This is an open thread; it’s just interesting to see how “propaganda” is evolving. We may expand on this but this is not a reflection of our views in any way.
The case for peace
Recently, BB said that there are no leftists in Pakistan. May I introduce Aasim Sajjad Akhtar (Pervez Hoodbhoy’s son-in-law)? Aasim is the deputy general secretary of the Awami Workers Party. AWP is a progressive and democratic socialist party.
Aasim writes in today’s DAWN:
India is a much bigger country than Pakistan. The Modi regime and the militant Hindu right have created massive troll armies to fan hate, a lot of it against Pakistan. It has also weaponised religion against Muslims, Scheduled Castes and other oppressed groups in India. The BJP’s most recent victory in what was once the communist stronghold of West Bengal confirms just how deep Hindutva’s tentacles have spread.
Meanwhile, generations of young people in Pakistan have been bred on a militaristic ideology that depicts India as the arch-enemy. This has been the primary justification for diverting public resources away from the welfare of working people towards the establishment.
This is not about who blinks first. It is about the consciousness and well-being of most of this region’s people. The tidal waves of hate will eventually engulf us all.
The Muslim Districts That Hold West Bengal Up
West Bengal Hindus have a real grievance, and it should be stated plainly. East Bengal’s Hindu share fell from 28% in 1941 to under 8% in the 2022 Bangladesh census. West Bengal’s Muslim share rose from 19.85% in 1951 to 27% in the 2011 Census, and is estimated higher today.
The Nehru–Liaquat Pact of 1950 was meant to be reciprocal. It was not. One side kept its minorities; the other did not. Three refugee waves, 1950, 1964, 1971, landed on West Bengal alone. The frustration is not communal; it is actuarial.
But the conclusion drawn from it is often wrong. The three Muslim-majority border districts, Murshidabad, Malda, Uttar Dinajpur, are not a demographic problem to be solved. They are the reason the state functions.
Murshidabad holds the Bhagirathi offtake at Jangipur and the Farakka Barrage beyond it. Farakka diverts the Ganga’s dry-season flow into the Hooghly; without that diversion, Kolkata Port silts up, the Hooghly becomes seasonal, and the salinity line marches inland into the 24 Parganas. Malda anchors the Sealdah–New Jalpaiguri trunk line and the rail spine to Assam; lose it and North Bengal is an island.
Uttar Dinajpur sits directly below the Siliguri Corridor and carries NH 27. These were not given to India by accident in 1947. Radcliffe overrode demography for infrastructure, and the engineering logic has only deepened since.
The Muslims of these districts are weavers, beedi workers, masons, farmers on the most fertile alluvium in eastern India. Murshidabad silk, Malda mangoes, the Farakka catchment; the productive base of three districts rests on a workforce the state would struggle to replace at scale.
Frustration is fair. Cession is not. The districts that look like the problem are the ones holding the system together.
Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose
The 2020 Open thread spent a whole afternoon on whether vegetarian biryani, vegetarian haleem and vegetarian paya could exist. Saurav declared the abominations should be banned.
Qureishi extolled the centrality of beef in Pakistani cuisine. The 2026 thread relitigates the same question with Nihari as the exhibit and the Modi diplomatic menu as the provocation.
BB’s argument is that Mughlai cuisine remains Indian property because it is Indian restaurants that carry it globally; the Pakistani versions are cover songs, the originals are still in Awadh and Old Delhi. As BB speaks to the strength of Indian soft power, this comment by Ali Choudhury six years earlier perfectly illustrates it:
Our local Pakistani takeaway does not serve beef dishes partly because they have a fair amount of Indian Hindu customers who don’t want the cross-contamination.
We had guessed this independently. The complexion of Mughlai food in the diaspora, or rather traditional Indo-Islamicate food, is buckling under three constraints: no pork, no beef, halal.
So all restaurants peddling the food of the Indian Subcontinent will converge toward lamb, chicken and goat, the “speciality meat”, as the offerings of choice, with a vast array of vegetarian options alongside. It maximises the customer base, and it is fascinating to see how the syncretic culture survives, despite attempts to destroy it.
The thread and Homelands perform partition. The market and Diaspora quietly un-does it.
The Brahmins behind April’s Traffic
One post earns sixteen percent of all our organic traffic. Written in February 2019. Titled The Five Great Brahmin Castes and Their Proclivities. Seven years on, still the engine.
That is the centre of the site, whether we planned it or not.
What people are searching for
top 5 caste in india. brahman caste. brahmin last names. aryan indians. pakistani hindu. is hinduism pagan.
People are searching caste, ancestry, and religious lineage. We rank for it. Some readers are working out what they are. Some are arguing with relatives. Some are looking up a surname before a marriage call. We do not need to romanticise them. The search bar tells the truth.
The 2019 post answered a question hundreds of thousands of people have asked since. It still answers it.
What sits below it
Four other posts share the next 22% of organic traffic between them.
India-Pakistan pop culture and future trends
Just some general thoughts about India-Pakistan pop culture and future trends.
There were some comments in the recent discussions that caught my eye. One was about Pakistanis no longer using memes from recent Indian movies as well as another about Indian soaps being cheesy and badly made. Both are opinions I broadly agree with but there is a certain element that is being missed in such discussions.
Maybe due to the age of the commenters or maybe due to Pakistan not having equivalents, one thing was completely skipped: the rise of Indian streaming.
Due to rising incomes and internet penetration/quality, there has been a deluge of streaming platforms and shows all across India. These include American platforms like Netflix and Amazon Prime as well as dozens of local Indian platforms – JioHotstar, Zee5, SonyLiv etc. Quality of these shows vary, as with everything but freed from the restrictions of TV censorship laws, these shows on an average do tend to be more transgressive and experimental, tackling topics/themes which would simply not find a place in normal cable TV. Also because these are usually seasons of a few episodes rather than a “daily” soap, they tend to be technically of a higher quality. The discerning urban/elite Indian demographic with access to American/global pop culture are the primary audience of these shows.
In a way, memes from these shows are now far more commonplace than memes from movies. And I have seen Pakistanis use these memes along with the memes from older 00s movies (mostly Akshay Khanna comedies). Tbf, even Indians don’t particularly use memes from modern movies. The Pakistani internet does seem to be influenced by the larger Indian internet, adopting trends wholesale (I even saw a Babar Azam edit with music from the second Dhurandhar movie).
Continue reading India-Pakistan pop culture and future trends
Open Thread: Pakistan’s Demons are The Daughters of God
Q writes on Pakistani source confirms US, Iran closing in on one-page memo to end war:
- Total Pakistani victory. If Pakistan pulls off the mediation, this will its greatest diplomatic victory ever. Lifting of Iranian sanctions will allow cheaper Iranian oil to flow directly to Pakistan, and the oil pipeline can be finally completed. Complete eradication of Indian influence from Iran is now achieved, and this will also eliminate any support to BLA from across the border.
Pakistan post Sindoor is on a winning streak. The mediation is real, the memo is real, and if it holds, the diplomatic ledger for the year goes firmly into Rawalpindi’s column. Iranian oil at the door, IP pipeline thinkable for the first time in fifteen years, BLA lifelines into Sistan throttled, Chabahar quietly demoted. A Victorious month?
But the question is whether she can conquer her demons. And the demons are not in the foreign ministry. They are in the drama studios.
Q again, on Pakistani dramas:
Women low-key love abusive behaviour from attractive men. Pretty much all women fantasy porn is about this. (What they don’t love is abusive aggressive behaviour from ugly or poor men) Since females are the primary target audience of these dramas, they tend to show this because that’s what the market demands. I would not read too much into this. What’s more concering was that foreign funded NGOs were trying implement anti-family messaging in the last 15 years – and that messaging has suddenly dried up after their funding dried up.
Fantasy is not preference. A woman reading a brooding-billionaire romance is not auditioning for one. To collapse the two is to flatten the female imagination into a market signal, which is exactly what the Pakistani dramas do and exactly why they rot the culture that consumes them.
Daughters of God Continue reading Open Thread: Pakistan’s Demons are The Daughters of God
Indians and Pakistani dramas
Recently, BB made a comment claiming that Indians don’t watch Pakistani dramas while Pakistanis are very familiar with Bollywood. While it is certainly true that Indian media has greater penetration in Pakistan than Pakistani media does in India–which is only to be expected since Bollywood is a much larger industry– it is also a fact that there are many fans of Pakistani dramas in India. As I pointed out in a comment, Fawad Khan and Mahira Khan became well-known in India after the success of Humsafar. Sanam Saeed also became well-known after Zindagi Gulzar Hai (in which she starred opposite Fawad Khan) aired on Indian TV. While the film industry in Pakistan has struggled for many reasons, our drama industry is going strong. One point to note is that unlike Indian soap operas, Pakistani dramas generally come to an end after twenty five or thirty episodes. This means that there is no need to keep a story going by having people return from the dead etc–this is not specific to Indian soaps since American soaps are also like this.
I personally don’t watch Pakistani dramas (I don’t really watch TV and what media I do consume tends to be Western). I think the last Pakistani drama I watched was Barzakh which also starred Fawad and Sanam and was coincidentally made for an Indian streaming service (ZEE Zindagi).
Anyway, I came across this reel today on IG which is called “Indians after watching a Pakistani drama” and I thought I’d share it here. This is basically light entertainment but it does prove that there is an audience in India for Pakistani content. Presumably, the user didn’t make this video just for the Pakistani audience.
I am of the opinion that art transcends national borders so there is nothing wrong with this. Just as Pakistanis are fans of Lata Mangeskhar, Asha Bhosle and Muhammad Rafi, Indians are fans of Mehdi Hassan, Ghulam Ali, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan etc. Though the two countries obviously have political tensions–both see each other as hostile states– we do share a common culture and there is nothing wrong in acknowledging that fact.
Biggest takeaway of Assembly elections
I was listening to this interview of pollster Pradeep Gupta with Barkha Dutt and this line stuck out. {Copied at relevant point}
Last few assembly elections including the Maharashtra landslide were suggesting that direct cash transfers to women 1 year prior to elections was turning elections sharply in favor of incumbent. Notable examples being BJP in MP in 2023, JMM in Jharkhand 2025, BJP in MH 2025 etc.
All 5 states went into handout mode in late 2025-2026 for this election, but incumbents have only one in 2 small states out of the 5 states. Most notably – DMK which has spend significant amount from state funds last year {apart from usual vote for Cash campaign} has lost big. My contacts in TN tell me that both DMK and AIADMK had spend their significant party coffers on cash for votes – whereas T Vijay had not – only giving away flags and whistles. {not sure if this is 100% true but seemed to be the sentiment}.
If true this truly is the biggest positive of these election results.
Also appending Shekhar Gupta’s post
Key takeaways from West Bengal, Tamil Nadu, Kerala elections
Matuas – Dalits mostly from Bangladesh – who are one of the communities specifically touched by SIR had backed BJP despite that – owling to increased violence against them in Bangladesh :
Why Bangladesh played a big role in BJP’s West Bengal win
Ayan Guha, British Academy International Fellow at the Department of Anthropology, University of Sussex, told ThePrint that while it is a fact that a substantial section of the Matuas has suffered exclusion from electoral rolls due to SIR, it seems they have chosen to stay with the BJP this election. The reason, Guha believes, is Bangladesh.
“While this exclusion has created anxiety and frustration, it is quite evident that the BJP still remains their preferred choice. It clearly appears that widespread violence and atrocities committed on the Hindus in post-Hasina Bangladesh have made them vote as Hindu refugees,” Guha said.
The Hindification of East India
The Saffron Block