Thatās a sharp observation, and worth expanding. The truth is, in the West, all immigrants eventually become āwhiteāānot in phenotype, but in assimilation, in aesthetic, in aspiration. Continue reading Everyone Western Becomes White Eventually
šÆļø Saving Adam
Posted on Categories Blog, Geopolitics, Politics, Religion9 Comments on šÆļø Saving AdamI donāt often comment on the IsraelāPalestine conflict, and I try not to be reactive. But there comes a point where neutrality becomes its own kind of indulgence.
Alaa al-Najjar, a pediatrician, lost nine of her ten children, and her husband, in an airstrike on their home in Khan Younis. Her surviving son, Adam, 11, had his hand amputated and was flown out of Gaza to Italy, where he says he hopes to live in āa beautiful place⦠where houses are not broken and nobody dies.ā
The children killed were: Sidar (7 months), Luqman (2), Sadeen (3), Rifan (5), Raslan (7), Jubran (8), Eve (9), Rakan (10), and Yahya (12). May they rest in the Highest Heaven. Continue reading šÆļø Saving Adam
š§µQuick Moderation Note
Posted on Categories Blog, Open Thread, PoliticsLeave a comment on š§µQuick Moderation NoteJust a heads-up for everyone:
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IndiaāPakistan threads are totally fine when the post is about IndiaāPakistan, or if itās an Open Thread. Let the sparks fly there.
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But on other postsāplease avoid steering every conversation back to IndiaāPakistan. Itās not always relevant and derails useful discussion.
I wonāt be actively moderating every thread. If something is genuinely offensive or disruptive, feel free to flag itāIāll step in only if needed. Continue reading š§µQuick Moderation Note
š®š³Op Sindoor: A Podcast on Pahalgam, Pakistan, and the Limits of Peace
Posted on Categories Geopolitics, History, India, Pakistan, Podcast, Politics101 Comments on š®š³Op Sindoor: A Podcast on Pahalgam, Pakistan, and the Limits of PeaceIāve just listened to the first half-hour of Op Sindoor, the latest Brown Pundits Browncast featuring Amey, Poulasta, and Omar. The full episode runs over 90 minutes; Iāll be reflecting on the rest in due course. For now, some thoughts on the opening segment, which focuses on the recent terror attack in Pahalgam and its aftermath.
š§Ø The Attack Itself: Pahalgam as a National Trauma
The episode begins by recounting the massacre in Pahalgam, Kashmirāa tourist meadow turned execution ground. Twenty-six people, most of them honeymooning Hindus, were murdered after being identified through religious markers: circumcision, Kalma recitations, names. The hosts donāt shy away from calling it what it is: a targeted Islamist attack. The group responsible, the TRF (The Resistance Front), is introduced as a Lashkar-e-Taiba cutout, designed to launder Pakistan-backed militancy through a local Kashmiri lens.
There is a palpable sense of cumulative fatigue in how the Indian speakers describe itānot as an aberration, but as part of a 30-year continuum of such violence. The emotional register is high, but justified. The use of plain terms like terrorists over euphemisms such as militants or gunmen reflects a long-standing frustration with how such attacks are framed in international discourse.
š¤ Ā Modi, Nawaz, and the Civ-Mil Waltz Continue reading š®š³Op Sindoor: A Podcast on Pahalgam, Pakistan, and the Limits of Peace
On immigration, innovation and the American conundrum
Posted on Categories America, Culture, Economics43 Comments on On immigration, innovation and the American conundrumThis is an attempt to understand why the United States began its descent into a mediocracy from a meritocracy. This article was inspired by a series of conversations over a period of time between my husband and me based on collective intergenerational experiences across a cross-section of people. I would also like to just say that this is in no way an attempt to undermine the success of immigrants, but more of an academic exercise to understand the joint impact of corporate greed and immigration patterns on the state of innovation in the US.
On the principle of collegiality and individual contribution to society at large
The principle on which the US was founded is this: The individual citizen is the basic building block of the country, and the quality of the individual dictates the future of the country (Teddy Roosevelt, Citizenship in a Republic, Sorbonne, France, 1910). The average citizen must be a good citizen for the republic to succeed. Therefore, every effort was made to ensure that a citizen could fulfill oneās full potential. This freedom to pursue oneās dreams was naturally predicated by the foundation of a relatively stable society where the basic necessities of life were well taken care of. While this respect for the individual citizen was of paramount importance, the same was also counter-balanced by the Protestant Christian principle of collegiality, which ensured that while individual citizens worked towards a better life, they also by and large pursued activities that could ensure the larger good of their society as well.
While the first wave of immigrants all came from western societies that shared similar principles, the latest wave of immigrants have come from countries where the individual citizen is almost incidental and the quality of the rulers is paramount. Extreme examples of such countries are Singapore and China. India too belongs to such a type of a governmental system, where ultimately only the top few matter, to steer the country down the right path. These new immigrants naturally do not relate to the original social contract that formed the basis of the United States.
Capitalism and the destruction of the family unit Continue reading On immigration, innovation and the American conundrum
On Moderation, Minoritization, and the Elite
Posted on Categories Culture, India, Pakistan, Politics, Race, X.T.M21 Comments on On Moderation, Minoritization, and the ElitePulse: The Threads We Weave ā
Lately Iāve wondered whether I over-curated the threads. Things feel quieter. Maybe too quiet. But perhaps thatās the cost of raising the barāof asking for dialogue instead of dopamine. Still, this lull has me reflecting not just on moderation but on why some arguments no longer move me.
Take the Indo-Pak conflict: once electric, now strangely inert. That shift reflects my own evolution over two decades. I no longer inhabit that binary. I carry a layered identityāa South Asian BahĆ”āĆ sensibility shaped by Persian aesthetics, grounded in British institutions, and fluently navigated through English. That complexity is my compass. Itās why I care less about flags and more about forces.
And the real force that shapes our lives? The elite. Not as a pejorative, but as a structural reality. I see it as nested tiers: Continue reading On Moderation, Minoritization, and the Elite
Belated Podcast: Operation Sindoor (and Bunyan al Marsoos)
Posted on Categories Geopolitics, History, India, Military History, Pakistan, Podcast, Politics3 Comments on Belated Podcast: Operation Sindoor (and Bunyan al Marsoos)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 donāt have a regular schedule is toĀ subscribeĀ to one of the links above!
In this episode Amey hosts myself (omar) and Poulasta (our resident Bengali expert) to talk about the recent India-Pakistan kerfuffle. Amey was ready for war, but we found common ground š (as usual with India and Pakistan, a lot of the discussion is about partition and related misunderstandings)
US Economics and Theory of Collapse
Posted on Categories America, Blog, Civilisation, Economics, Politics1 Comment on US Economics and Theory of CollapseA Theory of Collapse (After a US Economic Synopsis)
Note: Italicized comments are from another Brown Pundits contributor
Unless the US falls hopelessly behind in tech, they are ābuiltā to retain a perpetual competitive edge.
I donāt think youāve looked closely enough at the economic fundamentals. Off the top of my head:
- National Debt: $30+ trillion
- Interest on Debt: $1 trillion
- Budget Deficit (2024): $1.8 trillion
- Trade Deficit: $140.5 billion (heavy reliance on imports)
- Defense Budget: $1 trillion
Moodyās recently downgraded US debt from Aaa to Aa1, citing worsening risk indicators. This downgrade was hard to avoidāUS sovereign CDS spreads are now wider than those of China and Greece, suggesting higher default risk. Continue reading US Economics and Theory of Collapse
Request for Calm and Civility
Posted on Categories India, Open Thread, Pakistan, X.T.M18 Comments on Request for Calm and CivilityDear Punditeers,
A gentle reminder to take a breath and step back. Kabir is entitled to his viewsāthereās no obligation to counter every provocation point-by-point.
Whatās troubling isnāt disagreementāitās the sheer volume of rage replies. This doesnāt reflect the standard we aspire to. Itās neither civil nor intellectual. The only reason Iām stepping in is because, while I generally prefer light-touch moderation, the tone of these threads now reflects poorly on the broader community. It lowers the quality of both the commentariat and the platform.
Weāve seen this play out beforeāSepia Mutiny is a cautionary tale. Letās not replicate it.
So please: engage with ideas, not just identities. Letās not derail into yet another endless Indo-Pak back-and-forth. Weāre capable of better.
Warmly,
X.T.M
āļø [Addendum]
On Nivedita’s query, Iāve finally re-created the Brown Pundits email account. Itās hosted on Gmail, but Iāve deliberately avoided posting the full address here to prevent spam harvesters. If youād like to get in touch privately or share something offline, feel free to reach out via:
š§ brownpundits19 [@g]
The importance of being President
Posted on Categories Caste, Civilisation, Culture, India, Race, Uncategorized29 Comments on The importance of being PresidentI’m writing this article because a) I feel quite strongly about it, b) it has been largely ignored in the foreign press.
Protocol in India is a hidebound affair, I would imagine the current system possibly has its origins in the Mughal courts, but it was the British who codified it to the extreme : designating the number of bows, whether one could sit or stand, who took order of precedence, what adornments were allowed. There are whole volumes dedicated to the subject, which I will happily continue to avoid.
The Indian state inherited a lot of this barely updated pageantry and continues to enforce these rules at every level of government. At the top of the protocol list, replacing the king is the President, the nominated monarch of the republic. This brings us to the slightly delayed point of the article, our current President. Droupadi Murmu.
Wikipedia will list her myriad achievements and milestone accomplishments, they speak for themselves. This isn’t about that (not to dismiss them, they’re just superfluous to the point I am trying to make). It is about the optics. A tribal woman is nominated the Queen. Protocol demands that every citizen gives her precedence over all others. In a country with a preference for fair skin above all else, for European features in their actresses, a tribal woman can never win a beauty contest. But she can far surpass it. She is the projected face of the country at foreign events, at international forums. It gives me great pride and joy to see her representing us everywhere, at royal events, at the Pope’s funeral.