Basically a civilization scale heat-pump, similar to a central state, but over several countries. Which makes rebellion against the empire - a not so noble act, once things actually get scarce- decomplexification prevents the opening up of empire subsidized discovery of new energy sources. At the same time, empires can be unproductive, basically rentseeking and abandoning the purpose the heatpump originally was build for.
Of course to the post colonialists, the existence of any heat pump is pure evil. And for the individual it is. But then again this ignores that the situation is evil. If the selfish drive to have all the offspring, maxes out the ressources, dissolves all the institutions and decomplexifies all things, a empire structure is needed to build a weather-satellite rocket from the food of to many peasants. Its horrifying, and was not necessary in recent memory due to the surplus productivity of capitalism. But if you decomplexify the beast that allows you to only have good situations - you restore the need to create the beast that handles only
PS: If india rises similar to china- the dependence on trade rises- otherwise - they would have outposts similar to the chinese in africa all of a sudden. The situations and dilemas depicted are universal, thus any country given the societal equipment (culture) can bump into them.
> Her book, Portraits of the Princes and People of India, was published in 1844. It contained 24 lithographs that were drawn from her sketches of important Indian subjects such as Dost Mahomed Khan and Ranjit Singh.
https://www.rct.uk/collection/1070252/portraits-of-the-princ...
Something about this era - I have an interest in Frederick Catherwood and his work at basically the same time in mesoamerica (although he focused more on ruins than modern people), https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frederick_Catherwood
I’m going to guess you’ve only visited India's cities?
Some Muslim dynasties began through conquest, as many dynasties throughout Indian history did. But over centuries, Muslims integrated, intermarried, adopted local languages and customs, and became part of Indian society. Muslim-ruled states relied heavily on Hindu generals, officials, and allies, and their wars were largely fought over territory and power, not as some continuous occupation or religious war against Hindus.
Indian Islam is not a foreign invasion that destroyed. Indian Muslims are indigenous to India, and their ancestors converted for many reasons, including Sufi influence, social mobility, and escape from caste discrimination.
India still has some negative momentum from nearly 300 years of European colonialism. 700 years of Islamic occupation that destroyed native universities like Nalanada didn’t help.
Criticizing specific rulers is fine. But Indian Muslims are indigenous to India, and their ancestors converted for many reasons, including Sufi influence, social mobility, and escape from caste discrimination.
Of note, Mughal India accounted for roughly 20–25% of global output. It was British colonial rule that exploited and stole insane amounts of wealth and led to India’s economic decline. Comparing centuries of complex Indo-Hindu-Muslim history with British colonial occupation and extraction makes no sense. And calling Indian Islam a foreign invasion is misplaced bigotry.
Honestly its quite amazing that the subcontinent has remained as stable as it is today; it could very easily have descended into the carnage we see today in Myanmar.
I see similar comments about my home town of San Francisco and I don't act all in denial like you do. I know why it's happening, I'm aware that it's a reality. People have solutions. Some have ideas.
But you're in denial.
You'll never improve if you can't admit there's a problem.
The biggest issue we have is the mindset of the common (wo)man, regardless of why it is the way it is.
I imagine any society where the existing stable system is violently destroyed will have issues with people not having their original culture and way of life, but also they probably had to just survive, and didn’t have time for environmental concerns.
Painting a period that saw the largest number of hindu temples being built, the largest ever expansion in wealth of the country as some kind of despotic enslavement is historical revisionism. Yes certain islamic rulers were more orthodox than others and attempted to suppress other religions; such is the nature of the Monarchic rule. But in the net, the early modern period in India was undoubtedly a golden age for the region.
The same hampi was plundered and burnt down a century later by islamic foreign invaders.
The marathas defeated mughal empire, but you dont see delhi, fatehpur sikri etc in ruins.
Hindu conquests were like regime or government change for ordinary people. At best some changes in taxation. Islamic conquest meant their cities burnt down, institutions destroyed and life destroyed.
These are not my hallucinations, the turkic invaders proudly wrote about this themselves.
Indians and Hindus were obviously subordinated under Islamic rulers who arrived from elsewhere. A simple five second search would show you they imposed different taxes if you were not a Muslim. What are you even arguing about here?
Interesting how Genghis Khan got away with it, to most he's now just a "badass" historical figure, I don't think most people could tell of all the terrible things he was responsible for.