Yes. I don’t share anything I haven’t watched myself.
The main point I took away was that when Article 370 was removed and Ladakh was bifurcated from J&K, Ladakhis (particularly people from Leh) were happy about it since they didn’t like being ruled from Srinagar. Now, they’ve found that being ruled from Delhi is worse. Arresting Sonam Wangchuk under the National Security Act and sending him to Jaipur is particularly problematic.
Also, Leh and Kargil are on the same page now after years of being at odds.
Watch the video on this link in case you haven’t. The Afghan minister in Delhi today is quite interesting. So much for Trump wanting Bagram base back. That entire western border is now destabilized, my suspicion is that the US will start testing out their drone tech in the area (once this Israel peace deal craters).
Drone tech testing requires basing. I forget the name of the Waziristan PAF base that was taken over by USAF during WOT, but thats likely to repeat soon.
True, but nowadays the range is very good. I suppose the Americans can set up shop near Pindi.
I also read recently that some 10-15 people died in clashes in PoK. After the riot police were captured and frog marched away the Army stepped in with live ammo & the LeT thugs were sent in for plainclothes suppression. ‘Azad’ Kashmir indeed, the irony gets worse everyday.
The clash is interesting in itself, but it is the wider complicity of the liberal media confirming all my suspicions about the liberal-islamic compact that is far more worthy of note. No reporting by BBC/Guardian/Wire despite visuals of bigger mass protests and far more arson & deaths than Ladakh where they gave copious coverage.
The global media are only reporting it as an explosion, but consensus seems to be forming online that it was an air strike – eyewitness accounts and high reputation defence connected people (Khwaja Asif also threatened this in parliament recently)
So, in the last few weeks Pakistan has bombed their own people in Tirah Valley and now a foreign country capital.
They’ve also shot dead protestors in PoK & Islamabad (TLP unarmed protestors in mosque).
All happening at once.
Of course people will cling to the fig leaf of the liberal & pakistani press not reporting it, but thats par for the course nowadays.
If India can bomb “terrorist camps” in Pakistan, then why is Pakistan not allowed to bomb terrorists in Afghanistan?
Our national security is paramount. If Afghanistan wants to carry out anti-Pakistan activities, they deserve everything that is coming to them. Don’t play with Pakistan.
As for TLP, those people cannot be allowed to get anywhere near the US Embassy. Sorry, but that’s an absolute non-starter.
You didn’t answer the question. Presumably, you’re fine with Operation Sindoor since you were celebrating the deaths of Pakistani “terrorists”.
If india can attack a sovereign country in the interests of its national security than so can Pakistan. We have been asking Afghanistan for years to clean up its act and stop allowing TTP to foment terror in Pakistan. If diplomacy won’t work than military action is a legitimate option.
More broadly, there is no morality in national security.
Sry what is your question? Why can’t Pakistan bomb Afghanistan if it believes to be harbouring and propagating terror and taking no action to curb their activities from Afghan soil?
I don’t believe I have ever voiced any opposition to this. Just pointing out how “intellectual” you sound saying it after you argued the exact opposite w.r.t Indo-Pak.
Rules for thee but not for mee.
Besides, I lost count, where are we +14? (evasions about Pakistan bombing its own people in Tirah valley)
you have issues with “AFSPA” in J&K, but no problems with civilians being murdered in Balochistan, NWFP, or bullets being fired at protesters in Mirpur or even Lahore/Pindi.
Until a Pakistani has the cojones to acknowledge the fact that whatever ‘excesses’ India is accused of in J&K – are par for the course for PakMil – in the entirety of Pakistan, their moaning fake self-righteousness about the “Kashmir dispute” has negative credibility.
Oh, and also forfeits any pretenses to claiming to be “liberal”.
Pakistan has military courts for civilians, can you believe that? A Lt. Col and two majors, basically three 30 year olds with zero legal training, handing out life sentences. These people have executed hundreds of people with no due process.
Pakistan is a joke, Pak nationalists like Kabir who bring up 35-A, 370, AFSPA are jokers:
no need to ‘denounce’ anything. But intellectual dishonesty and hypocrisy is not going to lead to productive discussions. Just more ‘heat instead of light’…
We can all be honest about our country’s issues. I have no qualms in acknowledging the fact that there is some disgusting bigotry in large numbers of Indians regarding muslims. And that unfortunately, such bigotry often masks itself a bit and finds space in the Indian RW.
First of all, “NWFP” doesn’t exist. It has been called Khyber Pakhthunkwa for more than a decade. The fact that you use the old British colonial name shows you really don’t know much about Pakistan.
In Occupied Kashmir, your army continues to disappear Kashmiri Muslim men and rape Kashmiri Muslim women. Asiya and Neelofar, Kunan Pushpora, Gawkadal.
So your pretense that India is some moral and great country is nothing but Indian nationalist bluster.
Muslim on Muslim is not a “civilisational offence.”
From what I understand the Marathas did plunder lots of India and weren’t especially beloved but as they are Hindu; if not a civilisation offensive.
Same with say inter Arab fighting compared with Israel. There is a civilisation or religious offence. It is understandable to some extent thought of course for me “Life is Sacred” is the foundational principle
For a ‘liberal’, citizens being disappeared would be an issue, and not just in “Dushman Mulk” For fake-liberal RW-ers who wish to weaponize liberalism…
I’m not being “jingoistic”. I’m pointing out that there is no morality in national security.
Pakistan is a nuclear weapon state. India needs to consider this.
Afghanistan is not a nuclear weapon state. Militarily, they cannot compete with Pakistan. Anyway, we have tried diplomacy for years. If they are going to continue to allow their country to be used for anti-Pakistan activities they have to deal with the consequences.
I don’t think Afghanistan and Pakistan are comparable nations fwiw ..
Afghanistan has an entirely different level of integration with Pakistan then Pakistan has with Indianfwiw .. the borders are much looser. The Punjab is actually a less natural border, but a more fortified one..
Where AfPak is defined by mountains but has numerous openings and is porous
Tbh, I really have no understanding of why the TTP fought Pakistan to start with. The whole setup was very complicated 10-15 years ago. ISI pushed for “Good” Taliban in Afghanistan while Army was fighting “Bad” Taliban in Swat, that whole Asim Durrani interview was bonkers. Musharraf was supporting the US invasion, ISI was undermining it. At some point GHQ must have had people in the same building working at odds.
Much clearer now.
The TTP and the Taliban have aligned goals. KPK has a PTI govt which is taking notes from the Pashtun IK sitting in jail on the. The sides are well defined along regional and tribal markers.
Adnan Sami? Even Shah Rukh Khan is a Pathan. Isn’t IK a Pathan?
Assimilation is here and there. Politicians are super happy to bring various identities to the forefront. IK was not called Taliban Khan for nothing. PTI stronghold in KPK is partially based on this I thought.
He was called “Taliban Khan” because he kept referring to the Taliban as “misguided brothers” and wanted dialogue with them instead of drone campaigns.
Kabir is definitely right. Ethnicity in Pakistan is complex; there are three tiers of society. The English speaking elite (Imran is part of that so is Kabir), who are “Pakistanis” and ethnicity isn’t really reflected on.
The Urdu speaking middle classes; very into Islam and Pakistan TNT stalwarts. If they are Punjabi they look down on their ethnicity, if they are Pathan they outwardly proud of it but also “assimilate.” Sindhi language nationalism is a different order; they don’t feel Urdu friendly, Pakistani in their own way. and I’ve almost never met a Baluch (a real one not the Sindhi-Baloch).
Finally the provincial languages are very much rural and lower middle; reflection of education. India has much more vigorous local language traditions. Think of Pakistan as the Hindi Belt, where Rajasthan to Bihar have all adopted Hindi as their common tongue even though Eastern Hindi is as close, if not closer, to Bengali than it is to Western Hindi (which Hindi belongs to).
Kabir is also right about religious minorities, outside of the Hindu population (who are subject to subtle societal Hinduphobia, India & Hindu is the same in Pakistani discourse); who are *very* loyal to Pakistan. Pakistani Christians seem to have been the non-Muslim minority who stayed on Pakistani Punjab side.
The Pakistani Christians descend from a Muslim elite, who all have Muslim surnames, but the Pakistani Christian population is Dalit-OBC converts.
Pakistan is VERY Complex. Old State Young Nation.
Kabir is exactly on point for his class and for the Pakistani nation. I know exactly how he thinks.
Thought Pakistan, in this millennium, has really drifted. Kabir, will not suffer, but his 200mn countrymen will..
the caste system is MUCH more pronounced in Pakistan since it is overtly feudal and leftist politics have no real traction in Pakistan (Zardari is a Zamindar, Sharifs are industrialists, IK was an Islamic-socialist and look where he ended up)…
of course IK is also a product of Aitchison college
I don’t think IK is sympathetic to the TTP. The TTP is a terrorist group that kills Pakistanis. If he were sympathetic to them, it would be very bad for his politics.
He was called “Taliban Khan” because he was against the War on Terror. He was against General Musharraf’s policies (so were many others but for different reasons from IK). He repeatedly called the Taliban “misguided brothers”.
He’s very right-wing. His views on the place of women and appropriate behavior for women are truly something else. Just as one example, he is on record as stating (repeatedly) that women who dress inappropriately are asking to be raped.
His full name is Imran Khan Niazi. Niazis are not Pashtun. His father was from Mianwali district, which is again in Punjab. His mother was from Jalandhar.
He can call himself whatever he wants but it doesn’t change reality.
Anyway, his ethnic background (whatever it is) is not an issue in his politics. His core supporters are Punjabi “Paknationalists”. In essence, people who adore the Pakistan Army. They only turned against the Army when IK fell from power. If the Army brings him back to power, all his supporters will fall in love with the Army again.
in all fairness, imran khan wanted rule of law in pak.
when a pak journalist interviewing posed that pak was feudal, he retorted back that england was feudal, less number of people had large tracts of land and yet england had rule of law.
sounds sensible.
When he was initially campaigning, he did campaign on the themes of anti-corruption and justice.
However, his time in power showed that he is just another right-wing populist (kind of like Pakistan’s Trump). He had no idea how to make policy.
Anyway, his real issue was that he thought that the Army takes orders from the PM and not the other way around. That’s not how it works in Pakistan and he has found that out the hard way.
Once again, I’m not getting into “cowardice” or “morality”.
If India has the right and ability to bomb Pakistan, Pakistan has the right and ability to bomb Afghanistan. Special rules don’t apply to India that apply to others.
India must deal with the consequences of bombing Pakistan– loss of aircraft, declaration of war etc. Similarly, Pakistan will have to deal with the consequences of airstrikes in Afghanistan.
But you did buddy, you did, all you could talk about was the morality of killing women and children as collateral damage to bombing a terrorists hide out.
Now you don’t want to talk about it because… well hypocrisy I guess.
Once again: you have no issues when India bombs Pakistan.
But somehow, Pakistan bombing Afghanistan is immoral.
If there is anyone who is a hypocrite here, it is you.
To make it really simple for you: States will take whatever action needed to protect national security. Other states have to deal with it.
Luckily, in the India-Pakistan case: Pakistan is a nuclear power. We successfully established deterrence in May. If you try it again, we will successfully establish deterrence again,
Actually, I said bombing your own territory is immoral because you are able to send in soldiers to prevent civilian losses. All collateral damage is immoral, question is what options do you have?
Here is Khwaja Asif declaring that they will strike back any attack on the army with total disregard to any collateral damage.
Violence is tragic of course, but I find it …amusing to see how Pakistanis copy-paste Indian policy towards Pak, apply it to Afghanistan. On one hand, they whine about Indian ‘hegemony’ while asserting the right to duplicate it against a weaker state like AFG. The irony is…….explicit.
Once again, there is no morality in national security. If India can attack “terrorist camps” in Pakistan, Pakistan can attack terrorists in Afghanistan.
Someone needs to write a book about this Embassy in Delhi, it’s operated for 4 years on its own steam, issuing passports and certificates and all manner of paperwork to Afghans living in India. Closing briefly for a month in 2023.
Oh it’s an abhorrent backward regime who is here with the enemy of enemy principle, I don’t think anyone has any illusions about the Taliban. I’m assuming the main purpose for this meeting is to irritate the renewed US-Pak bonhomie with the visuals. From meeting a BJP govt to visiting the Deobandi hq is a massive cultural span.
IMHO the seminary visit was extremely important for the Govt. Having a sea of men mob a Taliban leader in the heart of UP is a visual reminder that Islam unfettered and unrepressed in India. Blame about woman journalist being denied entry to the afghan embassy too gets contextualized. That Deoband is the ideological fountainhead of the Taliban is a necessary reminder to everyone.
That’s Mr A.Doval explaining broad strategy of combating Pak sponsored terror networking.
(Interestingly video hosted from what looks like a Pakistani account)
14 white foreign universities have been granted permission to open their campuses in india so that indians get international level education being in india . this will eventually increase.
i always felt that we ‘browns’ went to white foreign universities in foreign to eventually settle there.
not sure how this move will help indians. indian companies are doing good with desi degrees.
hope they will not bring the toxic woke culture here. we have enough of native woke already.
I suspect they will bring their humanities depts though. This is where they have greater cache. It is wishful thinking to feel otherwise. Might not be a bad thing if done properly.
brown
1 month ago
now that ‘peace deal’ has been signed, i have the following questions-
i) will the protests in west stop now? if not what will they protest for?
ii) if ukraine does not do a peace deal now, there may not be much of ukraine to deal with in two years.
iii) what is happening in pakistan?
iv) why is rahul gandhi in columbia, peru etc, when his party is supposed to be fighting a major election in 4 weeks? strange indeed.
brown
1 month ago
i had made a comment here!!! I suspect it’s the handle
“How Modi Misread Ladakh| Siddiq Wahid on Broken Promises, Repression, and a United Civil Society”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XHYQb_rtDnk
very interesting – have you watched it?
Yes. I don’t share anything I haven’t watched myself.
The main point I took away was that when Article 370 was removed and Ladakh was bifurcated from J&K, Ladakhis (particularly people from Leh) were happy about it since they didn’t like being ruled from Srinagar. Now, they’ve found that being ruled from Delhi is worse. Arresting Sonam Wangchuk under the National Security Act and sending him to Jaipur is particularly problematic.
Also, Leh and Kargil are on the same page now after years of being at odds.
If you want to write a post on it; this does seem interesting ..
TTP recently killed 11 Pakistani soldiers including a lieutenant colonel. Also the Afghanistan FM is visiting India.
Pakistan had thought they had “won” in 2021 after the Americans left but how the tables have turned.
https://www.brownpundits.com/2025/10/08/pahalgam-and-aftermath/#comment-119526
Watch the video on this link in case you haven’t. The Afghan minister in Delhi today is quite interesting. So much for Trump wanting Bagram base back. That entire western border is now destabilized, my suspicion is that the US will start testing out their drone tech in the area (once this Israel peace deal craters).
Drone tech testing requires basing. I forget the name of the Waziristan PAF base that was taken over by USAF during WOT, but thats likely to repeat soon.
True, but nowadays the range is very good. I suppose the Americans can set up shop near Pindi.
I also read recently that some 10-15 people died in clashes in PoK. After the riot police were captured and frog marched away the Army stepped in with live ammo & the LeT thugs were sent in for plainclothes suppression. ‘Azad’ Kashmir indeed, the irony gets worse everyday.
The clash is interesting in itself, but it is the wider complicity of the liberal media confirming all my suspicions about the liberal-islamic compact that is far more worthy of note. No reporting by BBC/Guardian/Wire despite visuals of bigger mass protests and far more arson & deaths than Ladakh where they gave copious coverage.
To its credit – Al Jazeera ran it but the reporting and language around it is very much with kid gloves on.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/10/3/why-has-pakistan-administered-kashmir-erupted-in-protest-again
Here is a Turkish outlet with the integrity to report it in a neutral manner.
https://evrimagaci.org/gpt/violent-clashes-and-crackdown-rock-pakistancontrolled-kashmir-and-balochistan-505632
Edit: Funnily enough, the Turkish outlet is an AI generated experimental news site. The mind boggles.
It would make an excellent case study in media bias. (Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?)
Looks like Pakistan has bombed Kabul last night.
Or so says the ex US ambassador to Afghanistan on twitter.
https://x.com/realZalmayMK/status/1976397186276454861
The global media are only reporting it as an explosion, but consensus seems to be forming online that it was an air strike – eyewitness accounts and high reputation defence connected people (Khwaja Asif also threatened this in parliament recently)
So, in the last few weeks Pakistan has bombed their own people in Tirah Valley and now a foreign country capital.
They’ve also shot dead protestors in PoK & Islamabad (TLP unarmed protestors in mosque).
All happening at once.
Of course people will cling to the fig leaf of the liberal & pakistani press not reporting it, but thats par for the course nowadays.
Edit : https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c62lp7yd1jeo about 18-20 hours late, no details, no definite reporting.
If India can bomb “terrorist camps” in Pakistan, then why is Pakistan not allowed to bomb terrorists in Afghanistan?
Our national security is paramount. If Afghanistan wants to carry out anti-Pakistan activities, they deserve everything that is coming to them. Don’t play with Pakistan.
As for TLP, those people cannot be allowed to get anywhere near the US Embassy. Sorry, but that’s an absolute non-starter.
L&G, I present to you, the “intellectual” position. Deep bow, exit stage center.
You didn’t answer the question. Presumably, you’re fine with Operation Sindoor since you were celebrating the deaths of Pakistani “terrorists”.
If india can attack a sovereign country in the interests of its national security than so can Pakistan. We have been asking Afghanistan for years to clean up its act and stop allowing TTP to foment terror in Pakistan. If diplomacy won’t work than military action is a legitimate option.
More broadly, there is no morality in national security.
Sry what is your question? Why can’t Pakistan bomb Afghanistan if it believes to be harbouring and propagating terror and taking no action to curb their activities from Afghan soil?
I don’t believe I have ever voiced any opposition to this. Just pointing out how “intellectual” you sound saying it after you argued the exact opposite w.r.t Indo-Pak.
Rules for thee but not for mee.
Besides, I lost count, where are we +14? (evasions about Pakistan bombing its own people in Tirah valley)
First of all there is no such thing as “Tahir” Valley. If you can’t even get the name right, you don’t know what you’re talking about.
Secondly, I am not going to criticize how Pak Army chooses to protect our national security on our own soil.
I will remind you that AFSPA is still in place in Occupied Kashmir.
+15
you have issues with “AFSPA” in J&K, but no problems with civilians being murdered in Balochistan, NWFP, or bullets being fired at protesters in Mirpur or even Lahore/Pindi.
Until a Pakistani has the cojones to acknowledge the fact that whatever ‘excesses’ India is accused of in J&K – are par for the course for PakMil – in the entirety of Pakistan, their moaning fake self-righteousness about the “Kashmir dispute” has negative credibility.
Oh, and also forfeits any pretenses to claiming to be “liberal”.
Pakistan has military courts for civilians, can you believe that? A Lt. Col and two majors, basically three 30 year olds with zero legal training, handing out life sentences. These people have executed hundreds of people with no due process.
Pakistan is a joke, Pak nationalists like Kabir who bring up 35-A, 370, AFSPA are jokers:
https://www.geo.tv/latest/222070-military-court-trials-310-terrorists-sentenced-to-death-56-executed?utm_source=chatgpt.com
They also have AACPR which is worse than AFSPA.
What do you expect Kabir to do; denounce the country he lives in?
I think the Commentariat aren’t sensitive
no need to ‘denounce’ anything. But intellectual dishonesty and hypocrisy is not going to lead to productive discussions. Just more ‘heat instead of light’…
We can all be honest about our country’s issues. I have no qualms in acknowledging the fact that there is some disgusting bigotry in large numbers of Indians regarding muslims. And that unfortunately, such bigotry often masks itself a bit and finds space in the Indian RW.
First of all, “NWFP” doesn’t exist. It has been called Khyber Pakhthunkwa for more than a decade. The fact that you use the old British colonial name shows you really don’t know much about Pakistan.
In Occupied Kashmir, your army continues to disappear Kashmiri Muslim men and rape Kashmiri Muslim women. Asiya and Neelofar, Kunan Pushpora, Gawkadal.
So your pretense that India is some moral and great country is nothing but Indian nationalist bluster.
Calm Kabir; u don’t need to shoot back so quickly.. not everything is an ‘Izzat battle
More muslims have been “disappeared” by PakMil than anything that IA has done in J&K. By massive orders of magnitude.
Would you say this is a “fact” or an Opinion, Mr ‘I’m so well-educated in Humanities’?
Muslim on Muslim is not a “civilisational offence.”
From what I understand the Marathas did plunder lots of India and weren’t especially beloved but as they are Hindu; if not a civilisation offensive.
Same with say inter Arab fighting compared with Israel. There is a civilisation or religious offence. It is understandable to some extent thought of course for me “Life is Sacred” is the foundational principle
For a ‘liberal’, citizens being disappeared would be an issue, and not just in “Dushman Mulk” For fake-liberal RW-ers who wish to weaponize liberalism…
Same with say inter Arab fighting compared with Israel.
Arabs and Jews are both Semitic people with Islam (and Christianity) being derived from Judaism. So inter sectarian wars
is understandable to some extent thought of course for me “Life is Sacred” is the foundational principle
How can that be, Bahai is derived from Judaism via Islam. Judaism advocates Genocide
Kabir no need to be so jingoistic; Afghanistan Pakistan is nothing like Pakistan India..
I do believe Golestani should happen; the Union of the Stans
I’m not being “jingoistic”. I’m pointing out that there is no morality in national security.
Pakistan is a nuclear weapon state. India needs to consider this.
Afghanistan is not a nuclear weapon state. Militarily, they cannot compete with Pakistan. Anyway, we have tried diplomacy for years. If they are going to continue to allow their country to be used for anti-Pakistan activities they have to deal with the consequences.
The rank cowardice of bombing a non nuclear nation and then boasting about it is probably what XTM is pointing out.
I don’t think Afghanistan and Pakistan are comparable nations fwiw ..
Afghanistan has an entirely different level of integration with Pakistan then Pakistan has with Indianfwiw .. the borders are much looser. The Punjab is actually a less natural border, but a more fortified one..
Where AfPak is defined by mountains but has numerous openings and is porous
Tbh, I really have no understanding of why the TTP fought Pakistan to start with. The whole setup was very complicated 10-15 years ago. ISI pushed for “Good” Taliban in Afghanistan while Army was fighting “Bad” Taliban in Swat, that whole Asim Durrani interview was bonkers. Musharraf was supporting the US invasion, ISI was undermining it. At some point GHQ must have had people in the same building working at odds.
Much clearer now.
The TTP and the Taliban have aligned goals. KPK has a PTI govt which is taking notes from the Pashtun IK sitting in jail on the. The sides are well defined along regional and tribal markers.
Imran Khan is not Pashtun. If you think he is, you clearly know nothing about Pakistan.
IK is not really a Pashtun btw; he is more Lahori than anything else ..
There is a huge segment in Pakistan-Muhajir culture assimilated Afghans (the singer who switched nationalities was Afghan a generation or two back)..
Adnan Sami? Even Shah Rukh Khan is a Pathan. Isn’t IK a Pathan?
Assimilation is here and there. Politicians are super happy to bring various identities to the forefront. IK was not called Taliban Khan for nothing. PTI stronghold in KPK is partially based on this I thought.
He was called “Taliban Khan” because he kept referring to the Taliban as “misguided brothers” and wanted dialogue with them instead of drone campaigns.
He’s not Pashtun. He’s Punjabi.
Possibly in your eyes, but look how he starts off the self identification.
https://www.facebook.com/ImranKhanOfficial/videos/what-is-imran-khan-pathan-punjabi-mohajir/1035167643192322/
Kabir is definitely right. Ethnicity in Pakistan is complex; there are three tiers of society. The English speaking elite (Imran is part of that so is Kabir), who are “Pakistanis” and ethnicity isn’t really reflected on.
The Urdu speaking middle classes; very into Islam and Pakistan TNT stalwarts. If they are Punjabi they look down on their ethnicity, if they are Pathan they outwardly proud of it but also “assimilate.” Sindhi language nationalism is a different order; they don’t feel Urdu friendly, Pakistani in their own way. and I’ve almost never met a Baluch (a real one not the Sindhi-Baloch).
Finally the provincial languages are very much rural and lower middle; reflection of education. India has much more vigorous local language traditions. Think of Pakistan as the Hindi Belt, where Rajasthan to Bihar have all adopted Hindi as their common tongue even though Eastern Hindi is as close, if not closer, to Bengali than it is to Western Hindi (which Hindi belongs to).
Kabir is also right about religious minorities, outside of the Hindu population (who are subject to subtle societal Hinduphobia, India & Hindu is the same in Pakistani discourse); who are *very* loyal to Pakistan. Pakistani Christians seem to have been the non-Muslim minority who stayed on Pakistani Punjab side.
The Pakistani Christians descend from a Muslim elite, who all have Muslim surnames, but the Pakistani Christian population is Dalit-OBC converts.
Pakistan is VERY Complex. Old State Young Nation.
Kabir is exactly on point for his class and for the Pakistani nation. I know exactly how he thinks.
Thought Pakistan, in this millennium, has really drifted. Kabir, will not suffer, but his 200mn countrymen will..
the caste system is MUCH more pronounced in Pakistan since it is overtly feudal and leftist politics have no real traction in Pakistan (Zardari is a Zamindar, Sharifs are industrialists, IK was an Islamic-socialist and look where he ended up)…
of course IK is also a product of Aitchison college
Wow…this deserves a full article…this is called insight 🙂
Excellent write up, all these ppl – SRK/IK, are identifying with the Pashtun/Pathan as some sort of aspiration to a higher aesthetic/caste/pride?.
Isn’t the reason IK is so strong in KPK & his own strong sympathies to the TTP based on this self identification though?
I don’t think IK is sympathetic to the TTP. The TTP is a terrorist group that kills Pakistanis. If he were sympathetic to them, it would be very bad for his politics.
He was called “Taliban Khan” because he was against the War on Terror. He was against General Musharraf’s policies (so were many others but for different reasons from IK). He repeatedly called the Taliban “misguided brothers”.
He’s very right-wing. His views on the place of women and appropriate behavior for women are truly something else. Just as one example, he is on record as stating (repeatedly) that women who dress inappropriately are asking to be raped.
His full name is Imran Khan Niazi. Niazis are not Pashtun. His father was from Mianwali district, which is again in Punjab. His mother was from Jalandhar.
He can call himself whatever he wants but it doesn’t change reality.
Anyway, his ethnic background (whatever it is) is not an issue in his politics. His core supporters are Punjabi “Paknationalists”. In essence, people who adore the Pakistan Army. They only turned against the Army when IK fell from power. If the Army brings him back to power, all his supporters will fall in love with the Army again.
in all fairness, imran khan wanted rule of law in pak.
when a pak journalist interviewing posed that pak was feudal, he retorted back that england was feudal, less number of people had large tracts of land and yet england had rule of law.
sounds sensible.
When he was initially campaigning, he did campaign on the themes of anti-corruption and justice.
However, his time in power showed that he is just another right-wing populist (kind of like Pakistan’s Trump). He had no idea how to make policy.
Anyway, his real issue was that he thought that the Army takes orders from the PM and not the other way around. That’s not how it works in Pakistan and he has found that out the hard way.
SRK is actually Hindko like Ayub Khan (Punjabi on the other side of the Indus)
I think the Afghan-Pakistan conflict is not being taken seriously enough. There is a lot of… ‘there’ there…
Ur comments are going to spam
Once again, I’m not getting into “cowardice” or “morality”.
If India has the right and ability to bomb Pakistan, Pakistan has the right and ability to bomb Afghanistan. Special rules don’t apply to India that apply to others.
India must deal with the consequences of bombing Pakistan– loss of aircraft, declaration of war etc. Similarly, Pakistan will have to deal with the consequences of airstrikes in Afghanistan.
But you did buddy, you did, all you could talk about was the morality of killing women and children as collateral damage to bombing a terrorists hide out.
Now you don’t want to talk about it because… well hypocrisy I guess.
Fair point – yes Kabir does need to account for loss of civilian life
Once again: you have no issues when India bombs Pakistan.
But somehow, Pakistan bombing Afghanistan is immoral.
If there is anyone who is a hypocrite here, it is you.
To make it really simple for you: States will take whatever action needed to protect national security. Other states have to deal with it.
Luckily, in the India-Pakistan case: Pakistan is a nuclear power. We successfully established deterrence in May. If you try it again, we will successfully establish deterrence again,
Actually, I said bombing your own territory is immoral because you are able to send in soldiers to prevent civilian losses. All collateral damage is immoral, question is what options do you have?
Here is Khwaja Asif declaring that they will strike back any attack on the army with total disregard to any collateral damage.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W87lS6ylTSc
Violence is tragic of course, but I find it …amusing to see how Pakistanis copy-paste Indian policy towards Pak, apply it to Afghanistan. On one hand, they whine about Indian ‘hegemony’ while asserting the right to duplicate it against a weaker state like AFG. The irony is…….explicit.
Once again, there is no morality in national security. If India can attack “terrorist camps” in Pakistan, Pakistan can attack terrorists in Afghanistan.
What’s good for the gander is good for the goose.
😀
States have the right to take whatever actions they feel are demanded by national security. Obviously, those actions also have consequences.
😀 😀 😀 Nothing more invigorating than a cup of decanted hypocrisy in the morning.
There is no “hypocrisy” here.
What part of “States have the right to take whatever actions they feel are demanded by national security” is so hard for you to understand?
The Afghan FM in Delhi is spawning lots of bumps in protocol that need to be ironed out.
https://indianexpress.com/article/india/at-the-jaishankar-muttaqi-meet-in-delhi-two-afghanistan-flags-no-women-journalists-and-the-bamiyan-buddhas-10300120/?ref=hometop_hp
Someone needs to write a book about this Embassy in Delhi, it’s operated for 4 years on its own steam, issuing passports and certificates and all manner of paperwork to Afghans living in India. Closing briefly for a month in 2023.
In 2024 the consul general in Mumbai was caught smuggling gold into the country.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/afghan-diplomat-zakia-wardak-resigns-reports-gold-smuggling-india/
There’s a movie script in this.
Oh it’s an abhorrent backward regime who is here with the enemy of enemy principle, I don’t think anyone has any illusions about the Taliban. I’m assuming the main purpose for this meeting is to irritate the renewed US-Pak bonhomie with the visuals. From meeting a BJP govt to visiting the Deobandi hq is a massive cultural span.
IMHO the seminary visit was extremely important for the Govt. Having a sea of men mob a Taliban leader in the heart of UP is a visual reminder that Islam unfettered and unrepressed in India. Blame about woman journalist being denied entry to the afghan embassy too gets contextualized. That Deoband is the ideological fountainhead of the Taliban is a necessary reminder to everyone.
Don’t take my word for it.
https://x.com/SouthAsiaIndex/status/1977038534004686861
Also, everyone needs this reminder.
That’s Mr A.Doval explaining broad strategy of combating Pak sponsored terror networking.
(Interestingly video hosted from what looks like a Pakistani account)
https://youtu.be/apN-em9k0mw?si=e3cQHy9NpdXZ090y
Women’s rights are a joke to these people. National security concerns unfortunately have to inhabit this space.
The kind of mindset willing to pick up a gun and attack a Pakistani border checkpoint also goes weak in the knees watching such adulation.
In Doval we trust.
[…] X.T.M on Open Thread- Birthgap | WW3 […]
Since we were discussing “Homebound” a while back:
” Homebound; Bollywood and its love of minorities as a site of spectacle”
https://alinagufran.substack.com/p/homebound-bollywood-and-its-love
I haven’t seen the film so I have no views of my own but this review is an alternative to the laudatory ones that it has been getting.
So this seems to be a theme. Indian Muslims–at least the ones who are writing reviews on SubStack–really don’t like “Homebound”:
“The Bleakness Industry: How Homebound Turns Suffering Into Virtue”
https://topibechwa.substack.com/p/the-bleakness-industry-how-homebound
14 white foreign universities have been granted permission to open their campuses in india so that indians get international level education being in india . this will eventually increase.
i always felt that we ‘browns’ went to white foreign universities in foreign to eventually settle there.
not sure how this move will help indians. indian companies are doing good with desi degrees.
hope they will not bring the toxic woke culture here. we have enough of native woke already.
I suspect they will bring their humanities depts though. This is where they have greater cache. It is wishful thinking to feel otherwise. Might not be a bad thing if done properly.
now that ‘peace deal’ has been signed, i have the following questions-
i) will the protests in west stop now? if not what will they protest for?
ii) if ukraine does not do a peace deal now, there may not be much of ukraine to deal with in two years.
iii) what is happening in pakistan?
iv) why is rahul gandhi in columbia, peru etc, when his party is supposed to be fighting a major election in 4 weeks? strange indeed.
i had made a comment here!!! I suspect it’s the handle
Yes u, Dave go to spam a lot for some reason ..