Brown Pundits – Brown Pundits

Admin Note

November 11, 2025KabirAdmin, Brown Pundits, Kabir3 Comments

I have deleted the thread on the so called “terror attack” in Delhi. The person who posted it clearly has an anti-Pakistan agenda and has accused Pakistan even before Modi and Shah have. This is unacceptable. The intention behind his making a post like this was clearly to antagonize Pakistanis.

I condemn terrorism in all its forms. However, as yet, there is absolutely no evidence that Pakistan had anything to do with this incident. It is irresponsible to speculate at this point.

As long as I am an editor on BP, I will not allow it to become a place for anti-Pakistan rhetoric. There are plenty of other places on the Internet for right wing Hindus to engage in anti Pakistan rhetoric. BP is no longer one of them.

Open Thread

November 4, 2025November 4, 2025X.T.MAdmin, Brown Pundits, Colonialism, Geopolitics, Indian Subcontinent, X.T.MBrown Pundits, future, Multipolar World, postcolonial, reflection57 Comments

The boycott has made Brown Pundits quieter, almost peaceful. I don’t mind it. Every few years the site reaches this point; it grows, gains noise, and starts to feel less like a hobby and more like an obligation. Then it falls back to something smaller and saner.

I’ve also realised that the Indo-Pak frame doesn’t really fit my life anymore. It was useful once because that’s where the conversation was; it gave the blog an audience. But most of that talk is stale now; the same arguments, just louder.

What interests me instead are the wider patterns: how post-colonial societies move in a world that is no longer unipolar. The Gulf’s rise, Africa’s experiments, China’s reach, India’s own breadth. How old hierarchies break down, and new ones form.

I don’t like following the news. So perhaps BP will drift in that direction. Fewer posts, less noise, more reflection. A space for thinking about what comes after the post-colonial age, when the world starts to finally balance itself again.

Caste, Civilisation, and the Courage to Own It

November 2, 2025X.T.MBrown Pundits, Hinduism, India, Indian Subcontinent, X.T.MAkhand Bharat, Brown Pundits, caste, Civilisation, cultural debate, Culture, dharmic civilisation, Hinduism, Identity, India, introspection, Modernity, philosophy, reformism, Saffroniate, social reform, South Asia, tradition8 Comments

Kabir suggested that I apologise but for what, exactly? Why should Saffroniate be considered offensive? Own it. I don’t see anything inherently wrong with the idea of Akhand Bharat; the concept of a broader Dharmic civilisation makes eminent sense to me.

Likewise, I don’t understand why questioning caste identities provokes such sensitivity. Again, own it because the more caste is repressed, the more likely it is to resurface.

At heart, I’m a reformist, not a revolutionary. I believe in improving and refining what exists, not erasing it. Cultural features should only be abolished when they are truly harmful or deleterious, not simply because they make us uncomfortable.

To be or not to be (Capricious)

November 2, 2025November 2, 2025X.T.MAdmin, Brown Pundits, Kabir, X.T.Mblogging community, Brown Pundits, Colonialism, Culture, Diaspora, editorial note, Empire, forum governance, history, Identity, India, intellectual exchange, Pakistan, participation, Readership, site update, South Asian Discourse, writers33 Comments

The November circular was emailed earlier to all various stakeholders of BP. This will be sticky for a short period as unfortunately publishing all the drafts has pushed the current posts much further down.

You may also use this thread as an unmoderated Open Threads. Topics of interest include JD Vance’s comments, the stabbing in the UK by asylum seekers (presumably), and any other interest. I would suggest everyone engage with the email, after the jump; if you have been emailed it privately, I do expect private replies as well.

Continue reading To be or not to be (Capricious)

Co-Founders Confer

November 2, 2025X.T.MAdmin, Brown Punditsauthenticity, authorship, Blog Management, Blogging, Brown Pundits, commentariat, Community Building, Diaspora, digital media, Editorial, editorial philosophy, growth strategy, India, Kabir, online discourse, Pakistan, Readership, Saffroniate, South Asia, subcontinent, traffic report10 Comments

I sent this email to the CoFounders of the Blog (Omar | Razib) and tomorrow I will send through the Monthly Author Report.

Continue reading Co-Founders Confer

Sunday reads

November 2, 2025Furqan AliBook Reviews, Brown Pundits, Pakistan, Partition, Postcolonialism & the Global South, South East Asia6 Comments

I recently read a piece I’d like to share: about the life of Bacha Khan and how he initiated an anticolonial school, the Azad School in Utmanzai, in 1921. It was a Pashto-medium institution where Manmohan Singh, the former Prime Minister of India, also studied. Nehru and Gandhi visited the school as well — Nehru in 1937 and Gandhi in 1938 — delivering speeches and spending time there. Due to his dissent against the British, he had to spend about 37 years in jail out of his 93-year life.

The Genius of Bacha Khan

“Most geniuses have one masterwork for which they are famous. For Che and Fidel, that work was surely the Cuban Revolution and its international humanism, just as it was for Lenin, the Russian. For CLR James, we can list “The Black Jacobins” as an extraordinary work of genius, as well as the underground Marxist group he co-led, known as the Johnson-Forest tendency. For Selma James and many other women of the 1970s Marxist Feminist movement, it was about recognizing the economic contributions of housework and children and establishing organizations that advocated for fair compensation for caring and reproductive labor. Their slogan, ‘invest in caring, not war’, remains the blueprint. For Spivak, it has been to chart a path for activism while working beyond Eurocentric Logocentrism.

The list is long, but I never thought that a tall, six-foot-three, broad-shouldered, soft-spoken Khan from Utmanzai, Hashnagar, a mere graduate of King Edward’s School, Peshawar, would, before he turned 30, have three works of genius to his name. Abdul Ghaffar Khan, honorifically known as Badshah Khan (King of the Khans) and also Bacha Khan, a title bestowed upon him at the mere age of 27, created three masterpieces. In order of creation, they were: Anjuman-i-Islahul Afaghina (The Society for the Reform of the Afghan), Pakhtun magazine, and the greatest non-violent organization the world has yet known, the Khudai Khidmatgar. Here I want to write only of the first, Anjuman-i-Islahul Afaghina. “

Continue reading Sunday reads

Saffron Strike

November 2, 2025X.T.MAdmin, Authors, Brown Pundits, Kabir, X.T.Mblog culture, Brown Pundits, caste, Censorship, commentariat, Conservatism, Diaspora, discourse, Editorial, free speech, Ideology, integrity, Kabir, Liberalism, Nothing is Sacred, Online Community, Pakistan, Saffroniate, South Asia9 Comments

The silence on BP these past few days feels deliberate; a kind of Saffron Strike. If so, let it be known: this space was never meant to cater to ideological comfort.

It seems uncommonly quiet; I think I have been misunderstood. I do not care about the traffic and commentary of BP as much as I care about the integrity of the space.

For instance when I felt that Kabir had done wrong; interdiction was the answer. When I realised the narrative was being twisted so that I became his moderator (Kabir generally knows my red lines) then I realised I was wrong. Kabir’s recent postings and commentary have been very high-signal. Continue reading Saffron Strike

India-Pakistan: A link sustained only through violence

October 22, 2025November 2, 2025ArcherBrown Pundits, India, Kashmir, Pakistan, Partition, Postcolonialism & the Global SouthAsim Munir, B.R. Ambedkar, Brown Pundits, Commentary, Democracy, economy, failed state, Gandhi, Geopolitics, Hindu-Muslim relations, Hussain Haqqani, identity politics, India, Indian army, Indian Muslims, Indo-Pak Relations, Islam, Jinnah, Kashmir, M.S. Gill, military, modernization, Mosharraf Zaidi, Najam Sethi, Nationalism, NUST, Operation Sindoor, opinion, Pahalgam attack, Pakistan, Pakistani Army, Pakistani elites, Partition of India, Sahir Shamshad Mirza, secularism, Shah Faesal, South Asia, terrorism55 Comments

In the spirit of all the Indo-Pak back and forth that happens on BP, here is one more perspective. This is strictly my view. Naturally there are several layers to the Indo-Pak relationship that cannot be captured in one article and I am certainly no expert on this subject. With these caveats, here goes.

1. Religion

The first, obvious dynamic that plays out between India and Pakistan is religion. The Muslims case for the creation of Pakistan was based on two points:

(a) Some Muslims wanted a ethnically homogeneous state because they believed Muslims themselves constitute a separate nation and desired to have their national home

(b) Because some Muslims claimed experience showed that Hindus want to use their majority to treat Muslims as second class citizens in an alien state.

(Ref: Pakistan or the partition of India by B.R.Ambedkar – Both Jinnah and Gandhi considered this book to be the authority on the subject)

Those who chose India completely rejected these notions then, and do so even today. That DOES NOT mean Indians reject the reality of the Pakistani state. If anything, its the exact opposite. Only fools would want partition to ever be undone.

Why is this relevant today? Well, listen to Asim Munir:

Continue reading India-Pakistan: A link sustained only through violence

Fire and the Saffroniate

October 22, 2025October 22, 2025X.T.MAdmin, Authors, Brown Pundits, Kabir, X.T.MAdmin Strategy, Author Engagement, Blog Management, Blogging Strategy, Brown Pundits, Civil Disagreement, Comment Threads, commentariat, Community Building, Digital Dialogue, forum culture, identity politics, India, InshAllah, interdiction, Internet Culture, Kabir, Longform Blogging, Moderation policy, Online Community, Online Firestorms, Pakistan, Post Cadence, Sbarrkum, South Asian Discourse, South Asian Intellectuals22 Comments

We had a quiet Diwali dinner with some South Asian literati here in Cambridge, Mass. No fireworks, but some useful clarity especially about the need for a unified South Asian voice, and where Brown Pundits fits in.

Threads, Fire, and a New Warrior Class

Kabir remains catnip for the Commentariat or as I’ll now call them, the Saffroniate (Brahmins or Brahminised). They pretend otherwise, but the numbers don’t lie. The threads light up when he’s around and yes, I’m aware of the layered joke: threads mean something else too, especially to our youngest Pundits-in-training. Continue reading Fire and the Saffroniate

Was Kabir Right?

October 20, 2025October 20, 2025X.T.MAdmin, Brown Pundits, Indian Subcontinent, Partition, Postcolonialism & the Global South, X.T.MBrown Pundits, civilizational dialogue, commentariat, community engagement, Content Moderation, Dharmic Harmony, Digital Community Building, forum culture, free speech, Hindu Muslim dialogue, India, Indo-Pak discourse, interdiction, Internet Commentary, Internet Culture, izzat, Kabir, online civility, Online Moderation, Pakistan, Platform Governance, Respectful Disagreement, RSS, South Asia, South Asian identity, Substack, Tablighi Jamaat26 Comments

A week ago, I imposed an interdiction on Kabir ; a move I felt was necessary at the time, not because of his views, but because of the manner in which they were expressed. His tone, his dismissal of this platform, and his tendency to escalate rather than de-escalate all contributed to that decision. But now, I find myself wondering: was Kabir right about Brown Pundits?

Since his departure, the commentariat has gone unusually quiet. Threads that once sparked with disagreement, energy, and engagement have gone still. There is a strange calm but it feels like the calm of a museum, not a marketplace of ideas. And what’s become increasingly clear is that the “peace” has come at a cost. That cost is vibrancy. That cost is friction. That cost is participation. Kabir, for all his faults, drew fire, and fire draws people.

This raises a more fundamental question: am I overestimating the commentariat’s interest in the core mission of Brown Pundits? Were people here for civilizational dialogue, or were they here for the masala of Indo-Pak antagonism? It’s disheartening to admit, but the numbers speak for themselves. Kabir had been blocked years before (not by me), and when I released Loki from his cage, well on his return, so did the attention. Continue reading Was Kabir Right?