Dear Punditeers,
A gentle reminder to take a breath and step back. Kabir is entitled to his views—there’s no obligation to counter every provocation point-by-point.
What’s troubling isn’t disagreement—it’s the sheer volume of rage replies. This doesn’t reflect the standard we aspire to. It’s neither civil nor intellectual. The only reason I’m stepping in is because, while I generally prefer light-touch moderation, the tone of these threads now reflects poorly on the broader community. It lowers the quality of both the commentariat and the platform.
We’ve seen this play out before—Sepia Mutiny is a cautionary tale. Let’s not replicate it.
So please: engage with ideas, not just identities. Let’s not derail into yet another endless Indo-Pak back-and-forth. We’re capable of better.
Warmly,
X.T.M
✉️ [Addendum]
On Nivedita’s query, I’ve finally re-created the Brown Pundits email account. It’s hosted on Gmail, but I’ve deliberately avoided posting the full address here to prevent spam harvesters. If you’d like to get in touch privately or share something offline, feel free to reach out via:
📧 brownpundits19 [@g]
In complete agreement. I will try and get the draft on the immigrants ready over the weekend. Is brownpundits@gmail.com the right place to reach you?
That email is defunct – I will have to create a new one
Hi Nivedita – just a quick note to say I’ve updated the email on the site.
Also, I’d be happy to make you a contributor so you can post directly. I believe you’ll need to set up a user account for that (I couldn’t find yours)—once that’s done, I can assign the appropriate role.
I’ve always felt that having multiple contributors adds a richness of perspective, and it’d be great for your voice to be part of that mix.
Thanks XTM. Much appreciated. Will email you.
Not sure if I can commit to contribute regularly, let’s see how best to structure this. Not because I don’t want to, just unsure about time given my other commitments.
Yes that’s absolutely fine..
Tried emailing, but it bounced back. Have set up a user account.
The email on the left?
Yup
a slightly side tracked question.
i feel that ashoka university founders ( funders?) are correct in trying to prevent it from becoming a ‘ high fees paying jnu’.it appears that the faculty educated in jnu are not agreeing !!
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I voided your comment because you literally ignored the entire post ..
Wasn’t a provocation. Just a musing.
The Chenab Bridge is a great engineering marvel and is not just an Indian but a global triumph. Was just surprised by the denial of some Pakistani people.
Not like it’s some missile or military weapon which is a threat to them in any way. Just a bridge.
Your comment is tone-deaf in context.
My post was a direct appeal for civility and restraint—especially in how we handle the Indo-Pak discourse on this platform. So pivoting immediately to a national pride moment (and speculating on Pakistani incredulity) came off as ignoring the broader point: we need to cool down the reflexive back-and-forth that turns everything into another front in the culture war.
There’s nothing wrong with celebrating the Chenab Bridge—it’s genuinely a marvel. But when these kinds of remarks are dropped into a thread already asking for de-escalation, it ends up feeding the exact cycle I was flagging. That’s why I voided it—not to shut you down, but to protect the tone of the space.
X.T.M
Thanks for the request for civility X.T.M. To be clear, I don’t have a problem with criticism of Pakistan but with the tone in which that criticism is expressed. Too often from my perspective it comes across as warmongering and bullying. On the other hand, criticism of the Modi regime (not even of India as a whole) is often considered “Hinduphobic”. Also, I would prefer if posters don’t descend to remarks about other people’s families.
In an attempt to change the subject, I’m linking to two pieces that I had published on Hindustani music. The first is a book review of Richard David Williams’ (one of my professors at SOAS) book The Scattered Court: Hindustani Music in Colonial Bengal. The second is an excerpt from my dissertation which discusses the evolution of Hindustani classical music in Pakistan since 1947.
https://journals.openedition.org/samaj/9663
Second link is here: https://www.epw.in/engage/article/evolution-hindustani-classical-music-pakistan-1947
Nice I’ll work them into my pending post – when were you at SOAS btw?
2018-19
ah you would have been in the UK the same time..