Author: Kabir

I am Pakistani-American. I am a Hindustani classical vocalist and ethnomusicologist. I hold a B.A from George Washington University (Dramatic Literature, Western Music) and an M.Mus (Ethnomusicology) from SOAS, University of London. My dissertation “A New Explanation for the Decline of Hindustani Music in Pakistan” has recently been published by Aks Publications (Lahore 2024). Samples of my singing can be heard on Spotify https://open.spotify.com/artist/0Le1RnQQJUeKkkXj5UCKfB

The tyranny of geography

Maleeha Lodhi in DAWN:

Today however, Pakistan faces a three-front security challenge. On the eastern front an implacable foe continues to issue threats and insist its ‘Operation Sindoor’ — the name of its military action against Pakistan in May — is not over. On the western frontier, Pakistan and Afghanistan remain engaged in hostilities. Pakistan also alleges active collusion between Kabul and New Delhi in terrorist attacks on the country. The third front is at home, reflected in the surge in militant attacks that is undermining domestic peace and stability.

And:

Given New Delhi’s hostility and absent any communication between the two countries, a high degree of unpredictability and risk of miscalculation characterises the situation. Pakistan thus has to keep a watchful eye on the western front and remain in a state of military preparedness. The existential threat after all can come from India, not Afghanistan.

While Pakistan may be unable to do much in the near term to defuse either of the two external fronts (ideally the Afghan front should be over time) the home front is what it can and should control. Two provinces are afflicted by insurgency while terrorists are also striking across the country. Despite notable counterterrorism gains, the internal security situation remains troubling with rising fatalities from terrorism likely to make 2025 the deadliest year in a decade.

Pakistan needs a more effective counterterrorism strategy. Strengthened border controls must involve zero tolerance for corruption and criminality that allow militant movement. The government should also evolve a differentiated approach to deal with militant violence in Balochistan and KP. In Balochistan, the underlying sources of long-standing public disaffection need to be addressed. Law enforcement should be accompanied by political and economic measures to win hearts and minds. Effective counter-insurgency operations in KP require rising above partisan politics for better coordination with the opposition-controlled province to secure community support.

Defeating militant violence ‘within’ is a strategic compulsion as a continuing three-front situation is obviously untenable.

 

Indian Ink: Literary Insights into Colonialism and Identity

[Tom Stoppard passed away yesterday (November 29) at the age of 88.  In that context, I’m cross-posting this essay I wrote on his play Indian Ink which had a major impact on me] 

Flora: You are an Indian artist, aren’t you? Stick up for yourself. Why do you like everything English?

Das: I do not like everything English.

Flora: Yes, you do. You’re enthralled. Chelsea, Bloomsbury, Oliver Twist, Goldflake cigarettes, Winsor and Newton
 even painting in oils, that’s not Indian. You’re trying to paint me from my point of view instead of yours—what you think is my point of view. You deserve the bloody Empire!

(Tom Stoppard, Indian Ink, pg. 43)

Great works of art often reveal insights about history in ways that are more accessible than academic historical accounts. One work that was especially powerful in doing so for me is Tom Stoppard’s play Indian Ink. Ever since I first read this play some years ago, it has provoked me to think about the colonial experience in India as well as issues of identity and nationalism more generally.

In the tradition of Forster’s A Passage to India and Scott’s The Raj Quartet, Indian Ink examines the colonial experience through focusing on the relationship between one particular couple. Set in two time periods (1930s India and 1980s England), the play tells the story of Flora Crewe, an English poet visiting India, and Nirad Das, an Indian artist who is painting her portrait. Over the course of the play, Flora and Nirad’s relationship changes from a formal, distant one to a more intimate one. However, their relationship also reveals major points of tension and of culture clash. Nirad constantly feels the need to impress Flora with his knowledge of England and of English culture, while Flora wants him to be himself. As the quote that I started this post with shows, she wants him to paint her from his own point of view. He eventually does so, painting a nude portrait of her in the style of a Rajput miniature. Flora recognizes that he is working in his own tradition and has stopped trying to ape the English. She tells him “This one is for yourself
 I’m pleased. It has rasa” (74).

The play also makes interesting points about the reinterpretation of history, something that is a part of national and ethnic conflicts even today, both in South Asia and in other parts of the world. For example, in the modern portion of the play, Anish (Nirad’s son) and Mrs. Swan (Flora’s sister) discuss the events of 1857, which Anish refers to as “the first War of Independence” and Mrs. Swan insists on calling the Mutiny (17). History is written by the victors and later reinterpreted by various political groups to suit their own agendas. For example, in modern India, the BJP reinterprets the Mughals as a foreign occupying force, religiously motivated by their negative feelings towards Hinduism. Other historians argue that this perspective is not an appropriate way to view the Mughals, many of whom assimilated and became “Indian.” History remains a powerful force that can be used for various politically motivated ends. Stoppard’s play forces the audience to question the truth of any of these interpretations. Continue reading Indian Ink: Literary Insights into Colonialism and Identity

The Cosmos of Ustaad Saami

By Syed Hasnain Nawab in DAWN 

[Note: Ustaad Naseeruddin Saami and his sons–The Saami Brothers– won the Patron’s Award at the 2025 Aga Khan Music Awards, held in London on November 22]

Hailing from Delhi’s famed Qawwal Bachcha gharana [musical lineage], Jaan traces his musical ancestry back to the likes of the 19th century Delhi gharana luminary Tanras Khan and Mian Saamat bin Ibrahim — with the latter being the principal disciple of Amir Khusrau. As the Saamis put it, their ancestors were chosen not by happenstance but by what the family believes to be Divine designation, stating, “Knowledge is given to whoever has a right to it, who deserves it. This is chosen and sent by God.”

In this vein, Jaan sees himself and his sons not simply as musicians but as carriers of a spiritual directive. Traditionally, these gharanas have maintained and safeguarded their expansive knowledge by transmitting centuries’ worth of musical heritage and experimentation seena-ba-seena [from ustaad to pupil].

Continue reading The Cosmos of Ustaad Saami

Raja Mohan on Indian Foreign Policy and the Rebalancing of Asia

In this episode of Asia Inside Out, Rorry Daniels, Managing Director of the Asia Society Policy Institute (ASPI), speaks with Raja Mohan, ASPI Non-Resident Distinguished Fellow and author of the forthcoming India and the Rebalancing of Asia. Daniels and Mohan discuss India’s relationship China, the U.S., and Russia; regional headwinds impacting New Delhi; and India’s strategic vision for its role in a changing Asia.

Aasiya–Translation from the Urdu

Here is an excerpt from another story from Bilal Hassan Minto’s Model Town:

There are people who might have felt the neighborhood was against Apa Sughra  just like that, without a reason. They could have wondered how anyone could be against a woman so devout that she had fired her cleaning lady Alice on a matter of principle when she found her drinking water from glasses reserved for Apa Sughra’s Muslim household. A woman so righteous that she had summarily dismissed Susan because her husband supplied alcohol to a Muslim. But such people who question our hatred of Apa Sughra are ignorant of the facts.

We had not always been against her. When she rented the house next door, Ammi sent her both meals that first day because her kitchen wouldn’t be ready. So obviously, we hadn’t hated her from the very beginning. Quite apart from all the terrible things we found out later, what she did to her own daughter Pari, soon after moving to our neighborhood, was enough for us  to condemn her, vilify her, and treat her with hostility. Pari was not at all to blame for the incident. Whoever heard of it said “What did the poor girl do wrong?” Naveed Bhai had been really angry and said Apa Sughra needed to be taught a lesson but Ammi strictly forbade him, saying there was no need to mess with that witch. It’s a different matter that I suspected Naveed Bhai didn’t have any way to do anything to Apa Sughra even if Ammi hadn’t said so. I thought he was just boasting.

Ever since Apa Sughra began living in our neighborhood we had noticed she didn’t allow her twin daughters, Fari and Pari, out of the house at all. Meeting us was out of the question; they weren’t even allowed to play with the neighborhood girls. We always thought the poor things were locked in the house after school. What did they do all day? Did they play with each other or was that not allowed either? And if they were so constrained, why did Apa Sughra even send them to school? Why was she educating them? Continue reading Aasiya–Translation from the Urdu

Doctor Walter (Translation from Urdu)

During the pandemic, I experimented with translating Bilal Hassan Minto’s Model Town (Sanjh 2015)—a collection of Urdu short stories told from the perspective of a preadolescent boy growing up in Lahore’s Model Town neighborhood during the late 1970s (at the beginning of General Zia’s Martial Law). This was my first attempt at translation so I’m not sure how successful it was but I did learn a lot from the attempt.

The story I’m sharing here is called “Dr Walter”. One of the main themes of the story is the discrimination faced by minorities in Pakistan (in this case Christians).

When the Walters’ house was going up, we — Talat, Aqib, Qamar, Mazhar and I — hung around the construction site in the evenings and romped on the sand and gravel piles. At the time, most houses in Model Town had been built by Hindus before the Partition and abandoned when they fled in disorder to India so that some Muslim, trying to take over their houses, or for no reason at all, wouldn’t behead them or sprinkle oil on them and set them on fire or stab them in the stomach with a sharp knife. This precipitous departure left many unclaimed plots on which new houses were built from time to time. When construction of the Walters’ house began near us, a minor frisson of excitement entered our slow-moving lives.

Horsing around, boring tunnels in the sandpiles, Mazhar had asked a laborer:

“Whose house is this?”

“Sai,” he had said, meaning “Isai.” Christians. People who follow Jesus Christ as first among the Prophets of God, just as the Jews consider Moses. Well, what someone believes or not and why are mysterious and dangerous things about which I can’t say anything, but even before the laborer told us, we had a sense that these people were of some other religion because several signs suggested they weren’t our sort.

At this time, the obnoxious General Zia had not descended on our country like a curse and new revelations about our religion, Islam, hadn’t begun to mushroom. No one in their wildest dreams could have imagined that prayers would become mandatory in offices or that women wouldn’t be able to appear on television without covering their heads, or that punishments would be meted out to people seen eating or drinking during Ramzan. And, more surprising than all these, that every day, before the entire country, news on TV would be delivered in Arabic. All this was about to happen, just some days after the Walters built their house near us. Continue reading Doctor Walter (Translation from Urdu)

This is Not the India We Joined in 1947: MP Aga Syed Ruhullah Mehdi

 

In this in-depth conversation, Aga Syed Ruhullah Mehdi, current Member of Parliament hailing from National Conference in Jammu Kashmir. He was also the former Cabinet Minister of Jammu and Kashmir. He shares his unfiltered thoughts on the abrogation of Article 370, the political transformation of India, and the struggles faced by the people of Jammu and Kashmir. Ruhullah Mehdi discusses the foundation of Kashmir’s accession to India, emphasizing how Article 370 served as a unique bond that granted Jammu and Kashmir protections similar to those provided to regions like Himachal Pradesh, Lakshadweep, and the North-East. He passionately criticises the BJP-led government for reneging on the promises made in 1947, accusing them of steering the country toward becoming a “Hindu Pakistan.” Drawing from his personal and political experiences, Mehdi reflects on his journey in public life. He raises critical questions about the cultural and political invasion of Kashmir under the guise of tourism, the targeted killings that have devastated both Kashmiri Pandits and Muslims, and the ongoing challenges to preserving Kashmiri identity amidst the RSS’s ideological agenda.

Why Bihar Is More Than Its Stereotypes with Sagar

A calm and clear conversation with Sagar, senior staff writer at The Caravan. We speak about why Bihar is more than a broken state, how caste politics really works on the ground, and how election season gets distorted by the memification of leaders who should not be elevated in the first place. He explains the gap between lived reality and the stories told by mainstream media, the truth behind the jungle raj label, and why Bihar has been misread for so long. Tune in for a grounded look at a state that carries more history, complexity, and dignity than the usual headlines allow.

Why India needs to understand the new Pakistan| A Frontline Webinar

A very important interview with Ramanathan Kumar, former R&AW Pakistan desk head.  Those Indians who truly want to understand the implications of the 27th Amendment to Pakistan’s Constitution must listen to this podcast. 

In the latest edition of Frontline webinars, independent journalist Amit Baruah is in conversation with former R&AW Pakistan desk head Ramanathan Kumar. The two dissect the implications of Pakistan’s recently passed 27th Constitutional Amendment—a sweeping overhaul that elevates army chief Asim Munir to a new “Chief of Defence Forces” role, places all three armed services under his command, and grants him lifetime legal immunity. Passed by a two-thirds parliamentary majority, the amendment also restructures Pakistan’s judiciary: it removes the Supreme Court’s power over constitutional matters and establishes a new Federal Constitutional Court whose judges will be appointed by the executive. Critics argue that these changes represent a dramatic consolidation of military power and a sharp erosion of judicial independence.

For India, this is not just about Pakistan’s internal politics—it fundamentally reshapes the balance of power in the region. With a trigger-happy Field Marshal protected for life and commanding the entire military, Pakistan’s civil-military equilibrium could tilt decisively toward a more authoritarian and militarised state. Ramanathan Kumar and Amit Baruah explore how the amendment raises serious questions about democratic checks, legal accountability, and how India should recalibrate its approach to a new Pakistan.

 

Brown Pundits