Is Pakistan primitive?

June 19, 2026 X.T.M 58 Comments filed under X.T.M

By new Precedent, ceasefires are lifted by default, and maintained only where a commenter requests one on Online Safety grounds, as K has (BB – RNJ – 0M).

We argued in “The Patriarchy Survives Everything” that has no religion.

Over the last month, in order not to be Islamophobic, a line was surreptiously moved. The proposition that women should be confined to the home and kept out of higher education stopped being an outrage to be dismantled in public and became a “perspective” to be weighed.

Silence on the right of a woman to leave her own house, and called the silence respect. A space loud for one liberty and mute on another has not been even-handed; it has been captured. That is the moment the emperor lost his clothes and the courtiers agreed not to mention it.

How a country starts eating halal

RNJ consistently brings up Nassim Taleb’s seminal piece on “The Most Intolerant Wins: The Dictatorship of the Small Minority.” Continue reading Is Pakistan primitive?

Some Thoughts on BP

May 12, 2026 Kabir 7 Comments filed under Kabir

I just want to briefly offer some thoughts since it’s now been a year since I have been active in this latest iteration of BP.

Over the past year on this forum, I have seen many members of the “Saffroniate” who seem to have no agenda except to disparage Pakistan. BB is chief among them but there are others who share essentially the same views but hide behind a tone of neutrality that allows them to claim the moral high ground. BB is the most open about his views. No other member of the “Saffroniate” has threatened to “infiltrate” Pakistan and make a Pakistani Muslim say “Bharat Mata ki Jai” at gunpoint. Such an egregious comment had obvious consequences–as it should have. While others have not crossed this line, it doesn’t mean that their anti-Pakistan attitude and Islamophobia is not obvious. The word “taqqiya” has been used in reference to me. Using this word for a Muslim is Islamophobic and completely unforgivable. I find it deeply ironic that those who are the first to complain about Hinduphobia have no problem resorting to obvious Islamophobic tropes.

While Indians have legitimate grievances with Pakistanis (as Pakistanis do with Indians), the way to generate a productive dialogue is not to use triggering language like “apartheid”, “kleptocracy” etc. This only causes the other side to double down on their own position and for people to talk past each other.

I also want to address the passive aggressive complaints that I have banned certain people from my threads. It is a settled principle on BP that authors have the right to manage their threads the way they like. This is a principle that has been hard fought for. I have made my red lines clear. I will not tolerate anti-Pakistan commentary or people taking a hostile and combative tone with me. If you can express your POV in a civilized manner while staying within these guidelines, then I will allow your comment to stand–no matter how much I may disagree with it. If not, it will be summarily deleted.

What’s ironic is that some of those who complain the most about this actually have author status and are able to create their own threads on whatever topic they wish. That they don’t use this status is their choice and not a reflection on me. It’s of course much easier to complain than it is to actually write your own posts. To his credit, BB actually uses his author status to make his own arguments. When he returns from his “vanvaas”, I hope he will contribute posts about Indian movies and TV shows. This would add to the varied mix of topics on this forum.

Lastly, I want to welcome the members of the “Cresenciate”. I hope, with time, one of them will graduate from commenter to author. It is important to have more Pakistani representation on this forum. This doesn’t mean that I always agree with them but it is good that all the work of countering the “Saffroniate” doesn’t fall on me.

It would be remiss of me not to mention those Indians who are not really part of the “Saffroniate” such as Gaurav and girmit who always contribute thoughtful points–though again I may vehemently disagree at times.

P.S. I was speaking with a new friend of mine from Hyderabad Deccan recently. He noted that the toxic obsession with Pakistan is a North Indian thing and that South Indians really don’t care all that much. This intuitively makes sense since of course the worst Partition atrocities occurred in Punjab and Bengal.

Footnotes|Bollywood, Hindu Nationalism & the Erasure of Muslims in India (Kabir’s Open Thread)

May 11, 2026 Kabir 43 Comments filed under Kabir

When does cinema stop being entertainment and become propaganda? Hindi film has long romanticised the nation, but what’s happening now is something else entirely. In the latest Himal Footnotes, associate editor Nayantara Narayanan sits down with film critic Anna MM Vetticad and journalist Raza Rumi to talk about how Bollywood has become a vehicle for Hindutva ideology by manufacturing mythic pasts, normalising anti-Muslim violence and lending cinematic glamour to the BJP’s political project. Using the Dhurandhar franchise as a case study, they ask harder questions about the industry: How does propaganda disguise itself as entertainment? What happens when the line between fiction and political fact-making is deliberately blurred? And what has been lost from the Hindi cinema that once held space for a more plural, secular India?

Disclosure: I know Raza Rumi and have worked with him when he was at “The Friday Times”. I was mostly doing editorial work during what was essentially a summer internship. He has written a book about his experiences traveling in Delhi (where I believe his family was from). The book is called Delhi By Heart: Impressions of a Pakistani Traveller.

2) Returns on multipolarity

By Umair Javed

At this admittedly early stage of a changing world order, multipolarity is cementing domestic tendencies that already prevail. The status quo, along with the economic interests aligned with it, will continue to navigate geopolitics in ways that serve regime consolidation rather than broad-based development. For that calculus to change, the three issues/ contradictions identified above would need to become the organising basis of a political challenge capable of compelling a renegotiation of state-society relations. That is a high bar. But it is the only honest answer to the question of what multipolarity can offer a country like Pakistan. The world can change its architecture without changing who benefits inside Pakistan’s borders. That part remains entirely a domestic problem and a domestic responsibility.

3) Nothing can stop the breakup of Britain. Even Farage is powerless.

By Aris Roussinos