Why are the fruits of Colonial influence greatest in the South of India compared to its Northern areas - the funnel theory

          India is a country which is a mosaic of different ethnicities, languages, cultures and religions. Historically, it is located at a very strategic location of trade routes linking China with the West. Much of what is Pakistan, Bangladesh and Afghanistan now were once a part of India. This makes India a melting pot of cultures spanning across several millennia and this makes India that much more unique and special as a rich land. While the modern political scenario of India is one which seeks to vilify and portray India's colonial past in the worst possible way and its proponents seek to do everything in their power to spread this anti-colonial mindset among our country's masses especially in the North. Colonialism in India never began with modern European powers landing in India from the 1600's, rather it began much earlier going back to the dawn of time with the Aryan immigration from Central Asia - something which is currently being denied by Hindutuva proponents who believe in a fringe, revisionist historical theory called the IAT (Indigenous Aryan Theory) while the vast majority of the world's scholars of history, genetics, archaeology and linguistics hold the theory of Aryan Immigration to India, I will deal with the AIT/IAT topic in a future post.

 

    Later Alexander the Great's armies came to India and crossed the Jhelum (Hydaspes) river to fight with King Porus at the battle of Hydaspes and defeated the latter in 326 BC. Alexander spread Greek knowledge, culture and architecture to India much of which was assimilated in art and architecture as was the case with the Gandhara style of architecture followed in Afghanistan. Ashoka's grandmother was a Greek lady named Roxana - Seleucus Nicator's daughter who married Chandragupta Maurya whose son Bhindusara was Ashoka's father. Thus, no matter how some factions in India make colonialism look only bad instead of seeing both sides of the coin, much of what is being revised by these dishonest people to portray a whitewashed history before the masses and spread anti-colonial lies by misinforming our children in recent times through history text books spreading false revisionist historical ideas, is untrue.

       Colonialism is a part and parcel of not just Indian history but world history at large because even those European powers that came to India like England, France, Portugal etc, were themselves subject to Roman colonisation, preceded by Greek colonisation for instance much before they did it to India. It is therefore of importance that we embrace the status quo of who we are which is also an embodiment of not just 1 ethnicity or people but a genetic tapestry of people interwoven from every nook and cranny of the world. This is because refusing to do so is not just a fair shew of ignorance and dishonesty but also living in denial, intellectual depravity, backwardness and educational, economic, linguistic, cultural and ultimately personal misery. My focus in this blog post pertains to how South India came to be influenced more by colonial powers like the French and English way more than the North India and how this in turn has led to the modern development of these 2 regions along 2 very different lines - the South with its substantial intellectual capital and unparalleled development in education and economic growth and the Northern states like Bihar, Utterakhand, Jharkhand, Orissa and Uttar Pradesh (the so-called "Hindi-belt" states) with comparatively less education and development that stem from the regressive ways of thinking about deification of self-identity primarily along religious lines that extend to cultural and linguistic lines (Bengal amd East Indian states being exceptions). The theory that I would like to propound that points to the South's educational, intellectual, economic and personal development compared to the North is called the "Funnel theory".

a) Colonialism - difference between the North and the South from a historical standpoint:

    I dealt with the arrival of the Greeks higher up during the reign and expansion of Alexander's Macedonian kingdom that influenced art and architecture of Northern India as well as the royal genetic lineage of kingdoms of the North. The South has also been having interactions with European kingdoms since antiquity like the Cheras, Cholas, Pandyas and Pallavas before them and our trade relations with Rome, Egypt and so on. Rome in particular had extensive trade relations with South India which is why hoards of Roman coins spanning several millenia have been found across the South from Musiri in Kerala to ancient sea ports in Tamil Nadu like Arikaimedu (near Pondicherry), Poopuhar (near Nagapattinam), Korkai and Alagankulam as well as important ports in Andhra like Masulpatnam, Ghantasala, Kalingapatnam etc. The Tamil people have in particular enjoyed trade relations not just with the Romans over several centuries but also the Greeks before them, both of whom were commonly referred to in Tamil as "Yavanas".

       This is further corroborated by contemporary Roman historians like Pliny the Elder in his work "Historia Naturalis (Natural History)" that about 100 million Sestertii (about 3.8 billion USD) was spent by Rome on trade with India, Arabia and Eastern Asia alone on purchase of goods from muslin cloths to pearls and even peacocks which the Ancient Romans saw as a delicacy that only rich Romans from opulent, aristocratic families could afford!. However, there was a time when colonialism stopped in the North and that was when the Europeans could no longer come to India via the land route because of the Islamic caliphates that stopped European explorers from coming to India via land so European explorers had to opt for sea routes that later were used for setting up trading posts by European powers leading to further colonisation of the South. In short, the South has enjoyed continuous and uninterrupted interaction with European powers through trade since ancient times whereas European interactions with the North stopped with the emergence of Islam and the caliphates that came to India, conquered North territories at the edge of the sword leaving behind a trail of blood, trauma, slavery and death because of which Europeans chose to come to India via the sea like the Romans and Greeks of old.

b) Considerations on geographic barriers between North and South:

     Dravidians in the South have always enjoyed a peaceful life with very less invasions from both Northeners but also Islamic caliphates and other forces from the North. The Northern Gangetic plains and Southern peninsular India are separated by geographic barriers like the Vindhya and Satpura mountain ranges which meant very few chances of immigration forming a barrier of sorts making any movement to the South harder. This is yet another reason why Southern Dravidian peoples have distinct cultures, languages and customs compared to Northerners. This further explains why the Satem branch of the Indo-European languages are more concentrated to the North of India like Sanskrit and its descendants like Hindi, Gujarati, Bengali as opposed to Dravidian languages like Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada, Kodaga, Paduga, Tulu etc. Not so surprisingly, this also explains the present-day language politics with Northeners whose languages are all interrelated and closely related to Hindi seeking to impose Hindi on Southeners in total disregard of the fact that our languages are totally unrelated to Sanskrit and its descendants aside from some loan-words and some phonetic sounds borrowed later. Hence, learning Hindi is not going to benefit us Southeners in any way because our languages are different from Hindi making mutual intelligibility extremely hard since Hindi and Dravidian languages belong to 2 entirely different language families - Indo-European Satem (North) and Dravidian (South). 

c) Fewer ethnicities down South than up North:
     
       Peninsular India tapers to a Southern tip called Kanyakumari pretty much like an inverted triangle or a funnel surrounded by the sea on all sides while having the Vindhyas and Satpuras to the North making immigration to the South harder from a Northern direction. This is also why there are fewer ethnicities down South compared to up North where the Indo-Gangetic plains are open on all sides and lie along a historical trading route meaning people from the outside could come there more freely than down South. This implies that the South has historically enjoyed greater uniformity in culture, language, customs and in thinking patterns compared to the North with its larger area housing many more ethnicities historically that just moved in and settled down leading to greater diversity in culture, language and customs the farther North one travels in India. This is therefore an important point when we consider how and why there is more uniformity in thinking patterns among South Indians compared to North Indians as languages are vehicles of cultures and cultures embody thinking patterns, therefore the fewer the languages spoken in a geographic area historically, the more conformity in the thinking patterns among the people living in that area. This further explains how it is possible for colonialism to have greater influence on our thinking patterns as Southerners than among peoples up North, while Northeners might look down on our propensity to be influenced by colonialism more than on them, this has been our greatest strength as we will see further below. In my next point, I will attempt to fit this within a geographic framework to explain why European colonialism enjoyed greater success in the South of India than up North.

d) Success of colonialism is directly proportional to number of ethnicities in a region of limited area within geographic constraints or limitations:

     As discussed above, the nature of peninsular India is such that it tapers down to Kanyakumari in the South, as if it were an inverted triangle or a better example would be a funnel. In the modern colonial era, European powers set up colonies at the bottom half of the peninsula (or funnel) historically before proceeding further Northwards. The further Southwards one proceeds, the land area also becomes narrower down to the tip which when seen in the light of fewer ethnicities exponentially improves uniformity in thinking patterns owing to fewer languages and cultures because of fewer ethnicities in the South compared to the North. Therefore, we see that when land area decreases in the presence of geographic barriers between far flung regions of a country and the area in question has fewer ethnicities on account of its smaller land area and the abovementioned geographical constraints, we can clearly see why colonialism enjoyed greater success in the South of India than further up North. Hence, if we were to represent this mathematically, we can come up with the following formula -

                                                   Sc ∝ 1/n/a (or)  Sc = Gc x (a/n)
where,
                                               Sc = Success of colonialism
                                               Gc = Constant of geographic constraints
                                                n = number of ethnicities living in a given geographic location

                                                a = geographical area
     
      In stark contrast, the Northern Indo-Gangetic plains have been home to many more ethnicities due to the larger number of languages housing their cultures leading to greater diversity in thinking patterns which meant that the possibility for colonialism to enjoy the same amount of success that it enjoyed in the South of India further up North was limited. The British knew this and Hindustani (which later became Hindi) was standardised, institutionalised and promoted as a lingua franca among Northeners distinct from Urdu to unite all Northeners to facilitate not just mutual intelligibility between speakers of different Indo-European languages up North but this also meant more uniformity in thinking patterns among Northeners of various ethnicities further contributing to ease of colonial governance. Even so, the North proved to be a very difficult region to govern owing to numerous mutinies and revolts like the great one of 1858. 

e) Colonialism having greater influence on Southerners - a blessing in disguise:

      While the efforts of the British to unite Northerners backfired given the greater diversity of ethnicities and languages akin to the resistance higher up in a funnel facing a greater number of ethnicities and diversity of cultures constantly distrustful of each other and in conflict with each other at one point each separated by different languages, cultures and thinking patterns similar to swirling eddy currents offering less streamlined fluid flows higher up in a funnel where increased area allows chaotic flows to flourish. It later gave rise to a more dangerous kind of group-think in the North which did and has been doing more harm than good since its first proponents promoted it - that of Hindutuva which only promotes the idea 1 religion (Hinduism), 1 language (Hindi) and 1 culture (the intolerant version of Hindu culture which it confuses with the idea of being Indian) to the extent that it cannot tolerate diversity in religions, languages and cultures existing in India and the surprising thing is that Hindi united this group think as a common language which views colonialism as evil and sees people of every other faith illegitimate and lacking rights to remain in India except the extreme form of Hinduism it supports (as opposed to age-old, regular Hinduism as seen among most Southeners which is known for its universal tolerance), all while eschewing English as another colonial vestige that it seeks to wipe out by seeking to impose Hindi as a common language on all regions of India in total disregard of the linguistic diversity in India which can at best be held together by English serving a dual purpose of uniting various linguistic groups across India and aiding Indians in securing better jobs in multinational companies inside and outside India - something which Hindi can never hope to achieve even in its wildest dreams as a language. Even the reason why Hindi is being spoken by more Indians around the world than English is related to Northeners from Hindi-belt states having more children - a mark of lack of education and backwardness in thinking.
       
     However, should Northeners speak ill of Southeners for having been influenced by colonialism to a greater extent than them. Even in that scenario, Northeners are the losers because while they may pride themselves in their linguistic, cultural and religious identity. The outcome of this is that they have rejected foreign attempts to promote education among their regions through Christian institutions for fear of  allowing their children to be converted to Christianity which they again view in negative light,  even as these institutes themselves do not offer incentives for people of other faiths to convert to Christianity (sure, Jesus orders Christians to preach the Gospel but never to offer incentives or force people to convert, nor does Jesus tell Christians to use education as a means to convert) or seldom involve themselves with any kind of missionary activity but restrict their activities merely to offering quality education to all children across religious lines with good morals (further proving that such fears of conversions are baseless and unfounded) - something that children in the South across various religious backgrounds have been enjoying for ages leading to personal growth and development aside from better job prospects for them as they grow up in various industries compared to their poor, illiterate and backward Northern counterparts who are often consumed by the wrong-kind of group think and hatred against not just Christianity but Colonialism, the English language as well as any kind of global elitist form of education entailing learning foreign languages as opposed to their closed-minded populistic and backward mindset centered on 1 faith, 1 language and 1 culture that defines their regressive way of thinking as opposed to their Southern counterparts who ace them in the area of education, knowledge of English and foreign languages as well as job prospects. The proof of colonialism having been a blessing in disguise is seen in the GDP of Tamil Nadu and the Southern states as opposed to the Hindi-belt states of the North for the above reasons and has indeed proven to be a boon of unparalleled proportions and a blessing in disguise like no other.

f) My closing thoughts:

     Of late, so many lies are being spread by those who hold onto indocentric views (as if all scientific discoveries came from a sanskrit book written by Indian sages ages ago before Westerners discovered or invented anything and as if India is the only country in the world with sun, moon and stars revolving around India) of the world like the IAT theory spread by Hindutuva factions up in North India involved in politics which have found fertile ground not so surprisingly among Northeners far more than the intellectually-immune and well-educated elite of the South. Most Northeners are the who hold to such controversial views as ones that most scholars from a myriad of fields like genetics, linguistics, history and archeology and learned people in the world would laugh to scorn like the IAT theory. The panacea to these ills is for people everywhere to seek out the truth and not be pulled into the quagmire of historical revisionism especially if dishonest political ideologies seek to buy fringe scholarship with money or other goods in order to further their own agenda of holding sway over the thoughts of the masses in a land. Education and knowledge serve as bulwarks against the unending volleys of lies being hurled at the unsuspecting and the gullible with total impunity by the common enemies of truth, integrity and intellect. Thus, peninsular India has been more forward-thinking, progressive and at the forefront of educational, social, economic, scientific and technological development compared to many Northern Hindi Belt states because let us face it, South India is spearheading all of this development because our land is indeed shaped like a spearhead!