Tag: Pakistan

Brown Pundits and the Echo Chamber Problem

X.T.M · September 30, 2025 · 8 comments

The Echo Chamber of the Commentariat

It has been on my mind that Brown Pundits, for all its liveliness, risks drifting into an echo chamber. The commentariat is our lifeblood: their activity sustains the blog far more than page views alone. And yet, the very strength of that community can also be its blind spot.

I do not want Kabir to end up being the Cassandra of BP, always warning of decline, and being proved right in the end. If we are not careful, we could slide into a right-wing echo chamber where challenging voices fade, and the capacity for deep interrogation, the core of what makes BP unique, is diminished.

Pahalgam and the Question of Narrative Continue reading Brown Pundits and the Echo Chamber Problem

Homebound with Ishaan Khatter

X.T.M · September 29, 2025 · 148 comments

Last night Dr. Lalchand & I watched Homebound, India’s submission to the Oscars, at Apple Cinemas in Cambridge, Mass. This sad film follows a Dalit (Chandan Kumar) and a Muslim (Mohammed Shoaib Ali) struggling against the odds during the pandemic, their solidarity fictionalized as a fragile bridge across India’s deepest divides.

On the surface, it is a familiar story: the disenfranchised facing systemic barriers. But what struck me was how privilege itself performed disenfranchisement. Ishaan Khatter, brother to Shahid Kapoor, plays the marginalized Muslim. Janhvi Kapoor, descended from Bollywood royalty, embodies a Dalit woman. Vishal Jethwa, a bright-eyed Gujarati, portrays the Bhojpuri Dalit lead. This is not unique to India; Hollywood, too, casts elites as workers. Yet it raises the question: when poverty is performed rather than lived, is it “Dalit-washing”?

Poverty, Emotion, and Representation

Watching the film, I reflected on poverty’s emotional landscape. For elites, emotions can be expansive, indulgent, aestheticized into art. For the working poor, emotions are often constrained by survival — narrowed into necessity. Homebound tried to humanize its characters, but I wondered whether it romanticized what in practice is a relentless narrowing of possibility.

The West rewards this narrative. Parasite in Korea, Iranian cinema, Slumdog Millionaire — poverty & Global South tribulations as spectacle becomes “poverty porn.” The Guardian gave Homebound four stars. Great art often tilts melancholic, yes, but here the melancholia is curated for Western consumption.

Identity, Vectors, and Islamicate Selfhood

More unexpectedly, the film stirred something personal. I realized how much I have vacated my own Islamic identity. It was not traumatic. As a Bahá’í with Persian cultural roots, I found overlap — even comfort — in Hindu traditions. Dalits, in their rapid Hinduization, represent one vector of assimilation; Muslims and scheduled-caste Muslims, often in tension, another. Homebound imagines solidarity, but in life these vectors pull unequally. Continue reading Homebound with Ishaan Khatter

The Changing Demographics of Undivided India (1900–2025)

X.T.M · September 25, 2025 · 18 comments

South Asia’s demography is one of the great untold stories of the modern world. Too often we look at the subcontinent through today’s partitions — India, Pakistan, Bangladesh — but the real insight comes when we view the region as a single whole. Across 125 years, the balance of populations has shifted dramatically.

📊 1900: A Baseline

At the turn of the twentieth century, Muslims made up about 20% of undivided India’s population. The rest were overwhelmingly Hindu, with significant Sikh, Christian, Jain, and other minorities.

📊 1950: Partition and Realignment Continue reading The Changing Demographics of Undivided India (1900–2025)

Travelling – Open Thread

X.T.M · September 24, 2025 · 60 comments

🔗 Links shared from the comments

💬 Keep the links and thoughts coming — BP works best when the Commentariat bring their own sources into the mix.

The Ilhan Omar of Brown Pundits

X.T.M · September 22, 2025 · 31 comments

Every movement has its lightning rods. In American politics, Ilhan Omar is one: progressive, unyielding, often correct in substance but polarizing in style. She calls out genuine injustices, but her timing and tone can sometimes drown out the very points she is trying to make.

I’ve begun to realize that Kabir plays a similar role on Brown Pundits. Like Ilhan, he often raises necessary truths (for instance Israel has just killed an American family in Lebanon). Like Ilhan, he brings traffic, visibility, and energy. But also like Ilhan, he has a way of inflaming rather than persuading.

Charlie Kirk’s remarks illustrate why Ilhan Omar’s critiques resonate, even if her tone divides. When Kirk sneers that there are “no tall buildings left in Gaza,” or jokes that Palestinians are “stupid Muslims” for resisting, he is not just making political commentary. He is engaging in dog-whistling — racialized, sexist, Islamophobic rhetoric that devalues human life. Combined with his earlier comments about the supposed lack of “brain processing power” among prominent Black women, the pattern is unmistakable. One does not have to be a progressive to see that such speech corrodes the civic space. At the same time, none of this justifies violence: the murders of Charlie Kirk and Irina Zarutska are deplorable and must be condemned without qualification.

The Progressive Dilemma Continue reading The Ilhan Omar of Brown Pundits

Pakistan: The Realpolitik State

X.T.M · September 21, 2025 · 59 comments

In a recent exchange, Kabir suggested that Pakistanis often feel unwelcome in our discussions on Brown Pundits, and that constant criticism of their country creates a sense of unease. It is worth pausing to reflect on this. Pakistanis, like all of us, are shaped by history and circumstance. And yet, there is something in the cultural tenor of Pakistan that makes open engagement difficult.

I say this not to provoke but to observe. Pakistan, as a society, often leans heavily on hierarchism, patronage, and a culture of deference. To borrow an old saying about the Somalis, that every man thinks himself a Sulṭán, one might say that Pakistanis often view themselves through the prism of status and validation. This instinct is hardly unique; Indians, too, have their caste-bound privileges and invisible hierarchies. But in India, these structures are embedded in a dense cultural fabric; family, caste, neighbourhood, ritual, that, for all their flaws, anchor society. Pakistan, by contrast, feels less rooted. It is a younger country (with old traditions), with fewer inherited cultural layers to draw on.

This is not simply an abstract point. When I married, we drew freely from Hindu rituals (dual ceremonies, Bahá’í incl.), Persian customs, and Sindhi traditions, blending them into something whole. But I realised there was nothing distinctly “Pakistani” to contribute; no cultural motif that stood outside India or Iran (we didn’t do a Walima, which is Muslim). Pakistan is, in many ways, a derivation: a state forged through separation, rather than a civilization with deep roots of its own. The cultural space it occupies has been overlaid with militant nationalism and, too often, Hindu-phobia (Kabir is so inured to it that he isn’t able to recognise that but on the flipside so is the Commentariat towards Islam).

To acknowledge this is not to deny the prejudices of Indians toward Muslims, which are very real and enduring. Nor is it to ignore the deracinated, secular archetype embodied by figures like Benazir Bhutto, who seemed neither fully Muslim nor fully Western, suspended between worlds and who are the cultural elite of Pakistan (what they give up on their bridge is their Hindu origins; more than being half-Persian, Benazir’s nani was Hindu). It is simply to note that Pakistan’s cultural story remains unsettled & thus interesting.

Validation and Audience Continue reading Pakistan: The Realpolitik State

Moderation Note: On Gaza, October 7, and the Limits of Tolerance

X.T.M · September 20, 2025 · 21 comments

Kabir’s Muslim nationalism cosplaying as liberalism is vexatious (it would be excellent if he just disclosed his priors), but I give the admin full authority to handle that directly.

My immediate concern is with BB-HS. I have barred him from becoming an author and have removed his last twenty comments. Despite his earlier misrepresentation about being “half-Muslim,” I allowed him to return under a new handle, tabula rasa. His output, however, is increasingly defined by “fantasies” about what a model minority should be; deracinated and devoid of meaningful character.

BB’s Response (after I had deleted his past 20 comments)

“Why though? The only animus I have is with Kabir because he represents a demographic I loathe – The soft Islamist | The ‘liberal’ English-speaking version who whitewashes his more hardcore cousins’ atrocities. Actual people have died due to Islamists which Kabir downplays (Pahalgam, October 7th). Some ribbing online is nothing in comparison. And I haven’t even said anything insulting.”

My Response

    1. Kabir is not an Islamist. He is a Muslim nationalist—since Pakistan itself is sine qua non Muslim nationalism (the idea that Indian Muslims were entitled to their own nation). Just as every Israeli is, by definition, a Zionist/Jewish nationalist, even if individuals disagree with its implications, Kabir represents that current.
    2. What stands out is that BB mentions only Pahalgam and October 7—both undeniably tragic events, and I say this as someone who is not Muslim—while omitting the ongoing genocide in Gaza.It is akin to referencing 9/11, a devastating moment in history, without also acknowledging the destruction of Afghanistan and Iraq and the millions of lives lost in their aftermath.
    3. Unlike Kabir, vexatious, but rarely personal, BB makes his attacks direct. He is not Kabir’s friend indulging in ribbing; he is simply “Honey” under another guise.
    4. What sets him apart is an openly hierarchical stance: non-Muslim lives ranked above Muslim ones, echoing the very post-colonial divide-and-rule strategies we are meant to reject.
    5. Kabir manipulates through weaponised victimhood; BB chooses blunt hostility, lacing personal abuse into his commentary. I have permanently removed Honey’s comments for that reason, vulgarity leaves no space for debate and I treat BB and Honey as a single entity.
    6. Beneath the very different styles of BB-HS & Kabir lies the same contempt: the belief that the only acceptable minority is one hollowed out, compliant, and dead on the inside.

Moderation Philosophy

As a Founder, my job is to ensure Brown Pundits does not become an echo chamber. I have repeatedly critiqued Kabir’s contradictions, but once I accepted him as a Muslim nationalist cosplaying liberalism, I could also accept his place in the debate. We have multiple Hindu nationalists here, and when Kabir is challenged\moderated, the balance tends to restore itself. The ecosystem can correct for his presence.

Finally, let me stress: the comment boards are not the only heart of this site. Too often they descend into noise. If regular commentators want to influence debate constructively, they should apply to become Authors; where they can speak directly to our 2,000+ daily readers, not just the dozen or so regular commentariat.

Brown Pundits is rapidly emerging as the most interesting Indo-Pak cross-channel precisely because it is not an echo chamber. We literally upset everyone and that is a great thing because it means we are covering new difficult terrain. My moderation began with strict principles, but like everyone else, I have a life, job, and family. That means I must also be pragmatic.

Links on My Browser Right Now – Open Thread

X.T.M · September 19, 2025 · 51 comments

A few pieces I’ve been reading this week:

Reflections

On the Ummah: Muslims have often failed to concede ground in internal debates, which has left them politically boxed in. One reform across all denominations would be to return directly to the Quran as the primary authority. That alone would dissolve many cultural accretions, halal (animals should be stunned before slaughter), hijab (a Sassanian trait), and other practices, into something more adaptive.

And here’s a more speculative question: if the “Satanic Verses” were reconsidered if Al-Lat, Al-Uzzah, and Al-Manat were understood as sacred divinities at the threshold of the Lote Tree, would that make Islam more fluid, especially for minority-majority dynamics?

On Kabir: I’m not moderating him out, but readers should be aware that he frames everything through Muslim-rights activism. Engage, but don’t get gaslit into endless provocations. Everyone is entitled to their nationalisms — but they can’t claim liberalism at the same time. That tension makes it worth examining how plurality is treated within the Hindu fold itself. Dharma, unlike the Abrahamic Faiths, tends to all for multiple truths co-existing with each other (Buddhism and indigenous East Asian religions).

👉 Over to you. I’m retreating from heavy moderation — I see BP’s strength in letting the commentariat lead. Biases are fine. Gratuitous abuse is not.

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“In March 1998 the Indian PM Gujral, told … “Pakistan was not capable of making atomic bombs.” he had been convinced by Indian Intelligence and Dr Raja Raman, the head of Indian Atomic Energy Commission, who had publicly claimed that nuclear weapon were beyond Pakistan’s reach.”

Pakistan as India’s Ukraine?

X.T.M · September 18, 2025 · 63 comments

The chart above lays out “strategic partners” for 2025. Pakistan lists China, Türkiye, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and assorted others. India, by contrast, shows Israel. But the real issue isn’t who collects more flags; it’s whether any of Pakistan’s patrons will ever raise its HDI, improve infrastructure, or embed long-term stability.

I’m interested to hear what the commentariat thinks of this moment. India’s foreign policy is already locking it into superpower status. Pakistan remains reactive, borrowing survival from whoever will lend it.

The analogy that strikes me: India–Pakistan resembles Russia–Ukraine, except if Ukraine had kept nuclear weapons. The parallels are strong:

  • Ukraine, like Pakistan, is a breakaway sibling — the “other half” of a civilizational whole.

  • Ukraine, like Pakistan, survives by appealing to larger patrons.

  • And interestingly, the GDP ratio gap between Russia and Ukraine is almost exactly the same as between India and Pakistan (please fact check me).

Just as Ukraine is considered the homeland of the Russian Empire (Kievan Rus’), Pakistan carries the legacy of Partition as the “Indus homeland.” That symmetry makes the analogy more than superficial.

On Kabir: I understand his consistent emphasis on Muslim rights and Muslim nationalism. Readers should be aware of that lens. I’m not moderating him out, but I would caution the commentariat against being gaslit into endless provocations by Kabir. The question here is not identity politics, but the direction of Indian and Pakistani foreign policy in a critical moment in global history (decades are happening in weeks).

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