September 2017
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To be brown is to be a civilization
Replying to Zach, the author argues South Asia is a civilisational entity squeezed by history into a few nation-states, and that India and China are not comparable because the Han…
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Why Brown Pundits?
Razib Khan on why he writes at Brown Pundits, going back to early-2000s email discussions with South Asian friends and growing up in white America.
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Turkish Turbulence – Shock Therapy for Turkish Armed Forces
Hamid Hussain argues the failed July 2016 coup was the last phase of the first republic founded by Atatürk, and traces how the Turkish Armed Forces changed over two decades,…
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What is Brown Pundits?
Reflecting on trying to write a novel, the author says it is hard to pin down what Brown Pundits is about, since it is not for cricket, desi politics or…
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The Obliquity of Oriental Culture
Inspired by the book Obliquity, the author reflects on his own indirect style, tracing the reserved, private-versus-public manners of Persian-influenced Bahá’í communities in the Gulf and South Asia, and contrasting…
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Hindustani Culture as a Link culture?
Arguing that the Hindustani vernacular and Bollywood bind South Asian desis from Tamil to Pashtun, the author writes as both insider and outsider to this cultural complex, citing his Urdu-speaking…
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What does it mean to be “Brown?”
Disliking ‘Brown’ as a New World term, the author prefers ‘desi’, and argues its haziness is its strength: it centres on the Indo-Gangetic plain, fades in Sri Lanka, Nepal and…
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Why is white such a problematic term
Following Ta-Nehisi Coates, argues ‘white’ is as loaded as the n-word, since Europeans needed new racial categories only after 1492 and the New World slave trade, when ‘Turk’ and ‘Christian’…
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Too light-skinned to be Pakistani?
Recounting a white dinner guest’s remark that he looked too light to be Pakistani, the author reflects on how Westerners read him as Indian or Muslim, and on his own…
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Religion trumps race in Sri Lanka
Citing a monk-led mob attacking Rohingya refugees in Sri Lanka, the author argues South Asians grasp the power of religion over race better than most, pointing to South Asian Muslims’…
