Nationalism
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Pakistan, the Successor State to Islamistan
Pakistan is usually read as drifting ever deeper into theocracy. We argue the reverse: its elite has quietly secularised, keeping Islam as the national language while shedding it as the…
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India’s Wealth will not turn Pakistan into East Germany
X.T.M answers a commenter’s per-capita point: scale and per-capita income measure different things, and India’s size gives it weight. But economic weight is not destiny, India has not turned Pakistan…
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Mocking Modi Is the Only Nationalism Left-Liberals Know
X.T.M reads an anti-Modi cartoon on US tariffs as showing that India’s liberal critics now accept it belongs at the great-power table, and argues they offer no alternative to Modi’s…
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Pakistan: The Realpolitik State
The author argues that Pakistani society leans on hierarchy, patronage and deference and, as a state forged through separation, has little distinct culture beyond India and Iran. He grants that…
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What kind of nationalism is it to live in India and have an Arabic name?
X.T.M posts an extract from Kanhaiyalal Kapoor’s satirical story in Rakhshanda Jalil’s anthology of non-Muslim Urdu writers, in which a narrator renames and re-dresses himself to prove his Indianness, and…
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The Arrogance That Binds: Post-Colonial Delusions in the English speaking Pakistani Mind
X.T.M argues that the English-speaking Pakistani elite suffers from ‘Post-Colonial Derangement’, denying India’s civilisational place in Pakistan’s past, and says patriotism lets one belong while nationalism forces a choice, pointing…
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Quaid, Modi, and the Operation Sindoor
Argues that India’s response to the Pahalgam attack, including Operation Sindoor and suspending the Indus Waters Treaty, may strengthen Pakistan’s national identity, since nations harden against an adversary and martyrdom…
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Pankaj Mishra and His Discontents
Omar Ali reposts his 2014 reply to a Pankaj Mishra New York Times op-ed, calling the ‘Pankajist worldview’ superficial while conceding that Indian hypernationalism is as real, and potentially as…
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The Consequences of Coronavirus
Argues that COVID-19 is deepening nationalism while also creating a new internationalism centred on China, whose aid to Serbia and Italy the author likens to debt traps, while the US…
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Hindu nationalism amongst the nationalisms
Razib Khan sets out his framework for Hindu nationalism, rejecting the view that colonialism alone explains modern nationalisms, leaning on Azar Gat’s argument that many national identities have deep roots…
