Color prejudices of Medieval Hindus

Sanskrit sources are full of snide comments about the ghastly white complexion of central asians. Comparisons were made to the skin of a leper. E.g. Here is an extract from Alice Albinia's "Empires of the Indus":
A Kashmiri Hindu recoiled in horror on beholding the pale Ghurid ambassador:
"It was almost as if the color black had shunned him in fear of being stained by his bad reputation. So ghastly white he was... whiter than bleached cloth, whiter than the snow of the Himalayan region where he was born."

Jagdish Bhagwati on Exploitation

“I must recall a visit to our think-tank by the great Polish economist Michal Kalecki, whose socialist credentials were impeccable. He told me, while working on fiscal policy to raise savings towards accelerated investment: “Bhagwati, the trouble with India is that there are too many exploited and too few exploiters”” — Jagdish Bhagwati in India In Transition

Re: Pankaj Mishra

I doubt if I fit the profile of Pankaj's intended readership, but here goes:

I think the Indian left (and Pankaj in particular) has become irrelevant. The Left parties have been decimated even in their citadel of West Bengal, where they had unleashed a reign of terror for 25 years. (If you think that is an exaggeration, you should learn more about life in Rural West Bengal). It is another matter that the TMC is continuing their tactics.

Intellectually, the left has been in shock since their utopias of Russia and China have moved on. Hence their desperate attempt to use any issue they can get their hands on: Environment, Caste etc. Their last gasp was their infiltration of the centrist Congress party via Sonia Gandhi's unconstitutional NAC.

They are terrified that Modi has put together a workable coalition of various caste groups which aims to control parliament for the foreseeable future. They don't know how to deal with Modi: he comes from the very groups that they claim to represent. But he represents a new kind of India, one which does not want handouts from elite controlled parties.

Whether Modi's electoral coalition will hold in the next Lok Sabha elections, I don't know. But if it does, the Indian left's worst nightmare will come to pass: A world where they are simply irrelevant. A Bourgeois India that hasn't heard of Pankaj Mishra and his ilk. And doesn't care.