Brown Pundits

Americans, unusually provincial by global standards, are generally unaware of the degree to which the rest of the world watch what Americans say. My fear is that attitudes such as Mr. Eric Dyson’s will fuel and exacerbate global anti-Americanism. Mr. Eric Dyson is personifying the caricature of the “Ugly American”.

Continue reading How should we respond if someone says “mean mad asian man”?

Since BP in general lacks positively-inclined Pak-nuanced voices; I thought this was an important comment to highlight.

There was more than Jinnah involved in the ‘Pakistan Movement’ even if it was a one man show when it came to actual negotiations with the British.

Maulana Shabbir Ahmad Usmani was instrumental in mass mobilization (using Islam khatray mein heh! naturally) and countering Congress’s anti-Jinnah propaganda campaign orchestrated by Maulana Husain Ahmad Madani of the JUH. This was the so called Muttahida Qaumiat movement that held that Jinnah and Aligarh Islamic Modernism was more dangerous than an independent India dominated by the Hindus.

In a nutshell, the insurmountable problem was simply this. Jinnah and some others (non-caste Hindus) wanted absolute safeguards for minorities before independence; Congress and caste-Hindus wanted independence first and then would decide whatever safeguards the minorities would get. As a part of this, Jinnah and others wanted a weak Centre and power devolution to the provinces/groupings while Congress (Nehru and Patel but not Gandhi, who was a hopeless romantic when it came to actual politics anyway) wanted a strong Centre and the provinces to have whatever powers the Centre didn’t want.

If you look at the Cabinet Mission Plan, that is EXACTLY what is being offered: a weak Centre. Of course Congress rejected it and Jinnah embraced it.

What must always be remembered is that the Pakistan Movement meant many different things to many different people.

His accent is obviously spot on; the fact that he’s Australian and has an American accent is a good example.

I find the Coloniser privilege in this video to be a bit OTT. Imagine if it was a black man speaking perfect Hindustani; there’d really be no interest. All a white man has to do is master the accent and then he can pass off as Kashmiri Brahmin; one of the “highest” stratas in Indian society.

It’s interesting that with Prince Harry marrying Meghan Markle; British society is really going the other way. The Royal Family, which is emblematic of privilege, is now connecting across the races and generations towards a new identity. It may very well be that the King George’s future Royal Cousins wouldn’t even be able to pass for Kashmiri Brahmins (they would be upto 25% Afram so who knows what they’d look like).

How many Desi parents would accept Meghan Markle for a Bahu?

Congratulations Sajid Javid, the first minority senior cabinet member that I know of in the history of England and the UK! The new Home Secretary is a patriotic Englishman of Desi (historic Indian) Pakistani Ancestry. He might become one of the most successful home secretary in English history and all of us are very proud of him and proud of our Anglo brothers and sisters!

Naturally Sajid Javid has been subject to vicious sectarian anti muslim attacks from nonmuslim Englishmen, especially post modernist Englishmen. In the above video UK muslims strongly defend Sajid from the sectarian anti muslim slurs. Sadly this is a part of a long pattern of mistreatment against muslim heritage people on the part of nonmuslims:

• Why do English nonmuslims treat English muslims so badly?
• Why do nonmuslims treat atheist muslims so badly?

Tomorrow is the Royal Wedding and the rumour is that Priyanka Chopra may be a bridesmaid, which would be huge.

At any rate on our Pakistani Literati group this was circulated around and I found the initial bit about Quaid e Azam (personally using Jinnah is like using Holy Prophet without the PBUH; there is a sliver of me that is a parochial Paki) about wanting to be an actor is fascinating.

I find the trope of QeA not wanting Partition to be a tiring; then why didn’t the Master Negotiator back down from his demands if he found them so unreasonable. If QeA and his ilk hadn’t messed it up; the HM the Queen’s Bahu would have probably been a desi and Harry would have been short for Harinder!

How Pakistan ended up trapping Muhammad Ali Jinnah

Jinnah’s close friend Kanji Dwarkadas agreed that Jinnah was not in earnest in his demand for Pakistan. After a 90-minute talk with Jinnah on August 28, 1942, Kanji wrote: “Jinnah was not thinking in terms of Pakistan. Nor did he think of becoming the head of a new state of Pakistan. In fact, Jinnah never imagined that Pakistan would ever come into being.”

When Kanji asked Jinnah about Pakistan, the latter replied: “My dear Kanji, one gesture, one friendly gesture was all that I was asking for and it was not forthcoming from the Congress. If the Congress would make this gesture, the whole problem would not be difficult to solve.”

Feeling trapped into accepting a Pakistan he had no intention of creating, Jinnah was yet too proud to call it off. Instead, he put up a brave front, as he told a Hindu friend in Karachi, Hashoo Kewal Ramani, an industrialist: “Look here, I never wanted this damn Partition! It was forced upon me by Sardar Patel. And now they want me to eat humble pie and raise my hands in defeat.”

The Quaid-i-Azam was the role of a lifetime that Jinnah found hard to turn down. But once he took on and played the part so convincingly, the “mad mullahs and extremists”, as Jinnah disdainfully called them, made sure he would never slip out of it again, keeping him a “virtual prisoner in his palace” and censoring all lines that went contrary to the script they had in mind.

This is the second article in the series of the Intellectual Dark Web, and adds the respected, honorable, wise Russell Brand to the echelons of the Intellectual Dark Web. Please soak in the wisdom of this shared teaching and conversation of Acharya Russell Brand and Acharya Jordan Peterson:

This is their second conversation. Their previous conversation three months ago was equally profound:

Which in turn built upon Russell Brand’s conversation with Sam Harris:

Farhan Quereshi (himself a leader of the Intellectual Dark Web) called this the conversation between the Buddhist Sam Harris and the Hindu Russell Brand. I would suggest that anyone interested in the deeper essences, shared wisdom and subtle nuanced symphony between Sanathana Dharma and stream of Sanathana Dharma called Buddhism watch this conversion. But this article will focus on Jordan Peterson and Russell Brand.

Continue reading Intellectual Dark Web (a)