Does Brahmin arrive with too much luggage, orthodoxy, superstition, the Bollywood stereotype, for any euphemism to survive it?
Perhaps. But the term has travelled before. In 1860 Oliver Wendell Holmes borrowed it for “the Brahmin caste of New England,” christening what became known as the Boston Brahmin: an untitled Protestant aristocracy, not a sacred thread in sight.
I want to repatriate the word because it illuminates two arguments that at first seem unrelated: who enters India’s apex elite, and who is permitted to belong to India without proving it.
The old metropolitan order administered admission quietly: assimilation, presentation, marriage. The new Hindu order increasingly administers national belonging aloud: Jai Hind, Vande Mataram, the flag, Bharat Mata ki Jai. The first produced the Lutyens Brahmin. This harder question for the Indian Muslim: is the new loyalty test merely explicit where the old one was hidden, or has belonging itself been repriced?
As Agni pointed out, the Brahmin I mean is the Brahmin of Boston: an apex caste defined by class, not gotra. A Shudra can join it. An OBC can. A Muslim can. In India it has its L.A.B. chapters, Lutyens, Academic, Bollywood, each commanding a sector and recruiting on much the same terms: assimilation, presentation, marriage. The furore over nepotism in Bollywood was, in part, a quarrel over precisely this caste; further reading includes The Bollywood caste, Bollywood, Brahmins, Parsis & WASPs, The Rise of the Quarter-breeds in Bollywood.
The Persistence of Elites
Marriage is the pump of elite reproduction. Talent and beauty marry up, status marries status, and caste reproduces itself as class while insisting it no longer exists.
Gregory Clark measured the persistence. In The Son Also Rises he followed surnames as a geologist follows isotopes: Norman names such as Darcy, Percy and Mandeville remaining disproportionately represented at Oxford and Cambridge centuries after Hastings; samurai surnames persisting in Japan’s professions after the stipends disappeared; and, nearest to home, Kulin Brahmin surnames, Mukherjee, Banerjee, Chatterjee, remaining disproportionately represented among Calcutta’s physicians through Permanent Settlement, Partition and the Left Front.
Clark’s persistence coefficient is around 0.75 per generation, and the scandal is how little institutions seem to move it. Sweden, with free universities and the Folkhemmet, produces surprisingly similar persistence. Regimes redistribute income. They barely dent descent.
Democracy, it turns out, demands hierarchy much as a republic demands an aristocracy; the constitutional question is only ever whether the aristocracy is named. I made the case last week for restoring it.
The Rivalry of Cousins
The suave metropolitan and the provincial forward caste are therefore related, but they do not occupy the same position.
Reservations are not a conspiracy; they are part of the settlement by which a dominant order keeps the wider society invested in the system. But the price is not paid evenly. The metropolitan elite possesses exit options, foreign education, private institutions, lateral re-entry, that can route its richest children around the most contested bottlenecks. The provincial cousin more often meets the system at the counter. What stabilises the bargain below can therefore radicalise the near-rival beside.
That is why kith and kin matters. Wars between strangers are merely wars; it takes cousins to make one civil. And it suggests an answer to the question the earlier piece left hanging: why might the drawing room admit the socially distant aspirant more readily than the provincial cousin?
Because distance is the safety. The Shudra or Muslim son-in-law stands, call it three or four generations of intermarriage, from the full elite vector; he is a client for a generation, grateful, dependent, an ornament to the letterhead. The Kanyakubja cousin with the right surname and the right presentation could complete the journey in a single season, which makes him not a recruit but a rival. The distant recruit can be assimilated. The near-rival must be displaced.
The drawing room welcomes grateful converts more easily than clunky cousins.
The Scribes
DP is apparently a Karana, a scribal caste (h/t formerly brown), and the quarrel between scribes and priests over the pen is old. In the Gangetic plain the Kayasthas supplied one great scribal tradition; in much of the south Brahmins themselves filled administrative and clerical roles.
The Raj accelerated a merger. As English displaced Persian at the commanding heights of administration, those who mastered the new language of rule, Brahmin, Kayastha, Karana, bhadralok of whatever thread, were increasingly compounded into an apex caste of the pen. The Indian Boston Brahmin is an heir to that merger.
The Complexion of the Elite
This is why counting literal Brahmins misses the point. Indosaurus’s numbers are all presumably correct, three Brahmin chief ministers in thirty-one, Parsi houses atop the business tables, the country’s most powerful politician an OBC, and every one of them is central to the argument rather than fatal to it.
The Boston Brahmin need not stand for election. He may be the other man doing the counting.
Nor are the great Parsi houses counterexamples. Nothing in India is more Boston than a Tata: institutions, philanthropy, English, club, permanence. And Modi’s rise is the civil war’s scoreboard: the provincial revolt captured the ballot while much of the old apex caste retained the drawing room.
The Price of Entry
The private sector matters because it is one of the great remaining mechanisms of elite reproduction. For a country aspiring to sustained double-digit growth, the question is not simply how wealth is divided but whether wealth compounds outward, into productivity, health, capability and prosperity, or pools behind barriers to entry.
Monopoly is capitalism after competition has been switched off. In a genuinely contested market, the Ambanis might be worth less and India more. The fortune and the moat are not the same asset; it is the moat that imposes the social cost. The aristocracy question and the antitrust question are therefore versions of the same question: who may enter, and at what price?
The Muslims of India
The provincial revolt that challenged the old drawing room did not abolish admissions. It opened another admissions office. The Lutyens Brahmin tracked entry silently: assimilation, presentation, marriage. The shakha increasingly determines who actually belongs out loud.
The old Muslim loyalty test was Partition; hereditary, silent and impossible to discharge. It asked what your grandfather’s community chose in 1947, a question no living citizen can answer for himself. No patriotic recitation cleared it; no conduct fully amortised it. That was the Grundnorm in the strict sense: beneath the formal rules and therefore difficult even to contest.
The new exam differs in one important respect. It is spoken. And because it is spoken, it can be passed. or failed.
How to Pass
Jai Hind. Vande Mataram. Respect for the flag. Bharat Mata ki Jai. For better or worse, and I mean both halves, these increasingly function as tests of national belonging. The old test asked whether you left or stayed circa 1947 and could never be satisfied. The new one asks what you will say today, in public, on your feet. That distinction is not trivial.
The Two-Stanza Compromise
Vande Mataram itself records an earlier attempt to price the test fairly. In 1937 the Congress Working Committee, after consultation including Tagore, restricted official use to the first two stanzas; retaining the land, waters and orchards while avoiding the later identification of the Mother with the goddess. The point was precisely to make a national song singable by a Muslim citizen without requiring idolatry.
At the height of the national movement, the movement adjusted the test to fit the citizen. The present dispensation risks reversing the polarity. Bharat Mata ki Jai restores the personified Mother that the earlier compromise had deliberately bracketed. The old question therefore returns: does the citizen stretch to fit the test, or does the Republic adjust the test so that theological conscience and national loyalty need not collide?
The Map of Exemptions
Every loyalty test has exemptions, and the exemptions reveal where power lies. The Sikh case is the clearest. The Jat Sikh defines his Indianness with a confidence furnished by land, Khalsa, military history and Punjab itself. The farmers’ agitation demonstrated the practical limits of a hegemon confronting a mobilised regional identity on terrain it cannot easily dominate. The litmus test is not administered in Amritsar.
Tamil Nadu supplies the other great counterexample. Dravidianism is a rival grammar of belonging old enough to print its own papers. Vijay took power while explicitly naming the BJP as an ideological opponent and invoking Anna and Periyar. Where the regional grammar is strong enough, the national litmus test simply fails to become the dominant currency; it is not administered in Madurai either.
The Bengal Demonstration
Bengal is the opposite case. The BJP took 207 of the state’s 294 seats this May, ending fifteen years of Trinamool rule amid turnout above ninety-three per cent, with Suvendu Adhikari taking Bhabanipur; Mamata Banerjee’s own seat.
The significance exceeds one election. Hindutva has demonstrated to enormous numbers of Hindus that religious identity can be politically consolidated and, once consolidated, can govern. That may prove one of the era’s largest legacies. The loyalty tests are its civic liturgy.
Filing for Antecedents
The result produces a stranger prediction: minorities may increasingly discover that Hindu antecedence carries value not merely as social genealogy but as collateral against anti-nationalism.
The genealogy itself is old. Syrian Christians have long preserved traditions of Namboodiri descent; Muslim Rajputs retained Rajput identities after conversion. Those claims historically purchased lineage, locality or status.
The new value is political. A Hindu antecedent can increasingly function as evidence that conversion did not constitute civilizational departure.
Christians are well positioned for this almost without trying: Hindu names, local forms of shrine and devotion, deep vernacular embedding, and a religious affiliation tied to the same Western world with which the Indian state itself seeks strategic intimacy.
Neo-Buddhists possess a different but adjacent case. Ambedkar’s conversion was an intra-Indian revolt carried out in constitutional language. Nobody can plausibly mistake Navayana for foreign civilizational allegiance.
Citizens or Converts
And then comes the community for whom the price is highest. Indian Muslims stand apart, proudly, in theology and self-understanding. Tawhid does not sing naturally to a personified Mother, and a community with any dignity cannot be expected to manufacture antecedents or devotional gestures on command.
The supposedly passable audit is therefore not equally priced: what it prices at a shrug for the Christian and a footnote for the Buddhist, it prices at a theological negotiation for the Muslim. It is the negotiation of 1937 reopened, except that the Saffron side now holds the gavel.
Whether the new dispensation accepts something analogous to the two-stanza compromise, or instead demands the whole hymn, is therefore one of the most revealing questions in Indian public life.
I do not claim that the spoken test is fair. I claim that it is spoken and I reflexively follow it (Calvin is given free hand because he is Calvin not Kaleem; DP is a Kayasth not a Sayyid). And what is spoken can be answered, contested, repriced; and, as 1937 demonstrated, amended.
It may even become the Republic’s next constitution of manners: drafted not in Delhi alone, but in the arguments Indians, who form the dominant core of the Indian Subcontinent (with its constituent 7-10 nations), have about who belongs and what belonging requires.
Interesting analysis.
The concept of caste so to speak has evolved in India. It might just be moving towards what it was meant to be all along; choice of profession cannot and should not be determined by jati, but by inclination.
The sidelining of the Nehruvian LeLi elite, has allowed the formation of a new elite on their terms and definitions. If the BJP were to consolidate its rule over most of the Indian States and the Centre, this new elite will dictate as you point out the entry rules for any newcomers into the elite club.
Where does the aspiring middle class fit into this I wonder? With three generations and an appetite for risk taking, many youngsters are experiencing a lifestyle that was alien to their grandparents or indeed parents. They may not seek to enter the political elite, but with the AAP and now the CJP, it seems like this class too might harbour political ambitions to better their lot.
All elites, regardless of their ideology, devolve to pragmatic ways (owing to pleasure seeking and power seeking).
Political analysis (and revolutions, coups & reforms) isn’t about the actual structure of society but what is the nature of the Elite and who constitutes it.
Its interesting the only really inscrutable society is China since its walled itself off from the English language, the Great Cyberwall.
So the Communist party is a different phenomenon altogether.
Elites will always monopolise and control access to whatever is scarce, even in an age of abundance. The masses never rise up; it is disaffected sub-elites who do so.
This is exactly the story of the BJP in a way.
Yes, true. The Great CyberWall of China has ensured that we don’t know the social churning there nor do the Chinese know much about the internal churning in other societies.
An organic replacement of Elites is a good thing. Elite capture shouldn’t last beyond 3-4 generations. A sub-elite rises from the layer just below the current elite, so a cyclical resampling might ensure a healthy reshuffling.
The masses won’t revolt unless it comes to something absolutely existential imo. Indians are way too tolerant of many things.
Also, given that the other religious minorities have assimilated into the great Indic project, how many generations will it be for the IM or the IC (to a lesser extent) to integrate like the rest?
The Bohras and Shias generally are already there imo. Whether the rest will follow them or resist is the question.
LeLi Brahmins is a better name .. Layli means doll in Persian.
I dont the vast majority of Indian muslims and christians would ever sanskritize, but they are already part of Indian culture but just pick up and follow cultural trends that are non sanskritic in nature.
Thank you for confirming why Hindus are sceptical of IMs or ICs ever wanting to belong fully to India. You don’t get to cherry pick aspects of the nation state if you belong. Clearly religion is more important than actual kinship with Hindus.
Sanskritization: The process by which lower castes mimic the cultural sensibilities of the upper castes around them.
For IMs and ICs this will mean reinterpreting their theology and tradition to suit the sensibilities of sanskritic hindu upper caste around them, that not only can mean worshipping multiple deities but also putting tenets of the preferred philosophical school of the day over their own religions philosophies in case of any disagreement. The constitution which is the only agreement of citizenship we all need to abide by does not give anyones culture this kind of privilege so there is no basis for your statement to say IMs and ICs dont want kinship with their hindu neighbours.
It is highly likely you are making a caricature in your head to justify your suspicion of IMs and ICs so I please clarify
If you actually care about having a discussion, please answer the following:
1) What do you think sanskritization means?
2) What aspects of culture are IMs and ICs not engaging witb to make you think they dont want to maintain cultural ties with hindus or dont want to be part of this nation?
3) Why do you think your understanding of culture is something people need to accept without any exceptions and are you sure your understanding is also not something that is being made after picking and choosing?
If you as usual try to attack my character instead of clarifying further you are just doing a disservice to yourself and basically opening yourself up to being accused of disqualifying IMs and ICs because they dont want to reinterpret their own religion to suit your sensibilities
On this question of Sanskritization (retaining your original way of life): I think its a very fair question posed by you and there is sufficient background to justify this.
When Vasco Da Gama, reached India he realized that Christianity was already being practised here. He wrote back to his masters in Portugal saying these heathen are practising a version of our faith that is absolutely blasphemous. The religion had been adapted by the locals to their culture. He wanted to undo that completely. He stated that wither we force them to follow our way or we exterminate them. Incidentally, he also realized that some jews had escaped to India and were living peacefully. He actually had jews abducted and sent back for execution. He inflicted proper violence on the Christians who didnt change their way of life.
This is similar to what Khilji did to the Muslims. He didn’t think of them as proper Muslims and slaughtered at will.
Any form of Indianization was anathema to the invaders.
In fact Ambedkar himself highlighted this very same issue. Dr. B.R. Ambedkar’s 1940 book, Pakistan or the Partition of India: These Burkha-clad women walking in the streets is one of the most hideous sights one can witness in India. Muslims have all the social evils of Hindus and something more, the practise of compulsory purdah”.
He further says in this book ( paraphrasing ): Today they still look like you and are culturally similar to you but give it some time and they will be nothing like you. He knew the end result.
+10
Thank you for elaborating on this.
Yes elite replacement ordinarily happens over 200-300 or virtually never..
//The Great CyberWall of China has ensured that we don’t know the social churning there nor do the Chinese know much about the internal churning in other societies.//
The cyberwall does not keep outsiders out, anyone who knows chines can go and see what is being discussed on Baidu.
Many chinese do have vpns and those who are interested can reach out and see what is happening, they are quite aware of what is happening in the world, much more than we may know what is happening in their society.
I think you should avoid using phrases like Boston Brahmin or brahminism, since many people here have different understanding of these words and seem to constantly be on the lookout for caricatures they can link opposing arguments to, for easy dismissal.
//And Modi’s rise is the civil war’s scoreboard: the provincial revolt captured the ballot while much of the old apex caste retained the drawing room.//
As I have mentioned previously, you are overestimating the barriers between the rural and urban forward castes( FCs) and the provincial revolt is led by the OBC and SC, rather than the FC in rural areas, and the conflict between the FCs as a whole and the communities historicaly outside of power is what will drive the politics for the next few decades, not this inter cousin rivalry, who are not really rivals, and among whom dominance of one benefits everyone in the group no matter whether they are rural or urban.
//Christians are well positioned for this almost without trying: Hindu names, local forms of shrine and devotion, deep vernacular embedding, and a religious affiliation tied to the same Western world with which the Indian state itself seeks strategic intimacy.//
I dont think inculturation will help christians avoid any accusations of being anti national, in the first place, determining nationalism by willingness to say a slogan or a few verses of a song is foolhardy, but the fact is that the people who make these kinds of demands, have a reflexive suspicion to everyone who opposes them, even those of their same religion. The thing is when you begin with the assumption that those who dont think like you are your enemies you will only find enemies everywhere, and then how inculturated you are or whether you are kith and kin wont matter as that was not a criteria to begin with.
//I do not claim that the spoken test is fair. I claim that it is spoken and I reflexively follow it (Calvin is given free hand because he is Calvin not Kaleem; DP is a Kayasth not a Sayyid). And what is spoken can be answered, contested, repriced; and, as 1937 demonstrated, amended.//
I request you to reflect and reconsider this, no Indian muslim will want to contribute to blog where the owner of it is suspicious of any criticism that may be levelled at the arguments present here as some proof of anti nationalism, you cant say you want to get ahead of crescentiate and saffroniate fights on one hand while also legitmizing relfexive suspicion for any criticism an Indian muslim can make on the other, especially because the majority of Indian muslims are descended from people who did not even have a choice to vote for partition, this is a very unfair burden to put on people who in all likelihood did are descended from those who did not have a choice in the matter at all.
those are good points Calvin- but then Indian Christians didn’t partition India.
The North East is significantly Christian (as far as I know).
ur points on OBC – SC are very good.
//those are good points Calvin- but then Indian Christians didn’t partition India.//
neither did the majority of Indian muslims, how in the world are pasmanda muslims who did not have an opportunity to vote for partition, who were mostly uneducated and illiterate to blame for partitition it is one thing to ask if an ashraf muslims grandparents opposed partition or not, but we cant in good faith say pasmanda muslims should be blamed for partition. I dont know if you are aware but the Jamat-e-islami was an opponent of partition, in states like hyderabad they were on the opposing side of the razakars to convince the Nizam to negotiate with the Indian govt for integration of hyderbad. Taking this very simplistic narrative is obfucating much complexity.
Many northeast indian states had insurgencies for decades,they tried and failed to partition India there, even if tribal identity was the main driving force and many hindu communities like the ahoms and bodos, were also involved with insurgencies like the nagas, kukis and others, by the logic exposited above, any discussion by future prospective writers on militancy and what has been done by both army and insurgents should also be seen with suspicion.
these are good points but Muslims did vote overwhelming for partition and are led by their cultural elites.
It’s not a problem at all but then I feel Vande Mataram is a good bellwether about their loyalty feeling.
so if you were Kalim; I’d want to know your thoughts on VM and whether you would recite a hymn to the Mother Goddess.
fair is fair; India is “Hindu + friends” nation..
//these are good points but Muslims did vote overwhelming for partition and are led by their cultural elites.//
An article on this very site, estimated that most 40% were eligible to vote. And given that in many places the motion won with only 50% of the active voters participating to begin with. How overwhelming the support for partition was among the muslims in pre 1947 is debatable
And being visible is not the same as being a cultural elite. An organization like the Jamat-e-Islami opposed partition and that is what the majority of pasmanda muslims follow. So if anything the dominant cultural mileau among Indian muslims is anti partition. By the very standard you are setting either am ancestor who supported partition or being allied with the people who supported it, Indian muslims fail on both these. This is just being unfair for the sake of being unfair.
//It’s not a problem at all but then I feel ****** ********* is a good bellwether about their loyalty feeling.//
Many of the non Muslims who get honey trapped by pakistan, who steal money from public banks and who destroy the environment gladly say the slogan and sing however many stanzas with bad diction, it does not stop them from going against the nation. This whole association with saying some words and love for your country is built on quicksand.
//so if you were Kalim; I’d want to know your thoughts on VM and whether you would recite a hymn to the Mother Goddess.
fair is fair; India is “Hindu + friends” nation..//
If I was a muslim I would say the following:
1) It is only becauee some religious muslim who very easily say Jai Hind have reservations about other slogans and songs that this is an issue.
2) Many Muslims do say these words because the people who try to force others to say it, are not worth engaging with.
3) The reason they are not worth engaging is their silence and cowardice against those who say the right words but do everything against them, I have given some example above.
4) Linking nationalism to whether you say a slogan serves neither, it only allows mobs to get an excuse to target others while people like I described above get away Scot free.
I need you to comment more on this thread since you tend to be the “comment generator” haha
People need to engage. I cant do anything on my own
True that- I think Brahmins be high discriminated is a bit like white people being discriminated.
For the affluent white people; white privilege
Means they can do very very well but it hurts the working class kin.
Same with the UCs in India.
it’s quite funny if a post of mine doesn’t get the “popular” tag (reach past 50 comments) then I sort of stay the writing..
so it allows each post to marinate to the fullest possible extent.
In the spirit of engaging, I agree with Calvin that loyalty tests are not justified.
Indian Muslims are Indian citizens whose ancestors chose to stay on in India in 1947 and not migrate to Pakistan. It’s been 79 years. I think holding people accountable for choices their grandparents made 80 years ago doesn’t make a lot of sense.
Requiring people to chant particular slogans to prove their loyalty is not something that is done in any democratic state. Also, if people are required to chant certain slogans, how do you determine if they really mean what they are chanting or if they are going through the motions? You cannot police someone’s thoughts.
If Indian Muslims have to sing “Vande Mataram” which is arguably against their religion then on what basis would you object to Pakistani non-Muslims being made to chant “Allah ho Akbar” or “Naara-e-Takbeer”?
I think Pakistani non-Muslims should say “Pakistan Zindabad” which is a completely non-religious slogan. Similarly Indian Muslims can say “Jai Hind” which is again a patriotic slogan. In a secular state, there should no compulsion to do something which you are religiously opposed to.
I missed you Kabir. I missed your unique ability to express 2 (in this instance many) conflicting ideas in 1 comment with no qualms whatsoever.
Unfortunately I haven’t missed running into a brick wall explaining myself, but happily there’s always chatGPT with endless patience.
Where have I been inconsistent?
I clearly said I don’t believe that anyone should be made to chant religious slogans–either in India or in Pakistan.
Citizenship is not based on loyalty tests but on birth (in most countries).
In any case, you were not part of the conversation on this thread so there’s really no need for you to be passive aggressive with me.
No aggression, passive or otherwise. There are multiple inconsistencies. Just the first line ….
Indian Muslims are Indian citizens whose ancestors chose to stay on in India in 1947 and not migrate to Pakistan. It’s been 79 years. I think holding people accountable for choices their grandparents made 80 years ago doesn’t make a lot of sense.
If they choose to stay on in India, why are they being held ‘accountable’ for this choice? Choosing to stay implies loyalty, in which case they would want to be judged by their ancestors choice.
Was it a choice? This implies they were rich enough to move, many weren’t.
There is so much to unpack. Like I said, I missed your mad brain.
i would go as far as to say that the idea that Indian muslims who stayed in 1947 implicitly signed a “social contract” agreeing to unconditional state allegiance misunderstands how rights of origin work. Their right to their homeland is pre-political and based on the principle of autochthony and deep lineage long preceding the modern republic.
That the elite of this group endorsed the creation of a muslim-majority successor state (via election) with no intention of ever migrating to it, is a fair reason to be skeptical of their political instincts.though.
Great comment. There’s the further complexity that while they were voting by religion like Indians normally do, how aware was a muslim voter that a vote for the muslim league was a vote for partition (even though they campaigned on it). There wasn’t universal suffrage and the vote was held only in areas under direct rule. Someone estimated the actual voting populace who remained to be well under 10%.
All these complexities are just dross, the meat is in the original comment. And every new comment adds more. No wonder Kabir is so integral to this site.
Citizenship is not based on loyalty tests but on birth (in most countries)
Except every country administers a loyalty test when joining as an adult. You can lie on this, but the test is an integral part of the procedure.
A) We are not talking about people acquiring foreign citizenship. We are talking about Muslims who are born Indian citizens. So why are you conflating two different things?
B) While countries do administer loyalty tests to naturalized citizens those tests are usually not based on religion. If I am asked to pledge allegiance to the United States that doesn’t mean going against Islam.
Singing a song to a mother goddess is arguably un-Islamic. It is a core tenet of Islam that we do not believe in an entity other than Allah.
I gave you the example of Pakistani Hindus being asked to say “Allah ho Akbar” as a loyalty test. I presume you would object to this. If so, then it is only consistent that you don’t make Indian Muslims recite slogans to mother goddesses.
That’s rather tame in comparison to the actual state of minorities in Pakistan. Many are subjected to a state of effective apartheid. I remember rather clearly how cleaning of sewers is a job reserved for Christians.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/04/world/asia/pakistan-christians-sweepers.html
Oh boy! “Apartheid” again– This is standard anti-Pakistan rhetoric on this site.
Here’s an editorial from yesterday’s DAWN. August 11 is the anniversary of the Quaid’s “You are free to go to your temples” speech.
https://www.dawn.com/news/2022087
My point is only that if you object to Pakistani non-Muslims being made to chant “Allah ho Akbar” it is only consistent to object to Indian Muslims being made to sing hymns to mother goddesses.
This is the liberal position. Citizens of a secular state should not be asked to chant slogans that they feel go against their religion.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-66525150
I think you’re ideals are falling short by a lot. People can’t go to their churches cause they keep getting burned down based on fears of blasphemy.
ADMIN NOTE:
Request to all. Heated arguments usually lead the way to flame wars, so keep the discussion civil please.
We’ve avoided flame wars for awhile now, Admin would like to keep it that way.
Thank you all for your understanding.
Thank you
Maybe read the editorial.
Where have I ever defended burning churches?
The founding principle of Pakistan is based on religion based segregation. There are laws preventing non-muslims from being elected to high office. That is essentially what the definition of apartheid is.
Defending the “TNT” is essentially regressive segregationism.
The “founding principle” of Pakistan was that the Muslims of British India (a colony and not a nation-state) didn’t want to live under the rule of a Hindu majority.
Hindus wouldn’t have wanted to live under the rule of a Muslim majority either.
Anyway, we are talking about burning churches. When have I ever defended that?
I have actually written about the blasphemy law here
https://kabiraltaf.substack.com/p/the-assassination-of-salman-tasee
Maybe read the DAWN editorial. You will probably find that there isn’t very much in it that you disagree with.
@XTM has said that using the word “apartheid” in the case of Pakistan is not justified. But you do you.
very good comment; I always remember your comment about the new caste-class of India, where belonging to the same club is as important. wish we could dig that out
the elite did migrate to Pakistan. The UP salaries departed en masse
I guess it depends on which elite. The bureaucrats migrated en masse, perhaps because of the way it was facilitated. The partition board essentially conducted their relocation as a transfer. I wouldn’t say a raw majority of the muslim intelligentsia migrated outside of united provinces. As for the feudal elite, they mostly stayed but have split families.
The same elite whose opinions are being given so much weight did not give most of the Muslims chance to vote in the first place, should tell you all that one needs to know about how similar they were.
The government of india act of 1935, which defined the criteria for adult franchise, was devised by the british parliament.
Most people in india did not vote till the first general election.
An article on this very site only estimated that 60% of muslims in India wellness eligible to vote to begin with.
Its crazy how much weight is being put into a fundamentally non representative election.
This is passive aggression. Don’t do this again. I don’t take kindly to passive aggression or condescension.
And then you wonder why I was reluctant to accept your “olive branch”. Well, it’s been barely a week and you couldn’t help yourself.
Except, you insisted on overtly rejecting my powdered bouquet of friendship.
And have perfectly proved my point by ignoring all the inconsistencies and focusing on wall building.
I think i might be upset if you actually became unpredictable. It’s a genuine emotion, but also crosses your passive aggression lakshman rekha.
😀
I don’t trust you. You have a history of being incredibly nasty to me.
Repeatedly calling someone a “hypocrite” is disrespectful.
I will never tolerate people being disrespectful to me.
Let’s leave it there.
Which is why i tried very hard to call them inconsistencies and even refrained from pointing them out by asking you to use chatGPT instead.
You’re always going to find some dirt in an immaculate room, barring which you can complain of the sterility.
Asking me to “use chatGPT” is condescending. Condescension is to be avoided per XTM’s new standards of “courtesy” and “politeness”.
I don’t want to litigate this here but there are very good reasons for me not to trust you one bit.
That’s the context.
there’s no way to ask you to calm down and take it positively without sounding condescending or passive aggressive. It puts me in a very unsolvable dilemma.
I think you know what passive aggression is.
Asking someone to “use chatGPT” clearly falls under that category.
As for “expressions of love”– I don’t trust these at all. And our history suggests that I am right in doing so.
Anyway, I’m not interested in litigating this further.
Suffice it to say, I come from a background where I am used to being spoken to with the utmost respect at all times. And I don’t appreciate your sense of humor.
Tu jaanta nahi main kaun hoon Counter ++
Don’t start with me.
I don’t tolerate disrespect.
Or friendship either apparently. In my childhood people warned me that Kaliyug would be like this. You’re slowly turning me into a believer.
Friendship requires trust.
I don’t trust you.
Let’s leave it at that.
I’ve been getting very fat nowadays, giving up the lean and hungry untrustworthy look. People change Kabir.
this is excellent banter..
Haha, who says Shakespeare isn’t useful in life.
Sweets with sweets war not, joy delights in joy.
Damn. I just realised my sweetness and joy comment was axed out.
Requesting that we stay calm please.
What would Gandhiji do? This has been my watchword nowadays.
Watchphrase? Watchabbreviation?
Watch what I say….
Hmm these exchanges are very uncharacteristic of you.
It’s my new avatar at BP. I am determined to spread sweetness and honey across the board.
// I think holding people accountable for choices their grandparents made 80 years ago doesn’t make a lot of sense.//
In case of Indian muslims, most of their grandparent did not have a vote, were most likely uneducated and in case of Ashraf lineage may have actually voted against partition.
I agree with you.
The ancestors of today’s Indian Muslims chose to stay back in India. So one can say they voted with their feet.
I actually have relatives living in Agra. I’m not that close to them so I don’t know how they feel about “Vande Mataram” etc but I’m against the idea of anyone being forced to chant slogans that they are uncomfortable with.
Btw, this is an independence movement political creation, the whole Bharat = mother goddess idea.
There was no tradition of it, there are no vedic/sangham/puranic sources to it.
No historical temples to her.
1873 is the first mention of this concept, in a play. She isn’t a goddess as such, but a rallying cry for independence, something many muslims participated in freely.
The stanzas of the Vande Mataram song associate Durga maa to her, but in Hindu tradition Durga can be associated with anything. Indeed Ramakrishna Paramahamsa often narrates how even the abominable is made pure by virtue of witnessing the goddesses presence.
Given her associations with the independence movement the notion has further crystallised along with the nation state, to the point where – due to politicising religion she is now considered ‘haram’.
One could happily argue that she is not a Hindu goddess but the female embodiment of the Indian state.
It feels disingenuous to create her for independence expediency and then abandon her soon after.
Lets call a spade a spade – the refusal to be respectful to ‘Bharat Mata’ and ‘Vande Mataram’ are powered chiefly by a religous superiority complex, not actual religious objection.
Everyone knows that. The fact that it needs to be debated is really damning for the other side.
Sigh!, It’s depressing that you’re right, debating it is pointless, the arguments will be ignored and we will continue to get visuals on TV of some moronic mullah going on about how haram it is.
I’m confused whether liberals are close minded or not liberal at all. Is it a feature or a bug? Kabir isn’t the only liberal I have heard this argument from.
The word liberal means very little outside of its own cultural context. A Pakistani Liberal will always believe that coexistence with a Hindu is impossible.
naah, there’s actual genuine Pakistani liberals out there who do.
“A Pakistani Liberal will always believe that coexistence with a Hindu is impossible”
Not wanting to live in a Hindu-dominated nation-state doesn’t mean that one believes that “coexistence with Hindus is impossible”.
I have nothing against Pakistani Hindus. They are by and large patriotic citizens of Pakistan.
The Quaid wanted a Muslim-majority homeland. But that didn’t mean that citizens were not meant to be treated equally. See the August 11 speech.
Your comment is a misrepresentation of my position.
Quaid: “religion, caste, or creed would have nothing to do with the business of the state”
Subsequently, Pakistan became an Islamic republic in 1956 and reality is what it is today. No point now discussing what Quaid wanted or didn’t because Pakistan is the exact opposite of whatever Quaid publicly claimed he wanted it to be.
The point is that wanting a Muslim-majority homeland and not wanting to be ruled by a Hindu demographic majority is not inconsistent with equal treatment of citizens living in Pakistan.
Again, read yesterday’s editorial in DAWN.
“No point discussing what Quaid wanted”– There is a point. You may not care because you’re not a Pakistani. But the fight for liberalism in Pakistan depends on defending “Jinnah’s Pakistan” from Zia’s Pakistan.
It’s worth quoting the Quaid’s August 11 speech at length:
“Hindus would cease to be Hindus and Muslims would cease to be Muslims” is the kind of Pakistan I want. We are all Pakistanis and that is the only identity that should matter.
One can argue that the August 11 speech was too little, too late. But it proves the Quaid did not want an Islamic theocracy.
“Quaid did not want an Islamic theocracy.” One wonders, why did he even want partition then 🙂
That’s pretty evident; it was a tactical reflex. Nehru was not a good negotiator; if he had actually conceded a bit. Maybe at worst in a decade or two Baluchistan would have ceded while the two wings of India would have been firmly India.
QeA was a tactician not a strategist. He never laid a weighty tome (like Nehru) defining what Pakistan actually was.
Whereas the Congress leaders were very intellectually minded. Brahmins to their core versus the Bania trader that was QeA 🙂
The closest strategist Pakistan had is Allama Iqbal, who was two generations from Kashmiri Pandit.
It is unlikely that the Anglos would allow an unpartitioned India. It was their schemes that led to the formation and elevation of the Muslim League and it was their schemes that led to the creation of separate electorates. Furthermore, they knew that an Independent India under Nehru would be too rebellious and socialist to agree to their meddling. Pakistan was therefore created as a pliant state which would assist them in their meddling with the Soviets and the Middle East. There isn’t a world in which the incentives the Brits could supply to Jinnah could be exceeded by the incentives provided by the Congress.
Perfidious Albion indeed and their love for Partitions.
Many of Jinnahs condition were simply untenable
Giving too much power to landed muslim elites and having a weakened center overall, something which nehru did not want to do even in independent India.
The fact thst the British were themselves eager to give into ML and that ML were essentially going to instigate conflict to get their way, makes the ML and the British in tow untrustworthy not Nehru a bad negotiator.
The Quaid wanted a Muslim-majority nation-state. The whole point is that a large portion of the Muslims of British India didn’t want to live under the rule of a much larger Hindu majority.
Perhaps precisely so that we (Muslims) would have a country where no one would have to deal with “Vande Mataram” etc?
I mean Indians (particularly those of the majority religion) are happy to have a country where you all don’t have to deal with “Nara-e-Takbeer” and “Allah ho Akbar”. Why do we Pakistanis not have the same right?
But that Muslim-majority state was one where citizenship was supposed to be equal.
That’s what the August 11 speech was about.
A Muslim majority state is not necessarily an Islamic theocracy?
Pakistan became an Islamic Republic in 1956. The Quaid was long dead by then.
The mistake what everyone should have done is instead of religion; focus on language rights.
But the problem is that Urdu wouldn’t have won the same appeal as “Islam in danger.”
But this is why the loss of Persian in the Subcontinent was fatal to Muslim interests. It was like the Ottoman decapitation.
The editorial is strictly aligned to the Quaid’s speech, where he outlined a vision of a nation where church and state were separate and equal citizenship was a fundamental right irrespective of religious beliefs..
It does not contain the following line:
“Muslim-majority homeland and not wanting to be ruled by a Hindu demographic majority is not inconsistent with equal treatment of citizens living in Pakistan”
This is your line.
Pakistan as South Asia’s Singapore?: Dream on. Being Muslim majority alone is sufficient to completely preclude this possibility.
“Defending “Jinnah’s Pakistan” from Zia’s Pakistan.” Sounds like the equivalent of a pointless nostalgic Lutyens living room conversation on Nehruvian secularism.
Karachi could have been the Singapore of the Indian Subcontinent.
The evolution of the Raj was a terrible idea; they should have had a Windsor dynasty marry a Mughal
Or Maurya heir and let the Indian Subcontinent evolve politically that way.
The borders of the Indian Subcontinent are crystal clear; the Indo-Gangetic watersheds and the Indian Ocean (which includes it islands, maybe as far south as Mauritius).
It should really be one confederal entity and an open zone unto itself a semi-permeable one to the outside.
There are better of ways of managing that. Ideally the Brits could’ve held to their initial bargain of dominion status after WW1 and then we could’ve had a slow march to independence or possibly even not that as long as we were free to set our own tariffs, laws, and foreign policy to a degree. Slow evolution of such a state to independence is the only possibility I can see for a relatively united Raj.
But that’s how the colonial powers treated Europe; every new state got its own dynasty.
I’m very wary of ideologies but rather more for pragmatism.
Russia & China are essentially very stable monarchies with rather good monarchs (Putin & Xi play the global landscape very well).
In contrast the US is in almost constant geopolitical tumult. Since every 4-8yrs it just radically changes.
As an intellectual exercise if Modi had lifelong tenure; he’d probably be able to do much more rather than fear the electorate’s backlash.
It’s pretty simple what everyone Global Southern country needs; double-digit economic growth that raises HDI (even more than incomes) while preserve the ecological and cultural balance of the country.
Mini-rant haha
I would agree with you to some degree however the Indian dynasts have shown themselves to be dependent on outside influence and the bad apples have made themselves know a lot more than the good ones. If India had to go in a monarchical direction it is a lot more likely we would end up stuck with horrid and useless figures like the modern day Gandhis. Which is to say none of them would be as technocratic as China or Russia’s dictators are.
Modi is a creature of the republic. A lot of folks like to call him an autocrat but the man is the perhaps a true believer in democracy which is not something we can say about most of his successors. A Modi outside of the context of the Indian Republic would perhaps never end up near the totem pole of leadership. In any monarchical structure the PMs would be more likely to be selected from the class of people who ingratiate themselves to the monarch (i.e., the upper classes such as the Nehru-Gandhi types). The fact that Modi had a chance to genuinely rise through the ranks of CMs is what makes him great because he proved his mettle at every stage.
I think its important to remember that the highest growth China ever clocked was under limited term leadership. People like Hu Jintao and Jiang Zemin delivered gang busters growth while under the same 2 term limitations as a leader of a republic with perhaps a bit more leeway.
Good point – didn’t know that re China..
Some of the great modernizers of the colonial period were the maharajas, the preeminent examples being the Wodeyars of Mysore. Hard to imagine leaders more focused on public works and scientific industrialism. There is a book out now, which I have yet to read but relevant to the topic: Longing for an Elsewhere: Mysore and the Making of India’s Developmental State
I am not denying that some of the great modernizers of India were of Royal origin. I’m just saying that one tends to be stuck with the monarch once they get on the throne and we are much more likely to have a Yashwant Rao Holkar II rather than an Ahilyabai Holkar. There are too many bad apples in the same dynasty that produces great reformers.
Oh yes. The new generation of “white” Holkars are a blot on the legacy of Ahilyabai Holkar.
Oh very nice
A nice titbit: Wodeyars left the state coffers completely empty. Mark Cubbon slowly restored the fiscal health of mysore state and then spent more for the public at large rather than on vanity projects. Hence cubbon park in his honour despite the park officially being named after a Wodeyar.
I am always suspicious of foreign narratives
This claim was made in a book by Roopa Pai, a Bangalorean. I trust her but happy to be corrected
There’s more to it, after the the fall of Tipu’s regime in 1799, the wodeyars were reinstated but the kingdom had to pay a massive annual tribute to the EIC, far exceeding the norms and accounting for nearly half the tribute paid by all of the princely states in India combined. It was essentially punitive reparations for their most stubborn foe. This naturally caused a fiscal collapse and subsequent internal rebellion to the compensatory aggressive taxes levied. The disorder led to the kingdom being turned over to administration by a british commmission. After 50 years, in 1881, the wodeyars were reinstated and among the many immediate modernization initiatives they were to undertake was establishing a consultative assembly, a civil service, colleges and the first university outside of the presidencies, and much more.
+1000
note to Commentariat: want to see intelligent comments like this..
This is very interesting and illuminating. Do you have any references? I would be inclined to read up on this.
It seems you have referenced it already in a previous comment. Any other books?
Look at this:Princely India re-imagined: a historical anthropology of Mysore from 1799 to the present – By Aya Ikegame
This one i’ve only lightly perused:
Björn Hettne — The Political Economy of Indirect Rule: Mysore 1881–1947
very interesting; I haven’t been to Bangalore yet..
I think you’ll find it interesting, and it’s not far from Chennai which you are already well connected to. It definitely emerging as it’s own pole of influence independent of Delhi/Bom
Thank you
Great insights. I always wondered what the Wodeyar’s motivations were. Bangalore and Mysore a large part of their scientific and technological capability to the work they undertook in the latter part of 19th and early part of 20th century.
I wonder if there were similar factors at play in Travancore as well.
In the case of Mysore, Travancore and even the Maratha core territories, the preconditions of being developmental states goes deep, perhaps back to the 1600s. I guess the lingo is “early modern fiscal-military states”. Sanjay Subhramanyam (Jaishankar’s brother!) writes extensively on this and its contrast to the Mughal apparatus (they often built on previous mughal administrative innovations). The idea is that these were not declining oriental despotisms but polities evolving in comparable ways to contemporaneous european states. They all see a compression or near elimination of the feudal classes and in the case of Mysore and MH, have a cultivator yeomanry dominating land ownership (Chikkadevaraja of Mysore purged the post-Vijayanagar warlords from his core in the late 1600s). You see high levels of bureaucratization in the 1700s and direct taxation which while oppressive is the dialectic precondition for subject-sovereign negotiation and along with state identity usually foreshadows the idea of citizen-hood. In the case of 18th century Mysore and Travancore you have robust state mercantilism where they allow themselves monopolies on commodities and certain trade licenses. There’s a lot more to say, but by the late 1800s, these monarchs/princes are part of a high context subject-sovereign relationship and iterating towards europe-style statecraft
fascinating..
+1 I tend to be in alignment with your perspective on this.
Yes! Modi could have pushed through land acquisition, the real estate law not to mention the farm laws.
Resistance and opposition for the sake of it is such an Indian trait. It’s an affliction and the biggest detriment to progress as a people, not just material prosperity.
//The evolution of the Raj was a terrible idea; they should have had a Windsor dynasty marry a Mughal
Or Maurya heir and let the Indian Subcontinent evolve politically that way.//
Had the British been less racist they would still be an empire today. But thst was too much for them
And the Mauryans loat their empire more 2000 years ago, people like the Raja Of Benares or Chhatrapati Shahu Maharaj have more legitimacy than the Mauryans.
There’s…….a sizeable chunk of liberals who are ignorant on the facts of the religion, but won’t let that stop them from virtue-signal-flexing to the max. Breathlessly more vehement in their objections. To demonstrate how ‘open minded’ they are.
Muslims cannot believe in any entity other than Allah. The whole concept of “mother goddesses” is against Islam. There are not “goddesses” mother or otherwise. There is Allah and only Allah.
Anyway, this doesn’t personally matter to me. I’m not an Indian.
My point is only that citizens of a secular state should not be forced to chant slogans or sing songs that they feel go against their religion. The refusal to chant a slogan doesn’t inherently mean one is disloyal to one’s nation-state.
Damn not even spiderman? Must be rough.
More seriously, Islam is an uncompromisingly monotheistic religion and you know that.
Similarly why should Brahmins be penalized for what their forefathers have supposed to have done 4000 years ago?
Brahmins are evil, just barely a shade under Nazis. Maybe even worse.
Didn’t you get the memo?
Nobody seriously believes this and in a conversation about why Indian muslims should not be blamed for partition as per the standards set by XTM himself which they dont follow why do you want to divert the topic to supposed blaming of another community?
Nobody is penalizing brahmins for anything their ancestors have done.
This has been brought up in regards to two things in recent time:
1) Reservation- Where supposedly having lesser seats is some kind of punishment apparently, to which the solution is to put more pressure on the govt to improve quality of existing institutions.
2) Comments on mediocrity in Indias institutions- That is not really to blame on anyone community and I have not done so.
If you think that Brahmins are in anyways penalized for being beneficiaries of caste hierarchy, please do tell me how I am willing to know why you think so and why in particular you believe I think anyone should be blamed for what their ancestors did?
Vamsi Juluri, (son of jamuna, famous heroine of Telugu films ) writing in print has a wonderful point on social inheritance Vs economic inheritance. This is in response to udayanidhi’s comment on Sanatana dharma.
###Udhayanidhi Stalin’s remarks show dynastic privilege hides behind social justice slogans
Udhayanidhi Stalin’s remarks show dynastic privilege hides behind social justice slogans
Political and economic inheritance goes on ruthlessly, but biocultural inheritance of the kind associated with ‘Sanatana Dharma’ is being demonised and stamped out.
But all around us in India, the contradiction remains directly before our eyes. Those who inherited cultural traditions, or obligations, to be more accurate, barely have economic privilege to pass on, except if they abandon their traditional duties as temple priests, for example. Those who inherit enormous amounts of wealth and power and even political positions despite the pretensions of democracy and equality in the modern world, on the other hand, make their money and their supposedly moral claims by attacking the inheritors of cultural obligations as if they have been the hoarders of economic privilege.
every state capital, and of course, in New Delhi, multi-generational families have held sway over wealth and power for decades.
, ……that kind of inherited privilege, it seems, is unbreakable by any redistributive rhetoric or policy.
####
As close to hitting the nail on the head as it gets..
+1
Thank you. Hope this conclusively ends the non-debate.
Attacking the powerless based on ‘caste’ comes easy for these folks. ‘Eradicating Sanatan Dharma’ is fine. Because ‘oppression in the past’.
But the tune rapidly changes when it comes to questions like the Goan Inquisition. Then, suddenly, Saint Francis Xavier’s letters asking for the inquisition are ‘misunderstood’.
The work of the master is done when the slave whips himself.
Paraphrased from this original quote:
“When the slave will whip himself after the master has long gone, the work of colonialism is complete” – @radhabharadwaj
//Attacking the powerless based on ‘caste’ comes easy for these folks. ‘Eradicating Sanatan Dharma’ is fine. Because ‘oppression in the past’.//
I have nevrr have and never will blame communities as a whole
I am not the kind of person to relitigate people’s loyalty or be suspicious if someone from another religion does bot sanskritize.
Nor do I use castesit narrative whose casteism is only visible when it is applied on people I like not those who I have considered meritless.
//But the tune rapidly changes when it comes to questions like the Goan Inquisition. Then, suddenly, Saint Francis Xavier’s letters asking for the inquisition are ‘misunderstood’.//
I never said he was misunderstood. Just that he was another voice in the room, filled with people who thought the inquisition is a good thing.
Giving him all the credit and not even spotlighting the monarchy or portuguese clergy at the time, is a disservice to both goan hindus and catholics from the 15th to 18th centuries. This is not a defense but a clarification there is a big difference that if you think on it is very apparent.
I dont have the biases you think I do, this is just a misunderstanding on your own part.
Admin note to Calvin:
20 comment deletion fine.
Next time any comments you make will be indiscriminately deleted.
Watch your tone. You misunderstand everyone and attribute shameful insinuations.
Why do you get to be suspicious of Indian muslims and indian christian if they dont want to sanskritize?
Why cant I wonder about your intentions if you think it is ok to wonder about others?
You insinuate I am anti GC when the only thing I can think of is applying the same anti reservation narrative of reserved category people bringing down institutional.competence to the people actually running it, do I not have the right to defend myself esepciallt against the repeated attacks on my character?
who’s ‘attacking your character’?
If anything your…excessively slanted views are being given the benefit of doubt under the presumption of youth.
Calling me biased against GCs? Trying to say I am acting out of tribalism? And the normal shallow characterization of Left liberal viewpoints that is common among many here.
//If anything your…excessively slanted views are being given the benefit of doubt under the presumption of youth.//
What benefit of the doubt when almost everything I say is misunderstood like you did with my actual point on Xaviers letters? Or when me using the same anti reserved logic that blame reserved people for failures on public institutions on the people actually running it, who happen to be GC which is where most of the me being anti GC talking points are coming from?
And then there are cases where I need to be told that because ICs and IMs may not want to sanskritize we should be seen with suspicion? And then I am the one who has to prove I am.not anti some group because I used casteist talking point whose inmate casteism is only visible when used on GCs?
Do you get my point?
And most of my views are rather normal outside of the Righwing in India
It is because this site largely caters to a right wing that banal views on reseravtion, protesting, litigation of people citizenship that wont even lead to a discussion elsehwere get so heated here.
I do not wish to engage with you anymore. Kindly refrain from responding to me.
Udaynidhi was referring to casteism in Tamil Nadu, not attacking a particular community as most tamil commentators have stated. He probably used the word to trigger many RWers.
The American citizen, Mr Juluri, should know that many brahmins have not only been converting their spiritual privilege into educational, social and cultural assets since even before the British, but this has accelerated even more since independence that now many of our newsrooms, bureaucracy, executive suites l, knowledge production and even politics in many states. This is what is being bequeathed to the brahmins of the future, the status of normal, the standard whose cultire everyone is supposed to follow lest they be suspected for disloyalty
Who can get endless support if someone questions them the same way SC/ST people are questions even to point out a fallacy.
No such luck to the Indian muslim whete even frank conversation on the absurdity of loyalty tests to the muslim community will be interrupted by ‘What about brahmins?’ as a diversion from the topic
Muslim League won an 87% of the muslim reserved seats across India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1946_Indian_provincial_elections#Overall_Muslim_League_performance.
Liberals can’t have it both ways. The constituent assembly was elected on the basis of limited franchise and Liberals expect Hindus to keep honoring this constitution on the basis of this limited Franchise as being representative. So same argument holds for muslim vote.
“ and in case of Ashraf lineage may have actually voted against partition.”
LOL. Raja of Mahmudabad says hello. That family wanted to have cake and eat it too.
For the love of God, we had elections with universal franchise in the 1950s, the people elected then did not ditch or reform the constitution for something else.
At least bring up example that actually support your point, the acceptance of the constitution as a guiding document is beyond doubt as shown by the elected constituent assembly and many after that swearing upon the same document!
Unlike the constitution, Partition was never accepted, never debated. Even until the last moment no one knew what exactly it would entail and who would be part of what?
I dont know why right wingers want to relitigate muslim loyalty towards India when they neither did most of them get a chance to decide in 1947, have supported India in all it’s wars against Pakistan, at least outside of kashmir have not indulge in insurgency as a group, contirbute to the development of the country throuth their labor and taxation and are normal people and are no better or worse than any other community. Anyways you know this that is why you have to go all the way back to pakistan and use the ancestors of present day Pakistanis to throw shade at others
Many muslims even say BMKJ or VM but they just dont go viral due to the fact that many who try to force a slogan are only interested in using some people’s resrrvation to spread hatred towards muslims.
There is no hypocrisy in supporting the constitution thst has been ratted over and over and not having doubt over muslim citizens loyalty to India which had also been proven over and over.
Please tell me when did Indian muslims reratify Partition again and again like how we have reratified the constitution. Supporting India against Pakistan and not having an insurgency against India except in kashmir are as clear examples of going against the logic of partition as one can get.
“Please tell me when did Indian muslims reratify Partition again”…
voting as a block/bank and effective veto pre-2014. Not to mention the simmering communal tension, riots etc. You putting Kashmir aside does a lot of lifting.
Every community in india acts as a vote bank.
Every community in india is responsible for communal violence. Nellie massacre comes to mind.
And it should be a mark of patriotism that indian muslims outside of kashmir neither support the kashmiri insurgency.
That the kashmiris themselves complain about the lack of Indian muslik support is a mark of their patriotism
But let’s be honest it does it does not matter what muslims there will always be another test round the corner to start relitigation. This whole loyalty test is not about assuaging loyalty but harassment.
Keep fighting the good fight Calvin!
India is a secular state. In a secular state, citizens cannot be forced to chant religious slogans.
The amount of outright suspicion of Indian Muslims (and other minorities) on this blog is really something. It just reflects the right-wing ideology of most of the commenteriat.
Indian Muslims are by and large patriotic citizens of India. Just as Pakistani non-Muslims are by and large patriotic citizens of Pakistan.
India is plural precisely because it is Hindu (Dharmic) majority.
You can go on believing that.
India is “plural” because of Nehruvian Secularism.
Secularism is a Western ideology and not a “Hindu” one.
Separation of church and state is a principle that developed during the European Enlightenment.
Exactly. Secularism comes from the West. It has no place in a Dharmic set-up.
Nehru was a “coconut”. Anglicized, westernized completely co-opted by the West. And in absolute contrast to the populace he desired to rule over benevolently as a feudal overlord.
Pluralism is inherent to Dharmic philosophies, live and let live. Exactly the opposite of “uncompromising” monotheistic ideologies which is why the concept of separation of church and state developed.
A religion that has a caste system is not “pluralistic”. But you are free to believe whatever you like.
“Secularism comes from the West”– Yes, and so does parliamentary democracy. When is India going to throw that out and go back to Rajas and Maharajas?
Warning. Do not put words in my mouth. Or anybody else’s for that matter. Next it will result in a 20 comment deletion fine.
“So you admit that you want IMs and ICs to reorient their religious beliefs as per you”
WOW..not a single commentator has even remotely suggested anything of this sort…shameful insinuation…
I mean, this is a well accepted fact. Something Vajpayeeji once said in an interview with Javed Akhtar. 12 years of a rabid hindutva govt and not 1 attempt to remove the insertion of secular in the constitution preamble. Ironically done during emergency, when the constitution was suspended.
It’s not about words but about the spirit of the thing.
Are you seriously going to argue that there have not been attempts to damage Nehruvian Secularism?
I believe your Supreme Court has said secularism is part of the “basic structure” of the Constitution?
The constitution itself isn’t completely divorced from religion either. The Ramayana is illustrated on the Part III of the Constitution. With Rama as the guardian of the citizen’s rights.
https://theprint.in/opinion/why-painting-of-ram-in-indian-constitution-matters/592160/
For Rama Rajya. Jai Shri Ram!
A truly secular state would not have Hindu religious symbols (or any religious symbols) in its Constitution.
Anyway…
You do realize that Allah is the same God of Christianity and Judaism?
Who is involved in this consensus? Religious Jews think that their god is special to them alone. Jesus and Muhammad are considered false prophets in their eyes, trying to appropriate this special relationship.
The Christians believe in a tripartite god etc, they have centuries of theology at odds with islam
I don’t want to speak on Islam’s behalf, people are notoriously touchy about it.
https://www.brownpundits.com/2026/08/09/the-lutyens-brahmin-the-indian-muslim/#comment-142806
We are not secular. We are plural, the plurality a gift of Sanatana Dharma, whether you choose to believe it or not. This reflects in our Constitution and in our pardoning a thousand excesses à la Shishupala by those who take this generosity for granted.
By your own standards the US and UK aren’t secular either.
Whataboutery comes so naturally to you…carry on
The Indian constitution starts with the line India that is Bharat.
Bharat is a dharmic civilization 🙂
This truth must be difficult to swallow given the utter failure of Pakistan to develop into a secular state and hence you have to parrot some western tripe.
Nehru was a guy who knew so much about India that he had to discover it and then write a book about his discovery.
No one wants Pakistan to be a secular state. It’s an Islamic Republic. The country was created as the homeland of British India’s Muslims.
I am a citizen of an actual secular state (the US).
“Western tripe”– I’m sorry but the statement that separation of church and state is an outgrowth of the European Enlightenment is not something that is remotely controversial to any reasonably educated person.
Pandit Nehru was your greatest founding father. But of course you are free to disagree.
Kabir don’t troll the Commentariat please.
You know exactly what you are doing.
Accepting Pakistan’s failures as status quo but advocating India’s secularism.
No impetus to reform or improve Pakistan but a razor sharp eye on India. It’s inflaming the entire Commentariat with its rank hypocrisy.
This is not up for discussion; in fact Q is even more of a hardline Pakistani nationalist and Calvin a Secularist (Girmit diverges) but no one stokes the fire quite like you do.
Do not disrespect BP (Bharat Pundits) please and her community.
Exactly.
Regarding holding others to standards of secularism: The framers of our constitution never meant India to be France, to state the obvious.
There is a consensus that Christianity, Islam and Judaism all believe in the God of Abraham.
Anyway, I’m not getting into a religious discussion.
Many people who talk a lot about India, have not even done half as much reading as Nehru did.
Are you actually saying getting out of your bubble and learning is a fault of Nehru? Explains quite a lot about many things.
“Something you seem to be unaware of”. I am sure she is aware but you are so full of yourself it is difficult to engage. All the rest of us can really do is listen to your sermons and accept your word as the truth because the rest of us are just so stupid.
“I am only using you guys arguments against you”…its obvious how you argue…you have a very high opinion of yourself when in fact your arguments are superficial at best…
I really enjoyed Mundhe shutting down a cafeteria in IITB. One of my friends tried doing something similar over a decade ago, the contractor filed a caste atrocity case against him. The poor guy ran to Chennai and hid because of imminent arrest. He had a small child and a wife and had to leave them behind. The institute asked him to deal with it as a personal matter.
“Isolated cases”….you know nothing about anything…plus given that you cited the research of bigots in your previous counters…fellows who openly abused their fellow citizens on the basis of their caste…I have no doubt you are one of them.
//its obvious how you argue…you have a very high opinion of yourself when in fact your arguments are superficial at best…//
Almost every opposing argument I have received is based on character defamation, misinterpreting my words or caricatures. My arguments look bad only because your you think pointing out flaws of others is a good counter.
//I really enjoyed Mundhe shutting down a cafeteria in IITB. One of my friends tried doing something similar over a decade ago, the contractor filed a caste atrocity case against him. The poor guy ran to Chennai and hid because of imminent arrest. He had a small child and a wife and had to leave them behind. The institute asked him to deal with it as a personal matter.
“Isolated cases”….you know nothing about anything…plus given that you cited the research of bigots in your previous counters…fellows who openly abused their fellow citizens on the basis of their caste…I have no doubt you are one of them.//
For every one case where a false SC/ST act was filed, there are 100s that are genuine. There is a reason all these fake SC/ST acts are unproven anecdotes while actual SC/ST cases have documentation behind them. You dont need to beba former IITian or a former professor to know how basic sampling works and how one case in one direction does not override multiple in another. This is something even school children can understand, so dont go and my arguments are bad if you need to wrongly use anecdotal evidence to make a point
It is upto you to read or go out of your comfort zone. I am not here to defend myself that I am not a casteism, the only proof of my supposed casteism is me applying the same logic on reserved category people bringing down institutional standards on the people running it who happen to be from GC. Literally an argument you guys use all the time to argue against reservation
It is incredibly disappointing, funny and sad that you need a casteism anti resevration argument to be used on GCs to understand it is casteist.
Sorry this comment is too long it takes many words to understand basic things.
//its obvious how you argue…you have a very high opinion of yourself when in fact your arguments are superficial at best…//
The majority of arguments that I have received is attacks on my character, whataboutery based on misunderstanding what I have written some of which is dirext application of logic in yours, and failures in understanding basic sampling like what you have shared.
//I really enjoyed Mundhe shutting down a cafeteria in IITB. One of my friends tried doing something similar over a decade ago, the contractor filed a caste atrocity case against him. The poor guy ran to Chennai and hid because of imminent arrest. He had a small child and a wife and had to leave them behind. The institute asked him to deal with it as a personal matter.
“Isolated cases”….you know nothing about anything…plus given that you cited the research of bigots in your previous counters…fellows who openly abused their fellow citizens on the basis of their caste…I have no doubt you are one of them.//
For every one anecdote that you can provide where SC/ST act is misused there are 100s of others when it’s use was needed because unlike the opponents of this act the supporters of the SC/ST act know that documentation is more powerful than unverifiable anecdotes on the internet.
You dont need to be an IITian or a former professor to know how basic sampling works. It is sad and funny that you actually think anecdotal evidence is as good as documented cases or even the govt and police saying it is not misused
Thr only reason you think I am a casteist is that I use the same anti reservation logic that has been used for years to blame reserved people for public institutional failure on the people managing it who happen to be GCs. I really dont havr any hatred towards anyone but that it took this to be applied to GCs for you guys to realize the casteism inherent in blaming institutional failure on a community is telling to say the least.
Sorry for the long comment if you have read so far, it takes time to write explain things.
Yawn…
I have been hearing anecdotal instances of some GC being mistreated by a SC/ST since I was a child
If you sincerely feel that more GCs are mistreated than SC/ST why is there no documentation to support it in 20 years. Why is a mainstream media thst is filled with GCs not able to find at least one instance daily? Is using whatever instances you can find to dismiss well researched documentation the extent of what you want to use these for?
You should feel more angry that all that someones tragedy is being used for is undermining research that shows bias against SC/ST.
I have no interest in engaging with you
Your loss.
Why is a mainstream media thst is filled with GCs not able to find at least one instance daily? Is using whatever instances you can find to dismiss well researched documentation the extent of what you want to use these for?
There’s so much misinformation masquerading as settled fact that I don’t have the time to parse through and rebut them all. The answer to your question lies in the ideology you claim to oppose i.e. BJP’s Hindutva. For all its so called Savarna pretensions, no other nation-wide party has been so vocally and vociferously pro Mandal politics as the current BJP. All in a perhaps ill advised effort to unite Hindus across caste lines. If these mainstream media is, as claimed by yourself on several occasions, a lapdog of the current regime, then it stands to reason that same media would not go against any party diktats.
For those genuinely looking, here is one that does investigative reports on abuse of the the PoSC/ST Act. Go fill your heart’s desire. Of course, I don’t actually expect you to change your mind because that is not what people do on the internet, esp the younger lot.
https://x.com/Shubham_fd
Firstly it is an established fact that GCs dominate our newsroom. It is not misinformation by any stretch of the imagination.
90% of leadership positions in Indian media occupied by upper caste groups: report – The Hindu
This dominance is the reason why NEET become a headline but the numerous other paper leaks, even in opposition run states dont.
It is also not under any doubt that the media is a lapdpog because the majority of its advetisement comes from govt sources.
The twitter account that you quoted is good, it at least has pictures, documents and other kinds of proof rather than just anecdotal evidence that I have no way of verifying, the next question is why has this not been compiled and lobbied to bring about policy change.
The SC/ST act was brought in by years of cataloguing by Ambedkarite activists, not because of vote bank politics, if you want to insist it is, this cataloguing is why this became an issue in the first place.
The below tweet ironically is the problem, with this whole approach to getting justice for GCs is that these incidents are just used to delegitimize issues that SC/STs face and measures to mitigate them more than helping GC.
Since some people think that IISC is taking anyone willy nilly and not seeing any quality.
The below is instrumental
How India’s caste system limits diversity in science — in six charts
The actual number of people in faculty roles is too less to suggest rapid hiring without seeing quality.
Not to mention that IITs and IISCs regularly push back on being forced to follow the law to not compromise on quality.I think the professors at IISC are not fools to take in anyone, neither are any prospective SC/ST candidates that vindictive to ruin their career by foisting false cases, implying the candidates are vindictive by default is a mark of prejudice.
So if anyone would assert quality is being compromised, these assertions should be taken with a pinch of salt, irrespective of whether they have shown a bias against SC/ST people or not.
Firstly it is an established fact that GCs dominate our newsroom. It is not misinformation by any stretch of the imagination.
Strawman. Nowhere did I claim that news media is a proportional representation of India’s caste and religious make up?
For all your so called fact-based approach and using people’s logic to counter them, you don’t seem to be following basic rules of argumentation? It is easy to pronounce judgements on others but it is often a reflection of the self. Starting to see why others here think you may be of a relatively younger cohort.
That out of the way, let me clarify my position (and perhaps that of several other “Right-Wing” commentators so you don’t mistake or misrepresent my position for something it is not:
https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/raipur/teacher-teaches-incorrect-spellings-in-chhattisgarh-government-school/articleshow/125408800.cms
This feeds in to the equal opportunity argument.
The twitter account that you quoted is good, it at least has pictures, documents and other kinds of proof rather than just anecdotal evidence that I have no way of verifying, the next question is why has this not been compiled and lobbied to bring about policy change.
The SC/ST act was brought in by years of cataloguing by Ambedkarite activists, not because of vote bank politics, if you want to insist it is, this cataloguing is why this became an issue in the first place.
The below tweet ironically is the problem, with this whole approach to getting justice for GCs is that these incidents are just used to delegitimize issues that SC/STs face and measures to mitigate them more than helping GC.
There are several different threads that we need to dissect and I unfortunately just don’t have the time this month but you would be well advised to appreciate that caste discrimination comes in several forms across the country. What may be true for Tamil Nadu or Kerala is almost certainly not true for GJ or UP where most atrocities are perpetrated by the so called Backward Castes that are themselves landed elite like the Kurmis, Gurjars etc. There is lots more to say but I will leave that for another day.
” I am not opposed to affirmative action (including reservation) qua affirmative action. I am opposed to reservation as it is implemented in its current form”
Exactly my position. But I just don’t want to waste anymore time and energy explaining myself given the nature of the target audience 🙂
To be honest, I appreciate the missionary levels of zeal and persistence. Takes a lot of conviction in and faith in your to go about making pronouncements in that tone. The problem is a lack of coherent argumentation. When you point out a flaw, the goal posts change immediately with the pretense/blindness that they were always there.
Most of my tone is a direct response to the reflexive judgemental tone seen directed towards many who disagree ideologically with people on this sub.
you do not need to tone-match.. you have Authorship and Captaincy and a direct line. email or WhatsApp in and I can take an immediately look.
When did I get authorship?
I dont notice anything different in my interface with this site.
How do I post an answer if I want to?
Please email
In and I will check ur email id. Email top left
“When you point out a flaw, the goal posts change immediately with the pretense/blindness that they were always there.”
So true. This is exhausting and completely pointless. You have been remarkably gracious in your responses and your insights have been very educational. If not the target audience, others including myself appreciate it.
Ditto! Thank you for taking the time and energy to elucidate.
I choose not to bother especially when I know that the other side has already made up their mind and will not look at it in an unbiased manner.
Separately, this conversation between Archer and you has been a welcome change to read 🙂
Thank you for your response.
//I am not opposed to affirmative action (including reservation) qua affirmative action.
I am opposed to reservation as it is implemented in its current form – for e.g., no sub-categorization which leads to communities like the Meenas or other landholding elites (esp from tribal belts like the Thakurs of HP and Uttarakhand) cornering benefits even after they have accumulated wealth that will put to shame the brightest titans of India’s private sector; misuse of EWS by kids of civil servants. This is a big reason why social indicators for several other SC-ST groups haven’t improved even after decades.//
Sub-categorization is a policy that is already being followed and should be implemented for SC/ST as well.
EWS is a separate issue entirely that is wholly due to poor enforcement and detection of fraud. It is a governmental issue not a an issue borne out of reservarion. Many who want to change thr form of reservation to give more priority towards economic status ignore that this fraud will become more common place.
My main grouse with people here is that on one hand some people say that they are pro affirmative action on the other they dismiss the capability of people from marginalised communitied who are teaching at IISC, repeat the same anti reservation narrative that entry of reserved people is why our public institutions are failing and seem to have no regard whatsoever for what the intended beneficiaries actually want. A huge reason why subcategorization is opposed by many ambedkarite organization is due to the fact that many even dominant communities like say the jatavs or mahars still face discrimination and hostility
Furthermore the weakening of our public schools is again a governmental failure wrongly blamed on reservation. Because of reservation many people from marginalised communtied are at least there in corridors of power and can use their position to boost up the whole community
Many problems wrongly attributed to reservation are a result of poor governmental intervention that reservation is helping to mitigate in many cases by ensuring some deserving candidates dont lose out on opportunities
Till the standard of governmental schools and colleges improve and more such colleges are constructed reservation in the current form with minor tweaks like creamy layer or subcategorization where asked for is what we have to do. If you cant put a spotlight on the states failure and are prone to use narratives that attack the integrity, capability and ability of SC/ST it is difficult to take claims that is one is prominent affirmative action seriously.
As far as why I am so quick to judge, this very thread has people questioning Indian muslils loyalty, a few weeks back the CJP integrity and sincerity was questioned with extreme hostility and many here openly imply that SC/ST people by and large use SC/ST act vinfictively, lack capability or thst their presence is why our institutions are failing. My judgement on others is a reflection of this tendency to judge which seems commonplace.
I see it’s a futile attempt to keep on judging others, as it is only a non critism of the GC that made them say that one should not judge others, not the constant judgemental thrown towards people who oppose a party, muslims loyalty and thr capability of SC/ST by many ironically outraged at my supposed anti GC behaviour.
Ps: If you are older than me you should know people have different experiences and can come to diametrically opposite things on the same topic through life experience. This constant rationalizing of my disagreement and judgement towards others when I have said what exactly is causing this is bad form.
@XTM one of my response seems to have gone to spam.
I don’t see it?
I just unspammed it.
Thank you for your response. My previous response has gone to spam for some reason.
Many of the problems you pointed out are already being worked on by either advocating of a creamy layer or subcategorization. Many communities even dominant one like Meenas are still discriminated and looked down upon which makes discussion on who is in and who is not fraught.
Fraud due to EWS is a governance issue, like many problems wrongly attributed to failure, this is a governmental failure.
As is the case of bad school education and outcome in our universities. Let’s look at the example you quoted, it is the states responsibility to ensure that teachers dont come drunk and that the teachers have basic standards of education. No one is forced to recruit if they dont have good qualification even in many govt colleges positions stay vacant if good candidates are not found.
This is the problem with being for affirmative action but then most criticism blaming reservation instead of the states own failures for bad outcomes. You cant be for affirmative action and not like the system when most issues in the current syatem are due to state failure.
Add onto this there is a trend to dismiss the capabilities of SC/ST people even if they are in iisc, wrongly blame presence of SC/ST people for failures of institutions, imply that people from this communities are vindictive using laws in their favor to settle scores when the police who are dealing with firsthand assert that not more than 10% cases are false.
This kind of harsh judgement also happened to CJP protestors, in this very thread happened to muslims loyalty
My harsh judgement, and obstinacy comes as a reaction to this reflexive judgement on others thst is commonplace on this site
Now that I know it is only when a GC might be insulted that it is understood we should not judge whole communities not when people who are protesting against their governing party have their sincerity and integrity questioned, not when muslims have their loyalty questioned, not when SC/STs have their intelligence, honor, and capability questioned.
I hope the sarcasm is apparent and those who are angry at any anti GC remarks they think I made can see where my obstinacy and anger come from.
PS: if you are older thsn me you should know that people have different life experiences and come to diametrically opposite conclusions on same topic due to life experience. Trying to rationalise my opinion as due to age not as a mirror to the routine judgement many direct towards other groups, is bad form especially when I have made it clear this is where most of my responses are coming from repeatedly.
Thank you for this comment. Your point on the BJP actually pushing Pro-Mandal policies are spot on. I have seen substandard hiring at the faculty level now at IISc also thanks to this push for “appropriate” representation. It is sad to say this but such faculty will never get hired if appropriate hiring standards are actually enforced.
There is so much information on abuse of the PoSC/ST Act that the objective individual can easily find.
What is being displayed here in the name of an alternate view is nothing but sheer self-delusion
If they were really taking anyone willy-nilly, there would not be such less representation of SC/ST at faculty level. They are probably being very strict in their criteria, if they would rather keep seats empty than fill them up.
How India’s caste system limits diversity in science — in six charts
The above article is from Nature by the way.
He has explicitly asked you to not engage.
Kindly respect individual preferences.
Ok
I have no issues with anyone responding to my comments or wanting to interact. I may obviously choose not to reciprocate. This is a choice everyone on this blog has.
I don’t think admin should take any special steps in this regard.
Yes, agree on this. Mutual disengagement is better.
Govt of India has told the Supreme Court that it doesn’t support imposition of income limit on Scheduled castes for reservations.
Thus ‘creamy layer’ for SC/ST is out.
Tragic but also supports my claim that the current BJP is actually the most Ambedkarite of any ruling regimes we’ve ever had.
These decisions are taken because many sc/sts see these issues in a completely different manner than most UCs. They dont see reservation as a poverty alleviation schemes and will campaign and change their vote if some of the few things that benefit them are tampered with.
There are many other basic things that the govt fails to do like paying out scholar ships amounts on time, support SC/ST entrepreneurship, enforce recruitment of talented SC/St candidates in their own central and state universities. Upgrade the standard of universities and public Schools so that students who use thee have a chance against private schools.
Dont give credit for SC/ST putting pressure on the govt by threatening to vote for someone else to the govt thst would not do without threat of losing votes.
Congress should and could have adapted to the landscape.
Look at how much manoeuvring we do at BP.
I dont know why the congress is in question.
The FPTP system hides the fact tjst congress has 19% of the country voting for it. It fails in converting that into seats due to extreme competition for anti bjp vote, with the generations of anti congress sentiment weighing them down .
Until a few months back, people were blaming Rahul Gandhi for Nitin Gadkari ethanol policy, ignoring that these same people lacked even basic courage to write him a letter expressing their frustration. This shows not only the relevance of the congress as a party even with weak leadership but a kind of mental conditioning put on the populace where they wete unable to even contemplate being angry at the people in power
//Look at how much manoeuvring we do at BP.//
Maybe because this site is a magnet for Indian RWers that many arguments that have long been challenged and even debunked are still debated here as if they have merit.
Most of the anti reservation talking points explained here have already been debunked by 2014 itself.
As is this question over whether muslims are loyal to India.
Plus a lot of bad argumentation used here, that focuses on character assassination, center anecdotal evidence over research and conveniently prioritizes general caste sentiments will be seen as weak arguments.
But in your case, holding non-SC/STs accountable for choices made by their ancestors is perfectly reasonable?
I am not and never have blamed or justified present day GCs or OBCs for anything their ancestors may or may not have put others through.
I dont know why it needs to be said thst reservation is not a punishment on GCs, if you think that reduced opportunities are a punishment then put more pressure on the govt to open more schools and improve the quality in the ones that are there instead of thinking GCs are victimised.
Another thing can be me using the same logic that is used to blame institutional failure on SC/ST lacking merit on the people who manage public institutioms who.happen to.manage it. This is not me believing in this but using it as a counterexample, which many are misconstruing.
I dont believe in relitigating people loyalty or think some religions not wanting to sanskritize is worthy of suspicion.
It’s that time of year again. This essay remains ever-relevant:
https://kabiraltaf.substack.com/p/a-tryst-with-destiny-reflections
I’m sharing this here just so that people can’t misrepresent my position.
excellent post
Thank you.
My position is really much more nuanced than people give me credit for.
Kabir,
The Commentariat would give you much (much) more credit as the resident Intellectualistani if you stopped baiting them so much.
You want attention for yourself rather than for your ideas (some of which are quite sensible).
There is actually very little disagreement between you and Commentariat except where you blow it up.
I’m only saying it as it is and I’m a bit of a truth saying as I only think in terms of what is good for Bharat Pundits.
This is not really fair.
There are people here who want to make everything a referendum on Pakistan. Words like “kleptocracy” and “apartheid” are used constantly. Even you have pointed out that “apartheid” is not an appropriate word in the Pakistani context.
The disagreement between me and most people here boils down to the fact that I am a Pakistani nationalist and most people here have a “soft Hindutva” worldview.
If you’re seriously going to call this blog “Bharat Pundits”, then what are Q and I even doing here?
“A discussion of all things Brown” is an inclusive platform with space for Pakistanis. Otherwise, just tell us that we’re not welcome.
You are absolutely right. Kabir has shown incredible nuance when he wants and has insights that are very illuminating when it comes to observations on the Pak Fauj and the political dynasties of Pakistan.
[…] do have much sympathy with 0M’s view that the British envisaged Pakistan for exactly what it became: not the Allama promised, but a […]
https://www.ndtv.com/opinion/will-akhilesh-yadavs-brahmin-card-work-in-uttar-pradesh-11898732
Amitabh tiwari has an interesting article about the reach and impottance of U P Brahmins. Interesting. This looks complimentary to thir letyens cousins.
## In a counter to the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Dalit card, Akhilesh Yadav is now banking on Brahmins. Setting his eyes on Uttar Pradesh’s Brahmins, who account for around 9-11% of the state’s population, Akhilesh now claims that the ‘P’ in his PDA (Picchda, Dalit, Adivasi) bloc stands for ‘Pandit’ ##