Dharms are Natural Democrats

July 29, 2026 5 Comments filed under X.T.M

On what Britain bequeathed, and what Delhi chose

  1. What did Britain actually leave in 1947, institutions or a franchise?
  2. Whose precedent was universal suffrage in 1950?
  3. Why did the wardrobe never decolonise?
  4. Are all South Asians natural democrats?

The Colonial Bequest

The parliamentary system across India, Pakistan and Bangladesh is Westminster’s. The founders, Gandhi, Nehru, Jinnah, were British-trained lawyers. Liberal democracy arrived in the West through revolutions and arrived in South Asia from the top down. Before the British, the subcontinent was ruled by monarchies, and the political parties are still run by royal houses in all but name, the Bhuttos, the Sharifs, the Gandhis. South Asians, on this account, are not natural democrats.

The chamber, the party system, the common law, the drafting language, the Inns of Court on the founders’ CVs are Albion’s gift. The Indian precedents, Chandragupta and Akbar are kings at scale, and pointing at them concedes the monarchy claim rather than rebutting it. The answer sits in the smaller polities.

The Dharmic republics

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The Writ of the Pakistani State into P.A.K

July 28, 2026 48 Comments filed under X.T.M

Rawalakot vs. Jantar Mantar

  1. Has any other South Asian government fired the anti-national frame at a major protest movement?
  2. What matters, constitutionalism or state resolve?
  3. Can a state be “hard” outwards without treating domestic opposition as an external enemy?

Is this the same as Delhi?

Last night, the Azad Jammu and Kashmir Police issued a statement about clashes at Rawalakot. It said that armed groups of the proscribed Joint Awami Action Committee had tried to force their way into the city, that appeals to disperse were rejected, that fire was opened on law enforcement officials, and that two officers were injured. The phrase used was challenging the state writ.

Five weeks earlier, on 23 June, Dharmendra Pradhan described the Cockroach Janta Party as a B team of disruptive elements and told India Today that tukde-tukde forces were at Jantar Mantar.

The two governments reached for the same instrument. Both took a movement making material demands and attempted to relocate it outside the nation, where its demands would no longer require an answer. This is the standard subcontinental response to a protest that cannot be conceded to.

The difference is what happened next. The JAAC is now banned. Pradhan resigned on 25 July.

Why is the Pakistani case different?

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The Price of India’s Soul?

July 27, 2026 25 Comments filed under X.T.M

On Great Nicobar, and what integration would actually require

  1. Is the port separable from the township in practice, or only on paper?
  2. Can 229 people hold a veto over a national project? If they cannot, who can?
  3. Does Indian elite capital reinvest at home, and what would it look like if it did?

The Strategic Case

In August 2024 the Public Investment Board, the Finance Ministry body that vets projects with a financial fallout, examined the Great Nicobar proposal brought to it by the Ministry of Shipping. It recorded that the project did not have strategic objectives, and that strategic objectives should be added to it.

They were added. In March 2026 the Ministry of Defence notified the project as strategic. The Hindu has reviewed both the 2024 board documents and the March 2026 records of the Public-Private Partnership Appraisal Committee, the Finance Ministry branch that must clear anything above five hundred crore.

In between, the shipping ministry asked for ₹12,300 crore of viability gap funding. The appraisal committee asked why a commercially viable project required a subsidy, and why the ministry wanted to depart from the funding norms in this case. It also asked how the port would compete with Colombo, Port Klang and Singapore. The funding was refused and the Ports Ministry was told to find the money internally.

Congress Intervenes

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The Cockroach Takes a Bow

July 26, 2026 185 Comments filed under X.T.M

On the CJP, the NEET leak, and the weapon that failed to detonate

1. How much of the patriotic framing was strategy and how much was simply the sincere register of the people who happened to be there?

2. Does the Shaheen Bagh comparison hold? The counter-case is that 2020 and 2026 are not comparable because the CAA was a policy the government wanted and the NEET leak was an embarrassment it did not.

3. Can a satirical formation convert?

Sorting out the Cockroaches?

Every major Indian protest movement of the last twelve years has faced the same attempted execution. Not by baton, though the batons come, and came again on 20 July. The execution is attempted when the state tries to answer the question who are these people? before the movement can answer it. Shaheen Bagh was minorities. JNU was tukde-tukde. The farmers held out longest and won their repeal, and were still, in the telling, Khalistanis with tractors.

It is a sorting mechanism. Once a crowd has been sorted out of the nation, its demands become negotiable in the way that a hostile faction’s demands are negotiable, which is to say not at all.

The Cockroach Janta Party won in large part because Abhijeet Dipke understood this and moved first.

The insult

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The Hindufication of the Indian Bahá’í Community

July 25, 2026 No Comments filed under X.T.M

The Bahá’í community of India hosted this performance in Mumbai roughly around about nine years ago, because 2017 was the sacred bicentenary of the birthday of Bahá’u’lláh.

What’s also interesting is that the prayer is translated into Shudd Hindi, whereas the two languages in the world that get the direct translation from the original Persian and Arabic language of the Writings are Persian, Arabic, and Urdu.

It’s interesting that I don’t know where the Shudd Hindi gets translated from: Urdu, Perso-Arabic or English.

I also got this invite today for this very interesting talk below; K might have some interesting views on the below.

Open Thread – Iran & CJP

July 24, 2026 43 Comments filed under X.T.M

I went on Twitter for a bit (I stopped using it) and I was surprised by what’s happening.

The war in Iran seems to be raging and the CJP protests don’t seem to be piping down (yet).

  • What do people think of Sonam Wangchuk?
  • Why doesn’t the Education Minister just resign?
  • The BJP (and especially Modi) have cultivated an aura of invincibility?

I have thoughts but I’ll write on them later on tonight. I commend the Commentariat on VERY high quality exchanges; we don’t all have to agree but when we do so in a calm and measured manner, it yields a lot of fruit.

Also Calvin as captain of the “opposition” is doing after fine job, it’s fairly obviously now that BP is an India-first blog. Pakistan and Diaspora are interesting inasmuch as they impact India’s future, which is bright.

Otherwise, the boundaries of the Sikh Empire essentially map the upper reaches of the Indus watershed. The Sutlej apparently was the Eastern boundary of the Empire.

The Sikh Empire c. 1843 at its greatest territorial extent.

Thoughts on the 5 Point Plan?

July 23, 2026 66 Comments filed under Popular, X.T.M

I strongly disagree with point 5 since the idea of MP switching is key to political fluidity. Also point 1 feels very iffy; I do like point 3. The Brit in me loves the idea of titles, Upper Houses and MPs having autonomy from their party..

I have no strong views on either 2 or 4.

Eliminator, Not Meritocracy

July 22, 2026 139 Comments filed under Popular, X.T.M

Calvin has argued that NEET’s meritocracy is a fiction: the exam is cleared through coaching that costs lakhs, tests discipline rather than aptitude, and predicts nothing about the doctor a candidate becomes. 0M-3 answered that a single centralised exam is the one gate a poor student can afford to prepare for, and that the state-run alternatives leak worse (Punjab’s teachers exam, Rajasthan’s SI recruitment).

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Open Thread: Raga the Martyr?

July 21, 2026 8 Comments filed under X.T.M
Today July 21 in Delhi. Rahul Gandhi forcefully carried out of the massive student and youth demonstration against the Modi government.

Credit: PB of Sapan News

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