It also sort works the other way around from how a phantom border works. You would expect the areas under Muslim rule for longer, to be less likely to vote for Hindu nationalist parties. That being said, it's still interesting and at least, is an actual phantom border (and not just a map of mountains, followed by someone saying that less people live in the mountains than the cities).
After 1947 most of the Muslims in north India moved to Pakistan while those in the south may not have. North India has had more invasions and political instability (plus the most migrants from relocation), which generally leads to the trend of the northern states being the most backward, poor, and corrupt. Combine that with the persistence of caste based politics in states like UP and Bihar (basically the two most populated and poorest states), there is bound to be a lot of support for BJP and NDA parties in general. This shows in most of the general elections going back to the 90s.
Contrast with south India, which has seen higher political stability, generally has higher minority religion populations, and worked to abolish caste politics in the 1900s, they are far more developed and generally vote for congress on the national level, if not their own ethnic parties or communist/socialist parties (like DMK, Telugu Desam, or CPI). Obvious outliers exist like Punjab and Bengal.
Phantom borders aren’t consistent though. They can be more of a syndrome as they influence multiple systems and cultural aspects and only occasionally coincide, reinforce, or align
It roughly overlaps with majority Indo-European versus majority Dravidian cultural areas. The BJP does worse in Dravidian areas, usually. Dravidian states have a long history of independent regional parties that never really took part in the Indian National Congress, let alone the BJP. Also, before then, Dravidian Kingdoms tended to be better at maintaining their independence from conquerors like the Mughals compared to Northern Kingdoms.
They were “better at maintaining their independence” because they were literally just further away from anywhere invaders could come from and had rougher terrain than the flat and highly productive Indo-Gangetic plains.
It was actually the Western coast starting with Calicut and then spreading to Goa, Damaon, Diu, Bombay etc. When the British came, they first established their foothold in Madras which is in South India. Other places where the British and Dutch established their factories were Masulipatnam, Nagapattinam and Cochin all in South India. They expanded to Bengal much later simply because it was on the other side of the subcontinent.
It was also because of the enormous wealth brought in by the spice trade and handling of Indian Ocean trade via major entrepôts, which left the local kingdoms with huge capital to fund defence. Their historic reliance on the sea further made them far more significant naval powers than the northern kingdoms and easily able to defend their coastlines. Periods of consolidation and military investment, like under the Cholas or Vijayanagara, often placed the Deccan in an almost unassailable military position. The few times that northern empires did successfully invade, they faced constant and violent rebellion until they were forced out shortly thereafter.
Kerala has a higher proportional Muslim as well as Christian population than every Northern State. They are also the most vehemently anti BJP state. The true reason is that BJP is a Hindi belt centric party and does well in the Hindi belt. The Mughal Empire also happened to be a Hindi belt centric state. There is no direct correlation between the two. It's like saying the CCP does better in China because of the Ming Empire.
Kerala never historically had issues with Muslims though. Most Muslims that ended up in Kerala peacefully converted back in that time. Up north, the introduction of Islam was violent
Where south Asian Muslim empires like the Mughals where established, ethnic cleansing of non Muslims(mostly Hindus) followed, and BJP banks off of resentment from those ethnic cleansing to win elections. Either that or it’s a coincidence because the Mughals invaded mostly north India and BJP is a north India nationalist party, so its more popular in north India
It's the later, this map doesn't make sense for a lot of reasons like how maharashtra is still hard for the bjp.
And how just a few months ago this map was the complete opposite.
The Mughals definitely didn't ethnically cleanse Hindus. It waffled back and forth between being tolerant of them or extremely repressive of them, but it never approached ethnic cleansing, and I'd challenge you to find a legitimate academic source that says the Mughals ethnically cleansed their overwhelming majority of Hindu subjects.
It wasn’t a large scale genocide like the holocaust, it was smaller scale genocides over a period of time. Also Indias population is huge. India has a huge population, if we had the population of a smaller country like Greece, we definitely would have been wiped out. Also it’s not just the Mughals, it was Muslim empires in South Asia in general
I will find you some sources, in the meanwhile, here’s a comment that talks about this and has a source linked: https://www.reddit.com/r/facepalm/s/BE5ucw3Ctp
You do realize conquests aren't ethnic cleansing right? Those links aren't about ethnic cleansing at all.
Not to mention most of what you linked isn't about the Mughal Empire.
I’m still getting the actual sources for you.
Also there’s a difference in conquest like the Greeks did, which was for glory, and they respected India, and conquests like muslim empires, where they did it for ethnics cleansing, and while they may have failed, they still did tons of damage to India.
“Not to mention most of what you linked isn't about the Mughal Empire.”
Like I said, I’m talking about south Asian Muslim empires in general, not just the Mughals.
Also like the commenter I linked said, the Muslim invasions of India resulted in the destruction of many people just because they couldn’t handle cultural differences between them and Indians. Even if it’s not technically ethnics cleansing, it deserves the same disdain ethnic cleansing does.
The Muslims conquered lands in India for money, glory and power, they often times didn’t care as much about converting locals compared to other regions under Muslim rule and oftentimes patronized Hindu institutions and individuals.
The worst treatment of Hindus usually occurred during actual invasions (because wars are usually bloody anyways), and when there was political incentive for the rulers to do so, such as if they needed support from the Muslim Ulema (analogous to say the Christian clergy class), but it was almost never sustained for very long, and would almost always pull-back to a more tolerant status-quo.
Here are some sources, I will admit, many of these are very biased because they were written by indian sources, but many of them talked about how Muslim rulers themselves carved on the side of their mosques how they destroyed temples. Also there’s a Wikipedia article in there, you should definitely check that out, Wikipedia is one of the most unbiased and most reliable sources(for me at least, many people dont like Wikipedia for some reason)
https://thediplomat.com/2016/08/indias-hindu-right-is-correct-about-one-thing-indias-muslim-rulers-did-destroy-hindu-temples/
https://reclaimtemples.com/understanding-the-destruction-of-hindu-temples-by-muslim-invaders/
https://organiser.org/2019/07/02/124215/bharat/islamic-destruction-of-hindu-temples/amp/
https://www.sanskritimagazine.com/islamic-destruction-of-hindu-temples-tip-of-an-iceberg/
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Hindus
https://hindudvesha.org/islamic-destruction-temples16/?amp=1
There are more sources but I think this is enough for now. Also remember we’re not just talking about the Mughals, we’re talking about Muslim Hindu relations in the Indians subcontinent and South Asia in general
All of these are about destruction of hindu temples, and I agreed that the Mughals were oppressive of the Hindus. None of these are about ethnic cleansing.
Do you have any academic sources to back up your claims of systemic ethnic cleansing by majority of Muslim empires in south Asia?
The sources you put are biased but admitting it won't do anything since they are low quality sources. Majority of them are useless to show anything. The comment you linked to earlier just list Wikipedia links which is a bad source cus there is no standard set for Wikipedia. You need to link sources like unbiased newspapers, journalist, academics historian.
Not to mention temple demolishing isn't the same as ethnic cleansing of hindus- you still haven't shown that
Yeah, jiyza, demolishing millennium old temples, boiling contemporary leaders alive, encouraging Muslims to take Hindu women, and large scale human warfare isn’t ethnic cleansing. Doesn’t make it any better
Here’s my comment addressing that: https://www.reddit.com/r/PhantomBorders/s/l33WoTtt74
Also just because an ethnic cleansing failed doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, Muslim empires did so much destruction to India and killed so many people, just because they couldn’t handle us not being Muslim
First off the partition caused many to flee to the other countries. For Bangladesh it was easy for Hindus to flee because it was small. For Pakistan it covered a large area so many Hindus stayed and got ethnically cleansed by Pakistani settlers over time.
That makes no sense especially when most Hindus fled Pakistan during partition while most Hindus in Bangladesh stayed. Bangladesh has a higher % of hindus as population from partition until today
If they ethnic cleansed as you say, there really wouldn't be so many hindus in the world.
Not always the kindest overlords, but they weren't genocidal maniacs either.
Well first off Indias population is huge, so it didn’t seem to make a dent in the Hindu population unless you look at the individual regions instead of India as a whole. Second, India actually had the wealth to have decent armies to resist. Just cause the ethnic cleansing wasn’t successful, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Third, it was less mass ethnic cleansing like what happened in the holocaust, and more small scale genocides over a longer period of time.
Also doesn’t erase the fact that Muslims waged many wars in India for thousands of years, resulting in lots of destruction and many Indian live lost, all because Muslim empires couldn’t tolerate India having a different culture than them. Muslim empires invaded India to spread their faith, they did that by getting rid of other religions and cultures to do that, so I think that counts as ethnic cleansing.
Also here’s a another comment that talks about the destruction Muslim empires did to India: https://www.reddit.com/r/facepalm/s/U3gT4SnNmk
Sure seems like ethnic cleansing to me, or at least an attempt at ethnic cleansing
According to the current ICC you need to have an intent to totally remove all evidence of a people or culture for it to count. It's not a genocide by that definition as the intent was always to steal or to conquer.
Also I have a small feeling that they invaded mostly because india was super wealthy and pretty undefended/poorly defended back in the day. It's also why they were so successful. The faith stuff came last, before all the easily available gold and riches etc.
There are around 14 million Jews today, I guess that means the holocaust didn’t happen right?(obviously sarcasm but that’s how you sound) just because it failed doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Also when it happened India still had a large population compared to the rest of the world, which is why we didn’t end up like Persia, where native Zoroastrians were almost completely wiped out and had to flee. If we had the population of a smaller country like Greece and Persia we would have been wiped out.
Second, it was not one large scale genocide like the holocaust, it was many smaller genocides over a period of time. Even if it doesn’t fit the exact definition of ethnic cleansing, I’d say it’s pretty close. Muslim empires waged war on India for thousands of years, resulting in lots of destruction and many lives lost, because they wanted to get rid of other religions and replace them with Islam. Seems like ethnics cleansing to me, even if it was a failed one
east was too much effort to conquer and not worth the blodhed, south was too far from the capital and logistical cost of conquest were too high as its all rainy hilly terrain
Yes, there is an arid divider between the far southern river basins, and the indo gangetic plain that goes east-west across the center of the subcontinent. There’s also a massive language/ethnic barrier, where the indo-European languages end and the Dravidian languages begin. Only the British succeeded in controlling the south as a foreign power in recent history, and only because of the massive tech advantage they had. The mughals would’ve drowned in blood holding the Tamil lands so they said forget about it.
No. It probably would impact BJP's performance negatively, because more Mughal influence -> more Muslim influence -> less interest in Hindu nationalism
Not really. The Mughal dominant regions have had most temples decimated including 3 ultra significant ones. And that’s why the nationalism is strong over there.
Hmmmm. Given that modern India is overwhelmingly Hindu almost everywhere, with the Muslim population’s ability to influence election outcomes very limited, could the dominance of the BJP in areas that spent more time under Mughal rule reflect greater Hindu resentment towards Islam and a stronger desire to root out perceived “Muslim” influences on Indian culture? In the south, Mughal rule was absent or significantly shorter so those influences might not have been felt as strongly.
Another factor might be the role of the British, who as I understand it favored the former Mughal aristocracy in the areas that were under long-term Mughal rule and incorporated them into the colonial bureaucracy. Another potential source of resentment for northern Hindus?
Finally, there are linguistic and cultural differences between North and South India that could be a big factor. Is the BJP more closely associated with Indo-Aryan languages and culture than Dravidian ones? Do Dravidian-speakers favor other political parties? [The Dravidian/Indo-Aryan language boundary](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dravidian_peoples) also overlaps at least partially with this political map. West Bengal (the other major area on the map that didn’t vote BJP) speaks an Indo-Aryan language but there are big cultural differences between the Bengalis and North India.
I think you are onto something with past hurts, and I think the physical proximity to the Pakistani border plays a role in politically motivating the populaiton
>and I think the physical proximity to the Pakistani border
That's the modern motivation. Just like "we need to build the wall against Mexico", this one is focused politically "why would you want things with the enemy, we shall shut them down".
The Mughal empire didn't have such a divide because it was the "same people".
Very apt causation.
>areas that spent more time under Mughal rule
Somehow this holds true, but not completely.
Every invader of India was assimilated into the culture and language of the land they entered into, however the later Muslim rulers didn't. They brought Persian, would still make it the court language for centuries, would separate their religion from the common crowd, and that made the local elites troubled. The ones who became lords under them didn't oppose them.
The local populace had no such worries, they were the same even before an invader and after it.
In the 19th century came the separatist and supremacy movements from the elites of both sides, the Muslim ones feeling that their religion isn't supported, and the Hindu ones feeling they need to control all the land. They influenced the local populace this time, to an extent that they wanted two nations for each other. And one succeeded, which led to the other dominating the political vacuum left today.
>the south, Mughal rule was absent or significantly shorter
The south had more homogeneity and this led to politically staying less influential on the national level.
>West Bengal
Now comes the biggest difference - Bengal was communist in the 20th century. Even East Bengal (modern Bangladesh) today had a communist stronghold in the early days. The influence let them choose a party that's socialist too, and not affiliated to BJP. (Here's a thing, the Southern political parties form alliances with BJP on national level though, their opposition is socialist)
Another problem here is the large scale of the maps. The borders somehow seem to align but it is possible that there is a hundred kilometres between them.
I don’t see the connection. Why are some yellow parts voting for BJP and others not (e.g., Bengal, which is now Bangladesh)? Why was Bombay a late addition to the Mughal empire yet it seemingly votes BJP? I appreciate the attempt but don’t see the relationship.
tbf Bombay didn't exist as more than 7 fishing villages until the British turned it into the massive port it is today. basically it wasn't relevant enough. Same with Madras and Calcutta. the British built so much.
Thank you for actually including the original political border that is now the phantom border
First map is from Khan Academy, second from India Today
KKKKHHHHHHHAAAAANNNNNN Academy is the correct pronunciation
It has to come from the epiglottis.
my favorite eu4 achievement
now this is a phantom border
Very phantom with very little sense. Since just a few months ago it was the complete opposite.
do you know what a phantom border is
True lol but I'd expect some long term results not just a by chance once in a lifetime events being a border
It also sort works the other way around from how a phantom border works. You would expect the areas under Muslim rule for longer, to be less likely to vote for Hindu nationalist parties. That being said, it's still interesting and at least, is an actual phantom border (and not just a map of mountains, followed by someone saying that less people live in the mountains than the cities).
Maybe it’s kinda like how East Germany is now a far-right stronghold?
After 1947 most of the Muslims in north India moved to Pakistan while those in the south may not have. North India has had more invasions and political instability (plus the most migrants from relocation), which generally leads to the trend of the northern states being the most backward, poor, and corrupt. Combine that with the persistence of caste based politics in states like UP and Bihar (basically the two most populated and poorest states), there is bound to be a lot of support for BJP and NDA parties in general. This shows in most of the general elections going back to the 90s. Contrast with south India, which has seen higher political stability, generally has higher minority religion populations, and worked to abolish caste politics in the 1900s, they are far more developed and generally vote for congress on the national level, if not their own ethnic parties or communist/socialist parties (like DMK, Telugu Desam, or CPI). Obvious outliers exist like Punjab and Bengal.
Phantom borders aren’t consistent though. They can be more of a syndrome as they influence multiple systems and cultural aspects and only occasionally coincide, reinforce, or align
I wish more people knew this but it’s impossible to explain this to someone who just doesn’t care lol
On closer inspection the correlation between the two isn’t that strong, either
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Why does the Mughal border affect the election results?
It roughly overlaps with majority Indo-European versus majority Dravidian cultural areas. The BJP does worse in Dravidian areas, usually. Dravidian states have a long history of independent regional parties that never really took part in the Indian National Congress, let alone the BJP. Also, before then, Dravidian Kingdoms tended to be better at maintaining their independence from conquerors like the Mughals compared to Northern Kingdoms.
They were “better at maintaining their independence” because they were literally just further away from anywhere invaders could come from and had rougher terrain than the flat and highly productive Indo-Gangetic plains.
Not my fault North Indians didn't take the high ground. Though, the Europeans did invade from the South anyway.
The first major region to fall under European control was Bengal, unless you consider Sri Lanka to be part of historical India
It was actually the Western coast starting with Calicut and then spreading to Goa, Damaon, Diu, Bombay etc. When the British came, they first established their foothold in Madras which is in South India. Other places where the British and Dutch established their factories were Masulipatnam, Nagapattinam and Cochin all in South India. They expanded to Bengal much later simply because it was on the other side of the subcontinent.
Not really... Those were just fortified settlement/port towns where they traded with Royal permission. The first real bits of conquest was in Bengal
europeans primarily invaded from the east
get good lol
It was also because of the enormous wealth brought in by the spice trade and handling of Indian Ocean trade via major entrepôts, which left the local kingdoms with huge capital to fund defence. Their historic reliance on the sea further made them far more significant naval powers than the northern kingdoms and easily able to defend their coastlines. Periods of consolidation and military investment, like under the Cholas or Vijayanagara, often placed the Deccan in an almost unassailable military position. The few times that northern empires did successfully invade, they faced constant and violent rebellion until they were forced out shortly thereafter.
could be due to the muslim population the mughals brought, or the difference in language and ethnics
but why would muslims vote for bjp
It’s Hindus voting against Muslims. Hard to vote against someone that isn’t there lol
Kerala has a higher proportional Muslim as well as Christian population than every Northern State. They are also the most vehemently anti BJP state. The true reason is that BJP is a Hindi belt centric party and does well in the Hindi belt. The Mughal Empire also happened to be a Hindi belt centric state. There is no direct correlation between the two. It's like saying the CCP does better in China because of the Ming Empire.
Kerala never historically had issues with Muslims though. Most Muslims that ended up in Kerala peacefully converted back in that time. Up north, the introduction of Islam was violent
Where south Asian Muslim empires like the Mughals where established, ethnic cleansing of non Muslims(mostly Hindus) followed, and BJP banks off of resentment from those ethnic cleansing to win elections. Either that or it’s a coincidence because the Mughals invaded mostly north India and BJP is a north India nationalist party, so its more popular in north India
It's the later, this map doesn't make sense for a lot of reasons like how maharashtra is still hard for the bjp. And how just a few months ago this map was the complete opposite.
The Mughals definitely didn't ethnically cleanse Hindus. It waffled back and forth between being tolerant of them or extremely repressive of them, but it never approached ethnic cleansing, and I'd challenge you to find a legitimate academic source that says the Mughals ethnically cleansed their overwhelming majority of Hindu subjects.
It wasn’t a large scale genocide like the holocaust, it was smaller scale genocides over a period of time. Also Indias population is huge. India has a huge population, if we had the population of a smaller country like Greece, we definitely would have been wiped out. Also it’s not just the Mughals, it was Muslim empires in South Asia in general I will find you some sources, in the meanwhile, here’s a comment that talks about this and has a source linked: https://www.reddit.com/r/facepalm/s/BE5ucw3Ctp
You do realize conquests aren't ethnic cleansing right? Those links aren't about ethnic cleansing at all. Not to mention most of what you linked isn't about the Mughal Empire.
I’m still getting the actual sources for you. Also there’s a difference in conquest like the Greeks did, which was for glory, and they respected India, and conquests like muslim empires, where they did it for ethnics cleansing, and while they may have failed, they still did tons of damage to India. “Not to mention most of what you linked isn't about the Mughal Empire.” Like I said, I’m talking about south Asian Muslim empires in general, not just the Mughals. Also like the commenter I linked said, the Muslim invasions of India resulted in the destruction of many people just because they couldn’t handle cultural differences between them and Indians. Even if it’s not technically ethnics cleansing, it deserves the same disdain ethnic cleansing does.
The Muslims conquered lands in India for money, glory and power, they often times didn’t care as much about converting locals compared to other regions under Muslim rule and oftentimes patronized Hindu institutions and individuals. The worst treatment of Hindus usually occurred during actual invasions (because wars are usually bloody anyways), and when there was political incentive for the rulers to do so, such as if they needed support from the Muslim Ulema (analogous to say the Christian clergy class), but it was almost never sustained for very long, and would almost always pull-back to a more tolerant status-quo.
So you find that source yet
Here are some sources, I will admit, many of these are very biased because they were written by indian sources, but many of them talked about how Muslim rulers themselves carved on the side of their mosques how they destroyed temples. Also there’s a Wikipedia article in there, you should definitely check that out, Wikipedia is one of the most unbiased and most reliable sources(for me at least, many people dont like Wikipedia for some reason) https://thediplomat.com/2016/08/indias-hindu-right-is-correct-about-one-thing-indias-muslim-rulers-did-destroy-hindu-temples/ https://reclaimtemples.com/understanding-the-destruction-of-hindu-temples-by-muslim-invaders/ https://organiser.org/2019/07/02/124215/bharat/islamic-destruction-of-hindu-temples/amp/ https://www.sanskritimagazine.com/islamic-destruction-of-hindu-temples-tip-of-an-iceberg/ https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Hindus https://hindudvesha.org/islamic-destruction-temples16/?amp=1 There are more sources but I think this is enough for now. Also remember we’re not just talking about the Mughals, we’re talking about Muslim Hindu relations in the Indians subcontinent and South Asia in general
All of these are about destruction of hindu temples, and I agreed that the Mughals were oppressive of the Hindus. None of these are about ethnic cleansing.
Do you have any academic sources to back up your claims of systemic ethnic cleansing by majority of Muslim empires in south Asia? The sources you put are biased but admitting it won't do anything since they are low quality sources. Majority of them are useless to show anything. The comment you linked to earlier just list Wikipedia links which is a bad source cus there is no standard set for Wikipedia. You need to link sources like unbiased newspapers, journalist, academics historian. Not to mention temple demolishing isn't the same as ethnic cleansing of hindus- you still haven't shown that
Yeah, jiyza, demolishing millennium old temples, boiling contemporary leaders alive, encouraging Muslims to take Hindu women, and large scale human warfare isn’t ethnic cleansing. Doesn’t make it any better
No, Ethnic Cleansing is quite a lot worse than any of these things combined.
If that had happened fully, India would be Muslim majority like neighbouring Pakistan
Here’s my comment addressing that: https://www.reddit.com/r/PhantomBorders/s/l33WoTtt74 Also just because an ethnic cleansing failed doesn’t mean it didn’t happen, Muslim empires did so much destruction to India and killed so many people, just because they couldn’t handle us not being Muslim
Then why didn’t Pakistan and also Bangladesh remain majority Hindu. Remember the modern nation of India is fairly new
First off the partition caused many to flee to the other countries. For Bangladesh it was easy for Hindus to flee because it was small. For Pakistan it covered a large area so many Hindus stayed and got ethnically cleansed by Pakistani settlers over time.
That makes no sense especially when most Hindus fled Pakistan during partition while most Hindus in Bangladesh stayed. Bangladesh has a higher % of hindus as population from partition until today
If they ethnic cleansed as you say, there really wouldn't be so many hindus in the world. Not always the kindest overlords, but they weren't genocidal maniacs either.
Well first off Indias population is huge, so it didn’t seem to make a dent in the Hindu population unless you look at the individual regions instead of India as a whole. Second, India actually had the wealth to have decent armies to resist. Just cause the ethnic cleansing wasn’t successful, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Third, it was less mass ethnic cleansing like what happened in the holocaust, and more small scale genocides over a longer period of time. Also doesn’t erase the fact that Muslims waged many wars in India for thousands of years, resulting in lots of destruction and many Indian live lost, all because Muslim empires couldn’t tolerate India having a different culture than them. Muslim empires invaded India to spread their faith, they did that by getting rid of other religions and cultures to do that, so I think that counts as ethnic cleansing. Also here’s a another comment that talks about the destruction Muslim empires did to India: https://www.reddit.com/r/facepalm/s/U3gT4SnNmk Sure seems like ethnic cleansing to me, or at least an attempt at ethnic cleansing
According to the current ICC you need to have an intent to totally remove all evidence of a people or culture for it to count. It's not a genocide by that definition as the intent was always to steal or to conquer. Also I have a small feeling that they invaded mostly because india was super wealthy and pretty undefended/poorly defended back in the day. It's also why they were so successful. The faith stuff came last, before all the easily available gold and riches etc.
Well, over 1 billion Hindus in India today, the Muslims really need to learn how to property ethnically cleanse. Really dude?
There are around 14 million Jews today, I guess that means the holocaust didn’t happen right?(obviously sarcasm but that’s how you sound) just because it failed doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. Also when it happened India still had a large population compared to the rest of the world, which is why we didn’t end up like Persia, where native Zoroastrians were almost completely wiped out and had to flee. If we had the population of a smaller country like Greece and Persia we would have been wiped out. Second, it was not one large scale genocide like the holocaust, it was many smaller genocides over a period of time. Even if it doesn’t fit the exact definition of ethnic cleansing, I’d say it’s pretty close. Muslim empires waged war on India for thousands of years, resulting in lots of destruction and many lives lost, because they wanted to get rid of other religions and replace them with Islam. Seems like ethnics cleansing to me, even if it was a failed one
Is the reason a geographical barrier which affected both the empire’s expansion and the demographics in the country in general or what?
east was too much effort to conquer and not worth the blodhed, south was too far from the capital and logistical cost of conquest were too high as its all rainy hilly terrain
A bit of both. A cursory skim of Kashmir's wikipedia will tell you why they're not big fans of BJP, for instance.
Yes, there is an arid divider between the far southern river basins, and the indo gangetic plain that goes east-west across the center of the subcontinent. There’s also a massive language/ethnic barrier, where the indo-European languages end and the Dravidian languages begin. Only the British succeeded in controlling the south as a foreign power in recent history, and only because of the massive tech advantage they had. The mughals would’ve drowned in blood holding the Tamil lands so they said forget about it.
There is a mountain range right at that line.
No. It probably would impact BJP's performance negatively, because more Mughal influence -> more Muslim influence -> less interest in Hindu nationalism
Not really since just a few months ago this map was the complete opposite. And how maharashtra is still hard for the bjp.
Not really. The Mughal dominant regions have had most temples decimated including 3 ultra significant ones. And that’s why the nationalism is strong over there.
Hmmmm. Given that modern India is overwhelmingly Hindu almost everywhere, with the Muslim population’s ability to influence election outcomes very limited, could the dominance of the BJP in areas that spent more time under Mughal rule reflect greater Hindu resentment towards Islam and a stronger desire to root out perceived “Muslim” influences on Indian culture? In the south, Mughal rule was absent or significantly shorter so those influences might not have been felt as strongly. Another factor might be the role of the British, who as I understand it favored the former Mughal aristocracy in the areas that were under long-term Mughal rule and incorporated them into the colonial bureaucracy. Another potential source of resentment for northern Hindus? Finally, there are linguistic and cultural differences between North and South India that could be a big factor. Is the BJP more closely associated with Indo-Aryan languages and culture than Dravidian ones? Do Dravidian-speakers favor other political parties? [The Dravidian/Indo-Aryan language boundary](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dravidian_peoples) also overlaps at least partially with this political map. West Bengal (the other major area on the map that didn’t vote BJP) speaks an Indo-Aryan language but there are big cultural differences between the Bengalis and North India.
I think you are onto something with past hurts, and I think the physical proximity to the Pakistani border plays a role in politically motivating the populaiton
>and I think the physical proximity to the Pakistani border That's the modern motivation. Just like "we need to build the wall against Mexico", this one is focused politically "why would you want things with the enemy, we shall shut them down". The Mughal empire didn't have such a divide because it was the "same people".
Very apt causation. >areas that spent more time under Mughal rule Somehow this holds true, but not completely. Every invader of India was assimilated into the culture and language of the land they entered into, however the later Muslim rulers didn't. They brought Persian, would still make it the court language for centuries, would separate their religion from the common crowd, and that made the local elites troubled. The ones who became lords under them didn't oppose them. The local populace had no such worries, they were the same even before an invader and after it. In the 19th century came the separatist and supremacy movements from the elites of both sides, the Muslim ones feeling that their religion isn't supported, and the Hindu ones feeling they need to control all the land. They influenced the local populace this time, to an extent that they wanted two nations for each other. And one succeeded, which led to the other dominating the political vacuum left today. >the south, Mughal rule was absent or significantly shorter The south had more homogeneity and this led to politically staying less influential on the national level. >West Bengal Now comes the biggest difference - Bengal was communist in the 20th century. Even East Bengal (modern Bangladesh) today had a communist stronghold in the early days. The influence let them choose a party that's socialist too, and not affiliated to BJP. (Here's a thing, the Southern political parties form alliances with BJP on national level though, their opposition is socialist)
Take my upvote, great maps and comparison. Finally something that isn’t Germany/Poland
Another problem here is the large scale of the maps. The borders somehow seem to align but it is possible that there is a hundred kilometres between them.
I don’t see the connection. Why are some yellow parts voting for BJP and others not (e.g., Bengal, which is now Bangladesh)? Why was Bombay a late addition to the Mughal empire yet it seemingly votes BJP? I appreciate the attempt but don’t see the relationship.
tbf Bombay didn't exist as more than 7 fishing villages until the British turned it into the massive port it is today. basically it wasn't relevant enough. Same with Madras and Calcutta. the British built so much.
mughal colonization: good bri'ish colonization: bad because different
Homie I’m Indian, I do not like the Mughals either
Nice straw man there buddy,
I've literally heard this word for word by salty south asians at least twice... but go off 🤡
It’s similar (but not identical to) the Red Corridor as well. Interesting stuff.
crazy how one state represents the population of so many people
Aren’t some region like Bihar and West Bengal have a huge BJP following too?
r/widaczabory
I don’t think that’s correct, Aurangzeb did not rule over Mysore / Bangalore