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The Elder Race and the English-Speaking Heat
Writing from Dublin, X.T.M contrasts calm continental Europe with an English-speaking world he sees as politically ‘on fire’, and argues that the declining WASP ‘elder race’ still sets the terms…
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Merit, Class, and the Ossified Dream
Writing from Newark Airport, X.T.M argues that class structures have ossified in the Global North, and suggests that educated upper-middle-class Hindus who followed the IIT and Ivy route face a…
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Denial Isn’t Just a River in Egypt—It’s a Dammed Indus Too
X.T.M rejects a commenter’s claim that caste does not exist in Pakistan, citing biradari, zaat and ashraf–ajlaf hierarchies, and argues that saying Hindus ‘left’ in 1947 erases a violent dislocation.
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Is It Indian Culture or Hindu (Brahmin) Culture that creates excellence?
Prompted by Faizan Zaki’s Scripps Spelling Bee win, X.T.M asks whether Indian-American excellence stems from Indian culture or specifically Hindu and Brahmin culture, arguing it is encoded in the cultural…
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Flame Thread Protocols: Honey Kabir
Editor’s note on a flame thread between two commenters: X.T.M says he will favour familiar, accountable voices over anonymous ones, likening moderation to hosting a discussion in a living room.
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Jet Lag: India, Pakistan, and the Theatre of the Air
Open thread on a commenter’s claim that India’s Chief of Defence Staff has acknowledged jet losses in the recent India–Pakistan conflict, with X.T.M asking for civil debate and calling Pakistani…
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“A Foreign Class of Servants” — JD Vance and the Great American Amnesia
X.T.M criticises JD Vance’s remark about importing ‘a foreign class of servants’, arguing that the moon landing relied on imported German, Jewish and immigrant talent, and that skilled migrants, including…
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Café Concord: A View from the Counter
Writing from a café in Concord, Massachusetts, X.T.M argues that American service spaces sort people by race, class and aesthetics, with white front-of-house staff and Mexican kitchen workers, a pattern…
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Open Thread: From Murder to Mercy — The Midwives of Bihar
Open thread on BBC Eye’s The Midwife’s Confession, about rural midwives in Bihar who killed baby girls in the 1990s, and one survivor who returned.
The Indian Subcontinent Argues with Itself
Sunday, 8 November 2026Since December 2010 · 4,170 posts · 93,923 comments
