Instead of inviting Iran โ which has permanent representation at the United Nations โ the Munich Security Conference invited Reza Pahlavi. He is the exiled son of Iranโs former US-backed shah ousted in the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Pahlavi has supporters in the West, including among some Iranians in the diaspora, but the reality remains is that he is barely known among the Iranian populace. For the over 90 millions Iranians in the Islamic Republic, heโs not in reality a recognizable figure โ but his last name is simply connected with history from a half century ago.
As expected Pahlavi used the platform to push for regime change and to appear at a rally. He went so far as to tell Reuters that Washington should bomb Iran rather than negotiate with it.
They aren’t. India has more of each ICC trophy/Asia Cup and has better all time W/L ratio in ODIs and T20Is (and tests will be soon as Ind still has the pre-partition record).
The cricketing gap will in fact increase even more as the economies diverge.
I just want to put here for the record that I do not endorse this kind of comment about Pakistanis being “fairer” or “better looking” than Indians.
RNJ repeatedly accused me of using an anonymous account to make a comment about “black skinned” Indians.
All I will say is that if some Indians have a complex about their dark skin, that’s their problem not mine.
There are fair skinned Indians and dark skinned Pakistanis. I personally don’t think this is an issue. 60% of Pakistanis are ethnically Punjabi and look more or less like their counterparts across the Radcliffe Line.
It’s a different matter that fairness is considered attractive in Pakistan (and perhaps in the subcontinent generally). Pashtuns are generally considered handsomer than Punjabis for precisely this reason.
Yet it is obvious to people that Pakistanis are better looking than Indians and also have more raw talent. This is why it is so easy to honey-trap Indians and Pakistani intelligence has been doing this for decades.
I have been sort of honey trapped too by my QT Pakistani girlfriend but then I wanted to be trapped in honey ๐
Naah they might be fairer on average because their catchment area is Punjab/KPK while India has south India but they are neither taller nor better looking.
India has got multiple 6ft+ players – Dube, Pandya, Arshdeep, Axar etc.
Even the likes of Tilak, Gill, Jaiswal, Jurel are 5’10” +
Pakistanis have got mostly short players like Rizwan, Saud Shakeel, Saim Ayub etc
Also Dube, Tilak, Pandya, Gill, Kohli look better than any Pakistani player. Tilak literally has thirst tiktoks by westerners.
Indian players are tall, ripped, have tattoos, date/marry models and actresses – in line with global athletes.
Pakistani players are short, have pot bellies, no aura/swag, get arrange marriages with their cousins.
There are levels to this.
Shaheen is a poor bowler – no control of line or length. The next Sami.
Shoaib Malik is objectively speaking a very handsome man. Shaheen is a very attractive Pashtun. So this “short, pot bellies, no aura” is just unnecessarily denigrating Pakistanis.
Grow up.
Also, I know for a fact that many Indians thirst after Pakistanis (and Muslims in general) on social media.
Yes Pakistani girls thirsting for Indian boys is a phenomenon I agree with. You yourself managed to bag a Pakistan cutie, my Tamil macha.
formerly brown
1 month ago
i) hardcore base of bjp is biting back at the parent for not being strident enough. any effort of bjp /rss to go towards centre is not appreciated by the core and not accepted by the left.
ii) tragedy of india is that congress is not stepping up the pedestal and bjp is struck. all low hanging fruits have been plucked by bjp. they have to stick their necks and do a manmohan singh 2.0. interesting times.
BB has repeatedly claimed that no Pakistani origin author has ever been shortlisted for the Booker Prize.
I was curious so I did a Google search and found that this is a completely false claim.
Mohsin Hamid was shortlisted twice. First in 2007 for The Reluctant Fundamentalist and again in 2017 for Exit West.
Mohammad Hanif was long-listed for A Case of Exploding Mangoes.
Intizar Hussain was shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize in 2013, which recognized a body of work rather than a single book.
I say all this not to disparage Indian origin writers. Salman Rushdie and Arundhati Roy are among my favorite English language writers. Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy is probably my most favorite novel.
It is not necessary to denigrate Pakistan to make India look good.
These guys were born in India and spent a part of their life there.
Indians who have won the Booker Prize
Rushdie – Midnight’s Children
Roy – God of Small Things
Adiga – White Tiger
Kiran Desai – The Inheritance of Loss
Indians who have won the International Booker Prize
Geetanjali Shree – Tomb of Sand
Banu Mushtaq – Heart Lamp (A Muslim Indian woman wins the Booker earlier than any Pakistani)
As far as “shortlisted”/”longlisted” goes the list is too long – multiple novels by Rushdie, multiple novels by Anita Desai, Arundhati Roy, Kiran Desai, Neel Mukherjee, Jeet Thayil, Amitav Ghosh, Indra Sinha.
I am not even including diaspora authors like Jhumpa Lahiri, VS Naipaul, Sunjeev Sahota, Avni Doshi etc.
Literature is not a competition. Writers don’t win because of their ethnicity or nationality but because of their individual talent.
Naipaul doesn’t owe his prize to India but to Trinidad. Lahiri owes her prize to the USA.
“Pakistan is not on India’s level in any field”– Just in music I will give you Mehdi Hassan, Ghulam Ali, Noor Jehan, Farida Khanum, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. Need I go on?
The Booker Prize holds immense importance in the world of English language literature.
I simply don’t think that the greatness of Indian-origin authors needs to be built up by tearing down Pakistani authors. Frankly speaking, Rushdie and Roy don’t need the help. “Midnight’s Children” and “God of Small Things” are classics.
As it is, Rushdie is of Muslim origin. So this argument is actually not really helping BB at all.
“Most Indians don’t give a damn about going to Taxila”– RNJ dreams of going to Taxila.
Katas Raj is a Hindu holy site.
The Taj Mahal is not a religious site so it is not the equivalent of Benaras.
Nankana Sahab and Kartarpur Sahab are in Pakistan. Maybe don’t project your prejudices onto the Sikhs.
“Most important religious sites? Saudi Arabia”– This applies to all the world’s Muslims. Nothing is as important as Mecca and Medina. What relevance does this point have to national identity?
There is a difference between having an opinion and being implacably opposed to a country.
I am not ashamed of my opinion. I am deeply against Hindu majoritarianism. I wish India stayed true to Pandit Nehru’s vision.
But I don’t constantly trash Indian contributions to literature, art, music etc. On the contrary, as a practitioner of Hindustani music I deeply admire Indians like Begum Parveen Sultana, Ustad Rashid Khan etc.
I deeply admire Indian writers like Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy and Vikram Seth. None of these people are responsible for the policies of their government. Arundhati has been called an “anti-national” etc.
I think if I were constantly making comments trashing every aspect of Indian culture you would find that pathological no?
On a more serious note: This India-Pakistan back and forth has driven serious commenters like Pandit Brown, Gourav, and girmit away. At least that’s my impression.
Rushdie’s parents and sisters moved from Bombay to Karachi. They became Pakistani nationals. “Shame” arguably qualifies as the “great Pakistani novel”.
The only thing that differentiates an Indian Muslim from a Pakistani is a passport. Otherwise, we are the same people. I have blood relatives living in Agra.
Rushdie may have said “Pakistan sucks” but he has also made very uncomplimentary remarks about Hindutva and “Hindu Hriday Samrat”. He is not a fan of majoritarianism.
I don’t care about cricket one way or the other so winning or losing doesn’t bother me.
Similarly India does not have Punjabi (except for a few around Malerkotla), Sindhi, Pashtuns (Afghan refugees have settled in India though), Baloch.
Many Hindu Sindhis ended up in India. Even in Sri Lanka
As teenagers we had Sindhi Neighbors There was a small fire in the kitchen and the wife jumped off the second floor balcony. Memories of stuff that happened during partition.
Many Sindhis were in SL and Burma even before Partition. Business guys
What’s with the capital letters? It’s really obnoxious.
I am well aware of Qurratulain Hyder. I’ve written an entire essay about “My Temples, Too” and “River of Fire”. “River of Fire” questioned the “Two Nation Theory” so obviously it didn’t play well in Pakistan.
If she were alive today she would have been appalled at Hindu majoritarianism.
“The biggest Urdu festival in the world is Indian”– Urdu is the national language of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan not of India.
Even XTM has acknowledged that your anti Pakistan stance is getting a bit pathological.
What will you do if “public enemy number one” (myself) stops commenting completely? Almost all the sensible commenters have already been driven away.
Urdu is an Indian language, originating in Awadh, which lies in India. Nigeria making English an official language doesn’t make English a Nigerian language.
India does not have an “official language”. Indian states like Delhi, UP, Telangana and J&K have it as a state language. I’m sure you recall what happened in 1971 when you made Urdu the “official language” of all Pakistan.
Rekhta is still the biggest Urdu festival in the world. Pakistan does not have anything on its level.
No matter what Qurratulain Hyder “would” have felt about Hinduva, thing is she rejected Pakistan and lived and died in India.
If you had read a single work by Qurratulain Hyder, you would know that she despised majoritarian ideologies. “River of Fire” is about the destruction of the Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb.
“She rejected Pakistan and lived and died in India”– She lived and died in an India ruled by the Indian National Congress. Not a Hindu majoritarian hellhole.
Carry on with your anti-Pakistan agenda. You just make yourself look stupid.
“You are being dense on purpose”– Don’t condescend to me. My intellectual credentials are in the public record. I’m a real person not an internet character.
With all due respect, I know far more about Hindustani music than you do. No less a person than Lata Mangeshkar said of Ustad Mehdi Hassan “God speaks in his throat”.
Using your own metrics, NFAK (born in Pakistan in 1948 so not an Indian by any means) was recognized as one of the “50 greatest voices” by NPR and “200 greatest singers of all time” by Rolling Stone. The New York Times named NFAK the greatest qawwali singer of his generation.
Till 2024, India backed the Awami League completely, ignoring the Bangladesh Nationalist Party. In fact, the Bangladesh Nationalist Partyโs last stint in power, from 2001 to 2006, was seen to be a disaster for Delhi: during that time, Bangladesh allegedly sheltered terror groups from Indiaโs North East and unleashed violence against minority groups in the country.
Yet the ground shifted so far that New Delhi is now welcoming a Bangladesh Nationalist Party government even though this means that India will now have to compete for influence within Bangladesh with countries such as China, Turkey and even Pakistan. In fact, given the prevailent anti-India mood in Bangladesh, Rahmanโs government will be keen to not be seen as embracing Delhi too closely.
Given how sharply Indian foreign policy has been affected in this key neighbouring country, Indians need to ask some tough questions of their government.
China’s population: 141 crore
Land used for agriculture: 10%
India population: 144 crore
Land used for agriculture: 55%
Keeping aside the size of the countries, compare the yield per hectare, diversity of crops produced, nutritional outcomes in the population, average household income of farmers, agricultural exports, and more. Youโll understand what a giant scam Indian agriculture is.
There are many reasons for it. But the most important reason is when Deng Xiaoping took over China after the disastrous Cultural Revolution, the first thing he did was dismantle Mao-era cooperative farms and implement the Household Responsibility System (HRS). This shift allowed individual households to lease land, cultivate crops, and sell the surplus in free markets. Within five years, farmersโ incomes tripled.
The leftists in India purposefully downplay or even hide the role of Deng Xiaoping in Chinaโs growth and try to paint China as a communist economic model. It is not. Thereโs no Huawei without Deng Xiaoping, because it was he who created a Special Economic Zone in Shenzhen to โexperiment with capitalism.โ He was a free market hero.
A Sri Lankan (real communist) comments
This is a very superficial treatment of the reforms, ignoring the role played by the communes and cooperatives in development. There is no “free market” in China, any more than there was in Japan or South Korea during the development phase. Japan and South Korea were poster boys for centralised planning.
Jesse Jackson at Wattstax Music Festival Opening Speech (1972)
WattStax was a Music Festival in memory of the Watts Uprising in1965 LA. It was the most notable protest of police brutality until the Rodney King riots of 1992.
Damba Wood (3:57) a hard wood resistant to worms
“Dam Street” was formerly known as ‘Damba Street’ because of the abundance of Damba.
Sinhalese to Scientific name is at times inaccurate
In this case Damaba is identifies as Syzygium cumini.
Another word for Syzygium cumini is Ma Dan (Java Plum0
In Hindi Jambul as in JambuDvipa the name for India
Faxian (Fa-Hien) (c. 411โ413 CE) (There is wiki on his travels)
Xi Jiping “the most important issue in China-U.S. relations,” declaring that China “will never allow Taiwan to be separated from China.”
Could the April visit to Beijing be in jeopardy, and is the direct pressure from Xi working?
A fresh Wednesday report in The Wall Street Journal suggests the answer is yes – and the report goes so far as to describe that a key record-breaking $11.1 billion arms sale package to Taiwan, first announced in December of last year, is currently in limbo.
WSJ concludes that Trump is fundamentally seeking to avoid antagonizing China, in order to no blow up the anticipated visit.
Despite its flaws, India has a higher tolerance for dissent than Pakistan. I have no problem admitting this on the record.
The question of who is Pakistan’s Arundhati Roy is an interesting one. Pervez Hoodbhoy openly criticizes Quaid-e-Azam and the “Two Nation Theory”. He’s not in jail.
Pervez Hoodbhoy is a personal friend of my parents.
While he criticizes many things about Pakistan, he is also no fan of “Hindu Hriday Samrat” or of Hindutva. He is consistently against religious majoritarianism in any form.
Instead of inviting Iran โ which has permanent representation at the United Nations โ the Munich Security Conference invited Reza Pahlavi. He is the exiled son of Iranโs former US-backed shah ousted in the 1979 Islamic Revolution.
Pahlavi has supporters in the West, including among some Iranians in the diaspora, but the reality remains is that he is barely known among the Iranian populace. For the over 90 millions Iranians in the Islamic Republic, heโs not in reality a recognizable figure โ but his last name is simply connected with history from a half century ago.
As expected Pahlavi used the platform to push for regime change and to appear at a rally. He went so far as to tell Reuters that Washington should bomb Iran rather than negotiate with it.
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/munich-security-conference-circus-iran-says-after-exiled-shahs-son-invited
India defeated Pakistan again heavily and now have a 18-3 record since 2014, 9-0 since Dec 2022.
Pakistan is a stronger team than India going through a rough patch. Theyโll bounce back.
They aren’t. India has more of each ICC trophy/Asia Cup and has better all time W/L ratio in ODIs and T20Is (and tests will be soon as Ind still has the pre-partition record).
The cricketing gap will in fact increase even more as the economies diverge.
stronger??? In what sense?
More raw talent, taller, fairer, better looking. Shaheen Afridi is a premium fast bowler who can intimidate any batsman on any pitch.
I just want to put here for the record that I do not endorse this kind of comment about Pakistanis being “fairer” or “better looking” than Indians.
RNJ repeatedly accused me of using an anonymous account to make a comment about “black skinned” Indians.
All I will say is that if some Indians have a complex about their dark skin, that’s their problem not mine.
There are fair skinned Indians and dark skinned Pakistanis. I personally don’t think this is an issue. 60% of Pakistanis are ethnically Punjabi and look more or less like their counterparts across the Radcliffe Line.
It’s a different matter that fairness is considered attractive in Pakistan (and perhaps in the subcontinent generally). Pashtuns are generally considered handsomer than Punjabis for precisely this reason.
Right you are, Kabir
Yet it is obvious to people that Pakistanis are better looking than Indians and also have more raw talent. This is why it is so easy to honey-trap Indians and Pakistani intelligence has been doing this for decades.
I have been sort of honey trapped too by my QT Pakistani girlfriend but then I wanted to be trapped in honey ๐
Yet it is obvious to people that Pakistanis are better looking than Indians and also have more raw talent.
You ignored the elephant in the room.
Indo Aryan or Steppe DNA. Pakistanis have more of Steppe Lineage. Indians are wannabe Indo Aryans.
Good on you, macha.
Rescuing that Pakistani QT from misogynistic loser Pak men.
All Pak girls want a good strapping South Indian macha.
She would have gotten an arranged marriage to her cousin otherwise.
Anyways your home state of Tamil Nadu has a bigger GDP than Pakistan despite having less than a third of the population and it is going to grow more.
She has a better future here.
Also she can support the champion Chennai Super Kings unlike her loser Pakistan national team.
Whistle Podu!!!!
Naah they might be fairer on average because their catchment area is Punjab/KPK while India has south India but they are neither taller nor better looking.
India has got multiple 6ft+ players – Dube, Pandya, Arshdeep, Axar etc.
Even the likes of Tilak, Gill, Jaiswal, Jurel are 5’10” +
Pakistanis have got mostly short players like Rizwan, Saud Shakeel, Saim Ayub etc
Also Dube, Tilak, Pandya, Gill, Kohli look better than any Pakistani player. Tilak literally has thirst tiktoks by westerners.
Indian players are tall, ripped, have tattoos, date/marry models and actresses – in line with global athletes.
Pakistani players are short, have pot bellies, no aura/swag, get arrange marriages with their cousins.
There are levels to this.
Shaheen is a poor bowler – no control of line or length. The next Sami.
Shoaib Malik is objectively speaking a very handsome man. Shaheen is a very attractive Pashtun. So this “short, pot bellies, no aura” is just unnecessarily denigrating Pakistanis.
Grow up.
Also, I know for a fact that many Indians thirst after Pakistanis (and Muslims in general) on social media.
This is a very puerile conversation.
Naah, Shoaib is bang average.
And Shaheen is straight up ugly.
An actual attractive Pashtun is Sediqullah Atal from Afghanistan.
And Indians donโt thirst in Pakistanis on social media.
This is just cope.
the anti-Pakistaniness is getting obsessive
Ram D Nag started it
Naseem Shah is very handsome
And I remember when Indians were going crazy over Fawad Khan. This was when “Humsafar” and “Zindagi Gulzar Hai” were being aired in India.
Fawad Khan is an actor. There is similar/more craze for Hrithik in Pakistan.
Naseem is good looking but he is short so massive aura loss plus of course he is just not a good cricketer.
you seem almost pathological BB in your obsession with Pakistan.
I only reply. I never started this.
Yes but also as author you need to have more responsibility; no need to engage in flame wars. Write a post as riposte
Okay.
Good man. Sorry makes you stronger.
Be an author, be a man.
Be a leader, not a fan.
Find the writer deep in you
Not a troll, but helpful soul ๐
Fact! Specifically Indian boys thirsting for Pakistani girls. Though girls lusting for boys happens too.
Yes Pakistani girls thirsting for Indian boys is a phenomenon I agree with. You yourself managed to bag a Pakistan cutie, my Tamil macha.
i) hardcore base of bjp is biting back at the parent for not being strident enough. any effort of bjp /rss to go towards centre is not appreciated by the core and not accepted by the left.
ii) tragedy of india is that congress is not stepping up the pedestal and bjp is struck. all low hanging fruits have been plucked by bjp. they have to stick their necks and do a manmohan singh 2.0. interesting times.
This place has a bit of a North Indian/Pakistani focus.
Will do some bits on South/East/Northeast India.
I am Tamil, but I have a Pakistani girlfriend and have converted to Islam. Nothing wrong with Pakistani focus ๐
erm; you feel like the Pakistani BB – Honey Singh haha
yes you probably are Honey – BB in another form tbh
Not me.
Might be Kabir’s alt. You can check IPs.
For the last time, I have no need to create an alt.
I write under my own name.
This is slander.
Yes it is – BB will have his author rights removed if he goes on prodding
I won’t further but it’s not me. You can check IPs.
.
“Why Gandhi Thought India Didn’t Need Secularism| Prof. Akeel Bilgrami”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mnhQAk8-bSU
A very interesting intellectual conversation
BB has repeatedly claimed that no Pakistani origin author has ever been shortlisted for the Booker Prize.
I was curious so I did a Google search and found that this is a completely false claim.
Mohsin Hamid was shortlisted twice. First in 2007 for The Reluctant Fundamentalist and again in 2017 for Exit West.
Mohammad Hanif was long-listed for A Case of Exploding Mangoes.
Intizar Hussain was shortlisted for the Man Booker International Prize in 2013, which recognized a body of work rather than a single book.
I say all this not to disparage Indian origin writers. Salman Rushdie and Arundhati Roy are among my favorite English language writers. Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy is probably my most favorite novel.
It is not necessary to denigrate Pakistan to make India look good.
I said never WON. You are lying here.
These guys were born in India and spent a part of their life there.
Indians who have won the Booker Prize
Rushdie – Midnight’s Children
Roy – God of Small Things
Adiga – White Tiger
Kiran Desai – The Inheritance of Loss
Indians who have won the International Booker Prize
Geetanjali Shree – Tomb of Sand
Banu Mushtaq – Heart Lamp (A Muslim Indian woman wins the Booker earlier than any Pakistani)
As far as “shortlisted”/”longlisted” goes the list is too long – multiple novels by Rushdie, multiple novels by Anita Desai, Arundhati Roy, Kiran Desai, Neel Mukherjee, Jeet Thayil, Amitav Ghosh, Indra Sinha.
I am not even including diaspora authors like Jhumpa Lahiri, VS Naipaul, Sunjeev Sahota, Avni Doshi etc.
I believe you said shortlisted. Anyway, no need to re-litigate this.
I have actually read all the Booker winning books you listed. Don’t forget that I have a degree in English Literature.
I have read every novel Salman Rushdie has written (with the exception of “Grimus”). This includes “The Satanic Verses”.
There is no need to denigrate Pakistanis to make Indians look good. This reflects some insecurity on your part.
“These guys were born in India”–
Mohsin Hamid was born in Lahore in 1971 so he was born in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. My parents are friends with his parents.
Mohammad Hanif was born in Okara in 1964 so once again he was born in the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.
Intizar Sahab was born in UP and came to Pakistan after Partition. On that one, you have a case.
No, I said won. Why would I say shortlisted when I know Pakistani writers have been shortlisted? You even missed Kamila Shamsie.
Even I have a minor in English Literature and know Pakistani literature.
And I was not talking about the Pakistani guys when I said they were born in India.
I was talking about the Indian winners to make a distinction from the likes of diaspora writers like Naipaul, Jhumpa Lahiri etc.
You are being dense on purpose again.
Not denigrating Pakistan. Just saying that Pakistan is not on India’s level in this field, as in any field.
punching down……..isn’t the W you think it is.
Literature is not a competition. Writers don’t win because of their ethnicity or nationality but because of their individual talent.
Naipaul doesn’t owe his prize to India but to Trinidad. Lahiri owes her prize to the USA.
“Pakistan is not on India’s level in any field”– Just in music I will give you Mehdi Hassan, Ghulam Ali, Noor Jehan, Farida Khanum, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. Need I go on?
This is a needlessly stupid statement.
That’s why I didn’t include them, brother. You are being dense on purpose again.
Native born Indian writers.have won Bookers, both the one in English and the one in translation multiple times. Pakistan hasn’t.
None of those names in music are even comparable to Indians.
AR Rahman and MM Keeravani have won Oscars for original song. How many of those Pakistanis have?
the Oscars are a benchmark for Desi success?
I mean Kabir seems to give lots of weight age to western validation so using his own parameters.
These metrics are anyway bunk
The Booker Prize holds immense importance in the world of English language literature.
I simply don’t think that the greatness of Indian-origin authors needs to be built up by tearing down Pakistani authors. Frankly speaking, Rushdie and Roy don’t need the help. “Midnight’s Children” and “God of Small Things” are classics.
As it is, Rushdie is of Muslim origin. So this argument is actually not really helping BB at all.
What does Muslim origin even matter when he is INDIAN and identifies as such?
He has explicitly said “Pakistan Sucks”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PyWdEbkSc00
Are you making claims to the achievements of Indian Muslims as well now?
So when you lose to an Indian cricket team with Muslims, you don’t feel sad?
You can deny the Islamicate inheritance
Why?
I am anti Pakistan, not anti Muslim.
Specifically Anti Pakistani military.
I would like Pakistan to be a secular democracy and give up its ambitions on Kashmir.
“I would like Pakistan to be a secular democracy”– As a non-Pakistani, you have no locus standi on this.
Most Pakistanis are very happy that Pakistan is an Islamic Republic. There is frankly not very much point to the country otherwise.
Then Pakistan and Pakistanis will keep getting treated the way they are.
No visiting Taj Mahal for you lot.
LOL! I’ve visited the Taj Mahal–That too on a Pakistani passport (which I had at the time).
“You lot” also can’t visit Taxila, Katas Raj, etc. Visa policy goes both ways.
YOU have. Most of your populace who kang on being Mughals can’t and won’t.
Most Indians don’t give a damn about going to Taxila. I’ve heard about Katas Raj for the first time in my life.
Is this your version of Taj Mahal lol.
Varanasi being in Pakistan would be the equivalent.
India is lucky that it’s most important sites all lie within its borders.
Pakistan, though?
Most important historical sites? India.
Most important religious sites? Saudi Arabia.
“Most Indians don’t give a damn about going to Taxila”– RNJ dreams of going to Taxila.
Katas Raj is a Hindu holy site.
The Taj Mahal is not a religious site so it is not the equivalent of Benaras.
Nankana Sahab and Kartarpur Sahab are in Pakistan. Maybe don’t project your prejudices onto the Sikhs.
“Most important religious sites? Saudi Arabia”– This applies to all the world’s Muslims. Nothing is as important as Mecca and Medina. What relevance does this point have to national identity?
RNJ is not “most Indians”.
Katas Raj is a very minor holy site.
The important point is you are neither more Indian than India nor more Muslim than the Arabs. You are a lower “tier” in both categories.
You are basically like East Macedonia in comparison to Greece or Belarus in comparison to Russia.
You do opine on India constantly so surely BB is entitled to do the same?
There is a difference between having an opinion and being implacably opposed to a country.
I am not ashamed of my opinion. I am deeply against Hindu majoritarianism. I wish India stayed true to Pandit Nehru’s vision.
But I don’t constantly trash Indian contributions to literature, art, music etc. On the contrary, as a practitioner of Hindustani music I deeply admire Indians like Begum Parveen Sultana, Ustad Rashid Khan etc.
I deeply admire Indian writers like Salman Rushdie, Arundhati Roy and Vikram Seth. None of these people are responsible for the policies of their government. Arundhati has been called an “anti-national” etc.
I think if I were constantly making comments trashing every aspect of Indian culture you would find that pathological no?
On a more serious note: This India-Pakistan back and forth has driven serious commenters like Pandit Brown, Gourav, and girmit away. At least that’s my impression.
I cannot worry about the Commentariat at every opportunity. I have to let BP go where it goes tbh
That’s fine.
My point is that trolling–whether it is anti-Pakistan or anti-India– brings down the intellectual level of the site.
Twitter/X gets lots of views but those views are built on people yelling at each other. It’s not a place for serious intellectual engagement.
There are other topics in the world than Pakistan. That’s all I’m saying.
Rushdie’s parents and sisters moved from Bombay to Karachi. They became Pakistani nationals. “Shame” arguably qualifies as the “great Pakistani novel”.
The only thing that differentiates an Indian Muslim from a Pakistani is a passport. Otherwise, we are the same people. I have blood relatives living in Agra.
Rushdie may have said “Pakistan sucks” but he has also made very uncomplimentary remarks about Hindutva and “Hindu Hriday Samrat”. He is not a fan of majoritarianism.
I don’t care about cricket one way or the other so winning or losing doesn’t bother me.
Rushdie may be critical of Hindutva but he has ALWAYS identified as INDIAN, never PAKISTANI.
And he said PAKISTAN sucks but never said INDIA sucks. He LOVES India.
Shame is just ONE novel.
Midnight’s Children, Satanic Verses, The Moor’s Last Sigh and various others are all India/Bombay based.
No, the only thing that differentiates an Indian Muslim from a Pakistani is not a passport. They are completely different ethnicities.
Karachi mohajirs might have a bit common with North Indian Muslims but even there living in different systems for 75+ years has led to differences.
Pakistan does not have Bengali Muslims (used to pre 1971), Assamese Muslims, Malayali Muslims, Kannada Muslims, Tamil Muslims, Konkani Muslims etc.
Similarly India does not have Punjabi (except for a few around Malerkotla), Sindhi, Pashtuns (Afghan refugees have settled in India though), Baloch.
You CANNOT claim the achievements of Indian muslims. By not moving to Pakistan, they REJECTED Pakistan.
Qurratulain Hyder’s Aag Ka Darya is the greatest Urdu novel and it is INDIAN. She actually moved back from Pakistan.
The biggest Urdu festival in the world Rekhta is INDIAN.
Similarly India does not have Punjabi (except for a few around Malerkotla), Sindhi, Pashtuns (Afghan refugees have settled in India though), Baloch.
Many Hindu Sindhis ended up in India. Even in Sri Lanka
As teenagers we had Sindhi Neighbors There was a small fire in the kitchen and the wife jumped off the second floor balcony. Memories of stuff that happened during partition.
Many Sindhis were in SL and Burma even before Partition. Business guys
Was talking about Muslims. Obviously Hindu Sindhis ended up in India.
What’s with the capital letters? It’s really obnoxious.
I am well aware of Qurratulain Hyder. I’ve written an entire essay about “My Temples, Too” and “River of Fire”. “River of Fire” questioned the “Two Nation Theory” so obviously it didn’t play well in Pakistan.
If she were alive today she would have been appalled at Hindu majoritarianism.
“The biggest Urdu festival in the world is Indian”– Urdu is the national language of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan not of India.
Even XTM has acknowledged that your anti Pakistan stance is getting a bit pathological.
What will you do if “public enemy number one” (myself) stops commenting completely? Almost all the sensible commenters have already been driven away.
Here are some FACTS:
If you had read a single work by Qurratulain Hyder, you would know that she despised majoritarian ideologies. “River of Fire” is about the destruction of the Ganga-Jamuni tehzeeb.
https://kabiraltaf.substack.com/p/lucknows-composite-culture-and-its
“She rejected Pakistan and lived and died in India”– She lived and died in an India ruled by the Indian National Congress. Not a Hindu majoritarian hellhole.
Carry on with your anti-Pakistan agenda. You just make yourself look stupid.
You are just coping now.
Urdu is Indian, not Pakistani.
Urdu is the national language of Pakistan.
Anyway, Urdu and Hindi are both registers of Hindustani. This is the linguistic consensus.
https://www.brownpundits.com/2025/12/10/who-can-speak-for-the-muslim-minority-of-india/
“You are being dense on purpose”– Don’t condescend to me. My intellectual credentials are in the public record. I’m a real person not an internet character.
With all due respect, I know far more about Hindustani music than you do. No less a person than Lata Mangeshkar said of Ustad Mehdi Hassan “God speaks in his throat”.
Using your own metrics, NFAK (born in Pakistan in 1948 so not an Indian by any means) was recognized as one of the “50 greatest voices” by NPR and “200 greatest singers of all time” by Rolling Stone. The New York Times named NFAK the greatest qawwali singer of his generation.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nusrat_Fateh_Ali_Khan
Why do you have to build India up by tearing Pakistan down?
I’m not tearing Pakistan down. Just saying that Pakistan’s achievements are not on the level of India’s.
Why call a well know English literature and musicology expert โdenseโ? I am with Kabur on this.
Macha, why supporting Hindoostani classical music guy?
Support Carnatic music. It is lifeblood of the Tamil people.
Whistle Podu!!!
“A reminder: BNP coming to power in Bangladesh was once the worst-case scenario for Delhi”
By Shoaib Daniyal
https://scroll.in/article/1090785/a-reminder-bnp-coming-to-power-in-bangladesh-was-once-the-worst-case-scenario-for-delhi
I have met Shoaib ji in Kolkata. He is a true Syed. So graceful and knowledgeable.
Starting Kohhra S2 today. Will put up a review soon.
This was from a FB post by an Arun Pandiyan
China’s population: 141 crore
Land used for agriculture: 10%
India population: 144 crore
Land used for agriculture: 55%
Keeping aside the size of the countries, compare the yield per hectare, diversity of crops produced, nutritional outcomes in the population, average household income of farmers, agricultural exports, and more. Youโll understand what a giant scam Indian agriculture is.
There are many reasons for it. But the most important reason is when Deng Xiaoping took over China after the disastrous Cultural Revolution, the first thing he did was dismantle Mao-era cooperative farms and implement the Household Responsibility System (HRS). This shift allowed individual households to lease land, cultivate crops, and sell the surplus in free markets. Within five years, farmersโ incomes tripled.
The leftists in India purposefully downplay or even hide the role of Deng Xiaoping in Chinaโs growth and try to paint China as a communist economic model. It is not. Thereโs no Huawei without Deng Xiaoping, because it was he who created a Special Economic Zone in Shenzhen to โexperiment with capitalism.โ He was a free market hero.
A Sri Lankan (real communist) comments
This is a very superficial treatment of the reforms, ignoring the role played by the communes and cooperatives in development. There is no “free market” in China, any more than there was in Japan or South Korea during the development phase. Japan and South Korea were poster boys for centralised planning.
๏ปฟRIP Jesse Jackson
Jesse Jackson at Wattstax Music Festival Opening Speech (1972)
WattStax was a Music Festival in memory of the Watts Uprising in1965 LA. It was the most notable protest of police brutality until the Rodney King riots of 1992.
https://youtu.be/NTVwT3j_zqY
Issac Hayes at Wattstax
Jesse Jackson Welcomes Isaac Hayes
https://youtu.be/WiO3Bg2Dw6M
What happened to SL in modern times?
Damba Wood (3:57) a hard wood resistant to worms
“Dam Street” was formerly known as ‘Damba Street’ because of the abundance of Damba.
Sinhalese to Scientific name is at times inaccurate
In this case Damaba is identifies as Syzygium cumini.
Another word for Syzygium cumini is Ma Dan (Java Plum0
In Hindi Jambul as in JambuDvipa the name for India
Faxian (Fa-Hien) (c. 411โ413 CE) (There is wiki on his travels)
When Sri Lanka Ruled the Seas
https://youtu.be/loCsQaHNRrQ
[…] I would like Pakistan to be a secular democracy and give up its ambitions on Kashmir. Badshah […]
My review of Arundhati Roy’s recent memoir:
https://kabiraltaf.substack.com/p/review-mother-mary-comes-to-me-by
I was going to write on the substack phenomenon
“In Bangladesh, a centrist reset and an Islamist breakthrough”
By Shakeel Anwar
https://www.himalmag.com/politics/bangladesh-bnp-tarique-rahman-jamaat
do you want me to restore privileges?
Frankly speaking, I find the anti-Pakistan tenor of this blog very problematic.
I’m not planning on commenting much.
Who is Trumps Daddy. Xi JiPing or Netanyahu
Xi Jiping “the most important issue in China-U.S. relations,” declaring that China “will never allow Taiwan to be separated from China.”
Could the April visit to Beijing be in jeopardy, and is the direct pressure from Xi working?
A fresh Wednesday report in The Wall Street Journal suggests the answer is yes – and the report goes so far as to describe that a key record-breaking $11.1 billion arms sale package to Taiwan, first announced in December of last year, is currently in limbo.
WSJ concludes that Trump is fundamentally seeking to avoid antagonizing China, in order to no blow up the anticipated visit.
Record Taiwan Arms Deal In ‘Limbo’ As White House ‘Vacillates’ Amid Xi Pressure: Report
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/record-taiwan-arms-deal-limbo-white-house-vacillates-amid-xi-pressure-report?
“Internet, nation and urban loneliness”
Anurag Minus Verma Podcast and Buffalo Intellectual
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jd_mSBg0fDY
Arundhati Roy, Anurag Minus Verma – Indian culture so goated even your enemies partake in it.
Truly USA-USSR moment.
I have immense respect for Arundhati Roy. She is truly a public intellectual.
She speaks truth to power and has never given an inch on Hindu nationalism. She has publicly called for Kashmir to be freed from India.
I follow Anurag’s Substack. He doesn’t share your vile politics.
And who are their Pakistani equivalents?
Even you have admitted that Pakistan cannot have people like them.
Like I said – Indian culture so goated even your enemies partake in it.
Despite its flaws, India has a higher tolerance for dissent than Pakistan. I have no problem admitting this on the record.
The question of who is Pakistan’s Arundhati Roy is an interesting one. Pervez Hoodbhoy openly criticizes Quaid-e-Azam and the “Two Nation Theory”. He’s not in jail.
Also raved about the Indian moon mission and the lack of Pakistani space tech.
Great guy Hoodbhoy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RHCAraMZbNg
Pervez Hoodbhoy is a personal friend of my parents.
While he criticizes many things about Pakistan, he is also no fan of “Hindu Hriday Samrat” or of Hindutva. He is consistently against religious majoritarianism in any form.
“Over 80 Film Heavyweights Slam Berlinale For ‘Shielding Israel From Criticism'”
https://images.dawn.com/news/1194916/over-80-film-heavyweights-slam-berlinale-for-shielding-israel-from-criticism
“US military ready for possible Iran strikes but Trump yet to make decision, reports say”
By Cecilia Nowell and Robert Mackey
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/feb/18/trump-iran-us-military-reports