Commentary – Brown Pundits

Caste and the Structure of Discourse

I’ve come to realise that it’s often more productive to write full posts than to engage in fragmented comment threads. The richness of thought requires a form that can hold tension, contradiction, and nuance but comments, by design, resist that.

The Upper-Caste Template of South Asian Dharmic Discourse

Take, for example, sbarrkum, who shares personal reflections and images from his life on the common board. While one might raise questions about permissions or boundaries, it’s also important to respect dialectical differences in how people choose to engage. There’s no single valid mode of expression.

That brings me to a broader reflection: how the very structure of discourse in Dharmic South Asia has long been shaped by upper-caste templates; especially under Western influence. Over two centuries, upper castes have Brahmanised, Saffronised, Persianised, and then Westernised themselves, adopting and enforcing norms of discourse, authority, and ‘rationality.’

Why Intermarriage Doesn’t Erase Hierarchy Continue reading Caste and the Structure of Discourse

Call for Authors

Brown Pundits has always thrived on debate, commentary, and detail. Our compact team—three co-founders, two editors (Nivedita & Indosaurus), and three authors (sbarrkum, Gaurav Lele, Saiarav and Manav); keeps the conversation alive.

We’d like to expand. If you’ve been a regular voice in the comments or simply feel you have something to add, please apply to write for BP. Sharp observations, whether about Modi Ji’s birthday celebrations or broader cricketing analogies, are exactly what we value.

The word Pundit comes from Sanskrit, meaning “learned man” or Brahmin. It reminds us that Brown intellectual life is rooted in centuries of plural, complex traditions of debate. This is our inheritance, and BP stands on those terms; not reducible to any ideology.

I’d especially encourage regulars like brown, Daves, Hoju, Pandit Brown, and BB to consider joining the author list.

📯 Back at Peak: 22,453 Monthly Readers and Rising

Even the stats now confirm it: we’re back at our highest readership in our ~15 years.

22,453 monthly readers and rising. 100+ comments on most new posts.

No ads. No algorithm. No social media amplification. Just a small, steady core of thinkers, returners, and writers keeping the conversation alive. This isn’t mass media — it’s a deliberately narrow beam.

A place for:

Tight but Broad Church curation
Long-form thinking
Commentary that draws blood when needed but never aims cheap

The current moment feels like a return, not just of older names, but of why BP was built in the first place: a public space for Brown(ish) minds to work through power, faith, identity, language, and sometimes just the week’s news on our own terms.

Related: Brown Pundits, big in India!