A Trump-coded American (a mix of JD & Rubio) imposes tariffs, restricts H-1B work, threatens war, calls India a “hell-hole.” Modi, eyes lowered, hands folded, writes a cheque for five hundred billion dollars. The signature reads penpencildraw, a left-liberal account. The Instagram account is run by urban anti-Modi liberals who, on most other days, want a poorer, slower, more Nehruvian India.
Continue reading Mocking Modi Is the Only Nationalism Left-Liberals Know
The presumption behind the grand-strategist mythos is always the same. Trump, Milei, Netanyahu, Modi and Orbán are playing three moves ahead, and the other side is stupid. Strip the second half of that sentence and the first collapses.
Look at the scoreboard.
Op Sindoor. India’s post-operation strategic environment does not favour India. Whatever the tactical ledger reads, the diplomatic map around South Asia has tightened against Delhi, not loosened. Delhi has learned. The region has taken notes.
Pakistan. The surprise winner of Op Sindoor is not India. Rawalpindi has played the post-operation hand better than anyone expected and is now cashing cheques in Washington, the Persian Gulf and Beijing in the same quarter. On the current scoreboard, Pakistan is the diplomatic champion of the world.
Iran.* Tehran has pushed back harder than the MAGA-Likud axis priced in. Hormuz did not close on Washington’s schedule. The Islamic Republic has not folded on Washington’s terms. The deterrence calculus is running the wrong way.
Lebanon. Netanyahu was ordered to stop. Not persuaded, not incentivised. Ordered. That is a tell about who holds the leash, and it is not Jerusalem.
Hungary. Orbán conceded on 12 April 2026. Sixteen years, gone in a single parliamentary cycle, to Péter Magyar’s Tisza on a two-thirds supermajority. Some say it was thanks to JD’s Kiss of Death. The flagship of illiberal democracy in Europe was voted out by the electorate it was supposed to have captured.
The Iranian One has just started
Nobody seems to be interested in Pakistan’s diplomatic resurrection. What does it mean that a country written off as failed just a year ago is now the hinge of a regional peace settlement and averting World War Three on the double. This is the actual story of 2026 and it is not on our comment boards.
Pakistan: From Failed State to Diplomatic Champion
A year ago, before Operation Sindor, Pakistan was being written off in every serious strategic publication in the English language. The IMF was reluctant. Every mainstream Indian and Western analyst agreed. Pakistan was finished as a regional actor of any significance.
Today Pakistan is mediating, leading, the Iran crisis. The Hormuz situation, which could have escalated into a catastrophic closure of the world’s most important oil chokepoint, is moving toward resolution largely because Pakistan has positioned itself as the only party credible with Tehran, Riyadh, and Washington simultaneously.
The war that looked civilisational is now looking more like a pivot point. Pakistan is not a failed state. India is not uniquely ascendant under PM Modi. The question of whether the BJP holds power post-Modi is now a live one, not a theoretical one. Iran is not isolated. Israel is not unbreakable. The realignment is happening now, in real time, and almost nobody seems to be writing about it.
Iran Stood Up Continue reading The Ukrainian Interlude is over
Reams of digital pages on this forum have been devoted to India–Pakistan relations and the broader Hindu–Muslim, or Muslim–non-Muslim, conflict. I think most of these discussions miss the crucial issue at the heart of these conflicts.
I will try to navigate to that core. This particular reflection was triggered by a news item that broke recently:
If, twelve years into the Modi government’s Hindutva agenda, a dozen educated Muslim employees can allegedly engineer a conversion racket in TCS—with all its POSH and diversity guidelines—one wonders what Muslim radicals might get away with in majority-Muslim countries.
One doesn’t need to wonder. A Dawn report from 2014 alleged that around 1,000 non-Muslim girls are forcibly converted and married off every year. Even if the number is 100, that is a huge number for 2-3% of population. The demographic change in East Bengal over the last eight decades is a testament to these currents.
Writing this review now as I came home at 5 am and slept the whole day.
Will keep it spoiler-free as much as possible.
First of all, if some people had issues with the politics of the first movie, they are going to hate this one as it takes it way way beyond, shifting the overton window so far to the right.
The movie is great, super fun and keeps you engaged throughout. It is a bit looser than the first one, not having the razor sharp focus of the espionage drama that it was, instead transforming into more of an action movie.
The action setpieces are way more brutal and better choreographed and more in number compared to the first one.
The movie starts with one of the setpieces barely a few minutes in and then keeps going for a while before slowing down a bit leading to the interval (which is the best part of the movie) before building up steam and not letting go till the end.
Music, as always is a banger with a variety of remixes of old songs and some interesting needledrops.
Already on it’s way to be the highest grossing Indian movie of all time with massive crowds even in South India.
Anyways, highly highly recommended.
Ya naya Hindustan ka naya cinema hai.
A tweet reposted by Azad Essa, attacking Priyanka Chopra as “Hindutva-fascist”, asserting that she is somehow ‘uncomfortable’ standing next to Javier Bardem while he delivered remarks in support of Palestine. This, in spite of the fact that Priyanka Chopra has publicly supported Palestine – signing letters demanding ceasefires, tweeting on Rafah and so on.
Azad Essa, is an author that was recently spotlighted on Brown Pundits itself, via his propaganda work on comparing Palestine to the Kashmir valley. This is a particular echo chamber driven by a very explicit agenda, that seeks to weaponize and co-opt the language of the left, in pursuit of demonizing India and Hindus. Facts do not matter, its Priyanka’s ethnicity that matters, and the fact that she dares to be publicly proud of her heritage, her religion and her nationality.
This is but an anecdotal example, but one that quite neatly spotlights the suspect credibility of aspiring ‘academics’ like Mr Essa. The question is how does the ecosystem of academia defend itself against such explicit bad actors that misuse concepts of ‘academic freedom’ and ‘journalism’ to peddle insidious agendas.
Modi’s strong support for Israel – and refusal to condemn the Israel-U.S. strikes on Iran, a long-time friend of India’s – have “diminished India’s stature in the eyes of the world.”
Journalist Bharat Bhushan wrote in Deccan Herald that with the recent visit, Modi has put India “firmly in the U.S.-Israeli camp.”
That is not a space that India should be in if it is hoping to lead the Global South, especially in the context of Israel’s continuing war on Gaza and the latest Israel-U.S. military strikes on Iran.
Replying to Sbarrkum got me thinking; instead of relitigating India-Pakistan, a more interesting question: across 14 India Prime Ministers, who actually did the job best?
Simple question. Hard answer.
Make the case. What criteria matters most to you?
No slogans. No party loyalty. Just reasoning.
Moderated for substance. Indian-centred perspectives prioritised.
A few facts after the jump.
Continue reading Open Thread: Who Would Be India’s Best Prime Minister, And Why?
Two comments overnight exposed different sides of the the same problem.
You Can’t Weaponise Islamophobia and Then Kneecap Hinduism
Kabir tried to circulate a link around Manu Pillai’s Gods, Guns and Missionaries, a serious book, framed around whether Hinduism was, in some sense, constructed. The question is legitimate. All traditions are constructed. All identities consolidate under pressure.
But Hinduism and Islam are pari passu in this respect. The nineteenth century shaped both. Colonial enumeration shaped both. Reform movements reshaped both. Romila Thapar, Wendy Doniger, Sheldon Pollock; the literature on Hindu consolidation is vast. So is the literature on Islamic reform: Wahhabism emerging from Najd in the 1740s, Deoband crystallising in 1867 directly in response to 1857, Barelvism as counter-movement to both. All traditions have formation moments. All traditions modernise under pressure.
To apply the deconstructive lens to Hinduism while leaving Islamic historiography untouched is not intellectual rigour. It is asymmetry. Kabir, who deploys “Islamophobia” as a first-strike weapon with the hair-trigger of a seasoned litigator, has never shown the slightest inclination to subject his own tradition to equivalent scrutiny. If the lens is universal, use it universally. If it is selective, say so.
Anything else is prosecution dressed up as scholarship.
Pakistan’s Literacy Problem Is Real. The Comparison to India Is Useless. Continue reading Double Standards, Modi’s Gamble, and Why Ramadan Gets It Right
“No one wants a strong India. But PM Modi opened doors. He strengthened the military, advanced the economy, maintained balanced relations with the West, Russia, and China. That is serious statecraft” –Aleksandar Vučić, President of Serbia
India is richer
Strip away the noise and a simple asymmetry remains. India will almost certainly remain richer than Pakistan for the foreseeable future. The gap in GDP, fiscal depth, technology, and demographic scale is widening, not narrowing. On material indicators, India has the advantage. Yet material advantage does not always translate into strategic dominance.
India is louder
India is a mass democracy. It is electorally accountable, media-saturated, and sensitive to public opinion. Governments must justify escalation. Markets react to instability. Voters punish miscalculation. This imposes restraint.
Pakistan is tighter
Pakistan is structured differently. Power is narrower. Decision-making is concentrated within a smaller elite, with the military as the central institution. That creates rigidity in some domains but flexibility in others. Strategic continuity does not reset every five years. Public opinion matters, but it does not directly determine policy in the same way it does across the border.
Structural Differences
This structural difference shapes behaviour. India must think about global markets, coalition politics, and reputational cost. Pakistan can absorb economic stress more easily because its political system is already insulated from full electoral volatility. That insulation produces durability, even under strain.
The list gets smaller. There are six countries who sent the head of state/government to all three: 1) Beijing military parade 2) Davos Board of Peace launch 3) Washington BOP 1st meeting They are: Armenia | Azerbaijan | Indonesia | Kazakhstan | Pakistan | Uzbekistan
Like Israel Continue reading Poorer Pakistan OutFoxes Richer India?
