Kabir – Brown Pundits

Footnotes|Bollywood, Hindu Nationalism & the Erasure of Muslims in India (Kabir’s Open Thread)

Kabir · May 11, 2026 · No comments

When does cinema stop being entertainment and become propaganda? Hindi film has long romanticised the nation, but what’s happening now is something else entirely. In the latest Himal Footnotes, associate editor Nayantara Narayanan sits down with film critic Anna MM Vetticad and journalist Raza Rumi to talk about how Bollywood has become a vehicle for Hindutva ideology by manufacturing mythic pasts, normalising anti-Muslim violence and lending cinematic glamour to the BJP’s political project. Using the Dhurandhar franchise as a case study, they ask harder questions about the industry: How does propaganda disguise itself as entertainment? What happens when the line between fiction and political fact-making is deliberately blurred? And what has been lost from the Hindi cinema that once held space for a more plural, secular India?

Disclosure: I know Raza Rumi and have worked with him when he was at “The Friday Times”. I was mostly doing editorial work during what was essentially a summer internship. He has written a book about his experiences traveling in Delhi (where I believe his family was from). The book is called Delhi By Heart: Impressions of a Pakistani Traveller.

I will add more interesting links to this thread later.

A follow up on Women’s Rights in Pakistan

Kabir · May 9, 2026 · 4 comments

Since we have been having quite an impassioned debate about gender relations in Pakistan (as an aside that thread has close to 300 comments and has become unwieldy to navigate), I thought I would briefly follow up on a few points here.

Firstly, I want to state up front that I do not agree with Q’s repeated invocations of “Onlyfans”. Yes, he is technically on my team (the “Crescentiate”) but I am able to call him out when it is necessary. I would expect the other team (the “Saffroniate”) to also be able to call each other out when it is justified (as for example in the case of one of their members making a direct threat of violence). BP would be a much nicer place if some of the really egregious trolling (mostly by BB) is brought under control.

Q is of course entitled to his views and I suppose that our views differ mostly because I was raised almost entirely in the US. I was also not raised in a particularly conservative family. As an anecdote, my mother has never covered her head. When I was a young adolescent and had a bit of religious fervor and asked her to do so, I was given the firm response that I was living in her house and she would do exactly as she pleased. The conversation obviously came to an end there.

Back to “OnlyFans”: I believe in the right of consenting adults to do whatever they want with their own bodies. This doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t negatively judge someone who chose to start an OnlyFans. It is, after all, a kind of sex work and I don’t really understand why someone with education and opportunities would choose to get into this line of work. That said, it is of course the individual’s choice.

Q is correct that Pakistan is a conservative society and that the normative expectation is that women are kept out of the public sphere. The woman’s domain is seen to be the home. “Chador aur char divari” (I would translate this as the veil and the four walls) is an important concept in Pakistani interpretations of Islam.

Some links of relevance:

1) Sindh govt issues Aurat March NOC with conditions for participants’ clothing, slogans

According to the NOC, Aurat March organisers are “bound to comply with all laws in force” and shall be responsible for the “internal cordon security of the participants”.

It further stated that “all participants/organisers shall ensure peaceful conduct” during the march.

The NOC prohibited “anti-state slogans, banners, speeches or activities”, as well as “anti-religion slogans, placards or objectionable remarks”. It also ordered that “no hateful, provocative, unethical or anti-social content shall be displayed on charts, banners or flexes”.

“Participation, support or representation by any banned outfit /proscribed organisation such as BYC (Baloch Yakjehti Committee), JQSM (Jeay Sindh Qaumi Mahaz) shall strictly not be allowed,” the NOC read.

The district administration also ordered participants not to “wear objectionable clothing” or carry out “promotion for the LGBTQ” community, which includes transgender persons.

The “Aurat March” participants have also been told that they cannot make speeches against the “ideology of Pakistan” or speak against the armed forces.

For the record, I am against this decision that the participants cannot promote the rights of the “LGBTQ” community. This is homophobic and transphobic.

2) Review: Kafeel Offers A Rare Glimpse Into How Trauma Travels Between Generations

3)India refuses to criminalize marital rape. This new series shines a light on it

(Hat tip to Nivedita for mentioning this series “Chiraiya”. Incidentally, this word is usually spelled “Chiriya” in Urdu).

The BBC article notes:

Some 6.1% of Indian women who have ever been married women have experienced sexual violence, according to government data. But despite years of campaigning by activists, India remains among three dozen countries – along with Pakistan, Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia – where marital rape is not outlawed.

Activists have filed a number of petitions in recent years in the Supreme Court calling for marital rape to be criminalised. But the government, religious groups and men’s rights activists oppose any plans to amend the Colonial-era law, which exempts a man for having forced sex with his wife if she is not a minor.

On marital rape, I just want to mention that even in the UK, this was only criminalized as late as 1991, which is surprisingly late. As I mentioned in my review of John Galsworthy’s The Forsyte Saga, marital rape plays a major role in the plot of this novel and was not at all considered a crime during the Edwardian era (the time period in which the novel is set).

The case for peace

Kabir · May 8, 2026 · No comments

Recently, BB said that there are no leftists in Pakistan. May I introduce Aasim Sajjad Akhtar (Pervez Hoodbhoy’s son-in-law)? Aasim is the deputy general secretary of the Awami Workers Party. AWP is a progressive and democratic socialist party.

Aasim writes in today’s DAWN:

India is a much bigger country than Pakistan. The Modi regime and the militant Hindu right have created massive troll armies to fan hate, a lot of it against Pakistan. It has also weaponised religion against Muslims, Scheduled Castes and other oppressed groups in India. The BJP’s most recent victory in what was once the communist stronghold of West Bengal confirms just how deep Hindutva’s tentacles have spread.

Meanwhile, generations of young people in Pakistan have been bred on a militaristic ideology that depicts India as the arch-enemy. This has been the primary justification for diverting public resources away from the welfare of working people towards the establishment.

This is not about who blinks first. It is about the consciousness and well-being of most of this region’s people. The tidal waves of hate will eventually engulf us all.

Indians and Pakistani dramas

Kabir · May 7, 2026 · 29 comments

Recently, BB made a comment claiming that Indians don’t watch Pakistani dramas while Pakistanis are very familiar with Bollywood. While it is certainly true that Indian media has greater penetration in Pakistan than Pakistani media does in India–which is only to be expected since Bollywood is a much larger industry– it is also a fact that there are many fans of Pakistani dramas in India. As I pointed out in a comment, Fawad Khan and Mahira Khan became well-known in India after the success of Humsafar. Sanam Saeed also became well-known after Zindagi Gulzar Hai (in which she starred opposite Fawad Khan) aired on Indian TV. While the film industry in Pakistan has struggled for many reasons, our drama industry is going strong. One point to note is that unlike Indian soap operas, Pakistani dramas generally come to an end after twenty five or thirty episodes. This means that there is no need to keep a story going by having people return from the dead etc–this is not specific to Indian soaps since American soaps are also like this.

I personally don’t watch Pakistani dramas (I don’t really watch TV and what media I do consume tends to be Western). I think the last Pakistani drama I watched was Barzakh which also starred Fawad and Sanam and was coincidentally made for an Indian streaming service (ZEE Zindagi).

Anyway, I came across this reel today on IG which is called “Indians after watching a Pakistani drama” and I thought I’d share it here. This is basically light entertainment but it does prove that there is an audience in India for Pakistani content. Presumably, the user didn’t make this video just for the Pakistani audience.

I am of the opinion that art transcends national borders so there is nothing wrong with this. Just as Pakistanis are fans of Lata Mangeskhar, Asha Bhosle and Muhammad Rafi, Indians are fans of Mehdi Hassan, Ghulam Ali, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan etc. Though the two countries obviously have political tensions–both see each other as hostile states– we do share a common culture and there is nothing wrong in acknowledging that fact.

Courtesan Culture

Kabir · May 7, 2026 · 26 comments

There has been some discussion of courtesan culture on X.T.M’s recent thread.

While BB is probably trolling, I am using the opportunity to provide links to some pieces that I have written discussing courtesan culture. These pieces can be read by anyone who is interested in an informed discussion of the topic.

I will briefly quote from my essay Thumri and Social Change (originally written as part of my Masters coursework):

Thumri was traditionally associated with tawayafs, a Persian word which appears in Hindi/Urdu around the middle of the 19th century. Although currently associated with prostitution, the word originally denoted high class courtesans who were highly-skilled singers and dancers trained in the arts of poetry and conversation. Aristocrats would send their sons to tawayafs to be trained in manners and etiquette (Du Perron 2007: 1-2). Prior to colonial rule, courtesans were associated with royal courts. With the decline of these courts, courtesans increasingly began to entertain in their own private salons. They were often wealthy and, because of their unmarried status, were able to move around freely (2). Thumri was one of the principal genres of courtesan performance. The texts often express female desire, usually in the form of love-in-separation (viraha). The heroine either curses the day her lover left her or pleads with him not to abandon her. These themes made thumri ideal for courtesan performance as the performer could act out the anguish and desire experienced by the song’s heroine (3).

Asides from the above piece, some further relevant links are:

Review: Siren Song: Understanding Pakistan Through Its Women Singers by Fawzia Afzal-Khan

Review: Umrao Jan Ada by Mirza Ruswa (translated by Khushwant Singh and M.A. Husaini)

Review: Tawaifnama by Saba Dewan

The Black Album: Between Liberalism and Fundamentalism

Kabir · May 7, 2026 · No comments

In the context of the recent debate about feminism and liberalism in Pakistan, I am taking the liberty of excerpting from an essay I wrote about Hanif Kureishi’s novel The Black Album. This novel remains relevant many years after it was initially published.

Living in Pakistan post September 11^th, it is impossible to get away from debates about the increasing “Talibanization” of society. The comment sections of online English-language newspapers are filled with what passes for discussion among those who advocate for the secularization of society and those who advocate for a return to “Islamic values”. This “discussion” usually consists of nothing more than one side calling the other “liberal fascists” and the other side responding by calling their opponents “Taliban apologists”. The same “discussions” occur on social media such as Facebook. Pakistani novelists too have attempted to tackle the issue of Pakistan’s involvement in the US-led “global war on terror” and the increasing religiosity of urban middle-class “educated” youth. For example, this theme forms much of the narrative of Mohsin Hamid’s 2007 bestseller The Reluctant Fundamentalist, recently made into a film. However, in my opinion, the best novel to examine the dialectic between liberalism and fundamentalism and the struggle in one man’s soul between these two polar opposites, was actually written long before 9/11. This novel, published in 1995, is Hanif Kureishi’s The Black Album.

And:

As a novel of ideas, The Black Album is a fascinating study of the struggle in one British Pakistani young man’s heart between loyalty to his “culture” (as defined by Islam) versus loyalty to the ideals of his adopted homeland. Though much of the novel is specifically about the Rushdie affair, the debates about free expression and whether it should be limited or not—and if so, how much—are still current around the world. The book burning protest against The Satanic Verses can be compared to the violent protests against the recent YouTube film Innocence of Muslims and the riots that occurred on “Love the Prophet (PBUH) Day” in Pakistan on September 21^st 2012. It is the strength of Literature that it enables us to see events, through the experiences and dilemmas of individuals, in a way that journalism or current affairs pieces don’t allow us to. No recent novel about fundamentalism has been able to capture the struggle that takes place in the hearts and minds of many Muslim adolescents as effectively as Kureishi was able to do in The Black Album.

The whole essay can be read here

What Being a “Center-Left” Pakistani Means to Me

Kabir · May 5, 2026 · No comments

Since my center-left credentials are frequently questioned on BP, I am sharing this post here. Perhaps it can stand as a precedent post so that this debate can be put to rest once and for all.

I have been repeatedly accused on BP of not actually being “Center-Left”. A commenter has said “Pakistani liberal is an oxymoron”. I have been called an “Islamist” and “Islamofascist”. While it doesn’t particularly make a difference to my life what some random people (whom I am unlikely to ever meet in reality) think of me, I would like to take this opportunity to define what precisely being center-left means to me. I do not attempt to speak for other Pakistanis–though I believe there is a significant proportion of the population who share some of my beliefs– but only to describe my own personal background and ideology. This exercise will also hopefully help me to examine some of my own assumptions.

As I have previously mentioned in some comments, I come from a family that believes in Nehruvian Secularism and in the “idea of India”. This ideological influence comes primarily through my father. My paternal grandmother was from Agra and came to Pakistan only after her marriage to my grandfather (who was from Peshawar). My grandfather was an official in the Pakistan Railways and prior to the 1965 war, my father and his siblings used to travel by train to Agra every year to see their maternal grandparents and relatives. The war unfortunately put an end to that. While I never had an in-depth discussion with my grandmother about what exactly Pakistan meant to her, my father has told me that she was deeply saddened by the fact that she was separated from her parents and one of her brothers. Such tragedies were common in many Pakistani and Indian Muslim families. I was lucky enough to be able to visit India as a child and spend time in my dadi’s ancestral home. There are pictures of me in front of the Taj.

On my mother’s side, my maternal grandfather was born in Amritsar (though he was ethnically Kashmiri). In 1947, he was living in Sialkot and married to my nani (who was from West Punjab). However, his relatives came to Sialkot as refugees from Amritsar. For decades, they continued to carry the keys to their houses in Amritsar. In fact, when my mother spent time in Indian Punjab in the 1990s (while doing some international development work) people there were surprised to learn that she could describe Amritsar neighborhoods in great detail without ever having been there before.

It is also important to note that though I was born in Pakistan, I spent most of my formative years growing up in the United States. My parents had many Indian friends. Also, my entire family was deeply involved with Hindustani classical music and this naturally tends to be an Indian diaspora activity. My ustad was Bangladeshi-American but very few of his students were Muslim. While I was learning to sing khayal, I also learned bhajans and shabads in various ragas. Continue reading What Being a “Center-Left” Pakistani Means to Me

South Asian Symphony Orchestra

Kabir · May 3, 2026 · 2 comments

I learned about the South Asian Symphony Orchestra today–an organization which I had been previously unaware of. I thought I’d share it here since it is a rare example of positivity in the region.

The organization’s website explains the aim of the organization as follows:

The aim of the South Asian Symphony Foundation (SASF) is to promote greater cultural integration for the cause of peace in our region of South Asia, through the medium of music and the creation of a South Asian Symphony Orchestra. The inspiration has come from Ambassador Nirupama Menon Rao’s years in diplomacy and what she saw as a felt need for providing a platform to promote more dialogue, cultural synergy, and friendly understanding among the youth of the eight countries in South Asia, including India.

The website goes on to answer the question of “Why South Asia?”:

Why South Asia, you may ask. South Asia has often been defined as just India and Pakistan, but the history of the region is much more nuanced and incredibly vibrant. South Asia extends from Afghanistan, through Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Bhutan, through India, Sri Lanka, and to the Maldives. Nationalism has trumped regionalism in this space. We would like our Orchestra to point the way to recognition of the fact that South Asia is in many ways an integer, bound more together by our commonalities than our differences. To quote the famous words of Ambassador Vijayalakshmi Pandit, before the United Nations, “Let us sweat in peace, not bleed in war”.

I do find it kind of ironic that the music that is being used to promote peace is Western classical music rather than the systems of classical music indigenous to South Asia–such as Hindustani or Carnatic classical music.

I will end this post by linking to a piece I had written called “In Defense of ‘South Asia'” (which was earlier published on BP).

British India was not a Nation-State

Kabir · May 2, 2026 · 9 comments

I am just briefly highlighting Calvin’s excellent comment on BB’s thread.

Calvin writes:

Also there was no country or state called British India, it was a part of the British Empire like British Australia or British Kenya. Resting a lot of the system the British developed does not make us a continuation.

Over the last year, I have consistently made the point that there was no nation-state of “India” prior to August 15, 1947. Thus, the Indian and Pakistani nation-states were created at the exact same time. The argument that India was always there while Pakistan is a made-up entity is a common Indian nationalist trope and is basically just a way of de-legitimizing Pakistan.

This position has gotten me in a lot of trouble on this forum but I stand by it intellectually. Presumably, now that this same argument has been made by a non-Pakistani and a non-Muslim, it will get a fairer hearing.

Of course, the fact that there was no such thing as an Indian nation-state doesn’t mean there was no sense of a geographic entity called “India”. That has never been my argument. Prior to British India, there was the Mughal Empire etc. Most of these geographical entities included what is now Pakistan. It is just a fact that for most of history the land that is now Pakistan has been part of Delhi-based empires. As a Pakistani, I’m absolutely fine with that. However, it is also true that it was the British who created the borders that are commonly taken to be the natural borders of India. For example, the Mughals never ruled the Northeast or the very southern bits of India.

I have no problem with BB arguing that the Republic of India is the successor state of British India. The arguments about the UN seat etc cannot be argued with. I would simply add that, in some ways, Pakistan is also a successor state of British India. For example, Pakistan inherited the Durand Line–the legal border between British India and Afghanistan.

On a related note: I came across this article about South Korea yesterday which discusses how the South is debating what to officially call the North.

The article notes:

Continue reading British India was not a Nation-State

Review: In the City of Gold and Silver by Kenize Mourad

Kabir · May 1, 2026 · No comments

In the spirit of discussing Indian history, I am sharing this book review of a fictionalized biography of Begum Hazrat Mahal. The author, Kenize Mourad, comes from a fascinating background. Her mother, Selma Hanimsultan, was the granddaughter of Murad V, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire. Her father was Syed Sajid Hussain Ali, the Raja of Kotwara.

Kenizé Mourad’s In the City of Gold And Silver is a fictionalized biography of Begum Hazrat Mahal (c.1820-1879), one of the wives of Nawab Wajid Ali Shah (1822-1887), the last ruler of Awadh –one of the major North Indian princely states. After the British deposed Wajid Ali Shah and annexed the state, Hazrat Mahal became one of the major leaders of the Revolt of 1857 . She had her eleven-year-old son, Birjis Qadir, crowned king and took on the role of regent (who would rule until the sovereign attained the age of majority). Although the rebellion was ultimately defeated and Hazrat Mahal died a prisoner in Nepal, she is remembered today as a major figure in Indian nationalist history.

Mourad’s novel does an excellent job at evoking the atmosphere of Awadh during 1856-1858: the crucial period in which the state was annexed and the rebellion occurred. As the novel begins, the ladies of the court are staging a play satirizing the British. The narrative then flashes back to Hazrat Mahal’s childhood as an orphan and details how she was trained as a courtesan and then became part of the Nawab’s harem. However, the bulk of the book takes place during the Rebellion and describes the various battles fought with the British. The Nawab himself is a minor character since he had been exiled from Awadh and spent most of this period imprisoned in Fort William in Calcutta. While it is not a major part of this novel, Wajid Ali Shah is an enormously important figure in the development of Hindustani Classical Music, particularly in the genres of thumri and kathak. In fact, his devotion to music was one of the justifications that the British gave for annexing Awadh, deeming him unfit to rule. Continue reading Review: In the City of Gold and Silver by Kenize Mourad