August 2020
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Paatal Lok – Review
Nachiketa reviews the crime thriller Paatal Lok after reading a Swarajya piece accusing it of left-liberal propaganda, praising its engaging storytelling on communalism, casteism and patriarchy and weighing the Hinduphobia…
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Open Thread – 08/22/2020 – Brown Pundits
Open thread of 22 August 2020. The opening note warns commenters against Hindu nationalist tropes about Islam and says traditional Muslim historiography should not be taken at face value, any…
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The Qualitative Destruction of Pakistan Army between 1955 and 1971
An essay by retired Major A. H. Amin, written in 1999 and reposted from his Military History Centre site, arguing the Pakistan Army’s quality was eroded between 1955 and 1971…
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Kamala Harris embrace of ‘victim identity’ bothers me
Razib Khan says Kamala Harris’s embrace of victim identity bothers him, noting she entered law school through a programme for students facing hardship while her mother’s family were upper-middle-class Tamil…
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The Aryan Integration Theory (AIT)
Razib Khan drops the label ‘Aryan Invasion Theory’, arguing from ancient DNA that Indo-Aryans interposed themselves into a fallen landscape rather than conquering a coherent civilisation, with steppe admixture dated…
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Citizenship Amendment Act – the straw that broke the camel’s back
Nachiketa argues the Citizenship Amendment Act, though not insidious alone, becomes alarming when paired with the National Register of Citizens as Amit Shah described, since non-Muslim migrants would gain citizenship…
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Getting beyond the nerd understanding of religion
Razib Khan, an atheist who says he does not intuitively get religion, argues technically minded ‘nerds’ misread it because belief in gods, spirits and ghosts is the universal raw material…
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Shaniwar Wada: The Palace Of The Peshwa
Nachiketa describes Shaniwar Wada, the Peshwas’ palace fort in Pune and seat of Maratha power from 1730 to 1818, its founding under Bajirao I, the Delhi Darwaza and its near…
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Book Review: The Universal History of Numbers
Omar Ali reposts a review he wrote 20 years ago of Georges Ifrah’s Universal History of Numbers, recounting how a schoolteacher’s pupils’ question about the origin of numbers sent Ifrah…
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MS Dhoni – the Master of Methodical Madness
Nachiketa marks MS Dhoni’s retirement, arguing his career was defined by ‘methodical madness’, with calm nerves in chases and his captaincy in the inaugural T20 World Cup final against Pakistan,…
