Tehran has been bombed; University street (where the Military Intelligence base is). has been struck.
Today is 9-11 in the Muslim calendar; 11th Ramadan (the 9th and Holiest month).
Open Thread – “Open War” breaks out between Pakistan and Afghanistan
This is a quote from Pakistan’s ‘defence minister’ from a couple of hours ago. There is a shooting war on the Durand line, and the PAF has bombed Kabul and Kandahar, including the airport, Taliban ministry buildings and other non-military targets.
This round of AfPak hostilities kicked off with a ‘surgical airstrike’ by Pakistan into Afghanistan that resulted in multiple civilian deaths. The Taliban retaliated by attacking Pakistani border outposts on the Durand Line, and claim to have captured more than a dozen of them, with Pakistani POWs and KIA. In response, the PAF has now bombed Kabul and Kandahar.
The Taliban, the erstwhile creation of the ISI, is now at war with Pakistan. Where does this go from here?
Operation “Righteous Fury”: Pakistani airstrikes on Afghanistan
Pakistan struck Afghanistan early Friday morning in response to Afghan attacks Thursday night on various locations in KPK.
According to Defense Minister Khawaja Asif, the Taliban have become “a proxy for India”. Asif said: “Our patience has run out. Now there is an open war”.
Those criticizing this operation should recognize that this is exactly the playbook India used in “Operation Sindoor”. War is obviously not a good outcome for anyone but national security trumps everything. There had been a Qatar and Turkey mediated ceasefire between Pakistan and Afghanistan but the Taliban have clearly not clamped down on TTP.
There seems to have been a “rally around the flag” effect with even the PTI making social media posts in support of Pakistan’s armed forces.
DAWN’s live blog is here
Kleptocratic Pakistan versus Oligarchic India
A word was flagged in our comments last night. I think it deserves its own post.
Kabir called RNJ’s use “kleptocracy” offensive, when used to describe Pakistan. I understand the instinct. Words carry weight. But here’s my problem: in the High Signal era of Brown Pundits, we don’t retire words because they sting. We interrogate them.
So let’s interrogate this one.
I. What Does the Military Actually Own?
Not metaphorically. Literally. The Fauji Foundation operates across fertiliser, cement, food, banking, and energy. Revenues exceeding $1.5 billion annually. The Army Welfare Trust adds real estate, insurance, agriculture. Neither answers to civilian audit. Neither tables accounts in Parliament. DHA schemes, Defence Housing Authority, operate in every major Pakistani city. Land acquired below market rate. Sold at market rate. The differential isn’t commerce. It’s transfer. Ayesha Siddiqa documented this in Military Inc. back in 2007, estimating military business interests at $20 billion. That figure is now considered conservative. The military controls an estimated 12% of all state land. In a country where land is wealth, that number is not incidental.
II. But Is That Kleptocracy?
Continue reading Kleptocratic Pakistan versus Oligarchic India
Kabir Oral Traditions in the Indian Subcontinent
In the context of recent discussions on Indian and Pakistani music, I am cross posting this essay on Kabir Oral Traditions. It is important to remember that–despite the political tensions between India and Pakistan– there is a common culture that unites people. After all, culture does not end at the borders of nation-states. This essay was originally submitted as part of the coursework for my M.Mus degree in Ethnomusicology from SOAS University of London.
Bhagat Kabir (c. 1440-c. 1518) is considered one of the major poet-saints of the Bhakti movement—a social reform movement arising in North India around the fifteenth century. Characterized by an emphasis on the individual believer and a disregard for caste and gender taboos, the movement often rejected Vedic rituals and focused on the individual’s loving relationship with a personally defined god. This emphasis on love has clear parallels with Sufism, often seen as the mystical branch of Islam. It also later influenced Sikhism.
In contrast to other Bhakti poets such as Surdas and Meerabai—whose works can be placed squarely within the Hindu fold, often addressed to particular gods such as Krishna—Kabir’s poetry cannot be so neatly demarcated. He questioned the rituals of both Islam and Hinduism and was devoted to a nirgun (formless) deity, often addressed as “Ram”. According to Professor Harbans Mukhia: “In place of Allah and Ishwar he conceptualized a single universal God; in place of denominational religions he conceptualized a universal religiosity” (Mukhia 2018). This distance from the orthodoxy of both traditions perhaps explains why Kabir is revered by Hindus and Muslims across the Indian subcontinent. Some of his poetry is even included in the Guru Granth Sahib, Sikhism’s holiest scripture. In an era in which South Asia has experienced increasing polarization along sectarian lines, it is instructive to more closely examine this unique figure who served as a bridge between communities. Continue reading Kabir Oral Traditions in the Indian Subcontinent
Open Thread: Who Would Be India’s Best Prime Minister, And Why?
Replying to Sbarrkum got me thinking; instead of relitigating India-Pakistan, a more interesting question: across 14 India Prime Ministers, who actually did the job best?
Simple question. Hard answer.
Make the case. What criteria matters most to you?
- Economic stewardship
- Institutional integrity
- Foreign policy judgment
- Social cohesion
- Crisis management
No slogans. No party loyalty. Just reasoning.
Moderated for substance. Indian-centred perspectives prioritised.
A few facts after the jump.
Continue reading Open Thread: Who Would Be India’s Best Prime Minister, And Why?
Double Standards, Modi’s Gamble, and Why Ramadan Gets It Right
Two comments overnight exposed different sides of the the same problem.
You Can’t Weaponise Islamophobia and Then Kneecap Hinduism
Kabir tried to circulate a link around Manu Pillai’s Gods, Guns and Missionaries, a serious book, framed around whether Hinduism was, in some sense, constructed. The question is legitimate. All traditions are constructed. All identities consolidate under pressure.
But Hinduism and Islam are pari passu in this respect. The nineteenth century shaped both. Colonial enumeration shaped both. Reform movements reshaped both. Romila Thapar, Wendy Doniger, Sheldon Pollock; the literature on Hindu consolidation is vast. So is the literature on Islamic reform: Wahhabism emerging from Najd in the 1740s, Deoband crystallising in 1867 directly in response to 1857, Barelvism as counter-movement to both. All traditions have formation moments. All traditions modernise under pressure.
To apply the deconstructive lens to Hinduism while leaving Islamic historiography untouched is not intellectual rigour. It is asymmetry. Kabir, who deploys “Islamophobia” as a first-strike weapon with the hair-trigger of a seasoned litigator, has never shown the slightest inclination to subject his own tradition to equivalent scrutiny. If the lens is universal, use it universally. If it is selective, say so.
Anything else is prosecution dressed up as scholarship.
Pakistan’s Literacy Problem Is Real. The Comparison to India Is Useless. Continue reading Double Standards, Modi’s Gamble, and Why Ramadan Gets It Right
The Cantonment and the Clean Street: Why Pakistan’s Punjab Looks More Ordered Than India’s
A dispatch from a quieter Brown Pundits
The Observation
My Urdu teacher said something that lodged itself in my brain. India is vastly richer than Pakistan; and yet Pakistan’s Punjab, in his experience, feels cleaner. More ordered. Less like South Asia. I pushed back. Then I stopped.
The Numbers
In 2024, India’s GDP per capita was $2,695 against Pakistan’s $1,479; roughly 1.8 times higher on a nominal basis, and India’s total economy at $3.9 trillion is approximately ten times Pakistan’s $372 billion. Until 2008, Pakistan was actually richer per person; India led that measure for only 14 of the 60 years after independence. The divergence is real but recent and accelerating.
The sanitation data cuts against the perception: 81% of Indians have access to basic sanitation versus 72% of Pakistanis (WHO/UNICEF, 2024). On paper, India leads. So the paradox isn’t statistical. It is visual. The question isn’t who has more toilets. It is why certain Pakistani streets feel more governed.
The Answer: 41 Cantonments Continue reading The Cantonment and the Clean Street: Why Pakistan’s Punjab Looks More Ordered Than India’s
Modi’s visit to Israel 2.0
Azad Essa writes on his Substack:
On Wednesday, Modi is scheduled to return to Israel for a two-day visit that Netanyahu says will underscore what he describes as a “special relationship” between the two countries – language typically reserved for US–Israel ties.
According to BAFTA, ‘Free Palestine’ is the slur. Not the N-word.
The Man, Not the Scandal
John Davidson has Tourette’s. He did not mean it. His tics are involuntary — the condition is neurological, not moral. The audience was warned before the ceremony began. Davidson left the room when he realised what was happening. He has spent his life teaching the public what Tourette’s actually is. None of what happened Sunday night was his fault.
Now the second thing. The BBC broadcast it anyway.
The Edit Suite Had Two Hours Continue reading According to BAFTA, ‘Free Palestine’ is the slur. Not the N-word.