Indo-pak conflict – Brown Pundits

Dhurandhar showcases Bollywood’s New Obsession: The Sexy Pakistani Villain

X.T.M · December 12, 2025 · 12 comments

We watched Dhurandhar last night at Apple Cinemas (the last time we went to see Ishaan Khatter’s Homebound). It is the best mass-market Bollywood film I’ve seen since Animal, and far more immersive. What struck me most was not the action, nor the plot, but Bollywood’s new formula: a full-scale fetishisation of Pakistan.

Kabir keeps claiming that Bollywood casts Pakistanis as villains. This misses the point. The villain is always the sexiest figure in any film. Bollywood has finally realised this. Raazi hinted at it. Animal stumbled on it with Bobby Deol’s star stealing turn. Dhurandhar perfects it.

For the first time, Hindu actors are not performing cartoon versions of Pakistan. They are cosplaying Pakistanis with forensic precision; the clothes, the diction, the swagger, the social codes. In earlier decades the attempt was clumsy. Now the calibration is exact. Pakistan, in these films, becomes the Wild West of the subcontinent: familiar enough to feel intimate, distant enough to feel dangerous. Continue reading Dhurandhar showcases Bollywood’s New Obsession: The Sexy Pakistani Villain

Pahalgam and Aftermath

Omar Ali · October 8, 2025 · 10 comments

Someone on Twitter asked me for my opinion on Pahalgam and its aftermath now that several months have passed. I wrote up a quick reply, which I am posting here. I realize I am not writing much on this blog these days, but life has been busy and I barely keep up with Twitter and reading books, this blog gets pushed down.. But lets see if this sparks some discussion. Continue reading Pahalgam and Aftermath

Belated Podcast: Operation Sindoor (and Bunyan al Marsoos)

Omar Ali · June 9, 2025 · 3 comments

Another Browncast is up. You can listen on Libsyn, Apple, Spotify, and Stitcher (and a variety of other platforms). Probably the easiest way to keep up the podcast since we don’t have a regular schedule is to subscribe to one of the links above!

In this episode Amey hosts myself (omar) and Poulasta (our resident Bengali expert) to talk about the recent India-Pakistan kerfuffle. Amey was ready for war, but we found common ground 😉 (as usual with India and Pakistan, a lot of the discussion is about partition and related misunderstandings)

Podcasts by Major Amin. India, Pakistan, Proxy Wars

Omar Ali · April 23, 2019 · 1 comment

Readers of this blog are familiar with Pakistani military historian Major Agha Humayun Amin. Major Amin has recorded a number of podcasts on the Anchor app and they are worth a listen if you are interested in military history, Indian history and related topics.

This podcast in particular is a good introduction to Major Amin’s own background (he has worked with the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, has been a Taliban prisoner, and then a contractor in post-American Afghanistan, with extensive experience in the region). He also mentions his mentor Edward Luttwak.

In this podcast he makes many interesting observations and has his usual blunt and sometimes harsh opinions. Some of his topics here include:

His view is that there is no such thing as a “non-state actor”. All actors in Afghanistan are proxies of some state or the other. In the case of the Taliban, that means Pakistan.
How the Americans were fooled into bombing (via drones) and paying for bombing (Pakistani armed forces) the FATA region, while Taliban were actually located in Balochistan.
How Kiyani prolonged the FATA operations to milk American coalition support funds.
FATA Pakhtoons as “Red Indians” , subject to endless operations, not just today but many years ago, regarded as “our firing range”. Regarded as such not just by non-Pakhtoons, but also by many “settled area” Pakhtoons.
Some of the nuts and bolts of this endless war.
Pakistan’s theory of nuclear brinkmanship, developed initially with American acquiescence (because they did not want India to attack Pakistan and disrupt their Afghanistan operation).
Siachen, Kargil.
The renewed Kashmir infiltration in the last few years.
Pakistan army’s mindset and some of the more interesting nonsense that is promoted in its cause (such as Javed Hasan’s classic “India, a study in profile”).
The security setups of both sides leak like a sieve. Nothing is really secret, yet most things are unknown to their own politicians and common people.
No Indo-Pak war is likely, but proxy war will accelerate.
Trump will abandon Afghanistan for electoral reasons, civil war will accelerate.

You don’t have to agree with Major Amin’s views. But his detailed knowledge of this murky world is worth a listen. At a minimum it should make you wary of all state propaganda narratives.