United Kingdom
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Empire of Incorporation versus Empire of Extraction
X.T.M distinguishes empires of incorporation, such as the Chinese, Ottoman and Mughal, from commercial empires of extraction such as the French, English and Dutch, citing the contrast between Mughal-era scarcity…
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Bollywood, Brahmins, Parsis & WASPs:
X.T.M argues that elites are reproduced by property, institutions and networks rather than blood, so intermarriage is usually a merger, not a threat, citing English aristocrats and American heiresses, Parsis,…
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Pakistan and the Act of Union
X.T.M argues the only useful analogy for Pakistan ‘rejoining’ India is the 1707 Act of Union, an elite exit driven by insolvency and security, not affection, and says Pakistan’s debt…
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Macaulay, English, and the Myth of Colonial Liberation
X.T.M rebuts the claim that criticising Macaulay and English harms Dalit, Shudra and Adivasi mobility, arguing that adapting to a colonial system is not vindication of it and that Macaulay…
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Book Review: Empire’s Son, Empire’s Orphan. Ikbal Shah and Idries Shah (of Sufis fame)
Omar Ali reviews Nile Green’s biography of Ikbal and Idries Shah, which presents the father and son as fantasists who invented aristocratic Sufi credentials. He accepts the case but notes…
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Islam the Religion of Peace part ii
Short post reproducing a news report of a rail worker seriously injured while shielding passengers from a knife attacker on a Doncaster to London train, with a line noting the…
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On Islamism, the Oneness of Mankind, and the Burden of Public Bahá’ís
The author argues that Islamism is a loaded term in Western discourse, and that a prominent British Bahá’í comedian’s use of it fell short of the Bahá’í principle of oneness…
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Bharat Needs No Validation
X.T.M takes a commenter’s remark that the Ramayana did not resonate as a cue to argue that Bharat is civilisational, that Pakistan is an ‘Urdufied Punjab’ still colonised in mind,…
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Rest in Peace
A short tribute to a family killed in the Ahmedabad plane crash, who were about to move to London, wishing the victims rest.
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The Elder Race and the English-Speaking Heat
Writing from Dublin, X.T.M contrasts calm continental Europe with an English-speaking world he sees as politically ‘on fire’, and argues that the declining WASP ‘elder race’ still sets the terms…
