Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts from February, 2022

The Ballad of Raja Malhi Prakash and Sirmour's History - Some Scrambled Thoughts

I was just walking through some documents I had saved over the years, when it struck me that there has been very little new research work or relook into the history of the hill states. One particular format has been the examination of oral ballads, very few of which seem to be available in popular culture today. However, that was certainly not the case in the British era, when much field work seems to have been done by scholars of Europe on the subject, as they panned across the state of the Lahore kingdom and their adjunct territories. Sirmour was a Small Princely state along the Yamuna river's course While their purpose may have been malevolent in nature, many interesting insights got captured over the course of their work, and replication or improvement on the same seems to be rather scarce, especially in the context of what the European scholars used to call the "Punjab Hill States". One such case was on Sirmour, where very little information can be found in the publi...

Short Shrift Faced by Myanmar's Burmese Indians

Sri Kali Hindu Temple in Yangon .  It was built by Tamil migrants whilst Burma was part of British India. The actions against Indians in Myanmar remains a blind spot in our history and neglect towards Indians. Indians, who were derogatorily called 'kalas' were the biggest diaspora in Myanmar when it became independent. However, Indians had a significant role in the economy of the province. Money lending to mom and pop stores - every aspect was peppered with the presence of Indians. The xenophobic policies of the government remained ignored for decades. Burma was ruled from India by the British till the 1930s, and subsequently got independence around the same time as India.  The new government of Burma took a number of measures meant to strengthen economic interests of Burmese against the foreigners; however, in effect, these measures were targeted essentially at Indians and Chinese. The 1948 Land Alienation Act forbade sale of land to non-Burmese. The Burma Land...

Three Occasions When the Idea of a Vishal Himachal Came Calling

The idea of a hill state in today's India seems somewhat obvious. However it was not the case. Barring Jammu and Kashmir and the exceptions of territories given to Tripura, Manipur and Nagaland, the hilly regions especially of North India were certainly not seen from the view point of an independent political identity fit for statehood within the Indian state with favor. Courtesy Wikimedia Commons The circumstances surrounding the formation and recreation of Himachal Pradesh is in itself a case study of aspirations coalescing with vision and foresight of a few, and deserve a longer answer. When Himachal Pradesh was born in 1951 following the Constitution's adoption, it had the status of a type C state. Some other states with such a status included some princely states or special cases like Delhi. However, it bore little resemblance with the present day Himachal Pradesh. There was great territorial overlap between Punjab, Haryana and Himachal's territories of the present d...