Pakistan – Brown Pundits

Pakistan is the Israel of the Subcontinent

X.T.M · March 18, 2026 · 53 comments

A Brown Pundits Precedent Post

I. The Ideology Before the Nation

Pakistan has a birth certificate: a 1933 pamphlet by Choudhry Rahmat Ali. Israel has the Basel Programme of 1897. Both nations emerged not from an ancient territorial consciousness but from an ideological project; one that required, as its sustaining premise, the claim that a religious minority could not coexist within a pluralist polity. This is not a slur; it is the historical record.

What makes both nations structurally similar is that their nationalism is grievance-generative by design. Israel requires the Palestinian question; Pakistan requires Kashmir. Without the wound, the ideology loses its cohering force. This is why, as Kabir inadvertently demonstrates in thread after thread, Kashmir is not merely a territorial dispute for Pakistan; it is an existential necessity. Indian nationalism has no equivalent. India does not need Kashmir to know what it is. Pakistan does.

II. Organic vs. Constructed Nationalism

Omar has made the point that durable nationalism must be organic; rooted in geography, language, ethnicity, or long civilisational memory. Bangladesh is a useful comparison: Bengali Muslim nationalism is at least tethered to a linguistic and territorial reality. The Bengalis of East Pakistan had a mother tongue, a delta, a literary tradition. When Pakistan tried to impose Urdu on them, they revolted; because Bengali identity had roots.

Pakistan’s tragedy is that Urdu itself is borrowed. It is a prestige creole, Persianised, Arabicised North Indian court language, that is the mother tongue of perhaps 7% of Pakistan’s population (the Muhajir elite but Urdu had admittedly very deep roots in Lahore). It was imposed as a national language precisely because it belonged to no one’s soil, and could therefore function as a neutral imperial medium. The irony is that Urdu is a derivative of Persian, and Persian, the language Pakistan’s nationalism effectively displaced, was the actual civilisational glue of the entire region from Kabul to Lucknow. In the Golestan framework, Persian would resume its natural role as the prestige link language. Pakistan’s nationalism requires its absence.

III. A Core-Periphery Imperial Topology Continue reading Pakistan is the Israel of the Subcontinent

Pakistan must not treat Afghanistan like Gaza

X.T.M · March 17, 2026 · 137 comments

[A note to readers: BB’s open thread is taking a short break while he recalibrates to high-signal posting]

Pakistan Strikes a Hospital in Kabul.

Late on Monday night, the 28th night of Ramadan, a missile struck the Omid (“Hope”) Addiction Treatment Hospital in Kabul. It is a 2,000-bed facility built in a former NATO camp, housing thousands of young Afghans receiving treatment for drug dependency. Witnesses said they heard three explosions just as patients were completing evening prayers. Two bombs struck patient rooms directly. “The whole place caught fire. It was like doomsday,” one survivor told Reuters. Al Jazeera

Taliban authorities say 408 were killed and 265 injured; figures that remain unverified by any independent party, though the physical destruction of the hospital and the ongoing rescue operation are not in dispute. Rescuers were still pulling bodies from rubble by flashlight through the night. The UN human rights expert for Afghanistan, Richard Bennett, said he was “dismayed” and urged all parties to “respect international law, including the protection of civilians and civilian objects such as hospitals.” ABC News

Pakistan insists its strikes “precisely targeted military installations and terrorist support infrastructure” in Kabul and Nangarhar, with targeting “carefully undertaken to ensure no collateral damage.” CP24

One witness at the scene noted military units were positioned around the hospital perimeter; which may explain the targeting logic, if not excuse it. No secondary explosions consistent with an arms depot were filmed.

Afghanistan-Pakistan border: new centre of the 'war on terror', by Philippe Rekacewicz (Le Monde diplomatique - English edition, December 2009) — the war

The pattern matters as much as the incident.

Continue reading Pakistan must not treat Afghanistan like Gaza

On “Civilization States” vs. Nation-States

Kabir · March 7, 2026 · 2 comments

This is a rebuttal to X.T.M’s recent post on “civilization states” . The longer essay can be read here

In this context, Shashi Tharoor’s essay “Civilization States Are Profoundly Illiberal” is well-worth reading in full. Tharoor is a centrist Indian and can be said to articulate the Congress Party’s position on this topic.

Civilizational State vs. Nation-State

Google defines “Civilizational state” as one that “defines itself and its identity based on a unique and encompassing civilization, rather than solely on shared ethnicity, language or governance”. Google goes on to note that “ the differing worldviews and values associated with civilizational states could potentially lead to tensions and conflicts with other nations or blocs”. In India’s case, defining itself as a “civilizational state” certainly leads to tensions with Pakistan (and perhaps to a growing extent with Bangladesh).

I believe that this “civilizational state” conception is a belief of the Hindu Right. I agree with the Indian left that the Republic of India is a nation-state that was created on August 15, 1947–exactly at the same moment that Pakistan was created. British India was not a nation-state but a colony. Upon decolonization, parts of the colony went their own way. Continue reading On “Civilization States” vs. Nation-States

On Civilisational States and Who Gets to Claim the Indus

X.T.M · March 6, 2026 · 93 comments

Kabir says calling India, that is Bharat, a civilisational state is a “right-wing position.” We disagree; and the disagreement isn’t political, it’s archaeological.

Look at what Mohenjo-daro actually gives us: the Pashupati Seal; three-faced, ithyphallic, seated in yogic posture, surrounded by elephant, tiger, buffalo, rhinoceros. Proto-Shiva. The Mother Goddess figurines. Linga and yoni stones. Pipal veneration. The sacred bull. Every single religious thread runs forward into the living Hindu tradition. Continue reading On Civilisational States and Who Gets to Claim the Indus

Who Is Reading Brown Pundits? (And Why Pakistan Just Became Our Biggest Audience)

X.T.M · March 6, 2026 · 41 comments

We have been running this blog long enough to know that readership numbers are a vanity metric, until they aren’t. February held steady at 41,000 views, which we are quietly proud of. But what genuinely surprised us, and we mean genuinely, not in the performative way, is that Pakistan now constitutes 28% of our readership.

A thousand visits a day, give or take a bit more. The old 1% rule says one in a hundred will actually say something; which means for every BB, RNJ, Kabir or Sbarr in the comments, there are ninety-nine people reading in silence and agreeing with “either camp”. We find that thought rather beautiful.

Prior to February, Pakistan had never cracked the top five. Now it’s sitting at number one.

Bharatstan, indeed.

Commentariat = Saffroniate? Continue reading Who Is Reading Brown Pundits? (And Why Pakistan Just Became Our Biggest Audience)

India’s Guest. America’s Kill.

X.T.M · March 5, 2026 · 52 comments

On the 4th of March 2026, a US submarine torpedoed the Iranian frigate IRIS Dena in the Indian Ocean, 40 nautical miles off the coast of Galle, Sri Lanka. At least 87 sailors were killed. Over a hundred remain missing. Pete Hegseth called it “quiet death” from the Pentagon podium; bragging it was the first torpedo kill since World War II.

MILAN at Vyzag

The IRIS Dena had just left Visakhapatnam. It had been India’s guest. Formally invited to MILAN 2026, the International Fleet Review hosted by the Indian Navy, attended by 86 ships from 74 nations. The Eastern Naval Command had tweeted a welcome photograph two weeks earlier: “reflecting long-standing cultural links between the two nations.”

Two weeks later, that ship is on the ocean floor. And from New Delhi, silence. Iran’s Foreign Minister Araghchi said it plainly: Frigate Dena, a guest of India’s Navy, was struck in international waters without warning. That line will not be forgotten in Tehran. It should not be forgotten in New Delhi either; because it is the most precise summary available of what Modi’s diplomatic positioning has actually cost India.

When guests are murdered

Say what you want about Pakistan’s post-colonial elite; and there is plenty to say. But since Pahalgam they have been reading the room better than New Delhi has. Not because Islamabad became richer or more competent. Neither of those things happened. What happened is simpler: when the bombs fell on Iran, Pakistan said nothing loud, and that silence was itself a signal. Across the Muslim world that signal was heard. Loyalty travels farther than power. Whether that loyalty is strategic or genuine is a separate question. The effect is the same.

Pakistan Post-Pahalgam Continue reading India’s Guest. America’s Kill.

Belief, borders and bombs: What long-term instability in Iran means for Pakistan

Kabir · March 4, 2026 · 4 comments

An important article in DAWN by Zia ur Rehman:

Zia ur Rehman is “a journalist and researcher, who writes for The New York Times and Nikkei Asia, among other publications. He also assesses democratic and conflict development in Pakistan for various policy institutes”

Some excerpts:

Islamabad and Tehran share a 900-kilometre border that has long been vulnerable to militant activity, smuggling networks, and sectarian spillover. Pakistan is also home to an estimated 15 to 20 per cent Shia population, one of the largest outside Iran. Many in this community look to Tehran’s clergy and leadership for religious guidance and, at times, political support.

Experts and Pakistani security officials warn that instability in Iran could increase cross-border movement by armed groups and inflame sectarian tensions within Pakistan’s already polarised society.

Continue reading Belief, borders and bombs: What long-term instability in Iran means for Pakistan

Modi Puts India Firmly in the Israel-US Camp

X.T.M · March 4, 2026 · 13 comments

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.

Allama Iqbal’s Dream Fulfilled; West Pakistan Defends India Against the Barbarians..

Omar Ali · March 2, 2026 · 41 comments

Since the world has been set alight and everyone has a theory, I will put out my pet theory and invite comments. In 1930 Allama Iqbal (supposed father of the idea of Pakistan) proposed a consolidated Muslim state in Northwest India as a solution to the problem of Muslim Nationalism in India. The part that is relevant to us today is his claim that such a state will defend India against the Barbarians to its West (his words were: “the North-West Indian Muslims will prove the best defenders of India against a foreign invasion, be that invasion one of ideas or of bayonets. “).

Iqbal, being a romantic Islamist in an age when the British Empire seemed a permanent fact of life had confused ideas about many things, and his vision of a Northwest Muslim state was as confused and romantic as any of his other dreams, but in this case he hit on something real.. Pakistan is the buffer that protects India from the Middle Eastern snakepit. Of course, it is also an example of the same snakepit extending into the Indian subcontinent, but it is worth remembering that India at one point was almost entirely colonized by Islalmicate invaders from the Northwest. Now that invasive colonial culture is concentrated in Pakistan; and with the war with Afghanistan, it is now directed against the very people it once idealized.

So my point is that Indians should thank Jinnah for his service. They now have a fighting chance of escaping the Middle eastern cannon fodder trap and becoming a successful Asian country.
Choose wisely. Let Pakistan be more in the Middle East. Be more Asian.

And for Pakistan the answer is also the same. Try to be more Indian, less Middle eastern. But our road home may be convoluted. Even Indonesia is not home free, our path is going to be rockier..

Here is the relevant quote from the Allahabad address (full text in link)

Open Thread: Israel Strikes Iran

X.T.M · February 28, 2026 · 134 comments

Tehran has been bombed; University Street, home to a Military Intelligence base, has been struck.

Today is 9/11 in the Muslim calendar: the 11th of Ramadan, the 9th and holiest month.

US Marine guards at the American Consulate in Karachi opened fire on Shia protesters attempting to storm the compound, killing at least 12. Pakistani police and paramilitary Rangers were also present. The Sindh chief minister has ordered a probe into the deaths.

Shia communities in Kargil are mourning the death of their leader.

Imam Khamenei was not just a leader for Iran but seemingly for Muslims around the world. The Muslims of Kashmir took to the streets upon hearing news of Seyyed Khamenei’s martyrdom.