Tag: Cultural Diplomacy

🎶 Bravo, Kabir | Artists Across Borders

This Sunday, something quietly powerful is taking place: Indian and Pakistani artists will share a virtual stage, and among them is our very own Kabir Altaf, performing as a Hindustani classical vocalist and ethnomusicologist based in Pakistan.

Kabir shared that Sheema ji personally invited him to sing, and he’s planning to perform the Kabir bhajan already available on Spotify. A simple act but a potent one. Rooted in shared heritage, offered in public.

It’s easy to be cynical about India–Pakistan relations. But these moments matter. When musicians from Sindh and Delhi, translators from Karachi, and filmmakers from Mumbai come together, even on Zoom, they create a space that politics cannot reach. A space where memory, performance, and shared roots do the work diplomacy cannot.

This is the kind of initiative we need more of: not policy, but presence; not diplomacy, but dialogue. These exchanges don’t dilute identity; they deepen it.

Bravo and huzzah to Kabir, and to all involved.

🗓 Event:

Indian–Pakistani Artists in Dialogue

📅 Saturday, 3rd August 2025

⏰ 7:30 PM Pakistan time / 8:00 PM India time

👩‍🎤 Moderator:

Sheema Kermani – Bharatanatyam dancer, theatre personality, Karachi

🎙 Featured Speakers & Performers:

  1. Dr. Syeda Saiyidain Hameed – Writer, former Member of India’s Planning Commission

  2. Dr. Ghazala Irfan – Philosopher and Chair, Department of Humanities, LUMS; affiliated with All Pakistan Music Conference

  3. Anand Patwardhan – Documentary filmmaker, Mumbai

  4. Saleema J. Khawaja – Vocalist of Punjabi Kafi and Guru Nanak verses, Lahore

  5. Neela Bhagwat – Hindustani vocalist (Gwalior Gharana), Mumbai

  6. Azhar Shan – Folk musician from Sindh

  7. Dhruv Sangari – Hindustani classical and Sufi vocalist, Delhi

  8. Zainub J. Khawaja – Musician, member of Harsukhiyaan, Pakistan

  9. Yousuf Saeed – Documentary filmmaker, known for work on classical music in Pakistan, Delhi

  10. Kabir Altaf – Hindustani classical vocalist and ethnomusicologist, Pakistan

  11. Nishtha Jain – Documentary filmmaker, Mumbai

  12. Zahra Sabri – Lecturer and translator, Karachi

  13. Zulaikha Jabeen – Independent scholar, India

 

🔗 Join via Zoom

Click here to join

Meeting ID: 897 8701 6742

War in the Sanskritopolis

The long-running dispute between Thailand and Cambodia dates back more than a century, when the borders of the two nations were drawn after the French occupation of Cambodia.

Things officially became hostile in 2008, when Cambodia tried to register an 11th Century temple located in the disputed area as a Unesco World Heritage Site – a move that was met with heated protest from Thailand.

Why A Cluster Of Hindu Temples Is At Heart Of Thailand-Cambodia Conflict

It’s striking to see just how deeply Dharmic culture shaped Southeast Asia — not just as historical residue, but as a living civilizational layer. Buddhism, in many respects, prepared the civilizational terrain that Islam would later traverse.

The Buddhist Studies: Theravada and Mahayana - buddhanet.net

Buddhism, too, was not monolithic. The Sri Lankan Theravāda tradition influenced the western flank of Indo-China, while Mahayana currents, traveling through Sumatra, appear to have looped back toward Guangzhou, feeding into the Sinosphere.

HISTORY OF MAHAYANA BUDDHISM | Facts and Details

The sectarian divergence between Thailand and Cambodia — Theravāda vs. Mahayana— adds nuance to territorial and cultural disputes like the Preah Vihear Temple, whose iconography and inheritance clearly align more with Cambodian history.

These are not just archaeological debates. They’re about cultural legitimacy, historical continuity, and civilizational memory.

In such moments, India, that is Bharat, must not remain a bystander. As the civilizational fountainhead, it should be playing a constructive role in cultural mediation and soft power diplomacy.

Brown Pundits