India is the successor state of British India – it got independence, Bangladesh and Pakistan were formed

May 1, 2026 Bombay Badshah 32 Comments filed under Bombay Badshah, Precedent

Admin Note: we have brought this picture to the top of BB’s excellent post, which is a Precedent Post, because it deeply move us. Haifa has huge spiritual and sacral significance for us. The Spectacular Shrine of the Báb, the Divine Forerunner of the Bahá’í Faith (and the Symbolic Return of the 12th Imam), overlooks the City.

Modi at Haifa, Israel paying tribute to the Indian soldiers who died during the Battle of Haifa

Bharat Mata Ki Ja and the Holy Land join together to shine light on the World. Hurrah.. Both Israel & India house extensive Bahá’í buildings, apparently the most visited Monument in New Delhi is the Lotus Temple. Nowhere else in the Muslim world does the Bahá’í Faith have Sites of Worship (Pakistan has been very good to Bahá’ís but terrible to the Ahmadis).

Apologies for the Hijacking but back to the Badshah of Balochistan, our very own Humza.

In my previous post about India being the successor state to the Mughal Empire, I mentioned how India was also the successor state to hundreds of other polities which existed across many millennia. British India is one such polity which I will discuss today.

Note: As before, when I use India below I mean the current day Republic of India, not the region of “India” which also encompasses some territories of the modern day states of Bangladesh and Pakistan

The Inheritance

Unlike the previous post, I won’t give as detailed a picture because in the modern age the definition of “successor state” is very well defined.

Some examples of succession in the modern period are the Russian Federation taking over from the USSR in 1991 and the French Fifth Republic taking over from the French Fourth Republic in 1958. Both of them got their predecessor’s UN seats as well as the permanent Security Council spot.

The United Nations

Since we are talking of the United Nations, let us begin with that.

India is a founding member of the United Nations, signing the UN Charter on June 26, 1945, and formally joining on October 30, 1945.

Sir Arcot Ramasamy Mudaliar led the Indian delegation and signed the United Nations Charter on June 26, 1945, in San Francisco, United States

Continue reading India is the successor state of British India – it got independence, Bangladesh and Pakistan were formed

Review: In the City of Gold and Silver by Kenize Mourad

May 1, 2026 Kabir No Comments filed under Kabir

In the spirit of discussing Indian history, I am sharing this book review of a fictionalized biography of Begum Hazrat Mahal. The author, Kenize Mourad, comes from a fascinating background. Her mother, Selma Hanimsultan, was the granddaughter of Murad V, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. Her father was Syed Sajid Hussain Ali, the Raja of Kotwara.

Kenizé Mourad’s In the City of Gold And Silver is a fictionalized biography of Begum Hazrat Mahal (c.1820-1879), one of the wives of Nawab Wajid Ali Shah (1822-1887), the last ruler of Awadh –one of the major North Indian princely states. After the British deposed Wajid Ali Shah and annexed the state, Hazrat Mahal became one of the major leaders of the Revolt of 1857 . She had her eleven-year-old son, Birjis Qadir, crowned king and took on the role of regent (who would rule until the sovereign attained the age of majority). Although the rebellion was ultimately defeated and Hazrat Mahal died a prisoner in Nepal, she is remembered today as a major figure in Indian nationalist history.

Mourad’s novel does an excellent job at evoking the atmosphere of Awadh during 1856-1858: the crucial period in which the state was annexed and the rebellion occurred. As the novel begins, the ladies of the court are staging a play satirizing the British. The narrative then flashes back to Hazrat Mahal’s childhood as an orphan and details how she was trained as a courtesan and then became part of the Nawab’s harem. However, the bulk of the book takes place during the Rebellion and describes the various battles fought with the British. The Nawab himself is a minor character since he had been exiled from Awadh and spent most of this period imprisoned in Fort William in Calcutta. While it is not a major part of this novel, Wajid Ali Shah is an enormously important figure in the development of Hindustani Classical Music, particularly in the genres of thumri and kathak. In fact, his devotion to music was one of the justifications that the British gave for annexing Awadh, deeming him unfit to rule. Continue reading Review: In the City of Gold and Silver by Kenize Mourad

Arab Fathers are not fabrications (entirely)

May 1, 2026 X.T.M 42 Comments filed under X.T.M

BB writes, on a recent thread:

But Pakistanis do change their fathers to people who were not their fathers. Indians don’t. The claim their actual fathers. There is no “mirror” here. It would be a mirror if Indians claimed to be British, French, Portuguese etc.

The claim depends on treating South Asian Muslims as a single block. They are not one block. The genetic record is a gradient, and on that gradient several specific populations carry foreign ancestry that exceeds what local conversion alone would produce. Most South Asian Muslims are autosomally close to their Hindu neighbours. That is the modal story. It is not the only story.

The NorthWestern Muslims

Working strongest to softest.

Pashtuns. Y-DNA from Pashtun samples differentiates them from Punjabi and Sindhi neighbours. Elevated R1a-Z93 patterns with Central Asian distributions, alongside meaningful J2 and G. The autosomal work under Reich and Narasimhan places northwest Pakistani populations at a higher Steppe MLBA fraction and closer to Iran-related reference groups than most South Asian samples. The signal is layered, not pure, but it is not reducible to local conversion.

Continue reading Arab Fathers are not fabrications (entirely)