History
Posts whose main purpose is to explain the past.
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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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Dharms are Natural Democrats
The indigenous record was procedurally rich and narrow. The colonial record was procedurally borrowed and narrow. In 1950 Delhi adopted universal adult suffrage at a stroke, literacy under a fifth,…
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Who did the Brits conquer India from?
Did the British take India from the Muslims or from the Hindus? The question cannot be answered, because it was never true. The empire they inherited had already fallen apart,…
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The End of Pre-colonial Modernity and it’s Present Implications
FlyDie argues that Raghunatha Siromani’s logic in the Bengal sultanate marked an early form of modernity in South Asia, and that colonial rule ended this indigenous trajectory with consequences today.…
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Bin Qasim’s Thousand-Year Wound
X.T.M argues that India and Pakistan face a fault line over a thousand years old, dating to Muhammad bin Qasim’s landing in Sindh in 711. Each side now speaks only…
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Nehru Lost India, Not Jinnah
X.T.M argues that Nehru, not Jinnah, lost a united India: the 1946 Cabinet Mission Plan already offered a workable confederation, which the League accepted, and Nehru’s July press conference undid…
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Open Thread: Mother Indus is on Fire
While the commentariat counts babies, the Indus basin sits at 47 to 50°C. Radcliffe drew a paper line. The thermometer does not pause at Wagah.
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The Muslim Districts That Hold West Bengal Up
The post accepts that West Bengal Hindus have a real grievance over demographic change, but argues the three Muslim-majority border districts of Murshidabad, Malda and Uttar Dinajpur are the reason…
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The Hindification of East India
Bihar, Odisha, Assam, and now Bengal: the old Bengal Presidency votes as a single saffron block. A century after the bhadralok forced Curzon to reunite Bengal, their grandchildren have completed…
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The god of small comments
A reader’s reply on the assembly elections thread, reposted in full, explains how Kerala’s Christians divided into sectarian groups from the pre-colonial period, including the Knanaya and older communities, and…
