I only heard about it from Kabir on WhatsApp.
I’m in Chennai at the moment so have been busy selecting art.
I feel like Brown Pundits is the oldest and most active Indo-Pak weblog? Am I wrong?
I only heard about it from Kabir on WhatsApp.
I’m in Chennai at the moment so have been busy selecting art.
I feel like Brown Pundits is the oldest and most active Indo-Pak weblog? Am I wrong?
“Taking the ‘True Indian’ Test|Central Hall”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m0RQHdyo36Q
“What Does the Book Ban in Kashmir Seek to Repress?” by Angana P. Chatterji
https://thewire.in/books/what-does-the-book-ban-in-kashmir-seek-to-repress
“Dilli: Muntazir bhi, Muntazar bhi–A meditation on qawwali, secularism, and the sound of longing in Delhi”
https://vrindatulsian.substack.com/p/dilli-muntazir-bhi-muntazar-bhi
Chennai has been a whirlwind; Colombo tonight
Should this open thread be called such? I mean RG hasn’t really been detained and the politics going around the ECI voting lists seems more about the drama and creating a ruckus to discredit rather than any real reform or fixes. Last time it was EVM’s.
Just ignoring the whole allegation and debunking of such, logically, the BJP is running a cobbled up coalition govt where it publicly expected 400+ seats. It beggars belief that they would rig an election in such an incompetent manner.
Anyway, clickbait header aside..
Since there have been much ado about the NCERT, the print is running a profile on the man leading the revision.
https://theprint.in/india/education/auroville-drew-michel-danino-to-india-he-now-leads-ncert-team-drafting-new-social-science-textbooks/2718333/
I have lots of conflicting views about this. But it is an interesting input point.
” ‘Can’t Take Air Chief Marshal’s Claim of Downing Five Pak Jets at Face Value,’ Argues Sushant Singh”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_5jdNPO4OE
Questions are being raised even within India as to why the air chief came up with this statement three months after the ceasefire (as opposed to Pakistan that claimed downing Indian jets within days) and that too without any evidence.
I don’t support what General Munir apparently said and I hope both countries are not foolish enough to get into another round of conflict.
That said, threats (like those in the interview) to “take out Karachi port” are rather far-fetched. Any attempt by India to do so will be met with a forceful response. You attack Karachi, we will go for Mumbai.
“It’s Time to Take Seriously Greek Influences on Buddhism” by Doug Bates
https://ataraxiaorbust.substack.com/p/its-time-to-take-seriously-greek
Eye roll lol
They love to put everything to the West
any thing good in hinduism its because of buddhism, any thing bad in buddhism its because of hinduism.
They love to put everything to the West
I am a little surprised you would say that. I assume you know of Persians and the Greeks.
Then there was the Greco Bactrian Empire and the Kushans. Think the Baminan Buddhist Statutes that the Taliban destroyed.
There has been plenty of give and take between the West and the East and still ongoing. Whether one want to give credit or not
Hello from Colombo
I am 160 km from Colombo.and have not gone to Colombo for a bout 3 to 4 years.
You are welcome to visit and maybe even do a safari/ Very very basic place. I am 3 km from the Wilpattu National Park.
Will send by email phone number.
I am leaving tonight but coming. Back again in December
Editorial in today’s DAWN
https://www.dawn.com/news/1930606
Pakistan lacks leverage against India – either to make peace, or to alter Indian plans on IWT. Recent flirtations with Drumpf are yet to crystallize.
The single easy, most obvious thing for Pak, is to demonstrate a permanent shutdown of terrorism targeted at India. And yet, they refuse to do so. Because the incentives for PakMil are not aligned with what’s beneficial to Pakistan, let alone India.
Until this circle is squared, all noise about “Aman ki Asha” is a bunch of meaningless hot air.
Pakistani pseudo-liberals ought to to turn their energies inwards, and focus on obtaining some semblance of self-determination for Pakistani citizens. If and when they manage to get some control over their governance and destiny, they can work towards peace, instead of playacting furiously without it holding any actual value whatsoever.
We can alter Indian plans on IWT. As COAS said, you build a dam on the rivers allotted to Pakistan, we will destroy that dam immediately. Any attempts to turn off our water will be treated as an act of war.
India is not dealing with some piddly little country. You are not Israel dealing with a Gaza that has no army or air force. You are dealing with the Muslim world’s only nuclear weapon state. Don’t forget that.
Blowing up dams is easier said than done, and carries violent ramifications for Pak itself. There’s a whole lot of impact that India can inflict on Pakistan, without even resorting to any large scale dam building.
The nukes boogie monster is useful to avoid regime-change and invasion, and not much else. As Op Sindoor aptly demonstrated. A dozen PAF bases surgically bombed and Pakistan’s retaliation pretty much amounted to fireworks in the sky after the initial skirmish. “Don’t forget that”.
OK, I am not going to get into this with you. You’re ideologically anti-Pakistan. I’m not wasting any more of my time.
But Pakistan Army is very clear that any attempts to turn off our water will treated as an act of War. India should factor that in to whatever calculations they are making.
We brought down five of your planes. The entire world admits that. In contrast, no one outside of India believes your air chief’s claim that India brought down six Pakistani planes.
Happy 14th August! As the Quaid stated “There is no power on earth that can undo Pakistan”.
Calm Kabir
I’m perfectly calm.
Turning off our water is a long-articulated Pakistani red line.
Yes but again itโs not happening rn –
“For Asim Munir, India’s action on Indus Waters Treaty comes close to existential threat|Latitude”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-TChWdv7JQc
The interviewee is Rana Banerji, former head of the Pakistan Desk at R&AW.
Oh definitely. If they had been able to get along, Pakistan may not have come into being.
Gandhi ji suggested that Jinnah be made the first PM of independent India. Nehru was obviously not having that.
and for obvious reasons, a person who would resort to ‘direct action’ riots and actively foment secession, just handed leadership of the new country? Jinnah’s destructive personal ambition gets a free pass from many, while Nehru’s foibles are fashionably exaggerated. Its all good, everyone’s entitled to their biases.
There was no “secession”. The concept of “secession” applies to nation-states not to colonial entities. Contrary to your incorrect opinion, “India” did not exist before August 15, 1947 by which time Pakistan already existed. Enjoy your delusions.
As for “Direct Action Day”, while that was wrong, Pandit Nehru shouldn’t have gone back on his word about the Cabinet Mission Plan.
You conveniently forget about the twenty years that the Quaid was the “Ambassador of Hindu-Muslim Unity”.
You are attempting to play this game with someone who has read all the relevant scholarship on Partition. You will lose.
did you just attempt to justify communal rioting, the murder of thousands of innocent men, women chidren, because Jinnah didn’t get what he wanted in a political dispute? This is the mindset that has seen generations of Pakistanis overtly support jihadi violence in India in the name of the “Kashmir dispute”. Such pseudo-liberals have blood on their hands.
There is nothing to ‘win or lose’ in this type of discussion. The facts are what they are. Partition was a horrific tragedy and anyone who even pretends to be a liberal, cannot and would not, support a doomed project of carving out countries sliced out from its ethnic brethren, simply because they wanted “their” faith to dominate always. That is a grossly illiberal regressive sentiment that was weaponized to create Pakistan.
Why is this obvious fact so difficult to digest for educated people. I mean, it doesn’t negate the current existence of Pakistan to simply be honest about history.
The Muslim League elites shat on the decades of united Indian freedom struggle and carved out a slice of the independence pie to preserve their personal status because they feared for its future. And they weaponized communal bigotry to accomplish this. And the average muslim of United India, suffered in the process. On either side of the Radcliffe line.
Jinnah’s “ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity” is just about relevant as Adolf Hitler’s WW1 service record or his failed painting career in Vienna. Its the stuff that follows that counts for a whole lot more.
Comparing the Qaid to Hitler is completely unacceptable.
You should introspect about why someone who was the “Ambassador of Hindu Muslim Unity” became the founding father of a sovereign Muslim-majority homeland. You will find that the behavior of the INC had a lot to do with it.
Come back to me when you have read the relevant scholarly works. You can begin with Sam Dalrymple. Otherwise, I’m simply wasting my time with someone who is ideologically anti Pakistan and lacks a complete understanding of the situation.
QeAโs ego was basically the reason for Communalisation?
It’s not that simple. While the Quaid definitely had an ego (demanding to be considered the “sole spokesman” of Indian Muslims) so did Pandit Nehru.
A lot of things happened over the course of twenty years that made the Quaid lose trust in the INC. One of them was the refusal of INC to share power after the 1937 elections. The final straw was Pandit Nehru’s backing out from the Cabinet Mission Plan after initially accepting it.
It’s very easy for Indian nationalists to demonize the Quaid and hold Muslim League responsible for Partition. I guess that’s what they are taught in their schools. But the truth is far more complicated.
The bottom line is that the Pakistan Movement only took off seriously in 1940 (after the “Lahore Resolution”). Compromise between INC and ML could have been achieved at any time during the 1920s and ’30s which would have made Pakistan a non-starter.
A Bangladeshi view:
“Not Just Religion or Nationalism, the Call for Pakistan in East Bengal Was About Social Justice and Equality” by Ahmade Hussain
https://thewire.in/history/not-just-religion-nationalism-call-for-pakistan-bengal-social-justice
That is true but Indian Muslim leaders were nowhere even like the Young Turks, let alone the Nazis..
I do think even inna United India, with 40% Muslims, RW Hindus would have been nervous?
The comparison was about the relative importance of career phases. I.e. what Adolf did in the latter half of his career defines him a lot more than his painting. Similarly, my argument was that Jinnah’s spearheading separatism and deploying ‘direct action’ communal violence in pursuit of his gains, is far more definitive of his actual stance on religious harmony, than the bandying about of that “Ambassador of unity” honorific given to him earlier.
I can similarly criticize Mohandas Gandhi, or a Nehru or another historical figure. The ‘Quaid’ is not a religious figure against whom ‘blasphemy’ is somehow unacceptable. No?
“Fifty years on, Sholay’s triumphs and flaws echo through Hindi cinema and Indian society” By Anna M M Vetticad
https://www.himalmag.com/culture/sholay-bollywood-cinema-india-modi?