BB made a very sharp observation, and we want to put it on the record as a note rather than a finished argument, because it deserves more elaboration than we can give it today.
Who carries the Green Passport
Look at who carries the Pakistani case at BP. Kabir holds a foreign passport. Q and EK write from the diaspora. Every voice that argues the Pakistani perspective here argues it from somewhere else. Not one of them speaks from inside the country: resident, middle or upper-middle class, holding a green passport with everything the green passport actually costs at the visa counter, at the airport, in what can and cannot be said at home. India, by contrast, is argued for in large part by Indians who live in India (BB is one such example). So the table is lopsided in a particular way. One side is represented by people inside the country it speaks for; the other, almost entirely by people outside it.
Diasporas are powerful but deadly
This is not a complaint that distance disqualifies anyone. It plainly does not. Some of the most acute readers of Russia, China, Iran, India and Pakistan have always worked from outside them, and exile has its own clarity. And the criticism cuts both ways the moment we make residence a measure: plenty of the loudest Indian voices online do not queue for India either. The point is not that the outsiders are wrong. It is that a conversation built this way develops a tilt, and the tilt is worth naming.
Pipe Dreams from Abroad
The tilt has a name, in fact, and it is not unique to Pakistan. Diasporas tend to run more ideological, more maximalist, more romantic than the populations they left behind. The hardest line on Khalistan is funded from Brampton and not from Ludhiana. The most unbending republicanism came out of Boston as often as Belfast. Tamil and Armenian nationalism abroad have frequently outpaced the versions at home. The reason is simple: distance keeps the symbol and removes the cost. From abroad you keep the flag and lose the queue. So it is easy, from outside, to sing the Two-Nation Theory and explain how India and the Hindus had to be guarded against, when you will never stand in the line that the theory’s state actually makes its citizens stand in.
Quixotic Nationalism from a distance
This is where the sociological observation turns, lightly, into something more. We are not saying the diaspora case for Pakistan is false. We are saying it is untested. It is argued by people who carry the idea and not the consequence, and an idea defended only by those who can leave is an idea that has never been weighed against the thing it costs. That is not a verdict. It is the reason BP needs the voice it does not have: a resident, ordinary, middle-class Pakistani who argues the case from inside the cost. Until that voice is in the room, half of this argument is being conducted in the conditional.
More on this to come.
I just want to clarify that although I have a US passport, I am very much based in Pakistan. Pakistan allows dual nationality. I could get a Pakistani passport tomorrow if I wanted one. But I don’t particularly need it.
One of the most active commentators on this blog is an Indian based in the US. I don’t know what passport he has and that’s really his business.
BP had an ordinary middle-class Pakistani (Furqan). He lives in Peshawar and–as far as I know– doesn’t hold a foreign passport. The guy shared his poetry but obviously found the constant India-Pakistan contestation to be off-putting.
it is also perhaps that living in Pakistan is oriented around survival more than in India..
India is very plugged into the global economy so Indian society is super-charging.
this isn’t necessarily a good thing (there are attendant drawbacks to globalisation) but it is an interesting observation..
I think it’s more that the entire debate on this blog is conducted in English.
Also @El Khawaja is correct that this blog’s viewpoints are actually quite repugnant to the normative Pakistani.
If you just think about who the founders are–An atheist Bangladeshi-American, a Pakistani-American who is not particularly fond of Pakistani nationalism and a half-Pakistani, half-Iranian Bahai– you can see that the normative Pakistani would not find his/her views reflected on BP.
There was a point a couple years ago when BP was actually quite anti Islamic. I don’t want to rehash this but you know how important Islam is to the majority of Pakistanis.
Indian society is finally coming out of that survival phase and climbing up the Maslow pyramid. Lots of work to be still done, of course.
I had made a post once about why the consumer metrics between the two countries had such a massive gap in spite of Indians being “only” twice as rich.
Indians just have more disposable income nowadays.
Also domestic manufacturing capabilities help. The same model of car, phone etc is cheaper in India due to it being made locally rather than being imported. Electricity cheaper due to generation from local sources etc etc.
It’s not a sharp observation at all, it’s an odd obsession he has with the backgrounds of the few Pakistanis that post on here. Of course this blog will attract more diaspora Pakistanis than Pakistanis in Pakistan, this is after all a blog founded by diaspora South Asians themselves but I guess it becomes an issue when the opinions don’t line up with their own and doesn’t fit the pan Indian narrative espoused on here, which is fine but it’s odd to hold us to different standards than yourselves while promoting nationalistic Indian narratives. moreover Kabir literally lives in Pakistan. As for me or any other diaspora Pakistani, we do not have to detail our entire biographies, backgrounds, resumes, ties to the country of origin, etc I don’t understand why Indian posters are prying so much. Address the arguments at hand and topics being discussed instead of digging into the backgrounds of Pakistanis on here mentioning our ethnic backgrounds, classes, locations or whatever. Going after peoples backgrounds is a very weak and lame attempt at scuttling any productive discourse. No Pakistani has done the same here although there is plenty of subject material – I could simply dismiss any opinion just because of someones ethnicity, religion or country/region of residence.
There are plenty of Pakistanis in Pakistan, even the majority of whom share my views, just because they don’t necessarily post on a word press blog doesn’t mean they aren’t stating those opinions on other platforms that are more popular within Pakistan. Most of the commentary on Pakistani geopolitics I see on X and Reddit are Pakistanis based in Pakistan, most of the Pakistanis making videos on Youtube and Tiktok about Pakistan’s internal issues and geopolitics are based in Pakistan – if a specific blog on a platform that isn’t very popular in a specific country then that says less about the people and maybe more so about the blog itself – like you can acknowledge the fact that the ideology and positions espoused by the blog and its founders are unconventional and anomalous among most Pakistanis so of course its not going to be very popular.
I don’t think you need to be so defensive. It’s actually a valid observation that this blog doesn’t attract “average” Pakistanis. That said, the Indians on here also come from relatively privileged backgrounds. After all, this whole conversation is being conducted in English.
X.T.M asked them to state their castes, which I don’t think they are going to do. But, I can say with a fair amount of certainty, that if they did we would find most are forward-caste.
I do agree with you that this whole line of argumentation about people’s country of residence and/or citizenship is tendentious.
You also have a valid point that the ideology of this blog leans Hindu Right. Even in the days when Omar was heavily involved his main bugbear was Pakistani nationalism. Obviously, that will turn off most Pakistanis.
We are going to be doing a survey soon which will hopefully help to gather empirical data about who exactly is reading BP and what their interests are. Until we have the empirical data, this is a theoretical conversation. Though I think it is a fair conclusion that this blog’s main audience are center-right to right-wing Indians.
Speaking of voices that are missing on BP: We’ve already noted that Indian Muslims don’t comment–for some very good reasons. Also, this blog is heavily male-dominated. There is too much testosterone floating around.
This may be a stereotype but women don’t tend to be as combative and may be turned off by the style of argumentation here.
I’m just calling out what appears to be a bad faith attempt to invalidate peoples opinions and experiences. It’s borderline ad hominem. It’s also ironic because the blog itself was founded by diaspora south Asians, many of whom may be even less connected to south Asia then the Pakistanis commenting here. We could go into all kinds of demographic data to put up a similar argument as to why one opinion is less valid than another but its just a spiteful and pointless exercise.
Yes, this blog doesn’t get much Indian Muslim, Sikhs or lower caste Hindus either – the Saffronate here resembles the average demographics of a silicon valley based IT consultancy.
touché, your last line is rather droll.. good banter wins every time!
Absolutely agree that the initial comment was in bad faith. Country of residency or citizenship should not be used as a criteria.
But honestly, you came across as a bit defensive.
EK is entitled to his opinions; we don’t mind..
w.r.t initial comment, to build a community is to learn about our priors.
one thing we are proud of on this Blog, especially after the great April fork, is that our views (Jambudvīpa) have receded from becoming the dominant tone of BP.
it is possible still “primes inter pares” but our voice is receding as the defining one, which opens up the space dramatically. You have influenced that shift the most, the Saffron Shade of BP has lightened dramatically once the correct controls were in place to limit our own influence..
interestingly enough we are probably the most “Akhand Bharat” in all of BP, except we also like to see the Wings of India (AfPak, Bá-Burm) as strong as possible as well. but BP has many great shoots these days mA
I didn’t mean your initial comment was in bad faith. I meant BB’s. His focusing on people’s country of citizenship does come across as bad faith–especially given his history with the Pakistanis on this blog.
I like how you skipped Christians who are much lesser in number than Muslims or Tribals who are much lesser in number than lower caste Hindus, simply because it would collapse your argument as they exist here, unlike the “Pakistani” Pakistani.
Not a bad faith argument at all. The entirety of the Pakistani “diaspora” is smaller than the population of Karachi.
It is very easy to keep talking about the glories of Pakistan when one does not live there.
I remember the off-hand comment you made about how metros can be built at some future time when there is money.
People having access to first world transit systems can wait for this “hypothetical” future as it doesn’t affect them.
Ask the 20 million in Karachi how they feel about being the largest city in the world without a metro system.
It’s because you guys speak over and on behalf of Indian Muslims the most despite not being one yourself. The Pakistani Pakistani exist – Kabir literally lives in Pakistan.
It is a bad faith argument because this is not the only place where Pakistanis are present, like I mentioned in my comment, Pakistanis living in Pakistan make up the majority of Pakistanis posting on various online platform that are more popular than this. You just don’t like that your bigotry and Indian hyper nationalism gets addressed by 2 overseas Pakistanis so you resort to ad hominem to scuttle any debate. Don’t be surprised that a blog founded by diaspora south Asians mainly draws diaspora Pakistanis – of course the overtly pro Indian/soft hindutva ideology of this blog isn’t going to draw more Pakistan based Pakistanis and neither is it going to draw as many Muslim Indians and other marginalized minorities from India.
You’re strawmaning. Your comments ignore that my comment was in response to your Indian nationalism and constant put downs of Pakistan – if I were to respond to your other posts obsessing over the Pakistani cricket team or other posts about our society you would resort to the same cop out.
I share citizenship with Indian Muslims as well as exist in the same system. You lot don’t with Pakistanis.
Holds a foreign passport, raised and educated abroad. Not a “Pakistani” Pakistani who has gone through the system.
Yet there are “homeland” Indians including Christians as well as Tribals.
But my comments were not false. The state of metro transit in India vis a vis Pakistan is fact, not opinion.
You could be callous about metro transit in Pakistan because it won’t apply to you.
I do in fact share citizenship with Pakistanis, you need to stop making assumptions about people. You don’t share religion with Indian Muslims which is a huge thing for them, you don’t even share the same ethnicity as them and you definitely don’t share the same politics and worldviews as them with your Indian nationalistic outlook. You can’t speak for Indian Muslims at all.
Why does it matter to you whatever my background is? A creepy stalker like yourself shouldn’t be obsessing over the biographies of Pakistanis on here. I don’t have to state my entire background here to respond to anti-Pakistani hate and bigotry commonly espoused by Indian posters on here. Just go worry about your para-social obsession with Ranveer Singh.
And there’s a Pakistan-based poster on here as well. Mind you, there are only 3 Pakistanis that post on here and that too semi regularly since we’re employed and have lives.
Except they were false assumptions. How do you know I’m callous about the lack of mass transit in Pakistani cities? You know nothing about me or Pakistan. My comment was about how Pakistani cities are still better than Indian cities despite not having the mass transit system and this is something both Pakistanis in Pakistan believe and the many foreign travel vloggers and even Indians who have visited Pakistan have written and spoken about this – the roads are better, cleaner, there’s visibly less poverty, people are more hospitable, more helpful and less likely to scam you.
The vast majority of Pakistanis are not “dual” citizens.
Because it impacts worldviews. @X.T.M asks Indian Hindus to reveal their caste for example.
With a foreign passport who has a vote elsewhere and can leave anytime.
The nature of the statement
Again, anecdotal and untrue – not backed by data.
Uzair Younus the guy who runs the Pakistan Experience podcast – went to India in his words the “Swades Journey” to visit his grandparents hometown in Gujarat. And to paraphrase him – the municipal budget for a small town like Rajkot – not even a top 3 city in Gujarat – is larger than Karachi, and has orders of magnitude better municipal facilities and roads than Karachi. Including a metro.
But we are supposed to accept the patriotic assertion from EK that Pakistani cities are ‘better’. Because “foreign vloggers”.
Not every diaspora Pakistani is a one-eyed tribal wagon circler. There are ones capable of honest objectivity out there also.
Uzair Younus is one guy but I know of several Indians who have said the same about Pakistan and then their retort is to attribute it to US aid/Chinese/Saudi loans/investments etc.
Of course Gujarat is going to be more developed than most places in India since its Modis homestate – that state obviously gets a disproportionate amount fund and resources, it’s also home to India’s billionaire class.
Gujarat is actually not “more developed” than most places in India. Its HDI value is actually the Indian average.
Maharashtra as well as most of the Dravidian states are more developed.
Of course, Bihar with the lowest HDI still has a higher HDI than Pakistan as well as Pakistani Punjab.
It has definitely received a disproportionate amount of resources and development though ever since Modi’s ascendance and obviously being the ethnic homeland of India’s billionaire class and a source of India’s large diaspora. The Patels are definitely contributing to Gujarat’s GDP with their motel and 7/11 sourced remittances. How “developed” is Maharahstra if you take out mumbai?
Bihar does not have a higher HDI than Pakistani Punjab, it’s not even more developed than Sindh. Indian gdp and hdi figures can’t be trusted, they’re highly embellished.
when you can’t argue with hard macro data, the the data is to be dismissed as ‘highly embellished.
I would suggest that you take a quick look at comparing Pune in Maharashtra to Karachi. On all metrics – water, sanitation, transportation, electricity, education, employment – you name it. You are in for a sad realization. And Pune is barely in the top 10 cities in India…
Agra has a bigger metro network than Karachi (which doesn’t have one).
It does though.
Electricity consumption, automobile sales etc cannot be “embellished”.
If anything Pakistan’s is “embellished” considering such massive gaps in consumer metrics vis a vis India. Those are not the numbers of a country which has “only” half of India’s GDP pci.
Maharashtra has Pune and Nagpur too, both cities with larger metro networks than the entirety of Pakistan.
Bihar has a larger metro network than Sindh (which doesn’t have one).
Point is that Rajkot is India’s 35th largest city. And is being compared to Pakistan’s largest.
Pakistani elites have carved out few enclaves and bubbles for themselves where they enjoy relatively comfortable ‘nice’ environment. And the average tribal-minded Pakistani seeks solace in comparing the ‘best’ of Pakistani urban slices to cherry-picked ‘worst’ ones from India.
This is…..laughably dishonest but an understandable coping mechanism.
The parroting of “the mooodi, hinddoootva” etc etc is yet another cope. You could pick a random 2nd tier city in India – Pune, Cochin – and compare it quite favorably to a Karachi. That would eliminate the “Mooodi” excuse. But my point isn’t to rub your nose in the relative ‘terribleness’ of Pakistani cities. Point is to spotlight the intellectual dishonesty.
When I say Pakistan is better than India I’m comparing our largest cities to your largest cities. They’re cleaner, less homeless people, less beggars, better food, better hospitality. Indians who have gone to Pakistan say this themselves. Most western vloggers also prefer Pakistan to India, many even prefer Afghanistan to India as they say its cleaner and has nicer streets and better hospitality.
They aren’t. This is all anecdotal. Hard data does not support this.
Again, anecdotal. The tourist numbers don’t lie. Thing is the vast majority of “western” vloggers who come to India don’t even visit Pakistan and don’t have clickbait “Ind-Pak comparisons” in their title.
I don’t trust data from the Government of India or whatever they’ve supplied to international organizations.
Not anecdotal at all, if you tallied all the western vloggers who have been to both countries and prefer Pakistan, you would have empirical proof that Pakistan would win in a landslide. Pakistan gets more tourists than India on a per capita basis.
And you trust it from the Government of Pakistan? Like I said, consumption metrics don’t lie.
Again, sampling bias. Most westerners who visit India don’t even visit Pakistan. Tourism numbers attest to that.
Maybe that is more “empirical proof”.
No, they don’t.
They’re the lesser of two evils
Cause those are mostly Indian expats visiting their relatives. Pakistan gets more high value tourism as foreigners from around the world want to scale some of the tallest mountains in the world and spends tens of thousands of dollars on permits, assistance and equipment. Pakistan also gets a lot of gulf tourism – a lot of the sheikhs own palaces in Pakistan that function as their vacation homes and they spend tens of thousands of dollars on hunting permits. Pakistan does have a lot of that outdoorsy type of tourism. Other than that we also get a lot of Sikh pilgrims for Kartarpur (like 100,000+ a year).
Not up for debate.
Like I said, consumption metrics don’t lie.
And the Pakistani ones aren’t? India gets more non expats, even adjusted for per capita.
Again, untrue and something that can only be said by someone from the diaspora.
There is nothing in Pakistan like the Golden triangle in India.
Let us talk some objective metrics.
India has 44 UNESCO World Heritage sites compared to Pakistan’s 6.
India has 9 UNESCO Creative Cities compared to Pakistan’s 1. Some of the Indian ones are Lucknow, Hyderabad for gastronomy and Srinagar for crafts and folk art.
Yes, because it isn’t true.
In the World Economic Forum’s Travel & Tourism Development Index, India ranks 39th out of 119 countries, while Pakistan ranks 101st.
https://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_Travel_and_Tourism_Development_Index_2024.pdf
Of course the Islamicate sites are the main attractions.
Not entirely. Jaipur from the Golden Triangle has almost no Islamicate influence. Delhi is more mixed with a bit of everything. Agra is Islamicate yes.
Outside the Golden triangle, the vast majority isn’t Islamicate.
And anyways like I said before, its all Indian.
Everything good about India is due to Mughal and British rule.
Well, since India is the successor state of both Mughal and British India as declared by my two precedent posts, it does make sense why there is nothing good about Pakistan.
Why don’t you take Netanyahi to Ram Mandir, the greatest indigenous Indian marvel?
I think he will decline for obvious reasons.. before he even gets refused entry for being impure.
Next time we will.
There will be no refusal of entry for Jews in the Ram Mandir just like there is no refusal for Hindus on the Israeli Temple Mount.
Uzair Younus is a Pakistani, but EK’s preferred ‘western vloggers’ are canon. That Pakistani German bike vlogger, he doesn’t count.
Facts simply don’t matter.
He made one observation and it gassed you up lmao. He’s also made many valid criticisms of India and the Op Sindoor misadventure.
I think it is only natural that a westerner would identify with western vloggers.
Uzair Younus and the Pakistani German bike vlogger were still raised in Pakistan before moving abroad (assuming by the accents).
Someone born and raised abroad is like a further degree of separation from people who moved abroad at a later stage (who already exist at a distance from the homeland).
Naah its just a desperate attempt at resorting to safedi ki chamkaar. Its pathetic really.
Someone born and raised in the west would fall prey to that more than someone raised in the subcontinent before moving.
I wouldn’t say that. The ones who moved from here (my reference is from more than 20 years back) shed their Indianess faster than lightening to become white adjacent as soon as they possibly could.
These western vloggers are more popular in Pakistan than in the diaspora and western doesn’t just mean white, there are black people, Asians, middle easterners and hispanics who have travelled to Pakistan and made videos – most of them say they prefer Pakistan, they even say Pakistan is also friendlier and less racist towards black people than India.
I’d regard UN, IMF, WEF etc as more valid than “western vloggers”.
Considering their track record, I wouldn’t be surprised if there is a bit of ISPR contribution as well.
Truly a Potemkin village of a country.
You need to stop making weird assumptions about people., You don’t know anything about my life and neither do I have to divulge any information. I genuinely don’t give 2 shts about you being born and raised in bangalore or that you’re a hindu larping as a Muslim.
Things which I neither am nor claimed to be.
But you are definitely an American larping as a Pakistani.
These are still very low standards ..
Are you saying that Indian Muslims aren’t nationalistic? That’s a very serious allegation to make against 200M people!!
very good point on the survey; have to update with your feedback!
Just for your information :
1) of late forwarding backward castes has been observed. For example, in karnataka the outgoing CM was from kuruba Jati (analogous to Yadav?) and is increasingly called as from other backward classes, where as the incoming CM who is a vokkaliga (land holding Jati, analogous to choudary) is called a someone from forward Jati.
Both are non Brahmins, have reservations in education and jobs, but the wider society doesn’t consider some castes as backward any more.
2)out of interest, is there any reservations for Muslims of lower castes in Pakistan?
Yadav is closer to Vokkaliga than Kuruba imo.
That is why Bihar has divided OBCs into two – OBC and EBC.
I think Tamil Nadu has also MBC.
BJP’s great victories in UP have been on the back of wooing the poorer OBCs.
Karnataka also has graded obc divisions. Lingayats and vokkaligas are in the highest tier. But no government has had the guts to stop reservations to these groups.
Siddaramiah is supposed to the champion of Muslims and obcs minus lingayats and vokkaligas.
“Is there any reservations for Muslims of lower castes in Pakistan?”
Caste is not a thing in Islam. I don’t believe the concept of “caste reservations” exists in Pakistan.
All Muslims are equal in the eyes of Allah.
We don’t have a formalized caste system. Affirmative action programs in Pakistan are mediated through a quota system which apportions jobs and university admissions by province and religion and in the case of Sindh, there’s a double quota system which further categorizes the province into “urban Sindh” and “rural Sindh” – granting more jobs and opportunities to those in rural Sindh. So there is a lot of rural represenation. Your domicile matters much more than your biraderi and/or “ashraf” lineage that’s why there’s more ethnic Sindhi Hindu doctors and medical students in Sindh on a per capita basis than Memons or Muhajirs in the same province. The Sindh quota system is notorious in Pakistan and has been in place since the early 70s.
it is also speaks to the extreme elitism inherent to Pakistani society as composed to India.
there may be casteism in India but it is much more broader and depth. Pakistan has very strong feudal characteristics.
interestingly enough that’s why a left-movement hasn’t really been able to survive in Pakistan (the PPP doesn’t have a radical social agenda)..
BP is slightly more than a WordPress blog. for better or for worse it is now The central bridge between Indians & Pakistanis online (happy to be corrected of course).
it tackles the Great Cleft
The left was systematically destroyed in Pakistan but that’s another story.
that is an interesting topic to explore..
Student unions have been banned in Pakistan for decades.
Here’s a piece from The Peshawar Review that touches on the Pakistani Left. Ahmed Kamran is one of my dad’s relatives:
https://thepeshawarreview.substack.com/p/peshawar-stories-about-the-city-of
To be fair, I think that’s a good thing. I’ve only ever heard negative things about it from my parents and cousins. The Pakistani concept of student unions is very different from the political activism you see on college campuses in America.
Student unions were banned precisely because they politicized people (mainly resulting in them becoming left-leaning).
Ask yourself why Islami Jamiat-e-Tulaba (the student wing of Jamaat-e-Islami) was not banned.
I feel like India is more elitist as they have a very deeply entrenched caste system but even if for the sake of argument I accept your assertions, I’m not exactly sure how that relates to any of the Pakistani commenters on here as I don’t think any of us have a feudal background, if anything upper caste Hindus are probably more represented here by the commentariat than feudal Pakistanis.
Yes, as I keep saying, the caste system has religious sanction in Hinduism and not in Islam.
One of the Indian commentators keeps throwing out terms like “Ashraf” and “Ajlaf”. Honestly, no normal Pakistani uses these terms or knows what they mean.
India did massive land reforms in the 1950s to eliminate feudalism.
Interestingly this is used as plot for many pieces of Indian media – The horror movie Tummbad, the Ranveer starringromantic drama Lootera and Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy.
Both Indian Muslims and Pakistani Muslims are needed here especially since they are talked about all the time.
Of course as Fly Die says, this place might not be appealing to either for the exact kind of conversation that keep on being had.
I keep saying that this forum incentivizes fights between Right-wing Indians and Right-wing Pakistanis–as Fly Die has also noted.
Food for thought.
Apart from Pakistanis living in Pakistan, Pakistani Non-Muslims would also be good.
Like I have said, Pakistani Non-Muslim population as a percentage of the total is less than Christians.
EDIT: Pakistani Non-Muslim population as a percentage of the total is more than Christian population in India.
A wide section of people from across the subcontinent would be great. Some Ambrdkarites, tribal, even afghanis and Nepalis would add to the discourse here.
Yes. From all sides.
I already provide the Northeastern Tribal representation.
Would be interesting to have some from the Jharkhand/Chattisgarh/Odisha belt.
Actual that demographic is also present in Assam, but as OBCs. My best friend in school was a Protestant from such a “tea tribe” whose church had a drum set where we would practice bad Green Day/Linkin Park covers.
I remember an Indian actor posting a tweet about how great a particular Chinese/Indian (don’t exactly recall) brand of phone was, listing all the features etc. At the bottom of the tweet was “Posted from IPhone“.
This is what it feels like watching the Pakistani contingent here.
No more pathetic than when Indians living in India brag about “indian ceos” and the income data of Indian Americans- that’s literally one of the most popular
“factoid” Indian nationalists have been posting about online for over the past decade. The only people in the world to resort to citing diaspora demographic data for nationalistic agendas.
No one is doing that here. This entire discussion is about this site.
India has plenty of native billionaires/unicorns/CEOs anyway, especially rising up in the past decade.
We prefer to “brag” about that.
Oh really? Don’t Pakistanis use “British” Pakistani boxers as an example of “Pakistani” sporting excellence.
And we have seen Pakistanis here using anecdotal diaspora experiences to make judgements on the native Indian population.
Indians literally do that, it’s part of your propaganda MO. Brag about CEOs and the median income of Indian-Americans.
I see why not, they’re still Pakistani. You guys do the same with your diaspora and constantly put down Pakistanis both in Pakistan and the diaspora.
Not on this site. This entire conversation (and @X.T.M’s original post is about this site).
They are not. By ethnicity yes. Not by nationality and not by the system that molded them.
An “Indian” won the the recent PGA Championship but it is not an achievement of India because he was molded in the UK.
Point is Pakistani diaspora might be proud of Pakistan and feel an attachment to it, but not living in the system does create a massive blind spot in regards with the country.
You do in fact brag about the Indian diaspora.
Yet the Pakistanis who choose to participate in conversations here do have more insight about Pakistan than your average diasporoid. The “massive blind spots” have nothing to do with us responding to the bigotry and racialized hatred posted on here against Pakistanis, it has nothing to do with us calling out Indian nationalist rhetoric. Most of the conversations here are about abstract ideas like civilization and culture, we’re not really discussing the price of eggs or average bus fares or other actual day to day stuff. Indians just have a hard time accepting that we don’t accept their anti Pakistani bigotry, we don’t accept Indian state sponsored terrorism (dhurandar-ing) – apparently Indians have this notion that Pakistanis in Pakistan will also accept Indians airstrikes on their homes and the balkanization of their country.
The strength of each country’s diaspora speaks to the failure of the country itself..
Only in reply to you bringing up the Pakistani diaspora.
I have no interest in the Indian diaspora. They are Americans, Canadians, British now.
But when it does come to “non abstract” ideas, the Crescentiate does have blind spots – regarding democracy, public transit etc. This is day to day stuff.
Hahaha that’s such a lie. You brought them up spontaneously before I ever left a comment on here.
This blog is all about abstract ideas and that’s pretty much what is discussed and that makes sense given that the founders of this site are literally diaspora south Asians themselves.
No I didn’t. I bring them up only in comparison with the Pakistani diaspora. I have no major interest in them.
My only interest in them is in what benefit they provide to India.
My family lives in Pakistan, my house is in Pakistan, I was just there in March and visit often.. When arguements are running low on merit, attacking the person behind the argument is a classic case of adhominem.
Most average Pakistanis are not interested in India. I wish I could say the same for most average North Indians, but if online activity is anything to go by, it’s a disastrous obsession. Whichever platform you pickup, whether that’s reddit, facebook, X, youtube, instagram, tiktok, Indians are obsessed with Pakistan. Almost 100% of my viral posts go viral because of Indians.
For all intents and purposes, nobody in Pakistan thinks about TNT unless they are facing war with India. The Hindu-Muslim equation in Pakistan does not exist. There is peace between the two religions, and we got other ethnic faultlines to worry about. There is a very small subset of Punjabi Lahori elite that keeps yearning for pre-1947 days, but no other city in Pakistan has this, not Karachi, not Islamabad, not Faisalabad, not Peshawar – definitely not Peshawar.
There is absolutely nothing maximalist about my position, I even said before that I am willing to accept LOC as the border which is a minority position that will get you outcasted inside Pakistan. After seeing how unreasonbale Indians are online, after their misadventure last month and threats to our water sources, I have been forced to rethink that because their plan is not to live in peace but to dominate us which we will never accept.
You don’t and that makes all the difference. There is a difference between the lived experience of a visitor and a resident.
I live there 1-2 months a year. I queue in government offices for documents, at banks to pay the bills. I deal with good and bad neighbours, nosy relatives..family dramas, bad infrasturcture..
What else am I missing out on?
The other 10-11 months.
well of course you do have privilege.
but yes very clever to route all holidays back to the homeland.
we notice people in the diaspora don’t necessarily do that. but that’s also because the cultural constraints become oppressive. also how do rich NRIs – PIOs deal with less affluent relatives.
but yes the cleverest thing is to regularly go back to the Desh since there’s such a premium
Also the diaspora can plan their holidays – avoiding the the high AQI winter months, the high temperature summer months (often with load shedding), the monsoons that disrupt everything etc.
And this is not even a Pakistani thing (minus the load shedding). I have lived in both Delhi (during both winters/summers) and Mumbai (during monsoons).
Pakistanis don’t really do that cause shaadi season is usually in the summer or winter so you do face the heat waves and monsoons in the summer or the smog in the winter.
There is nothing clever, Ive already been to over a dozen countries, some multiple times. No place like home in Pakistan.
From my experience and observation its not just North Indians. South Indians are over represented in their bigotry and hatred towards Pakistanis, I have my own theories about this but its politically incorrect.
Hiding the racist now are we hehe
Don’t play the race card. My views on here are more mild than the stuff you’ve said about Pakistanis and Muslims on here and said with establishment cover. I’m gonna avoid speaking about politically incorrect subjects simply because I don’t want them to be misrepresented.
Everyone saw your anti Dravidian chimpout for which you reprimanded.
Considering Southeast Asian level South India is at least 35-40 years ahead of Sub-Saharan African level Pakistan, it is clear what you are referring to when you are talking about “politically incorrect” subjects.
Using the word “ch*mpout” which is literally a racialized slur in the west shows clear signs of your antiblackness.
We’ve all seen your racialized hatred of Pakistanis and constant anti-Pakistan vitriol.
I’m the one that is “anti-black”? Lol
Pakistani is not a race. There cannot be “racialized hatred” of Pakistanis.
More than 50% Pakistanis are Punjabi/Sindhi/Kashmiri, ethnicities that exist in India too. Ranveer Singh is Sindhi. Aditya Dhar is Kashmiri.
The rest are found in Iran and Afghanistan too, two countries I harbor no ill will towards.
Yes, there can be racialized hatred towards Pakistanis and Muslims. You don’t know what the word “racialized” means. I could also argue that there is no Dravidian race and dismiss any of your claims of racism. You’ve expressed anti-Pakistani racism here many times, you engage in the same rhetoric as wignats and justify your bigotry with “stats” and “data”.
Dravidians don’t exist in Pakistanis though.
Pakistani ethnicities do in India.
Also I completely skipped Mohajirs, whose co-ethnics are found in huge numbers in India, including the Muslims.
An Indian cannot be “racist” against Pakistan. “Bigoted” yes, not “racist”.
You can be racist vs Punjabis, Pathans, Sindhis etc not Pakistanis.
Brahuis do exist
Sure but that doesn’t mean there isn’t racialized hatred against Pakistanis, you can’t be bigoted and xenophobic towards Pakistanis, advocate for more terrorism (dhurandar-ing) against Pakistan, more missiles (op sindoor 2.0) against Pakistanis and then hide behind the “but but some indians share ethnic groups with Pakistanis”. I can argue that you can’t be racist against Dravidians since its not a race and the criticisms are just based off lived experiences in a country with an increasing diaspora of that background.
None of this is “racialized hatred”
It is an ethnic group, though
Brahui don’t feel Dravidian per se but more like Baloch-Makran exoticness
.
BB why do u go on defining Pakistanis?
Pakistanis can define themselves as they like?
when you scratch the surface of Islamic segregation and apartheid justification, the manufactured contempt for the darker skinned kufr often surfaces. Whether directly said, or via “anonymous” comments fished out of the trash.
The entire premise is based on that. As the US Supreme Court verdict in Brown vs Board of Education writes – segregation and ‘separate but equal’ are logical and objective impossibilities.
Outside of some weird Sai Deepak types (hard to take those types seriously), I have usually not seen any vitriol coming from South Indians.. I had South Indian tenants from Bangalore, they were the best tenants I had.. so in general my experience with South Indians is mostly good.
yes extremely dignified people
Anecdotes are just that. I have had South Indian colleagues in my career with harsh stances on Pakistan that I’ve found shocking. And not just the odd one here and there.
Confirmation bias is a thing.
I guess there’s a lot of diversity among them too. Could depend on the type of south Indian. The Kerala Muslims and Christians are quite reasonable. Tamils from Sri Lanka seem pretty cool and not that nerdy. I live in a tech hub so the Indians I interact with are most from this ethnicity called the Telugus (?) and they seem to be very nationalist, hawkish and anti-Muslim ironic considering how many Hyderabadi Muslims live in America but the two communities don’t seem to interact much, I guess it’s like an informal segregation. Online however a lot of anti-Pakistani comments and blogs and other content comes from the south, maybe its cause they tend to work in tech and these companies repurpose/weaponize their staff for astroturfing online,
also remember if people want to become a certain ethnicity it’s a quick way to hate another.
the path to whiteness is anti-blackness
the path to Aryaness is anti-Pakistaniness
the path to White Muslims (Persian, Turk, Arab) is to Hinduphobia
Yeah I do think the path to Indianess is through being anti-Pakistani even more so than North Indians.As they say in Urdu, more loyal than the king…
Can apply to “foreigner” Pakistanis vis a vis real ones too.
No cause “real ones” are even more loyal to Pakistan and have a lower tolerance for Indian propaganda.
Sadly they are not here so we can know their perspective
You can know their perspective because this isn’t the only online platform and actually not a very popular one. Plenty of Pakistanis based in Pakistan, on X and Reddit can put you in your place for anti-Pakistani bigotry. There are also several surveys that show the vast majority of Pakistanis hold a negative view of India. You’re just engaging in ad hominem because you don’t like the few Pakistanis on here deconstructing your narratives.
Well, here is what you learn from other online platforms – while they might hold a negative view of India, many of them also hold a negative view of the Pak Fauj which is deified here.
And many of them also complain about the incessant load shedding as well across Pakistan which doesn’t really impact the Pakistani contingent here.
Hence, the blind spot.
>For all intents and purposes, nobody in Pakistan thinks about TNT unless they are facing war with India
I wonder why no literate Pakistani is able to answer the question as to why they are ‘facing war with India”. Honestly.
India wants a war to fulfill their Akhand Bharat aspirations, they’ve repeatedly stated their anti-Pakistani rhetoric and how they want to balkanize Pakistan. It’s pretty obvious why Indians want a war. Any Indian that states otherwise is being disingenuous.
This reads like an SNL sketch. Or a script from a vintage Zaid Hamid youtube rant.
🙂 Get well soon.
Just read the speeches of Indian govt officials, watch the clips of Indian defense analysts, talking heads, south block plants etc they have a bloodlust for war – I guess if that’s what you mean by SNL then I’ve seen it all.
If Pakistanis had a good film industry, they could actually make a decent movie out of this instead of watching both Dhurandhar movies on repeat on Netflix.
https://www.netflix.com/tudum/top10/pakistan
A very small percent of Pakistanis even use Netflix. Moreover Dhurandar is literally centered around Pakistan, like I’ve said previously many times before, Pakistanis will obviously watch Indian propaganda movies that obsessively feature Pakistan. You talk about us, you’re naturally asking for our attention. It’s classic engagement bait. It’s also why a lot of Pakistanis watched Homeland when it had a plot involving Pakistan. If you want a million views, just upload a Tiktok talking about something related to Pakistan.
What explains Kartavya and Kesari?
Not sure what that is. Like I said neftlix does not have many Pakistani subscribers anyways.
Most Pakistanis watch youtube and a declining amount watch cable tv
These are the most popular youtube channels in Pakistan. As you can see most Pakistanis watch Pakistani content.
No 2 and No 5 on the Netflix Pakistan list.
Netflix is a niche service in Pakistan.
there are like 100,000 netflix accounts in Pakistan.
Just to compare, there are 70,000,000 Tik tok accounts in Pakistan.
Netflix is not free 🤭
Exactly, Netflix isn’t a yardstick for the Pakistani zeitgeist,
>I wonder why no literate Pakistani is able to answer the question as to why they are ‘facing war with India”. Honestly.
Because you are occupying our territory? Vacate Kashmir and we may have peace.
But you won’t because you want your Akhand Bharat. So we face war.
“Your” territory?
Set foot there lol.
Mauka mauka.
Not saying that Pakistani diaspora cannot be patriotic towards Pakistan or doesn’t have a stake in it, but the power of distance/citizenship does present a blind spot.
We have seen people here being very callous about the state of Pakistani democracy even championing the Pak Fauj who denigrate it. Would they be as callous if they did not have a vote elsewhere?
We have seen people warmongering and talking about taking Kashmir by force. Would they be as aggressive if they lived in Pakistan having to face the effects of a hypothetical war or didn’t have a foreign passport with which they could escape?
We have seen people being dismissive about the state of public transit in Pakistan when they have access to world class first world transit.
How about you stop speaking over us and stop obsessing over of backgrounds. Literally the only person here who has talked about taking Kashmir by force is the one who lives in Pakistan.
Most Pakistanis either in Pakistan and in the diaspora don’t want a war because we’re a much more compact country and the fall out of war will affect everyone in Pakistan -we have way more to lose, have actual families along these borders unlike most Indians cheerleading for war against Pakistan because they and their families live safely 1000 miles away from the border. When the war broke out, Pakistanis here in America were genuinely worried because so many of us are from cities that were directly impacted while most of the Indians were visibly gleeful and they were going around telling white people that nothing happened – well no sht, your hometown is like a thousand miles from the border, only the Sikhs I know seem worried because their region has to face the brunt of whatever fallout happens in India.
This is a public forum. Knowledge of backgrounds explains viewpoints.
Not really. Diaspora members have too.
Exactly. That is why diaspora members baying for war have no skin in the game.
No, stalking and prying about peoples backgrounds is not acceptable and is a cheap cop out from debating the actual subject at hand.
There’s only 3 Pakistanis here vs like 40 Indians
We have way more skin in the game since we have actual family in towns that directly in the path of India’s missiles. Most of the Indians cheerleading the war tend to be from south of the tropic of cancer ( <23.5 n), they don’t have any family to lose, nothing at stake. I theorize if Pakistan took the next war beyond the regions that have normally faced war then more Indians would actually be less hawkish. Perhaps the TCS/Infosys/Cognizant coordinated disinfo cells operating from their offices across the world would be less pro-war when they realize war isn’t pretty.
And those 40 Indians have way more diversity than the 3 foreigner Pakistanis.
If Pakistan could have, they would have.
Nothing to add to the Dravidian conspiracy theory. Even the other members of the Crescentiate don’t agree with it.
It’s only 2 overseas Pakistanis not 3 and I’m not a foreigner as I hold Pakistani citizenship as well. There isn’t much diverisity among the Indian cohort as they’re mostly Hindu, likely high caste.
Pakistan can but naturally the people that will suffer in the war the most is Pakistanis/Kashmiris and then Northwest Indians, people further south in India are shielded by geography and that’s why they’re they’re the loudest pro war contingent in India.
What’s factually established isn’t a conspiracy theory. The ones here may not agree but Pakistanis in the know are aware of where a lot of the troll farms are based. We’re also aware of the illegal activities a lot of the IT consultancies/staffing agencies are up to and how the disinfo networks are coordinated.
The one who lives in Pakistan has another passport and holding “Pakistani citizenship” while living abroad with another citizenship is a very different thing compared to the vast majority of Pakistanis.
There are a couple of Christians and I am not “high caste” so that is already equal to the ENTIRE Pakistani contingent.
no need to start calling them foreigner Pakistanis.
BB that’s ur thing; u have some signal but then u Dhurundhar it ad nauseam.
K, Q & EK are allowed to explain their perspectives and thoughts; it’s not so simple that they are “foreigners.” reality is complex, allow them to render it
Of course, but they do have blind spots which should be called out. Some of their opinions – especially regarding democracy and transit would never be made by Pakistanis living in Pakistan with only a Pakistani passport.
Pakistan allows dual citizenship. As do most countries on earth. India is one of the exceptions where you actually have to surrender your Indian passport once you acquire another citizenship.
So to call Pakistanis with dual nationality “foreigner Pakistanis” is kind of ridiculous.
Incidentally, my father has a Pakistani passport. He refused to acquire American citizenship even though he could easily have gotten it as the spouse of a US citizen. Many people who work at the World Bank end up getting Green Cards.
we observe, we don’t accuse.
K, EK & Q are allowed their complexities. maybe that’s what Pakistan was, that the Indian Muslim are allowed their complexities and not be spoken for.
it seems very vehement that they aren’t allowed their voice.
they can imagine and dream and hope for Pakistan in whatever way they wish; they are redeeming Allama’s promise
Of course, I never denied that.
But just like upper caste Hindus have blind spots regarding Dalits or non Muslims have blind spots regarding Muslims, the same applies to people with a foreign passport compared to the average Pakistani.