Category: Active Authors

The Hindification of Muslim Culture

X.T.M Ā· December 1, 2025 Ā· 25 comments

Something in a recent thread caught my attention. A commenter praised several khayal singers, almost all Hindu, while omitting equally eminent Muslim vocalists. Kabir pointed this out, but the exchange exposed a larger pattern: the slow Hindification of Muslim cultural inheritances in India.

This is not new. It has happened before in the Balkans, Spain, North Africa, and now South Asia. When Muslim political power retreats but its aesthetic legacy endures, successor communities begin absorbing, domesticating, and rebranding the cultural capital that Muslim rule left behind.

Hindustani music is a prime example. The foundational grammar, khayal, thumri, tarana, bandish, ragaā€“riyaz discipline, gharana boundaries, was shaped by Persian, Turkic, and Indo-Muslim lineages. Yet today, the most visible custodians of this tradition are overwhelmingly Hindu: Bengali virtuosos, Maharashtrian stalwarts, the great Dharwad families, plus a handful of Muslim houses that continue against the grain. A few dozen performers make a strong living; a select few have global reputations. But the overall demographic shift is unmistakable. Continue reading The Hindification of Muslim Culture

Browncast: Bangladesh Planned Elections Discussion

Omar Ali Ā· November 30, 2025 Ā· 14 comments

Another Browncast is up. You can listen onĀ Libsyn,Ā Apple,Ā Spotify, andĀ StitcherĀ (and a variety of other platforms). Probably the easiest way to keep up the podcast since we donā€™t have a regular schedule is toĀ subscribeĀ to one of the links above!

In this episode Maneesh Taneja and myself talk to Shaifq ur Rahman and Jyoti Rahman, Bangladeshi academics and scholars with an interest in the current political churn.

 

On ā€œThe Haraam Bitā€: Free Speech, Trolling, and Our Red Lines

Bombay Badshah Ā· November 29, 2025 Ā· 43 comments

This post titled ā€œThe ā€˜haraamā€™ bitā€ sparked pushback both on the site and in our internal chat. This note sets out the problem, our editorial responsibility (as X.T.M I have overwritten this post), and what this means for BP.

1. What happened

An anonymous author (Bombay Badshah who has used a number of pseudonyms) posted a list of Pakistani-origin porn performers and highlighted a scene where a British Pakistani actress jokes about ā€œharaamā€ and foreskin. He framed it as an ā€œinteresting observation.ā€ The issue was not that he mentioned porn. It was how he used it.

2. Why the post was unacceptable Continue reading On ā€œThe Haraam Bitā€: Free Speech, Trolling, and Our Red Lines

Why Indiaā€™s National Calendar Needs Urgent Correction

X.T.M Ā· November 28, 2025 Ā· No comments

Indiaā€™s national holidays should reflect its civilisation. They do not. Five Abrahamic festivals sit at the centre of the calendar, while most indigenous ones sit on an ā€œoptionalā€ list. This is a distortion, not pluralism.

National holidays are public signals. They show what a country holds to be central. When non-indigenous festivals are guaranteed space and indigenous ones are not, the state sends a clear message: it is unsure of its own foundations.

This was a mistake made at independence. India had full freedom to shape its symbols. Instead of anchoring the calendar in its own tradition, the new state tried to avoid offence. That caution hardened into policy, even though no society builds confidence by sidelining itself. Continue reading Why Indiaā€™s National Calendar Needs Urgent Correction

Why 2014 happened in 2014

GauravL Ā· November 27, 2025 Ā· 2 comments

I just read a comment by Kabir about how 2014 changed Nehru’s India drastically ( I do not agree but that’s not for now). But this poses another question.

As XTM’s post pointed out/alluded Hindutva was inevitable and the natural outcome of Pakistan. But why did it take 67 years of Hindutva to assert itself.

In my mind the answer is pretty straightforward and two fold.

1. Gandhi’s murder at hands of a Hindutvavadi.

2. Sluggish economical growth of the socialist era (also called wrongly the Hindu rate of growth).

I would love to hear comments on the question posed above.

Why 2014 happened in 2014?

Why Zia, Munir, Ayub, and Even Modi, Are Jinnah’s Children

X.T.M Ā· November 27, 2025 Ā· 54 comments

The heirs of Jinnah are not liberal Pakistani nationalists or English-speaking Karachi elites.

His true heirs are:

  • Zia-ul-Haq
  • Asim Munir and the modern Pakistan Army
  • Ayub Khan
  • And Narendra Modi

This is not provocation. It is structural observation.

I. Jinnah Created a Logic That Outlived His Liberal Aesthetics Continue reading Why Zia, Munir, Ayub, and Even Modi, Are Jinnah’s Children

Nehru, Privilege, and the Missed Settlement of 1947

X.T.M Ā· November 27, 2025 Ā· 8 comments

Kabir’s defence of Nehru as the moral compass of the Indian republic reveals something deeper than nostalgia for secularism. It exposes how much of India’s founding moment was shaped by a single man whose class background insulated him from the material and psychological stakes of Partition; stakes that Gandhi, Jinnah, Bose, Ambedkar, and even Savarkar understood far more viscerally.

Nehru was unique among the major players of his era. He was the only one born into national leadership, the only one who inherited a political position, and the only one whose life had been marked not by struggle but by access. While others were shaped by jail, exile, poverty, or ideological intensity, Nehru was shaped by privilege, and privilege has its own blind spots.

This matters because 1947 was not a moment for abstract idealism. It was a moment for negotiation between communities whose elites no longer trusted one another. On that task, Nehru was the least prepared of the principal actors.

I. Nehru’s Privilege Was a Constraint, Not a Qualification

Continue reading Nehru, Privilege, and the Missed Settlement of 1947

The Unfinished Contract II: Citizenship, Partition, and the Questions Liberalism Won’t Ask

X.T.M Ā· November 26, 2025 Ā· 9 comments

A far-right senator, Pauline Hansen, recently walked into the Australian Senate wearing a burqa. Muslim MPs (one of whom wearing a hijab) angrily called it racist, bigoted, Islamophobic. They were right. But they also dodged the underlying question: What does citizenship mean when communities fracture along religious lines?

The same evasion dominates debates about Indian Muslims after 1947. One camp says: “They stayed, they’re citizens, case closed.” The other mutters about loyalty tests and fifth columns. Both positions are intellectually lazy. Neither grapples with what Partition actually did to the social contract.

This isn’t about defending bigotry. It’s about refusing to let bigots monopolize legitimate questions.

I. The Contract That Never Closed Continue reading The Unfinished Contract II: Citizenship, Partition, and the Questions Liberalism Won’t Ask

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