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.
Also Murshidabad was the capital of the Bengal Subah thus placing all the capitals of the three big post Mughal Muslim states inside India (Lucknow and Hyderabad being the other two).
Considering what happened to the other two, I have to give kudos to the Nizam of Hyderabad. Flip-flopping allegiances between the Mughals, the Marathas and the British, the Nizams managed to maintain their control of Hyderabad for nearly 250 years and the ruling family still owns vast properties across Hyderabad, including the royal palaces.
The corresponding Awadhi and Bengali properties are owned by the respective state governments. And for that matter, the Mughal holdings in Delhi too.
I don’t think bragging about invading and annexing the Deccan sultanate is a flex because Operation Polo was a genocide resulting in the killings of at least 20,000 Muslims and the exodus of many more. Even to this day majority of the Hyderabadi Muslims I meet in America (and there’s a large community of them) either only identify as Hyderabadi/Deccani and reject an Indian identity or they will call themselves Indian but emphasize their Hyderabadi Muslim identity, this is a pretty common phenomenon in Chicago and Texas from what I’ve seen first hand. They’ve still maintained a very independent identity despite the forceful annexation nearly 80 years ago.
There were reports of looting, mass murder and rape of Muslims in reprisals by Hyderabadi Hindus.[24][51] Jawaharlal Nehru appointed a mixed-faith committee led by Pandit Sunder Lal to investigate the situation. The findings of the report (Pandit Sunderlal Committee Report) were not made public until 2013 when it was accessed from the Nehru Memorial Museum and Library in New Delhi.[24][76]
MLM – Muslim Lives Matter
Yeah it was really bad. Nehru even referred to the Turko-Persian influenced culture of the Hyderabadi Muslims as “alien” which then led to an exodus of many of them to Pakistan.
https://www.dawn.com/news/1089851
So basically in Hyderabad State, Hindu landlords were exploiting the peasants. Communist rebellion broke out against the Hindu landlords, Congress tactically supported it.. Landlords appealed to the Nizam to control the situation, Nizam’s Razakaars managed to put the rebellion down, Congress basically declared this was a Hindu genocide and used this as a pretext to take over Hyderabad and dethrone the Nizam, and do a Muslim genocide in the process.
Just the old play book, and they hide behind “secularism”
Hyderabad is India’s. Kashmir is also India’s. Get over it.
Lay off Pakistan for a while; at least 10 days.
Don’t want to see Pakistan in your posts or comments till the 20th of May (implied or otherwise, we are not entirely stupid).
All right, I’ll just take a break for a while in general. Catch up on the IPL and movies.
Maybe I’ll even have some cricket/movie articles ready by then.
Sounds good – enjoy.
You can keep Hyderabad, but we will take Kashmir, sooner or later. Thanks.
Another decade of differential economic growth and Kashmiris will definitely not want to be a part of Pakistan.
Independence maybe but definitely not Pakistan if it is 30-40% poorer than India.
India is already “almost” at 2x income differential (2x proper will be in a few years) and Pakistan is already more than 40% poorer than India (around 60-70%).
We are looking at 4-5x by mid century.
https://www.imf.org/external/datamapper/PPPPC@WEO/IND/PAK/BGD
Weren’t you just told not to mention Pakistan for ten days?
To his credit he specifically requested one last hurrah before his sign off. BB has a keen sense of the dramatic..
We promise to hold a referrendum once Pak army is in control of Srinagar. India has not done that and won’t do it, but Pakistan will.
’48 ’65 ’99
Mauka mauka
Mauka mauka
Honestly, you’re also not helping.
Hyderabadi Muslims were a minority in the majority Telugu Hindu state. Prior to Operation Polo there was a raging communist revolution undergoing there against the razakars. These included many Hyderabadi Muslims as well – Makhdoom Mohiuddin, Hassan Nasir (tortured to death in Lahore by Pakistani authorities later).
Everyone in India does that despite religion or ethnicity. The Indian identity can exist alongside other identities.
Considering they are Americans now, I don’t particularly care (just like I don’t care what Canadian Sikhs identify as). The ones in India are very much Indian including Mohammed Siraj.
In many ways Deccan was the inverse of Jammu&Kashmir, the latter had a Muslim majority with a Hindu ruler – both had different outcomes and held to different standards. Either way, Operation Polo was morally wrong and illegal and to this day it seems like the heritage Hyderabadi Muslim population hasn’t moved on.
Not really, when they say they’re not Indian or emphasize their Deccani/Hyderabadi Muslim identity they’re doing it as a protest or in a way to point out that they’re actually their ethnicity first before Indian. Other Indian groups don’t do that in America (except for Punjabis) they almost always emphasize that they’re Indian and often don’t mention their ethnic backgrounds.
You may not care what Sikhs or old stock Hyderabadi Muslims identify as today but you do claim their culture and heritage, so you can’t just appropriate just because you physically inherited the civilization they left behind, you have the remnants of it but not the soul.
One huge difference. Kashmiri Muslims under the National Conference fought on the side of India. Whatever happened afterwards doesn’t change that core fact of what happened in 1948.
Kashmir got partitioned according to who sided with whom. Gilgit Scouts and Muslim Conference got their areas included in Pakistan. Hindu Dogras under the Maharaja and Muslim Kashmiris under the National Conference got their areas included in India.
And another difference, both the Nizam and the Maharaja acceded to India.
The moment they left, they relinquished the claim. And India very much has the “soul” too. Sikhs and Hyderabadi Muslims in India outnumber those outside by a huge margin.
There is a Hyderabadi restaurant in Lahore DHA called “Gadrung”. My family goes there quite regularly.
https://images.dawn.com/news/1193929/this-artist-is-reviving-family-heirloom-recipes-to-bring-hyderabadi-cuisine-to-lahore
Interesting observation.
Here you pretend to not really know about Hyderabad.
But then here you refer to your Hyderabadi acquaintances and call it by the name it was even before the Nizamate (or part of the Mughal Empire) – The Deccan Sultanate.
Is your animus towards Telugus/Dravidians partly because one of the “crown jewels” of the “Islamicate” passed over to them?
Of course, them overtaking desi identity in America much to Pakistanis’ chagrin is another.
Considering you live in the suburbs of Dallas, the recent Frisco events must have been also affecting the desi community.
Seems like I hit a nerve, why does it matter how I refer to the city as? You sound very sensitive.
I don’t have any animus towards south indians, definitely not more than your animus towards Pakistanis and Muslims. I don’t think there are any Islamicate “crown jewels” left in India. We live in the present and build for the future, Islamabad, Peshawar, Lahore, and Karachi are the new crown jewels. Pakistanis have historically referred to the country as Madina-e-Sani (The second Madina) because we’ve left the past behind and built a new cradle.
They’re not really taking over any identity, like I’ve mentioned in the past Pakistanis don’t really identify or need the term desi anymore, it’s too broad a category and people are better informed about cultures now than when S Asians first started migrating here. Also our communities are quite distinct so that kind of overlap doensn’t happen irl. Even in Canada, the Pakistani community in Mississauga has carved out a distinct identity from the Punjabi Sikhs in Brampton despite both having much more in common, down here the delta is naturally even wider.
As for my location, I never stated where I live although if you wanna be a weirdo-stalker and pry IP addresses using authorship (As you did with Qureshi) then I guess that’s a choice you’ve made and I don’t expect much better from you given your track record. I hope Xack reflects on your creepiness because its not a good look for this blog as him and the other founders worked hard to build over years.
Prying into where people live when they haven’t stated that information publicly is actually very creepy.
In one of his earlier incarnations, he got into my email.
BB – we did say don’t go person.
Why is it salient to know where EK lives if he hasn’t volunteered that personal relationship.
Yes, mistake on my part. But kind of explains his anathema to Telugus/Dravidians.
Yeah it’s super creepy, noticed he did that with Qureshi as well. He should seriously be banned has he’s given death threat before and even written erotic literature about Pakistani women. This “Humza” character is a degen and a threat to society. Hope Xack looks into this, I think he’s gotten way too much leeway.
I apologize about that. That is a line I should not have crossed – regarding personal information.
Apology not accepted.
We don’t agree that BB should be banned as he does push the line but respects it when it is enforced.
While we deplore BB taking on the personal angle and warn him repeatedly ; he is right to counter Hinduphobia & Indophobia, which frankly is rife in the Cresceniate.
It is exhausting to combat so there is need for Dhurundhar (but on a leash).
That was very very upsetting when he disclosed your alleged location; it will be excised and it is completely unacceptable.
Also we have written a post giving Kabir, extra rights if he ever feels uncomfortable by BB.
But making fun of a “Jain menu”, which is completely delicious, is frankly offensive.
I got carried away by today’s Dhurandharing.
Like before, I will respect this line. No personal attacks.
I disagree with your labels about Hinduphobia. If we dislike some aspects of Hindu cultural and religious practises and point them out, it’s the same as many Hindus criticizing many cultural or religious practises of Islam. Apart from caste differences, I havent even criticized Hindu relgion at all, and mostly stuck to countering Hindu nationalism which is specifically anti-Islam.
As long as criticism is respectful, it should not be considered any type of phobia.
I feel many several commentators here openly blame and mock Islam, they equate people’s view points as Islamic view points and do not have any logical consistency, engaging more in emotional outbursts.
You write the Above AND the Below:
“We promise to hold a referrendum once Pak army is in control of Srinagar. India has not done that and won’t do it, but Pakistan will.”
Technically, it wasn’t a death threat. He said he’d hold a gun to my head not that he would kill me.
Sexualizing Muslim women is beyond disgusting. A similar post from a Muslim man sexualizing Hindu women would most probably have had much tougher consequences. I’ll leave it there.
More seriously, I’m quite worried about his identification with a fictional Bollywood character. This is not psychologically healthy. If it’s a bit, it’s gone too far and isn’t funny anymore.
The constant low-signal posting of pictures from “Dhurandhar” is also annoying.
But yes, if I were the Admin here, the sexualizing of Muslim women would have resulted in a permanent ban. For a Hindu man to write those words about Muslim women is absolutely unforgivable.
If these are the “jewels”, god save you.
Yes that is unacceptable – we are sorry about that EK (do we know you).
We had warned BB,
NEVER to go personal.
We will overlook it this time but next time it will be dealt with zero tolerance (privacy is essentially to transparent opinionation).
Yes, I apologize about that. I crossed a line which I shouldn’t have.
Please remove all references to EK’s location – we specifically said nothing personal.
It was extremely unacceptable and next time it’s 50 comments and 10 days ban for you and all your Avatars ..
As u know we have no issues with your Dhurundharing (the Hinduphobia is nauseating so your interventions are very welcome and worthwhile) but there is no need to get offensive, personal or abusive.
Pakistan has anyway lost to India alas; thus the Pakistanis have to constantly deprecate India and everything she stands for.
This is our personal opinion; this is not to say Pakistan makes tactical victories (post Pahalgam) and wins on niche areas (Q makes good points re cultural resistance) but strategically it has completely lost.
One wing has lost to Bharat forever (Bangladesh) and the other has to reinvent their identity as Middle Easterners who despite speaking a Sanskritic tongue are really actually Bedouins.. droll
I don’t think I can edit but I will scour my comments and send them to you.
I don’t know you guys personally, only recently discovered this blog a few months ago. BB’s behavior is strange indeed, I don’t blame BrownPundits but I do think the blog should dissociate from this guy and all of his aliases/sock accounts.
BB is adaptive; he writes good posts and is contrite when admonished.
If Kabir has extended the rights for Authorial Autonomy; BB is ensuring that BP pays homage to the Pandits after whom we are named..
We do not aspire for “neutrality” in what we see as a senseless conflict. We simply give views to all but we all see that if “ban” BB, Hinduphobia would go unchallenged..
However if BB violates privacy again or goes personal, we will simply remove 100 comments and ban for a month for him and his Avatars.
We saw all the commenting referencing the location and we are NOT impressed. Above all BP MUST be a safe space for reader, commentator and Author.
Even if BB were banned, there are plenty of other people (RNJ, NDG) who present Indian nationalist views. The “Saffroniate” is bigger than one person.
You are the admin. The decision to ban an individual rests with you.
The constant anti Pakistani animus from BB rapidly grows tiresome. One can appreciate one’s own country without constantly denigrating someone else’s.
As far as I know, he’s never been to Lahore yet he goes on and on about how second rate Pakistani cities are. This is just one example. It’s gratuitous.
Also this claim that Pakistanis are “cosplaying” which has come up repeatedly is actually quite offensive. My grandmother was from Agra. I’m not “cosplaying” as anything. I believe Q is also Muhajir.
Thank you for your trust in me. No more personal attacks.
The “Islamicate” crown jewels will always be Hyderabad, Lucknow, Agra and most of all Delhi.
Your language is ours, your food is ours and the “crown jewels” are ours.
Most Pakistanis (citizen or otherwise) will never see the Taj Mahal.
Israel owns Palestinian land
the US has Native land
but the soul of the land is in its people not palaces.
this is a question of the letter of the law versus the spirit
the Letter (land) of Indo-Islamicate Civ is squarely in India
the Spirit (people) of Indo-Islamicate Civ is mixed but has grafted the best in Pakistan..
the Mughlai inheritance has grafted onto the Indus, perhaps too well for the “indigenous ethnicities” of Pakistan (Baluch, Sindhi, Seraiki, Pathan even). the North Punjab-Urdu speaking compact defines the Qaum
https://www.brownpundits.com/2025/12/10/who-can-speak-for-the-muslim-minority-of-india/
https://www.brownpundits.com/2026/04/29/you-cannot-demolish-his-mosque-and-claim-his-high-culture/
Israel does not have Arabic as an official language.
US does not have Comanche, Iroquois etc as an official language either.
Not the same in India.
And that is just one aspect. Cuisine as we have been debating. And so much else.
You yourself have admitted the spirit is “mixed”. The land plus part of the spirit is a way stronger claim than just a part of the spirit.