India Without the Islamic Sultanates

Love the time-line. I can't wait for the Hindu kingdoms to end up uniting and becoming a single superpower ruling over the northern parts of the subcontinent.
 
So I'm researching India for RoS, and I'd like to add just that I don't really buy PRC making the leap that was made from the victory. I don't see why the other rajputanas wouldn't just assume his constitutional talk was false. Still be interesting to see what develops. That kind of thing was so rare in Indian history. I guess you kind of explained it by alluding to the Vedas but I just find it really unlikely. That and the Mongol situation.

More generally: socially, the Caste System was flexible throughout the first millennium. It was the Muslim conquests that actually made it become more conservative and stratified. Not that it wasn't that way before, but you could actually move up a caste. So with the Muslims repulsed it's probably going to remain more permissive. It's still not going to be great. The caste will usually come with them (from what I gather, before the Ghaznavids you could actually change caste on very rare occasions) but they CAN move a step up. That and modern Kerala from what I understand, is actually one of the lesser socially stratified regions because of the diversity.

Finally, I thought Hindu princes or something weren't allowed to sail on the water or something?
 
That and modern Kerala from what I understand, is actually one of the lesser socially stratified regions because of the diversity.

Actually before the 19th C it actually had the most rigid caste system in India e.g. Nairs (a martial caste somewhat equivalent socially to the Japanese samurai) were permitted to kill untouchables who came into contact with them. The difference here was that the other religions were also slotted into the caste system- the Syrian Christians were essentially regarded as on par with the kshatriya castes while the Roman Catholics were considered to be on par with shudras. Jews and Muslims were generally graded as mercantile castes. Thus it was on the one hand very flexible in that it accommodated the religious and ethnic diversity but on the other hand within that flexibility the gradations were extremely rigid.

The reason Kerala is a lot less socially stratified now is because some of the 19th C rulers of Travancore and Malabar were pretty reform minded and eliminated traditional restrictions such as the bar on low caste individuals entering major temples, cracked down on caste-related killings as mentioned above and such along with introducing widespread public education. It was further eroded due to the influence of Socialist ideals in early 20th C Kerala.

Finally, I thought Hindu princes or something weren't allowed to sail on the water or something?

I think the whole 'kala pani' thing may be more prevalent in North India- Hindus in South India certainly weren't afraid of maritime endeavours.
 
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