Reflections: Vikram Seth’s ‘A Suitable Boy’–An Epic Portrait of 1950s India

May 15, 2026 4 Comments filed under Kabir

I’m sharing this excerpt from an essay about one of my favorite novels–Vikram Seth’s A Suitable Boy.  The entire essay can be read here. I have also reviewed the BBC adaptation here. 

There are some works of literature that are like comfort food–ready for one to dip into whenever one is in need of a pick-me-up. For me, Vikram Seth’s 1993 magnum opus, A Suitable Boy, is one such work. The characters–ranging from the anxious and melodramatic Mrs. Rupa Mehra to the crazy Chatterjee family to the beautiful Muslim courtesan Saaeda Bai Firozabadi– are like old friends whom one has missed after a long absence. Every time I read the novel (and I have read it several times) I find new things to delight and ponder.

The novel begins with what in my opinion is one of the best openings in modern literature, one that immediately alludes to Jane Austen. Just as Pride and Prejudice begins with the narrator stating “It is a truth universally acknowledged ,that a single man in possession of a good fortune must be in want of a wife”, A Suitable Boy opens with the sentence: ” ‘You too will marry a boy I choose,’ said Mrs. Rupa Mehra firmly to her younger daughter.” With this sentence, Seth immediately lets the reader know what the book will be about: Mrs. Rupa Mehra’s search to find a suitable match for her daughter Lata. The novel opens at the wedding of Lata’s elder sister Savita. It will conclude with another wedding, that of Lata herself.

Though the plot ostensibly revolves around getting Lata married off, the novel is really a portrait of 1950s India, similar to the “condition of England” novels of the mid- 19th century. These novels (such as Charles Dickens’s Bleak House) contain, apart from their fictional plots, a debate or discourse about the current state of the nation. Just as Bleak House draws attention to the problems of the London slums and the need for reform of the Chancery courts, A Suitable Boy includes plot lines devoted to issues of land reform and religious communalism. Seth also includes several other aspects of Indian culture in the novel, such as the tradition of courtesans, Urdu poetry, and Hindustani Classical Music. Continue reading Reflections: Vikram Seth’s ‘A Suitable Boy’–An Epic Portrait of 1950s India

Islamicate Civilisation is a Supreme Culture: But Who Stands to Inherit It?

May 15, 2026 30 Comments filed under Precedent, X.T.M

This post grew out of an exchange with EK, the kind that can only happen in a forum that has paid for its openness. Kabir, to his credit, has imposed the hard internal checks that keep the blog from collapsing into the views of its editors.

The high culture built by the three great gunpowder empires (Ottoman, Safavid, Mughal) is one of the supreme achievements of human civilisation. All three were Turkic in dynastic origin, Persianate in literary and aesthetic register, and Islamic in faith. The Blue Mosque in Istanbul, the Naqsh-e Jahan complex in Isfahan, the Taj Mahal at Agra: these are not regional artefacts. They are a single coherent civilisational signature, expressed in tilework, ghazal, miniature, garden, cuisine, and chancery prose, across a belt that ran from the Bosphorus to the Bay of Bengal.

The question this post is about is simpler than it sounds. Who inherits it?

Continue reading Islamicate Civilisation is a Supreme Culture: But Who Stands to Inherit It?

The Bahá’í Position on Palestine: A Note for the Record

May 15, 2026 52 Comments filed under Popular, Precedent, X.T.M

Comments of late have drifted, as they sometimes do here, into territory where the Bahá’ís are invoked as a rhetorical chess piece by people who know very little about them. We believe in free speech, and on this blog more than most, in authorial autonomy; contributors and commenters speak for themselves, and we are not in the business of policing opinion. But because the question of Palestine sits adjacent to much of what has been said, we thought it worth setting down what the actual position is.

“Members of the National Spiritual Assembly who disappeared in August in 1980. All are presumed to have been killed” by Bahá’í Media Bank.

One caveat first. When we write or administer here, we do not speak for our Faith in any official capacity. We are members of it. That is the limit of our standing.

The clearest statement of the Bahá’í position comes from the pen of the Beloved Guardian of the Faith, Shoghi Effendi, who in July 1947 was asked directly by the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine to clarify the relationship of the Bahá’í community to the country and its political future. His reply, written from Haifa and reproduced in The Bahá’í World, Volume 11, is as close to a foundational text on this question as exists. We quote it at length, because paraphrase would not do it justice.

Letter to the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine

On July 9, 1947, Shoghi Effendi received a letter from the chairman of the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine requesting a statement on the relationship, which the Baha’i­ Faith has to Palestine and the Baha’i­ attitude toward any future changes in the status of the country. From Shoghi Effendi’s reply, the following paragraphs are quoted in The Baha’i­ World, Volume 11 (1946-1950), pp.43-44.1

HAIFA, ISRAEL—15 July 1947

“The position of the Baha’i­s in this country is in a certain measure unique: Whereas Jerusalem is the spiritual center of Christendom it is not the administrative center of either the Church of Rome or any other Christian denomination. Likewise although it is regarded as the second most sacred shrine of Islam, the most Holy site of the Muhammadan Faith, and the center of its pilgrimages, are to be found in Arabia, not in Palestine. The Jews alone offer somewhat of a parallel to the attachment which the Baha’i­s have for this country, inasmuch as Jerusalem holds the remains of their Holy Temple and was the seat of both the religious and political institutions associated with their past history. But even their case differs in one respect from that of the Baha’i­s for it is in the soil of Palestine that the three central Figures of our Religion are buried and it is not only the center of Baha’i­’ pilgrimages from all over the world but also the permanent seat of our Administrative Order, of which I have the honor to be the Head.”

“The Baha’i­ Faith is entirely nonpolitical and we neither take sides in the present tragic dispute going on over the future of the Holy Land and its people nor have we any statement to make or advice to give as to what the nature of the political future of this country should be. Our aim is the establishment of universal peace in this world and our desire to see justice prevail in every domain of human society, including the domain of politics. As many of the adherents of our Faith are of both Jewish and Moslem extraction, we have no prejudice towards either of these groups and are most anxious to reconcile them for their mutual good and for the good of the country.”

“What does concern us, however, in any decisions made affecting the future of Palestine, is that the fact be recognized by whoever exercises sovereignty over Haifa and Acre, that within this area exists the spiritual and administrative world center of a world Faith, and that the independence of that Faith, its right to manage its affairs from this source, the right of Baha’i­s from any and every country of the globe to visit it as pilgrims (enjoying the same privilege in this respect as Jews, Moslems and Christians do in regard to visiting Jerusalem), be acknowledged and permanently safeguarded.”

Three things are worth drawing out.

Continue reading The Bahá’í Position on Palestine: A Note for the Record

Apprehension (translation from the Urdu)

May 14, 2026 1 Comment filed under Kabir

Sharing an excerpt from a translation of another short story by Bilal Hasan Minto. The whole story can be read here. 

Farhat Auntie’s apprehension had been lingering for many years. She once told Ammi she suspected Fizzu Uncle didn’t believe in Allah and had perhaps become a Hindu. Farhat Auntie’s suspicion was aroused when Fizzu Uncle obtained the Hindus’ thick religious book, the Gita, from somewhere and began reading it with concentration. When Ammi heard this, she bit her nails and agreed with Farhat Auntie that her husband had always reeked of idolatry. She added without thinking that she was sure he had always been an idolater and had tricked Farhat Auntie into marriage by passing himself off as a Muslim. Ammi also expressed the opinion that one didn’t become a Muslim simply by having the azaan recited in one’s ear. Faith was the real thing.

Farhat Auntie took this to heart. When she reached home that day, she told Fizzu Uncle bluntly he would have to own up to his religion. Had he become a Hindu or some other type of unbeliever? Had he always been like this and married her deceitfully or had he only recently become a non-Muslim?

Uncle replied that he hadn’t deceived her because she had never asked his religion. Farhat Auntie was stunned. She said everyone was Muslim and if he wasn’t he should have let her know. He lied to her. Fizzu Uncle was surprised to hear that everyone was Muslim, but remained quiet at the time. Farhat Auntie started screaming that he shouldn’t sit calmly and think she would put up with this. She would seek a divorce if she had to. Fizzu Uncle reminded her there wouldn’t be need for that; he had already conceded her the right in the marriage contract, precisely so that if one day she no longer wanted to live with him, she wouldn’t have to run around the courts getting him to divorce her. Continue reading Apprehension (translation from the Urdu)

The saffron and the crescent – why BP matters

May 13, 2026 224 Comments filed under Nachiketa, Popular, Precedent

I have often noticed something distinctive that Brown pundits—especially Pakistani Muslim commentators—bring to the table.

I will highlight two or three comments from previous posts that shed light on an important aspect often missing from Indian discourse.

One comment by Kabir from about 25 days ago stated:

“Muslims tend to be more intransigent vis-à-vis conversion of a spouse.” Sharia is very clear on this point. A Muslim man may marry a Christian or Jewish woman without her converting. A Muslim woman, however, cannot marry a non‑Muslim man; there are no exceptions for women. Of course, Kareena Kapoor married Saif Ali Khan without converting to Islam, but that was not a nikaah. Under Islamic law, they are not considered married—though I doubt either of them is concerned about that.

Another important comment by Kabir was:

Continue reading The saffron and the crescent – why BP matters

The Veil We Will Not Wear

May 13, 2026 46 Comments filed under Precedent, X.T.M

A Bahá’í footnote to Gaurav’s seminal “saffron and crescent“

Gaurav’s post on the asymmetry of Hindu and Islamic worldviews deserves a response from the third corner of the room. We are not Hindu and we are not Muslim, though our community emerged from inside the Islamicate and is now demographically clustered in the Indic world. The Bahá’í position on the questions Gaurav raises is not a centrist mush. It is a specific civilisational stance, and it begins with a woman taking off her veil.

We were in Revere earlier this evening, the working-class strip north of Boston that the city has quietly handed over to its Spanish-speaking and Muslim arrivals. The playground was alive. Salvadoran grandmothers, Moroccan mothers, a small republic of children negotiating the slide. What struck us was how many of the pubescent girls already wore the hijab. Not the older women alone, not adults making a choice. Eleven year olds. Twelve year olds.

For most secular observers this registers as a costume detail. For us it lands harder. The hijab is the one piece of Islamic practice against which our faith was built.

Continue reading The Veil We Will Not Wear

REPOST: Sphygmomanometer (Translation from the Urdu)

May 13, 2026 No Comments filed under Kabir

This translation was originally published in The Peshawar Review in January 2026.  I am sharing it here because it provides some insight into Pakistan at the beginning of the General Zia era.  Fiction also makes a nice change from the usual topics on this blog.  The entire story can be read here. 

One day, Naveed Bhai hadn’t returned from college by five o’clock. Usually, this wouldn’t have been cause for concern — a slight delay in returning home. But, over the past few days, Naveed Bhai had been behaving in a way that caused Abba to worry that he might be getting involved in something that would land him in trouble with the government of the cartoonish General Zia. Sitting at the dining table one day, Naveed Bhai had said angrily, through clenched teeth, that “we should teach these ignorant student union thugs a lesson.” On hearing this, Abba stared at him and said they had sent him there to study, not to get involved in useless things. Naveed Bhai should go straight to college and come right back. He shouldn’t even think about getting involved in union affairs and getting mixed up with dangerous people. Instead of being quiet after this reprimand, Naveed Bhai started speaking even more loudly:

Continue reading REPOST: Sphygmomanometer (Translation from the Urdu)

REPOST: On identifying as a liberal

May 13, 2026 9 Comments filed under Nachiketa

Old post – Reproduced;

My views and politics has changed in last 5 years and i would write a follow-up to this in a week or so. Just thought i would share this in light of recent traffic and comments on this blog.

This blog post was triggered by a Twitter exchange with Akshay Alladi where he questioned why I identify with the label liberal. A lot of people have – on this blog as well as on Twitter or in person have labeled me a Hindutva liberal or closet Sanghi (from the left) or a Hindutva rebel, yet I personally don’t feel comfortable with those labels. Maybe it is positive tribalism on the Saffron side or parochial wokism on the left.

Akshay also referred to me in his blogpost about Liberalism vs Conservatism and I promised I would also come up with an elucidation of my position. Before I go into attempts at formulating my position, a fair warning – I am not a particularly deep thinker on matters of philosophy and do not have an intellectual bent. I get bored with long essays and books about philosophy and religion, it’s the interactions of these abstract ideas with politics, people, and histories (as an art/science) that interests me than the ideas themselves.

It is fair to get some personal biases (which may appear contradictory) I hold out of the way

  • I am a staunch Republican and Secularist. In my early twenties years, I was more partial towards the Laicite as I grow old I become more partial towards the British or American style of secularism. (Though the recent events in France have made me reconsider my position).
  • I have had a very low opinion of Religions in the 21st century in general and Monotheisms in particular.
  • I have some sympathies with Savarkarite Hindutva (not RSS) and I have often been accused of being a closet Sanghi by leftists.
  • Though I think of myself as a patriot who is well aware of British exploitation of India, I am an Anglophile. I adore the Brits with their language, literature, culture, models of governance (Westminster model). I don’t have shame in saying “Anglo West is the best”.

I would like to explain my identification with liberalism in three progressive strains.

Roots and Personality:

Continue reading REPOST: On identifying as a liberal

Some Thoughts on BP

May 12, 2026 7 Comments filed under Kabir

I just want to briefly offer some thoughts since it’s now been a year since I have been active in this latest iteration of BP.

Over the past year on this forum, I have seen many members of the “Saffroniate” who seem to have no agenda except to disparage Pakistan.  BB is chief among them but there are others who share essentially the same views but hide behind a tone of neutrality that allows them to claim the moral high ground.  BB is the most open about his views. No other member of the “Saffroniate” has threatened to “infiltrate” Pakistan and make a Pakistani Muslim say “Bharat Mata ki Jai” at gunpoint.  Such an egregious comment had obvious consequences–as it should have.  While others have not crossed this line, it doesn’t mean that their anti-Pakistan attitude and Islamophobia is not obvious.  The word “taqqiya” has been used in reference to me. Using this word for a Muslim is Islamophobic and completely unforgivable. I find it deeply ironic that those who are the first to complain about Hinduphobia have no problem resorting to obvious Islamophobic tropes.

While Indians have legitimate grievances with Pakistanis (as Pakistanis do with Indians), the way to generate a productive dialogue is not to use triggering language like “apartheid”, “kleptocracy” etc. This only causes the other side to double down on their own position and for people to talk past each other.

I also want to address the passive aggressive complaints that I have banned certain people from my threads.  It is a settled principle on BP that authors have the right to manage their threads the way they like. This is a principle that has been hard fought for.  I have made my red lines clear. I will not tolerate anti-Pakistan commentary or people taking a hostile and combative tone with me.  If you can express your POV in a civilized manner while staying within these guidelines, then I will allow your comment to stand–no matter how much I may disagree with it. If not, it will be summarily deleted.

What’s ironic is that some of those who complain the most about this actually have author status and are able to create their own threads on whatever topic they wish.  That they don’t use this status is their choice and not a reflection on me.  It’s of course much easier to complain than it is to actually write your own posts.  To his credit, BB actually uses his author status to make his own arguments.  When he returns from his “vanvaas”, I hope he will contribute posts about Indian movies and TV shows. This would add to the varied mix of topics on this forum.

Lastly, I want to welcome the members of the “Cresenciate”.  I hope, with time, one of them will graduate from commenter to author. It is important to have more Pakistani representation on this forum.   This doesn’t mean that I always agree with them but it is good that all the work of countering the “Saffroniate” doesn’t fall on me.

It would be remiss of me not to mention those Indians who are not really part of the “Saffroniate” such as Gaurav and girmit who always contribute thoughtful points–though again I may vehemently disagree at times.

P.S. I was speaking with a new friend of mine from Hyderabad Deccan recently. He noted that the toxic obsession with Pakistan is a North Indian thing and that South Indians really don’t care all that much.  This intuitively makes sense since of course the worst Partition atrocities occurred in Punjab and Bengal.

 

 

 

At Negombo, the Indian subcontinent meets where it still can

May 11, 2026 58 Comments filed under Popular, Precedent, X.T.M

The photograph above was taken on the 11th of May in Negombo, on the western coast of Sri Lanka. The caption records the occasion plainly: friends from Pakistan, from Tamil Nadu, and from Sri Lanka, gathered with members of the International Teaching Centre and the Counsellors serving in the Indian subcontinent, at an Institutional Gathering convened by the Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of Lanka.

We want to say something about what this image makes possible, and where.

Indians & Pakistanis cannot meet any longer

The hard fact first. There is no longer any practical way for an ordinary Indian and an ordinary Pakistani to sit in the same room inside either of their own countries. Visa regimes have hardened to the point of farce. The land border is sealed in spirit if not in law. What remains are the smaller states of the subcontinent and the wider diaspora. Of the smaller states, Sri Lanka is the one that handles the meeting most gracefully: visa-on-arrival to both passports, no overland complication, no political theatre, and a civic culture that does not ask either side to perform a position.

Which brings us to the older question, whether Sri Lanka belongs to our civilisational space at all. Some friends north of the Palk Strait still treat the island as adjacent rather than constitutive. We think this is wrong, and the reasons are not sentimental.

Sri Lanka is Dharmic? Continue reading At Negombo, the Indian subcontinent meets where it still can

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