A small administrative note that matters more than it sounds. Brown Pundits now has 3,920 posts. Every single one is categorised. There are no uncategorised posts left. The entire archive is structured.
That is not glamorous work. It does not trend. It does not go viral. But it is the difference between a website and a timeline. Writing is not just producing new content. It is tending an intellectual garden. Adding categories, refining tags, standardising slugs, back-tagging fifteen years of material; this is not clerical labour. It is editorial discipline. It forces you to reread your own history. It reveals patterns. It exposes gaps. It shows where the site has been narrow and where it has been expansive.
Substack has made everyone an author. It has not made everyone an editor. Most platforms reward velocity and outrage. The incentive is to post faster and louder than the next person. Community becomes an audience. Conversation becomes branding. Writers become marketers. We are structured differently.
The last few days have really been dominated by a cacophony of ….tu, tu, mai, mai in the BP comment threads with competitive “patriotism” flying thick and fast. Amidst all the noise generated by …certain hostility focused agendas, its easy to lose sight of the fact that for all the problems and challenges faced by the 2 nation-states, the people that inhabit the subcontinent, still continue to have a bunch of things in common.
So allow me this …palette cleanser of a post. The ICC T20 Cricket World Cup is in progress, and the teams of both India and Pakistan have managed to qualify for the “Super 8” stage. Usman Tariq, is a rising star who has recently joined the Pakistani team, as a bowler who serves up ‘mystery spin’ from a unique bowling action, enabled slightly in part due to an anatomically exceptional elbow which has elicited some allegations of chucking (throwing). He has undergone test and has been cleared of this allegations already.
What I found notable about Usman, apart from his repertoire of unique googlies and arm angles, is him sharing the fact that watching an Indian movie inspired him to pursue his dream – a career in cricket. M.S. Dhoni a former India captain, had a biopic made about him a few years ago, which was a massive hit in India and beyond. Usman, as we know, is hardly an exception when it comes to Pakistanis consuming Indian content including movies. Pakistanis, in some ways, are arguably even more ardent consumers and fans of ‘Bollywood’ than Indians. As an Indian listener to Pakistani podcasts, you can’t help but notice how movie and song quotes from Indian films and pop culture, are seamlessly used by Pakistanis as metaphors to describe situations. Even more so than is common for Indians to do so.
On the flip side, Indians are enthusiastic consumers of Pakistani music – the popularity and opinions on the ‘quality’ of Pakistani Coke Studio abound, so does a sizeable number of fans for Pakistani soap operas.
The point is, as much as the interactions of India and Pakistan is dominated by the disproportionate shadow cast by the history of conflict between the two states, and especially the untenable history of PakMil sponsored multi-decade history of terrorism and “non-state actor” violence, we still see a common culture interwoven through the day-to-day existence of the …awaam
“No one wants a strong India. But PM Modi opened doors. He strengthened the military, advanced the economy, maintained balanced relations with the West, Russia, and China. That is serious statecraft” –Aleksandar Vučić, President of Serbia
India is richer
Strip away the noise and a simple asymmetry remains. India will almost certainly remain richer than Pakistan for the foreseeable future. The gap in GDP, fiscal depth, technology, and demographic scale is widening, not narrowing. On material indicators, India has the advantage. Yet material advantage does not always translate into strategic dominance.
India is louder
India is a mass democracy. It is electorally accountable, media-saturated, and sensitive to public opinion. Governments must justify escalation. Markets react to instability. Voters punish miscalculation. This imposes restraint.
Pakistan is tighter
Pakistan is structured differently. Power is narrower. Decision-making is concentrated within a smaller elite, with the military as the central institution. That creates rigidity in some domains but flexibility in others. Strategic continuity does not reset every five years. Public opinion matters, but it does not directly determine policy in the same way it does across the border.
Structural Differences
This structural difference shapes behaviour. India must think about global markets, coalition politics, and reputational cost. Pakistan can absorb economic stress more easily because its political system is already insulated from full electoral volatility. That insulation produces durability, even under strain.
Kohrra is a police procedural series set in Punjab whose second season is now available now on Netflix which I highly recommend.
Some relatively spoiler free thoughts. I am skipping plot details etc because I don’t want to spoil anything plus there are many reviews already available on the internet.
Indian directors/writers have really mastered this sort of police procedural – usually has two police partners and the story jumps between the case (new case per season) and the personal lives of the protagonists. Add in some social commentary as well in a gritty package. Others of this ilk are Pataal Lok (2 seasons, Amazon Prime) and Dahaad (1 season, Amazon Prime). Those are also highly recommended.
Because this is a new season, it’s a completely new case. Also only one of the officers from the first season returns. Watching the first season is not necessary but ideal to get an idea of the personal life of the returning character.
The plot this time is a lot more twisty with multiple threads leaving you guessing, compared to the first one where I guessed the plot a few episodes in.
Also a lot more technically accomplished. The few action set pieces are really well done. The cinematography is great and the acting is great across the board (the first season had some iffy acting by some actors).
Love the fact that like most Indian OTT shows, it is not monolingual (like movies) and is multilingual and characters speak in the language that they would actually speak. So predominantly Punjabi with a bit of Hindi.
