Anirudh Kanisetti @AKanisetti@mastodon.social

#mastodon #india #history #war #AcaTooters #nerd
OKAY! So it's been a couple of days since I joined Mastodon, which means it's time for a history thread. Going by tootles' responses, I'm going to be starting with these fascinating artefacts: the hero stones of the medieval Deccan.

Hi there, #Mastodon #India! Thanks so much for connecting! Here's a #thread of useful resources I've found to help make the UX a little easier to understand and navigate:

1. This detailed collection of resources for Mastodon, including Web and mobile clients, servers, and news bots: https://github.com/tleb/awesome-mastodon

@Deepsealioness #introductions #Mastodon #India Hello! I'm Anirudh. I'm a geopolitics researcher and amateur historian. My focus area is the early medieval Deccan, c. 600-1100, and I try to make critical understandings of history accessible through podcasting and memes.

I'm new here and am looking to connect with more like-minded folks - can I get a boost, please? :)

I think the Supreme Court's bowing to majoritarian pressure on Ayodhya underscores more than ever the need to have broad, critical understandings of India's medieval history.

I'd like to contribute to the discourse with a bunch of photo essay-ish toots about the evolution of the myriad meanings of temples and idols - in particular, their meanings in warfare. What should I start with?

RT @anildash@twitter.activitypub.actor
Second time in two weeks I’ve talked to a dad whose teenage son is being radicalized by content recommended to him by YouTube. Regular folks have no idea this stuff is out there, being force fed to kids, and no tools to help reduce or prevent the harm.

RT @vimoh@twitter.activitypub.actor
I think that after Arnab lives a long and healthy life and eventually passes away due to old age, his only lasting legacy will be that he was the guy who single-handedly destroyed TV journalism in India - that he chose to be a propagandist instead of keeping the public informed.

(That's not to say that Sultans were always seen as good chaps, but that whether they were portrayed as good chaps or bad chaps, they were not seen as impossible to reconcile with Indian social and political systems.)

RT @xeimevta@twitter.activitypub.actor
I watched @netflix@twitter.com's 'Rise of Empires: Ottoman' and I decided to see how the visual culture of Byzantium was portrayed.

RT @gypsy_heart6@twitter.activitypub.actor
This is extremely interesting, & might lead to (needless) existential crisis among many South Asian Muslims (& perhaps Hindus). Persian “namāz” & Sanskrit “namaste” both essentially mean the same thing & that is because both are derived from the same > https://vajabaz.wordpress.com/2019/10/10/%D9%86%D9%85%D8%A7%D8%B2-namaz/

RT @Mar_Musa@twitter.activitypub.actor
hey
hey

just a couple cool dudes hanging out on a fragmentary page of a 17th century Armenian equivalent of a mecmū'a

I'll post later this week about the whole incredible manuscript this is from but for now I will leave it a mystery, so please enjoy these dapper çelebis

RT @jiveDurkey@twitter.activitypub.actor
a small child walking a dog in a stroller because we all need it right now

Hey @sidin@twitter.com who is the God of Cyberspace?

Cyber Ba. 🤪

RT @saladinahmed@twitter.activitypub.actor
hey just a reminder that if you don't have a retirement account or real savings or health insurance it's because working people and poor people are under assault by the ultra rich not because you're personally irresponsible

have a great day and take care of each other

I am delighted by this Sanskrit reference to the Sultan of Gujarat as Turuṣka-Narendra, the Turk-Lord-of-Men, and to Humayun as Mugilādhirājaḥ, Supreme-Lord-of-Mongols.

Also note the reference to dharma - shows how Sultanates were *not* seen as foreign or alien by Indians.

RT @wonderofscience@twitter.activitypub.actor
Order from chaos. Beads bouncing randomly through a series of pegs approximate a bell curve every time with the Galton Board.

RT @nikhiletc@twitter.activitypub.actor
Interesting etymology fact of the day:

The #Telugu word for son-in-law (అల్లుడు, alluḍu) comes from the verb అల్లు (allu, to weave/braid/plait), literally meaning "one who plaits, i.e., who is the means by which the family circle is enlarged"

Source: https://dsalsrv04.uchicago.edu/cgi-bin/app/brown_query.py?qs=%E0%B0%85%E0%B0%B2%E0%B1%8D%E0%B0%B2%E0%B1%81%E0%B0%A1%E0%B1%81&searchhws=yes

(This is from a cached copy of a PDF and I haven't had time to sit and correct the diacritics, so ignore the Sanskrit transliteration.)

Contrary to popular perceptions that medieval Indian states weren't interested in direct participation in overseas trade, here is an excerpt from the Yuktikalpataru, ascribed to the 11th-century polymath Bhoja, king of Malwa. Indian ships not only existed but were COLOURFUL AF.😂

RT @Shaheenbaghoff1@twitter.activitypub.actor
#SOSShaheenBagh UPDATE
Infiltrators have been caught and neutralised, and the situation is back to normal.However we are on alert for more such incidents today and in the coming days as we reach elections in Delhi. Please reach Shaheen Bagh and sites across Delhi in large numbers

RT @Shaheenbaghoff1@twitter.activitypub.actor
#SOSShaheenBagh
An official and urgent appeal from Shaheen Bagh: armed anti-social elements have entered the protest area. We fear that more right-wing groups could enter and launch an attack. We appeal to all to join the protest, strengthen our numbers and prevent any violence.

RT @TakshashilaInst@twitter.activitypub.actor
What do Persia, the Abbasids, and the Ottomans have in common? They're masters of geopolitics - and they're all in our latest podcast, analysing how modern West Asia is shaped by processes centuries old. @AKanisetti@twitter.com speaks to @theChinaDude@twitter.com and @adityar22@twitter.com.

https://open.spotify.com/episode/4owsvaotvlsXczPNamyhyv

RT @rahul_tverma@twitter.activitypub.actor
Who are the new #BJP voters & what motivates their choice?

Pradeep Chhibber & I in our @StudiesIndian@twitter.com paper use @LoknitiCSDS@twitter.com survey and find that a new kind of ethnopolitical majoritarianism now binds BJP. This is distinct from the old Hindu Nationalist plank.

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.. which undermine the stereotype of the early Sultans as mindless fanatics. There's also a tendency to compare Indian Sultanates to Persian/Arab monarchies from v different times instead of Indian contemporaries, preventing an appreciation of continuity w/ indigenous statecraft.

I've been reading a lot about the Delhi Sultanate over the last couple of weeks. This paragraph from FB Flood's analysis of early Sultanate architecture is especially striking. Popular narratives focus on uncritical readings of texts to the detriment of other evidence.. (1/2)