That’s more than 2,000 visitors a day. What’s driving it?
✅ Open Threads
✅ Honest takes
✅ And yes — argumentation.
But arguments only work if they spark thought, not just heat. Take Kabir; he’s a regular, and I’ve given him free rein. But his tendency to argue without reflection rubs people the wrong way. He blames his relative unpopularity on identity, but it’s more about tone than religion; highhandedness vs humility.
In my own recent disagreement: I paused, thought, reflected deeply. That’s the spirit of BP; a messy, open-minded search for truth.
🎭 Meanwhile, the real tamasha isn’t cricket 🏏 (India did trounce Pakistan) — it’s on X, and on the BP comment section.
X 🧵:
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Mohammed Shami’s viral Ramzan juice reel — “His religion lets him put his nation first”
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Indian media ad for INDvPAK — lynching for selling beef.
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A Malayalam film scene: Hindu girl eating beef — what are South Indian Hindu traditions on beef?
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Tallest structures in the subcontinent through the ages.
The stupas raises a deeper question:
How central was Buddhism to the Indian subcontinent — and how total was its erasure? In the heartlands, Brahmanism absorbed and displaced it; in the frontier zones, Islam swept away what remained. What we see today are ruins — but once, this was the dominant civilizational framework of the region.
Was its disappearance a slow assimilation, or a deliberate effacement?
Hinduism does it’s usual thing. They made Buddha an avatar of Vishnu. So both, some part subsumed, some part deliberate incorporation.
Hinduism itself changes drastically. Vegetarianism was largely unknown before Buddhism & Jainism enters the scene,
Brahminical Hinduism was revived only with the priestly caste matching a Buddhist monks rejection of meat, alcohol and pleasure.
I have been to innumerable Jain temples, with most of the ritual aspects of Hinduism, (the offerings and idol adorning) suppressed they offer a simpler, less chaotic experience.
I feel the Dharmic faiths move in lockstep, modernising and revising together.
excellent comment; feels this could be a post 🙂
🙂 Why one, should have a series on dietary habits really. They are their own rabbit warren. I have a couple of silly theories too, sometime soon.
Also that beef lynching is definitely not an Indian media ad. That sort of ad will get you instantly jailed in India. My guess is a Pakistani having fun with AI.
Yes – absolutely ..
Oh ok – good spot on the ad ..
Yeah, Jainism is.. interesting. Almost as … atheistic as a ‘faith’ can get, but even there, you see an attempt at syncretism with a variety of Hindu deities like Ganesh being incorporated as much older OG ‘Jain’ deities.
You keep singling out my “tone”. What about the umpteen times commenters have called Pakistan a “Nazi state”?
I have repeatedly pointed out incidents of other people’s tone that I find personally antagonizing. Particularly the person who has made it his mission in life to highlight my “hypocrisy”.
If I were an Indian citizen, I bet there would be much less antagonism directed towards me.
Also, I really don’t care about being “unpopular”. I’m never going to meet any of you in real life (except Furqan since he actually lives in my country). I have no need to be loved. If my beloved Pakistan is attacked, I will defend it. If Islam is attacked, I will defend it.
Other than that, I really don’t care what you all say.
yes but you tend to just react than pay attention.
but also u enjoy the conflict.. Brown Pundits has no ethnically Indian founder.
Honestly, if you don’t attack my motherland or my religion, I won’t comment.
I’ve repeatedly pointed out the site’s soft Hindutva bias. Perceived slights to Hinduism are clamped down on much harder than slights to Islam.
Why is it acceptable to call Pakistan a “Nazi state”? And when I pointed out that anti-Muslim pogroms occurred on Modi’s watch, I get in trouble.
Yes, yes, you keep saying this. I won’t comment, I’m leaving the site. The wolf has grown old and died.
Why make these declarations?
Also, spend some time and find me a single comment actually attacking Islam on this site. One comment, by anyone, that is mocking Islam or attacking it in any way.
Don’t give me some way old nonsense that happened years ago, since I joined, say.
.
ur comments on the Ramayana were beyond the pale.
also u just complain but don’t engage with the substance of what is said
Ah yes! This is exactly the double standard.
Just acknowledge that you are very sensitive about Hinduism. The same sensitivity is not present when it comes to my motherland or my religion.
obviously my wife is Sindhi Hindu India; why would I not be sensitive about it?
That’s fine.
But perhaps you should understand why I am sensitive about my motherland and my religion?
Next time someone calls Pakistan a “Nazi state”, can I expect that comment to be immediately voided?
As for “you don’t engage with the substance”– I don’t see anyone else changing their political views. This is unfortunately how blogs work. People with different political views talking past each other.
Pakistan’s Hindu minority did essentially disappear (this is irrespective 1971) and non-Muslims are second-class citizens.
as you know I have written on Pakistan and provided context; but I can see Hindu concerns about Muslim Republics and Dhimmitude?
Muslims were ethnically cleansed from Indian Punjab. Ethnic cleansing happened on both sides in 1947.
Pakistan is an “Islamic Republic”. We have the right to decide our own constitutional arrangements.
India can declare itself a Hindu Rashtra tomorrow and there is nothing Pakistanis can do about it. The same goes for us being an Islamic Republic.
and they have a right to call that constitutional arrangement, “Nazi-like”
Not at all. We are not sending people to gas chambers. Nor are we invading neighboring countries. We have a limited dispute about Occupied Kashmir but we have no designs on India Proper.
You yourself told Daves that comparing Pakistan to Nazi Germany was unacceptable. Why backtrack now?
FWIW, I compared the Pakistani Military to the Nazis, not the entirety of Pakistan. Not the state, not the citizens, but its military – the one that brazenly carried out an actual genocide in 1971 – overtly targeting Hindus and Bengalis.
And I stand by my comparison.
It’s still an extremely offensive comparison. Pakistan’s military didn’t gas 6 million people to death. Nor did it invade neighboring countries as the Nazis did to Czechoslovakia or Poland.
This is anti-Pakistan rhetoric and it should be completely unacceptable in any civilized discourse.
Just because you don’t like a comparison, does not make it ‘unacceptable’. Or even inaccurate.
A liberal person would not need this concept to be explained. Repeatedly.
OK, the thing is there is no absolute freedom of speech on this forum. XTM voids comments he considers beyond the pale. If I say something about the “Ramayana” it gets voided. I’ve learned to live with that.
In the interests of fairness, anyone who calls Pakistan a “Nazi state” should have that comment voided. If that is not the policy, it makes it really clear that there is a soft Hindutva bias on the forum. It’s acceptable to insult Pakistan but not to insult India.
Its interesting that weaponizing the ‘nazi’ comparisons is acceptable for Kabir and his ilk when it comes to a political party like the BJP, or an organization like the RSS – based on vague ‘origin theories’. However, self-righteous victimhood and patriotism is invoked when it comes to logical parallels being drawn between the two 20th century military organizations actually guilty of executing mass genocide.
Way to miss the point! There is no absolute freedom of speech on this forum. It really is whatever XTM decides is acceptable or not. So it is arbitrary.
Either no comments should be voided (in which case I have the right to say whatever I feel about the “Ramayana”) or gratuitous offense to either party should be voided. Comparing Pakistan to the Third Reich is incredibly hurtful and offensive. The fact that you insist on doing it is really quite rude and tone deaf.
Am I not being specific enough for you? Are the kleptocrats of the pakistani military the beginning and the end of ‘Pakistan’ for you? No wonder the abject enslavement and exploitation of its citizens by this feudal regressive mafia organization is kosher to you. Or is Kosher somehow also offensive for you? Would you prefer halal instead?
You are just insisting on being nasty. Nazi comparisons are inaccurate. We have not gassed six million people to death.
You live in the United States. You are aware that comparisons with Nazism are extremely inflammatory. Yet you do it.
It is because I realise the commentariat is getting derailed by you.
Brown Pundits does not have to prove itself to you.
I actually do think most of the commentariat are *ignorant* of Pakistan but I also don’t just react.
For instance the most viewed article on your Substack was why Pakistan is South Asian, which grew from the comment boards.
My suggestion to you is to channel those frustration into more pieces of worth. U r displaying, instead of leveraging your privilege, and then making urself to be some martyr.
As u know I don’t always agree with u but I don’t always disagree. For instance your “brothers in the Ummah” is actually a controversial but interesting idea that you can explore in long form.
but as Bombay Badshah, correctly says, in the last 30 yrs both countries have dramatically diverged.
this is not subjective but objective, so why the sensitive and assess where Pakistan has gone wrong.
I don’t agree with Hindutva’s stances on Pakistan (the Indian cricket team should have shook hands with the Pakistani players)
I am happy to criticize Pakistan when warranted.
But calling Pakistan a “Nazi state” is absolutely and utterly unacceptable.
I think the not shaking hands thing is total grandstanding and …baqwaas Once you decided to participate in the tournament, don’t resort to melodrama and point scoring. Its pathetic.
Poor taste, poor judgement. And apart from personal morality etc, even ‘tactically’ just stupid, an ‘own goal’ if you allow a different sports metaphor.
I think it’s a little more complicated than that. The person refusing to shake the hand is protesting, but they have limited control on the tournament and their careers in BCCI hands. BCCI (and by extension GOI) are really responsible for this fiasco.
I do not disagree. I just think that the PR management is bungled. Protests can be done with black armbands for example. One doesn’t have to cut their own nose off to spite their face.
Refusing to shake hands with a Pakistani cricketer – one who doesn’t have much to do with Pahalgam, directly or othewise, simply offers ammunition to the “adversary”. The cost-benefit equation does not compute. That’s my point.
It really is a no win situation. Whatever the players did would have been found wrong by a large section of the population. When you have no good answers they just have to guess at the least worst scenario. The milk is spilt, whatever cloth you use to mop it will stink.
I asked my dad about this. He said that in tennis you get fined if you refuse to shake hands with your opponent. I don’t know if it’s the same in cricket.
It would have been fine it India had chosen not to play cricket with Pakistan. But once you play then this action is just rude and petty.
Still waiting for that comment Kabir. You can prove your double standard claim by just showing one comment.
Come on, you’ve cried and cried about this anti-Islam Hindutva bias. Show one, just one…
Sir, you are the one who got so upset about the “Hijras of India”. Clearly you get your knickers in a twist whenever your sensitivities about your motherland are involved. So perhaps understand why Pakistanis don’t want our motherland insulted.
I have been called an “Islamist” “Islamofascist” and accused of “taqqiya”. This has happened repeatedly and it is completely and utterly unacceptable.
Once again, the easiest way to get rid of me is for this forum to refrain from mentioning the Islamic Republic of Pakistan or Islam.
Given your evasion, I can only assume that you haven’t found a single comment to back up your allegation of an affront to Islam.
Not one.
These are just ideological shields you use to cry victim. The other one is crying about bullying and personal animosity. The moment you had the power to do so, you not only censored me but replaced my words with yours.
🙂 given that you’ve complained for the tenth time about a Hijras comment of mine made months ago, I can only assume it lives rent free in your head after you deleted it. Did it hit too close? I didn’t know at the time.
It was just such a stupid comment that it sticks out. If you had actually read the whole thing you would have clearly seen that it discussed khawajasaras in Islam. So clearly it was not intended to be an anti Hinduism attack.
“Did it hit too close?”– I’m not going to discuss my sexuality on this forum. But I am the last person to be homophobic or transphobic. I absolutely do not care what two consenting adults do in the bedroom.
Yes yes, no one wants to talk about your habits or what upsets you. Stop evading.
Post a link to the comment someone has made attacking Islam.
Here is your allegation. Back it up, I challenge you. Barring that, apologise.
https://www.brownpundits.com/2025/09/14/%f0%9f%93%8a-brown-pundits-hits-63094-visits-in-august-156-surge/#comment-117803
If Kabir annoys you; feel free to void or remove..
Kabir should also respect your Editor status..
Wow! Freedom of speech apparently only goes one way.
In the future, please refrain from taking my name in your posts or discussing my personality. I’m asking you this extremely politely.
Kabir you are a regularly commentator who engages with this blog.. I do have a right to comment on the commentariat..
Thank you, but I’m not a big believer in all that. As a silly aside I got chatGPT to score my writing, it pushed me into the deep libertarian end of the graph.
This is you X.T.M. 🙂 AI’s. I’ll bet it gives a different result if you ask the question in a slightly different way.
Oh?
🙂 It’s the new age fortune teller.
More like magicians
Look, I was called an “Islamofascist” and accused of “taqiyya”. Multiple times. That is completely unacceptable.
I am not inclined to apologize to you about anything.
And for the record: “The Hijras of India” was not at all meant as an insult to India. The major source I used for that paper was a book entitled Neither Man Nor Woman: The Hijras of India by Serena Nanda (neither a Muslim nor a Pakistani). You are just very quick to take offense because you think I don’t like India–never mind that my animus is specifically against the Hindu Right.
So why is it unacceptable for me to take offense when my motherland is compared to the Third Reich?
stop weaponising and pointscoring Kabir; it’s taxing.
Please also apply this to Indosaurus who has made it his self-appointed mission in life to point out my “hypocrisy”.
Kabir, IndoSaurus & Nivedita have kept their Editor status. Ponder a bit on why you lost yours?
Humility, not haughtiness, goes very far.
This is not always the case. Zoroastrianism has survived with very little Hindu influence, without the need of a holy book, state support or any hardcore orthodoxy.
Parsis are basically Hindu
Not at all. I would say they are the closest we get to aHindu.
Avesta is the anti-veda
Asura is the Daeva and the Deva is the Ashura.
2 tribes seperated somewhere in the dawn of history. The commonality is fire worship.
Burials are different, marriages are different, diet is different.
And I’m also very thankful for Parsis being Indian, they have been some of our best people.
fascinating
Somewhat out of context.
The two great Indians Asoka and the Buddha were not Vedic. i.e.non Indo Aryan
Probably a reason they were erased from India
well, they were not !!! buddha was very much ‘ aryan’. he taught ‘ arya dharma’.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RftrCv_DZm8.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LGknsP8IJqU
When you show an historic text, pre 1000 CE that gives a caste of the Buddha and Asoka thats proof of Vedic i.e. Indo Aryan antecedents.
Caste is a Vedic Indo Aryan Construct. Note that both Asoka and the Buddha are called King and Prince, but NOT KSHATRIYA
I will go with the Mahavamsa oral tradition put into written form in the 600 CE which does not give a caste for Asoka or the Buddha
The Ancestry of the Buddha.
https://mahavamsa.org/mahavamsa/original-version/02-race-mahasammata/
See Chapter 10
05: Third Council – Third Dhamma SangayanaQuotes
Then did the brahman Canakka ((6-On the Moriya dynasty and on Canakka and Candagutta see Mah. Tika, pp. 119-123;
(Asoka’s) father had shown hospitality to sixty thousand brahmans, versed in the Brahma-doctrine, and in like manner he himself nourished them for three years. But when he saw their want of self-control at the distribution of food he commanded his ministers saying: (hereafter) I will give according to my choice.
The writers of the Mahavamsa were well aware of Brahmins
Every single national symbol in India is Ashokan.
The Yahsha carving at the RBI (Reserve Bank of India) is a pre Aryan motif taken from Sanchi Stupa the oldest stone structure in India, originally built by Emperor Ashoka in the 3rd century BCE..
Every single national symbol in India is Ashokan
Does not prove Asoka was Indo Aryan
I hope you understand the logic
hindu’s sense of history as seen in modern times is lacking a great deal.
stories of all our historical ‘religious’ persons like buddha, shankara,madhwa etc, are mixed with devas, rakshas etc whose existence cannot be proved.
hence erasure of asoka or buddha was not a deliberate act but the changing patterns in learning.
till recently all scholarship had to have royal patronage for survival. may be guptas in 7th century were not keen on figures long gone by and buddha’s teachings are only now considered to be ‘non hindu’.
ironically, pithy statements attributed to buddha are every where in media etc now.
What is the name of large Stupa. Cant read the text. Two small and not conducive ti enlarging
sorry
Grand Stupa of Kanishka
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kanishka_Stupa#:~:text=The%20Kanishka%20Stupa%20(Urdu%3A%20%DA%A9%D8%A7%D9%86%D8%B4%DA%A9,the%20outskirts%20of%20Peshawar%2C%20Pakistan.&text=2nd%20C.E.
It’s in Peshawar of all places!
Amravati and Sanchi are the other Stupas.
Nice, height of 400 feet (120 m)
Last observed In 726 CE, the Korean pilgrim Hyecho visited Gandhara and saw the Kanishka monastery
I guess destroyed by the advent of Islam
Oh fascinating – Buddhist Temple destruction would be interesting to learn off.
One of issues of the Dhamma as taught by the Buddha is of self help and WITHOUT divine help.
In Sri Lanka that problem has been soled by having ancient shrines to totemic gods (now considered Hindu, eg Kali) next to the Buddhist Temple. Devotee to the Buddhist Temple pay homage to the Buddha and then go the shine and pray for a Mercedes
There is also the Presumption to understand the Dhamma one has to be intelligent. Discourse of the Mahinda when converting the king of Lanka (Mahavamsa Chapter 14)
To test him that most wise (thera) now asked a subtle question, and even as he was questioned the monarch answered the questions severally.
‘What name does this tree bear, O king?’
‘This tree is called a mango.’
‘Is there yet another mango beside this?’
‘There are many mango-trees.’
‘And are there yet other trees besides this mango and the other mangoes?’
‘There are many trees, sir; but those are trees that are not mangoes.’
‘And are there, beside the other mangoes and those trees which are not mangoes, yet other trees?’
‘There is this mango-tree, sir.’
‘Thou hast a shrewd wit, O ruler of men!’
In 1794 Jagat Singh, Dewan (minister) of Raja Chet Singh of Banaras began excavating two pre Ashokan era stupas at Sarnath for construction material. Dharmarajika stupa was completely demolished and only its foundation exists today while Dhamekh stupa incurred serious damage. During excavation a green marble relic casket was discovered from Dharmarajika stupa which contained Buddha’s ashes was subsequently thrown into Ganges river by Jagat Singh according to his Hindu faith. The incident was reported by a British resident and timely action of East India Company officials saved Dhamekh Stupa from demolition
Persecution of Buddhists
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Buddhists
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