I believe the number 14 is associated with Lord Ram so this is a fortuitous comment (7, 14, 1,400). I have’t written as much since the Comments have been on fire so it becomes a little difficult to write on new topics but I’m 66 posts (65 after this one) from my 1,000th post on BP.
After the jump Omar’s interesting take on whether the Mughal’s were colonisers.
The majority, described
Now that we are Brown, that is Bharat, Pundits, all of us who are the majority share things in common. Five come to mind, and they should be front and centre:
That defines the majority to a very strong extent, and the minority is defined by being against these positions, in whatever combination. We have such a strong majority that all of us agree with it, including the full admin team.
It just so happens that even if I’m not Hindu by birth, I’m definitely Hindu by marriage. My entire social reality, where I engage with Brown people, is Hindu, so I have become an acculturated Hindu. A fortnight ago I said the divide here was ideological, not sectarian; the last week taught me the map is older than the ideology. It’s not Saffron or Crescent, left liberals or right wing. It is the majority versus the minority, and in a weird way we are converging towards what is modern-day India, and really mapping that.
The minority Continue reading Open Thread: The Courtesy Guidance & the Two Factions (Majority vs. Minority)
The Constitution of Brown Pundits
see: Bharat Needs No Validation
Ever since Brown Pundits was resurrected over the last two years, one thing has been missing: a written constitution. We never had one (fifteen years as the British of the blogosphere, running on an unwritten constitution).
The landscape has changed since the founding. The diaspora is not so interesting anymore. Pakistan and the other regions are not so interesting anymore. Modi came to power, and the economic divergence between India and her neighbours is now just immense; she is one of the largest economies in the world. A blog that does not register that is not describing the “Hindu Continent”, it is describing 2011.
Alias
I am not officially changing the name from Brown Pundits. But BP also stands, very much, for Bharat Pundits. We are not trying to make claims of equality. The focus of this house is India, that is Bharat, and how she claims her destiny in the world, with a nod to our origins, which were diasporic and Indo-Islamicate. Bharat Pundits began as a reframe in a wry comment reply to Kabir earlier afternoon. It has evolved into a Precedent.
Ruchira’s daughter Sanjukta shared my tribute on Facebook this week and called it amazing. She does not know me. Her mother did, through nearly two decades of this blog, and that a stranger’s grief could reach her family and land as comfort is the whole case for keeping BP alive. The original post is here, Ruchira’s obituary is here, and her daughter’s own tribute is here.
Rest in peace, dearest Ruchira.
In her honour I have started using “I” again instead of the impersonal “we”. I wanted to emotionally invest in this space the way she did in her interactions online.
Moments like this are what I want to cultivate here, so, two years after I revived the blog here from Chennai.
I went on Twitter for a bit (I stopped using it) and I was surprised by what’s happening.
The war in Iran seems to be raging and the CJP protests don’t seem to be piping down (yet).
I have thoughts but I’ll write on them later on tonight. I commend the Commentariat on VERY high quality exchanges; we don’t all have to agree but when we do so in a calm and measured manner, it yields a lot of fruit.
Also Calvin as captain of the “opposition” is doing after fine job, it’s fairly obviously now that BP is an India-first blog. Pakistan and Diaspora are interesting inasmuch as they impact India’s future, which is bright.
Otherwise, the boundaries of the Sikh Empire essentially map the upper reaches of the Indus watershed. The Sutlej apparently was the Eastern boundary of the Empire.
Seven to One
Tomorrow, Andy Burnham will be sworn in as Britain’s seventh prime minister in ten years. Keir Starmer resigned ten years, almost to the week, after the Brexit referendum. The CNN piece I read over breakfast had all but reconciled Britain to middle power status, and nobody in London seems to find the phrase strange anymore. Britain will have had seven prime ministers this decade. India has had one since 2014.
Everything I have been thinking about this week turns out to be the same question at different scales. The state of India. The state of Britain. The state of my own small republic of letters. What does continuity buy, and what does churn cost? Delhi will not let me put the question down.
Oh, could I have one more? Yes, please. Thank you. My fourth cup of sambar. Right now, it is sublime.
South Indian meals are, I always say, like Arabic food: a very good balance of taste and health, neither sacrificed to the other.
Ghalib at the Airport Continue reading Did Modi Make India Great Again?
Breakfast in Delhi
There are a lot of things we would say. We are in Delhi, over a good South Indian breakfast, and the first thing we notice is our own silence. We have not been very active on Brown Pundits of late. However we do not have the option of a break or a hiatus; since we have to keep the blog foundationally alive.
We had not been in Asia since January. Six months, and a long six months at that. Ordinarily we would have broken it up with a visit in April, but the gap has made us appreciate India all the more.
One thing we realise in life is that everything is continuity: showing up, and how much work you put into a thing.
The Post-Factional Turn
As everyone reading knows – i havent posted or commented on BP in a while.
It’s very likely it will stay that way for a few months atleast – unless something provokes me into writing.
Two flags fly over the subcontinent’s women. One says cover them. The other says protect them.
We do not think the two are equivalent in cruelty. We think they are equivalent in structure.
No Hindu Equivalent to Zia.
There is no Hindu-nationalist equivalent of Zia ul-Haq’s Hudood Ordinances of 1979, which for decades made a raped woman’s complaint the raw material of a charge against her. There is no Hindu-nationalist equivalent of the Qanun-e-Shahadat of 1984, under which, in certain documentary and financial matters, two women’s testimony is required to equal one man’s. Pakistan partially repaired the first in 2006. The second stands.
That is statutory. It is one-sided. Anyone who tells you the two flags are the same is lying to you, and we are not going to.
What follows is about something else.
I. Two Patriarchies.
Continue reading The Crescent and the Trident clash over their women
