Brown Pundits: Broad Church or Narrow Canon?

Brown Pundits Must Stay a Broad Church

Reading Kabir’s thoughtful post on the “soft Hindutva” bias at Brown Pundits, I found myself both agreeing with parts of his argument and diverging from its framing. My own journey with BP goes back to its inception. The blog was born in Twixmas December 2010; 10 days after I had met Dr. Lalchand, whose presence has profoundly shaped my civilizational views.

I say this not as a biographical aside but because BP, at its best, is where the personal and civilizational collide. We bring who we are; our marriages, our migrations, our contradictions, into this messy, brilliant conversation.

At the time, like many Pakistanis, I held a deep-seated assumption: that Hindus were fundamentally “other.” It wasn’t overt hatred; just a civilizational distance, internalized from birth. But Dr. V & Brown Pundits challenged that.

A Forum With Bias? Yes. But Which One?

The heart of BP is not neutrality; it’s the willingness to host contradiction. That is its genius, and it must be protected.

Kabir’s critique isn’t without merit. BP has long been skeptical of PakNationalism, a term coined and critiqued by Omar. That skepticism often bleeds into a preference for India’s civilizational continuity; even when it comes wrapped in saffron. But is that “soft Hindutva”? Or just what happens when a mostly Indian diaspora grows tired of liberal self-flagellation, yet remains far from the RSS?

We must be honest: all forums have a bias. BP’s is not Hindutva; soft or hard. Its bias is civilizational engagement, often from the Hindu side, because Hinduism is undergoing the most intense process of public introspection in South Asia today. That doesn’t make the forum exclusionary. It just means the emotional energy of the moment is Hindu.

As someone born Pakistani, this hasn’t always been easy to witness. I, too, was raised to see Hindus as alien. But Dr. V & BP helped me unlearn that. It forced me to hear Hindus speak for themselves; not as flat caricatures from Pakistani textbooks, but in flawed, fervent, polyphonic voices. That transformation matters.

Muslims, Merchants, and Modernity

Muslim societies across the Ummah often reproduce a mullah–merchant axis; ordinary bazaaris who are devout, disciplined, and wary of pluralism. This has less to do with theology than with social structure. Even Muslim liberals, those who’ve left the fold intellectually, often retain a deep emotional orthodoxy. They want the dignity of Islam without the obligations. That’s their right. But it also makes reform elusive.

This is why discussions with Muslim intellectuals on BP sometimes stall. There is a core, a resolve, a refusal to bend, even in secular critique. Islam’s strength is also its challenge: its clarity. Hinduism, by contrast, is maddeningly vague but that vagueness allows for evolution. It allows for critique from Ambedkarites, feminists, even atheists. And it survives.

This isn’t a moral hierarchy but it is a cultural asymmetry. One that defines much of public discourse today.

A Prayer Room in a Mall

A few days ago, I needed to say my long obligatory prayer and found myself in a mall. The prayer room was entirely Islamic in orientation. As a Bahá’í, whose obligatory prayer shares Islamic roots but is meant to be done in solitude, I felt alienated. In the end, I found the Christian meditation room, empty, quiet, and prayed there.

I don’t say this as an attack. But it illustrates something deeper. The Islamic world often has a powerful, immovable core. But cores can calcify. Without reform or flexibility, they struggle to respond to social complexity.

Liberating Hinduism to become like Islam

I remember reading a striking line once: that secularism in India was not about restraining Hinduism, but about liberating it from the Indian state. When the courts intervened in Sabarimala, or when temple boards were pressured to democratize, it wasn’t to marginalize the religion; it was to hold it accountable to the values it professed. That’s a far cry from how the Indian state treats its minorities, often with exaggerated deference. There’s a paradox there worth acknowledging.

This nuance is often missing when people critique “Hindu rage.” Yes, there is a rising assertiveness, sometimes aggressive and poorly articulated. But we must ask: what is the emotional wound behind the anger? What is the history being remembered, or misremembered?

What strikes me most, especially among Muslim intellectuals, is the tendency to distance themselves from the faith while still speaking on its behalf. There’s a kind of cultural half-step: not quite inside, not quite outside. But Islam, unlike Hinduism, is not nebulous. It’s a faith built on clarity; of law, of creed, of practice. And that clarity often hardens into rigidity. It becomes difficult to integrate with a pluralistic society when the core feels non-negotiable.

Akhand Bharat: Triggering, Yes. But Why

Kabir is right: maps of “Akhand Bharat” can be deeply offensive to some (would Pakistanis really be offended to be included in a map of the Persianate world?). But let us separate political intent from civilizational nostalgia. When Zionists say “Eretz Yisrael,” it doesn’t mean they’re marching on Jordan. When Chinese textbooks depict all of Asia as tributaries, it doesn’t mean they’re invading Mongolia. Civilizations remember expansively. That’s what they do.

Does “Akhand Bharat” imply irredentism? Not necessarily. But it reflects a longing for coherence in a region shattered by Partition; an event that scarred both India and Pakistan. For Pakistanis, Partition was foundational. For Indians, it was a trauma. These are not symmetrical truths but they are coexisting ones. BP must hold space for both.

The Future of This Forum

Kabir wants more Pakistanis on BP. So do I. He wants voices from Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, the Indian Left. So do I. But that expansion must come without constraining the organic Hindu self-expression that drives much of the current commentary. Kabir’s call for more Pakistani and left voices is valid. But that pluralism must add, not amputate, the Hindu core.

We don’t need quotas or silos. What we need is plural presence. If BP becomes a Hindutva or Islamist or secularist safe space, then so be it.

This forum is not perfect. But it is rare. And in a region still grieving its partitions; cultural, political, and spiritual, that rarity is its power. Let it widen, not fracture.

But I don’t think that’s where we are. What we are is a messy, multilingual, cross-border, intermarried, occasionally inappropriate, always intense, half-diasporic, half-continental civilizational salon. There is no other forum like this.

Let’s not neuter it in the name of neutrality.

Let it be what it already is; a place where someone like me, a half-Persian, half-Pakistani Bahá’í who just did a Shiv puja during Shravan, can say all this without apology.