https://x.com/TheMuslimMatter/status/2092193782049427675?s=20
Asking, or rather bribing, young Kashmiri (Muslim children) to chant Bharat Mata ki Jai.
3 Graphs of Karnataka
It seems that many South Indian Muslims are “Urdufying.” It’s interesting to reflect that if Partition hadn’t happened; the same thing might have happened to East Bengal.
The Muslims of India rallied under the banner of Islam, which was a catch-all term, but instead they could have easily made a linguistic argument for Urdu & Persianate culture.
Thoughts That Shape Power
This is an essay written by Varun (Bone of Empire @BotE85371688 on Twitter), an Indian-American friend who asked me to share it on brownpundits. I think it starts an important conversation..
Thoughts that Shape Power
Once upon a time I worked in a defense think tank in New Delhi. It was a fun, fresh-out-of-college job. The pay sucked, but the conversation was always rich, and we had tea time twice a day.
Every Friday morning we were encouraged to sit through a Research Briefing by one of our colleagues. Presentations lasted an hour and were divided into two parts – the presentation itself, and the question/critique period. Everyone — from fresh-faced interns (myself) to retired professionals — was encouraged to present their research or some other topic of interest and receive audience feedback. The variety of personal backgrounds at the institute guaranteed a range of quality for the presentations. What was most shocking to me, as an intern, was that senior researchers were often the sources of tremendous bullshit.
One Friday, a scholar — whose name I will not mention — gave a presentation on the Indo-Bangladesh border. They offered detailed recommendations for securing the region, including drones, CCTV cameras, electrified fencing, checkposts, watchtowers, and more. The presentation lasted a full 30 minutes; the question period, which had been allotted the same amount of time, lasted only five. Continue reading Thoughts That Shape Power
South India funds India?
It’s pretty astonishing to see that it’s the Southern fringe (and the erstwhile Punjab) that’s subsidising the rest of India. There is the Southern coastal theory that AASI moved via Sindh, Gujarat and then the Deccan-Dravidian spaces.
Furthermore what’s fascinating is that Partition, outside of South India, really was a contestation of some of the richest bits of the Subcontinent (Punjab and Bengal).
It would have been good to see the numbers for J&K but it’s fairly apparent the NorthEast aren’t going to see such a sweet deal. It’s tough being a Southerner these days (whether the US, India or even Iran). In Iran, it’s South Iran and her oil & gas fields, which subsidises the rest of the country.
my 7,000th comment on Brown Pundits
I believe the number 14 is associated with Lord Ram so this is a fortuitous comment (7, 14, 1,400). I have’t written as much since the Comments have been on fire so it becomes a little difficult to write on new topics but I’m 66 posts (65 after this one) from my 1,000th post on BP.
After the jump Omar’s interesting take on whether the Mughal’s were colonisers.
Open Thread: Pakistani song goes viral in India..
I’ll expand on this but enjoy the beautiful song in the meantime.
Did the British Divide India?
This comes up all the time, and i happened to write a long tweet about this today> As usual, no time to fix into a real article, but I am posting the whole thing here for discussion.
My version is that Pakistan was ultimately the creation of the Muslim league (and therefore of Islamism) but at crucial points this wud not have been possible without SOME British rulers promoting it for their own purposes.. so:
1. British imperial officials were very conscious of the need to divide and rule (they were all trained on the Roman empire, they understood these things, they were not dumb), so they relentlessly promoted local divisions (Muslim vs Hindu, Sikh vs Hindu, Upper caste vs Lower caste etc), that does not mean they CREATED those divisions, but they definitely had an interest in promoting them and did so.. That contributed to the rise of the Muslim league.
2. In 1939, INC failed to support them in an existential war. This led the viceroy to promote a relatively small party (the muslim league) to counter them. The viceroy’s favorite (sir zafrullah) wrote the Pakistan resolution. Then gandhi doubled down on his errors with the Quit India movement and that gave loyal Muslims another leg up. Pakistan propaganda operated unhindered while INC had 1000s in jail. Advantage Muslim league.
The Stans
@DailyTurkic Percentage of adults who pray five times a day in the “Stan” countries, according to the Pew Research Center.
Pakistanis of course, being good Hindus, are careful to do daily Puja. Namaz of course has the same cognate root as “namaste.”
The Persianate inflected cultures (Tajikistan and Afghanistan) are far more religious than the Turkic kin.
India vs. Pakistan in one graph
However, total GDP isn’t the right comparison. More populous economies will usually produce more output. GDP per capita is the correct metric to consider. Until 2009, India was poorer than Pakistan on a per capita basis. India truly became richer than Pakistan after 2009 and since then it hasn’t looked back. If trends continue for a decade, India will be more than twice as rich as Pakistan soon.
Pakistan’s GDP is about $400 billion while India’s is around $4 trillion. Since the ratio of their economies has stayed roughly constant for decades, their nominal growth rates should be similar from the 1960s onwards.
So why has India pulled ahead in GDP per capita? The reason is simple. Pakistan’s high fertility has driven population growth faster than India’s. In 1952 Pakistan had about one-tenth of India’s population; by 2025 it had grown to nearly one-seventh.
The other explanation why Pakistan finds it easier to maintain the status quo is that it is located in a geopolitically sweet spot. It can extract geopolitical rents from the US. It’s location close to Afghanistan is strategically important and the US has used many Pakistani airbase.
Thanks 0M for the article.
Rest in Peace, Jason Arday
I have been in shock ever since I heard, earlier this morning, that Jason Arday was found dead at his home in Battersea on the afternoon of Friday 14 August. He was 41. The Metropolitan Police describe the death as unexpected but not suspicious, and a file is being prepared for the coroner.
On 5 August he resigned from Cambridge and Jesus College, hours after the university announced an investigation into his qualifications and career. His letter said he had “reached the limits of what any person should reasonably be expected to endure.” On 11 August his memoir, Great and Unfortunate Things, went on sale in America. On 14 August he was dead. His family, through his publisher, said “the campaign of misinformation was too much,” and that they had lost a father, a partner, a brother, an uncle and a son.
Jason’s Story Continue reading Rest in Peace, Jason Arday