The argument over Balochistan exposed something deeper than maps or borders. It revealed a confusion about what Pakistan is supposed to belong to.
Formally, Pakistan is one of the most nationalistic states on earth. Its red lines are absolute. Its territorial language is uncompromising. Its founding trauma has hardened into doctrine. And yet, beneath this rigidity sits a quieter truth: Pakistan’s elite does not actually live inside a closed nation-state imagination. They live in English.
They think in Western legal categories, read Western literature, speak the language of international institutions, and send their children into global circuits of education and finance. At the same time, their social world remains unmistakably South Asian; family-centred, hierarchical, ritualised, and deeply embedded in subcontinental habit. They are neither fully Western nor comfortably Indic. This produces a tension that Pakistan has never resolved.
The Nation-State After 1945: A Container That No Longer Holds
The post-1945 Westphalian settlement assumed that the nation-state was the final unit of history. That assumption is now collapsing. Power is pooling again at civilisational scale. China behaves as a civilisational state. Russia increasingly frames itself as one. Even the West is reverting to bloc logic rather than universalism. The age of pretending that flags alone define destiny is ending.
Pakistan feels this shift acutely because it was born as a negation rather than an inheritance. It rejected Hindu civilisation politically, but never found a civilisational home to replace it. Arab Islam was too distant, too linguistic and cultural alien. The West was useful but hollow; procedural rather than rooted. Turkish-Ottoman-Pan-Islamic nationalism was inspiring but historically thin. What remained was a void filled by security doctrine and ideology.
Pakistan’s Elite: Nationalist in Theory, Civilisationally Adrift in Practice
That void explains the intensity of Pakistan’s nationalism. When civilisation is unclear, borders become sacred. But borders cannot supply meaning forever.
What Pakistan’s elite intuitively understands, without ever saying it openly, is that Pakistan is most coherent when viewed as part of a larger Persianate-Turanian continuum: a space shaped by Persian language, courtly ethics, Islamicate governance, and steppe-derived military cultures, layered onto a South Asian social base. This is not nostalgia. It is recognition.
This civilisational zone once ran naturally from Anatolia through Iran and Central Asia into the Indo-Gangetic plains. It did not erase local cultures. It gave them a shared grammar. Pakistan sits at its southeastern edge, not as an anomaly, but as a hinge.
Why Security Replaced Belonging
1971 made this unavoidable. Bangladesh proved that religion alone could not hold a state together. Something thicker than ideology was required. Pakistan responded by doubling down on nationalism and nuclear deterrence. That solved survival. It did not solve belonging.
The reason Balochistan provokes such raw emotion is not only territorial fear. It is civilisational insecurity. Pakistan knows it cannot afford fragmentation because it has not yet articulated a story larger than the nation-state that can absorb difference without breaking. And yet the instinct is already there.
Toward a Larger Civilisational Frame
Pakistan’s diplomacy works best when it plays civilisational translator: between China and the Muslim world, between Central Asia and the Indian Ocean, between Western institutions and non-Western realities. Its military doctrine is hybrid. Its elite culture is bilingual. Its historical memory is layered, not singular. This is not a weakness. It is an unfinished advantage.
Pakistan does not need to abandon the nation-state. But it does need to stop pretending that the nation-state is enough. Its future stability will not come from louder red lines, but from embedding itself consciously within a broader civilisational complex that feels native rather than borrowed. Not Arab. Not Western. Not Hindu.
Until that is named, even obliquely, Pakistan will continue to defend territory with absolute certainty while remaining unsure of where, civilisationally, it belongs.
Pakistan is much like other British constructed Borders..
eg Israel a country that never existed in history, Created and settled by Europeans. There will never be peace in the Mid East while Israel continues to be an Jewish Apartheid State. That was probably the intention,by the British, i.e. destabilization of the Mid East. The British were ultimate nasties that used Divide and Conquer
Another example is the Sindh which is now part of Pakistan. And of course the Hindu Sindhis no longer have a homeland.
Yes, both Israel and Pakistan are nation-states with British drawn borders, driven by religious motivation. Both practice ‘constitutional’ discrimination towards minorities. Many parallels there.
At least Pakistan is not committing on going Industrial Level Genocide like the Israelis. Not bombing neighborhoods like shooting fish in a barrel
Pakistan has internationally recognized borders. Israel doesn’t. No country in the world recognizes the West Bank and Gaza as part of Israel. Even Israel doesn’t claim that the West Bank and Gaza are part of Israel.
Pakistan is not Occupying anyone else’s territory. Yes, Indians speak of “POK” but they are the only people in the world who use that terminology and as the other party to the dispute they clearly have vested interests. The rest of the world refers to “Pakistan Administered Kashmir”.
It is very ironic for Indian nationalists on this site to criticize Israel when their country is one of Israel’s strongest allies. Azad Essa has an entire book on the alliance between India and Israel. It’s called “Hostile Homelands”.
Gaurav had an excellent comment on one of the other threads – does it not count as genocide if you eliminate an entire populace over a couple of generations as opposed to violently killing a large number of them over a few weeks. If it does then Pakistan may be the most effective genocidal state to have ever existed.
Is this post 1951; Pakistan’s Hindu population & non-Muslim population have probably outpaced the general population demographically?
Also-Muslims in Pakistan & Bangladesh have more incentives to emigrate; a lot like how Indian Muslims figure fairly heavily in emigration (minorities in general do tend to emigrate more).
I think we absolutely must interrogate all aspects but throwing a term like genocide has to be examine.
Gaza looks & feels like a genocide!
I’m not a fan of the Israeli policy towards the Palestinians (nor a fan of the original Zionist project), but I will still challenge you on a couple of points.
Historically, what is today Israel was kind-of a nation until the Roman conquest (though using the word “nation” sounds anachronistic in this context). Even before that, there were conquests of the country, by Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians……but all the records show that the inhabitants were considered a distinct people with a distinct culture and identity.
Modern Israel may not exactly correspond to the old borders of the ancient Hebrew country, but it’s a close approximation to the heartlands of Judea and Samaria. Does this entitle groups of exiled/expat Jews heavily intermixed with their host populations to resettle the land and try to recreate a historical country after more than two millenia at the cost of displacing people, many of whom are likely descended in part or whole from the original Hebrews? Perhaps not, though the fate the Jews suffered during the Holocaust should give us all pause when considering this question.
Also, the original settlers were indeed Europeans, but since the 1940s, much of the immigration has been from Arab and Muslim lands, i.e., “brown Jews”. I used to think of Israel as a European colonial project too, but have revised my opinion somewhat in recent years after looking at the demographics. These “brown Jews” were often displaced from lands (like Iraq) where they had been settled for centuries, and personally I feel they are entitled to have their Israel.
They were not displaced in Iraq?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1950%E2%80%931951_Baghdad_bombings
I was thinking about https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farhud.
Yes but that didn’t precipitate the mass mutation; it was the fear of the bombings. I think we should be suspect of mainstream narratives (as we are of conspiracy theories)
but all the records show that the inhabitants were considered a distinct people with a distinct culture and identity
Do you have reference from an unbiased source. Preferably a peer reviewed journal article
There is considerable Russian and East European immigration into Israel even at the present. They are offered land (obviously Palestinian) and free health care.
Between 1989 and 2006, about 1.6 million Soviet Jews and their relatives left the country.[1] About 979,000, or 61%, were received by Israel under the Law of Return, which allows Jews and their non-Jewish spouses to relocate to Israel and acquire Israeli citizenship
While most of the immigration wave was made up of Ashkenazi Jews, a notable number of Mizrahi Jews also made aliyah from the Soviet Union’s Asian territories during this time, such as the Mountain Jews, the Georgian Jews, and the Bukharian Jews,
1970–2006 1,144,000 (Israel population appox 10 million)
So a 11% addition from 1970 to 2006 from former Soviet Union
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1990s_post-Soviet_aliyah#Demographics
but all the records show that the inhabitants were considered a distinct people with a distinct culture and identity
Do you have reference from an unbiased source. Preferably a peer reviewed journal article
There is considerable Russian and East European immigration into Israel even at the present. They are offered land (obviously Palestinian) and free health care.
Between 1989 and 2006, about 1.6 million Soviet Jews and their relatives left the country. About 979,000, or 61%, were received by Israel under the Law of Return, which allows Jews and their non-Jewish spouses to relocate to Israel and acquire Israeli citizenship
While most of the immigration wave was made up of Ashkenazi Jews, a notable number of Mizrahi Jews also made aliyah from the Soviet Union’s Asian territories during this time, such as the Mountain Jews, the Georgian Jews, and the Bukharian Jews,
1970–2006 1,144,000 (Israel population appox 10 million)
So a 11% addition from 1970 to 2006 from former Soviet Union
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1990s_post-Soviet_aliyah#Demographics
When I said “distinct people with a distinct culture and identity”, I meant the Hebrews of ~700BC. Do you want a peer reviewed source for the existence of the Hebrew people at that time?
Clearly, the Jews of Israel today have widely divergent ethnicites. But they all seem to share a good chunk of their ancestry from the Hebrews of old, albeit with heavy admixtures. (I’m relying on Razib Khan’s articles on Jewish genetics as sources.)
I’m well-aware of the Russian immigration to Israel. Not sure why it’s so objectionable just by itself (when they settle in the occupied West Bank, then it definitely is). They started immigrating in the 1970s from what I know, when Israel was an established country and free to choose an immigration policy.
When I said “distinct people with a distinct culture and identity”, I meant the Hebrews of ~700BC
The problem is that even a country called Israel never existed.Not even in the Bible
No sources at that time (700 BC) Greek or Roman ever mention a people called Hebrew
When I said peer reviewed I wanted an article that reviews mentions of sources for a country called Israel (and Hebrews) .
According to the Bible (their own version of history) the Jews left Egypt and entered Canaan defeated the people there and occupied it.
On other hand there is the the term “Palestine” (in Latin, Palæstina) comes via ancient Greek to the late second millennium BCE (2000-1000 BC) , a reflex of which is also to be found in the Biblical ethnonym Philistines
In the 5th century BCE, in his work The Histories, Herodotus used the term to describe a “district of Syria, called Palaistine” in which Phoenicians interacted with other maritime peoples. (So much like Indica by Megasthenes (probably Sind) and Taprobane (for Sri Lanka from the Sinhala word ThambaPanni/Thambarpanni) by Ptolemy
started immigrating in the 1970s from what I know, when Israel was an established country and free to choose an immigration policy.
10% of the population into a country where there iis already a historical population of Palestinians.
The British brought South Indians from India to work the Tea Estates. Indenture workers and not given any legal rights in Ceylon. Why because then they would come under Ceylonese Labor Laws which were quite decent for that time
Come Independence, Sinhalese and Ceylon Tamils wanted the Indian Tamil Repatriated. PMs Indira and Srimavo agreed and 5% of the Indian Tamils were repatriated. Those could NOT prove they were born in Ceylon. (The Brits avoided giving documentation)
So bringing in Russian in 1970 and after is essentially gerrymandering
so you are saying you are in favor of ethnic cleansing tamils if they are not able to prove they are ‘Ceylon tamils’ whatever that means?
favor of ethnic cleansing tamils
You keep on proving your lack of knowledge
Ignorance is bliss.
Two kinds of Tamils
Tamils of the North and East: like me:
Indian Estate Tamils: Brought by the British and did not have any documentation, eg Birth Certificate. i.e. Stateless There was no war with them. PM’s Indira and Srimavo discussed and the stateless were sent back to India
I was surprised to see Hatton was very Tamil?
I was surprised to see Hatton was very Tamil?
Indian Estate Tamils almost all concentrated in the Hill Country. 5% of the population
The Sri Lankan Tamils (the LTTE Type) dislike them as considered Low caste. If the LTTE had got the Estate Tamils into their fold SL would have become DIVIDED
Indian Estate Tamils are fast integrating and Becoming Sinhalese. Many are converting to Christianity
You see many Estate Tamils now working in Colombo. Very visible. specially manning the counters of the Supermarkets. Considered to work harder than the Sinhalese
During the time of the Sinhalese Kings (ended in 1815) it was forbidden to settle in the hill country above Gampola (588 meters (1,930 ft above sea level). The Sinhalese were well aware that the high country virgin forests were essential for regular rainfall.
The Brits came, cut down all the hill country forests, grew tea and imported Indentured Indian Tamil Labor (essentially slaves) and populated the former virgin jungles
The Sinhalese were very very Environmentally conscious right throughout History
fascinating
Not sure why it’s so objectionable just by itself (when they settle in the occupied West Bank, then it definitely is)
Pandit Brown
As expected as much of Gaza has been destroyed and Gaza Palestinians have been Ethnically Cleansed, Israel g=has now turned its attention on the West Bank.
—
Israeli authorities have intensified their campaign of forced displacement across the occupied West Bank, issuing expulsion orders to an entire Bedouin community east of Ramallah and escalating demolition policies in occupied East Jerusalem.
The measures come amid a surge in settler violence targeting educational institutions in the Jordan Valley and residential homes in Qalqilya, further shrinking the living space for Palestinians under military occupation.
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/2/1/israel-orders-eviction-of-bedouins-as-settlers-target-west-bank-schools
I will take issue with your claim of “Hindu civilization”. I think (many) Indian Muslims would not take kindly to the assertion that they are part of “Hindu civilization”. India was supposed to be a secular state.
As for Pakistanis, we are very clear on who we are. Our country is the homeland of the Muslims of British India. Our high culture is Indo-Islamic.
I’ll give you one small example. Yesterday, I went to the All Pakistan Music Conference’s monthly music program in Bagh-e-Jinnah (Lawrence Gardens). The whole event was centered around kajris, thumris and dadras. These are all forms of Hindustani semi-classical music and as such part of Indo-Islamic culture.
We rejected the Indian nation-state in 1947. We didn’t want to go from being ruled by the British to being ruled by Hindus. You are free to disagree with that choice if you wish but what is not up for negotiation is that making that choice was our prerogative.
This doesn’t mean that we are not at peace with who we are.
Who is we? The Baluch?
“We” is the Muslims of British India through their political party–The Muslim League.
You cannot deny that a large section of India’s Muslims desired Pakistan and expressed that through their vote in the 1946 elections.
If a Hindu majority population has the right not to be ruled by Muslims, a Muslim majority population has the right not to be ruled by Hindus.
This is hardly “hinduphobia”. It is a desire for self-determination.
This is a truly ridiculous argument (even for you).
The UK is not a colony. It is a nation-state. Muslims are not native to the UK. They are immigrants.
When you choose to immigrate to a country, you have no right to force the natives to live according to your own standards.
BRITISH India was a colony and the Muslims of BRITISH India were natives of the land.
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@XTM: This kind of personal trolling is not on.
yes if he trolls even his non-troll comments (which are high signal) will be removed.
Yeh galat hai X.T.M bhai.
Stop- u have some excellent comments but don’t cross the line otherwise you lose them all!
Pakistan the homeland of the Muslims of British India.?? If so why they stopped all Indian muslim immigration in 1951, BD Secession, and evn Bihari Mulsims who stood for Pakistan in a hostile land were thrown under the bus? This is unlike Isreal where any jew anywhere in the world can migrate, which they call Ascent ie Aliyah. That IS Homeland
Pakistan has a population of 240 million. We do not have the ability to give citizenship to non-Pakistanis.
Israel has a demographic interest in increasing the population of Jews with respect to the Palestinians. That’s what “aliyah” is about.
Sindh is the only historical region/state that’s entirely within Pakistan. Punjab is shared with India. So is J&K (de facto). (Bengal used to be too.) Balochistan with Iran. KP with Afghanistan.
Just sayin’.
So in this instance, I agree with Kabir. The thing that ties all of these provinces to a Pakistani nationalist identity is a rejection of India, both historical (Hindu/Buddhist civilization) and modern (religion-agnostic, or “secular” if you will). And, of course, the fact that they were ruled by the British until 1947.
Not sure why this needs to be debated again. Jinnah articulated most of this, including what Kabir calls fear of Hindu rule. Since his death, Pakistan has also rejected in practice his limited plea for religious tolerance (he made a speech about Muslims praying in mosques and Hindus praying in temples, etc., from what I recall), thereby exacerbating its difference with India.
Most Pakistanis are fine with our history. We don’t have problems with Mohenjodaro, Harappa, Taxila etc. Yes, there are people who hold the view that Pakistan was created when Muhammad bin Qasim arrived in Sindh but they are the equivalent of your “Akhand Bharat” types.
Pakistanis reject the Indian nation-state. And all the provinces that currently make up Pakistan were solidly Muslim majority before 1947. Why you would have expected us to submit to the rule of a Hindu demographic majority is beyond absurd. If Hindus have the right to self-determination than so do Muslims,
You are referring to the Quaid’s August 11 speech (“Hindus will cease to be Hindus and Muslims will cease to be Muslims. That has nothing to do with the business of the state”). The Quaid argued that the Muslims of British India were a nation (in an ethnic sense) but he didn’t want a Pakistan run on religious lines. I think that is very clear from the historical record.
I do agree with you that this debate doesn’t really add value anymore. Indians need to accept that Pakistan exists and it will continue to exist. Respect for sovereignty and territorial integrity are minimum conditions for neighborly relations. We’re never going to like each other but we do need to be able to co-exist.
The proposition of the Congress and various other Indian nationalists challenging British rule was not that “Hindus have the right to self-determination” but that “Indians have the right to self-determination”.
I’ve argued about this with you before (a long time ago), so I’m not inclined to repeat that here. I’ll just reiterate that there was no basis for the Muslim League’s fearmongering and demagogy on this issue. If history was a guide, the only people who were entitled to fear others’ dominance was Hindus (and other non-Muslims), of Muslim rule. The notion of “separate electorates” sounded very much to Hindu ears like elite Muslim wanting to keep big chunks of India as their personal fiefdoms (jagirs), and there was no way they would countenance it.
Anyway, this is old history. The current feelings between India and Pakistan are the result of our recent skirmishes, so while those last, the bad blood will never go away.
Feel free to have the last word.
Yes, Congress felt that they were arguing for all Indians. But in the opinion of the Quaid, Congress was a party that served Hindu interests. That is what led to Pakistan as a sovereign nation-state.
You are free to disagree with the Quaid. I’m free to agree with him. Looking at the fact that your country is led by “Hindu Hriday Samrat”– a man who literally has Muslim blood on his hands, all I can say is Thank God for Pakistan. I live in a country where no one can lynch me for eating beef. I would much rather be part of a religious majority than a beleaguered religious minority. If you’re honest, you would also admit most Hindus are much happier in India than they would be in Pakistan. Unfortunately, religion trumps everything else in South Asia.
“The current feelings between India and Pakistan are the result of our recent skirmishes”– Not true. The “bad blood” goes back to the ethnic cleansing of 1947 followed by the fact that we continue to have a festering territorial dispute over Occupied Kashmir.
The leadership of your country is fundamentally anti-Pakistan and anti-Islam and uses this to consolidate Hindus and shore up their vote bank.
The hostility goes both ways. Do introspect about your own country’s role.
The leaders of Pakistan were invited twice before 1965 to attend India’s Republic Day ceremony. Until 1965, the borders between India and Pakistan (both in the east and the west) were fairly loose, with no DMZ of the kind you see today. So don’t tell me that that things weren’t different earlier. (Perhaps only in the minds of Kashmir-obsessed Pakistanis.)
Of course, now the hostility goes both ways (for good reason), and I can introspect all I want, but (respectfully) I’ve never seen any sign that you’ve introspected about the Pakistani state’s (and its puppet master, the Army’s) role in maintaining a hostile atmosphere.
That is an excellent point; Kabir weaponises his “liberalism” to constantly advocate for Pakistan to sometime a pathological extent.
We all have our biases but good to be aware of them as a rule of thumb.
I wouldn’t need to defend Pakistan if any mention of the country on this forum didn’t bring out the anti-Pakistan trolls (BB and RNJ). The Pakistan Army has been called a “kleptocracy” and been compared to the Nazis. This is extremely offensive rhetoric.
BB has openly called for “another 1971”.
If such rhetoric is not acceptable about India, it is certainly not acceptable about Pakistan.
https://www.brownpundits.com/2026/02/04/pakistan-1971-and-the-misuse-of-the-holocaust-analogy/
Thank you.
My point is that the territorial dispute over Kashmir goes back to the very beginning. It is this dispute that is at the heart of the bad relations between the two countries. That and the psychological trauma of Partition–which of course goes both ways. Things were not improved by India’s breaking Pakistan in 1971. So don’t blame Pakistan for everything. India also had a role to play in creating the current situation.
I am on record as being against the Pakistani state’s use of terrorism as an instrument of proxy war. I believe we should restrict our support for the Kashmir cause to the realm of diplomacy. But if you think that we will ever give up on the Kashmir cause, you have another think coming. Many of us Pakistanis are ethnically Kashmiri and we will of course support our brothers and sisters across the LOC.
Yes, the Pakistan Army has a vested interest in sustained hostility with India. It is what allows them such a huge amount of power in Pakistan. But similarly, your BJP government has a vested interest in sustained hostility with Pakistan as it allows them to consolidate Hindu votes. So it takes two to tango.
I have written about the assassination of Salman Taseer and against the misuse of blasphemy laws. So don’t tell me that I don’t criticize the Pakistani state.
https://kabiraltaf.substack.com/p/the-assassination-of-salman-taseer
Kashmir is Sui generis in the Subcontinent; it is a frozen internationalised disputed region. Like Palestine
Agreed.
There is nothing wrong with the right of self-determination.
Muslims were terrified of what Hindu rule would bring for them. We had the right to opt out. All the areas that comprise Pakistan were solidly Muslim-majority in 1947. We didn’t take Hindu majority areas for ourselves.
Now that Pakistan exists, one can argue for fair treatment for all Pakistani citizens. That’s what being “liberal” means.
We’ve already established that you use terms loosely and not according to their actual meanings. This is not a good debating practice.
There is no “apartheid” in Pakistan. Non-Muslim citizens are not living in Bantustans like non-whites were in South Africa. All citizens have the right to vote. Non-Muslim citizens are represented in Parliament through reserved seats. “Apartheid” is being practiced by Israel with the Jewish only roads in the West Bank. There is no equivalent in Pakistan.
It is true that Pakistan is an Islamic Republic and non-Muslim citizens cannot become President, Prime Minister or Army Chief. This is hardly anyone’s first order concern nor does it constitute “apartheid”. It is also an internal matter of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.
India is free to declare itself a Hindu Rashtra. As someone who is not an Indian citizen there is nothing I can do about that.
Pandit Brown,
I’ve written about the Muslim “nationalists” in the Congress party–Including Maulana Azad. This is a book review of a book by a qualified (non-Muslim) historian.
Feel free to have a look if you’re actually interested.
https://kabiraltaf.substack.com/p/review-the-muslim-secular-parity
Hindus will cease to be Hindus and Muslims will cease to be Muslims. That has nothing to do with the business of the state”)
i remember years back, on a pakistani channel, when this quote was put to an religious type panellist, he said this should be understood as to what happened in mecca and madina during the prophet’s time. he said, the then christians, idol worshippers, and jews lost their identity and merged into the muslim umma!! and ceased to be their different selves.
The Quaid was very clear that he did not want Pakistan to be run on religious lines.
Pakistan was meant to be Muslim-majority but all citizens were meant to be treated equally. That’s what the August 11 speech is about.
Maybe Jinnah did want that (evidence goes both ways) but nobody else in his cohort seemed to. In India, not just was this attitude not restricted to Gandhi and Nehru, it was the governing philosophy of the political party that was dominant in India until a decade ago.
Just because we have a more sectarian party (and leadership) in the ascendant in the recent past does not give Pakistan any moral high ground in this respect. You’ve been miles worse on religious freedom and tolerance from the get-go, and continue to be.
It’s wonderful that you won’t get lynched for eating beef in Pakistan, but you sure will if you say anything critical about Islam or its founder. Criticizing and questioning our ancestral religion, on the other hand, is de rigeur in India across time and place and class.
There is no evidence that the Quaid wanted a Pakistan run on shariah. I’m sorry but that is not a case that can be made by any reasonable person. He wanted a Muslim-majority state not an Islamic one.
Pakistan is an Islamic Republic. India is a constitutionally secular state. Secular states have to be held to higher standards. If India becomes a Hindu Rashtra tomorrow, I will obviously stop holding it to the standards of a secular state.
I have consistently expressed my deep admiration for Pandit Nehru for insisting that India was a state that belonged to all its citizens. I find it deeply tragic that India is now increasingly becoming a majoritarian Hindu state.
Pakistan has never elected any one like your “Hindu Hriday Samrat” who presided over an anti-minority pogrom. General Zia took power in a coup. You all, on the other hand, have willingly chosen “Hindu Hriday Samrat” three times in a row. That really says a lot about “religious freedom and tolerance”.
Congratulating yourselves on being better than Pakistan really sets a low bar for your nation when it comes to religious freedom and tolerance.
I’m going to leave it here since this is increasingly becoming unproductive.
.
Aside from a small region around Muzaffarabad, there are no (native/rooted) Kashmiris in Pakistan. Almost all of historic Kashmir is in India now. As you say, “Azad Kashmir” is mostly Punjabi-adjacent people in the plains with Balti-related people up in the hills.
You can compare contrast the fortunes of Balti/Turtuk people in Ladakh vs Gilgit/Baltistan and the metrics speak for themselves.
Gilgit/Baltistan is treated as a frontier colony – Ironically Pakistan is being …”Indian” in its tendency to exoticize border regions that are ethnically unique – shades of how India has historically treated the ‘seven sisters’.
Luckily for India, its economic development has progressed enough so that the govt purse is fat enough to fund catch-up development in the North-east. No such luck for Pakistan however. And the resentment will continue to fester.
A decade or 2 from now, the contrast between Ladakh and Baltistan will be so glaring, and if Pakistan isn’t able to continue its iron fist rule, all things are possible 🙂
I think Baluchistan is sui generis in Pakistan; everywhere else is fairly copacetic.
I also think it’s isolated politics and tribes in Baluchistan, not the region
I can’t claim to know enough to disagree, and gut says you are probably more right than wrong.
Most folks after all want to just get on with life. And everyone generally wants to be patriotic-ish towards whatever nation they are born into. Takes a huge amount of…stress to push that into secessionism.
You don’t need to be so gleeful about the proposed breakup of Pakistan. This reveals a fundamentally anti-Pakistan attitude.
I’m not salivating at the mouth thinking of freeing Manipur and Nagaland from India. Asides from Occupied Kashmir, I have no desire to see any part of India proper “liberated”.
Anyway, Pakistan is a nuclear power. No part of the Islamic Republic is going anywhere. We have made that very clear.
Yes I’m curious about the origins of Basant
oops!
It’s open now
Stop now
I grew up in the United States. We used to celebrate Christmas as children. I sang in the National Cathedral choir and used to sing in church every Sunday. You have no idea how I was raised.
How can someone who sings bhajans be “Hinduphobic”? This is ridiculous.
You are clearly an Islamophobe. “Better that they do that then go even more Wahabbi”– textbook Islamophobia.
As someone who isn’t a Pakistani, Pakistan’s culture is really no business of yours. Stay in your lane.
Basant is a Punjabi festival. People would not celebrate it if they thought it was an un-Islamic thing.
Nice one on the National Cathedral
There is no need for this tbf? Kabir is entitled to his views; you are entitled to disagree?
He is on record as using “taqqiya” against me. That was Islamophobia 101.
If he can go around calling me a “Hinduphobe” and not be challenged on that, I will call out his Islamopobia.
let the past belong in the past
If he is allowed to mischaracterize my views and imply that I’m a bigot, why am I not allowed to call out his Islamophobia?
I have given pretty broad latitude to everyone; just saying it’s not super-productive..
I have no issues with Hinduism as such. If I had, I wouldn’t sing bhajans.
I have issues with Hindutva as a political ideology. So do many Indians (including Hindus).
I really don’t want to belabor this but I don’t take accusations of being a religious bigot lightly.
Kabir that’s poor reasoning btw
No it’s not.
There is clearly a distinction between Hinduism (a religion) and Hindutva (a political ideology).
Just as there is a distinction between Islam and Islamism.
I’m not a religious bigot. And I don’t take kindly to being labeled one.
we all have our reasons as to why we engage with BP..
the 100th comment