We write this from the chair of those who have just declined, again, to partition their own blog. The exercise concentrates the mind. Brown Pundits has a Saffroniate. It has a Crescentiate. It has an awkward intermediate seat between Viceroy and Prime Minister. We have chosen, repeatedly, to hold the centre.
We have observed that Nehru did not.
1. The Men.
Jinnah was self-made. He was technically brilliant. He was legalistic to the point of pedantry, which is the only kind of legalism that ever wins a constitutional argument. Nehru rode on his father’s coattails, on Gandhi’s affection, on the Mountbattens’ hospitality.
The asymmetry was decisive. One man knew the document. The other man trusted the room.
2. The Cabinet Mission Plan.
The Cabinet Mission Plan of 1946 already confederated India. Grouping A, Grouping B, Grouping C. The Centre held defence, foreign affairs, communications. Everything else devolved. This was workable. The League accepted it provisionally as the best available route to parity. Nehru wobbled, then in his July Bombay press conference reserved the Congress right to revise the groupings once seated in power. The League withdrew within weeks. The edifice collapsed.
The question the Saffroniate refuses to ask is the simple one. Why was it harder to confederate on linguistic lines than on religious lines? The States Reorganisation that the Republic executed in 1956 was already latent in 1946. Madras Presidency was a Tamil, Telugu, Malayalam, Kannada tinderbox. Bengal was Bengal. The Indus was the Indus. The Hindi belt was the Hindi belt.
Four groupings could have been negotiated.
Zone A, the Greater Indus, from Peshawar through Lahore and Multan to Karachi. Zone B, the Hindu Gangetic Plain, Delhi through Lucknow to Patna. Zone C, the Greater Bengal, Calcutta and Dhaka in one delta. Zone D, the Dravidian peninsula, Madras through Mysore to Travancore.
A federation of four. Each grouping with its own internal devolution. A common defence, a common currency, a common rail. The Bombay Plan economists had already drafted the economic skeleton.
Nobody likes compromise. That is the point of compromise. It is a dirty word in the mouths of men who have never had to govern a continent.
3. Pakistan as the Counterfactual.
Pakistan was a 1933 invention in Cambridge, the work of a final-year undergraduate writing a four-page pamphlet. Today, on paper, that country should not exist. In practice it carries the most internally coherent postcolonial national narrative in the subcontinent. Hindutva literally aspires to turn modern-day India into a “Hindu Pakistan.” The Saffroniate spends its evenings calling this a tragedy.
We see it as evidence. Pakistan exists because Nehru failed to make Pakistanis another variant of Indian Muslim. Jinnah’s success is downstream of that failure. Operation Sindoor taught the richer wing of the partition what the poorer wing already knew. Power does not equal wealth. Pakistan is a desperately poor country with a fragile state. It has nevertheless, in the last year, advanced in capacity and dimension in ways that the Saffroniate cannot quite metabolise. The Saffroniate’s instinct is to insist that wealth and power are the same quantity. They are not. They have never been.
The pathological need to call the wings of India “complete failures” is the same pathology that drove Nehru. It is the inability of the Centre to imagine the periphery as anything other than failed Centre.
4. All Nations Are Partly Invented. The Question Is Which Empire You Choose.
We push back on Q’s recent contention that Germany and China are coherent ancient nations against which Pakistan and India are colonial confections. Germany was reinvented in 1871. Italy in 1861. Britain is an imperial union of 1707. France is the centralising project of the Capetians, completed by Napoleon, polished by the Third Republic. China is an exonym. India is an exonym. Every nation is partly real, partly imagined, partly invented. The interesting question is which parts you choose to emphasise.
The United States, which the Saffroniate now aspires to with such enthusiasm (though is it a one-way romance?), is a caste system that calls itself a melting pot. WASPs and model minorities at the top. White ethnics and rednecks in the broad middle. African Americans, Hispanics, fresh immigrants on the floor. The categories shuffle but the hierarchy does not. The talented are absorbed into the elite and the structure is preserved. This is what greater nationalism looks like in practice. It is an Imperial National Hierarchy. The melting pot melts nothing. It seasons.
This is the India the Saffroniate is building. Capitalism is the solvent. Hindus and Jains have embraced hegemonic capitalism with a vigour that would embarrass the Calvinists, while pretending it is a continuation of dharma rather than a substitute for it. Capitalism is not a religion. It is an ideology with severe structural flaws, and it is Empire’s primary instrument. The Royal Navy did not sail to Canton for the conversation. The British exported opium to China because they had nothing else to sell. Perry sailed to Edo Bay because Japan’s closed harbours were an offence to the trading order. The flag follows the merchant. The merchant follows the appetite.
Nehru emphasised the wrong parts. He emphasised the unity that did not exist over the federation that did. He emphasised the Centre over the Provinces. He emphasised the Congress over the Country. He set the table at which the present Saffroniate now sits, eating.
5. The Editorial Confession.
We have, on Brown Pundits, mapped our own commentariat to the Partition cast. We are sure they will recognise themselves and object.
Q is Iqbal, the poet of the Crescentiate, the man who first dreams the dream. Kabir is Jinnah, legalistic, formal, the lawyer of the cause. BB is Patel, hard-nosed, integrationist, perfectly happy to absorb a princely state at the first opportunity. RNJ is V. P. Menon, the proceduralist who makes integration actually happen. Sbarrkum sits somewhere between Ambedkar and the sub-altern critique, the non-Brahmin voice that refuses to dissolve into the Saffron majoritarian wash.
We sit, awkwardly, between the Viceroy’s chair and the Prime Minister’s. After the October encounter with Kabir, a large section of the Saffroniate faction vacated, and we found ourselves holding the bloc by default (it is well-known that this Blog has a love of Saffron, if not only on account of our Persian antecedents).
Empire lives in the gap between the Saffroniate and the Crescentiate. That gap is where every external power, the British, the Americans, the Gulf, the Chinese, has historically operated. The two factions are proximate to each other in every meaningful cultural register, and they have allowed themselves to forget it.
The Crescentiate has a shibboleth and it knows the name of it. Mirpur. Rotherham. The British Pakistani grooming gangs. We encouraged BB to write the recent Grooming Gangs post because every community owes its own shibboleths an honest interrogation, and the Crescentiate has earned the right to be examined on this front.
The Saffroniate has a shibboleth and it does not know the name of it. Several names, in fact. Caste, which it dispatches with the laziest possible reasoning, as though the words “we have moved on” settled anything. The rape culture of Delhi and the Hindi belt, a particular and horrific structural feature of upper-caste North Indian patriarchy that finds no parallel of comparable intensity anywhere else in the subcontinent (rape has always been a tool to humiliate the rural lower-castes in North India & Pakistan). The casual remark BB let drop the other day, that “the Bengalis kicked out Islamic identity,” a phrase no Muslim could read without flinching, and which the Saffroniate did not pause over because the vocabulary is invisible to them. Upper-caste Hindus have yet to learn the grammar of the imperial patriarchy in which they are now fluent speakers.
The Saffroniate can see visible bigotry. RNJ’s excellent recent post on the Norwegian press shamefully caricaturing Modi as a snake charmer is a clean example. He is correct that the cartoon is racist. He is correct that mainstream Western media still permits a kind of brown-bashing that would not survive against any other group.
But the same diagnostic does not extend to a broader Brown canvas. Mirpur is visible to the Saffroniate. Delhi is invisible to it. The asymmetry tells you everything.
We have, on multiple occasions, ceded authorial autonomy to Kabir that he might not have been granted elsewhere. We have chosen, deliberately, to lose face rather than to partition the blog. The offshoot blogs that would have followed a partition would presumably have been weaker than the original. The trade we have accepted is the trade Nehru refused. We have compromised our ego and allowed ourselves to be defeated in detail, in order to hold the federation.
Nehru could have done the same. He held every advantage we lack, the Mahatma’s blessing, the Congress machine, the Viceroy’s friendship, the army, the railways, the treasury. He had only to accept the Cabinet Mission Plan as written, and to keep his July press conference closed. He did not.
He lost India her wings. Jinnah did not take them.
Actually this is a completely wrong understanding of Sindoor.
Power does indeed equal wealth.
Pakistan might be a desperately poor country with a fragile state, but they have benefactors which are wealthier and more powerful than India in China and the United States.
And that is the power that saves them by getting ceasefires on their behalf and providing them advanced weapons.
The lesson for India is just to get more rich/powerful.
Since I am a big cricket fan, I will end with a few analogies.
In cricket because there isn’t any USA/China to act as a benefactor, Pakistan are hilariously non-competitive vs India across formats and genders.
Also countries which have been historically worse than Pakistan like Bangladesh and Afghanistan are able to compete vs Pakistan nowadays because India is their benefactor by providing them bilateral tours (and the big money that comes from an India tour), access to IPL/IPL affiliated leagues, facilities/coaches etc.
In fact, every other country in the world can enjoy these benefits minus Pakistan. And because cricket is a competitive sport, the other countries becoming better means Pakistan becomes worse relatively. Almost like a sort of “sanctions”.
If the USA/China equivalent existed in cricket, they could have provided all these things to Pakistan and made sure they remain at least somewhat competitive vs India.
Post Sindoor; Pakistan seems to be the diplomatic winner. that seems victory enough?
You seem inclined to insist on “Pakistani defeat” at every turn, which seems odd.
even when Pakistan does something right like (Ahista Ahista) it is “Indian.”
Ahista Ahista was a troll obviously.
But my point was Pakistan’s “winning” is due to the existence of other more powerful and richer countries who are way more powerful and richer than India.
So the inference that power =/= wealth is untrue.
you keep overlooking the relevance of Oct 7, and the temporary utility that created for US and Israel to deal with Pakistan.
Attributing temporary diplomatic relevance to the aftermath of Op Sindoor, if anything, arguably is evidence of Pakistan’s weakness, not strength.
To wit, Drumpf’s latest expectation that Pakistan sign the Abraham Accords. That’s still a TBD at this point, but that fact he made such an expectation public, and Pakistan’s rulers dare not utter a public peep against it, speaks louder than the Brahmos did at PAF Noor Khan.
of course Pakistan is a wannabe vassal state to the US; we have argued this. Pakistan has swapped Brahmin Overlordship for Sino-American one.
At least in Brahmin Overlordship, so much of the High Cultural Compact would have been preserved.
Frankly speaking, British rule was preferable to Hindu rule.
The British (or Americans) are not the implacable enemy of South Asian Muslims. Hindus are.
erm
Historically, the Muslim League had no issues with British rule.
It was only when it was clear that the British were going to leave that the fear of “Hindu Raj” led to the Pakistan Movement.
Had the British remained, they would have had to balance the interests of Hindus against Muslims. Hindus wouldn’t have been able to lord it over Muslims.
and there it is. ‘Anybody but Hindus’. The bigotry is consistent.
I have seen Pakistani cricket fans crying about the “good old days” when England and Australia used to rule the cricketing world.
Thing is, England and Australia still treat them like the “brown buggers” they used to back in the day.
The pain point is India sitting at the high table with them.
The British did not want to eliminate Islam from India, Hindus did.
But we are the bigots for prefering the British
Maybe look at you own history.
Hindus outside north India mostly supported the British during the 1857 war of independence. And Hindus within north India switched sides soon after losing, joined the British and blamed the Muslims for the uprising.
This is the type of betrayal that was not forgotten
Ahistorical. Projection.
//The British (or Americans) are not the implacable enemy of South Asian Muslims. Hindus are.//
This is just a result of british divide and rule politics and not a statement in fact. Otherwise why was there so much collaboration among hindu and muslim.elites pre colonialism.
Subcontinental hindus and muslims are not enemies but have been made to think so by westerners. And reproduce this thinking to this day
Of course British divide and rule politics had a role to play. I’m not denying that. No reasonable person can deny that.
Indians and Pakistanis hate each other’s guts. We can see on this very blog that the Saffroniate loses no opportunity to tear Pakistan down–up to and including weaponizing child sex abuse among British Pakistanis.
As the Quaid said “Your heroes are our villains”. This is unfortunately true whether one likes it or not.
As for “collaboration pre colonialism”: “Hindu Hriday Samrat” refers to 1000 years of slavery. Clearly, Hindus are not owning the glories of the Mughal Empire.
//As the Quaid said “Your heroes are our villains”. This is unfortunately true whether one likes it or not.//
This is all a result of divide and rule that is still continuing even after independence till now. It is also completely false, India did make an effort to cast Akbar and his descendants into national heroes, the Pakistanis are also proud of their pre islamic past, as are Indians, people like Tagore, are heroes across Bangladesh and India, we could go even further, I dont think Baba Farid is any less liked in Pakistani Punjab than he is in Indian punjab, ditto for Bulleh Shah.
The disgust of a particular section of Indias population towards the mughals is the same that exists amongst some pakistani muslims towards Ranjit Singh, it does not change history that the elites across the subcontinent actively collaborated with one another and with cooler heads and less paranoia would have been able to do so today as well.
The kind of subordination of minorities we see is not proof that hindus and muslims cant work together but a consequence of this kind of thinking.
Of course its completely false. The ‘villainization’ of the Hindu has not been reciprocated in Indian education, or government policy.
The ‘problem’ is that Indian success in managing diversity, especially the religious kind, is viewed as a negation of the TNT and actively combated by the policies and actions of the Pakistani nation state.
RW supporters for such regressive narratives and acts are usually the ones spouting such falsehoods.
Just recently, a Pakistani supported terror outfit was caught planning a mass poisoning of temple prasad. Now you can’t sit back and pretend that this sort of thing isn’t done with the intent of directly attacking the Indian diversity project.
Pakistanis own Baba Farid and Bulleh Shah. They are major Sufi saints.
In this context, you can watch the documentary I linked in my recent post “Mardana’s Children” on the rababis of Lahore.
I don’t think you can equate India’s ruling party’s disdain for the Mughals to some sections of Pakistanis who dislike Ranjit Singh. India’s PM speaks of “1000 years of slavery” which obviously includes the Mughal period.
It is deeply tragic to see India becoming yet another majoritarian nation-state in South Asia.
//Pakistanis own Baba Farid and Bulleh Shah. They are major Sufi saints.//
As do Punjabis on our side of the border. Jinnah was dead wrong about his assertions that Hindus and muslims have different heroes.
//I don’t think you can equate India’s ruling party’s disdain for the Mughals to some sections of Pakistanis who dislike Ranjit Singh. India’s PM speaks of “1000 years of slavery” which obviously includes the Mughal period.//
Pakistan: Are textbooks biased against Hindus in the country? – BBC URDU
If the above video is anything to go by, the ruling party of Pakistan is not any better at all. At least in our textbooks, it goes out of its way to say that muslims should not be targetted for anything Akbar or Shahjahan or Aurangzeb have done and do go out of their way to maintain even the major monuments that were made by muslim rulers.
Plus there is no sort of ban on any counternarrative against the blackwashing of Mughal, even Audrey Truschke books on Aurangzeb are sold openly in India on Amazon.
Much of the collaborative culture still survives.
it’s interesting you are probably the highest signal commentator in this thread.. and you belong to neither side (Hindu or Muslim).
it’s insane how everyone loses it
Perhaps he is able to be neutral precisely because he’ s neither Hindu nor Muslim.
The Quaid was not referring to Sufi saints.
In Pakistan, Aurangzeb Alamgir is considered a hero. In India, he’s considered a villain. Pakistanis consider Mahmud of Ghazni a hero. Obviously, he’s not considered that way in India. Pakistanis consider Muhammad bin Qasim a hero. These are just a few examples.
On Pakistani textbooks see Rubina Saigol’s article “Enemies within and enemies without: The besieged self in Pakistani textbooks”
https://www.academia.edu/47164425/Enemies_within_and_enemies_without_The_besieged_self_in_Pakistani_textbooks
“Pakistan studies” is basically state propaganda. I never had to take this course since I was educated entirely abroad.
Why is Ghazni and Aurangzeb considered heroes in the first place?
One was nothing but a warlord who looted and enriched himself, the other basically destroyed the mughal empire because of his policies. These are the heroes that you are taught to have.
As I repeatedly mention, it is not some impenetrable barrier but a created one based on convenience. You seem to be aware that a lot of ‘differences’ are propaganda that are neither historically true nor worth having
Why do you then try to justify Jinnahs obviously wrong rationale?
“These are the heroes you are taught to have”– Agree.
Ghazni and Aurangzeb Alamgir are considered heroes because they are seen as Islamic conquerors/rulers. The “ideology of Pakistan” is the Two Nation Theory.
Indians treat Shivaji or Maharana Pratap as heroes. As a Pakistani and Muslim, they are obviously not my heroes.
Every country needs a national identity and a national narrative. Large parts of those narratives–in any country– are “propaganda”. I grew up in the United States. We were taught a very sanitized version of American history.
I don’t need to justify the Quaid’s rationale. He was making an argument that the Muslims of British India were not a minority but a nation. Whatever you think of that argument, it succeeded in creating Pakistan. As a Pakistani, I obviously think that was a good outcome. You are free to disagree.
Pakistan is created but it has a culture that specifically chooses people who are only good for their combativeness and religious bigotry.
Does it not bother you that Pakistans creation and identity is one that purposely creates boundary between muslims and other religions and much of this so called difference is not a historical fact but a 20th century creation.
Even if one is happy that Pakistan is created, why should someone justify its existence with spurious arguments.
I don’t need to “justify” Pakistan’s existence. Pakistan exists. It’s a nuclear armed country of 250 million people. It’s going to continue existing.
My point is that every country on earth has a national narrative. Pakistan is an ideological state and that ideology is the “Two Nation Theory”.
Personally, I’m not the biggest fan of the TNT. I would much prefer a narrative which acknowledges and claims all the history and culture located within Pakistan’s geographic boundaries (“Indus Nationalism” for short).
You should read this op-ed by Umair Javed (a professor of sociology at LUMS) which is about this debate on what kind of nationalism Pakistan should have.
https://www.dawn.com/news/2002911/5000-years-of-pakistan
Will criticising quite obvious flaws in TNT histiography, shake the foundation of Pakistan.
If no why exactly are you still defending Jinnahs viewpoints, we all understand it well enough and as a foundation for a nation are erroneous whose effects are still seen today.
Again, I am not personally a fan of TNT. I am center-left.
But it remains the “ideology of Pakistan”. Unlike India, Pakistan is an ideological state. Pakistan Army is the guardian of that ideology. These are just facts whether one likes them or not.
The alternative to TNT is “Indus nationalism” which has many fewer takers.
For someone who does not like TNT it seems you seem to hold quite a lot of its talking points as truth
Can I get a……..bingo. 🙂
Unfortunately, my experiences have shown me that Indians, in general, also believe in a version of TNT. India is a Hindu majoritarian state just as Pakistan is a Muslim majoritarian one.
We’ll have to agree to disagree.
If you truly want to understand my background and ideology do read this:
https://www.brownpundits.com/2026/05/05/what-being-a-center-left-pakistani-means-to-me/
//Unfortunately, my experiences have shown me that Indians, in general, also believe in a version of TNT. India is a Hindu majoritarian state just as Pakistan is a Muslim majoritarian one.//
Many of our elite does not think that the outcomes of bad decisions will affect them as well. Also there is a larger chance of meeting these kind of Indians on the internet.
As I have mentioned, India still has vestiges of feudalism and these express themselves in support for bad ideas.
But if Indians supporting feudal ideas is wrong why exactly should Pakistanis doing so be normalized?
About 30% of Indian voters vote for the BJP–a party whose policies are specifically premised on being anti-Pakistan and anti-Muslim.
Muslims are lynched on suspicion of eating beef, made to say “Jai Shree Ram”, Muslim students are made to sing “Vande Mataram”.
Need I go on?
I think this conversation has been exhausted.
Does islam not have a theology thst makes intent central to devotion? Like you can sing Bhajans but with no intent behind them these are just song? Strange to put these with lynching.
I agree thst certain people have been emboldened, and act accordingly and yes many Indians dont seem to be bothered because they think this will not affect them, does not mean that they will want to live in a state that deprives people from even being eligible for certain positions based on power or where goons can do whatever they want,
I think it is worth mentioning that much silence to these actions are less from agreements but more from an environment that regularly makes one feel their religion is under threat and these actions are necessary, and questioning makes one anti religion, vestiges of feudalism.
He is interrogating the matter, Kabir.
This seems extreme. Maybe brahmin-baniya hindu revivalists were the rivals of muslim gentry. That’s one small slice vs another small slice.
Hindu elites certainly didn’t like Muslim elites (and vice versa).
That is what led to Partition.
When India becomes big enough and the gap between Pakistan and the rest of the subcontinent is wider, maybe they return?
“East Pakistan” is okay with “Brahmin Overlordship” even if they chimp out once in a while.
The rest of the subcontinent are okay with the hegemon (with occasional fights here and there, par for the course) – and that has led to massive increase in prosperity in the region.
And while USA and China are far richer and more powerful countries than India, geography and culture means there are certain fields in which India can’t be replaced.
I had once made a post asking why the consumer gap between India and Pakistan is so high when India is “only” about twice as rich. I might partly have the answer to that (domestic capabilities) which I will do some day in a different post.
Nobody in the subcontinent is okay with Indian domination, our trade between each other is lesser than it is with other parts of the world because of the resentment against Indian domination.
This notion that we are the top dog and everyone has to abide by what we say is why Indias fortunes in its own neighborhood is so erratic. And bangldesh is not ok with Indian domination, Hasina is hated purely for this reason itself, along with her own authoritarinism.
We need to stop looking to relations from the perspective of domination rather embrace cooperation.
Well said.
People might not be “okay” but economic realities means there will be cooperation which due to India’s size will become “domination”.
Hasina might be hated but there is a reason BNP mended ties as soon as they came to power. An elected government has to bring prosperity to its people.
Trade between each other is lesser because most of these countries are tiny and have nothing to export to India.
India is the no 1 import partner of Nepal, Bhutan, Maldives and no 2 of Bhutan and Sri Lanka.
Since China is higher up the economic complexity chain than India, there are some things India cannot provide. As India climbs up, they will start providing those too.
Trade is not the be all and end all of everything, the BNP also is trying to move closer to China as are our other neighbours, dismissing genuine disillusionment to Indias big brother attitude as just noise, only hurts not helps India.
And there is no guarantee that India will be the default trade partner in a world where the EU, China. ASEAN and US exist. We should not take our position for granted.
Weaponized ‘disillusionment’ can’t be allowed to blackmail a neighbor to neighbor relationship.
Fact is that any large country’s peripheral small nations are going to have their opposition politicians incentivized to attack their opponents for being ‘too close’ to the 800 pound gorilla on the block. Its an easy attack line, and it will always work.
Of course its good to introspect, but the facts have to be taken into account. Not some sort of nebulous self-inflicted guilt complex simply because of “disillusionment”.
This is not weaponized disillusionment, there have been missteps that have not been rectified properly.
And it is not just the opposition party, even the ruling party and a large section of the population also share resentment.
If we want influence, then we need to take these into account otherwise will be second fiddle to China, ASEAN, EU and US.
Everyone has issues with the big brother and can have ties with other countries but geographical realities remain. India has good ties with Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Philippines, Vietnam, Indonesia etc but that does not remove China’s shadow on them.
The point is India is catching up to them. Of course this catch up might take many many decades but a higher growth rate vis a vis a lower one means convergence. That is not opinion but mathematics.
All small countries have resentment towards big-brother neighbors. It only goes away if the big brother is super rich for extended periods so that it becomes culturally unfashionable to be ‘against it’. India is not unique in this regard.
Not true at all, wealth is one thing but you need to be seen as aspirational for resentment to go away. US and China and EU put serious effort into being seen as aspirational and trustworthy, in a world where these countries exist, expecting all resentment to go away is unwise.
I don’t disagree with you. However, better “PR” on ..being seen as aspirational is always going to be a moving target.
Sure, Indian bureaucracy is ….especially clumsy and poor at this, so there’s quite a bit of low hanging fruit. But ‘message discipline’ is always going to be difficult in the cacophonous, diverse chaos that is the Indian media ecosystem. China doesn’t have to deal with that, and the US/EU have had decades if not centuries, more experience being subtle and polished. India too will get there eventually. Hopefully. But it will be iterative, with fits and starts. Expectations should be realistic.
//Sure, Indian bureaucracy is ….especially clumsy and poor at this, so there’s quite a bit of low hanging fruit. But ‘message discipline’ is always going to be difficult in the cacophonous, diverse chaos that is the Indian media ecosystem.//
Not insulting these countries, is an easy thing to do.
How can we expect good relation with Nepal for instance after accusing its politicians of being honey trapped, or calling its recent student revolution because of deprived social media access.
I mean this is not about message discipline, it is about basic respect that seems to be missing amongst a large amount of media and when it is kind of an open secret that the media is controlled, this does reflect on a larger nation as well.
You dont need experience to have basic respect of your neighbours or discuss their POV properly before critiquing it, this is as simple as it gets.
yes that is why Indian Oligarchs get away with what they can get away with in a way.
It’s interesting Pakistani’s Elite and Oligarchs are a lot more subtle and humbler especially in Pakistan.
there is something about the culture that does not like ostentation. As Q mentioned Zakat is a critical part of the culture.
There is something happening about how capitalism is really “infecting” and acidifying the cultural values.
>It’s interesting Pakistani’s Elite and Oligarchs are a lot more subtle and humbler especially in Pakistan.
Can I get specific examples? Anecdotally, the upper middle class Pakistanis that I run into, tend to be the opposite of humble. Not unlike North Indians.
Sometimes, I feel you get seduced by wanting to extrapolate into certain hypotheses, and end up….. over-stretching. More than a bit. 🙂
> when it is kind of an open secret that the media is controlled
I can’t claim authoritative knowledge on this. But I’m, at a minimum, skeptical, of this assertion.
The majority of funding of most media comes from governments. This is why not only is there little open criticism unless the middle class is really affected like with Indigo fiasco but efforts to divert attention and defend no matter what. This is not even in doubt.
Other than personal support, this is why the cheer leading has become so strong.
I will channel razib’s line here “is it true?” about all the regime changes that have happened over the past 4-5 years in India’s neighborhood? Not to mention the ongoing with varying intensity against the current government.
I concede that India has made mis-steps against neighbors in the past(70s and 80s) especially SL and Nepal but strategic restraint shown by current government esp. on the eastern front is commendable. Even with SL, India has stepped in with emergency economic and material aid after violent change in government. Even that seems to attract criticism from our resident Sri Lankan commentator. That’s fine.
//I concede that India has made mis-steps against neighbors in the past(70s and 80s) especially SL and Nepal but strategic restraint shown by current government esp. on the eastern front is commendable//
What exactly is expected from Indian government with regards to our eastern neighbours from you?
That itself requires wealth. China wasn’t all “aspirational and trustworthy” twenty years ago.
Like I say – GDP and GDP/capita is everything. Everything else is downstream of it.
China had defeated the US in its adventures in Korea, had been giving great growth rates, not to mention Hong Kong and disapora spreading chinese culture, as well as chinese dominance in technology and entrepreneuship.
The cultural elements that is basic respect, dedication and humility were always there, you dont need to be rich to respect your neghbours.
Applies to India as well.
Not as high as China’s during their peak of course but then again India’s neighbourhood also doesn’t post growth rates as high as China’s neighbours once did.
Applies to India as well.
Again applies to India as well. Not on the same level as them of course but India is at a different stage in its development.
And again relative to its neighbourhood, India does way better than China to its. China has the likes of Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore etc.
Nothing in India’s neighbourhood even comes close to India regarding technology/entrepreneurship.
China’s neighbours don’t seem to feel very “respected”
You make my point, India is doing great but so are other people in the world and as a result, our neighbours both in south asia and indochina have multiple options, which makes our influence growing with greater wealth a not-so-done deal.
//China’s neighbours don’t seem to feel very “respected”//
Besides the Phillipines none of the others seem to have taken an antagonistic stance to China. And the relations and cultural exchange between these countries is quite significant, despite what the supposed ‘tensions’ would suggest.
Point is those nations are matured/maturing economies with much lower growth. So India becoming richer and more developed actually closes the gap and makes India more of an option, rather than less.
Same with India and the rest of the subcontinent barring Pakistan (and a bit of cultural exchange is present even there).
Kabir you may want to review your comments?
RNJ constantly takes potshots at Pakistanis.
This behavior is being enabled. I’m asking why.
The blind spot is massive.
One of the side-effects of keeping the federation intact here is that most of this blog is just India-Pakistan fist fights.
Even I often think of doing posts on cricket or movies but often get involved “Dhurandharing”.
Also I hardly see any engagement on my not confrontational posts nor does Kabir for that matter on his Urdu translations, reviews, articles on music etc.
Who is to say a federated India would not just be the same?
In a way, partition did work out.
Indians are free to create their United States of India.
Bangladeshis are free to create the Canada to it.
Pakistanis are free to create Al Bakistan.
this is an incorrect reading of Brown Pundits.
it is not about “Indo-Pak” fistfights; it is an interrogation of the deep structural fissures of the Indian Subcontinent that have allowed Imperial, Corporatist and Patriachical structures to “infest” that wound.
you are deeply invested in the “India Victorious”, “Pakistan Defeated” narrative, which is your right (as Q is invested in the flipside) but how do we build that bridge of understand
Maybe that bridge can never be built?
And does it even matter?
Thing is India (and most of the subcontinent) is doing okay. They are growing richer and life is generally getting better.
Of course, considering the absolute wretched state the subcontinent started from, it might not look impressive to the rest of the world but there has been rapid change and prosperity. If decent growth can be managed most of the subcontinent will be at current day Latin American levels of prosperity by mid century which is solid.
If Pakistan is happy with its new role and direction in the world, then good for them too?
yes the poor state of Brownitude is a sad one.
It is incredible that India, that is Bharat, is growing at the rapid growth clip that it is but our worry is on inequity.
Elon Musk has led the war into space so there are arguments about Oligarchs forging a path to National Greatness.
Nita Ambani has articulated a very interesting philosophy on “soft power.”
I look at the Ambanis/Adanis like the robber barons of the USA in the early part of the 20th century.
The Rockefeller Center, Carnegie Hall, Carnegie Mellon University, MoMA etc are their legacy.
Nita Ambani is kind of doing something similar with the NMACC and her Olympic hosting efforts.
The world was “wooing India,” said the Hindustan Times. This was the “golden era” of Indian foreign policy, said another international observer. Deutsche Bank called India the “shining star” of the global economy. You can “feel India’s superpower potential being realised” said Citibank.
Even at the time, there were plenty of questions about how much that economic performance was just a post-Covid mirage, and how long New Delhi could walk the ‘multipolarity’ tightrope
“There are moments when a currency tells a story more honestly than official statements do. The Indian rupee is doing exactly that. It has lost more than 12 percent against the US dollar in 12 months and has been sliding relentlessly even
“No matter how one slices the data, it is time to dispense with the moniker of the fastest-growing major economy. India has also moved from being one of five “Fragile Five” economies in 2013 to possibly becoming one of just two (along with Turkey).”
https://rohanvenkat.substack.com/p/why-has-indias-sweet-spot-turned
Yeah, India is never going to be a superpower. They need to wake up from their delusion.
Not only has the Indian rupee lost value against the US dollar, it’s even lost value against the Pakistani rupee. That must hurt.
Thanks for sharing Sbarrkum.
Another interesting bit:
India, that is Bharat, has her best sphere of influence in “Indo-China.”
It’s instructive to remember that most Muslims in the world trace their heritage to the Hindu-Buddhist complex (South Asians and South East Asians)..
India, that is Bharat, has her best sphere of influence in “Indo-China.”
About 1,000 years and not since
Those who identify as Indian in Indo China is negligible
It is china part of the equation doing the heavy lifting in these areas. Even buddhist majority places have more affinity with china than India today
Nothing that can’t change. They also have a lot of affinity with Korea and Japan.
I dont think any country is going to dominate others culturally like it was in the past.
China is a huge trade partner to these countries as well as an important neighbour because of its capabilities.
But the future for Indo china is in ASEAN with china, india and other places being historical and cultural influences but not ideological colonies of any power. We should stop expecting influence to be something that will make others colonies rather than a ground for partnership.
No one is talking about colonization but soft power/influence is a thing. US over most of the world but especially Europe and East Asia.
Obviously China is huge in SE Asia because of its size but as India also becomes a huge trade partner and an important neighbour because of capabilities, its influence in the region will increase.
Everything will obviously be done with regards to mutual cooperation – that is how countries work. India due to its size will just be able to do more, like China and USA.
The point is, that these things dont happen just with trade but with effort to engage and gain relevance. US and China spend money to get relevance, as does Japan and S.Korea.
In a world with so many competitors including economic ones, saying that once we become rich and trade more all these countries will be in our ambit, is too optimisitc when other options exist.
Most countries enact policy choices generally based on self-interest. Eventually. Not everybody wants to cut off their nose to spite their face like Pakistan does.
Sure there is trade competition, but geography applies its own mathematics on cost-benefits.
//Sure there is trade competition, but geography applies its own mathematics on cost-benefits.//
Geogrpahy does not really make their entry into the Indian orbit inevitable, if anything the ASEAN and China, along with Japan and Korea have a better geography than we do.
Its your choice if you want to wish away and dismiss basic facts. Where do Bangladeshis travel to seek medical treatment, for example? Where can they access services in their own language? Not ASEAN for sure. The cultural overlap and geographical proximity factors are undeniable.
I thought we were talking about Indo-China?
South Asia is under our sphere of influence, but whether it is not guaranteed that they will stay there.
South Asia will due to geography. India cannot be replaced.
India is in fact all South Asian countries’ “only” neighbor in a way. Unlike ASEAN, the South Asian countries don’t even neighbour each other and non South Asian countries they neighbour are uninhabited parts or thin slivers.
To spend money, you need to have money. Your analysis is focused on present day realities.
China wasn’t spending money to be relevant 20 years ago. Neither was Korea 40 years ago. Nor was Japan 60 years ago. Nor was the USA at the beginning of the 20th century.
India is roughly at the level of those countries at those points.
The point is India will be a “better” option as it catches up in different fields, compounded by geographical realities.
Nothing is inevitable, even china is not static today, and more than that China was making relations with these countries even when it was becoming rich, and many of these countries are already engaging in heavy inter countrty trade.
Geographical realities make ASEAN or China a more natural and long lasting trade partner if anything.
I think ASEAN will be equidistant between both eventually.
it already is a Superpower
No, it’s not. No amount of wishful thinking will make it so.
Once again, words cannot be defined in whatever way suits an individual.
There are two superpowers currently: The United States of America and the People’s Republic of China.
Anyone who says otherwise is kidding themselves.
India’s real GDP growth rate is projected to land between 6.5% and 7.4% for 2026, depending on the forecasting institution. This makes India one of the fastest-growing major economies in the world, with nominal GDP projected to cross the $4 trillion mark.
?
India’s real GDP growth rate is projected to land between 6.5%
.
So is its population growth and therefore its GDP/capita barely moves
That means GDP has to invest in health care and literacy
Unless that happens India will remain dirt poor
Not much different in the past, a few rich and the resat dirt poor
So is its population growth and therefore its GDP/capita barely moves
There is this wonderful thing on the internet called Google. Use it, very helpful in finding facts so you don’t get called out for not knowing what you’re talking about.
https://population.un.org/dataportal/data/indicators/19/locations/356/start/2021/end/2025/table/pivotbylocation?df=bbd0ad5a-48b0-43d9-a027-ddd930903ac3
India’s population growth is less than 1.5 percent per year,
Absolutely wrong and incorrect. You might have your grouses against India but don’t peddle fake data.
India has a population growth rate of 0.7% per year so pci moves around 5-6% per year.
The country you are describing is Pakistan which has a population growth rate of 2% and a GDP growth rate of 2-4%. Hence they are the one whose GDP/capita barely moves.
Pakistan’s GNI per capita changed by about 75.3 percent from 1990 to 2023 from $3138 (constant 2021 $PPP) to $5501.
India’s changed by 317.4 percent in the same period from $2167 to $9047.
https://hdr.undp.org/data-center/specific-country-data#/countries/PAK
Let him seethe. Trying to talk facts and logic to Barr is a waste of time.
Find his animosity weird tbh. Very against type.
Sri Lankans are very chill and pro-India in general.
My dad is 80, I see how retired old folks suffer from cognitive decline and odd weird fixations. Its a thing. I’m a bit sympathetic.
As much as I will disagree that all muslims of Indian subcontinent wanted partition, it is without a doubt a lot of the elite muslims at the time particularly those who could vote wanted to seperate for their own personal reasons.
What’s worse is that these people were even willing to use some of their lower class as agents of violence as seen in direct action day.
Nehru can’t stitch together a subcontinent from people who dont want to be part of the whole. It is on the muslim elites and not Nehru that we dont have a united subcontinent today.
And these same elite muslim are still why we have so many problems today
Pandit Nehru could have accepted the CMP and not reneged on it. There would have been no Direct Action Day and no Partition.
Don’t blame the Muslims for not wanting to live under Hindu Raj.
I had forgotten to what exactly was the CMP, and the only thing about it was a dominion with a possibility for full independence later on. What impressed Jinnah was the possibility for Pakistan or any other province to not be forced to join the Union.
It seems that Cripps was being sabotaged by his own government who did not want to give Indian independence and there was no sort of trust that the british government would actually support the calls for independence after the war was over,given that it took an active mutiny for the British to finally leave and the CMP was not even supported by Britain and on top of that Cripps himself may not have had the authority to offer what he was offering, I dont think Nehru can be blamed for rejecting the CMP, and the congress was always for a united India, unlike the Muslim league, ,maybe I am wrong but can you correct me on what exactly was in the CMP that Nehru rejected?
And:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1946_Cabinet_Mission_to_India
this went to pending as it had 3 links.. just sharing this for the others who have their comments sent to pending on how the spam filters work
Oh it was the CMP, okay reading this it is understadable why Jinnah wanted it and why Nehru ultimately rejected it.
To start with, it gives too much leeway to the princely states as well as makes it susceptible to foregin influence, in the background of a cold war this could and would lead to a lot of strife and conflcit within India. The fact that even Pakistan has had to depend on the army to keep its country together and create a strong center shows that many within the muslim league are also not enthused with this kind of arrangement.
Lastly the whole issue seems to be boiling down to fear that muslims would be dominated by hindus in a united India, but the simple answer to that is a throughly secular state is it not? The mistake Jinnah and his supporters seem to have made is that they want a state that will give credence to their religious identity and act as a protector of sorts, why exactly could they not have agreed to a secular state as India did, even with Hindu underpinning, by keeping religion away from the government, their concerns would be allayed entirely.
Lastly, resorting to violence against people based on religion because you dont get what you want, gives away the intention behind these demands imo, these people seem to have wanted an area where they can do whatever they wanted to others without any pushback and may have projected this onto others for justification. I think you should honestly wonder whether those who kill innocents to get their political goals, no matter their religion deserve a state in the first place.
British India was not a nation-state but a colony. The Muslim majority parts of the colony had the absolute right to self-determination.
You cannot expect Muslims to live under Hindu Raj.
On CMP specifically: Pandit Nehru first accepted it and then rejected it. That led to a breakdown of trust.
If you and I agree to a contract and then you say “Oh but we can re-negotiate this later” that deal is obviously off.
Did Nehru sign the dotted line? From reading the wiki article it seems mid negotiation, Nehru and the congress backed out as it was clearly an unfavorable deal to India as a whole
You still have not answered my question, let’s say muslims have the right to self determination, do those thst indulge in violence to get their way, have this privilege, can you morally say that after direct action day Jinnah had the moral right to demand Pakistan, because he clearly proved his own thesis wrong that muslims would be subjugated, they clearly had a lot of street power and could have brought the country into civil war if necessary.
It’s not about signing on the dotted line or not. Pandit Nehru clearly accepted the CMP and then said that parts of it could be renegotiated.
This is not how a deal is done–even a business deal on the individual level.
If you and I agree on something, I expect you to honor the terms of the agreement. If the deal is constantly up for re-negotiation there is no deal.
I’m not going to defend Direct Action Day. However, the Pakistan movement doesn’t depend on Direct Action Day. The Lahore Resolution was in 1940. The Pakistan movement had been going on for years at that point.
Street power doesn’t make up for the fact that Muslims would have been a permanent minority in a Hindu-majority nation-state. It is far better that 250 million Pakistanis can now rule ourselves without any fear of what Hindus think.
tbf they don’t really “rule themselves.” it is a hybrid regime
The point is we are not ruled by Hindus.
We live our lives according to Islam.
Today, all across the country, cattle will be slaughtered for Eid. We are able to do this precisely because we are a Muslim-majority nation not bound by Hindu notions of the cow’s sacredness.
Ideally, Pakistan shouldn’t be a “hybrid regime” but it is what it is.
Pakistan itself does not seem to care much about the intent or philosophy of the CMP.
Furthermore Pakistan may be a reality, it maybe a good thing for you personally but the price it has paid for this is a state that has a lot of feudal attitudes with even less scope for reform than its neighbours and other south asian countries.
I think that there is a big argument to be made that a united India where Ashrafs were not controlling everything like in pakistan would have been more beneficial to many pakistani muslims.
Your comments are very high signal Calvin!
Agreed.
His comments are an excellent example on how to disagree without being disagreeable.
You only have to look at today’s India which is a Hindu majoritarian state to see that Pakistan was very much needed for British India’s Muslims.
We can see even from this blog that Hindus and Muslims hate each other–by and large with obvious exceptions. It is good for all of us that this toxic relationship is over and we have our own nation-states. Obviously, Indian Muslims are still suffering from this toxic relationship but as a Pakistani that’s not really my problem.
If by “feudal attitudes” you are referring to land reform, it is a fact that many of the constituents of the Muslim League were landed gentry who obviously would not have been favor of land reform.
//You only have to look at today’s India which is a Hindu majoritarian state to see that Pakistan was very much needed for British India’s Muslims.//
A lot of this is an outcome of partition. Keep in mind even after independence genuine efforts were made by indian government to integrate muslims and reassure them of their safety.
The situation we are at today is a result of missteps of the muslim intelligentia to uplift its community to a sufficient level as well as misadventures when it camr to dealing with claims of temple under neath mosques,but more broadly a result of continuing conflict between India and Pakistan, pakistans own misadventures in kashmir that culminated into the Pandit exodus, bangladesh own treatment of its minority population and 9/11 that led to the growth of anti muslim bigotry
Had the elite muslims stayed within delhi, contributed their wealth and privelge to advocate on behalf of muslims and we basically would have avoided not only the wars between India and Pakistan but also the prevented exodus of minorities from muslim majority areas which is why we are seeing so much violence against muslims.
The state Indian muslims find themselves in is a product of partition and the barriers it created not the cause of it. Like many things it seems to be a self fulfilling prophecy
//We can see even from this blog that Hindus and Muslims hate each other–by and large with obvious exceptions. It is good for all of us that this toxic relationship is over and we have our own nation-states. Obviously, Indian Muslims are still suffering from this toxic relationship but as a Pakistani that’s not really my problem.//
Nobody hates anyone, they may not like Islam, may have more critical standards for other religions than their own but this is not real hatred.
If anything our toxic relationship is still persisting when the whole reason the Pakistani army exists is to defend itself from India, when the same cynical and fabricated ‘different nation’ narratives are used to justify violence within India that also has a negative impact on Indian muslims, the toxic relationship is very much there but is used for different means.
Namely justifying the rule of a few really rich, feudal zamindars on a large gentry, along with the armys own outsized role.
Pakistan may have benefitted you, may have benefitted the elites but has been a disaster for Indian muslims and the lower class of muslims in both Pakistan and bangladesh who are essentially despite living in a muslim majority state are poor wirh limited upward mobility
“Nobody hates anyone”–
If you just go by the experience of being on this blog over the last year (and yes I know this is a very small sample), the Hindus and Muslims are constantly at each other’s throats. We can’t even have a civil conversation.
My considered view is that we could not have been co-citizens of one country. I will not speak for Indian Muslims but I am eternally grateful every day that the Islamic Republic of Pakistan exists. I don’t want to live on Hindu sufferance and thankfully I don’t have to.
You seem to be inordinately focused on TNT. Look at your own country. Hindutva is the reigning ideology. Hindutva is the exact mirror image of TNT. Both ideologies agree that India belongs to Hindus and Pakistan belongs to Muslims.
As a non-Hindu minority, I can see that you would be uncomfortable with that idea. But Pandit Nehru’s secular India is long dead and–judging by the Indians on this blog– no one is mourning for it.
I bring up TNT because viewpoints that Hindus and Muslims cant coexist as co-citizens in one country are manufactured ahistorical myths to justify TNT itself. Like a self fulfilling prophecy almost.
It is also because TNT exists thst other communalism survive, the current situation is not inevitable and is only looking like this because people gold close to their heart ideologies that demand this to be true.
India is still run by the constitution as long g as that exists no one is living under anyone’s mercy. The only reason it looks like this is because much of India still has vestiges of feudalism, that the state enables and what has happened is thst some of these factions have gotten more bold over the last 10 years. This is something that India will have to look at and it is admittedly going to take some time to do this
Lastly you even in a united India would not be living under anyone but very well would have been one of the feudal elites yourself, given your upper caste position. As do people who are of a similar class amongst mualims dont live under anyones mercy. A lot of beliefs you have about incompatibility seem to be latent residues of the Pakistani propaganda classes that you had.
The RSS was founded in the 1920s long before anyone had ever thought of TNT. So you are factually wrong about this. Hindu hatred for Muslims is a thing. I don’t know what you gain by downplaying this.
I will clarify that I am not part of any “feudal elite”. My family is solidly upper-middle class professionals (doctors, lawyers and civil servants).
Lastly, I keep saying I grew up entirely in the US. I am an American national. I have never taken “Pakistan Studies”.
//The RSS was founded in the 1920s long before anyone had ever thought of TNT. So you are factually wrong about this. Hindu hatred for Muslims is a thing. I don’t know what you gain by downplaying this.//
The RSS was formed in response to Mallapuram violence, where the islamic revivalism thst later animated much of TNT advocates, led to directed violence against upper caste hindus. This hatred is not something that comes out of nowhere. It is fed by the very same notions of separation thst animate the TNT.
You say thst you dont believe in TNT but keep on expressing belief in its salient points, furthermore the professional class in the subcontinent grew from the feudal elites themselves, you along with others of your class would not have been at the mercy of anybody in a united India. Might have even been able to help out the lower class muslims in both Pakistan and india as well.
Blaming the RSS on Muslims is a-historical. The point is that Hindus dislike Muslims just as much as Muslims dislike Hindus. This is a two-way street. And I do agree with you that a lot of this goes back to British “divide and rule” tactics.
Savarkar believed that Muslims and Christians could not be loyal to India because their “holy lands” are located outside. This is a disgusting ideology and one should not make any excuses for it whatsoever.
Like everyone else, my views have evolved. I was much more “pro-India” in the past but the rise of “Hindu Hriday Samrat” to power and India’s hard right majoritarian turn has made me much more pro-Pakistan.
“Sindoor” was the icing on the cake.
//The point is that Hindus dislike Muslims just as much as Muslims dislike Hindus. This is a two-way street. And I do agree with you that a lot of this goes back to British “divide and rule” tactics.//
Historically that is not true and even present day it is not. In their time rulers like ShahJahan or Jahnagir were mourned by their subjects even the non Muslim ones. Furthermore, in present day India most muslims and hindus are neutral on one another, with social media making these tend to negative because of the way it works.
//Savarkar believed that Muslims and Christians could not be loyal to India because their “holy lands” are located outside. This is a disgusting ideology and one should not make any excuses for it whatsoever.//
Savarkar is wrong, just like the islamists and chrisitan nationalists this is similar to are, I dont know even the RSS believes this though definitely many Indians do.believe this. I am also not making excuses for anything but mainly pointing out that the constitution is still the guiding document of India and any attempt to tamper with it will be rejected by the vast majoroty of India. Furthermore if push comes to shove there are a lot of people who will push back against this notion.
//Like everyone else, my views have evolved. I was much more “pro-India” in the past but the rise of “Hindu Hriday Samrat” to power and India’s hard right majoritarian turn has made me much more pro-Pakistan.
“Sindoor” was the icing on the cake.//
Both these things are actions Pakistsn has already done and Pakistans presence has a big role to do with why these have happened as do the ideologies underpinning the state. Pakistan will continue existing.
It is surprising that someone who knows how effective secularism is in fostering communal harmony and growth when done right,how much similar cultural ground Indians and Pakistanis have and how much misadventures Pakistani army does, much before India responded with Operation Sindoor, is still so pro Pakistan and surprised at Indians here being anti Pakistan. I mean Pakistan is directly responsible for 26/11 yet the Indians here are expected to not be anti Pakistan or against the current state it is in?
Of course, I’m pro Pakistan. I am a patriot. You cannot argue me out of this position. Members of my mother’s extended family have served in senior positions in Pak Fauj (including DG ISPR and Chief of Air Staff).
India has been against Pakistan from the very beginning. I don’t need to belabor this point here.
I’m not at all surprised that Indians are anti-Pakistan. However, there is no one I despise more than anyone who is anti-Pakistan.
Are you surprised that the Pakistanis here are anti-India?
I hope you are correct that India never turns into a “Hindu Rashtra”.
I dont think anyone hates you or Q or E. But get very emotional for their nation like you.
I know that you gave gotten threats and others have been doxxed so wont try to convince you too much and just say that I have encountered people who legitimately hate other religions, who relish from their pain and make it very clear about this.
The commentators here dont enjoy others pain like those but lose their rationality at anything resembling an attack on their perceived nationhood. I also think that some have not really encountered online communities as much as you have
Again you are free to ignore the above.
We will have to disagree on this. I find the Hindus on this site genuinely toxic and hateful. There are honorable exceptions such as Girmit.
I am not against all Hindus as individuals. Again, I grew up in the US. My family had lots of Hindu friends. Their religion was never an issue. But then, most of them did not go around espousing bigoted views on Pakistan–at least not to our faces.
But this forum is clearly divided into two teams– The “Saffroniate” and the “Crescentiate”– both of whom despise each other. It’s sad but that’s the way it is.
This forum us filled with nationalists who take criticism personally, and need each others country to look bad for themselves to look good.
Some of them are clearly immature as well but if you find these people hateful you will faint when you encounter some of the YouTube channels in India.
“This forum is filled with nationalists who take criticism personally and need each others’ country to look bad for themselves to look good”–
Absolutely agreed.
I don’t know about YouTube channels but I have never been given a direct threat of violence on any other platform.
I agree with this, but the other implication is often missed, most hindus weren’t agitating for an independent, unified India either. The whole undertaking was elite driven and opportunistic. That isn’t to question the legitimacy of either country presently or advocate for rebellion, its probably par for course for historical processes.
Besides the fact that only a trivial percentage of muslims migrated from current territorial boundaries of India apart from the east punjab –> west punjab corridor, while a third or so of the subcontinent’s muslims live in India, I would say the vast majority of muslim diversity is here.
A point I had not even considered. We are the only subcontinental country to have North Indian, South Indian, West Indian and East Indian Muslims.
There is a very strong rational argument to be made that Partition has saved the muslims that stayed within the borders of the Republic of India. Along with the non-muslims.
The irony of saying that while Indian Muslims are more oppressed than ever.
More muslims have been murdered and “oppressed”, continue to do so, in Pakistan and Bangladesh, than in India. That’s the fact. And the irony.
Muslims get murdered and oppressed in India for their faith. In Pakistan and Bangladesh, most people are Muslim so naturally most people dying or having any grievances will also happen to be Muslim. Using your rationale, more Hindus are murdered and oppressed in India than in any other country in the world.
Muslims in India enjoy more religious freedom, social freedom and citizenship rights than they do in Pakistan.
No amount of fake BS can change that fact. Cry more.
That’s as ridiculous as saying that African-Americans enjoy more freedom and citizenship rights than Black Jamaicans. The latter are literally the majority and privileged group in their own country while the former are still a disenfranchised minority in a country founded by another group. You can never offset the inherent privileges of institutional power.
Must be why African Americans flock to emigrate to Jamaica and not the other way around. Oh wait.
There are economic benefits to living in a wealthy country as a minority if you do get a fair shot and there’s a strong market for your skills/services. It’s the same way millions of Indians flock to the Arabian gulf for a better life but it would be disingenuous for me to claim an Indian in Dubai or Kuwait has more freedoms and rights than an Indian in their own country just because they are wealthier and enjoy a much higher quality of life.
Across every measure, Pakistan and Bangladesh are far superior places to live for a Muslim in south Asia, it’s not even up for debate and an insult to ones intelligence to suggest otherwise.
Folks who refer to the targeted murders of hindus after checking whether they were circumcised, as a false flag, are an “insult to one’s intelligence.”.
The headline is a gaslighting lightning rod of an assertion. With not much to back it up.
The Cabinet Mission plan was rightly rejected by Indian leadership – At best it would have created a temporary ‘Gran Colombia’ and the sub-continent today would look a lot like Latin America.
Its 2026, we see the EU attempting to slowly ‘federalize’ towards what the Indian Union already provides its subcontinental citizens. Pretending that slicing up India into smaller units would somehow be a ‘win’ is … ill-supported.
India’s greatest win is that it has managed to keep such continental level of diversity as one country.
Even Pakistan with much lesser could not.
Cabinet Mission would ultimately have led to a USSR or Yugoslavia level breakup.
and this incredible Indian success at fashioning and sustaining unity in mind boggling diversity is something that rankles hinduphobic RW Pakistanis the most. To wit, SQ and EK’s unsubtle rantings about India being ‘fabricated’…
Even “their” areas of East Punjab, West Bengal, Hyderabad, Junagadh and most of all Kashmir are part of India. 🤭
Yup, that’s why the British established the East South Asia Company.
Now that is a low blow, Kabirs stuff is quite good.
Thank you.
It’s OK. I’m well aware RNJ has a personal animus towards me.
As it is, he (like everyone else) is free to ignore posts that they aren’t interested in. This constant sniping is passive-aggressive.
Good that you edited out the personal insults that started off this particular exchange. Now you can pretend to be the victim.
Bottomline will always remain thus – Pakistan is muslim Indians who refused to be Indian. Thats pretty much it. And this is the grating reality that results into bizarre mental acrobatics with fabricated identity ‘narratives’ and aggressive rhetoric attempting to delusionally deny India’s existence.
No matter how much evidence or facts you point out, the answer will always be ‘yes but, blah blah’.
They know. They pretend they don’t but they do.
Of course they do. Just like they know what their army did in 1971. And 1999. And in May 2025. And in 1948, when the muslim Kashmiris repelled their raping, pillaging attempt at annexing J&K with Indian assistance.
But knowing it is one thing, publicly accepting it is quite another.
Never let the perfect be the enemy of the good. Outside of the recent Nativist wave unleashed by Drumpf – and arguably in spite of that – the United States of America still stands today as the standard bearer for meritocracy and opportunity for immigrants on this planet. Yes or No?
The romance isn’t with the US government but the US system – how a country that did not even exist 300 years ago is now the richest and most powerful in the world and can influence events on the opposite side of the globe.
Also further economic growth will make the romance more “two-sided” like it did for China.
The US …is a continental island blessed with energy and food independence and 2 oceans to defend itself. Its easy to see why they rose to dominance.
The only way to diminish American power is to turn Canada and/or Mexico hostile. The relative power differential is such that such a scenario is far-fetched.
Would need more Drumpfian perfidy for another couple of decades to make it even remotely realistic.
Nehru bombed the finals deliberately because he feared the Punjabis would take over India as they would control most of the armed forces. This is my conspiracy theory after reading about this a lot. There was no sense in reneging on CMP otherwise.
Jinnah also made a mistake by ceding to the Congress demand of partitioning Punjab and Bengal, he should have never done that
In any case, what is done is done. Kashmir is the unresolved issue, and Pakistan will never give up its claim on Kashmir because its about much more than partition injustices, it’s existential.. however outside of that, Pakistanis don’t care about India, and have moved on but Indians continue to be obsessed with Pakistan in quite unhealthy ways.
Infact Pakistanis don’t even care about what happens to Bangladesh even though recently after the disastrous Hasina rule, many Bengalis have realized what a mistake they made in 1971 – perhaps realizing their predicament of becoming a long term Indian vassal. I’ve met several Bangladeshis who try to bring up how they were wronged in 1971 but they should have remained in Pakistan and not side with India, and I only tell them it’s water under the brigde and now we don’t care, good luck. They usually quieten up after that. However apparently Indians don’t seem to get that memo, they keep obsessing about us. They will make claims about ”Terrorism” and ”Kashmir” in order to hate, but this obsessive hate is just another form of attachment. I humbly advise Indians to let go, we are not sem2sem.
If discussion around this topic is hitorical it is usually my interest but its rarely historical and people seem to be deeply emotionally attached to it on the Indian side.
“Apart from the things we do care about, we don’t care.” 🤭
India isn’t the one obsessing over territory it has never controlled in its entire history. The advice to “let go” would be far more useful if directed elsewhere.
Admin Note: this feels very hostile Q.
we have noticed the tone on this thread has dipped but unless people write in to the email account; we aren’t going to moderate this.
You jumped into a thread, responding to my comment that had absolutely nothing to do with you, and then started hurling personal insults about my “inferior intellectual capability”, and whining about your inability to understand my “comma usage”.
There is a reason you edited and deleted this stuff from your initial comment. And now you have the hypocrisy to feign injury over my response.
It is you sir, who initiates hostility, and resorts to personal attacks. If you don’t repeatedly do this, I have no need to bother with ‘insulting’ you. I get no joy from ‘punching down’ as it were.
As an aside, Kashmir Muslim Rasikh Salam Dar has been doing well in the IPL (and just did a double wicket maiden in Qualifier 1 for the final).
Considering the next T20 WC is 2 years away (alongside the LA Olympics) and Bumrah won’t be playing much I do see him making his international debut for India.
Red ball wise, Auqib Nabi had a real good season this time as Jammu and Kashmir won its first Ranji trophy.
Expect him to enter the A team soon.
Both Rasikh and Nabi are….2nd tier players. The competition for Team India slots is fierce. Either of these players would have gotten extended India tenures at their skill levels, say about 15-20 years earlier.
But they will have handsomely compensated IPL and domestic cricket careers. Likely with at least a handful of opportunities at the ‘A’ team level, or maybe even the odd game against an AFG/ZIM.
Since the T20 WC is in 2028 as well as the Olympics I don’t think Bumrah is playing a T20 till 2028 or for that matter Siraj/Prasidh Krishna as they will be saved for ODIs (leading to 27 WC) and tests.
So there is an opportunity for “only” T20 players in the next year and a half.
Similar to the period post the 24 T20 WC when the likes of Abhishek Sharma and Tilak Varma made their names kicking out Gill/Jaiswal.
The likes of Rasikh, Prince Yadav, Sakib Hussain, Kartik Tyagi will be given a go here and there.
Nabi yes far more difficult but I see him make the A sides for now and considering India play 5 test match series vs the likes of Eng/Aus, get a go in a few matches.
Rasikh’s problem is that he lacks both pace and height. And doesn’t have a unique skillset of someone like say a Bhuvi – who is a master of moving the ball both ways with very little ‘tell’ at hand release.
India simply has too many pace prospects to chose from – the likes of Prince Yadav, Mohsin Khan (left-arm angle), Sakib (SRH) – just to name a few. I like Sakib’s potential. Reminds me of a young Siraj.
Sakib reminds me of a right handed Mustafizur.
Mohsin is good but injury prone.
India should ideally field two T20 teams which play parallely – maybe interleave the matches.
Foreign boards are happy because of $$$.
Indians are happy because of continuous cricket.
India also develops a good bench strength.
Eventually can be used to compress the international calendar opening up a greater window for the IPL.
To a certain extent, esp for T20s, India already does. Outside of WC and pre-WC ‘warmup’ series, you generally see a big chunk of the ‘senior’ players rested. Tours to Zim, SL and WI are used to try out the bench strength prospects – I’m talking white ball here, and esp T20s. I expect this trend to continue and intensify.
Yeah but I am talking the next step.
As in two T20 teams (or teams in general) play parallely.
Like imagine a T20 team playing a home series vs SL and another is touring Australia.
Today an Australia match, tomorrow a SL match, a couple of days later an Australia match and so on.
Same with even tests and T20s tbh.
Test tour in Australia which gets over by 1-2pm Indian time and on some days in the evening at 7pm T20 match somewhere else.
Other boards just need the India tour for $$$.
This allows India to actually fulfill its commitments (and get goodwill/fealty from the other boards) while shrinking the international calendar.
make this into a proper post
Maybe in a few more months when their trajectories are more well defined.
Vaibhav Sooryavanshi has been insane this season.
Post the T20 WC and Dhurandhar 2, his batting in the IPL has occupied my mental wavelength.
15 year old destroying some of the greatest bowlers ever and outbatting some of the greatest batsmen ever.