Comments by "M Shastri" (@libshastra) on "The Emissary" channel.

I'd be cautious to interpret 2024 results just thru the lens of caste and diversity. BJP themselves made tactical error in campaigning particularly in candidates selection and GOTV.
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You lack the lived experience of an Indian and it shows. Compared to the past, Indian identity has actually amalgamated towards smaller set of sub identities than you think. For eg: Back in the 80s and 90s, folks used to call Pilayar (Ganesh) - Anna logo ka ishwar (Tamil people's God). Holi used to be an exclusively Uttar Pradesh festival. Today linguistic proficiency is an accepted as a form of integration into State's identity - that wasn't the case as far as 2000s. 2024 verdict can cloud you're judgement but it is a much needed reality check. Don't confuse the political for the social.
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Noice! Glad to see you come to Youtube. The audience is wider and you will get a LOT of inputs.
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5:00 This point is debatable again. Nehru actually inherited a strongly centralized state. By the end of his 3rd term, Nehru was presiding over a decentralizing India. States Reorganization movement was at it's peak. You are right, that a LOT of India was defined in Nehru's term. But Nehru was a pawn rather than the live player. The Unity in diversity we see today, would not exist if Nehru had his way. He wanted to wipe India's language and replace them with Hindi or English. Individual states rebelled, in Maharashtra you had the Samyukti movement, in united Andhra you had the Vishalandhra movement, in Gujarat it was deshashmita etc. Same things can be said about IIT and ISRO. Nehru was not involved in the creation of either, he only took credit. If you visit BARC, you will realize how uninvolved Nehru was in the entire program. Nehru almost tried to shut down India's nuclear program, if it wasn't for JRD's intervention the program would have been scrapped. India's tone was defined in Nehru's term but it wasn't Nehru's achievement. It would be wise to move away from Nehruvian myth making and recognize the contributions of others.
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I think you're being excessively harsh on the Armed forces. They are actually pretty exceptional and perform above their weight despite a very very terrible bureaucracy. The Non Combat side of the Armed forces .... they pull things down along with the attached IAS officer.
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12:00 There needs to be better retelling of Reservations. The reason why Ambedkar won the debate on reservations is because he won the debate before it even began. Ambedkar wasn't the first to propose it, neither was GoI the first entity to implement reservations. The first reservations were implemented in Kolhapur state under Shahu Maharaj. In fact Ambedkar was groomed by Shahu Maharaj. The Hindu Mahasabha, chasing after Hindu unity, proposed reservations to enlist Dalit help in the freedom movement. Moonje (Hindu Mahasabha) and Rajah (Dalit) signed the Rajah-Moonje pact which became the precursor to Poona Pact, signed months later. Reservations became a settled matter in 1932. Patel's objection (if he had any) was already moot in 1947. I think you are confusing the expansion of OBCs by Mandal with reservations for SCs. The 69% reservation you are talking about is OBC reservations. Reservations and until Mandal was implemented it never exceeded 50%.
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@TheEmissaryCo yes but your description of reservation is inaccurate. It needs clarification.
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4:30 This point is debatable. India had unique advantages that the rest of region lacked. It had a strong aircraft, ship building industry pretty solid education institutes (Pune Univ used to called Oxford of the East), competent administrators, competent businessmen. British gave Nehru 1.1 billion in pound sterling ($40 billion today) but he wasted that buying business back from the formerly middle class Englishmen. India's economy grew in her initial years (between 4 to 6%). It all started going downhill since 1956 with the second Plan when under PC Mahanoblis & Nehru (as Finance Minister), shifted the focus of the Govt away from attracting investments to controlling investments - This was the genesis of License Raj. Though, the impact of his policies were not apparently initially, by the end of his term, India was already on the path towards stagnation. Today Mahanoblis is a dirty word in India.
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@dreamsofadaffodil650 naah it won't. The revision must come from India first.
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@technicalist101 you millenials don't know what pre liberalization society was like. All the stuff that's normative now, was not normal 15-30 years ago.
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It is Proto-DEI
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