May 2019
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Browncast Ep 35: Tahir Andrabi on Primary Education in Pakistan
On Browncast Episode 35, Tahir Andrabi discusses primary education in Pakistan, arguing the matriculation exam and a colonial system built to pick winners fail most pupils, while educated girls drove…
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Browncast Ep 34: Sohail Naqvi on Higher Education in Pakistan
On Browncast Episode 34, Sohail Naqvi, Rector of the University of Central Asia and former head of Pakistan’s Higher Education Commission, shares his views on higher education in Pakistan and…
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Why I hate the Hijab
The author argues the hijab belongs to the Middle Eastern cultural matrix and is out of place for Desi Muslims, and criticises Western hijabi activists for ignoring Iranian women who…
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Keep your biases in check
Announcing moderation of India-Pakistan flame wars, the author argues that neither side is morally perfect: India annexed Muslim-majority Kashmir despite Hyderabad and Junagadh precedents, and that, per Ayesha Jalal, Jinnah…
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Contemplating the weave of the world
A new contributor introduces himself as a British outsider living in the United States, fascinated by the weave of the world, and uses the Kathasaritsagara and Salman Rushdie’s streams of…
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Questions for Professor Foltz
A call for reader questions to put in writing to Professor Richard Foltz, an Iranic studies specialist, after the author’s live blog of his talk, with early Aryans as the…
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The Indian Muslim question
After an open-thread row over Pakistani Hindus and Indian Muslims, the author says he feels he de-Muslimises himself in India, argues Indians treat Muslims like a caste while Pakistan sorts…
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Open Thread – Brown Pundits
An open thread that summarises the results of the reader survey so far, covering respondents’ ethnicity, location, education, religion, politics and language.
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From Sintashta to Samarkand
Live notes from Professor Richard Foltz’s Cambridge lecture on Sintashta and Samarkand. They record his claims that Sintashta remains underlie Vedic ritual, that Indo-Iranians called themselves Arya, and that Bactria-Margiana…
