South Asia
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In Remembrance of Shaheed Lt. Ashfaqus Samad, Bir Uttam (My Cousin Nishat Bhai):
A tribute, headed “by Shawkat”, to Lt. Ashfaqus Samad, a Dhaka University student who became one of the first guerrillas in Dhaka and was killed in action in the 1971…
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How Pakistan Became South Asia’s Reference Muslims
X.T.M argues that Partition cut one Muslim political world into three, and that Pakistan, having taken Urdu, now supplies the default picture of a South Asian Muslim. He calls this…
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How Pakistan Punjabified Lahnda and Urdufied Punjab
As Pakistan prepares to debate new provinces, X.T.M asks what Punjab is. He argues that colonial canals, Partition and the census folded Grierson’s Lahnda continuum into “Punjabi”, while the south…
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Wild Tamil Nadu: An ode to the Tamil Nadus rich biodiversity
Calvin D’Souza reviews the documentary Wild Tamil Nadu, which follows the Sangam landscape classification from shola grasslands to coastal estuaries. He praises its new footage, including the Madras hedgehog and…
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Xi, Putin and Pezeshkian Walk Into Delhi
X.T.M reads the BRICS summit in Delhi, with Xi, Putin and Pezeshkian present during a US blockade of Iran, as the West’s non-Western partners rerouting around it. He sees BRICS…
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Good bye to our dear Sri Lankan Pundit, Sbarrkum
Sereno Barr-Kumarakulasinghe, sbarrkum to this blog for twelve years, died on 4 September, aged 67. 1,735 comments, 77 posts, a guest house on the edge of Wilpattu, and a life…
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Why India will not lose her soul to missionaries
X.T.M argues that India will not lose its Hindu soul to missionaries, because societies are shaped by elites, not headcount, and India’s elite is not converting. He starts from a…
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Open Thread: Zardari in (self-imposed exile). New Provinces to be made
Open Thread. X.T.M opens with a rumour that Zardari is in self-imposed exile, with Bilawal’s reported marriage as cover, and notes that Pakistan is apparently to hold a referendum on…
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Parsis, DNA and steppe incursions
Indosaurus announces his long-promised article on Parsi matrilineal DNA and steppe ancestry, published on his Substack, and hopes Zoroastrians and Hindus can reclaim the name Aryan from racists.
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FlyDie on South India
X.T.M reposts FlyDie’s comments on South India. FlyDie argues that Tamil Nadu’s elite traces to Telugu country through the Vijayanagara Nayaks, that pre-colonial empires ran on a shared elite culture,…
