Saffron Strike

November 2, 2025 X.T.M 9 Comments filed under X.T.M

The silence on BP these past few days feels deliberate; a kind of Saffron Strike. If so, let it be known: this space was never meant to cater to ideological comfort.

It seems uncommonly quiet; I think I have been misunderstood. I do not care about the traffic and commentary of BP as much as I care about the integrity of the space.

For instance when I felt that Kabir had done wrong; interdiction was the answer. When I realised the narrative was being twisted so that I became his moderator (Kabir generally knows my red lines) then I realised I was wrong. Kabir’s recent postings and commentary have been very high-signal. Continue reading Saffron Strike

Sunday reads

November 2, 2025 Furqan Ali 6 Comments filed under Archived Authors

I recently read a piece I’d like to share: about the life of Bacha Khan and how he initiated an anticolonial school, the Azad School in Utmanzai, in 1921. It was a Pashto-medium institution where Manmohan Singh, the former Prime Minister of India, also studied. Nehru and Gandhi visited the school as well — Nehru in 1937 and Gandhi in 1938 — delivering speeches and spending time there. Due to his dissent against the British, he had to spend about 37 years in jail out of his 93-year life.

The Genius of Bacha Khan

“Most geniuses have one masterwork for which they are famous. For Che and Fidel, that work was surely the Cuban Revolution and its international humanism, just as it was for Lenin, the Russian. For CLR James, we can list “The Black Jacobins” as an extraordinary work of genius, as well as the underground Marxist group he co-led, known as the Johnson-Forest tendency. For Selma James and many other women of the 1970s Marxist Feminist movement, it was about recognizing the economic contributions of housework and children and establishing organizations that advocated for fair compensation for caring and reproductive labor. Their slogan, ‘invest in caring, not war’, remains the blueprint. For Spivak, it has been to chart a path for activism while working beyond Eurocentric Logocentrism.

The list is long, but I never thought that a tall, six-foot-three, broad-shouldered, soft-spoken Khan from Utmanzai, Hashnagar, a mere graduate of King Edward’s School, Peshawar, would, before he turned 30, have three works of genius to his name. Abdul Ghaffar Khan, honorifically known as Badshah Khan (King of the Khans) and also Bacha Khan, a title bestowed upon him at the mere age of 27, created three masterpieces. In order of creation, they were: Anjuman-i-Islahul Afaghina (The Society for the Reform of the Afghan), Pakhtun magazine, and the greatest non-violent organization the world has yet known, the Khudai Khidmatgar. Here I want to write only of the first, Anjuman-i-Islahul Afaghina. “

Continue reading Sunday reads

Too Much Masala Ruins the Curry

November 2, 2025 X.T.M No Comments filed under X.T.M

I actually agree with Kabir on one key point — I don’t think people should be brought back to Brown Pundits merely as bait or for spectacle. The value of this space has never been provocation for provocation’s sake.

What makes Brown Pundits “gold” is that it forces us to face uncomfortable truths: about ourselves, our societies, our religions, our histories. The goal isn’t comfort; it’s clarity.

That’s why I push back when people say “don’t talk about caste” or “that’s offensive.” Caste, class, and every other structural reality are not optional topics — they’re fundamental to understanding how our societies actually work. Discussing them honestly is the only way to make sense of why things function, and malfunction, as they do.

If we avoid those hard conversations, the whole project collapses into noise. The point is not to inflame, but to illuminate— even when illumination burns a little.

Loki has come to Asgard once again

November 2, 2025 X.T.M 23 Comments filed under X.T.M

1. The Return of Loki

Loki is the harbinger of Ragnarök. Even I’m surprised — but perhaps it was inevitable. The Saffronite dialectic on caste had become too self-referential, too performative. The same arguments recycled endlessly, as if volume were a substitute for depth.

Girmit wasn’t speaking on national unity; only perceptions. So any analysis of the structure of society is now to be replaced by moral superiority onto their counterparts. It has become, in short, a perpetual three-minute hate, directed outward at “the Other.” That is not intellectual inquiry; it’s emotional exorcism.

2. The Editorial Shift

So, to reset the balance and an apology, I’ve made Kabir an editor. He now has the rights to create and onboard new authors — part of what I call the Crescentisation of the blog. Think of Brown Pundits as a Saffron-hued Moon, where all Desi identities can find their place. In terms of editorial hierarchy: Continue reading Loki has come to Asgard once again