A Suggested Electoral Reform: The NOTA Option is Ineffective. Should There Also Be ABHIE Options?

 

A Suggested Electoral Reform:

 The NOTA Option is Ineffective. Should There Also Be ABHIE Options?

Shrikant G. Talageri 

 

The NOTA (None-of-the-Above) option has been available in elections in India since (as per my understanding) sometime in 2013. It was conceived and introduced because political parties put up powerful criminal candidates in every election (although of course Independent candidates can also, in many areas. be powerful criminals who can challenge and defeat official party candidates). It gives the voter a right to reject all the candidates on the ballot paper on the ground that he/she does not find any of them to be deserving of his/her vote. The optimistic logic behind this introduction was that if all the candidates are undesirable elements (corrupt, criminal, mercenaries, etc.) the voter can reject all of them and express a “None-of-the-Above” vote which would make clear to the parties and individuals standing for election that, in order to win, one must avoid or refrain from putting up candidates who are corrupt, criminal or mercenary since they can/will be rejected by the voters.

 

However, in actual point of fact, the NOTA vote is absolutely ineffective: a damp squib or dust-in-the-eyes. Even if, in any particular seat, the NOTA (None-of-the-Above) option gets more votes than every single other candidate, and in fact even if NOTA gets more than 50% of the votes, the actual candidate (of all those standing from that seat) who gets more votes than the others will still be declared elected. Therefore the whole idea of NOTA is nothing but a sick joke played on the voters, unless and until the number or percentage of NOTA votes officially and legally becomes a deciding factor in the result.

Therefore, for NOTA to be effective or to make any sense at all, and to cease to be a sick joke on the voters, the first and most important change that should be made is to compulsorily declare a re-election in any seat where NOTA gets more votes than each of the actual candidates. The second thing would be to ban all the candidates from that seat to stand for re-election (either in the re-election to follow in that particular seat for a particular number of years, or from standing for elections from any other seat as well.

Of course:

1. All this naively assumes that there will be enough aware and concerned voters who would vote NOTA and bring about such a situation.

2. I am not the first to make these suggestions. They have been made umpteen times by various people, and have, every time, been soundly and effectively stonewalled.

Nevertheless, if NOTA is to make any sense, and cease to be regarded as a sick joke on the voters, the above electoral reforms in the matter of NOTA must be implemented.

 

But my intention in writing this article was to suggest another new electoral reform (without, to be honest, being under the faintest bhram or misapprehension that this suggestion will find any support. But, for the record, I am making it nevertheless):

Along with the (reformed) NOTA option, there should also be ABHIE Options.

In an earlier article of mine, “The Morals/Ethics of Voting (Or Not Voting) In Elections”, I had pointed out the following:

“This brings us back to the question: is it the sacred, or at least a patriotic or moral, duty for every true citizen to go and cast his/her vote either for NOTA or for a particular chosen candidate?

I have always viewed this situation as being comparable to a similar “option-full” imaginary situation where one has to choose one of many different options, in the light of the cold and hard fact (obvious to anyone but the most blind, prejudiced or deluded citizen) that all politicians, to different degrees, are cynical and cold-blooded mercenaries who are there in the fray only to grab power and make money. Here is that imaginary situation: a man is going through an isolated jungle and suddenly finds himself confronted by a gang of bandits who have managed to capture a girl (who incidentally is known to the man, being a member of a family with whom he is on very friendly terms) and have decided that one of them will rape her, but cannot come to an agreement as to which of them it should be. They capture this man as well, and decide that he will choose and decide which one of them should be chosen to have the “privilege” to rape her.

What will the man do?

Like the voter in an election, he also has two main options: he can either choose one of them, or simply keep quiet and refuse to choose (knowing that he can do nothing to save the girl, but also determined to not be part of a process of deciding which of them will do the deed).

If he chooses to open his mouth and give his choice, he, again, has four sub-options:

1. He replies: “none of you should rape her”.

2. He replies (referring to one particular one of the bandits): “keep that particular man away from her”, since he has personal knowledge that that particular man is a particularly vicious, brutal and sadistic person (somewhat like the “minor” who raped “Nirbhaya” in the famous Delhi gangrape case who inserted a rod into her and pulled out her intestines).

3. He actually chooses one of the bandits whom he knows to be the least brutal and vicious among them.

4, He actually chooses one of the bandits for some personal reason or due to some personal prejudice or affiliation.

Of course, there is a basic difference in the situation confronting this imaginary man and the situation confronting a person who has to vote in an election: this man knows that if he refuses to reply or exercises the first two of the four above sub-options, he himself will be beaten up or tortured by the bandits, whereas the voter in an election (apart from the option to not vote) has the option to vote NOTA perhaps without having to suffer for his decision, or of course the option to exercise his vote.

This imaginary man, and the person who has to vote in an election, both have to take a decision, and while external pressures can ultimately compel this man to give his “vote”, that compulsion is not present in the case of the voter in an election: he/she still has three options, either (a) to not vote at all, or (b) to vote NOTA, or (c) to cast a valid vote in favor of any one particular candidate.

But while the two situations have the above very basic difference, they do have two things in common: (a) in both cases casting the vote is a responsibility (even though ultimately one single vote hardly ever decides the result) and (b) in both cases casting the vote is a purely personal practical choice (whether done under compulsion or of one’s own will) but under no circumstances is it a moral or ethical duty. How can it be any kind of moral or ethical duty to give sanction or approval to a crook?”

Clearly, sometimes a voter’s preference to vote against a particular candidate rather than to vote for a particular candidate (see point 2 highlighted above) may represent his/her true voting choice. In that case, voting NOTA or voting for some other (than the one whom he/she wants to vote against) candidate is not sufficient exercise of his/her right to vote. To fully exercise that right there should also be ABHIE (Anyone-But-Him/Her) options – one for every single candidate on the ballot list. If the candidate wants to exercise his/her right to vote against (rather than for) a particular candidate on the list, then it should be made possible to cast such a vote and have it affect the result.

 

The principle is the same as in many competitive or analytical tests: if there are 20 questions and the person taking the test gets 18 questions right, and leaves 2 questions unanswered, then the person gets 18 marks out of 20. But if the person gets 18 questions right, and 2 questions wrong, then the person gets 18-2=16 marks out of 20: the wrong answers serve as negative answers reducing the marks.

Likewise, if there are 10 candidates on a ballot list, there should be 20 options: 10 positive options (to vote for a particular candidate) and 10 negative options (to vote against a particular candidate). The number of negative ABHIE (Anyone-But-Him/Her) votes received by every particular candidate will be deducted from the number of positive votes received by that candidate and the candidate will be deemed to have received that many votes. Thus if a candidate gets 42000 positive votes and 3500 ABHIE (Anyone-But-Him/Her) votes, the candidate will be deemed to have got 38500 votes.

Therefore, in my opinion, the true preferences of the voters can only receive full representation when the ballot paper not only has a NOTA option, but also has one ABHIE (Anyone-But-Him/Her) option for each candidate on the ballot list:

1. If a particular candidate gets more votes than all the other options (i.e. than the NOTA tally as well as the tally of each other individual rival candidate, after the ABHIE (Anyone-But-Him/Her) votes are deducted from each candidate’s tally) then that particular candidate stands elected.

2. If the NOTA votes are more than those of any individual candidate (after the ABHIE (Anyone-But-Him/Her) votes are deducted from each candidate’s tally), then there should be a re-election with new candidates. If the same thing happens again, the seat should remain unrepresented – at least that is my suggestion in that circumstance.

I simply wanted to put my views on record. I am not interested in entering into nitpicking arguments on this issue.

 

 

Empowering the Breaking-India-Brigades to Hijack Issues of Justice

 

Empowering the Breaking-India-Brigades to Hijack Issues of Justice

 Shrikant G. Talageri 

The hot news at the moment (today is 26 July 2026) is the resignation of the Central Education Minister, Dharmendra Pradhan, after the CJP (“Cockroach Janata Party”) agitation in Delhi (and elsewhere).

As I stopped reading newspapers and watching news programs after the 2019 Lok Sabha elections, these “hot” issues come to my attention only when some bhakts bring them to my attention. This time, I heard a great many bhakts, friends of mine, claiming that the whole agitation was controlled and manipulated by the leftists and wokes and other Breaking-India forces as a reaction to the fact that Dharmendra Pradhan had finally initiated a cleaning up process in Indian text-books in matters of leftist-controlled anti-Hindu and anti-Indian distortions of Indian history (among other subjects) which have completely dominated textbook-writing in India in the last six decades. The agitation, I was told, was intended to put a full stop to this cleaning up process. [There is of course that other section of bhakts who support whatever the BJP does, which does not bother with discussing pros and cons, or with condemning the leftists or defending Dharmendra Pradhan].

I am not the final authority on whether this claim is true or not. It is possible that, if you scratch them, the leaders of the CJP will turn out to be Breaking-India moles. But I at least (at the moment, until more concrete evidence surfaces, or the leaders of the CJP openly show their “true faces” in full) could not find any evidence for this (beyond the fact that all the opposition leaders have jumped into the fray to support the CJP agitation, and that the media is broadcasting anti-Hindu, anti-Indian and woke comments, slogans and views from people participating in the agitation – but then such people will join up in any agitation where they could try to insert their own agendas into the picture).

 

A look at the 5-point demands made by the CJP seem (at the moment) to be concerned only with legitimate issues of concern:

https://cockroachjanatapart.com/demands.php

https://cockroachjantaparty.raizian.in/manifesto

Surprisingly different sites show different “five points”. But the following five are in my opinion unexceptionable:

https://www.cjpmember.com/manifesto

“1

Judicial Reform

No Chief Justice of India shall be granted Rajya Sabha seats, governorships, or any quid-pro-quo post-retirement position. The judiciary must remain independent of executive favour.

2

Electoral Integrity

The deliberate deletion of legitimate voter records and votes shall be classified as terrorism under UAPA. Free and fair elections are non-negotiable.

3

Gender Equality — 50% Reservation

A minimum of 50% reservation for women in the Union Cabinet, State Cabinets, and Parliament. Half of India deserves half the power.

4

Media Accountability

Cancellation of broadcast licenses for media outlets owned by Adani and Reliance. Full financial investigation into so-called "Godi media" houses peddling government propaganda.

5

Anti-Defection

A 20-year ban from holding any public office for politicians who switch parties after being elected. End the politics of horse-trading.”

 

The second point does look “wokish”, especially in the light of the recent developments in West Bengal, etc. But then the point does say “legitimate voter records and votes”, and it cannot be anyone’s claim that infiltrators from other countries can claim to be having “legitimate voter records and votes” – and certainly there is no reason why anyone should accept that they do.

 

In addition, this particular “manifesto” mentions five more “Additional Commitments”:

“Strict Enforcement of the Right to Information.

Rejection of all anonymous political donations and electoral bonds.

Environment Protection and climate accountability.

Investigation into NEET and other examination paper leaks.

End to cromy capitalism and corporate capture of policy”

 

So far, while opinions may differ, and one can have reservations on some of the points above, none of those points seem to me at least to represent Breaking-India or anti-Hindu or anti-India agendas or to represent any kind of interference in the cleaning up process of the hitherto woke-dominated and anti-Hindu Indian education system. If and when the CJP shows that that is its real agenda, then will be the time to deal with the menace.

To point out the simplest and most relevant aspect of the matter: it would be a very simple matter to simply replace Dharmendra Pradhan with a new minister who would be even more determinedly committed to take forward the “clean up the Education System from the clutches of the woke leftist Breaking India forces” program. That Dharmendra Pradhan was particularly committed to the program is not, in any case, demonstrated by the way in which Michel Danino was ousted from the NCERT social science textbook committee in March 2026: Danino himself, in an interview with the Indian Express, said “NCERT threw us under the bus” – shades of Noopur Sharma!

[Incidentally, I am not generally in favor of the fake policy of ministers resigning and running away from the task instead of facing up to their duties and taking stringent actions and measures to rectify matters. After all, papers are “leaking” all over India every year, and while it is true that this represents massive corruption it cannot be anyone’s legitimate claims that the papers are personally leaked by the education ministers concerned, any more than railway accidents are personally engineered by railway ministers. What is important is that very strong and stringent action should take place. But, in spite of that, another relevant aspect of the matter is that, as Anand Ranganathan pointed out, the minister should have resigned from the post as soon as the incidents came to light or when people like Anand Ranganathan demanded that he resign, instead of waiting to resign after all kinds of anti-Indian and anti-Hindu forces, led by anti-BJP political leaders, took up the issue. But that matter is a matter of political strategies of who takes credit for things, rather than of right and wrong, so I at least do not consider it important enough for me to discuss it].

 

What does stand out from all this, in my opinion, are the following things:

1. The tendency of BJP bhakts to try to identify the BJP intrinsically and inextricably with Hindutva by treating any and every attack of any and every kind on the BJP as an attack on Hindutva or on some kind of Hindu agenda being carried out by the BJP, even when there is no such connection, thereby giving the BJP’s Hindu-minded supporters motivation to “rally around” the BJP in the name of Hinduism being under attack. 

2. This in turn provides fig-leaf excuses to enable the BJP to unobtrusively slide out of the alleged “Hindu agenda” being carried out by stray individuals within the party or government. In short: the big question is, what is going to happen now to the process of cleaning up the education system from the clutches of the woke leftist Breaking India Forces – assuming such a process was ever really in place.

3. All this again illustrates a point that I have been very regularly making about the fake “Hindutva” of India’s “Hindu” parties, for example in my article on “Leftists and Rightists”:

 

“As far back as 1978, in an unpublished article written by me in a notebook (during the days of Janata Party rule, when I was in college) based on my observations of the proclivities of the "Hindu" politicians of the day, I had defined the three categories of ideologies in India as:

1. Leftism: claiming to fight for socio-economic justice while actually being a front for Hindu-haters.

2. Rightism: claiming to fight for Hinduism and Indian culture and heritage while actually being a front for the forces of socio-economic exploitation and obscurantism.

3. Hindu Nationalism: actually fighting for both Hinduism and Indian culture and heritage as well as for socio-economic justice.

Now, 41 years later, I still stick to this classification.

 

Unfortunately, Hindu Nationalism has been completely identified with Rightism in India, not just by its enemies but by its avowed supporters as well, and I think it is time the distinction between the two is understood by these supporters at least.

 

Let me restate the proposition here in a chart:

 

IDEOLOGIES	TYPOLOGY	INSPIRING MOTIVES OR CHARACTERISTICS	CLAIMED AND ACTUAL AIMS
Hindu Nationalism	Sāttvik   Elevating Ideology ↑	ETHICS 1.Truth. 2.Justice. 3.Humanitarianism.	Claimed: Cultural Justice. Socio-Economic Justice.   Actual: SAME
Rightism	Rājasik   Expansive Ideology ← →	MATERIALISM 1.Greed. 2. Lust for Power. 3. Exploitation.	Claimed: Cultural Justice.   Actual: Economic Exploitation.
Leftism	Tāmasik   Degrading Ideology ↓	DARK EMOTIONS 1. Hatred. 2. Terror. 3. Anarchy.	Claimed: Socio-Economic Justice.   Actual: Cultural Hatred.

 

 

I still distinctly remember the case of Bhanwari Devi, a rural grassroots social government  worker (saathin) from Bhateri village in Rajasthan who was gang-raped in September 1992 by a group of rapists belonging to upper-castes, mainly Gujjar, but also apparently including a brahmin, for trying to stop the illegal child marriage of a minor from an upper-caste family. She and her husband were physically beaten, and she was gang-raped, in retaliation. But the judge in the trial court acquitted all the accused on the ground that they were all members of upper castes and the judge could not accept that upper caste people could have defiled themselves by physically molesting a lower-caste woman!! The accused escaped without any punishment, and their acquittal was celebrated in a big rally of their caste brethren in which the local BJP MLAs were present. The point is that all this happened in 1992-1993 at a time when the Ayodhya movement was in full flow. The issue of Bhanwari Devi had no importance at all in the eyes of the BJP or the Sangh Parivar. I was in the office of an RSS-based organization at some time in 1995 (when the trial court delivered its acquittal order) and Koenraad Elst was also present. When Elst asked what the Bhanwari Devi issue was and I tried to explain it to him, a very prominent VHP leader present shushed me and declared that the whole thing was nothing but leftist propaganda. All such issues were just to be ignored! 

Apart from other matters of right and wrong, the point here is that the so-called “Hindutva” ideology of India’s Hindu parties is pure Rightism and not Hindutva. And it is not just Hindu/Hindutva issues which are irrelevant to them in their insatiable hunger for votes and power: issues of socio-economic justice are even more irrelevant. The difference between the two, for them, is that Hindutva issues can be used, in election times, to drum up votes and support; whereas genuine issues of socio-economic justice (as opposed to socio-economic policies of caste-based reservations, which are claimed to promote socio-economic justice, regardless of whether they are actually just or not, and which can also bring in votes and support) are to be completely shunned.

Therefore it should not surprise if, along with people who genuinely do care for issues of socio-economic justice or of corruption or environment, it is people with Breaking-India agendas or plain electoral-political-agendas who manage to take up vantage positions as champions of right versus wrong whenever such issues arise. The key takeaways from the whole affair are:

1. It is the pseudo-Hindutvites who empower the powerful Breaking-India forces to hijack issues of Justice by shunning those issues and leaving the field open to them.

2. By repeating the “give-in-to-organized-protests-after-they-capture-the-media-centrespot” formula in exactly the same way as they did in the matter of the “Shaheen Bagh” anti-CAA protests, the government have shown even more emphatically that they can be manipulated by organized protesters.

3. But the government can be manipulated only by the Leftists. They cannot be manipulated by the so-called Hindu voters, for the simple reason that the Leftists and their cohorts are fully united while the Hindu voters are divided into various factions of which the “bhakt” faction which defends everything done by Modi/the-BJP is the largest, most well-organized and well-financed, and most powerful. There are “Hindu” factions which protest (mildly and on social media only) at anti-Hindu actions of the BJP government (e.g. the humiliation of Noopur Sharma), but on the one hand they are easily outnumbered by the “bhakt” factions (there are more than one of these), and on the other even these “Hindu” factions have a huge sub-faction of TINA (There-is-no-alternative) enthusiasts who are effective in muting the protests and making them ineffective. And, most important of all, the judiciary is fully on the side of any woke and Breaking-India protesters and against any “Hindu” protesters.

4. Whatever else happens or does not happen, one thing will definitely happen: the actual or alleged cleaning up (from woke control) process in the education system will come to a complete halt, or even be reversed, on the pretext of these protests (even when the protests were not about that process).

   

The Joke That is “AI”: The Evidence of the Indo-European Numbers

 

The Joke That is “AI”: The Evidence of the Indo-European Numbers

Shrikant G. Talageri

 

I have already pointed out the utter stupidity, inanity and un-intelligent nature of AI when it comes to analyzing issues involving the “Aryan” problem. Here is a classic example of this stupidity, inanity and un-intelligent nature:

A reader made the following comment on my last article. He should have made this comment on my article on the numerals, but nevertheless I am grateful to him for bringing this idiocy to my notice and thereby enabling me to give a fitting reply to it and to expose the utter uselessness of “AI” in these matters:

“I ask AI to analyze your work titled "The Irrefutable Evidence of the Indo-European Numbers". What do you make of this?

The Flaw: The "Regularity" Paradox Where Talageri’s argument departs from scientific consensus is his underlying assumption: Sanskrit is perfectly regular, therefore it is the oldest.

 

In historical linguistics, this assumption is practically reversed. This brings us to a foundational concept called The Principle of Archaic Irregularity.

Irregularity is Ancient; Regularity is Invented. Language naturally creates messy, irregular fossils over thousands of years. When you see a language with a perfectly logical, seamless grammatical or numerical system, it is almost always because the speakers (or grammarians) regularized it at a later date to make it mathematically consistent.

Think of English verbs: Play/played is a regularized, newer invention. Go/went or sing/sang/sung are chaotic, irregular fossils that survived from thousands of years ago.

English eleven and twelve come from the ancient Germanic roots ain-lif ("one left over ten") and twa-lif ("two left over ten"). They are weird, isolated, and irregular—which tells linguists they are incredibly old, localized Germanic innovations, not a sign of a decayed Sanskrit system.

Sanskrit’s numbering system is brilliant, but its flawless consistency is the hallmark of a language that was actively streamlined and polished (which, as discussed previously, is exactly what the ancient Indian grammarians did). It is a perfected system, not a raw, primitive one.

The Steppe Model Fits the Same Data. Talageri argues that the European base-20 contamination proves the languages traveled from India to Europe. However, the mainstream Steppe Homeland model accounts for the exact same data without breaking the rules of linguistic evolution.

If the homeland was on the Eurasian Steppe:

1. The Steppe nomads had a pure decimal (base-10) system.

2.The branch that migrated south into India (Indo-Aryans) kept the base-10 system, expanded it, and eventually polished it into the perfect, infinite mathematical series seen in Sanskrit.

3. The branches that migrated west into Europe collided with indigenous European hunter-gatherers and early farmers who counted in twenties (vigesimal). The migrating IE speakers absorbed this local habit, creating the hybrid base-10/base-20 systems we see in Celtic and French today.

The Verdict

Talageri’s data collection is excellent. He correctly identifies that European IE languages absorbed foreign counting systems, while Sanskrit retained a pure decimal framework.

However, his conclusion relies on the idea that "perfectly regular" equals "oldest." By the established metrics of historical linguistics, a flawlessly logical system like Sanskrit's numbers is the result of later refinement, while the messy irregularities found in European branches are the ancient, unpolished fossils of tribal migrations.

The data he presents is completely valid, but it does not uniquely prove an Indian homeland—it simply proves that ancient Europe was full of non-Indo-European people who counted in twenties.”

 

The reader will note that this utterly un-intelligent “AI” seems to have not even glanced at, let alone read in detail and analyzed, my articles on the Evidence of the IE Numbers. This un-intelligent “AI” is not replying to my article, but to all those Indians who claim that Sanskrit is the most perfect language for computers. And then it is juxtaposing that claim to its “verdict” on my article on the IE numbers without paying any heed to what is written in that article, almost as if it has not “read” that article at all.

 

Note the two fundamental fallacies that AI un-intelligently assumes that I have made in my article

 

Fallacy 1: “Most Regular is Oldest”.

To begin with, please someone should start out by pointing out where in the article have I expressed, even indirectly, the “underlying assumption: Sanskrit is perfectly regular, therefore it is the oldest”, or “However, his conclusion relies on the idea that "perfectly regular" equals "oldest." By the established metrics of historical linguistics, a flawlessly logical system like Sanskrit's numbers is the result of later refinement, while the messy irregularities found in European branches are the ancient, unpolished fossils of tribal migrations.”.

 

This “AI” preaches to me (which, in this particular instance, is like “carrying coal to Newcastle”): “In historical linguistics, this assumption is practically reversed. This brings us to a foundational concept called The Principle of Archaic Irregularity.

Irregularity is Ancient; Regularity is Invented. Language naturally creates messy, irregular fossils over thousands of years. When you see a language with a perfectly logical, seamless grammatical or numerical system, it is almost always because the speakers (or grammarians) regularized it at a later date to make it mathematically consistent.”

 

Not only have I nowhere claimed that Sanskrit has the most perfect and regular number system (let alone used that as an argument for it being the oldest), I have constantly, throughout the article, pointed out places where Sanskrit has irregularities. or irregular features, which have been regularized and improved in different other later IE branches and languages:

1. The practice of placing the unit numbers before the tens number (catur-viṁśati, instead of viṁśati-catur, for 24, which, continuing in all Indo-Aryan languages, leads to confusion; whereas many other IE languages have reversed the order).

2 . Having a minus-principle (ūna-triṁśat, for 29, instead of viṁśati-nava, which, again, has been corrected in most other IE branches and languages).

3. Having irregular forms because of its rules of sandhi. (a characteristic which has resulted in extreme irregularities in the later IA numbers, even when those late IA languages don’t have rules of sandhi, and making the modern IA languages of North India the most irregular and difficult numbers in the world).

 

The simple fact that I place Sanskrit, along with Tocharian and spoken Sinhalese, in an earlier stage of development (and only because it does not form the numbers 11-19 in a different way from later sets like 21-29, 31-39, etc), does not mean that I am implying that Sanskrit is the most regular (let alone that this makes it “older”) – regularity and oldness are not issues at all – and in fact even a child should be able to see that, within that stage, Tocharian and spoken Sinhalese are more “regular” than Sanskrit.

 

If this “AI” is not able to grasp even this basic point, I am frankly speechless.

 

Fallacy 2: “Sanskrit has a Pure Decimal System, European IE Languages are 20-infiluenced”.

 “AI” fatuously writes:

“The branches that migrated west into Europe collided with indigenous European hunter-gatherers and early farmers who counted in twenties (vigesimal). The migrating IE speakers absorbed this local habit, creating the hybrid base-10/base-20 systems we see in Celtic and French today.”

“He correctly identifies that European IE languages absorbed foreign counting systems, while Sanskrit retained a pure decimal framework.”

“The data he presents is completely valid, but it does not uniquely prove an Indian homeland—it simply proves that ancient Europe was full of non-Indo-European people who counted in twenties.”

 

This un-intelligent “AI” totally fails to understand that I have nowhere made these claims. Nowhere have I claimed that Sanskrit has the most perfect decimal system, while European IE languages alone have been influenced by the vigesimal (20-based) number system.

 

1. All the later IE languages of stage 3 and 4 (other than Sanskrit, Tocharian and spoken Sinhalese have been influenced by the vigesimal effect) including the  Iranian languages and the later Indo-Aryan languages in India. [Surely, even this un-intelligent “AI” understands that Sanskrit is older than the modern IA languages, and that therefore the vigesimal effect is a newer phenomenon as compared to an older decimal system!]

 

2. I have pointed out in detail that it is not only in Europe but in India itself that there are many vigesimal (20-based) languages in every corner of India which caused a vigesimal effect on the IE languages in the third stage.

 

3. The vigesimal effect, which this “AI” calls “the hybrid base-10/base-20 systems we see in Celtic and French today” has definitely come about due to a very late effect because “ancient Europe was full of non-Indo-European people who counted in twenties”. This is much later, and a completely different effect from the vigesimal effect which is found in all the IE branches (other than the earlier named three languages, and therefore presumably also other than Proto-IE and Anatolian), and is just a later aberration which has to be pointed out but which plays no part in the general  process of the development of the numbers in other IE languages.

 

In short, “AI” flops again.

[Incidentally, spoken Sinhalese is in the second stage, while Literary Sinhalese adopted the third stage from the Prakrits. But it simplified the irregularities, and therefore, even as it represents the earliest recorded stage, it represents a regularized developed form over the ages]

       

Murugan, “Aryan”-Dravidian Issues, and Divide-the-Hindus Ideologies

 

Murugan, “Aryan”-Dravidian Issues, and Divide-the-Hindus Ideologies

 Shrikant G. Talageri 

 

Apparently a controversy over the Hindu/Tamil God Murugan has erupted. A simple question on google elicited the following:

“Lord Murugan (Karthikeya) is profoundly revered in South India, particularly as the patron deity of the Tamil language and culture (Tamil Kadavul). He has recently become the center of two major controversies: [1, 2, 3]

·         The "God of War" Film Controversy: The announcement of a film featuring actor Jr. NTR and director Trivikram sparked immense outrage. The controversy stemmed from a promotional tagline that claimed the deity was "Born in the North...". Tamil devotees and social media users fiercely objected, stating that Murugan is an indigenous, foundational Tamil deity born in celestial southern mythology, and accused filmmakers of erasing Tamil cultural history. [1, 2, 3, 4]

·         The DMK Government Conference: The ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) government in Tamil Nadu faced heavy flak from opposition parties and ideological allies for hosting a grand conference dedicated to Lord Murugan. Critics from secular and leftist factions accused the conventionally rationalist, anti-caste Dravidian party of compromising its secular foundations and trying to appease religious voters. [1, 2]”

The “Aryan-Dravidian” controversy in India (apart from the blatantly political aspects) is based on the theory floated by historians that the “Aryans” (speakers of Indo-Aryan/Indo-European languages) invaded, or immigrated into, India somewhere around 1500 BCE, displaced the Dravidian language speakers then allegedly spread out over most of India (and certainly the northwest), more-or-less drove the Dravidian speakers, or at least the languages themselves, southwards and took over their space. This is the AIT or “Aryan Invasion/Immigration Theory”. supported by the academic vested interests, woke and leftist elements, “Dravidian” ideologues from the South, and casteist hate-ideologists from every caste in India.

I need hardly point out that this obnoxious theory has been completely and irrefutably demolished in my books and articles.

However, recently some prominent elements from the opposite side (i.e. the pro-OIT anti-AIT side), including prominent writers and scholars like Jijith Nadumuri Ravi and Koenraad Elst, have started vigorously propagating an opposite theory: the DIT or “Dravidian Invasion/Immigration Theory”, according to which speakers of Dravidian languages immigrated into a predominantly existing Indo-Aryan/Indo-European North India during the Vedic period and (even though they are still not being described as displacing Indo-Aryan/Indo-European speakers, since these scholars maintain a silence on the linguistic identity of the people whom they allegedly replaced in South India) passed through the Indo-Aryan/Indo-European areas of North India and colonized the South.

 

The common ideological belief shared by the AIT-supporters and the DIT-supporters is that one of the two language speaking groups (Indo-Aryan/Indo-European and Dravidian) are late entrants into an India already inhabited by the other of the two. The two groups of ideologues only differ about who are the “natives” and who are the “intruders”.

[Another ideological belief, incidentally, shared by the above AIT-supporters and DIT-supporters is that Indian civilization and culture, if not the Indian people themselves, from all parts of India originated and spread from the Harappan areas of the northwest and that the whole rest of India was cultureless or peopleless before this spread!]

 

The question is apparently: is Murugan a purely Tamil God native to Tamilnadu or is he a Northern God?

See the point of controversy: “Tamil devotees and social media users fiercely objected, stating that Murugan is an indigenous, foundational Tamil deity born in celestial southern mythology”.

So far as that goes, perfectly right. In my articles and books, I have put it in very clear terms, the following for example from my article “Are Indian Tribals Hindus?”:

“But there was a big difference in the spread of Hinduism all over India and the spread of Christianity all over the world. Unlike Christianity, which demonised the Gods, beliefs and rituals of the religions which it sought to uproot, destroy and supplant, Hinduism accepted and internalised the Gods, beliefs and rituals of the tribal religions which converged into it. The result is that today the most popular Hindu deities in every single part of India are originally tribal Gods: whether Ayyappa of Kerala, Murugan of Tamilnadu, Balaji of Andhra, Vitthala (originally) of Karnataka (Vithoba of Maharashtra), Khandoba of Maharashtra, Jagannatha of Orissa, etc., etc., or the myriad forms of the Mother Goddess, with thousands of names, in every nook and corner of India: every single local (originally tribal) God and Goddess is revered by every Hindu in every corner of India, in the form of the kuladevata, the grihadevata or the gramadevata. In time, of course, myths were formed nominally associating many of these deities with one or the other of the main Gods and Goddesses of Puranic Hinduism as their manifestations, these Puranic Gods themselves being additions from different parts of India to the Hindu pantheon (or originally Vedic Gods like Vishnu and Rudra with basic characteristics adopted from the other local and tribal deities). But these associations were not an imposition “from above”, they were the result of popular local myth-making and part of the consolidation of the national popularization of the local deities: the deities retained their local names, forms, rituals and customs, and became all-India deities, objects of pilgrimages from distant areas.

 

But it is not only in respect of “Gods” and “Goddesses” that Hinduism freely and respectfully adopted from other tribes and religions: even the most basic concepts of the Hindu religion are originally elements adopted from the tribal and local religions from every part of India. The original Puru (Vedic) layer of religion which forms the pan-Indian umbrella of Hinduism was originally more or less the religion depicted in the Rigveda: the worship of Indra, Varuna, Mitra, Agni, Soma, the Maruts and Ashvins, and other specifically Vedic deities (including Vishnu and Rudra, who later become the most important Puranic Gods), and the main religious rituals were the Agni rituals (homa, yadnya, etc.) and the Soma rituals. The Soma rituals are completely defunct today (in fact, no-one knows the exact identity of Soma), the Agni rituals are still performed, but only during major ceremonies (birth, death, weddings, ritual inaugurations of houses, etc.) and on other major occasions, and the major Vedic Gods are minor figures of Puranic stories.   

 

Practically every single basic feature of Hinduism today was adopted from the religious beliefs and rituals of the other, originally tribal, religious traditions of the people from every single corner of India as they all converged into Hinduism. To begin with, Idol-worship which is absolutely the central feature of Hinduism and which includes (a) the worship of the lingam, “rude blocks of stone” with eyes painted on them, or roughly or finely carved or cast images of stone, metal or some other material, (b) treating the idols as living beings (bathing, dressing and feeding them, putting them to sleep, etc.), (c) performing puja by offering flowers, water and fruits, bananas and coconuts, clothes and ornaments to the idols, (d) performing aarti by waving lights and incense before the idols, (e) performing music and dance before the idols, (e) partaking of prasad of food offered to the idols, (f) having idol-temples with elaborate carvings and sculptures, with sacred tanks and bathing ghats, temple festivals with palanquins and chariots, etc. (g) applying sandal-paste, turmeric, vermillion, etc. on the forehead as a mark of the idols, etc. This entire system in all its variations was adopted from the various practices of the people of eastern, central and southern India, along with the Gods and idols themselves.”

 

The point is that many of the “Tamil devotees and social media users fiercely objecting” are making this an issue of Tamil-versus-Hindu, and insisting that Murugan is not a Hindu God but a Tamil one! It is as if the people of Orissa were to insist that Jagannatha is not a Hindu God but an Oriya one, or the people of Maharashtra (or Karnataka) were to insist that Vitthala is not a Hindu God but a Marathi (or Kannada) one!

This controversy over Murugan is of a piece with controversies arising from the discoveries of archaeological, and technologically advanced material, evidence from the South. Indo-Aryan/Indo-European protagonists are quick to insist on a northern origin for these discoveries, and “Dravidian” protagonists are quick to paint a separatist and antagonistic-to-the-north identity for them:

https://swarajyamag.com/culture/leave-history-alone-why-an-archaeological-discovery-in-tamil-nadu-has-ruffled-feathers

https://talageri.blogspot.com/2025/01/discovery-of-oldest-iron-in-world-in.html

 

All I can emphasize, without going again and again into things written umpteen times before, is: there is no Tamil/Oriya/Marathi etc. God or religion in India: there are only Hindu Gods and Hindu religion. Whether Murugan, or any other God, is “Tamil” or “Oriya” or “Santali” or “Naga” or “Andamanese”, or ‘Northern” or “Southern”, he is always “Hindu” and always Devil Incarnate and an object of hatred for followers of Abrahamic religions. Hindus: do not fall into the trap and ignite or indulge in intra-Hindu conflicts and hate-campaigns for the benefit of the enemies of Hinduism.

[See how the anti-Hindu forces keep each other in line when any one group among them appears to be straying away even superficially from the anti-Hindu line: "The ruling Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) government in Tamil Nadu faced heavy flak from opposition parties and ideological allies for hosting a grand conference dedicated to Lord Murugan." They at least are well aware of what is Hindu and what is not] 

APPENDIX ADDED 13 July 2026: Imposition From Above?”:

All the local Gods and Goddesses of different parts of India were identified with the main Puranic gods and goddesses slowly acquiring each others' features.

The question can arise: was this an “imposition from ‘above’”?

But that question would be born from a typical Abrahamic and non-Pagan hate-attitude towards the Gods of “other” religions. Actually this synthesis of Gods does not indicate that one powerful culture is imposing itself on another: i.e. it was not a forceful imposition by the North on the South or by "Aryans" on others. In India this process represented the formation of “Hinduism”, the banyan-tree of all Indian Religions, and therefore a hate-target for the breaking-India Forces. But this was a universal worldwide Pagan phenomenon: the powerful Romans for example identified all their own Gods with those of the earlier classical Greece (even directly adopting, for example, Gods like Apollo, in the process) and likewise adopted the Iranian Mithra. In Central America, the Aztec God Quetzalcoatl and the Mayan God Kukulkan were identified with each other. In China the Goddess of Mercy, Kuan Yin, was identified with the Buddhist Avalokiteswara (despite the difference in gender).

 

Greek Name	: Roman Name
Aphrodite	Venus
Apollo	Apollo
Ares	Mars
Artemis	Diana
Athena	Minerva
Demeter	Ceres
Hades	Pluto
Hephaistos	Vulcan
Hera	Juno
Hermes	Mercury
Hestia	Vesta
Kronos	Saturn
Persephone	Proserpina
Poseidon	Neptune
Zeus	Jupiter
Erinyes	Furiae
Eris	Discordia
Eros	Cupid
Moirae	Parcae
Charites	Gratiae
Helios	Sol
Horai	Horae
Pan	Faunus
Selene	Luna
Tyche	Fortuna