India is many things. Depending on where you are, stunningly beautiful, dangerously dirty, or both. My first trip to Mumbai, when all I knew was the US and bits of Europe, was the first truly culturally significant and mind opening experience of my life.
Modernity had brought with it trash and pollution of an unprecedented degree, and poverty, culture, corruption, and overpopulation do nothing to improve the situation. Open sewers line city streets that wind directly through ancient relics because the city had been continuously occupied and built up and upon since that time.
I mention this mostly because of the cultural significance of India, and the danger it faces in losing those cultural artifacts if they are not given the respect and care they deserve. Much of the culture, while incredibly peaceful and inviting (witnessing festivals in the slums of Mumbai, paid for by people scraping together their pennies, caring more about their community than their personal situation was... I still don't have the right words for the emotional experience), knows nothing of preservation and conservation.
I don't know the answer to any of this is... It's just something I think about whenever I read about ancient India.
>>the cultural significance of India, and the danger it faces in losing those cultural artifacts if they are not given the respect
A very interesting city (Mumbai).
A recent bill for development of mumbai is caught along the same line.[1]
As for cultural festivities you mention in mumbai, its largely driven by political intentions.Mumbai is largely multi-cultural and every community wants to rival another.Its also driven by xenophobia amongst the local marathi-speaking.Am not sure how long such a model can withstand but things seem to be changing slowly.
Much of Mumbai's core infrastructure like water-lines etc are more than a 100 year old, they are crumbling.Corruption rids quality out of any recent project,these don't last long either.
Population and long commute for work (under crowded conditions i.e.) are very common too!
The one biggest difference is the people , who tend to change the outlook.They help each other and treat strangers better than most indian cities i've seen.People make all the difference.
One can see why long form writing is becoming less popular: apparently all it takes to be published in The New York Review of Books is a tangent-laden, skin deep romp through the author's limited comprehension of a particular subject (in this case 'Indian' regional cultural influence).
Much known history is ignored, and generalizations phrased as truths quite apart from the historically grounding reality that nation-states are essentially modern creations, particularly amongst the politically fast-flux, linguistically and culturally varied regions of the world such as most of the Himalayan and Brahmaputra-valley borderlands.
PS. And the downvotes begin. "Oh, how wonderful the echo-chamber of junket-laden arts world, and their on-high post-colonial exhibition curators!" I wonder if they scammed a trip to Bali or something. FWIW, I translate original texts in some of the areas discussed and am on personal email contact with at least one of the major authors of the cited texts - the extent to which the author misses the point is amazing.
The second cited source (Wade et al) looks a good read but I would not trust it implicitly. Lumping all South Asian influences on Southeast Asia in to a single text (leaving out China, Tibet, Iran, the Middle East and Africa) seems an exercise in artificial scope.
Remember that 'Southeast Asia' itself is a vague distinction, particularly in the north. Half of Vietnam was Hindu until the 15th century, Burma never really existed (and to some extent still doesn't), similarly direct contact from the Pala Kingdom with Nanzhao is well evidenced by surviving images, documents and unmistakably Hindu carvings well within the borders of what is now modern China. Then there are each of the attested or probable seafaring dynasties (eg. Chera, Chola, Gupta, Nanda, Pallava, Pandya) and their various activities and records, in some cases many of which still exist, the establishment of kingdoms or fiefdoms of varying longevity (influentially Funan, but also in Burma, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia), comments on those from visitors (many in classical Chinese), and the sum of archaeological work.
Remember also, quite apart from the textual evidence, that mtDNA evidence now points to the peoples of significant parts of coastal China (eg. Shanghai region) having migrated north from Southeast Asia and not really being 'Chinese' at all, and irrefutable linguistic evidence shows Madagascar was settled by Austronesians who presumably sailed all the way from Southeast Asia. What all this means is that the period of recorded history does not intersect very much with much of the early period of cultural and linguistic exchange, therefore take everything you read with a grain of salt.
I'm well aware of what happened to the Pandits; Kashmiris have surrendered their right to self-determination by being party to that sad debacle. What I don't understand is how with the Sachar Commission report, with no Muslims in the Army officer Corps of any appreciable number, one Muslim in the higher intelligence apparatus, and 90% of governmental power in the hands of Hindus and those who wish Hindus well, you can have this sad-sack attitude of Hindu civilizational doom.
My family that stayed behind after Partition was thanked with spit, brickbats, and a reduction of their pension for the Indian Police Service to token levels and my family that went to Pakistan was made constitutionally second class citizens and had their voting rights taken away merely for being part of an unpopular community, so please forbear from lecturing me about the "evils" of "Muslims" and "sickulars", we have long personal experience in both.
Wasn't the entire point of Arya Samaj and Brahmo Samaj to counter the perceived fragmentation and disunity talking about? I have just as much of a hard time believing you as I do when I hear people in USA say Christianity is under threat from (the government/Sharia law/Muslims/the ZOG/Hollywood/[insert boogeyman of choice here, preferably approved by the John Birch Society])
Modernity had brought with it trash and pollution of an unprecedented degree, and poverty, culture, corruption, and overpopulation do nothing to improve the situation. Open sewers line city streets that wind directly through ancient relics because the city had been continuously occupied and built up and upon since that time.
I mention this mostly because of the cultural significance of India, and the danger it faces in losing those cultural artifacts if they are not given the respect and care they deserve. Much of the culture, while incredibly peaceful and inviting (witnessing festivals in the slums of Mumbai, paid for by people scraping together their pennies, caring more about their community than their personal situation was... I still don't have the right words for the emotional experience), knows nothing of preservation and conservation.
I don't know the answer to any of this is... It's just something I think about whenever I read about ancient India.