A Precedent note
The most important thing to understand about the Pakistani voices on this site is that they are centrists, not extremists. Kabir, El Khawaja, S Qureishi: none of them is a fringe figure in Pakistani society. They are roughly where a literate, urban, employed Pakistani sits, and that fact deserves attention.
It deserves attention because India, over the last decade, has stopped engaging with Pakistanis altogether. Visas have collapsed. Cricket is gone. Cinema is gone. Academic exchange is gone. The everyday oxidation of one society against another, the slow correction by which extreme positions get rounded down through exposure to people who hold different ones, has been switched off. What is left is each side talking to itself about the other.
Brown Pundits is one of the few places where that has not happened.
The thread that prompted this note will illustrate. A week ago, S Qureishi observed that the only downside of the Islamic Revolution was that “there is no OnlyFans.” We were deeply offended by this line seriously enough to write the next piece on counterfactual analysis of Iranian society. Q then returned, under another post, with a fuller thesis: female sexuality must be controlled to sustain a civilisation. Pressed on enforcement, he listed disownment, violence, lawsuits, vandalism. Finally when pressed on honour killing, he admitted it was “horrible” and “immoral.”
Three voices took shape on the thread. The most salient asked that the comment be deleted as misogynist.
We are not deleting it.
We disagree with Q on almost every line he wrote. The thesis that female autonomy is the load-bearing crack in civilisation is one we reject in full. The post on Virginity Policing that triggered this thread was our own. But Q is not a Taliban spokesman. He is a Pakistani who, when challenged in writing by other commenters, was forced to articulate his position, defend it under hostile examination, and concede that violence is wrong. That is not platforming. That is engagement. It is the slow work India has decided it no longer needs to do.
Our household is child-free. The female partner is a leading STEM academic and Hindu. The Editor is a Bahá’í of substantive Islamicate heritage, a tradition in which Qurratu’l-‘Ayn removed her veil in 1848, before most of the Western canon got there. We live across these traditions in fact, not in theory. What we will not do is run this site as a liberal monoculture, because we do not run our own life as one.
That is the principle. The standard at Brown Pundits is fundamental human decency, not adherence to whichever orthodoxy is in vogue on Substack or X. Decency rules out incitement. It does not rule out illiberal argument. The line is incitement, not offence.
The system, in fact, is already working. Kabir has responded with two posts of his own: one on Humsafar and Pakistani gender drama, one on passive aggression as bullying. BB has promised an empirical reply on women’s safety across the Great Indus. The argument is metabolising. It does not need Moderation to settle it.
Three invitations follow.
Q is offered authorship under standard probation. The condition is simple: open the first post with an unreserved condemnation of violence and honour killing, then make whatever argument follows. He should have done this in his first comment on the original thread. Publication is not endorsement. It is exposure.
The wider point is the one to close on. A Pakistani conservative on these pages is being met by an Indian liberals, Sri Lankan, a recovering news junkie, and others who shares his religion of origin but not his conclusions. He is being argued with, in writing, by people he would otherwise never meet.
India has stopped hearing voices like his at all.
The cost of that disengagement is not merely that Pakistan becomes a caricature in Indian eyes. It is that the small, unglamorous transformation of a position by sustained contact with people who disagree with it stops happening on either side of the border.That transformation is the only thing that has ever worked.
This is a great post.
It’s definitely very true that when there is no people to people contact, both sides are seen as caricatures.
One of the reasons why I don’t demonize Indians or Hindus qua Hindus is that I grew up in the US and my family had lots of Indian (and Hindu) friends.
It just happens to be a fact that most of the Indians one encounters online these days tend to be of a right-wing persuasion. Obviously, not all Indians are like that.
It must also be noted that Calvin is doing great work pushing back on the arguments surrounding SIR.
as i had said earlier there was a constituency of peace nicks, west punjab nostalogists, genuinely interested people who lit candles at attari-wagah.
with repeated terrorist attacks on india, loss of power of the brahminical elite to a more robust obcs combine, there is no appetite for talks with pakistan. also as BB writes, india is moving away and has no time for this.
further, talks with pakistan, support to palestine etc had the muslim vote in the background for parties like congress, sp,rjd etc.
bjp has distinguished itself in the exact opposite direction, and hence any talks with pakistan will be projected as ‘appeasement ‘.
talks with pakistan has not got any durable peace, on the other hand we had statements from munir saying as to how different they were from indians, ambassador basit wanting to attack india if america put its hand on pak nukes etc, makes it senseble not to talk to pak.
Says a lot about Pakistani polity and society if these are the voices of reason and moderation.
If these are the centrists, then no point of talks.
The monopoly on violence must reside with the state, this idea is the cornerstone of civilization. Without this, there is no civilization, we are all then vigilanties and we cannot function in a multi ethnic town let alone a civilization, because the threat of violence against us would be our foremost concern that will take up most of our creative energries. This is why vigilantism must be shunned, this is why honor killings are bad. Violence, or the threat of it, must therefore be only in self defense to protect the family and property.
To point out – I am not a religious Muslim, at least not the one that follows the rituals like 90% of the people. Muslim is just an idenity for me, probably the primary or secondary one. I respect all great religions, as religion is the ultimate expression of a society’s culture, it’s laws & restrictions are meant to improve lives of its adhrerents – perhaps not always on an individual level but definitely on a social level. It is also an expression of human defiance (one of the reasons why people retain their ancestral religion/culture against another more successful one’s encroach). So perhaps I am a conservative irreligious person, who does not kang on nationality or ethnicty. So I am unlike most other Pakistanis, make no mistake about it.
To be honest this sounds more Hobbesian than Pakistani or Muslim..
Hobbes was clearly onto something
Sorry, but this ridiculous notion that somehow India / Indians refusing to interact with Pakistan / Pakistanis has made Pakistanis more extreme in their thinking is plain nonsensical!
Akin to blaming a victim for not engaging with the perpetrator.
Is there something special about the air in south asia that the centrists somehow turn out to be the greatest defenders of the state and its excesses and even supposedly non religious people are its biggest defenders?
Not fact checked re gold exports
Prof. Michael Hudson: The #1 US export for 5 months straight is gold. Not AI, not aircraft. Gold to Switzerland, Hong Kong, China. In 1971 Nixon shut the gold window to stop it. Now America can’t — it IS the one selling. The empire is liquidating itself. America’s broke.
Listen to the video, it has more detail
https://x.com/upholdreality/status/2047372825439178947?
We all must be wondering why Donald Trump, after all the tough talk, quietly stepped back and offered an indefinite pause on military escalation with Iran . No grand announcement. No victory speech. Just a sudden, unusual stillness.
Iran sent him a map.
Not a peace proposal. Not a diplomatic note. 𝐀 𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐭𝐞𝐠𝐢𝐜 𝐦𝐚𝐩 𝐬𝐡𝐨𝐰𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐞𝐱𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐥𝐲 𝐰𝐡𝐞𝐫𝐞 𝐢𝐭 𝐬𝐢𝐭𝐬 𝐢𝐧 𝐫𝐞𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐢𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐨 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐮𝐧𝐝𝐞𝐫𝐬𝐞𝐚 𝐟𝐢𝐛𝐞𝐫 𝐨𝐩𝐭𝐢𝐜 𝐜𝐚𝐛𝐥𝐞𝐬 𝐩𝐚𝐬𝐬𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐭𝐡𝐫𝐨𝐮𝐠𝐡 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐒𝐭𝐫𝐚𝐢𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐇𝐨𝐫𝐦𝐮𝐳.
That map said more than a thousand missiles ever could.
The Strait of Hormuz is a narrow waterway between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula. The world already knew it carries nearly 20% of global oil. What fewer people talk about is that the same narrow passage is threaded with undersea cables that carry the internet, banking data, and financial transactions for hundreds of millions of people across the Middle East, Asia, and beyond
.
𝑻𝒉𝒊𝒏𝒌 𝒂𝒃𝒐𝒖𝒕 𝒘𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒕𝒉𝒂𝒕 𝒎𝒆𝒂𝒏𝒔 𝒇𝒐𝒓 𝒂 𝒎𝒐𝒎𝒆𝒏𝒕.
Your salary transfer. Your business payment. Your hospital billing system. Your supply chain software. All of it travels as pulses of light through cables thinner than a human hair, resting silently on the ocean floor. If those cables are cut, the damage is not just technological. Businesses collapse overnight. Banking systems freeze. Economies bleed while the world waits weeks for underwater repair ships to even locate where the break occurred.
𝐓𝐡𝐢𝐬 𝐢𝐬 𝐰𝐡𝐲 𝐧𝐨 𝐫𝐨𝐜𝐤𝐞𝐭 𝐥𝐚𝐮𝐧𝐜𝐡𝐞𝐫 𝐬𝐜𝐚𝐫𝐞𝐝 𝐓𝐫𝐮𝐦𝐩. 𝐀 𝐦𝐚𝐩 𝐝𝐢𝐝.
Because a map of chokepoints tells you something a weapon cannot. It tells you how much the other side is willing to lose, and more importantly, how much you are. The United States and its allies have built their entire economic architecture on this invisible underwater infrastructure. Disrupting it would not hurt Iran half as much as it would hurt global markets, Western banks, and the digital economy that the modern world depends on.
Iran did not threaten war. It reminded the world of its geography.
There is something deeply human in this moment, and also deeply sobering. We built a globalised civilisation on thin wires buried under oceans, and we never really asked who sits above them. Now we know.
𝑻𝒉𝒆 𝒎𝒐𝒔𝒕 𝒑𝒐𝒘𝒆𝒓𝒇𝒖𝒍 𝒏𝒆𝒈𝒐𝒕𝒊𝒂𝒕𝒊𝒏𝒈 𝒕𝒐𝒐𝒍 𝒊𝒏 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝒘𝒐𝒓𝒍𝒅 𝒊𝒔 𝒏𝒐𝒕 𝒂𝒍𝒘𝒂𝒚𝒔 𝒂 𝒃𝒐𝒎𝒃. 𝑺𝒐𝒎𝒆𝒕𝒊𝒎𝒆𝒔 𝒊𝒕 𝒊𝒔 𝒂 𝒎𝒂𝒑
Interesting
Some really absurd comments from the Indian readers on this post – demonstrating a total lack of self-awareness. Apparently, the only acceptable Pakistani is one who timidly submits to Indian hegemony in the subcontinent and doesn’t reply in kind to their bigotry and disrespect. A Pakistani “centrist” or even “liberal” is still “extreme” to Indian nationalists (or now just regular Indians) because of the visceral anti Pakistani (and anti Muslim) hatred pervasive in India. The Overton window has shifted so far to the right in India (or perhaps it always was) that virtually every Pakistani is perceived as an extremist from their vantage point. Conceivably, this level of animosity is being fostered in India to justify and encourage kinetic actions against Pakistanis – this is why propaganda content is so popular across the border.
India due to its size and population will always be the “hegemon” of the subcontinent just like the US will always be the “hegemon” of North America.
It is literally 80-85% of the subcontinent’s economy and considering the faster growth rate compared to Pakistan and Bangladesh it will be 90%+ soon.
The subcontinent is an entity because of India. The non-Indian subcontinental nations neither are neighbours (not even one) nor do they share common ethnicities/languages. India is literally the link between all of them.
It is Pakistanis on the other hand whose issue is thinking it is a “peer” of India (as ridiculous as Canada being a “peer” of the USA) that cause them to overreach. Forget India, they are smaller than Bangladesh.
And besides, what is this “hegemony” that Pakistan is not willing to submit to?
India neither has territorial ambitions on Pakistani territory nor does it dictate the internal affairs of Pakistan.
All India wants is no terror attacks.
That’s it. That’s how low the expectations are.
Premise falls apart entirely when you look at the last 1000 years of history
It depends on what you define as India.
The Mughals ruled from Delhi, Agra & Lahore ultimately.
The last millennia actually vindicates the notion that those who control the Hindi belt ultimately control the entire Subcontinent.
If a state didn’t capture the Heartland; it wouldn’t be as consequential.
Size and population does not matter if the size is flat as a pancake, and the population cannot be counted on to fight (non warrior castes)
You are trying to start a flame thread war with Martial Races..
Martial castes, not martial races.
The concept of martial castes is a core concept in Hindu religion.
Punjabi and Sindhi Muslims cosplaying as Hindustani Muslims and Afghan doesn’t make them so.
India is the successor state of the Mughals and the Sultanates (and the Nawabs/Nizams) due to having most/all of the area including the capitals, the tombs and having the descendants stay behind.
Afghanistan is the successor state of the Durranis.
It is Pakistani Punjabi peasant caste convert Muslims who realize that they have no history of their own who kang as other races.
Even Punjabi Sikhs have a prouder history.
Naming stuff after Ghori, Ghazni only to have their descendants blow up bombs in your cities lol.
Are we really using discredited notions now?
And when has Pakistan ever won a ground battle against India despite being filled with martial castes?
Calvin bhai, as I have mentioned below – aman ki asha never works against these lot.
They are “martial qaum”.
They only understand the language of the stick.
As shown by Pakistani cricket fans getting on their knees for Kohli and cheering him on against their own team or Pakistanis watching Dhurandhar in great numbers and dancing to its songs.
Even their history is testament to it where they embraced the religion of their conquerors and cosplay as them (as you can see on various posts) while still having surnames like Gill, Cheema, Sethi, Butt (Bhat) etc.
I even saw a Pakistani on X praise Manekshaw.
The Indian government has understood the historical tendency of this people and the more aggressive stance post 2014 has led to a massive decrease in terrorism and separatism.
>Are we really using discredited notions now?
Discredited by whom? The non martial castes?
On Indian internet, we have Sudras kanging on Rajput Valor (non Hindutva) for fighting against foreigners, and then we have other Sudras (Hindutva) who are deintegrating Rajputs for joining up with Mughals.
When Indians see their society in these terms, why should we see it differently?
What do you mean by Shudra (hindutva) and Rajput ( non hindutva)? Is it an example framing of a specific commentary you were following or are you suggesting those categories have those affiliations?
Modern Hindtuva has spread the notion that in medieval India, all Hindus were fighting against Muslim invaders.That the Rajputs ‘joined forces’ with the Mughals (gave their daughters to them in marriage) and became the military arm of the Mughals, therefore betraying the cause of the Hindus, especially against Marathas who are now lionized.
Many of the proponents of Hindutva from non-martial castes, are now using this line of argument to project hatred against the Rajputs (probably to score on some issue in local domstic politcs).. this clearly irks the Rajputs who reply back if any of these people had ancestors who fought at all for anything (harkening to their non-martial status)
A lot of other non martial castes also try to portay that their ancestors were fighters .. the ones uplifting Rajput history are usually non-Hindutva inspired.
This is no different that many Afghans talking about their ancestors ruling India while in the same breath never acknolwegding Rohilla Pasthuns or other Pathan descendants as their own, but deintegrate them as Indian. Most of the guys fighting never returned to Afghansitan so have nothing to do with current Afghans so their achievements as claimed.
I’m familiar with some of these talking points, but i read the dynamic differently. Hindu nationalists thinkers have always valorised Rajputs, to the extent of ahistorically attributing Rajput identity to prominent figures pre-ethnogenesis of that group. As serious Indian historiography is itself a work in progress, early on, delhi-centric nationalists of all leanings elevated Rajputs to central characters in the national history and propagated those narratives to regions where they played marginal or no role at all. The refuting of Rajput valor originates outside the hindu nat circles, it was always secular historians citing it to introduce nuance to the common understanding of the imperial patronage structure. e.g. “There were Hindus at the top of the Mughal system and many Muslims toiling near the base, religious identity was not the sole determinant of victim-oppressor”, so as to preempt polarisation via history. Marathas are invoking this argument for regional/ethnic glory, because their political project was truly of a much grander scale, and it is only relatively recently being coopted. Regionally, as you mention, Meenas and Gujjars might want to prick the perceived arrogance of Rajputs whom they share a geography with. The point though is, Rajputs are the reliable BJP supporters among all these groups. Meenas, Gujjars, Yadavs and Jats are all much less reliable supporters of the hindu nationalist project and vary between an electoral swing bloc and constituting the very base of the opposition. The nuance of the quip of Rajputs “giving their daughters to Mughals”, isn’t as a naive true believer in the Hindu nationalist mythos, but of someone judging someone by the standards of their own pride. The more “hardcore” a Maratha is, btw, the more oppositional they are to the BJP in Maharashtra and they have a deep brahmin and RSS skepticism in their politics. This is hard for hindus from other regions of India to understand, let alone neighbouring countries.
The sense I get is you are seeing the hybridization of ideas, where secular talking points get coopted where convenient in an intra-hindu nat conversation. But its mostly a feature of X or some niche subreddits. At the end of the day, a certain Yogi Adityanath, the hindu rashtra final boss himself, is a rajput.
Wow your comments are just +100
Hindu nationalism has expanded outside the BJP now, there are Hindu nationalists as you know who call Maulana Modi because he appears to soft on Muslims. The Rajputs will remain in BJP camp but a lot of sub altern castes poke fun of them for these facts. I wasnt aware these were secular talking points – because seculars always promoted this Rajput Mughal alliance as proof of Hindu Muslim unity but subaltern Hindtuva have used the same to doubt the loyalty of the Rajputs to the Hindu cause.
I understand the Maratha dynamic as well, since this is also a case of stolen valor where Hindus from Northern regions are now lionizing Marathas for fighting against Mughals (when in fact) the Marathas were raiding their homelands with little regard to Hindu or Muslim peasants.
At the end of the day, my view has always been that there are many nations within India (and Pakistan) and several identities. However people act like they are all one nation.
My comment about past 1000 year Indian history is the same context to reply to the premise that ‘large population groups will be hegemon’ when it is clear that small – often exclusive – groups (like Mughals, Afghans, Rajputs and Marathas) have dominated and ruled over large groups and will continue to do so.
This is what Pakistanis learn at school; we’d just wait for Dhurndhar to do his thang.
😀
Sociologists and historians in any center of learning would argue agains the notion that certain castes are martial and others are not.
To begin with, access to arms was much more widespread than initially thought and with the chaos that India saw in its own middle ages many castes and communities who were predominantly peasants or cattle herders normally got into the business of providing their military services.
You can look into the below for a short summary and more reading on how Rajput started out as an open identity that got closed later on. He is a punjabi muslim from Pakistan.
Formation of Rajput Identity – Punjabi Waseb
Furthermore, how do you know what community the person belongs from posts on the internet? And as an Indian, I think you need to spend more time researching and reading about how identities are formed in Indian society, trying to portray your community as having been Kshatriya varna is not the same as saying that ones caste is a martial caste.
Except for a fact that India actually has a majority of these castes – Hindu, Muslim and Sikh.
Punjabi and Sindhi Muslims have always been ruled by outsiders, never the opposite.
And that can be seen in the results of the wars – including 1971.
If I wanted to troll, I’d point out that the punjabi muslim is essentially the roadkill for the Turuskhas on their way to invading the subcontinent. They converted to stop being dragged over the peaks of the ‘Hindu Kush’ to be sold off in the slave markets of Samarqand. Hardpressed to find a single major battle or conflict that they can point to, that the west Punjabi mussalmaan has won, outside of the Sikhs.
The kanging about ‘martial prowess’ is just as borrowed as the fake ‘syed’ roots.
On one hand, they want to be Punjabi. On another hand, they hate Punjabi
I am not Punjabi but this is sooo interesting
ah yes. “S Qureishi”. Straight outaa the Prophet’s clan.
Qureishi was comparing Jinnah to Ataturk which made me laugh.
Imagine if the Ottoman Empire was divided into two countries –
One called Byzantia encompassing Greece, Christian Yugoslavia, Hungary, Romania, all the Christian territories AND Western Turkey with capital at Istanbul/Constantinople.
Another consisting of Kurdistan in the eastern half and Albania in the western half. A bunch of Turkish moved to Kurdistan (but not all – majority stays back in Byzantia) and made the official language Turkish. Let’s call this country Turkey.
20 years later there is a civil war where the western part of Albania secedes due to Turkish imposition with a bit of help of Byzantia.
The modern day Kurds of Turkey keep kanging to both the Christians/Turks of Byzantia how they ruled over them while never being able to set foot in Istanbul and the Blue Mosque.
IF Ataturk had done this pathetic a job, maybe Jinnah could have been compared to him.
Lahore for a very short period.
Mughals mostly based out of Delhi and Agra.
Sultanates based out of Delhi and places in the south.
Nawabs/Nizam – Lucknow, Hyderabad, Murshidabad.
All of these areas are firmly in Indian control and their descendants are Indian citizens.
Like I have said, Pakistanis cosplaying as Mughals is like Kurds cosplaying as Ottomans because they are “Muslim” while vast majority of Turks live in a different country.
Agreed. They are still not over the fact that they were ruled by Muslims for a large amount of that time.
That is why many call the sultans and mughals as invaders. Why should the Hindu celebrate an alien rule?
The genius of the Hindus of the heart land in not falling wholesale to Islam should be appreciated, unlike the Persians elites and all.
Personally, I think the “1000 years of slavery” is a-historical.
The fact is that the Mughals had to co-opt Hindu ruling castes into their dynasty. Many of the emperors had Rajput mothers.
The Mughals were translating the Ramayana and the Mahabharata into Persian. They were celebrating Holi and Diwali.
Many of our current issues go back to the British division of Indian history into the “Hindu period”, “Muslim period” and “British period”.
Correct, there was no 1000 year slavery, and this a trope used by Hindutva to create a victim based identity. The Mughals were quite uninterested in spreading Islam or changing people’s religion and they were not anymore violent or oppressive than any other Indian empire.
The point however is that the assertion that ‘size and population’ translates into hegemony is just untrue, becuase smaller ethnic groups (both in size of land and numbers) continue to dominate larger weaker ethnic groups and this has been going on forever (not just for 1000 years)
Except for a few things
1. This is not the past 1000 years or forever. The world is a globalized one now with checks and balances. If it were not so greater Israel would already exist. Instead it is called an “occupation” and Israel has had costs imposed on it by the globe.
2. There is a thing called “nuclear weapons” which India has. This did not exist for 1000 years or forever so “conquest” is no longer a thing.
3. In the modern world size/population does translate to hegemony.
US is its area’s hegemon because of size/population. Russia is in its (CIS). China is in its. India is in its.
The same nuclear weapons that Pakistan kang on about not allowing anyone to change their boundaries are the same nuclear weapons that mean India keep Kashmir and the headwaters forever and Pakistan remain a second rate state compared to India permanently.
I think both should be appreciated.
Naah, it is Pakistanis who cannot get over the fact that they are basically the fringe of India where nothing much important happened.
They have to go back to the 4000 year old IVC to find something.
Everything else happened in India – Mauryas, Guptas, Cholas, Sultanates, Vijaynagara, Mughals, Marathas etc.
India is the successor state to all these kingdoms.
The Muslims who ruled India are still Indian due to the vast majority of Hindustani Muslims not migrating (including the vast majority of nawabs and the nizam).
Like I have said, India is the biggest Muslim power in the subcontinent.
Pakistanis are just Punjabi peasant caste converts cosplaying as Mughals.
Kabir this is a provocative comment
Why? When PM Modi speaks about “1000 years of slavery” what is he talking about? Obviously, Muslim rule.
It’s deeply ironic when this is said from a Mughal palace (Red Fort).
Fwiw, I think a sufficient number of hindus and others would agree with Kabir’s point here, to make this non-provocative. A 1000 years is a huge stretch in the periodization of islamicate India. It would be very generous to say the second battle of tarain (1192) was a starting point around delhi, and by 1737 we have the regular sackings of delhi by marathas. So even in the most iconic islamicate imperial metropole of India we have <550 years of supremacy. We dig further and we will find that most of this period had sizable inclusion of hindu nobilty, not to mention hindu and jain land revenue officials and banking thriving and wielding immense power over the muslim nobility. Now once we consider that the story in the deccan, deep south , orissa and assam and many other regions had unperturbed native elites practically throughout the entire epoch, to varying degrees, it makes someone as esteemed as a prime minister seem intellectually dishonest to repeat this slogan perpetually. If not, we are dealing with someone with a childlike grasp of history, which I doubt. Moreover, the maximalist claim puts the punjab and gangetic plain at the center of indian historiography, at the expense of 80% of the remaining territory of the country, which raises other questions about national identity and whose history we are interrogating.
India is a civilization state and is the successor state of thousands of kingdoms – some huge some small.
So people will have different interpretations.
Being a democracy people can have the interpretation they want.
Years later Muslims of India might describe the BJP years as X years of Hindu rule or something which they are free to interpret it as.
Naah. Reality is India is the successor state of BOTH the Hindu empires AND the Muslim empires.
Just like the United States is the successor state of BOTH the Union AND the Confederacy AND the Slaves.
And just history is viewed differently by the different descendants there, it is here.
Some Hindus might have been ruled by some Muslims but they were both INDIAN.
And the ancestors of majority of Pakistanis were not the Muslims doing the ruling but were being ruled by the same Muslims themselves.
True. The British interrupted our desi (Marathi) Reconquista otherwise Coorgi pandi curry would have been more famous jamon Iberico.
For such a modern person why do you seem to hold onto notions of warrior supremacy?
Especially when many of the toxic traits in Pakistan come from this martial culture?
Anyways, history should not be used for vindication or depreciation of others. It hides more than it reveals.
And it is anyways false.
Pakistanis cosplaying as Mughals is like Kurds cosplaying as Ottomans while Turks are in another country.
At least Suleiman was a kurd. So there is some martial tradition there.
Also saying India was ruled by Muslims for a large amount of time is wrong. Large areas were ruled by Persianized turks, and many Iranians, Afghani snd Turkish muslims along with their local upper class collaborators benefitted but… the vast majority of muslims were not part of this political structure, conversi9n seemed to be for at least the more long lasting ones, a political tool to be deployed.
Perpetuating this notion that the rulers were muslims rather than Turkic, has only hurt Indian muslims in more ways than one.
Exactly.
Punjabi peasant converts didn’t rule jack.
If anything, most of the Hindustani Muslims stayed back including the Nizam and multiple Nawabs (of princely states as well as descendants of Mir Jafar and Wajid Ali Shah).
I don’t disagree with you.
The “1000 years of slavery” framing is not mine but PM Modi’s.
Even if it is his why use it when it is only detrimental to the reputation and self perception of subcontinental muslims.
My point was only that if the PM of India can talk about “1000 years of slavery” why is it considered “provocative” when I say that many Indians are still not over “Muslim rule” (the quotes are deliberate)?
Do read my latest post on Somanatha.
There are ways of getting your points across that dont further legitimize stereotypes that are harmful to Indian muslims.
As a pakistani muslim you pushing back against this notion has an impact
well said.
Nuh-uh.
Actually supports it.
Punjabi Muslims and Sindhi Muslims never ruled anything big.
Hindustani Muslims did – who are majority Indian (all of the major nawabs/nizams descending from them stayed back).
Punjabi Sikhs did – who are again Indian.
Maratha Hindus did – who are again Indian.
Vijaynagara Hindus did – who are again Indian.
Afghans did – who are again locked in conflict with Pakistan.
Punjabi and Sindhi Muslims ruled small kingdoms in what is now Pakistan. They were never a “hegemon”.
India is the successor state of the Mughals and the Delhi Sultanate. Pakistan is the successor state of smaller kingdoms in Sindh.
powerless converts strive harder to bask in reflected glory. This is a psychological and eminently human tendency.
Well said!
I’ve been arguing this for months that for many Indians on this forum the only good Pakistani is one who completely submits to Indian hegemony.
For example, I’m center left. I sing Hindustani classical music. All I really expect from India is that it doesn’t cross Pakistan’s borders and bomb our territory. Yet, even that seems to be “extremist” for many people here. Meanwhile, we have a guy who lives in the fantasy of “Dhurandhar”.
Rafia Zakaria wrote about this yesterday in DAWN in an article aptly titled “India’s Delusions”
https://www.dawn.com/news/1994869/indias-delusions
It feels this Pakistani pride has had a severe cost; as BB points out the best trade for all non-Elitistanis is to leave.
On a very wide note:
1) many gun owners have poor aim. I feel he was not targetted as police have said.
as per Stevie sailor’s thesis, the white shooters aim better while the black guys just sprays. Nobody has accused sailor of not being a race realist.
2) some female journalists tools their bottles of wine. Was it a paid dinner?
3) one guy ate his dinner in peace even when all had left.
The other south asian nations like SL , BN Nepal resist Indian hegemony as well. One could say, India is underperforming in any project it has to dominate it’s neighbours given its structural advantages. On some level though , there is baseline alignment on how each of these states derive legitimacy. The difference with pakistan is, even liberal Indians will not yield to the logic of TNT, it’s like the difference between accepting that the israel exists and accepting the logic of zionism.
Indians don’t need to “yield to the logic of TNT”. They do, however, need to accept the fact that most Pakistanis love their country and Pakistan is not going anywhere. Also, unlike India’s other neighbors, Pakistan has nuclear weapons.
On this blog there have been many comments that try to de-legitimize the unique identity of Pakistanis and make it seem like we are “Indian Muslims who have gone astray”. This is a non-starter. It’s been 80 years. We’ve formed our own identity and had our own unique national experience.
Good relations can only happen on the basis of sovereign equality. The more India throws its weight around, the more Pakistan will resist.
I do find it ironic how much fuss there is about TNT. Wouldn’t you say that the BJP’s vision for India in many ways is predicated on an acceptance of TNT? Just as Pakistan is an “Islamic Republic”, India will become a “Hindu Rashtra”? The people who really lose out are the Indian Muslims who thought they were living in a constitutionally secular state.
I am trying not to engage with you because it is obvious your intentions are mala fide but there are certain misconceptions which need to be called out.
Even the so-called Far Right Hindutva movement believes in Muslims being an integral part of India.
https://clarionindia.net/rss-leaders-remarks-on-muslim-origins-spark-debate-on-identity-and-history/
To them, ‘Hindu’ is a geo-ethnographic identifier more than a religious one. I know this may fry the brains of a Pakistani Centre-Leftist but in Indian polity what gets called Far-Right would be considered Centre-Left at best in less ‘secular’ systems. There is a famous quip in political circles in India – “an Chinese Communist is a Chinese nationalist. An Indian communist is also an Chinese nationalist.” May give you an indication of the system we come from.
This is an inherent weakness of the Indian state, polity and society. We must reflect upon how bad faith actors abuse our diversity and openness to their ends.
It is actually quite illuminating to have these interactions. How else would an average Indian understand who we’re dealing with across the border. Were it not for an internet driven reality check, our Left leaning intellectuals, celebrities and politicians would continue to sell us the kool-aid of we are the same people divided by politics etc.
The Shuddhi movement started by Arya Samaj concentrated on ‘puryfying’ Hindus who had converted to Islam (thus the name Shuddhi) OR puryfying the land from Muslims. Once the former is deemed unattainable because Islam is usually more successful in proselytization, the latter becomes the goal.
We don’t look at India from a Western lense, and retrofitting Indian politics onto a left right spectrum is not what we do – that’s what Anglofied Indians do.
BJP is a democractic party, but their ideology is exclusive and fascist. They are actually no different to Jamaat e Islami – which is also a democractic party – but its ideology is also exclusive.
The only difference is that Pakistanis don’t elect JI into power, while Indians keep on electing BJP repeatedly.
The comparison of BJP with JI is actually a good one.
And you are correct that Pakistanis don’t vote for religious parties. PML-N and PPP are explicitly centrist parties.
I would say JI is a mirror to BJP, but not even JI in Pakistan has characters like Yogi Adityanath who openly call for the subjugation of the Muslims. Infact that’s more fasicst than even the Taliban
The Centre-Left in India is the Indian National Congress.
The BJP is a Hindu nationalist party. The whole world knows this.
The point remains that a “Hindu Rashtra” is the mirror image of an Islamic Republic. The BJP doesn’t support Pandit Nehru’s vision of India being a state of all its citizens.
The LeLi crowd is as out of touch with reality as the folks across the border, and the average Indian is so much more difficult to convince now than a couple of decades back.
Also, predictably SQ completely missed your point.
Monotheistic blindspot I reckon, the perspective is entirely skewed.
You will be hard pressed to find a normal person in India who doesn’t accept this. If you listen to young people talk they would treat the fact that India-Pakistan were once part of the same polity as some kind of surprising trivia. My point is that, while TNT was used to litigate for partition , and the results of that have been accepted by all parties, the *further* application of TNT will find no takers among liberals. An example would be a statement like “Kashmir should have gone to Pakistan because of having a muslim majority”. There are excellent reasons why one can argue for Kashmir as an independent state in 1947 or even part of Pakistan, that don’t depend on TNT. The foremost being the idea that the process of accession was corrupted somehow. J&K had the same exact right to self-determinaton as Travancore for instance. But the underlying principal is self-determination in the Wilsonian sense i suppose, not TNT. (This goes both ways, as Indians use an imperial logic of their own that a fully intact successor state to the british raj was their entitlement, which is quite outageousely grandiose to be fair).
I’m tempted to disagree here, because BJP is a bigger tent than you estimate. You are imputing “anti-muslim” as the sine non qua of its mission. It is as much a hindi-language supremacist,gangetic culture centric, and anti-communist party hence the original slogan , “hindi, hindu, hindustan”. Unlike other regional parties it exported and adapted well in a few other regions and does well among the educated, urban bougie demographic. Also the RSS/BJP is not earnestly religious, at its most extreme it may be a type of fascism, but not a theocracy like JI. Finally, it does not require separation of religious communities in its vision, let alone partition. It is agnostic to whether India is 35% muslim or 15% muslim.
urs as always is the most sensible and highest signal comment.
Well, from across the border it certainly does seem like BJP’s politics runs entirely on demonizing Muslims and Pakistan.
I’m happy to admit that there may be some nuance that I’m missing.
No less a person than Ram Guha has called BJP’s vision that of turning India into a “Hindu Pakistan”.
Whatever moral high ground India had against Pakistan during the Congress period is long gone.
is Hindu Pakistan a terrible thing? you seem to love the actual Pakistan
I love Pakistan because it’s my country. I’m a patriot.
India is a constitutionally secular state. That was Pandit Nehru’s vision. To turn it into a Hindu version of the “Islamic Republic” next door is fundamentally a regressive move.
Of course, if that’s what Indians choose to do, I can’t stop them. But then they can’t claim the moral high ground against Pakistanis.
To turn it into a Hindu version of the “Islamic Republic” next door is fundamentally a regressive move.
Thanks for accepting that Pakistan is an inherently more illiberal and unjust state. Btw, even the so-called Hindu nationalist BJP has at no point called for any constitutional change to make India a Hindu state. It has never been part of their manifesto. So even our most regressive movement isn’t a patch on the average centrist Pakistani in their regression.
BJP supporters are incredibly upset that Indira Gandhi inserted the words “secular” and “socialist” in the Preamble.
Who are you trying to fool?
Ever wondered why the most secular of all Indian leadership under Nehru, Ambedkar et al decided to not include those words when they drafted the constitution? Perhaps not because that would require you to read the Constitution Assembly Debates which run in to thousands of pages. Interestingly, I have. You have no idea about India’s politics so you can keep your arguments to yourself.
he is entitled to his opinions.
Of course! Just as much as I am entitled to dismiss them as churlish and mala fide.
btw ur comments are going to the spam filter. so don’t worry if they don’t appear immediately.
Pandit Nehru clearly intended India to be a secular state even if the word “secularism” was not actually used.
“You have no idea about India’s politics”– this was a churlish comment. Don’t condescend to me.
With all due respect, I know more about India than you do about Pakistan. Doesn’t stop you from pontificating about Pakistan.
Don’t condescend to me.
Thankfully this is not your thread so you cannot just delete comments that question you and that you have no logical of factual riposte to.
You love Pakistan
India is secular
India might become regressive like Pakistan
You might love India more?
This is just bad argumentation (sorry).
I love Pakistan because it’s my country. It’s my identity. My parents were born there and educated there.
Would I be happier if Pakistan were a constitutionally secular state? Of course.
Yes some pakistani double standards notwithstanding. As Ambedkar said such a country would be a disaster.
You’re referring to the idea of India as a “Hindu Pakistan”?
Just trying to clarify.
Yes, though what he said can be applied to Pakistan as well.
Bigger countries always try to dominate smaller neighbours. This is true everywhere, whether that be Russia in Eastern Europe & Caucasus, China in East Asia or US in North America.
The smaller neighbours usually have to two choices: accept the hegemony and usually derive some economic benefits or resist either indpeendently or by joining hands with a foreign power. Many smaller neighbours accept the hegemony of the bigger neighbour because the risk of going against them is huge, but sometimes even that is not enough (case in point: US vs Canada).
The problem in South Asia is that while the Indians believe Pakistan should submit to their hegemony, Pakistan does not see itself a smaller country to be dominated by India – at all – but as equal with India. Indian state on the other hand prefers Pakistan to follow the Bangladesh model.
And that exactly is what I pointed in my post which you would have done well to read completely.
Pakistan thinks itself as a “peer” to India and take decisions which actually make the gap bigger.
Hence why it is now the poorest country in the subcontinent and is being surpassed by Sub-Saharan Africans.
This is mostly due to boomers in charge still clinging on to the good old days when the countries were equally rich (or poor) and there was competition in cricket/hockey.
When GenZ Pakistanis who have always seen a weaker Pakistan compared to India come in power in an even weaker Pakistan, they will accept the “Bangladesh” model, who by the way will be even richer.
that seems a stretch
Naah. Wait and watch.
I know it’s just cricket but let me give an anecdote.
I often watch Pakistani cricket shows post India matches for schadenfreude.
The traditional ones with older panelists are always like – India doesn’t really have that much more talent than Pakistan, It’s just selection issues/ICC favoritism, we used to kick their ass in the 90s.
The newer ones with younger fans have a genuine sense of awe and fear.
Do you think Pakistani kids watching India win consistently at cricket, send manned missions to space, have a space station, bullet trains, host the Olympics while themselves being the same old truly consider India a “peer”?
not really – in a globalised world, India is not the main frame of reference.
We will write on this, by kicking and trying to isolate Pakistan in an Indian Subcontinental framework, it’s rapidly making Pakistan “Middle Eastern”, albeit heavily subordinate Middle Eastern who are “Ajam” in the 3 main languages of the ME (Arabic, Persian & Turkish).
Urdu is decidedly Hindu in that context
“not really – in a globalised world, India is not the main frame of reference”
Could you elaborate on this?
As for Pakistan becoming more Middle Eastern maybe that is for the best.
This “divorce” makes things better for everyone.
World Bank and CENTCOM already make this distinction.
It seems Pakistanis would rather be subordinate in an Islamicate setting rather than prominent in Jambudvipa.
It’s odd all the Pakistani commentators on this blog are post-Muslim but retain reflexive Hinduphobia.
Why not do Aarti to the Deities of their Ancestors is beyond me.. there is a racialised sense of inferiority alas (Turks, Iranians & Arabs are crazy proud about their distinctiveness from Islam).
A very good example is Urdu; it has a very high state in the Indian Subcontinent but has nil status in the ME. It is coded as just another “Indian tongue.”
Also because Pakistanis & Indians share English on top of Hindustani; it’s just a lot more easy to flow.
Pakistanis are playing the long game, and will eventually take over the Islamicate world. Iran and Turkey will be the only contenders. This is already happening and the chips are starting to fall in place.
Nobody actually cares about India, and Indians have this sense of self importance that is only limited to them.
this is unlikely.. when Pakistanis aren’t coded as a first rate Islamicate people.
Urdu isn’t seen as a profoundly Muslim culture; also biryani etc | the whole Islamicate inheritance is perceived as Hindu – Indian from the ME perspective.
it’s the classic duality. Taj Mahal looks Muslim in India but unmistakeable Indian outside it (the opulence, grandeur, blazing white Marble).
I will write a post on this.
Arabs, Iranians and Turks derive legitimacy by being the claimants to some of the largest Muslim empires in the world.
Pakistan doesn’t.
They might call themselves Mughals but good luck trying to convince the rest of the world that the Taj Mahal is “Pakistani” when one has to go to India to see it.
This is absurd – the Mughals were one of the Gunpowder Empires.
One cannot claim to be the heir to the Mughals and destroy Babri Masjid.
Sorry, but why the heck not.
As an Indian, I am totally fine with embracing the history and heritage contributions of the mughals, but also fine with restoring a destroyed temple that was and is considered so sacred by the faithful. Personally, I am agnostic and do not really care or have any special attachment to that or any temple, but at a minimum, I am sympathetic to the argument for the Ram temple.
The efforts by the local hindus to restore the temple are consistent for more than a century. There is nothing in the Babri Masjid that has any sacred attachment to either the structure of the location. It was built as a symbol of military and religious supremacy. Why is that such a crime against the faith can’t be undone, especially if compensation in kind is provided with generous land grants and funding for rebuilding the mosque?
India is a constitutionally secular state. A constitutionally secular state does not allow minority places of worship to be destroyed.
The fact that you support the mob destruction of a minority place of worship shows that you are right-wing–no matter how much you deny it.
And yet again, you falsely attribute a position to me – Where have I supported ‘mob destruction’? I supported the Supreme Court ruling on the Babri Masjid site, not ‘mob destruction’.
But since you choose to view me as ‘top of the enemy list’ you repeatedly attribute strawman arguments to me. Its a a way to justify your personal prejudice. It is what it is.
Still waiting on you to retract your false accusation against me that I have a ‘problem with Pak authors’ and an apology for the same.
Get well soon 🙂
Admin note: this comment is absurd
//Pakistanis are playing the long game, and will eventually take over the Islamicate world. Iran and Turkey will be the only contenders. This is already happening and the chips are starting to fall in place//
Pakistan literacy rate is amongst the lowest in the middle east, aside from Afghanistan. It does not have a robust domestic industry, needs to be bailed out by IMF, Saudi and UAE regularly.
You in your comments have said you are neither a religious muslim nor living in Pakistan? How can you then being exposed to the wider world even conceive such a thing?
//Nobody actually cares about India, and Indians have this sense of self importance that is only limited to them.//
Most south asian cultural exports even those from Pakistan are seen as Indian worldwide. Yes the notion that we are Vishwaguru is not to be taken seriously but to say that we are not an important player in the world, because of our scientific achievements, cultural exports, large possible market is dumb.
“Why not do Aarti to the Deities of their Ancestors?–
My ancestors have been Muslim for hundreds of years. As mentioned, my father’s family actually came from Iran.
Idol worship is one of the biggest sins a Muslim can commit. Even people who are not necessarily practicing Muslims are not going to be doing “aarti” to anything.
This is not a reasonable expectation.
I have nothing against Hinduism per se. I sing bhajans. My parents call me by a Hindu pet name and have done so ever since I was born.
My battle is only with Hindu nationalism.
baradar az door
Pakistanis are very insecure in their Islam and general identity; Persians really don’t care. We all cosplay as Achaemenians.
X for Xerxes
There are good reasons for this. Most other non-Arab Muslim states have relegated their native religions to a museum relic. There is no contestation for the hearts and minds as Islam reigns supreme so the differentiator becomes your pre-Islamic/native culture. That’s why even the hardlines in Iran claim its boundaries extend to all those regions that celebrate Nowruz and why Iranians have pejoratively called Arabs lizard eaters for millenia. The scar of being conquered by those you considered inferior and savages needed a salve through claims of Islamic leadership.
Similar approaches to native cultures exist in Indonesia which fully owns its pre-Islamic culture because the country/society has relegated Hinduism/Buddhism to good vibes in Bali and a source of cultural symbolisms.
India presents a different case. It is a daily zakhm on the Muslim supremacists that the land they once thought was their personal jaagir is now run by the infidel that they thought they had conquered and subjugated for good. Worse, the native culture not only survives but thrives overtly now (often gaudy in its expression but that’s a different story altogether) and comparisons with the regional Riyasat-e-Medina only make matter worse. Any efforts to reclaim their pre-Islamic heritage risks running dangerously close to accepting the RSS’ ideals that this land should be the object of their primary allegiance and veneration. This could be a long post in itself but a Monday morning blues could only give me so much motivation to procrastinate my work.
Indian muslims do love India and do venerate it in their own way. They also dont feel the need to constantly claim their ancient past because a lot of these claims are less about pride but more about constructing an ancient national identity. As a minority group, that does not have to present itself on the world stage the pressure to claim a origin for your nation state in antiquity is not there.
Pakistani and to some extent Bamgladeshi muslims have not yet gotten out of the TNT mode of thinking and that rather than presence of Hindus is the reason for there disavowal imo.
My limited point is that asking Pakistanis to do “aarti” is unreasonable (and borderline offensive).
Idol worship is shirk. We cannot pray to any entity other than Allah.
Even the most “liberal” Muslim will not go this far.
how is it offensive.
just shows it’s a nation of fanatics tbh
I don’t think that’s fair.
Idol worship goes against the fundamental tenets of Islam
I’m not going to belabor this point further.
But you yourself said that you are more or less agnostic. How should it matter then? Technically singing bhajans will also be unIslamic of you.
You can’t have it both ways.
Music doesn’t seem strong in the Islamicate tradition all that much as in while it was obviously present, it didn’t have religious sanction.
Qawwali is a big part of Pakistani culture.
Khayal itself was invented in the Mughal courts.
There is a whole debate about whether music is religiously allowed or not. I referenced it in my dissertation.
See Lois Ibsen Al Faruqi’s essay “Music, Musicians and Muslim Law”
https://www.jstor.org/stable/833739
Exactly. To quote formerly brown, it cannot be so to speak an “a la carte” menu.
I think I’ve clarified before that I sing bhajans as part of Hindustani classical music. It’s part of the art form. I don’t actually believe in the Hindu gods.
I’ve sung Christian pieces as part of my studies in Western music. That doesn’t mean I accept Christ as my savior.
Doing “aarti” or puja is something else entirely. That’s idol worship and something that I would personally never do.
My battle is only with Hindu nationalism.
Why do you care about Hindu nationalism? Shouldn’t you be happy in your modern day Riyasat-e-Medina?
And why should you battle Hindu nationalism? It is, at best, a mirror image of the same ideology you defend so staunchly. Religious nationalism for me but not for thee?
+1
I thought you weren’t going to engage with me?
I don’t like your tone but I’ll answer this question for the last time.
I care about Hindu nationalism because I have family (blood relatives) living in Agra. They are Indian citizens. Agra is my paternal grandmother’s ancestral home. I don’t want my relatives to be made second-class citizens in their own country.
You seem to be underestimating how many Pakistani families have relatives in India.
Also just as Indians care about how Hindus are treated in Pakistan, Pakistanis care about how Muslims are treated in India.
As for “Riyasat-e-Medina”: I despise Imran Khan and everything he stands for. “Riyasat-e-Medina” is a PTI concept.
For the last time, I am a Nehruvian Secularist. I grew up in a Nehruvian Secularist family. You would know that had you bothered to read my essay on being a center-left Pakistani.
just as Hindu Indians have their Hindu relatives as second class citizens in Pakistan?
There are probably far less Hindu Indians with relatives in Pakistan than there are Muslim Pakistanis with relatives in India.
This is an empirical question. I’m not sure of the details.
For the last time, I am a Nehruvian Secularist. I grew up in a Nehruvian Secularist family.
A Nehruvian Secularist Pakistani Nationalist. The jokes write themselves.
You really shouldn’t make assumptions about me.
My father is on record as stating that the Partition should not have happened. Obviously, I disagree but that’s a subject of debate in our home.
My family has always believed in the Congress’s vision of a secular India that is a state of all its citizens. Sadly, that vision has now lost out to a different one.
To clarify: It’s my dad who is a Nehruvian Secularist. My mother grew up in a patriotic Pakistani family in which several members served in Pak Fauj–some in high positions.
Anyway, you really should read my essay before making assumptions about me that can easily be disproved.
https://kabiraltaf.substack.com/p/what-being-a-centre-left-pakistani
From being a Nehruvian Secularist to being the child of one. From being the son of a “unionist” to a staunch defender of a nation formed on the basis of religious supremacy that treats its minority as sub-humans while pontificating to a nation where the same minority is objectively doing much better. The age-old Pakistani subterfuge of obfuscating their real intentions is not lost on anyone.
we don’t think Pakistanis care all that much.. Kabir actually is an “Indianist” by Pakistani standards.
most of Pakistan really seem to have gone Ummah side. For instance Kabir stating Pakistan is a South Asian nation would probably have half of (educated) Pakistan disagree
LOL. Pakistan being a South Asian nation is a fact of a geography. It’s not really a subjective opinion that one can disagree with.
The more nuanced position would be that Pakistan is a South Asian Muslim nation.
I think most Punjabis are quite OK with the fact that we are ethnically related to our kin across the Radcliffe Line.
we don’t even think the Pakistanis on this blog (last count there are 3 more) are that sold on it.
Q – EK – and the other chap with the Western sounding name who eludes us right now.
I don’t think EK would deny that Pakistan is a South Asian country (could be wrong though).
I thought Q and EK were the only other Pakistanis on this blog?
I think these arbitrary lines and concepts about what is South Asia & what is Middle East — are just useless.
These may be used to explain to some uninitiated westerner about Pakistan’s location but people fixating about this as some form of idenity markers are just coming from a Westerner view point.
When talking about culture, see what kids actually read in Pakistan. Most Urdu children’s digests are full of stories which are Perso-Arabic in origin, have references to Persian culture.
We are under no illusion that Arabs are insular and may look down upon Pakistanis, but most educated Pakisitanis actually look down on Arabs themselves for being desert bumpkin idiots with an unsophisticated culture (this is a very common view amongst educated Pakistanis) and with the recent US-Iran war, this view has even permeated to the lower classes.
Pakistan is fast emerging as a pole of its own in global conversation. People are not mistaking it for India or the Middle East anymore. The cultural differences with everyone around us is on stark display when foriegners tour our country.
Pakistanis don’t look down on Arabs or any of the core Islamicate races. They all pretend to be them..
//Pakistanis don’t look down on Arabs or any of the core Islamicate races. They all pretend to be them..//
You get very offended when we bring up martial and non martial castes in India but then you use concepts like ”core Islamicate races” when there are no ”core” races in Islam or its theology.
You mistake Muhajirs citing non-Indian paternal linage as an origin of their caste, to Punjabis, Sindhis, Pashtuns who rarely do this. The only Punjabi caste that does this is Arain. Other Ashrafs are very tiny minority of Muslims in Pakistan.
Hindus don’t understand paternal lineage since their idea or lineage is very restricted to caste as they don’t marry outside their caste so their primary identity is caste. In Islam, paternal lineage is very important but it does not denote similarity with that ethnicity or race. So when someone says ‘we descend from Qureish lineage of Abu Bakr or Umar’ they are not claiming to be Arab in the 21st century.
Just take a look at Pakistani twitter and how they are slagging Arabs.. and come back and tell me if they don’t look down on Arabs today
Pole of what? World leader in IMF bailouts? Internal refugees? In what domain does Pakistan ‘lead’ to be considered a ‘pole of its own’?
Pakistan has become a net security provider throughout the Middle East and North Africa.
Indians meanwhile are busy counting their useless shekels and could not even protect their Iranian guests in their backyard.
“Net security provider” is putting some serious lipstick on the pig of renting yourself out as mall security.
If Pakistan was a ‘pole’ instead of dancing on it to the whims of its kleptocratic elite, its citizens would not be extorted to the highest energy prices in Asia, especially relative to income. The stats are out there. The kleptocratic “creamy layer” in Pak rents out its army for a ‘few shekels’ in their personal accounts, while mortgaging the future of Pakistanis by signing corrupt deals with Chinese consortiums that guarantee exhorbitant returns denominated in dollars regardless of energy use.
I mean, the British did this to India while building the railways – padding the bill, and serving up massive guaranteed returns to investors back home. But the CCP doesn’t even have to colonize Pakistan, it just has to grease the palms of a handful of jernails.
India granted asylum to Iranian Navy personnel that it was hosting. Meanwhile Pakistan’s ‘guest’ was Dark-Zero-Thirtied by Umreeki Seals a sneeze away from its military base.
Btw whatever happened to Zahoor Mistry. Care to share?
I love it when Indians cope about it all.
Just like laser eyes Jaishankar lashed out in frustration “Pakistan is a dalal nation’, similarly we get to hear comments like ”it’s just mall security” .
Sir perhaps you should have provided some “mall security” to the IRIS Dena, your unarmed guests..who were sunk and not one word was uttered by your goberment to condemn it..
On the other hand, Pakistani fighter jets escorted the Iranians to Iran and provided full air bridge after they were threatened.
This is the difference between the two countries is night and day.
This is what you don’t understand.
We are positioning to dominate the West Asian and North African security infrasturcture while you struggle to even get small neighbours to like you.
Lol, the theatrics and ISPR propaganda has our man SQ feeling all Top Gun. Its hilarious.
The Pakistani contingent should watch Dhurandhar The Revenge to know what happens.
I am sure they will once it hits OTT like they did the first one.
Main Aur Tu oooooo.
Being a security guard and getting paid for it is not “net security provider”.
Pakistan has no other exports of use so sells bodies.
Even North Korea is a net security provider throughout Europe lol with that logic.
And no one touched the Iranian guests who stayed in India.
The boat that was sunk was in international waters.
International media was actually mocking that whole fighter jet escort PR stunt on X. But it plays well with the domestic audience, clearly.
“International media was actually mocking that whole fighter jet escort”
You Indians are completed anglofied you can’t even see it. “International media “is just codeword for zionist media. MENA media was lauding it, but obviously that’s not ”international” enough
as an aside for some reason your comments are going to the pending folder. it feels like every other comment now.
OK. You really should read the essay. You can even comment on Substack.
You are free to disagree with it but without that background you’re making assumptions that are unwarranted.
Also, this comment is kind of passive aggressive. Do read the precedent post on why passive aggression is bullying.
Its a trojan horse for if not hinduphobia then hindu-hostility.
bhajans are sang to deities with bhakti. even if the tune and tone of the bhajan singer is bad, it is accepted as it is an act of bhakti.
if there is no belief in the deity, any bhajan , even well sung is just a craft, as singing of T M Krishna is now categorised.
feels very Hindu to me; to pray to a deity
@xtm why are my comments put on approval list?
Our spam filters are buckling from heavy usage; so some users are going into pending, because we essentially tripled our daily comments in a span of a month
Sorry there is nothing we can do; but it seems 3 users are impacted (NDG, FB & urself)..
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Like I have repeatedly clarified, I sing bhajans as part of Hindustani classical music. It’s a “craft” as you say.
I’m a Muslim. By definition, I cannot believe in any entity other than Allah. That’s the minimum definition of being Muslim.
I have sung Christian pieces in church. I was a member of the National Cathedral choir in Washington, DC. At no point did I accept Christ as my savior.
We have to be able to separate art from religion.
//It’s odd all the Pakistani commentators on this blog are post-Muslim but retain reflexive Hinduphobia.
Why not do Aarti to the Deities of their Ancestors is beyond me.. there is a racialised sense of inferiority alas (Turks, Iranians & Arabs are crazy proud about their distinctiveness from Islam//
Many religious identities in subcontinent are cultural rather thsn dogmatic.
And despite whst pakistanis like Qureshi say about the TNT being a relic of the past his own comments about the martial superiority of muslims, or Pakistanis and Indians being different groups to this love ajd desire to dominate middle east are all relics of the TNT.
Why they dont want to do an Aarti? For the same reason many western atheists dont start worshipping pre christian deities, latent christianity( or in the Pakistani commentators case latent islam is still there and they have not left behind the muslims identity unlike the western atheists)
Agreed that religious identities on the subcontinent are cultural rather than dogmatic.
Qureshi definitely underestimates the importance of TNT as the official ideology of Pakistan.
Also agree that doing “aarti” is not the definition of liberalism. People are free to do it if they want. They are also free not to do it if they consider it distasteful or against their religious principles.
Westerners love Greek/Norse mythology too as is seen by its prevalence in Western pop culture.
Yeah but only a handful of them worship it and tbh with respect to western christians there has been a culture of preserving and being proud of their non christian ancestors, no matter whst they may encourage other christians to feel about their own non christian ancestors.
With subcontinental muslims, this path has also closed down due to TNT.
excellent excellent point.. Pakistani elite is very colonised by the English speaking medium.
One wonders if Pakistani ancestors worshipped Jupiter / Zeus how much know enthusiastic they would (the blue eyed Kalash seem to get an easy pass).
So they do cosplay Islamicate culture but are suffused in Western norms.
Alas the Brits did break them well.
“Islam for thee but not for me..”
It is VERY déclassé to be religious in Pakistani elite space (Asim Munir is not the traditional elite class). And the seeds of the Elite are entirely Muhajir (this is not about class or power but social cachet; who throws the best parties and drawing room salons), who have intermixed over time.
I don’t know which Pakistanis you know but all my mom’s friends from medical school are very serious about namaz. Whenever they come over for parties everyone rushes to pray at prayer time. These ladies pray five times a day.
So no it’s not declasse to be religious.
//Pakistanis and Indians being different groups to this love ajd desire to dominate middle east are all relics of the TNT.//
Pakistanis and Indians are different groups. Pakistanis and Pakistanis, and Indians and Indians are different groups.
Caring about what India is, was or will be – is very limited in Pakistan outside of military circles (that is their job – to defend the country from India)
What we don’t understand, and actually hate is the Indian obsession about Pakistan, and wanting to sem2sem us. This obsession clearly does not exist wrt Bangladesh – at least not to the same degree – so this appears to be a racial thing.
On the contrary it is Pakistanis who do sem2sem and cosplay as Indian Muslims.
This is something I’ve been noticing as well. Right from WB and US military commands to even US MNC’s now grouping Pakistan as part of MENA/EMEA. In a way it is good for India too. A lot of regional cooperation can finally be unlocked with the problem child out of the way.
Militarily Pakistan is probably the most powerful Middle Eastern nation.
It is also very keen on good relations with the US and a bridge to China (which is all-weather). so makes sense for the the US to reclassify it and make the Punjab a “hard” border, calcified.
Very true. After all, Pakistan is Muslim Zion and an outpost for Anglo power projection in the region. To their credit, Jinnah and all subsequent Pakistani leadership has understood the brief very well right from SEATO to the modern day. The Turkey-Saudi-Pakistan axis also makes perfect sense in this broader context,
+1
V.K. Krishna Menon characterized Pakistan as a “Western imperial outpost in Asia”. Accurately so if I may add.
No amount of US (or anyone else’s) “reclassification” will change geography.
Pakistan is unequivocally South Asian.
Geography is also a state of mind.
I guess.
My point is that you can’t change facts on the ground.
Most of Pakistan is geographically on the “Indian subcontinent”.
We speak South Asian languages, eat South Asian foods, wear South Asian clothing. Most of us are ethnically Punjabi–kin to those across the Radcliffe Line.
Q and El Khawaja may disagree with me but this has consistently been my position.
The english medium upper classes in both countries are just trying to find common ground by these statements. Ground up, there are huge differences, even between different ethnic groups in the same province or the same country.
Just checked up on US-Iran talks because it’s been a while.
Apparently both sides are dilly dallying with scheduling/cancelling talks.
All this while, Islamabad is shut down for the “potential” talks.
Truly a Potemkin Village of a country.
Considering things like the official ISPR social media team (Acha Jee girl and gang), the Reuters/Bloomberg “positive” coverage and the attempt at an international news channel (AsiaOne I believe) there could be a post regarding this.
North Indian style “keeping up appearances” at an international level lol.
calm a little bit pls; we know the Cresceniate faction were egging for a fight (martial races and what not) but you don’t always have to give them a fight.
If they are martial races they should be able to defend themselves instead of having someone save them by calling for a ceasefire like now 😁.
“That transformation is the only thing that has ever worked.” – Disagree.
Ever since India has started taking a more hardline approach to Pakistan, terrorism has declined a lot, both in Kashmir and outside (where it is almost zero). Terror attacks in mainland India were common throughout the 2000s.
The numbers are there for all to see.
https://www.satp.org/datasheet-terrorist-attack/fatalities/india
Terror attacks have also declined a lot in J&K and separatism is dead, since Article 370 revocation.
So this “ignoring” is working.
Pakistan is anyways not a democracy so there is no point in engaging with a tiny elite who don’t even influence Pakistani policy.
Case in point – Two of the three posters mentioned live outside Pakistan, the third is also an American citizen.
Engaging with them is like engaging with Pahlavists in Los Angeles or South Vietnamese diaspora.
The thing that has hurt Pakistanis over the last decade is not “silence” but “accountability”.
Due to lack of accountability, privileges have been withdrawn which was not the case in the 2000s.
2000s were peak of “aman ki asha” while India got rewarded with terror attacks all over.
You want these privileges back? Go and depose the military junta, make peace with India, stop terrorism.
You get your Mumbai Indians Karachi franchise then.
Pakistani diaspora ≠ Pahlavists
Lots more PTI/Imran support there though
For those saying Dhurandhar is a “fantasy”, all of the unknown gunmen kills in the movie actually happened, admitted by Pakistani officials themselves and covered by international media.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/apr/04/indian-government-assassination-allegations-pakistan-intelligence-officials
Just googled “Rafia Zakaria”.
Another Pakistani “leftist” who lives outside Pakistan.
Just proving my point lol.
Also she had an arranged marriage at 17 and escaped from her abusive husband at 22, which proves the point of @X.T.M’s other post.
Not beating the allegations.
Descendant of “Quaid-e-Azam” Jinnah – Cheering for his IPL team who are unbeaten and might win their first title
Descendant of the Raja of Mahmudabad – Ashoka University professor
Descendant of the Nawab of Lucknow – Runs Mughlai restaurant in Kolkata
Descendant of the Nizam of Hyderabad – Lives abroad but keeps visiting to maintain properties and gets buried in India.
If I were Pakistani, I too would cosplay as someone else.
Kurds cosplaying as Ottomans, like I said.
[…] girmit on Pakistani Centrists, Not Muslim Extremists […]
BB says “All Pakistani parties by virtue of being Pakistani start to the right of BJP.”
This is a ridiculous statement. Pakistan People’s Party (the party of Benazir and Bilawal) was a socialist party to begin with. Their slogan was “Roti, kapra aur makan”. PPP celebrates the occasions of minorities (Holi and Diwali) as does PML-N.
PML-N is a center-right party. PPP is a center-left party. You can look at Wikipedia.
Also BB says “India has nuclear weapons”. Well, so does the Islamic Republic of Pakistan. So I’m not sure exactly what the point is there? That mutually assured destruction is possible?
there is truth in that statement. Pakistan is fundamentally illiberal compared to India. a non-Muslim cannot become head of State though there is no legal bar in India though in practicality a non-Hindu PM is tough). Manmohan Singh is part of the broader Hindu tradition
I’m sorry but you cannot seriously argue that PPP is to the right of BJP. As I mentioned, it was a socialist party at its inception.
Bilawal Bhutto supports Holi and Diwali celebrations. Hindus are seen as an important constituency in Sindh.
Even Pakistan Muslim League–Nawaz supports Holi and Diwali celebrations.
“Pakistan is fundamentally illiberal compared to India”– Pakistan is an Islamic Republic. India is a constitutionally secular state.
Also the point of nuclear weapons is that the borders are permanent including the LOC.
That means India will always be the bigger more populated country encompassing most of the historical sites.
Hence, India will always be a few “weight classes” above Pakistan and will remain the hegemon permanently.
Rajiv is half Parsi.
Sonia was full Catholic and could become PM in 2004.
Rahul is only 1/4th Hindu so in another timeline he could have become PM (or even in this? He is just 55. Modi is 75).
We are doomed if RaGa ever becomes PM. There’s a fair chance it might happen, though the longer the BJP stays in power, probability of that event occurring goes down considerably.
[…] disagrees that contact ameliorates ties. EK suggests the only Islamicate voices the Indian RW respects are […]
BB: “They might call themselves Mughals but good luck trying to convince the rest of the world that the Taj Mahal is “Pakistani” when one has to go to India to see it.”
I’m sorry. Who exactly is claiming that the Taj Mahal is “Pakistani”?
It is a Mughal monument. No matter how much you hate Pakistan, you cannot get away from the fact that the Taj was built by a Muslim emperor as a tribute to his wife. I know it hurts that the most famous monument in India was built by a Muslim king but honestly you need to get over it.
The Mughal Empire long preceded the nation-state of “India” and included what is today Afghanistan as well.
So you are making a historically illiterate argument.
“There are probably far less Hindu Indians with relatives in Pakistan than there are Muslim Pakistanis with relatives in India.”
And why is that so? The ability to say this sentence without even being self-critical about it says everything.
Punjab might have had total population exchanges but Muslims in the Hindi heartland mostly stayed back and there was no push to kick them out.
Sindhi Hindus were kicked out by Mohajirs with the support of the Pakistani PM.
>And why is that so? The ability to say this sentence without even being self-critical about it says everything.
The problem is, that this fact bears undeniable evidence to Indian superiority when it comes to tolerance and accommodation of religious minorities, including muslims. And acknowledging this requires a capacity of intellectual honesty. Not to mention, it also strikes a body blow to the pillar arguments of the so-called TNT.
Its a bitter truth pill to swallow. I am not at all surprised that acknowledging the success of Indian secularism is viewed by Kabir and his ilk as somehow “accepting Indian hegeemony”.
Hence the OCD compulsive cherry-picking and fixations on spamming the blog with evidence of ‘Hindoootva’. Heck, there have been open admission of Quixotic desires to ‘battle Hindu nationalism’ from the horse’s mouth.
Passive aggressive
No comma after “is”. The lack of knowledge of comma placement is really distracting.
[…] vehicle of this consolidation is Hindi. As Girmit has succinctly put it in the Comment Boards, Hindutva is in large part the advance of […]