India
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Brown Pundits and the Echo Chamber Problem
The author warns that Brown Pundits risks becoming a right-wing echo chamber, and argues that after Pahalgam India’s position has weakened while Pakistan under Asim Munir and Shehbaz Sharif has…
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Homebound with Ishaan Khatter
Reviewing the film Homebound, India’s Oscar submission, the author asks whether casting privileged actors as a Dalit and a Muslim amounts to Dalit-washing, and whether Western praise rewards poverty as…
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The Changing Demographics of Undivided India (1900–2025)
The author charts Muslims’ share of undivided India’s population, from about 20% in 1900 to roughly 33% in 2025. He credits higher fertility and partition migration, and argues falling fertility,…
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Travelling – Open Thread
Open thread collecting links from the comments: the rupee’s slide after US visa fee hikes, the Saudi–Pakistan defence pact, the World Bank on Pakistan’s growth model, and India’s rail-mounted Agni…
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The Ilhan Omar of Brown Pundits
The author likens the commenter Kabir to Ilhan Omar: often right but polarising, and good for traffic. He argues principle needs pragmatism, that nonviolent resistance outlasts shrillness, and that the…
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Pakistan: The Realpolitik State
The author argues that Pakistani society leans on hierarchy, patronage and deference and, as a state forged through separation, has little distinct culture beyond India and Iran. He grants that…
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Pakistan as India’s Ukraine?
X.T.M asks whether Pakistan’s strategic patrons will ever lift its human development, and offers the analogy of India and Pakistan as Russia and Ukraine, with Ukraine imagined as nuclear-armed. He…
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🗓️ One Year Ago Today: The Taj Mahal, Sacred Lands, and the Power of Timing
Open thread for 17 September 2025. X.T.M announces a pause on one commenter’s participation over what he calls inconsistent standards on India, Pakistan and Israel, and revisits his 2024 post…
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Threads, Carpets, and PM Modi’s 75th
X.T.M reflects on celebrity birthday messages for Narendra Modi’s 75th, reads the Khans’ contrasting Hindu cultural idioms, and describes his work on Hindu sacred art, carpets and Ardhanarishvara iconography. He…
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The Honey Trap of the Ummah:
X.T.M argues that a dispute with commenters exposes the fault lines in the India–Pakistan–Muslim triad. He contends that Indian minorities have accepted an unspoken compact of living within an increasingly…
