The boycott has made Brown Pundits quieter, almost peaceful. I don’t mind it. Every few years the site reaches this point; it grows, gains noise, and starts to feel less like a hobby and more like an obligation. Then it falls back to something smaller and saner.
I’ve also realised that the Indo-Pak frame doesn’t really fit my life anymore. It was useful once because that’s where the conversation was; it gave the blog an audience. But most of that talk is stale now; the same arguments, just louder.
What interests me instead are the wider patterns: how post-colonial societies move in a world that is no longer unipolar. The Gulf’s rise, Africa’s experiments, China’s reach, India’s own breadth. How old hierarchies break down, and new ones form.
I don’t like following the news. So perhaps BP will drift in that direction. Fewer posts, less noise, more reflection. A space for thinking about what comes after the post-colonial age, when the world starts to finally balance itself again.
Never ending stream of children and women being Killed by Zionists
Hind Rami Iyad Rajab was a five-year-old Palestinian girl in the Gaza Strip who was killed by Israeli forces
Defending its actions that day, the Israeli government initially claimed that none of its forces was present when the Rajab family was killed, later asserting that the 335 bullet holes found in the family’s car were the result of an exchange of fire between Israeli troops and armed Palestinian fighters.
Colonel Aharon is already the subject of a criminal complaint at the International Criminal Court (ICC) filed by the Hind Rajab Foundation, which uses social media footage captured by Israeli soldiers during operations in Gaza as the basis for war crimes prosecutions.
Al Jazeera documentary reveals new evidence in Hind Rajab family’s killing
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2025/10/21/new-al-jazeera-documentary-reveals-evidence-in-hind-rajab-familys-killing
Zohran Mamdani wins the NYC mayoral race. He will be the city’s first Muslim mayor and its youngest in more than a century
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/live/2025/nov/04/nyc-mayor-election-zohran-mamdani-andrew-cuomo-results-latest
Yay
Also, Ghazala Hashmi has won the lieutenant governor’s race in Virginia. This makes her the first Muslim woman to be elected to statewide office in the US. She was born in India (Hyderabad) and moved to the US when she was four years old. She also has a PhD in English.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/virginia-ghazala-hashmi-first-muslim-woman-elected-statewide-rcna242014
Mandani’s wife is a Syrian Muslim born in Texas.
https://nypost.com/2025/11/03/us-news/how-zohran-mamdanis-aloof-wife-rama-duwaji-quietly-steered-his-campaign-from-behind-the-scenes/
My opinion on the Mandani win is that the pro Israel sentiment is be lost in US and in NY in Particular.
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accountable for ensuring that New York remains a place where Jewish life and support for Israel are protected and can thrive,
Mandani has been very clear, War Criminals will be arrested if they enter NYC
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/adl-says-it-expects-mamdani-to-stand-unequivocally-against-antisemitism-in-all-its-varied-forms/
I think that in NYC progressive Jews are pro-Palestinian.
I wouldn’t extrapolate nationally from NYC.
I wouldn’t extrapolate nationally from NYC.
We will find out in mid term election in 2026.
There is a big push against Congress Critters who have received AIPAC money/ If they dont get re-elected, means the tide has turned against pro Israel
I think young American Jewry have dramatically wokified
Mamdani attended Bronx High School of Science. It is a Public School (free) but extremely competitive to get.in.
So implies Mamdani is really high IQ
to quote
Bronx Science, another New York City exam school, is attended by students with average SAT scores at around the 99.9th percentile of the New York state distribution, and has produced more Intel Science Talent Search finalists than any other high school in the nation
To the extent that students benefit from social interactions with high-achieving peers, attending an exam school is likely to increase achievement for the typical applicant. Indeed, many argue that
the success of exam school alumni is prima facie evidence of the importance of attending a school
with high-achieving peers.
https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/fryer/files/dobbie_fryer_shs_07_2013.pdf
didn’t he get in on the ‘African’ quota though?
There is mo “African” quota at High School in NYC
They are presumably selective?
How is that possible?
” ‘Majoritarian Hinduism must learn from Swaraj the art of self-restraint’: Makarand Paranjape”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THDYEr1ksm
The Immortal Cells of Henrietta Lacks (1920 – 1951)
Henrietta Lacks was African-American woman whose cancer cells are the source of the HeLa cell line, the first immortalized human cell line[B] and one of the most important cell lines in medical research. An immortalized cell line reproduces indefinitely under specific conditions, and the HeLa cell line continues to be a source of invaluable medical data to the present day.
Even though some information about the origins of HeLa’s immortalized cell lines was known to researchers after 1970, the Lacks family was not made aware of the line’s existence until 1975.
In 1951 Lacks went to Johns Hopkins because she felt a “knot” in her womb. Soon after, Lacks was told that she had a malignant epidermoid carcinoma of the cervix. In 1970, physicians discovered that she had been misdiagnosed and actually had an adenocarcinoma.
During her treatments, two samples were taken from Lacks’s cervix without her permission or knowledge; one sample was of healthy tissue and the other was cancerous. These samples were given to George Otto Gey, a physician and cancer researcher at Johns Hopkins. The cells from the cancerous sample eventually became known as the HeLa immortal cell line, a commonly used cell line in contemporary biomedical research
George Otto Gey, the first researcher to study Lacks’s cancerous cells, observed that these cells were unusual in that they reproduced at a very high rate and could be kept alive long enough in culture to allow more in-depth examination
The ability to rapidly reproduce HeLa cells in a laboratory setting has led to many important breakthroughs in biomedical research. For example, by 1954, Jonas Salk was using HeLa cells in his research to develop the polio vaccine. To test his new vaccine, the cells were mass-produced in the first-ever cell production factory
HeLa cells were in high demand and put into mass production. They were mailed to scientists around the globe for “research into cancer, AIDS, the effects of radiation and toxic substances, gene mapping, and countless other scientific pursuits”.[30] HeLa cells were the first human cells successfully cloned, in 1955, and have since been used to test human sensitivity to tape, glue, cosmetics, and many other products.There are almost 11,000 patents involving HeLa cells
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henrietta_Lacks
“Seven Dimensions of Zohran Mamdani’s Win Hold Significance For Indians”
https://thewire.in/world/seven-dimensions-of-zohran-mamdanis-win-hold-significance-for-indians
Zohran does not code as Indian at all .. he is Muslim candidate with a sort of generic exotic Middle Eastern feel
His mother Mira Nair is about as Indian as you get.
Mira Nair was born on October 15, 1957, in Rourkela, Orissa (now Odisha), India,the youngest of three children, and the only girl.Her father, Amrit Lal Nair, was an officer of the Indian Administrative Service, and her mother, Praveen Nair, was a social worker.Her family is of Punjabi origin with roots in Delhi, and are Hindu.The family name “Nayyar” (not to be confused with the Malayali “Nair”) was changed by her grandfather, although one of her uncles continues to use it.[
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mira_Nair#Early_life_and_education
Even his father is of Indian (Gujrati) origin though his family had been settled in East Africa for a long time.
yes but his Muslim identity is so dominant
His mother Mira Nair is about as Indian as you get.
Mira Nair was born on October 15, 1957, in Rourkela, Orissa (now Odisha), India,the youngest of three children, and the only girl.Her father, Amrit Lal Nair, was an officer of the Indian Administrative Service, and her mother, Praveen Nair, was a social worker.Her family is of Punjabi origin with roots in Delhi, and are Hindu.The family name “Nayyar” (not to be confused with the Malayali “Nair”) was changed by her grandfather, although one of her uncles continues to use it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mira_Nair#Early_life_and_education
yes I know of her; met her in fact
He speaks Hindi/Urdu. In his victory speech, he quoted Pandit Nehru–that’s really going to upset the right-wing Indian Americans.
yes that’s interesting..
An interesting essay on the Ottoman Empire, Turkey and Israel:
“Oxford Union and the Debate on the Ottoman Empire’s Demise”
https://www.angleanchorvoice.co.uk/p/oxford-union-and-the-debate-on-the
Since we were talking about caste recently:
“Dhadak 2: Bollywood’s Bold Reckoning with Caste and Love” by Atharva Salve
https://www.the-edict.in/post/dhadak-2-bollywood-s-bold-reckoning-with-caste-and-love
“What Southeast Asian History Tells Us About a Multipolar Order” by Manjeet S. Pardesi and Amitav Acharya
If I was an Upper Caste Privileged I too would not want to be Identified as Bihari
“Our parents vote by caste,” said Abhijit. “We’ll vote for work.”
Singh’s words hint at an unusual shift. Bihar, often a bastion of caste-driven voting patterns, now shows signs of issue-based voting.
The state, one of India’s poorest and most densely populated with a total population of 130 million, has long been a paradox: politically vibrant but economically fragile, rich in rhetoric but poor in opportunity.
For millions like Abhijit, the election is personal. Bihar’s economy continues to trail behind the rest of India. According to the Periodic Labour Force Survey, the unemployment rate among those aged 15 to 29 fell from 30.9% in 2018-19 to 9.9% in 2023-24
Women, in fact, are emerging as Bihar’s most decisive voters. In the 2024 general elections, more women voted in Bihar than men, largely because of migration. Many of them are beneficiaries of cash transfers under schemes launched by Nitish Kumar’s government – such as the recent Rs 10,000 ($113) payment to 2.1 million women – but these gestures have created as much anger as gratitude.
https://www.rt.com/india/627426-mood-of-nation-bihar-polling/
“The Great Indian Dream is Over|@BuffaloIntellectual”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n5AkYdTyO9w
“Behind the Official Celebration of Vande Mataram Is a Reality That Can’t Be Ignored” by Sreejith K.
Judaism/Christianity discrimination is by Gods words, the Chosen People. Worse it is not just discrimination, the Torah/Bible advises Genocide, i.e.”Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys (1 Samuel 15:3).’”
This is much much worse than Hindu Caste discrimination over two thousand years. These were not Divine Sanctioned rules, they were instituted by men (eg Laws of Manu)
Savage beatings and dying trees: How West Bank settler violence is impacting Palestinians’ olive harvest
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/11/07/middleeast/west-bank-settler-violence-palestinians-olive-harvest-intl-cmd
I am uncomfortable with reducing the issue in Palestine to the nature of Judaism. As noted before on this site, there are plenty of progressive Jews who do not support Israel. Those are the same people who voted for Zohran Mamdani in NYC for example.
The more appropriate framing for the issue in Palestine is that of settler colonialism. Israel is a colonial entity while the Palestinians are a people fighting for national liberation.
As for the point about Hindus: I have been consistent on this site that my issue is not with Hindus as such but with Hindutvadis. Hindutva is a political ideology as is Zionism and both must be fought against. Hinduism and Judaism are religions and people who believe in them are entitled to their private religious beliefs.