Since independence
South Asian history after 1947, including 1965 and 1971.
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Izzat Maxing
X.T.M answers Q’s claim that India–Pakistan wars will stay short, arguing that allies matter only for the fifth day. He tests this against 1971, Kargil, Operation Sindoor and the Gulf…
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In Remembrance of Shaheed Lt. Ashfaqus Samad, Bir Uttam (My Cousin Nishat Bhai):
A tribute, headed “by Shawkat”, to Lt. Ashfaqus Samad, a Dhaka University student who became one of the first guerrillas in Dhaka and was killed in action in the 1971…
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The Failure of Pakistani Alliances & The Instability of the Middle East
0M-3 examines why alliances involving Pakistan, CENTO, SEATO and the recent Saudi Arabia and Turkey pacts, have failed, arguing that regional infighting and diverging interests, not colonial-drawn borders, are the…
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Restore the Princes?
Under one paramountcy, Swat built three colleges and over three hundred schools while the Nawabs of Dir kept education out. Same institution, same security, opposite outcomes. Whatever the case for…
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Two Colonisations, One Border: What the Data Actually Says About Bengal’s Post-1971 Demographic Story
X.T.M argues census data tell two stories of demographic change in eastern India: Bengali Hindus settled Tripura with state sanction, while Muslim growth in Assam and Bengal border districts is…
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She Parked a Car With Her Husband. Fifty Years Later, She Is Still Waiting.
X.T.M tells the story of Damayanti Tambay, who has searched for fifty years for her husband, missing since the 1971 war, with 54 Indian personnel still unaccounted for. He argues…
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Pakistan, 1971, and the Misuse of the Holocaust Analogy
X.T.M answers a claim that the Pakistan army committed genocide comparable to Nazi crimes. He accepts the 1971 violence but argues that genocide is a legal category not settled by…
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South Asia Is an Ugly Postcolonial Euphemism
X.T.M argues that South Asia is a bureaucratic euphemism from American area studies, not a neutral term. He holds that India is the old name for the whole subcontinent and…
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ZA Bhutto Founds the Pakistan People’s Party in Lahore
Omar Ali reposts Hasan Mujtaba’s Facebook account of how Zulfikar Ali Bhutto founded the Pakistan People’s Party in Lahore, including the origin of its slogan and Bhutto’s later falling-out with…
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The Weight of Memory: A Sri Lankan Reminder
Sbarrkum recounts what Sri Lanka’s civil war cost his own family and neighbours, including killed cousins, arrests and mobs. He asks that the conflict not be invoked lightly or abstractly…
