April 2025
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The Skyborne Castes
X.T.M uses a flight from Cairo as an extended metaphor for the world: seats allocated by race, region and power, with the Global South in economy, the West in business…
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Born in Blood: a relook at the final act of Parv
A second look at the final act of S. L. Bhyrappa’s novel Parva, the retelling of the Mahabharata. The author reads its closing scenes as a study of war’s futility,…
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Are You Sri Lankan?
Recounts being asked by a Persian friend whether he was Sri Lankan, and coins the “Azizam Effect” for a longing among light-skinned, Westernised Middle Easterners to distance themselves from darker…
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The Myth of the British-Made India
Rebuts Francis Pike’s Spectator claim that the British created India and Nehru and Gandhi invented its unity. The author argues India is a civilisational unit older than the Raj, that…
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Caesar’s Pakistani wife must be above suspicion
Responds to claims that the Pahalgam attack was a false flag by arguing that Pakistan must stay above suspicion. The author says its ideology is defined by opposing India, cites…
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India and Pakistan, Back to the Future..
Omar Ali sets out why Pakistan might have been behind the Pahalgam attack, or why it might not, after Pulwama and Balakot reset the red lines. He weighs the generals’…
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April 21st: Flowers, Flags, and the Fight for Names
X.T.M reads the coincidence of Riḍván, Saadi Day, Easter Vigil and Ed Sheeran’s Persian-titled song Azizam as a story about naming, memory and cultural survival, touching on Persian identity, the…
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Cheap Catharsis, Expensive History
Argues that televised confrontations with Empire’s legacy, such as the General Dyer descendant on Sathnam Sanghera’s documentary, offer cheap catharsis in place of structural change. The author says they manage…
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Constitutional Preambles in South Asia
A comparison of the preambles to the constitutions of South Asian states, reposted from the archive.
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The Historic Task of the Pakistani Bourgeoisie
Omar Ali argues that the Two-Nation Theory is a dangerous basis for Pakistan, and that the Pakistani bourgeoisie’s historic task is to defang it or watch the state break up.…
