Brown Pundits – Page 35 – A discussion of all things Brown..

Links on My Browser Right Now – Open Thread

X.T.M · September 19, 2025 · 51 comments

A few pieces I’ve been reading this week:

The Lies America Tells Itself About the Middle East: (Foreign Affairs) – On how U.S. narratives obscure its own role in the region.
Don’t Overestimate the Autocratic Alliance: (Foreign Affairs) – A counterpoint: authoritarian states may not be as cohesive as advertised.
The Four Humours: Our 2,500-Year-Old Mania for Personality Types: (BBC Future) – Why these frameworks endure and what that says about how societies interpret character.
Can We Hear God? (Bahá’í Teachings) – A reflection on divine communication and perception.
The Dawn of the Post-Literate Society: (James Marriott, Substack) – On how screens and AI are reshaping reading and writing itself. Thanks Kabir for the suggestion.

Reflections

On the Ummah: Muslims have often failed to concede ground in internal debates, which has left them politically boxed in. One reform across all denominations would be to return directly to the Quran as the primary authority. That alone would dissolve many cultural accretions, halal (animals should be stunned before slaughter), hijab (a Sassanian trait), and other practices, into something more adaptive.

And here’s a more speculative question: if the “Satanic Verses” were reconsidered if Al-Lat, Al-Uzzah, and Al-Manat were understood as sacred divinities at the threshold of the Lote Tree, would that make Islam more fluid, especially for minority-majority dynamics?

On Kabir: I’m not moderating him out, but readers should be aware that he frames everything through Muslim-rights activism. Engage, but don’t get gaslit into endless provocations. Everyone is entitled to their nationalisms — but they can’t claim liberalism at the same time. That tension makes it worth examining how plurality is treated within the Hindu fold itself. Dharma, unlike the Abrahamic Faiths, tends to all for multiple truths co-existing with each other (Buddhism and indigenous East Asian religions).

👉 Over to you. I’m retreating from heavy moderation — I see BP’s strength in letting the commentariat lead. Biases are fine. Gratuitous abuse is not.

“In March 1998 the Indian PM Gujral, told … “Pakistan was not capable of making atomic bombs.” he had been convinced by Indian Intelligence and Dr Raja Raman, the head of Indian Atomic Energy Commission, who had publicly claimed that nuclear weapon were beyond Pakistan’s reach.”

Pakistan as India’s Ukraine?

X.T.M · September 18, 2025 · 63 comments

The chart above lays out “strategic partners” for 2025. Pakistan lists China, Türkiye, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and assorted others. India, by contrast, shows Israel. But the real issue isn’t who collects more flags; it’s whether any of Pakistan’s patrons will ever raise its HDI, improve infrastructure, or embed long-term stability.

I’m interested to hear what the commentariat thinks of this moment. India’s foreign policy is already locking it into superpower status. Pakistan remains reactive, borrowing survival from whoever will lend it.

The analogy that strikes me: India–Pakistan resembles Russia–Ukraine, except if Ukraine had kept nuclear weapons. The parallels are strong:

Ukraine, like Pakistan, is a breakaway sibling — the “other half” of a civilizational whole.
Ukraine, like Pakistan, survives by appealing to larger patrons.
And interestingly, the GDP ratio gap between Russia and Ukraine is almost exactly the same as between India and Pakistan (please fact check me).

Just as Ukraine is considered the homeland of the Russian Empire (Kievan Rus’), Pakistan carries the legacy of Partition as the “Indus homeland.” That symmetry makes the analogy more than superficial.

On Kabir: I understand his consistent emphasis on Muslim rights and Muslim nationalism. Readers should be aware of that lens. I’m not moderating him out, but I would caution the commentariat against being gaslit into endless provocations by Kabir. The question here is not identity politics, but the direction of Indian and Pakistani foreign policy in a critical moment in global history (decades are happening in weeks).

Netanyahu Depicts Grim Economic Future for Israel, Need to Become an Autarky, “Super Sparta” Due to Isolation; Are There More Meanings?

sbarrkum · September 18, 2025 · Comments Off

A must read.
Excerpts

Larry Wilkerson, who both regularly reads Israel press and has many contact, has repeatedly said Israel has taken such serious economic and societal damage that he predicts it will no longer exist in ten years.

The fact that the next day, a UN commission of inquiry released a report finding that Israel has engaged in four of five genocidal activities as defined by relevant law puts even more pressure on the ethnosupremacist state.

Microsoft, Google, Amazon, Palantir, IBM and HP are named in a groundbreaking UN report for their role in automating apartheid and accelerating genocide.

Tech companies and weapons manufacturers are the most complicit enablers of Israel’s economy. Escalate BDS pressure against them and send a clear message: No tech for apartheid and genocide.

GOLDMAN SACHS YOU CAN’T HIDE!

Goldman Sachs is the biggest holder of Israeli bonds and a key investor in the weapons companies making the bombs Israel drops on Gaza. Continue reading Netanyahu Depicts Grim Economic Future for Israel, Need to Become an Autarky, “Super Sparta” Due to Isolation; Are There More Meanings?

🗓️ One Year Ago Today: The Taj Mahal, Sacred Lands, and the Power of Timing

X.T.M · September 17, 2025 · 84 comments

Friends,

The spirit of Brown Pundits has always been dialogue — open, searching, and at times, fierce. But dialogue only flourishes when it is consistent and principled.

Recently, a contradiction has emerged in Kabir’s contributions: applying one set of standards to India and Pakistan, and a different set to Israel. This has led to repeated cycles of disruption, rather than genuine exchange.

To preserve the integrity of our space, Kabir’s participation will be paused until this inconsistency is clarified (we will remove any of his comments that do not address and acknowledge the contradiction; we will also remove any replies to his comments). This is not censorship, but stewardship. Free speech here is not about endless repetition; it is about coherence, accountability, and respect for the whole.

🕊️ On Confirmation, Coincidence, and the Return of Brown Pundits

Exactly one year ago today, 17 September 2024, I published a piece titled “The Battle for the Taj Mahal: India’s Sacred Lands & Waqf Boards Under Fire”.

At the time, Brown Pundits was stirring from hibernation. Readership had dwindled to near-zero, the commentariat was dormant, and the site, once lively and interrogative in its heyday, felt like a forgotten archive. That post, like so many others before it, was written in solitude. There was no traction, no expectation. Just thought, laid down with care.

And yet here we are, one year to the day, and the blog has roared back to life.

📿 What the Baháʼí Tradition Calls “Confirmation”

In the Baháʼí tradition, we don’t reduce these moments to mere coincidence. Instead, we speak of confirmation; divine endorsement coupled with meaningful alignment. A subtle assurance that what was offered in silence may still echo in relevance.

Sometimes, truth takes time. It must be planted, and it must ripen. And then, if the conditions are right, it re-emerges at the very moment it’s needed again.

🏛️ Revisiting the Taj & the Sacredness of Land

That post, exploring Waqf Boards, sacred lands, and the Taj Mahal’s place in India’s civilizational memory, was written in a moment of saturation. Too many headlines, too little context. My intention wasn’t to settle the argument, but to recast it: What makes land sacred? Who has the right to remember? Who gets to reclaim?

Reading it now, what’s striking is not just how relevant it remains, but how the same debate has reassembled; not just thematically, but almost ritually, with new voices circling back in familiar orbits.

🌀 Same Debate, Same Deflection

And so we arrive back, with uncanny symmetry, to Kabir. He’s long argued that nations must be judged by their own internal frameworks: Continue reading 🗓️ One Year Ago Today: The Taj Mahal, Sacred Lands, and the Power of Timing

Threads, Carpets, and PM Modi’s 75th

X.T.M · September 17, 2025 · 16 comments

Happy Birthday Pradhan Mantri:

I watched several videos — four or five, maybe more — of public figures sending their wishes. Among them: Donald Trump, Narendra Modi, Benjamin Netanyahu, Shah Rukh Khan, Aamir Khan, Mohammed Siraj, and Mukesh Ambani.

Mukesh Ambani, of course, remains closely aligned with the establishment, and Aamir Khan seemed to lean heavily into his Hindu heritage — adorned with Rakhis on his wrist, even a Bindi. He’s presenting himself now in a distinctly Hindu cultural idiom, though he comes from a very prominent Indian Muslim family.

By contrast, Shah Rukh Khan stood out. His message was subtly sardonic — he remarked that the recipient was “outrunning young people like me.” It was light, but just subversive enough to feel intentional. Interestingly, both Shah Rukh and Aamir spoke in shuddh Hindi, which added a certain performative weight to their gestures.

Hindu Art

I’ve been fairly busy the past few days, mostly focused on BRAHM Collections; writing about carpets, curating Trimurti sculptures, and exploring Ardhanarishvara iconography. It’s been a deep dive into the civilizational grammar of India and by extension, the porous boundary between sacred art and civil religion.

In the background, I’ve also been chipping away at longer-form reflections; trying to crack the formula for my newsletter (believe it or not the readership is neck to neck with BP but different demographics). It’s all a bit scattered, but the writing has become its own brown paper trail.

On the Commentariat (and Why I’m Stepping Back)

I still follow the commentariat but I’m slowly easing off. There’s a rhythm to it, sure, but too often it turns into exhaustion. I’ve removed all of Honey Singh’s abusive posts. Abuse is now a hard red line for me, but beyond that, I’m stepping back from constant moderation or sparring. Continue reading Threads, Carpets, and PM Modi’s 75th

The Honey Trap of the Ummah:

X.T.M · September 15, 2025 · 121 comments

🕌 Reflections on Kabir, Afridi, and the Compact of Coexistence

The recent incident involving Kabir / Bombay Badshah / Honey Singh, and the orchestrated drama around his entrapment has, quite unexpectedly, become a catalyst for deeper discussion on Brown Pundits. While none have chosen to focus on analytics (“2,000 daily visitors”—thank you very much:-), the real story lies in how this drama has exposed, yet again, the deep ideological fissures within South Asian identity; especially in the India-Pakistan-Muslim triad.

Let’s begin by being honest: Brown Pundits, for all its digressions into Sri Lanka, Nepal, or Bangladesh, is still primarily a blog about India and Pakistan, and more crucially, about Indian and Pakistani Muslims. This is a feature, not a bug. The origins of the blog lie in the Sepia Mutiny, a scattered band of intellectually independent thinkers questioning dogma from every direction (which started in 2004 and if we are a “daughter blog” that we means have 20+yrs of intellectual antecedents on the Brownet), and it has now matured into one of the few platforms willing to wrestle with the ideological ambiguities at the heart of the subcontinent.

🧕 Kabir’s Point: Brotherhood, Boundaries, and the Big Choice

Kabir made an astute, if difficult, observation: that he views Indian Muslims as “brothers”, but does not feel the same about Pakistani non-Muslims.

This sounds contradictory until one understands the emotional exhaustion of watching Muslims oscillate between claiming ummah-hood when convenient, and weaponizing liberal values when needed. It’s a cognitive dissonance that creates what I can only call the moral coexistence trap: the idea that Muslims, especially in India, demand maximum accommodation, of their food (their nauseating right to murder Gau Mata on Bharat’s sacred soil itself), Faith, festivals, and foreign affiliations, while rarely extending the same pluralistic courtesy in return.

And then there’s that infamous Shahid Afridi clip, the one where he smashed his television after watching an Aarti, being performed. To many of us, that wasn’t just a cringe-inducing moment of bigotry; it begged a real question: Why do Indian cricketers continue to shake hands with Hinduphobes Hindu-hating men like Afridi and his ilk (the Pakistan cricket team)? At what point does tolerance become indulgence?

🚩 The Compact of Indian Minorities: Understand It or Leave It

Continue reading The Honey Trap of the Ummah:

📊 Brown Pundits Hits 63,094 Visits in August (+156% Surge)

X.T.M · September 14, 2025 · 67 comments

That’s more than 2,000 visitors a day. What’s driving it?

✅ Open Threads

✅ Honest takes

✅ And yes — argumentation.

But arguments only work if they spark thought, not just heat. Take Kabir; he’s a regular, and I’ve given him free rein. But his tendency to argue without reflection rubs people the wrong way. He blames his relative unpopularity on identity, but it’s more about tone than religion; highhandedness vs humility.

In my own recent disagreement: I paused, thought, reflected deeply. That’s the spirit of BP; a messy, open-minded search for truth.

🎭 Meanwhile, the real tamasha isn’t cricket 🏏 (India did trounce Pakistan) — it’s on X, and on the BP comment section.

X 🧵:

Mohammed Shami’s viral Ramzan juice reel — “His religion lets him put his nation first”
Indian media ad for INDvPAK — lynching for selling beef.
A Malayalam film scene: Hindu girl eating beef — what are South Indian Hindu traditions on beef?
Tallest structures in the subcontinent through the ages.

The stupas raises a deeper question:

How central was Buddhism to the Indian subcontinent — and how total was its erasure? In the heartlands, Brahmanism absorbed and displaced it; in the frontier zones, Islam swept away what remained. What we see today are ruins — but once, this was the dominant civilizational framework of the region.

Was its disappearance a slow assimilation, or a deliberate effacement?

Two Pieces Worth Reading

Furqan Ali · September 14, 2025 · 3 comments

Two pieces I recently read and thought worth sharing

The first is a review of Kabir’s book, recently published in India on Scroll.in—a well-deserved feat that highlights his contribution to South Asia’s cultural and intellectual landscape.

Read: https://scroll.in/magazine/1086014/hindustani-musics-decline-in-pakistan-began-the-day-the-nation-was-born

The second is today’s piece, “Gender and the Fight Against Erasure.” Originally published as the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan’s report “‘X’ for Exclusion? How Pakistan’s Gender Minorities are Fighting Against Erasure,” it unpacks the structural silencing faced by gender minorities in Pakistan.

Read: https://www.dawn.com/news/1941712

Both pieces raise important questions about identity, culture, and belonging. Read them—and let us know what you think.

When the Commentariat lies

X.T.M · September 13, 2025 · 6 comments

I’ve updated this post (Brown Pundits is not an echo chamber) after realising something important.

What began as a spirited disagreement veered into something darker. It turns out that bombay_badshah, a voice I initially assumed to be new, may not be who he claims to be (I had a hunch but so did Kabir, that BB was HS reincarnated). The posting style, the fixations, the timing; all too familiar. My suspicion is that BB may be a derivative or proxy of HS, previously banned. If true, this was not a genuine disagreement; it was entrapment, bait-and-switch.

In that light, I owe Kabir an apology. He was provoked in bad faith by someone who may be operating behind a mask. And that matters, because here on Brown Pundits, identity isn’t incidental; it shapes perspective, and we respect that. We excavate worldviews, not just opinions.

While I cannot definitively prove that BB is HS, the circumstantial evidence is strong. I will allow BB to remain but if the commentary returns obsessively to Kabir or Pakistan, I will intervene. Everyone is welcome to engage on substance. But this space will not be hijacked.

The original post remains below the jump, unedited but its context has now changed.

Continue reading When the Commentariat lies

The Pakistani Inferiority Complex

X.T.M · September 13, 2025 · 136 comments

These excellent tweets exhibit a painful pattern that many of us see but few want to name.

Pakistanis, particularly its establishment and elite classes, exhibit a deep inferiority complex towards white (light) Muslims; Arabs, Turks, Persians, and Afghans. These groups are valorized, romanticized, and used as benchmarks for identity and belonging. Meanwhile, other Asian groups, especially within South Asia and Southeast Asia, are seen as lesser. This manifests not only in foreign policy but in pop culture, education, and internalized social hierarchies.

This is why, even if Partition had to happen (and it was undeniably disastrous), Pakistan still could have been something else. It could’ve been a GCC meets Pahlavi Iran construct—a sleek, semi-modernist, high-income Asian Muslim republic with cultural gravitas and economic depth.

Instead, as others have rightly pointed out, Pakistan today has one of the lowest HDIs in its region. Karachi didn’t become Dubai. Lahore didn’t become Paris. Islamabad remains a ghost town of beautiful boulevards and hollow institutions. The promise wasn’t just broken; it was never even understood.

In some ways, Pakistan inherited the worst of both its imagined lineages: neither the intellectual cosmopolitanism of Persianate high culture, nor the industrious civic ambition of Indian civilizational continuity.

This is why tweets like those from @MrFreeFighter land so hard. They expose the psychic dissonance at the heart of the Pakistani state’s anxieties; its hatred of Pashtuns, its paranoia about “Afghanism,” and its inability to deal with its own peripheral ethnic groups as anything but threats.

Meanwhile, Indian Muslims like bombaybadshah, though deeply patriotic to India, often voice critiques of Pakistan with a clarity born of disappointment. They represent what Pakistan could have cultivated: a civic Islam, grounded in identity but untethered to ethnic obsession.

The final irony? South East Asia, Thailand, Cambodia, even Bali, retains more civilizational Dharma than most of Pakistan. Religion is irrespective of that elusive civilisational quality of Dharma, thus the true borders of Bharat lie eastward, not northwest.

Pakistan is not the enemy of India. It is the shattered mirror. And what it reflects, feudalism, insecurity, bigotry, and colonial hangover, is what the entire subcontinent must transcend. Again anyone who reads this can see I’m not saying this from a place of hate but love.