Day: February 13, 2026

On Breakup Fantasies and Basic Geopolitical Decency

February 13, 2026 27 Comments filed under X.T.M

Following my conversation with Kabir; I mulled on the difference between criticising a state and fantasising about its dismemberment.

What should be the type of Critique?

Criticising a political party, a military institution, or a government’s failures is normal. It is necessary. Democracies depend on it. Even flawed democracies depend on it. Pakistan’s military can be criticised. India’s ruling party can be criticised. Iran’s clerical establishment can be criticised. No state is beyond scrutiny. But imagining the territorial breakup of a country, and doing so with visible satisfaction, is something else entirely.

Sacred States?

States are not debating societies. They are containers of memory, trauma, and blood. They are “almost” sacred spaces. For Pakistanis, 1971 is not an abstract lesson in federalism. It is a civilisational rupture. It was war, humiliation, loss of half the country, and a wound that still shapes the national psyche. For Indians, similar fantasies about Tamil Nadu, Punjab, or Kashmir breaking away would be equally triggering. Every nation has red lines embedded in its historical trauma.

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Germany Is Rearming. Japan Is Shifting. And Desis Are Arguing Like Teenagers.

February 13, 2026 27 Comments filed under X.T.M

Running a platform is not the same as winning an argument. It is about tone, trajectory, and whether the conversation rises or sinks. I edit out BB’s comments not because I fear disagreement, and not because I am fragile about India or Pakistan. I edit them because they are crude. Crudeness is not courage.

Between Critique and Provocation

There is a difference between sharp critique and coarse provocation. Kabir and I disagree deeply about India. He defends the fake term “South Asia” as necessary. It’s a neocolonialist invention designed to dissolve the world’s oldest and most prominent civilisation (the Indian Subcontinent) into a compass direction. We argue. We contest premises. We clash over legitimacy, sovereignty, and naming. But the disagreement is structured. It is intelligible. It is civil. It forces clarity.

BB’s interventions, by contrast, tend to flatten everything into sneer and insinuation. That degrades the space. A forum that tolerates permanent coarseness slowly becomes defined by it. Readers do not return for noise. They return for thought. There are, to be fair, strong exceptions; for instance when he analysed the cricketing economy to illustrate how much weaker the Pakistani consumer-tax base is compared to its Indian counterpart.

Japan & Germany wake up

Continue reading Germany Is Rearming. Japan Is Shifting. And Desis Are Arguing Like Teenagers.

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