-nazis. They think caste system is Jim Crow on steroids because that's all they understand. I even came across one guy who seemed surprised that india is an ancient civilization!
DeleteInteresting that Jats have high steppe ancestry. Aren't they from the middle East? Also I heard Nairs have high r1a ancestry. Is r1a really a good marker of IA ancestry?
The irony is that Aryans usually didnt bring any civilization to the conquered places. They had complexes about their primitive lifestyle as a motley crew of nomads, traders, and mercenaries. Elam was already a mighty civilization when the Iranians arrived, so much so that Elamite was the go-to language for most Achaemenid emperors for liturgical and administrative purposes rather than Farsi. Though they shifted to Aramaic for administrative purposes as they acquired an empire due to its popularity
DeleteIn India, the magnificient cities in epics and puranas are described as always being built, constructed and dwelt in by unArya peoples like Nagas, Rakshashas and Asuras(a flexible term that sometimes mean Iranians as well). THat is apart from the application to supernatural entities.
Most westerners are fed the leftist version of the caste system whether by Indian academics and journalists or their western counterparts.
I recently came across an American on Quora who didnt even know IVC!
Jats association with India is likely quite ancient. They are likely IA though it is not impossible they were Dravidian speaking at one point. They used to practice vratya/Dravidian customs such as erecting hero stones and worshipping ancestors, this was their primary religion before they shifted to Puranic Hinduism.
Nairs has some r1a ancestry due to sambandham with Nambuthiris.
However in south indian community including Nairs does the r1a exceed 15% at the most. That goes for Brahmins as well. Yes ,all South Indian Brahmins are mostly Dravidians. Ironically more so than OBC is IVC gene is associated with Dravidian which for genetic purposes it is.
Many of the ruling dynasties of south India however are likely less of Dravidian or Aryan and more AASi shifted tribal origin such as Kurubas and Boyas for instance.
Keep in mind that r1a is present in other countries as well. So we have to be a bit careful associating r1a with just an Indo Aryan origin.
A lot of north Indians conceal their foreing ,non IA origins by highlighting their r1a thought it likely came from later immigrants , though Turkic speaking. castes like Mishra( which literally means mixed) are one example
Jats and Nairs were both categorized by British anthropologists as Indo Scythians not just because they didnt know any better but because Scythians also worshipped snakes. But the main reason was the racial bias against Indians being weak and unwarlike hence any effective warriors in India had to possess foreign blood
On this basis Marathas were called Scytho Dravidian along with Coorgis etc.
Forgot to mention- Jats prize this Scythian connection despite scant evidence of it, to this very day
DeleteYou will find this parroted all over Jat and Khalistani forums. Khalistanis are mostly a criminal Jat organization with its HQ in Canada and heavily involved in Canadian trucking which facilitates meth smuggling and insurance and other scams.
I knew atleast Punjabi Jat restaunteur in Seattle who used to burn down his unprofitable restaurants to collect insurance.
I worked there briefly as a waiter. His wife wanted to take me under her work and teach me the ins and outs of (no not that..) ..social security scams. There are Punjabis who make over $150k in that business
White collar prisons in U.S are filled with Punjabis , gujjus and sadly not a few Telugus. So much so that Indian food is provided in the prison chow hall for them
Yes, I gather N Indians are mostly IVC people with a little IA ancestry. The original IA probably looked like modern Europeans although that doesn't sound PC.
DeleteWhen you look at the primitive culture of the IA people, it makes you wonder how they could have accomplished something like the Upanishads. Do you think the IVC already had advanced philosophy and Upanishads were a delayed manifestation of the same? Because at the time the Upanishads were composed, India was mostly a rural culture, a far cry from the IVC cities. It beggars belief that simple villagers could have come up with that.
As for the IA having complexes, are you sure? Pastoral nomads then as now usually feel superior compared to the settled agriculturalists.
If I understand you correctly, the Achaeminids were a continuation of Elamite civilization with an overlay of IE elements. How did the Elamites build such a civilization leaving behind the Mesapotomians? After all, Mesopotamia is far more fertile than dry mountainous Iran.
The original IAs probably looked more like Pushtuns than Europeans. Some Pushtuns can pass for Europeans sure but those are mostly Pamirians. But they were lighter skinned and more Caucasian looking than say Kashmiris or Punjabis but not by far. They probably resembled Armenians a lot more than Eastern or Central Europeans.
DeleteEven the so called blonde Kalash tribe with the highest degree of r1a dont really have many blonde Slavic types. Those that you see online are extreme outliers or even tourists in native garb.
https://www.wildfrontierstravel.com/en_GB/blog/who-are-the-kalash
Photos of groups are tell a better story than clickbait YT thumbnails
Even the original Iranians didn't really look European. They had already mixed up with various central asian and west asian peoples during their sojourns. Even the blonde blue eyed Iranians today are from Caspian region which wasnt really a stronghold of IA culture.
European type people were relative newcomers to the area.
If we subscribe to the BMAC hypothesis , it seems that IAs spent some time getting acclamatized in this possibly proto Dravidian/proto Burushki civilization.
There was a merging of cultures comparable to that of Sumer and Akkad where it one point became indistinguishable.
It is this lot that likely contributed to the Vedas.
This is just one of the theories out there..
Certainly there are echoes of other civilizations in the Vedas. IVC and other cultures , native or foreign could have their fingerprints on it.
For example the counterparts to Manu, flood and seven sages is found in Sumerian mythology.
Pastoral nomads have a complex relationship to settled civilizations. On one hand , they see the latter as soft and unwarlike but they are also quite besotten with them. Note that the Turks having taken Constantinople or Arabs besieging Baghdad and Damascus after the genesis of Islam did their best to maintain the city and the structures within. They just appropriated the churches and other structures to turn them into mosques. They reserved iconoclasm for mostly pagan structures and even that was not a rule if they found them pleasing.
Elam is sorrounded by lowland deserts but itself was on a highland around the Zagros mountains. Water wasn't an issue.
It is believed that Achaemenid kings themselves were of Elamite origin since they so heavily favored everything Elamite.
What occured was probably an intermixture between Iranians and Elamites much like IVC and IAs or Sumerians and Akkadians.
But Farsi nationalists wish to downplay this aspect
"If we subscribe to the BMAC hypothesis , it seems that IAs spent some time getting acclamatized in this possibly proto Dravidian/proto Burushki civilization."
DeleteYea it's likely that the cult of fire that is found in both IA(Vedic rituals )and Iranic(zoroastrian fire worship) probably originated in BMAC. Heck even the name Indra is not an IE word, he was probably an amalgamation of BMAC and IE gods. There is an unidentified substratum in both IA and Iranic languages that some scholars think may be from the BMAC language. But I have never heard about the BMAC Dravidian/Burushaski theory.
"For example the counterparts to Manu, flood and seven sages is found in Sumerian mythology."
DeleteSome mythology is common among different human cultures. Heck you can find such common features even with New World cultures. These common mythological features probably originate from pre-civilization Paleolithic beliefs. One example is the flood myths from which Noah's story was derived.
I am currently going through the YouTube channel Crecganford which discusses IE and other prehistoric mythology in detail.
Delete@YSV
DeleteDo you think Cyrus(Kurush/Koresh) was related to the Kuru tribe of the Vedas, or is this just donkey etymology?
From wikipedia
DeleteKourosh (Persian: کوروش; also spelled as Koorosh or Kurosh), is a Persian male name common in Iran (Persia). Kourosh is composed of kouro- [sun] + -sh - [proprietorial suffix], meaning "Lord of the sun".
This is from AI for Kuru in Sanskrit
The Sanskrit word "kuru" can be broken down etymologically as follows: according to Quora and Sanskrit Dictionary. It is derived from the root "kri" (कृ), which has two main classifications: according to Quora. In one classification, it means "to hurt" (Himsaayaam) and forms "Krunoti/Krunute". In another classification, it means "to do" and forms "Karoti/Kurute". The specific word "kuru" is the second-person singular imperative form of the "kri" root, meaning "to do".
Here's a more detailed explanation:
Root "kri" (कृ):
This is the fundamental verb root from which "kuru" is derived.
Classifications of "kri":
The root "kri" can have two different meanings depending on its classification in Sanskrit grammar.
Imperative Mood:
The word "kuru" is in the imperative mood (Lot lakaara), which is used for commands or requests.
Second Person Singular:
"Kuru" is in the second person singular form, meaning it is directed at a single person.
Meaning:
The overall meaning of "kuru" is "do" or "act," specifically as a command or request addressed to one person.
I am intrigued by the relationship between IA and Avestan people. Of course they both descend from Indo Iranians, but the relationship goes much further. There are verses in the Vedas which are exactly the same as those in the Avestas. Moreover, the Avestans also had the equivalent of our Brahmana books. So we have to consider the possibility of Avestans and Vedic Aryans maintaining contact after the formation of the Kuru-Panchala state.
Deleteby the time of Kuru Panchala there was already a distaste for people from the northwest including Madras, Saindhavas, Gandharas etc.
DeleteNote that all the villains in Mahabharata hail from those regions.
Even the people of Kuru (at the time encompassing parts of central Asia bordering) Iran werent spared(Kauravas)
The only protagonists with possible Iranian connections are Vasishta and Kashyapa who were said to be from western Afghanistan and Caspian region respectively
This continued on in the historic era..the Turko Iranian Scythians no matter how much they tried to ingratiate into Vedic society were locked in as barbarians by pandits. The very first Sanskrit inscription in stone was infact issued by a Saka king Rudradaman which horrified the Brahmanas even more as stone was considered rather unsuitable medium at that time. Gujarat due to their rule was said to be mlecchadesha. It wasnt until Chandra Gupta I and later Chalukya invasions of Kathiawar(seat of Saka power)that it was restored to respectability.
There was always Iranian interest in India and Indian lands in particular. The history of India over the 3000 years can be seen as a gradual surrender to the Iranosphere, first from Bactria and Gandhara under the Aechemenids and later from Balochistan and western Punjab from Sakas and Parthians and finally to the Persianate Islamic dynasties of medeival India. Their influence on clothing, food, architecture , language and other aspects lingers on to this day.
Influence in the other direction occurred briefly during the Mitannis.
And if you count the Madras Regiments stray invasion of Persia under the British!
Henry J Heras, a Jesuit historian ,author of Studies in Proto Indo Mediterranean culture, claimed that Krishna and Balarama had quite an Odyssey type trip around the classical world including Persia, Egypt, Mesopotamia and Central Asia but the xenophobic editors revised to regional trips within India
There maybe a lot of Indo Iranian pollinations in the opposite direction but alas most of those are lost in time likes tears in the rain.
"Even the people of Kuru (at the time encompassing parts of central Asia bordering) Iran "
DeleteIt is interesting to consider the possibility that the Kuru-Panchala realm included parts of Central Asia. According to scholars it was mostly restricted to Haryana and eastern Punjab. There is no archeological evidence for the kuru state extending that far.
Also, the Mahabharata was not composed during Vedic times and was repeatedly edited until the Gupta era. It's possible that the contents of this epic might reflect the realities of later periods.
'Influence in the other direction occurred briefly during the Mitannis."
We can't be sure if the Mitanni royals were from India, or were a tribe of IA before they entered india. One clear way of distinguishing Indian influence is the presence of retroflex consonants which do not seem to appear in the Mitanni language afaik.
I've never understood why the turkics suddenly started expanding in the second millennium AD. If their advantage was horses, well they already had horses before that era. It can't be because of the collapse of the Guptas because there was a significant gap between the Guptas and Mahmud Ghaznavi.
The expanse of Kurus shifted and contracted towards the south as the Vedic/post vedic era receeded in the rear view mirror
DeleteBy the Puranic era, it was restricted to the areas you mentioned
These areas also encompassed the core territory of the Bharata tribe.
Kharavela in his Hantigumpha inscription stated that he conquered, Magadha, Anga, Vanga, Andhra, Kosala and Bharatavarsha
why would he need to include Bharatavarsha if he already conquered these other territories if we assume Bharatavarsha encompassed the entire subcontinent?
Those bharata territories also corresponded to Brahmavarta- area of Brahmins.
From this area Brahmins went forth to all corners of India propagating their ideology much like Christian missionaries.
Hence during the mid Puranic era all of India became Bharatavarsha.
I doubt the Gupta era priests edited the Mahabharata to change certain key characteristics. The mahabharata got to become to the largest epic in world literature due to additions than mutations.
It is supposed a very compact ballad of warring tribes which in time imbing the proto Maslows of heirarcy offered philosophy and self actualization quotes culminating in the Bhagvad Gita (which was likely originally nastik doctrine reconfigured by the Vaishnava faction)
This sort of thing often occurs when a tribe or kingdom becomes prosperous and gains respectability
It could be said that the Quran is post hoc justification for the brilliant raids and plunder of a Nestorian/Gnostic Christian warlord Mohammad.
Even Ramayana doesnt think too highly of Central and West Asians. King sagara really gives them the treatment only to saved by the Afghan Vasistha ! Note that vasisthas cow Kamadhenu conjures up Sakas , Paradas(iranians) among other West Asians to protect adherents of his school
Mitanni names sound IA which is why most scholars consider them so.
DeleteRetroflex consonants are generally associated with Dravidian languages and therefore it is assumed that IA languages with those features were influenced by Dravidians. However most scholars now believe that proto Indo Iranian languages also had these features but were lost over time
Swedish, Norwegian and Italian have those as well but to a lesser degress.
So Mitanni language sans those features was sandwhiched between two languages(proto Indo Iranian and Sanskrit) which had them.
And still PII having retroflex is still a conjecture
Turks were always on the move. We just called them by different names -Huns, Sakas, Avars, Mongols, Magyars . Different variants picked up other tribes IE or non IE and sedentary population and cultures along the way.
They were always dependent on their horses and pasture. Apparently in the early medieval era, a fungus or parasite affected the grass in the upper steppes which culminated in a chain reactions that destroyed the Roman empire, nearly destroyed the Sassanids and diminished the Gupta empire
And various other movements such as Magyars, Avars, Bulgars etc.
This is not a rule of thumb but useful generalization. Pagan Turks are called Mongols, Huns etc. Muslim Turks are well just Turks
When Mongols converted to Islam, that lead to further confusion.
Particularly as the Moghuls are really Turks. All "Moghuls" from Babur down to Bahadur Shah Zafar II took pride in belonging to the house of Timur.
"The expanse of Kurus shifted and contracted towards the south as the Vedic/post vedic era receeded in the rear view mirror"
DeleteCan this be inferred from the Vedic corpus?
"From this area Brahmins went forth to all corners of India propagating their ideology much like Christian missionaries."
Here you had Janaka inviting Brahmins from Kuru-Panchala to his court in Videha to legitimise his rule and what followed were great philosophical debates in the Videha court.
Note that Vedic and Aryan are not interchangeable terms. Those living outside the Kuru-Panchala realm were by definition not Vedic, even if they were IA. Brahmins were advised not to travel their country. Shudras belonged to the Vedic fold, but they were not Aryan and hence they couldn't participate in Vedic rituals.
"I doubt the Gupta era priests edited the Mahabharata to change certain key characteristics. The mahabharata got to become to the largest epic in world literature due to additions than mutations."
I think we should assume that any text written by anyone and granted royal approval is propaganda. The Guptas wanted their propaganda to reflect contemporary realities, so why wouldn't they edit the Mahabharata suitably?
"Even Ramayana doesnt think too highly of Central and West Asians. King sagara really gives them the treatment only to saved by the Afghan Vasistha ! "
Is this from the original Valmiki Ramayana?
"Mitanni names sound IA which is why most scholars consider them so."
I agree that the Mitanni superstratum was IA. My point was that IA != from India. We know that the IA the originated from outside the subcontinent, it's possible that some IA tribes never made it to India and went their own way to the Mitanni realm.
"Retroflex consonants are generally associated with Dravidian languages and therefore it is assumed that IA languages with those features were influenced by Dravidians."
Actually almost ALL languages spoken in the subcontinent regardless of their language family have retroflex consonants. Even Pashto, an Iranic language, has them! Michael Witzel is of the opinion that something about the Indian subcontinent imbibes the languages with retroflex consonants. When a language leaves india, like romani, it loses this feature.
"However most scholars now believe that proto Indo Iranian languages also had these features but were lost over time"
Is there a consensus on this? I must have missed that.
YSV I didn't intend to be rude. If you don't like the above conversation, we can abandon it.
Delete