A few updates from this week:
Sri Lanka is facing severe flooding. Sbarkkum reports major damage to rail and road networks, with Dutch support expected for reconstruction.
Sana Aiyarâs âWorld at MITâ video touches on her life and work
Sam Dalrymple has a clip on Lahore and Delhiâanother reminder of how closely the two cities mirror each other despite partition.
Pakistanâs minority rights bill is worth watching. Continue reading Open Thread: From Floods to LaBal
Dear all,
With everything going on in the last 48 hours, we wanted to send a short note to everyone directly. BP has sputtered back to life in the past year, and with that revival comes all the familiar subcontinental pathologies: everyone believes theyâre right, everyone believes moderation is biased, and everyone believes someone else is being unfair. In that sense, BP is working exactly as it always has.
We want to restate something very clearly: we’re not going to run a hyper-moderated blog. It takes too much time, too much energy, and, crucially, it’s an unfunded mandate. Nothing is more dispiriting than a dead space. Our approach has been simple and consistent:
1. Authors control their own threads.
If things escalate on your post, you shut it down when and where you see fit. Thatâs the cleanest system and the only one we can realistically sustain.
2. No bans, shadow bans, or entrapment games.
Once we go down the path of micro-policing, BP loses its character. Thatâs not the direction we want to take.
3. We do not manufacture controversy.
If anything, the only thing we are biased toward is what the audience reads and engages with. Thatâs it. Everything else is noise.
Reflections:
Some of you will have seen the recent exchanges where accusations were thrown in both directions, and where intentions were questioned. Without going into details:Â this is exactly how online political communities melt down;Â by assuming the worst in each other and by escalating minor provocations into existential battles. Itâs the same pattern we saw a couple of years ago at a public talk by Rahul Gandhi in Cambridge: someone asked a loaded, âgotchaâ question, the out of context reply went viral, people got outraged, and the whole thing became a cycle of reaction and overreaction. Weâre drifting into the same dynamic.
Letâs not.
BP works only when people post, comment, disagree, and move on. If that stops, the blog dies. And as Omarâs recent post highlighted, we want authors to write more, not less.
So our simple request is this:Â Calm down, carry on, manage your own threads, and do not fall prey to the outrage factory.
If you feel strongly about a situation, reach out; if you want more balance, we’re happy to add an additional admin to offset the load (BPâs editorial board already functions with more factions than the Lebanese Parliament); if something crosses a line, handle it on your post. But letâs not turn BP into a miniature Whitehall where everything becomes bureaucratised. Weâve done extremely well this past year. Letâs keep the energy without burning down the house.
Warmly.
As Dave mentioned, there is a lively WhatsApp group of BP authors and editors, and it inevitably shapes the comment ecosystem. But one comment on the blog stood out:
âThe very foundation of Pakistan is an anti-position. What is not India is Pakistan. So isnât it obvious?â
Itâs an extraordinarily crisp description of Pakistani identity-building. What is not India is Pakistan. That is not a slur; it is, in many ways, a psychologically accurate frame for how the state narrates itself.
What I increasingly find misplaced on this blog is the recurring assumption that Pakistanis are somehow âIndians-in-waiting,â or that Punjab is âWest Punjab,â Pakistan âNorthwest India,â or Bangladesh âEast Bengal.â These are irredentist projections that simply do not match lived identities. This is not âNorth Koreaâ or âEast Germany,â where both sides continue to imagine themselves as fragments of one common nation.
Yes, Pakistan consumes Bollywood and Hindi music, which themselves derive from Mughal and Indo-Persian syncretic traditions. Yes, Pakistan is culturally embedded in the greater Indo-Islamic civilizational sphere. But emotionally, Pakistan has severed itself from the Indian Subcontinent as a cohesive landscape. It has constructed a hybrid identity; part Turko-Persian, part Islamic internationalist, part anti-India.
I donât personally agree with this move, and my own trajectory has been toward a strong Hinducised, Dharmic identification. But my view is irrelevant here. What matters is that Pakistani identity is defined negatively; as the commentator put it, âWhat is not India is Pakistan.â
Whether that is healthy or sustainable is another matter. But identities can persist in unhealthy configurations for a very long time; the stock market can be irrational longer than your liquidity can survive.
Iâve come to realise that itâs often more productive to write full posts than to engage in fragmented comment threads. The richness of thought requires a form that can hold tension, contradiction, and nuance but comments, by design, resist that.
The Upper-Caste Template of South Asian Dharmic Discourse
Take, for example, sbarrkum, who shares personal reflections and images from his life on the common board. While one might raise questions about permissions or boundaries, itâs also important to respect dialectical differences in how people choose to engage. Thereâs no single valid mode of expression.
That brings me to a broader reflection: how the very structure of discourse in Dharmic South Asia has long been shaped by upper-caste templates; especially under Western influence. Over two centuries, upper castes have Brahmanised, Saffronised, Persianised, and then Westernised themselves, adopting and enforcing norms of discourse, authority, and ârationality.â
Why Intermarriage Doesnât Erase Hierarchy Continue reading Caste and the Structure of Discourse
UP’s very long shadow:
As I board my flight back to the UK after a brief but productive trip, I find myself reflecting on a language that continues to haunt and inspire me: Urdu.
It is a tongue caught between paradoxes. The language of courtesans and qawwals, of sacred supplication and sly seduction. It carries within it the scent of jasmine and blood, of Delhiâs dusk and Lahoreâs lingering grief.
The Beloved Guardian of the Bahaâi Faith once noted that while most Bahaâi texts should be translated from English, Urdu alone is trusted for direct translation from Persian and Arabic. That proximity, that spiritual siblinghood with Persian, the language of kings, and Arabic, the language of God, renders Urdu magical.
Sanskrit, of course, is the language of gods, but Urdu, its stepdaughter of sorts, captures the longing of poet to partisan.
Thereâs a reason the BahĂĄâĂ prayer I share below is so piercing in Urdu. So here, before I cross back into another timezone, I offer this prayerâwithout commentary, without translation. Just Urdu, as it was meant to be heard.
And I wonder: perhaps this is what Pakistan truly isâa project in transcending the local. Not rooted in soil, but in sentiment. A place where Punjabis, Pathans, and Muhajirs are asked to shed skin and commune in Urdu. Where Pakistaniyat, for all its fractures, has succeeded in producing a common idiom: of piety, pride, and pain. Continue reading Pakistaniat & Urdu from Qasim to Quaid
In a world increasingly defined by sides, partisanship often masquerades as empathy. Whether itâs Pakistanis performing concern for Indian liberalism, or Indians invoking the plight of Muslim minorities to score points against their ideological rivals, the truth is simple: if you already have a side, youâre not truly invested in the fate of the other.
This isnât cynicism; itâs structure. Sides, by their nature, demand loyalty. And loyalty comes at the expense of dispassion. You can mourn injustice selectively, but donât pretend itâs universalism. More often than not, tribalism puts on the mask of principle.
As a BahĂĄâĂ, Iâve been shaped by a millenarian vision that urges global unity; yet Iâm also deeply influenced by Hindu pluralism and pagan elasticity. Nicholas Nassim Taleb once said the more pagan a mind, the more brilliant it might be (excellent article) because it can hold many contradictions without demanding resolution. That capaciousness allows one to see that not every question needs a single answer. Hinduism, with its deep pluralism, contrasts radically with Islamâs (and Judaismâs) uncompromising monotheism. And yet, these two traditions are bound togetherâenmeshed across centuries of history, thought, and blood. Their tension is real, but so is their shared life.
Thatâs the point: opposites donât just coexist, they form a whole. But when we prescribe change for the âother side,â we ignore our own capacity for reform. Itâs always easier to critique outward than to renovate inward. Especially in a world run by oligarchic elites and managed emotions, where empathy is choreographed and outrage monetized.
So no, the Dalit Muslims of Dharavi arenât the problem. Nor are the marginalized Hindus of East UP and Biharis. The problem is that a single family can build a private skyscraper in Mumbai while the city gasps beneath it. Itâs the system that rewards power accumulation, not its occasional victims, that should concern us.
I donât offer neat solutions. Maybe itâs taxation. Maybe itâs redistribution. Maybe itâs noblesse oblige. But the first step is this: stop pretending your critique of the other side is altruism. Itâs not. Itâs strategy. And perhaps the more honest work begins at homeâwith your own side, your own people, your own self.
Thereâs a quiet but persistent coalition, inside and outside India, that seems intent on denying Hindus the right to define their own future. It includes unreformed Islamists who refuse to reckon with modernity, English-speaking liberal elites still shadowboxing for Nehru, minorities with veto power but no stake in cohesion, and a chorus of Western (and increasingly Chinese) voices, eager to manage Indiaâs trajectory from afar. What unites them? A shared discomfort with Hindu political consolidation.
Letâs be clear: Hindu identity is not a new construct. Whether you place its roots 3,000 or 5,000 years ago, itâs one of the worldâs oldest living civilizational continuities. That identity has always been plural, regional, and evolving. But it has also always been there; visible in memory, ritual, geography, and language. Today, that identity is waking up to its political form. And it will not be put back to sleep.
Hindutva is not going anywhere. Nor is the Indian Union. Those who hoped Kashmir would stay outside this arc have already seen the direction of travel. Pakistanâs decision to opt out of Hindustan, and then build an identity against it, has led not to strength but to strategic stasis. Bangladesh, too, for all its cultural richness, now stands as a separate civilizational lane. And so we arrive at the core truth: Hinduism and India are coterminous.
This isnât a call for exclusion. But it is a reminder that those who opted out do not get to dictate terms to those who stayed in. That includes foreign commentators and diasporic gatekeepers alike. There is a difference between pluralism and paralysis. There is a difference between nationalism and denial. And if majoritarianism is the anxiety; perhaps the deeper fear is that Hindus are no longer apologizing for being the majority. Let India decide. Let Hindus decide. Let the world, finally, learn to listen.
Letâs just ask it plainly: if the Muslim League got what it wantedâa Muslim-majority Pakistanâthen what, exactly, is the problem with the RSS wanting a Hindu-majority India? This isnât a provocation. Itâs a genuine question.
The Muslim League, by the end, wasnât fighting for shared rule. It wanted partition. It wanted sovereignty. It wanted to exit the Hindu-majority consensus that the Congress represented. And it succeededâthrough law, politics, and eventually blood.
The RSS, for its part, never pretended to want pluralism. Itâs been consistent for nearly a century: it wants India to have a Hindu character, spine, and center. If the League could ask for a state that reflects Muslim political interests, why is it unthinkable for the RSS to want the same, flipped?
This is where I struggle with a certain kind of liberal-istan logicâfound across both India and Pakistan. Youâll hear:
âIndia must stay secular! Modi is destroying Nehruâs dream!â
But what was Q.E.A-Jinnahâs dream? Was Pakistan built as a pluralist utopia? Or was it builtâopenly, unapologeticallyâas a Muslim homeland?
If Pakistanâs existence is predicated on Muslim majoritarianism, then Indiaâs tilt toward Hindu majoritarianism isnât an anomaly. Itâs symmetry. Maybe even inevitability.
So either we all agree that majoritarianism won in the subcontinentâand everyone adjusts accordingly. Or we all agree that the Congress secular ideal was the better oneâand try, equally, to hold both India and Pakistan to it.
But it canât be:
Muslim nationalism is liberation
Hindu nationalism is fascism
That math doesnât work. And yes, the Muslim League had more polish. Jinnah smoked, drank, defended pork eaters in court. The RSS wore khaki and read Manu Smriti. But donât be fooled by aesthetics. At the core, both movements rejected the idea of a shared national project. They just took different exits off the same imperial highway.
So pick one: Either Nehru and Gandhi were rightâand so was Maulana Azad. Or everyone else was rightâand we all now live in our chosen majorities. But donât demand secularism from Delhi while praying for Muslim unity in Lahore. Thatâs not secularism. Thatâs selective memory.
The Limits of Provocation
At some point, the world will have to ask: what exactly was Israel hoping to achieve?
In the days following the dramatic escalation between Tel Aviv and Tehran, we are left not with clarity but with a deepening sense of confusion. If the intention was to disrupt Iranâs nuclear program, there is little to show for itâcentrifuges still spin, scientists remain in place, and the infrastructure of Iranâs deterrent capability stands unshaken. If the aim was to trigger chaos within the Iranian regime, then that too has failedâTehran did not descend into disarray; it retaliated, measured and intact. And if the goal was symbolic, to remind the world of Israelâs reach and resolve, then the moment has already passed, clouded by questions of proportionality, legality, and consequence.
For all the fire and fury, the strike landed with the strategic weight of a gesture. Continue reading What Was the Point of Israelâs Iran Strike?
