Culture – Page 2 – Brown Pundits

What Is Not India Is Pakistan

X.T.M · November 17, 2025 · 3 comments

As Dave mentioned, there is a lively WhatsApp group of BP authors and editors, and it inevitably shapes the comment ecosystem. But one comment on the blog stood out:

“The very foundation of Pakistan is an anti-position. What is not India is Pakistan. So isn’t it obvious?”

It’s an extraordinarily crisp description of Pakistani identity-building. What is not India is Pakistan. That is not a slur; it is, in many ways, a psychologically accurate frame for how the state narrates itself.

What I increasingly find misplaced on this blog is the recurring assumption that Pakistanis are somehow “Indians-in-waiting,” or that Punjab is “West Punjab,” Pakistan “Northwest India,” or Bangladesh “East Bengal.” These are irredentist projections that simply do not match lived identities. This is not “North Korea” or “East Germany,” where both sides continue to imagine themselves as fragments of one common nation.

Yes, Pakistan consumes Bollywood and Hindi music, which themselves derive from Mughal and Indo-Persian syncretic traditions. Yes, Pakistan is culturally embedded in the greater Indo-Islamic civilizational sphere. But emotionally, Pakistan has severed itself from the Indian Subcontinent as a cohesive landscape. It has constructed a hybrid identity; part Turko-Persian, part Islamic internationalist, part anti-India.

I don’t personally agree with this move, and my own trajectory has been toward a strong Hinducised, Dharmic identification. But my view is irrelevant here. What matters is that Pakistani identity is defined negatively; as the commentator put it, “What is not India is Pakistan.”

Whether that is healthy or sustainable is another matter. But identities can persist in unhealthy configurations for a very long time; the stock market can be irrational longer than your liquidity can survive.

Caste, Civilisation, and the Courage to Own It

X.T.M · November 2, 2025 · 11 comments

Kabir suggested that I apologise but for what, exactly? Why should Saffroniate be considered offensive? Own it. I don’t see anything inherently wrong with the idea of Akhand Bharat; the concept of a broader Dharmic civilisation makes eminent sense to me.

Likewise, I don’t understand why questioning caste identities provokes such sensitivity. Again, own it because the more caste is repressed, the more likely it is to resurface.

At heart, I’m a reformist, not a revolutionary. I believe in improving and refining what exists, not erasing it. Cultural features should only be abolished when they are truly harmful or deleterious, not simply because they make us uncomfortable.

To be or not to be (Capricious)

X.T.M · November 2, 2025 · 32 comments

The November circular was emailed earlier to all various stakeholders of BP. This will be sticky for a short period as unfortunately publishing all the drafts has pushed the current posts much further down.

You may also use this thread as an unmoderated Open Threads. Topics of interest include JD Vance’s comments, the stabbing in the UK by asylum seekers (presumably), and any other interest. I would suggest everyone engage with the email, after the jump; if you have been emailed it privately, I do expect private replies as well.

Continue reading To be or not to be (Capricious)

Pakistan, a young state but an old nation

X.T.M · October 3, 2025 · 5 comments

no one is born a Bahá’í; even those who are “Bahá’ízadeh” (those born to Bahá’í homes) must first affirm their belief at fifteen and confirm it at 21

Dawn Posting

Most of my writing these days happens either at the dead of night, bleeding into the Dawn. This is when the world is quiet enough to hear one’s thoughts.

I’ve asked the Editors to lean into their moderation. But I’ve also emphasized that a copy of the moderated comments should be preserved in their original form; so that, if there’s an appeal or a misreading, I can assess it personally. My instinct has always been to under-moderate. I would rather allow something unpleasant to be said than suppress something vital.

That said, miscommunication is inevitable in a forum like ours. I recently had my own moment of misunderstanding with Indosaurus. But in many ways, that’s exactly what makes Brown Pundits an exciting space. We are not a hive mind. We’re a broad church; Anglican in temperament, not Catholic in control. Communion, not command.

The Commentariat Continue reading Pakistan, a young state but an old nation

Indians assimilate a bit too well?

X.T.M · September 27, 2025 · 12 comments

Fascinating for me how two very different Indian-Americans are battling it out. There seems to be far less Indian asabiyyah?

Why Indian English Loves Long Sentences

X.T.M · August 10, 2025 · 4 comments

If China endured a century of humiliation, India has lived through a thousand years of it. Invasions and exploitation left it poor in wealth but rich in culture; intricate, adaptive, and resilient. That depth shows in Desi English, which often favours long, ornate sentences over plain ones.

This habit echoes Persian’s former role in the subcontinent: a prestige language whose mastery signalled rank. Even Ghalib’s vast Persian verse drew less love than his Urdu. In India, Persian was the colonial language of power; today, English plays that part.

In Iran, Persian changes fast. Slang, borrowed terms, and foreign tones reshape it so quickly that many in their forties struggle with teenage speech. My own Persian, kept alive in Kuwait and India, is closer to Shirazi and Tehrani standards than to the language my ancestors spoke. I’m self-conscious with Iranians, but with diaspora Persians, I speak freely; we share a looser, accented form of speech. Continue reading Why Indian English Loves Long Sentences

🎶 Bravo, Kabir | Artists Across Borders

X.T.M · August 3, 2025 · 9 comments

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:

Dr. Syeda Saiyidain Hameed – Writer, former Member of India’s Planning Commission
Dr. Ghazala Irfan – Philosopher and Chair, Department of Humanities, LUMS; affiliated with All Pakistan Music Conference
Anand Patwardhan – Documentary filmmaker, Mumbai
Saleema J. Khawaja – Vocalist of Punjabi Kafi and Guru Nanak verses, Lahore
Neela Bhagwat – Hindustani vocalist (Gwalior Gharana), Mumbai
Azhar Shan – Folk musician from Sindh
Dhruv Sangari – Hindustani classical and Sufi vocalist, Delhi
Zainub J. Khawaja – Musician, member of Harsukhiyaan, Pakistan
Yousuf Saeed – Documentary filmmaker, known for work on classical music in Pakistan, Delhi
Kabir Altaf – Hindustani classical vocalist and ethnomusicologist, Pakistan
Nishtha Jain – Documentary filmmaker, Mumbai
Zahra Sabri – Lecturer and translator, Karachi
Zulaikha Jabeen – Independent scholar, India

🔗 Join via Zoom

Click here to join

Meeting ID: 897 8701 6742

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

X.T.M · August 2, 2025 · 7 comments

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!

Why Pakistan Won’t Go the Way of Iran

X.T.M · August 1, 2025 · 105 comments

I’ve been enjoying the new direction Brown Pundits has taken since the recent shake-up. Posts are now generating 100+ comments, and that kind of engagement creates a virtuous cycle. You want to write more, think more, respond more. I’m leaning into that.

For now, a lot of the content burden rests on me and that’s okay. It’s been encouraging to see older names return: Girmit, for instance. It feels like a slow reconsolidation of the original readership. Letting people return on their own terms.

Meanwhile, BRAHM, my newsletter, has taken on a different role; a home for more composed writing, life pieces, and the slow launchpad for my business. I just posted something there recently, which I’ll link to for now and follow up on soon. But here, on BP, is where I let myself think in public. Where I go long. Where thoughts breathe.

Continue reading Why Pakistan Won’t Go the Way of Iran

Pakistaniat & Urdu from Qasim to Quaid

X.T.M · July 16, 2025 · 2 comments

UP’s very long shadow:

As I board my flight back to the UK after a brief but productive trip, I find myself reflecting on a language that continues to haunt and inspire me: Urdu.

It is a tongue caught between paradoxes. The language of courtesans and qawwals, of sacred supplication and sly seduction. It carries within it the scent of jasmine and blood, of Delhi’s dusk and Lahore’s lingering grief.

The Beloved Guardian of the Baha’i Faith once noted that while most Baha’i texts should be translated from English, Urdu alone is trusted for direct translation from Persian and Arabic. That proximity, that spiritual siblinghood with Persian, the language of kings, and Arabic, the language of God, renders Urdu magical.

Sanskrit, of course, is the language of gods, but Urdu, its stepdaughter of sorts, captures the longing of poet to partisan.

There’s a reason the Bahá’í prayer I share below is so piercing in Urdu. So here, before I cross back into another timezone, I offer this prayer—without commentary, without translation. Just Urdu, as it was meant to be heard.

And I wonder: perhaps this is what Pakistan truly is—a project in transcending the local. Not rooted in soil, but in sentiment. A place where Punjabis, Pathans, and Muhajirs are asked to shed skin and commune in Urdu. Where Pakistaniyat, for all its fractures, has succeeded in producing a common idiom: of piety, pride, and pain. Continue reading Pakistaniat & Urdu from Qasim to Quaid