Rawalakot vs. Jantar Mantar
- Has any other South Asian government fired the anti-national frame at a major protest movement?
- What matters, constitutionalism or state resolve?
- Can a state be “hard” outwards without treating domestic opposition as an external enemy?
Is this the same as Delhi?
Last night, the Azad Jammu and Kashmir Police issued a statement about clashes at Rawalakot. It said that armed groups of the proscribed Joint Awami Action Committee had tried to force their way into the city, that appeals to disperse were rejected, that fire was opened on law enforcement officials, and that two officers were injured. The phrase used was challenging the state writ.
Five weeks earlier, on 23 June, Dharmendra Pradhan described the Cockroach Janta Party as a B team of disruptive elements and told India Today that tukde-tukde forces were at Jantar Mantar.
The two governments reached for the same instrument. Both took a movement making material demands and attempted to relocate it outside the nation, where its demands would no longer require an answer. This is the standard subcontinental response to a protest that cannot be conceded to.
The difference is what happened next. The JAAC is now banned. Pradhan resigned on 25 July.
Why is the Pakistani case different?
The obvious explanation is that Pakistan is a hard state and a hybrid regime, and India is not. Kabir has made this point in the threads and he is not wrong. But it explains less than it looks like it explains, because it treats the outcome as a function of how much force a government is willing to use, and the CJP was tear-gassed, baton-charged and had its internet cut off.
Azad Jammu and Kashmir is constitutionally liminal territory, and in liminal territory the accusation is permanently loaded. India-backed is always available in Muzaffarabad. It requires no evidentiary work because the geography supplies the plausibility in advance. The AJK government has duly alleged that the organisers have overseas handlers linked to India and has put the movement’s cost to the exchequer at Rs15 billion.
Anti-national was never available in the same way against a NEET aspirant in Delhi. There was no cleavage to activate, and so the accusation had to be argued rather than gestured at, and once it has to be argued it has already failed.
The JAAC charter
It is worth being specific about what the JAAC wants.
The charter asks for an end to the privileges of the ruling elite, the scrapping of the quota system, and the abolition of the twelve seats in the AJK Legislative Assembly reserved for Kashmiri refugees. That assembly has fifty-three members. Six of the reserved seats represent refugees from the Jammu division, roughly 434,000 people. Six represent refugees from the Kashmir Valley, roughly 30,000. The arithmetic is the grievance.
That is a complaint about representation and elite capture. It is the same category of demand as the CJP’s, which was about an examination system and who gets to rise through it. Both are arguments about whether the merit ladder is real. One of them was successfully reclassified as foreign subversion and one was not.
October, and after
In October last year the JAAC led protests over constitutional and governance reform. At least nine people were killed, including three policemen. Two days after the violence the government and the JAAC reached an agreement covering twelve core points and thirteen additional ones, including a high-level committee to examine the reserved seats.
That committee has produced deadlock. The JAAC wants the seats abolished. The government refuses.
Monday’s clash fell on polling day for the first phase of the assembly elections, thirteen constituencies in Mirpur Division, with more than seventeen thousand security personnel deployed and the day already overshadowed by the shooting of a political worker and allegations of rigging. Muzaffarabad Division and the twelve refugee constituencies vote on 2 August. Poonch, which is to say Rawalakot itself, votes on 10 August.
On the casualties we are attributing rather than asserting, because nothing is independently confirmed. The JAAC posted on X that five had been killed and around fifteen injured, then revised the figure to nine, including the brother of its leader Sardar Umar Nazir. The police say the JAAC opened fire and that two officers were hurt.
Pakistan’s assertions
It runs like this. Armed men attempted to enter a city on polling day. Shots were fired at police. Two officers were injured. This is not hypothetical escalation: the same movement’s agitation last October ended with three policemen dead. An election is in progress across three phases in contested territory adjoining a hostile border, and the state has a duty to secure the franchise. The authorities say they have evidence connecting organisers and overseas handlers to India.
The Information Secretary’s account is that this began as a genuine public movement and was subsequently captured. Take all of that at face value. It licenses a security cordon around polling. It does not license proscribing a movement whose published charter is about assembly seats and elite privilege.
The anti-state frame is not primarily a description. It is a conversion device. It takes a domestic argument about representation, which a government would have to answer, and turns it into a security matter, which a government can simply police. In Rawalakot the conversion succeeded. At Jantar Mantar it did not, and a minister went instead.
Global Realpolitik
We argued that the Indian climbdown was the system working, and we should not now turn around and say that hardness has been vindicated because it produced a quieter P.A.K.
History did not end in 1991. The unipolar order was not dismantled by its rivals so much as abandoned by its guarantors, who turned inward and discovered they had civil crises of their own, which is the ordinary way empires come apart.
In a genuinely multipolar decade a state that organises itself around security rather than around integration may possible be reading the century more accurately. Pakistan has been called a garrison state as an insult for fifty years.
The Indian outcome looks like accountability and we said so but the question is whether India wants to similarly “garrison up” as well like its tortured neighbour to the Northwest (as every young Pakistan Gen-Zer joked, Pakistan couldn’t afford to fund the CJP protests anyway).
Democracies world wide are dying off. China has shown the way when it clamped down brutally on protesters on the mainland and then in Hong Kong. GCC countries rule with an iron fist, so do many South East Asian countries. Israel’s genocide still got silent support from democratic countries in the West shattered any illusions about them. And most recently, Iran showed how to put down mass protests effectively.
Democracy was always a farce but it allowed the population some venting off in the form of protesting. However with social media and controlled algorithms, the masses can be easily led and mislead by enemy states controlling the algos, and states have caught onto that fact.
Now it appears that the age of protesting may soon be over and entrenched power circles may calcify more.
Edited the anti-Semitic slur; don’t do that again pls.
Otherwise – https://www.indiatoday.in/india/story/mohammad-irfan-jantar-mantar-cjp-protest-viral-interview-lallantop-rahul-gandhi-meets-2957429-2026-07-27?
Its literally the Jewish word for all non jews, and is in common usage amongst the Jews (Epstein used it extensively). If anything, the word is anti everyone else, the complete opposite of an anti Semitic slur.
Was the word “Goyim?” I was a Wien International Scholar @ Brandeis, a Jewish university in greater Boston, where I graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1978. When I got there in 1976, they kept calling me “goy” – I was baffled, until I learned that’s what they call non-Jews. Live & learn! LOL
yes but there is a context in which it can be used where it may be anti-semitic
How do you always have some of the worst takes of all?
You do know the Chinese are afraid of their people right? They have seen what the Chinese people can do when they are pushed too far. Being able to use force on Hong kong and tiannamen( which many Chinese in the mainland are not comfortable with) does not mean that the Chinese state and people dont believe in accountability or rule of law and support tyranny as you seem to he implying.
Many GCC countries also are not proud of theit tyranny, with the exception of Israel, it is still something they feel ashamed of when asked to speak on it.
Only subcontinental people somehow manage to have elites who enjoy all the fruits of Democracy and liberal world order and them advocate for tyranny on others who go against their favorite party/ organization.
If you think Democracy is so bad why don’t you leave the US and go back to Pakistan?
You accuse me of having the worst takes, yet I have not read something as delusional as your post recently.
The Chinese are afraid of their people? The CCP has 100 million members. They are not afraid of anyone. Hong Kong ‘democracy’ protests are over and now the CCP does not face any opposition there. They will also reintegrate Taiwan sooner rather than later (I predicted 2027 war before but now that the US made things easier for them, they may not go to war and rejoin peacefully in the next few years). which would be the death knell for western ”democratic” world order.
You mistakenly equate authoritarianism with tyranny and oppression, and yet the most authoritarian regimes today are also the least tyrannical. Most GCC countries are complete old school monarchies, and and very proud about it (just look at Bahrain or Kuwait). Their only issue is that they didnot come about naturally but as a result of foriegn intervention and therefore they rely on foriegn security guarantees to continue to exist. If they are ever replaced, don’t ever think that there will be any type of democracy, not for any meaningful stretch of time. Just take a look at Egypt or Libya. Iran is a country that was ruled for Shahs and Shehenshahs for 5000 years, it will never become ”democractic” along western lines.
And this is the thing, neither will India. India’s current democratic setup is a gift from the British Empire that they inherited. It was always unnatural and now it is coming under strain. Let’s see what happens in the next 20 years. It is possible that the institutions established by the British and their lackeys survive long enough for western style democracy to take deeper roots that it may weather the storm. But what happens when democracy in the West itself erodes away. What then?
Democracy has extremely deep roots in India loll
He’s not wrong. Universal suffrage is something the British passed on to the entire subcontinent (not just India). As is the Westminster system.
Historically, the Indian subcontinent was ruled by monarchies. Even our political parties are run by “royal” dynasties– the Bhuttos, Sharifs, Gandhis etc.
BJP is a non-dynastic party for what that’s worth.
//Universal suffrage is something the British passed on to the entire subcontinent (not just India). As is the Westminster system//
The British themselves never practised universal suffrage for most of its history.
India adopted the westeminister system as this was what most of the founders were most familiar with.
Political dynasties exist in all partiesare present because of the insanely high resources needed to win an elections, which one can accumulate over a long political career, plus remnants of feudalism that are still there in south asian society.
This debate is largely meaningless. Any country given true universal suffrage rarely ever chooses to go back on that decision. Every dictator has to fabricate constant emergencies to remain in power in such a system. All the criticism made here would be even more serious if they were against Japan. It’s constitution was written by an American General and the Universal Suffrage was instituted under strict American supervision. Even after all that we see no large movement among the Japanese to reverse these imposed institutions. All the “royal” dynasties in India were abolished at independent in all but name and even their royal status and privy purses were cancelled by Indira Gandhi around 1971.
I think Q’s point was that the whole reason why India, Pakistan and Bangladesh have a parliamentary system based on Westminster etc is because of the colonial experience.
It’s a-historical to think that in the absence of colonialism, South Asia would have come up with Western liberal democracy on its own.
Don’t forget that all of our founding fathers (Gandhi, Nehru, Quaid-e-Azam) were British-trained lawyers.
Prior to the British arrival, “India” was a collection of monarchies. Monarchy is far more natural in a culture that is status and caste-conscious.
Liberal democracy arrived in the West after violent revolutions (such as the French Revolution). In South Asia, it was imposed top down. South Asians are not natural democrats.
India wasn’t a collection of “Monarchies” as the Mauryan and Mughal Empires demonstrate.
The point is that liberal democracy was introduced by the British.
Liberal democracy is a Western invention. I think that’s the point Q was making.
Empires are not democracies.
That isn’t true either. Empires can be democracies as well. The German Empire prior to the first world war was a true empire as it occupied many peoples who weren’t completely accepted as equal citizens such as Poles. But they were all given Universal Suffrage to elect leaders into the Reichstag with the first secret ballot election system in all of Europe. Democracy is just a form of government, it can be used to govern an empire or a nation-state.
The Mughals were not running a democracy. Subjects are not citizens.
Liberal democracy was introduced to the Indian subcontinent by the British.
Had the British not arrived when they did we probably would still have the Mughals with some territory, the Marathas with some other territory etc.
It was the British that created a centralized state called “India”.
You cannot make general statements and then point to a singular case where that isn’t true. I provided you an example of an empire being a democracy perhaps even more liberal in its implementation than Britain in its time. I am not arguing about some pointless Mughal vs Maratha BS with someone who has a clear bias on the subject.
The German Empire prior to WWI was still run by the Kaiser no?
So my point still stands. Monarchies are not democracies. Today’s UK is a constitutional monarchy. Real power resides with the PM not with the King.
Liberal democracy in South Asia is a gift of the British. If you don’t like that, it doesn’t change reality.
So was Britain. In fact Britain was categorically more monarchist than Germany because the House of Lords was appointed by the Monarch while the Reichstag was elected with universal suffrage from the individual kingdoms. If Monarchies are not democracies then Britain isn’t even a democracy today.
In Germany post-unification the power lied with the chancellor not the king. The king William I became a figurehead and the parliament was the main authority that even towering figures like Bismarck had to cajole and contest with. By your logic Liberal democracy is a gift the British couldn’t even give themselves.
The UK is a democracy in the sense that it holds elections and real power lies with the Prime Minister not with the monarch.
The Mughal Empire was not a constitutional monarchy.
My point stands. You can live in denial. It is a historical consensus that liberal democracy is a Western invention.
Your point was that “Empires cannot be democracies”. You cannot make a statement generally and then only apply it selectively. I don’t care enough to make this argument about Mughals as they are a small part of Indian history.
Notice to all – I don’t see the need in the Commentariat getting *personal* with Kabir.
I removed one comment but kept this one.
Opinions can clash but let’s keep everything above board (this is to all).
Don’t patronise 0M pls.
Can we all please be civil to one another!
+ 100
Yes, please. The last few posts and comment threads have demonstrated that even fierce disagreement need not get personal.
I think we all reasonably “know” one another to keep the conversation civil.
Yes thank you – Civility is just the baseline. Courtesy would be next level haha
From what i see here , this was a very good interaction between OM and Kabir notwithstanding the occasional snarkiness..but i didnt see what you deleted and what was offensive etc..
Ok maybe I am over moderating I’ll release the deletions
The Hinduphobia is quite triggering..
I agree it was provocative. But my two cents, and I am sure this is a minority view, the comments made on the varna system by Kabir are worth responding to in a measured manner since I believe a gross corruption of the original varna system is at the root of the ills that have plagued the subcontinent. At the same time,the progress India and Hindus have made is truly remarkable, which I am sure Kabir is ignorant of and maybe open to learning about? Btw, Kabir conflating caste and varna is an example of his ignorance that should be dispelled by the commentariat, provided he’s open to having an honest conversation.
There is no honest conversation to be had on this issue. It is better to reply to each comment in kind.
I too am wary but I made the request because Kabir has shown some signs of openness in his recent comments. He has actually acknowledged some faults of the Pakistanis state, which is surprising.
The discourse on the blog in the recent weeks has been of a high quality in my opinion thanks to folks like you, Calvin etc. Even strong disagreements have remained within bounds and yet robust. Its been fun to follow and learn. Hence my request is don’t get baited.
yes it’s also because we are tightening the screws as well. it’s been 2yrs now and everyone has to abide by the Community Rules.
no misbehaviour
Caste is something that comes from Hinduism. Neither Muslims nor Christians believe in caste.
However, it is something that (because of the Hindu influence) pervades all of South Asia.
Sujatha Gidla wrote a book called “Ants Among Elephants” which I have written about:
https://kabiraltaf.substack.com/p/ants-among-elephants-a-portrait-of
The word caste is Portugese in origin and represented the “race purity” hierarchy in Spanish society, which is a Christian society and truly racist.
The Indian subcontinent has Jati and Varna. Jati has no known origin within Hinduism. Varna does but is completely misunderstood hence corrupted.
When the root itself is misunderstood ( deliberately or otherwise ), truth is the first casualty.
Jati means by birth. ja in Samskrutam relates to birth. eg. neeraja -born in water. Padmaja -borm in lotus.
swa jati -of the same kind.
As Rajeev malhotra has said some of our words are untranslatable, and should not be translated.
I fully agree…using the word caste as a replacement for Jati in the English language is totally erroneous.
Islamic ‘republic’ does sound like a oxymoron, no?
How is an Islamic Republic an oxymoron; Sunnism is literally built on elected Caliphates and judicial consensus.
The Iranian government has built an entire political infrastructure on an Islamic Republic and it does feel fairly democratic. They vote every so often and people are invested in that.
I don’t want to see emotional posting or provocative posts by all. As I said if there is a genuine question “Can there be such a thing as an Islamic Republic” that is definitely worth a post (I could be wrong) otherwise this just feels like an attempt to rile Kabir up (with respect).
I’m…..confused. On the one hand, I have seen you vocally speak out against the Iranian regime, IIRC even supporting the potential Monarchy contender. And now you are saying the current regime is an example of an ‘Islamic democracy’?
I don’t think I’m being ’emotional’ here. Just making an observation.
And sorry, I wasn’t at all trying to ‘rile up Kabir’. I’m…….more than done with that nonsense. Its boring really.
the Islamic Republic of Iran is a republic and democratic.
they vote every 4 or 5years
yes it is a very structured system (Velayat-e-Faqih and religious bodies picking people).
it is also corrupt and evil (I detest the regime though I absolutely do not support Reza Pahlavi, who is a traitor) but it is a functioning system.
I think Q makes a good point; not everything has to look like a liberal democracy.
obviously I wouldn’t want to live in Iran and I much prefer India, by a wide stretch.
I’m simply providing a counterpoint.
We cannot say what would have happened and what would not have.
I won’t say all of India would be under Democracy but to say no region of India would institute Democracy or we won’t have our own French revolution at least in one place is a bit difficult to believe.
Many of the reform movements led in places like say Kerala were not driven by the British, Narayan Guru to my knowledge did not have a British education in the same way raja Ram Mohan Roy or Jyotiba Phule was. So at least some parts of India would have had their own growth of Democracy and liberalism.
The historical consensus is that liberal democracy is a Western invention.
All the philosophies that underpin democracy are a product of the European Enlightenment.
Perhaps some type of French Revolution equivalent could have occurred somewhere in India.
Kabir – postcolonial claptrap need not be repeated.
India is the world’s largest democracy; read my piece.
This is the tragedy of Pakistan; it’s created a thoroughly coopted Elite that variously worships anything West (Middle East, Europe, America) ignoring it’s own Eastern roots.
It’s not “postcolonial claptrap” to recognize that the roots of liberal democracy (i.e. the American Revolution and the French Revolution) arose through the ideas of the European Enlightenment–separation of church and state, one man one vote etc. These are all European ideas. This is a matter of historical fact not of belief.
Liberal democracy came to all of South Asia because we were a British colony. This is again a factual statement.
Democracy would not have sustained in India had it not appealed to the inherent ethos of the Indian people. It is truly unique that Indians never debated separation of church and state etc when embracing Democracy. The obvious answer is because the country is predominantly Hindu and this separation is inherent to the Hindu DNA
excellent comment
Liberal democracy was imposed on India by your founding fathers–all of whom were lawyers trained in Britain.
That is the “obvious” explanation not special characteristics of Hindus.
Pakistan stood no chance irrespective of who died when or who was assassinated when.
Pakistan is still standing?
I meant the odds of establishing a stable democracy..not its viability as a state..
Yes but it seems democracy, republic need to evolve.
In fact if the Army was enlightened say like Singapore’s leadership; it could do really really well.
The problem is Pakistan’s elite is completely coopted. They study in Western, not Indian, universities.
They are a deracinated entity with Western & Arab fantasies.
To my comment on ignorance is bliss, I was specifically referring to some of these points you have mentioned and how their absence right at inception has allowed India to be a stable democracy while hobbling Pakistan.
The Indian constituent assembly had approx. 250 members, with 15 women of all religions. A substantial majority fully or partially educated in India. In fact, Dr.Rajendra Prasad, C.Rajagopalachari, KM Munshi, Abul Kalam Azad were all fully educated in India.
Dr.Rajendra Prasad’s speech on eve of India’s independence is the greatest speech of that time. Nehru’s tryst with destiny speech is pedestrian in comparison.
The constituent assembly debates are available online for anybody to read and get an insight into how India debated the nature of universal suffrage that would be best suited for its own people.
We may have a thousand complaints about our country today but the effort to keep such a diverse country together and move forward is remarkable.
This claim that democracy was imposed on us by a handful of British educated elites is ignorance.
Oh I saw his book at the Cafe (Dr. Rajendra Prasad). Thank you!!
You are motivating me to read it. I have read Ambedkar’s on Partition.
I will see his speech. Say what you will about JN’s speech but that line was as memorable, if not more, than “I have a Dream” or the Gettysburg Address (4 score and some years ago) or “Ask not what your country will do for you.
These are probably the 4 greatest speeches along with QE1 on the eve of the Armada (I may have the body of a woman but the heart of a man). So JN definitely did something right.
Apparently Priyanka has said something controversial; I don’t know why she doesn’t take leadership of the Party.
The reason why Dr.Rajendra Prasad’s speech is not well known outside India is because he gave all his speeches in Hindi.
Regarding Priyanka: The Gandhi family is a mess – she has lots of personal issues and I am actually surprised the family allowed her to enter public life in the first place.
Oh I had no idea..
I think you misunderstand just how advanced India’s medical and education actually is.
a huge swathe of India’s elite does do their undergrad in India but virtually 95% of Pakistan’s elite does their undergrad abroad.
it’s quite amusing, every time by your reading India and Pakistan are just the same in all their negative points but Pakistan is exceptional in its positive points. droll
Ignorance is bliss.
this is a fair warning to ALL commentators without exception.
if this thread descends into a Flamewar, any offender will have 25 comment removal (no exceptional).
Oh they were more equal than everyone else, got their own unit, while Punjab, Sindh, NWFP, Baluchistan was all lumped into one. Even got their language adopted as official langauge when other provinces never got it. They wanted much much more, and conspired with Indians against Pakistan.. It’s better now that they are a seperate country.
>Oh they were more equal than everyone else,
Just….no words.
calm the tone pls
there is no need to conflate material prosperity with social security.
they are two very different concepts.
Presumably it would have been a FAR better economic and commercial move to stay on as British India but progressively chip away at native rights (sort of like HK). However Indian independence was wanted by ALL native peoples ..
so this idea that a Palestinian in Israel, who is second class in their society, is better off than a Punjabi in Pakistan, who *owns* the Awaam, is simply absurd.
Malaysia, Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda ard all successful in their own ways.
Even Nigeria has done quite well when similar countries elsewhere have failed to be functional states like Sudan
The only exceptions to successful post colonial states are the ones in the middle east but many of their failures are due go continued interference by external failures.
Many principles in our laws do accommodate hindu concerns like cow protection and things like that
Similar to how many christian majority countries have provisiona banning abortion and divorce while having secular constitutions and states.
This acceptance is less due to some ethos and more due to secular governments and states having proved themselves to be better than religion supported states.
It definitely weighed on people’s mind that many pre modern kingdoms and states in India were based in religion and lost to secular states
There is no equivalence between anti slaughter laws and restricting reproductive rights of women.
When people die because of supposed violations of these laws, they belong in same category of restrictions due to religion.
Again, false equivalence. Comparing the deletrious impact of a draconian law on 50% of a population to a few cases of violence is just dishonest. Especially when people killed belong to both religions.
Not just Hindu concerns, India’s personal laws have accommodated all faiths and beliefs. Marriage laws, inheritance rights for women etc are different depending on your religious denomination.
That was a holdover from the colonial period.
But this is not something like cow protection that has gotten the same protection and over legislation as well.
Hindu laws were correctly changed despite opposition. Unlike the others, clearly a case of minority appeasement.
Really poor example for whatever point you you are trying to make. There is no nationwide law for cow protection in India. If anything, cow protection is a perfect example of my point on the principle of accommodation. It is guided by article 48 of the constitution and states make policy. There are seven states in India where there are absolutely no cow protection laws. Some states like Tamil Nadu have conditional laws and some states like Karnataka have very strong laws for cow protection.
None of this means that some people in India won’t have have been inspired and try to implement the very same values here as well.
//The Chinese are afraid of their people? The CCP has 100 million members. They are not afraid of anyone. Hong Kong ‘democracy’ protests are over and now the CCP does not face any opposition there. They will also reintegrate Taiwan sooner rather than later (I predicted 2027 war before but now that the US made things easier for them, they may not go to war and rejoin peacefully in the next few years). which would be the death knell for western ”democratic” world order.//
The CCP knows that it can also be at the recieving end of another cultural revolution if it acts like it is untouchable. This keeps them grounded, to the point that they are willing to let its real estate bubble burst without saving them or to effectively constrain its coaching industry. It is not democratic and very autocratic but there is still a fear that is there if they push authority too far.
Democracy comes in many forms and shapes and evolves as per the cultural circumstances of the land. It also is something that takes time to develop and come into its own.
Indian democracy is not a gift of the british, the british never implemented universal suffrage, we did, much before some countries even could vote. The only mistake that India has made is that it maybe should have spent time in more completely combatting feudal mindsets, as much as it did in making many Indians think of themselves as citizens. The very widespread support for dictatorship and authoritarianism is a consequences of not confronting many negative attitudes of our upper class citizens. The same should be done in Pakistan where thisproblem seems to be there as well.
In the other thread, I listed down, by point form how the conquered adopt and then appropriate the culture of the conqueror. This is literally #4 of that, where the conquered try to justify the culture they adopted as their own and changing the origin of that adoption to reduce the guilt/shame.
A claim of 10,000 year old civilization, with no sign of democracy until after the British conquest, and now they are larping that they are the original democrats.
you do realise you belong to Indian civilisation surely?
You are Pakistan habsbara but the funny version.
Lol +1
His mental gymnastics claiming the genetics, but not the religio-cultural legacy of the Indic civilization is hilarious. As are his histrionics on capitalism and women’s rights while living in a first world capitalistic democracy with feminists as PM’s.
Thing is, people like Q migrate to the big, bad West precisely for the jobs, lifestyle etc it offers. Only to want to convert it to the hell hole they escaped from in the first place, that too for everyone who never signed up for this renewed social contract in their country.
Which one? Because there isn’t one. I belong to the Indo-Islamic one. It’s pretty distinct than the Hindu one
Agreed. Pakistanis belong to the Indo-Islamic civilization.
and the Indo in that is??
India – Ind – Hind – Sind – Hindu
“Indo” in Indo-Islamic is a geographical expression.
I have never argued that Pakistanis are not South Asians. We were part of British India and before that of the Mughal Empire etc.
By “Indo-Islamic civilization”, I am referring to Hindustani classical music, Urdu etc. I assume that’s what Q is referring to.
It is “Hindu civilization” that Pakistanis don’t identify with. Our ideology is the TNT. And–whether one likes it or not– that is going to remain the ideology of Pakistan for the foreseeable future.
Isn’t it just exhausting being so Hinduphobic?
Why don’t you turn this question around and ask it to the Indian right-wing commenters here? You just need to change one word.
Pakistan was founded on the TNT. Otherwise, why does the country exist?
Agreed with Kabir here.
People are caught up in words. If you call tiger a cat, it doesn’t become the same as your house cat. The words ‘India’ and ‘Hindu’ mean completely different things than they did 3000 years ago.
1) ‘India’ is derived from the river Indus that entirely flows in Pakistan and was mostly used to refer to the area that constitutes Pakistan, only expanding as time went by. It’s also an exonym, the natives of India never had any real endonym in wide usage because it was never a country nor were its people a nation.
2) ‘Hindu’ was historically a geographical identification for people living in India. It only became synonymous with a religion during the British colonial era. There was no religion known as Hinduism. For someone 500 years ago, calling someone a Hindu was the same as calling someone ‘Indian’.
This is how exonyms work. If I was the preeminent scholar living in my ancient era with 99% illiteracy around me, and I know about the continent of Africa and its inhabitants but don’t know much about their differences, me calling people living there ‘Afriqi’ does not mean that they are all part of one united country/civilization/polity and it definitely does not mean they are one nation, or follow one religion no matter what people 3000 years later construe my words to be.
People can be ‘Africans’ with some shared culture but also pretty distinct. The ‘we iz sem2sem’ guys are mostly ignorant people – usually diaspora looking for identity – or they simply have malicious intentions for trying to deintegrate distinct identities and cultures.
And India has adapted it and Indianised it very successfully .
these are uninformed blanket statement.
which non-Hindu minority?
Which other country in the world would happily host the largest minority sandwiched by two Muslim neighbours. India is rather exceptional in her tolerance.
Yes there are lapses (as there will be) but blanket statements help no one.
India is democratic because people in India want it to be democratic
I dont agree that democracy is something inherent to Indian civilization, as it is not inherent to any culture but cultures need to modify themselves and fight against feudalism and it’s diverse vestiges. India has done that and is democratic as a result
Even Athens was not democratic in the way we understand today because it lacked universal suffrage and legally normalized discrimination as was most people in the world, till the 19th century.
Excellent comment.
maybe write a post on this?
About what?
Completely unbelievable.
Pick a random person off the street in India and give him power and make him the monarch/maharaja/shehanshah of India with complete sovreignty and power.
Would he love to rule or would he decline the offer, give up all power and say he wants democracy for all? 99 out of 100 Indians will choose the former option, and I think everyone knows it.
Its actually rather believable. People want stable lives for their kids and their future generations rather than having their kids being the reason for their deaths. Your shehanshahs would often get to the throne by killing the rest of the granduncles, uncles, brothers and cousins. Instead of that violent mess that every Indian has seen and experienced which leads to pointless civil wars every few generations most prefer a peaceful transfer of power.
You clearly don’t have a kid.
My kid would curse me till the day I die if he ever found out that I had the opportunity to make him the crown prince of 1.5 billion people and I refused. The ultimate betrayal, very boomeristic.
I removed your last para; don’t make provocative comments on India and Indians.
Civilizations form and thrive because people come to see that the world is a better place when we move past looking after only those from our tribe. Different empires/civilizations have benefitted from exactly this. I’d argue even Islamic empires had their heyday when they learnt to look past tribal tendencies – something that was also perhaps compatible supposedly universal message of Islam. Modern Islamic nations are in decline (relatively) precisely because no one has had the courage to extend the tent to those outside the Islamic fold.
Before you accuse me of biases, India also has a miles to go before we move past tribal tendencies. The only difference is that the state recognizes the importance of treating everyone equally and tries (in its own flawed and often ineffective way) to move past that.
//People want stable lives for their kids and their future generations rather than having their kids being the reason for their deaths//
You mean to say that people will forego the chance of becoming a sovereign ruler of a country of billions – a king, in favor of remaining an NPC?
Nobody seriously believes this. Go to a crowded train station, throw out a stack of dollars in the air and see how the crowd fights to collect them. Perhaps, then reality might hit you.
Perhaps this kind of an attitude is the reason why your country’s leaders get blown up and shot so often.
There was a saying about the Somali; every one of them wanted to be Sultan.
Muslim polities do have this tendency, where everyone wants to be King.
It is fundamentally a tribal phenomenon, where there is a natural egalitarianism within the tribe (same kin descent).
https://ia601506.us.archive.org/27/items/WhyNationsFailTheOriginsODaronAcemoglu/Why-Nations-Fail_-The-Origins-o-Daron-Acemoglu.pdf
I had the fortune of learning under some of the best regarding the development of institutions which allowed our society to change and accommodate for technology. The states which showed that capacity prospered. So perhaps read a book like this and come to your own conclusions.
Otherwise be ready to chop your kids head off. It’s either you betray him or he betrays you in a monarchy.
So, why are you still abroad in a democracy no less, enjoying the fruits of capitalism? Clearly Pakistan is the ideal place for you based on all your talking points thus far.
I enjoy everything, fruits of capitalism, and the vegetables of communism. I thrive everywhere, all the time.
Droll
Lol. Can’t say the same for the women in your life, can you?
They all love me, so I am doing something right.
Women love successful, confident, intelligent guys.
https://www.indiatoday.in/world/story/cjp-protest-pakistan-news-dharmendra-pradhan-resignation-news-balochistan-news-pok-protests-2957230-2026-07-28
#Their unity was the biggest takeaway. It is a challenge in Pakistan as we are divided, Punjabis and Pashtuns, Sunnis and Shias. I don’t think Pakistan’s Gen Z can unite like this,” the student said.#
Another interesting point- women are much freer in India than Pakistan.
Young Gen-Zer girls joining in the protest in Pakistan would have been slut shamed alas..
India is a democracy. It claims to be the “largest democracy in the world”. Yet, protestors are tear-gassed and beaten up. Pellet guns were used– the same pellet guns that blinded protestors in Occupied Kashmir during the Burhan Wani uprising.
Pakistan is clearly a hybrid regime. Anyone who engages in anti-state or anti-Army activity should know what risks they are running. There will be no more repeats of May 9, 2023. No one gets to challenge the Pakistan Army. I’m not necessarily endorsing this but this is a reality. Forget about AJK. The PTI cannot protest in mainland Pakistan. Pak Fauj will throw ex-PMs into jail for life. What power does the average person have to rise up?
People can protest. But they need to stay within the lines. Any instance of anti-State or anti-Army rhetoric will cause the state to clamp down. This should be clear to everyone.
On the JAAC: most of their demands can be negotiated. The reserved seats are a constitutional matter and can only be resolved after the elections.
The bottom line is that AJK is contested territory. India clamps down on protests in Occupied Kashmir much more harshly than they clamp down on protests in Delhi. Similarly, Pakistan is not going to allow any sedition in AJK.
But you can imagine Pakistan isn’t pleasant to live in for someone who is not in the elite?
What country in South Asia is pleasant to live in for someone who is not well-off? It’s all a matter of degree.
In an ideal world, I think citizens should be free to protest nonviolently. Indian students shouldn’t be lathi-charged by police. People in AJK should not face the wrath of Pakistan’s law enforcement.
But Pakistan isn’t pretending to be democratic. There are clear red lines in this country: You raise your eyes against the Army and you will be made to pay. That’s how it is and everyone who is at all rational should factor that into their calculations.
Forget about the average citizen. Even the Prime Minister of Pakistan knows he serves at the pleasure of the Field Marshal/COAS. That’s why you don’t see Shahbaz Sharif going off-script.
Sri Lanka is very pleasant; Sbarrkum can attest
Not if you’re a Tamil.
Very pragmatic and realistic points.
Being a democracy does not mean that you let a unelected mob run riot and dictate things. The use of pellet gun is being investigated. There is a SCOTUS quip about “The constitution is not a suicide pact”
Your calling the students an “unelected mob” reveals exactly what Calvin has been talking about. The attitude of people on this site (who are mostly pro-BJP) towards young students pressing for change is condescending and derisive. This is not how democracies work.
In a Western democracy, students asking for the resignation of a minister would not have been beaten by police. Non-violent protest is a democratic right.
Those who are against CJP shouldn’t suddenly turn around and become pro-people when it comes to the JAAC in AJK.
Pakistan doesn’t even pretend to be democratic. We will shut down any anti-state activity with an iron fist. That’s how we choose to run our own country.
who is “we” Kabir?
The people running Pakistan. There’s no tolerance for anti-state activity.
India claims to be a democracy. So it will be judged by democratic standards.
Pakistan is a hybrid regime. There are clear red lines. No anti Army rhetoric is going to be tolerated.
Its ironic how the …chooran in Pakistan is so effective that the oppressed see themselves as part of the oppressors. And enthusiastically defend them.
You see the same sort of mentality in the MAGA supporters. Drumpf and his cronies are busy ripping them off – that Trump phone, the trump crypto coin – over and over. And yet, you see full-throated defense of Drumpf from his victims. Pakistan and its Military exhibit similar symptoms.
I’m not “oppressed”. I’m among the classes running Pakistan.
Many of my mother’s relatives have served in Pak Fauj–some in high positions. DGISPR and Chief of Air Staff being two of them.
I have removed RNJ’s comment – I don’t see the need in you being unnecessarily provoked.
The Calvin encounter has taught me a fair bit.
What is the Calvin encounter?
in the previous threads; you encountered a ton of flak for your views, which felt very unnecessary and personal
To be fair even I also got personal, though I never doubted anyone’s sincerity and tried my best not to link every opposing viewpoint to support of a party barring one
These things are par for the course, we won’t be discussing if we had similar viewpoints.
My only expectation is that arguments on this site stay on the site, no legal trouble or scorn if we happen to meet in real life please
yes good point should do a IRL meet-up one day..
This comment……says quite a lot more than the 2 lines it holds.
It’s called a conflict of interest.
Why? It’s simply factual information.
My mother comes from a very very pro-military family.
Like many Punjabi families, Pak Fauj was revered as an institution.
Many Indians love their army too.
The point is don’t call people “oppressed” if they don’t identify as such.
why was my comment comparing the so-called ‘Faujeet’ supporters of the PakMil kleptocracy to MAGA removed?
I’m trying to avoid a comment escalation but I see Kabir’s comment on “the Hindu case” started the balling rolling so to speak.
Let’s all collectively avoid inflaming the threads.
what was so escalatory or inflammatory about my comment?
Do you disagree that with the parallel I drew?
I’ve released all comments from deletion.
I will get annoyed with all if I wake up to a flame thread war.
Students were allowed to protest in designated Jantar Mantar place. Trouble started when they started march towards parliament. Even then police used the Minimum force necessary. The cases of pellet guns being used are being investigated under SC. Same is the case of known criminals who were caught attacking the cops.
This rhetoric just demonstrates Calvin’s point. There is a disdain for citizens protesting for their rights.
Again, this disdain for protestors is not seen in Western democracies.
LOL. Do you not remember how the George Floyd protestors were treated in Seattle/Portland? or how the Jan 6 protestors/rioters were dealt with legally, socially/economically in the aftermath?
The Jan 6 rioters attacked Congress. They were instigated by President Trump.
Not a good parallel with CJP. It’s a better parallel with what Imran Khan’s followers did on May 9, 2023.
LOL CJP literally attempted marching on to Parliament albeit they were not successful. Both West and PK share goal of downplaying democracy in India. Actually both west and PK are similar in how hard they crack down on any attack on their holy cows.
Point remains that India is much more lenient in what is allowed especially if you wrap yourself in some groups like students, farmers etc.
The Jan 6 rioters wanted to do a regime change and many were armed
The CJP protestors did not, were not armed and were put into the situation they were like the Delhi police so that they could be delegetimzed which did not work.
When was the last time pellet guns were used in Delhi against protestors?
Been too busy with work and just logging back for a bit to see what’s up.
The CJP protestors did not, were not armed and were put into the situation they were like the Delhi police so that they could be delegetimzed which did not work.
When was the last time pellet guns were used in Delhi against protestors?
This betrays a lack of practical experience in managing large crowds. Not that I claim to have it but 3 of my friends are IPS officers in MP, Uk and RJ and who know a bit about how this works. The march to Parliament seems to have caught the police by surprise and you cannot expect any Indian police to trust the intentions of any large crowd so close to the Parliament especially when we’ve had our friends from Pakistan attack that very place in the past. In such moments, the poorly equipped and trained force resorts to the tools it has. Indian police, across states, needs serious investments in training, manpower and equipment. They are very much in the colonial lathi-charge solves all problems state.
Fwiw, I was completely pro CJP protests as long as their demands were clear and specific i.e. removal of Pradhan as Edu Min, inquiry in to the leak and reform of NTA. I think they are overplaying their hand by stretching to demanding Shah’s resignation and that’s where I am now starting to believe some of the conspiracy theories about their leadership.
Now only if other classes of unheard peoples like the E20 swallowing urban class, the poorly equipped Army jawan and the GST terrorized small business could also do something like this. Unfortunately, this is a class that is heard less than any including the so called oppressed minorities.
As an aside, isn’t it striking that a blog on Indian subcontinent inevitably becomes about Indians defending their state/govt even when the post was about Pakistan state’s excess upon its own people. I must say our friends across the border know how to keep us on the defensive. Even at a time when their regime has mercilessly massacred their own people, Pakistani commentators preaching about democratic freedoms to Indians is an irony that is perhaps too obvious for the jaded commentariat to see for what it is – blind worship of a bloodthirsty regime driven purely out of ideological hatred for non-Muslims.
I agree Amit Shah’s resignation is a stretch and a half.
Yes it’s fine; the Pakistani antics are also getting to me as well.
But I guess it’s still ok to interrogate.
The govt should have spoken to the students and not put both the Delhi police and students in a situation where confrontation becomes inevitable so that they could delegetimize the protests which obviously did not work.
None of the CJP leaders are demanding Shah’s resignation as a demand but Rahul Gandhi is and many are at least expecting him to answer on who gave the order of firing pellet guns.
And why should Indian commentators defend their govt when it has done something wrong that it’s own later actions show it accepts? You cant exprct people to take your criticism on another govt seriously when you cant even criticize yours, this is despite the fact that none of the people on this site really care about the excesses of their state and are not ashamed about their support.
this is a very good comment.
And why should Indian commentators defend their govt when it has done something wrong that it’s own later actions show it accepts? You cant exprct people to take your criticism on another govt seriously when you cant even criticize yours, this is despite the fact that none of the people on this site really care about the excesses of their state and are not ashamed about their support.
I absolutely do not condone or defend all policies blindly because we have Pakistani brethren here. If you read my comment, I have called out other policies that deserve more scrutiny and criticism as well. My limited point was that discussions here inevitably devolve in to the Pakistani commentariat attacking Indian govt without realizing the hypocrisy of that action. I am all for criticism but I refuse to take it from our “enemies” because I don’t trust their motivations. If they really stood for the same principles, they would be fighting to solve their own country’s myriad issues first.
I personally couldn’t care less what policies the Pakistani state adopts towards its own people. My concerns with Pakistan begin and end at the safety and well being of India. My limited bugbear is with the false equivalence drawn between defenses of policies across states. Strongman politics in India still have to work within the framework of democracy and they continue to be accountable as the recent protests of shown. In an ideal world, we’d have much more accountability from our politicians but the Indian state already works under constraints of the scale and diversity that no other country compares with. Any equivalence with Pakistan, where a regime can brush off shooting 30 people dead within a week are intentionally malicious.
Marching to Parliament is not the same as attacking Congress. This is a bad analogy.
During the 2014 dharna, Imran Khan’s supporters actually attacked Pakistan’s Parliament.
Nowhere have I justified anyone attacking parliament etc but peaceful protest is a right in democratic countries.
This article was published in today’s DAWN:
” Why regime change won’t save free speech in Pakistan”
By Hassan Abdullah Niazi
https://www.dawn.com/news/2018717/why-regime-change-wont-save-free-speech-in-pakistan
“The writer is a lawyer based in Lahore. He holds an LL.M from New York University where he was a Hauser Global Scholar”
Incidentally, Imran Khan’s nephew is also named Hassan Niazi. For a moment, I was confused over who wrote this article.
I have been reflecting on your words re liberal arts.
It’s an interesting phenomenon when you lessen your presence in BP; the shift rightward becomes acute.
Calvin basically becomes “public enemy #1” even though so much of what he says makes a ton of sense.
This is an attested phenomenon; left wing secular movements create something (a nation or a revolution) for it then to be *very* rightwing.
I think this reflects the ideological orientation of the Commentariat. I refer to them as “soft Hindutva”. At the very least, it’s clear most are pro-BJP.
There is no one here who represents the center-left (let’s say Indian National Congress as a shorthand) except for perhaps Calvin. Similarly, there aren’t members of religious minorities (except for Calvin).
It’s very easy to paper over internal differences in the presence of an external enemy. When it comes to Pakistan, I don’t think Congress and BJP are actually all that different. Similarly, most Pakistanis dislike India–doesn’t matter what their domestic political orientation is.
When the external enemy is not present, the internal differences become much more salient.
Yes it’s sad that this is the state of affairs; at least the high minded should be towards peace, not war, in both countries..
The problem is that rage is easily externalised.
You would think the BJP class(neither right-wing or hindu nationalist really capture what they are imo) would be more cautious about regional instability and its impact on economic growth. The venting of aggression towards Pakistan is therapy more than intent. It comes from exasperation.
therapy indeed. power for the sake of power becomes attractive after a while regardless of ideology.
I wonder how Israelis live everyday. War is either imposed on them either by their state or opponents.
With shia bases in Iraq now active, war in Middle East will be almost permanent.
The shia with a religious sanction of endless martyrdom can tolerate this for some more time.
Calvin is very good at pointing out the flaws (correctly) of the current dispensation. However, his proximity to the opposing ideology inhibits him from being an unbiased reviewer of the I.N.D.I.A alliance.
An impartial observer should be agnostic to both.
I dont think I have ever reallt praised the INDIA alliance.
It is natural that the ruling party would be more spoken about because of the outsized role they play.
If the discussion would ever veer off to let’s say congress in Karnataka, my environmental criticism of the Yettinahole project, the proposed Mekedantu dam and others like the Shravasthi project would be no different than anything I say about the Nicobar project.
Not to mention I also believe that increasing more buses, and expediting the metro is leagues better than the tunnel project where I really, reallt hope that their tunneling does not destroy the 3 billion year old rock in Lalbag.
I am personally happy Mamta is done for, she was always a liability than an asset and I look forward to all the people in her party losing their next elections.
Stains son should really keep his mouth shut. The only thing I have said positively about RG is that he is no longer the pappus he was in 2014.
The only party I really like from Bihar is the Jan Suraj party. AAP also is a proof that one cant reform the system from the inside.
The only exception whete I have beem openly partisan is pushing back against the negative characterizations of the CJP, mainly because not only are those bunkum but also I personally believe that if this kind of thoughts that treat your fellow citizens with hostility on purpose are not called out I may one day find myself in a situation where someones boot is on my neck due to me having said something against their favorite party with others cheering.
Trust me you’ll start to dislike Jan Suraj if they ever come to power as well. AAP was always going to fail considering how they were the original washing machine for unaffiliated and congress politicians.
Let us see how they are when they come in, if they go at the way they are now, it will easily be maybe 10 years before they have a shot.
India and Bihar in particular maybe a very different place by then.
The Jan Suraaj guy declared assets worth INR 290 crores! He knows the potential 🙂
Unfortunately you need crores to contest election
It is a feature of our electoral system.
I do agree with you on environmental concerns. Unfortunately the Green Tribunal is also easily “influenced ” as any other government organization in the country.
We must however be mindful that the Nicobar Port is of both strategic and economic importance to us, given that it is 40 nautical miles from the Strait of Malacca. The Chinese strategy of String of Pearls to encircle India cannot prove successful if we have a militarized outpost at Nicobar. Yes, environmental concerns should be addressed no doubt, but they will have to be balanced with importance being given to national security over all other.
RaGa is a misfit. I sincerely hope he never comes anywhere close to the PM’s chair ever. Instead of fixating on the worn scions of the NG dynasty, the INC should really look to reform itself. There’s a very obvious Centre-left space that is glaring empty right now.
Agree on Mamata and Stalin+son, the less said the better.
The CJP worries me, its like a born again AAP but with even less of a genuine agenda and credibility than the AAP. People should be very careful what they wish for. Foreign funding tentacles invisible as they may be, don’t pass the smell test imo.
//We must however be mindful that the Nicobar Port is of both strategic and economic importance to us, given that it is 40 nautical miles from the Strait of Malacca. The Chinese strategy of String of Pearls to encircle India cannot prove successful if we have a militarized outpost at Nicobar. Yes, environmental concerns should be addressed no doubt, but they will have to be balanced with importance being given to national security over all other.//
This is what I am saying the strategic interest only justifies the port and military base. It is not a justification for the tourism project that is bundled along with it. If anything having so many of our rich and powerful people near a geopolitical Flashpoint is not beneficial in any way.
The NGT is actually much more pro development than you give it credit for. It did not oppose this Nicobar project and there are multiple other transport infrastructure and dam projects despite the ecological harm it knows they wil do.
Most of the environmentalists who care about our country are not acting out of malice. Many times the projects being proposed are badly designed and not worth the environmental degradation. Case in point the Yettinahole drinking water project, thst even scientists from the IISC doubt will generate the water expected and has led to landslides in the project area plus reduced drinking water as aquifers are destroyed that produce water people drink. Something the NGT okayed BTW.
The CJP does not seem to be going towards politics and I hope they dont. There is no proof of foreign funding in the CJP protests the home ministry would have exposed that by now after 2 months if there were
+1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-yjZQZmlnso
without comments. interesting video
https://x.com/sushantsareen/status/2082032096890249219
Looks tragic…
This op-ed was published in DAWN today:
“South Asia’s Gen Z moment”
By Zahid Hussain
https://www.dawn.com/news/2019178
https://www.firstpost.com/opinion/from-balochistan-to-pok-pakistan-is-drifting-towards-punjabistan-14034856.html/amp
##Pakistan has long imagined itself as the homeland of Muslims and a citadel of Islam. In practice, however, it could not go beyond being the nation of Punjabis. If these trends continue, Pakistan may end up becoming what it always believed itself to be — Punjabistan.##
the question is why would Punjabistan give up anything.
also the peripheral ethnicities are VERY religious.
The Kashmiri activitists (who wanted a free P.A.K) were all irreligious and secular
many movements start as secular. The current baluchi movement is supposed to be secular and led by educated middle class.
Even the khan abdul gaffar khan’s party was secular.
The separatists is Srinagar were labelled as secular.
When secularism fails to get the goals, religious guys kickin.
the right takes over after the secular parties succeed..