Since independence

South Asian history after 1947, including 1965 and 1971.

Reihan Salam- neocon unlimited

The poster is puzzled by Reihan Salam’s defence of American policy on the 1971 Bangladesh war, noting that Nixon never told the Pakistan Army to stop, though Salam admits a…

Brown Pundits Archive7 April 20141 comment
Kargil War

Reposting an older piece, the author argues Kargil was no great victory thrown away by Nawaz Sharif. He once accepted the ‘tactical success, strategic blunder’ line, but later details showed…

Brown Pundits Archive7 April 20141 comment
Sam Manekshaw, by Hamid Hussain

Hamid Hussain recounts anecdotes from a documentary on Field Marshal Sam Manekshaw, including how he, Yahya Khan and S. K. Sinha served together in Delhi in 1947 and then met…

Brown Pundits Archive7 April 20140 comments
Zulfi Bhutto of Pakistan

The author invites readers to share where they were when Bhutto was hanged, and recalls his own day: his mother in tears, a silent Lahore, and a prank with rooh…

Brown Pundits Archive5 April 20140 comments
ZA Bhutto murdered (5 April 1979)

A short assessment of Zulfikar Ali Bhutto on the anniversary of his execution, calling him a great man whose actions also led to the persecution of Ahmadis, with a quotation…

Brown Pundits Archive4 April 20140 comments
Babri demolition was pre-planned

On a Cobrapost sting claiming that the Babri Masjid demolition was planned, the poster says that, if true, the conspirators should face charges and is appalled at the claim that…

Brown Pundits Archive4 April 20140 comments
“experiment of developing India ….has failed”

A note on Ramachandra Guha’s review of Neville Maxwell’s 1967 Times of London predictions that Indian democracy was disintegrating, and how well his verdicts have held up.

Brown Pundits Archive21 March 20140 comments
Neville Maxwell

A note on Neville Maxwell, who blames India for the 1962 war, with his comments on the still-secret Henderson-Brooks report and the poster’s question of who the whistle-blower was.

Brown Pundits Archive21 March 20140 comments
“The sole survivor”

William Dalrymple’s account of the India-Pakistan shadow war in Afghanistan, opening with an Indian officer’s experience in Kabul, with the poster’s comment that the wars will end only when elites…

Brown Pundits Archive10 March 20140 comments
The Begums of Bhopal (new edition)

A short history of the Begums of Bhopal, with a news extract on the Bharatiya Muslim Mahila Andolan meeting there; the poster sees it as common people replacing a monarch…

Brown Pundits Archive10 March 20140 comments