🪙 What’s in a Name? Mukesh, Not Mukash.

While reading Brad DeLong’s fascinating newsletter on centi-billionaires and political power (I’m going to ignore Elon’s self-imploding stunt), I noticed something that jarred me more than it should have: Mukesh Ambani’s name was misspelled as “Mukash.” A minor slip, perhaps. But it was the only error in a list that included Bernard Arnault, Warren Buffett, and Michael Bloomberg—men whose names command a certain global familiarity.

What does it say that even after spending nearly half a billion dollars on a wedding for his son, India’s wealthiest man doesn’t merit a spellcheck? It says a lot.

🧠 The Chimera of Respect via Capital

There’s a pathology, particularly among upper-caste Indians, that material success will eventually buy the West’s respect. That more Ambanis, more unicorns, more opulence will earn India a seat at the table—not just economically, but civilizationally. But the spelling mistake is the tell.

Respect is not purchased. It is either structurally granted or strategically extracted. The former rarely applies to brown nations.

🧮 The Brahmin–Baniya Compact

Upper-caste Hindu society operates on a twin dynamic:

• The Brahmin, who claims knowledge and legitimacy.
• The Baniya, who accumulates capital as insulation from precarity.

Together, they create a high-caste compact that mocks Pakistan for poverty, idealizes China’s success, and attempts to mirror Western hegemony—without challenging its architecture. But that’s not sovereignty. That’s simulation.

🇨🇳 The Real Winner: China in the Cleft

While South Asia has been obsessively cleaving itself—India vs. Pakistan, Hindu vs. Muslim, upper caste vs. Other—China has mastered the art of sitting in the clefts. It rarely extends unnecessarily. It moves tactically. And it sits wherever the colonial powers once withdrew—whether in Africa, Central Asia, or, more recently, the Russia–Ukraine cleft. Wherever empire exits, China settles.

🧭 South Asia’s Hardening Horizon

As borders calcify and imagination shrinks, we are left with a subcontinent fragmenting by design and by habit.

The great poet Kabir wrote: Do not ask the caste of the saint; ask of his wisdom. Value the sword, not the scabbard.

But caste is now stylized. Wealth is confused for wisdom. And respect—when granted—is misspelled. The soft border of South Asia (the Great Punjab) is hardening (the Sikhs remain a bridge). The thread won’t stitch itself. And China, once again, is watching the seam unravel—silently preparing to fill the cleft. And what will remain? Perhaps only brown billionaires trying to outdo each other in wedding budgets, chasing Western approval, while their names are still mispronounced in policy rooms that matter.