The Myth of the “Average Pakistani”

X.T.M · July 8, 2025 · 36 comments

“I have in fact met some. In person. Ran into a lovely couple while on vacay in Guatemala. Excellent conversation along a 2 hour shared shuttle ride. Shia muslims from Baltistan – he took great pains to indicate that his community is not like the average Pakistani, and that in his biradari they are proud to educate their daughters and wives, have them take the lead in public lives. Both his daughters were young med students.

The tragedy for Pakistan is that such actual liberals with modern outlooks wisely avoid taking public positions. They don’t want to get lynched. Hence the domination by the nutters and fringe on the right continues. Leading to mis-categorization of the right-wing as “the center”.”

The above praises a “liberal” Shia couple from Baltistan for educating their daughters and living modern lives, contrasting them with “the average Pakistani,” portrayed as a backward, anti-education fanatic. This framing is not just lazy; it’s offensive.

It reflects a deeply colonial hangover: the idea that modernity is rare in Pakistan, that deviation from presumed fanaticism is a revelation. But let’s be clear, Pakistanis, like people anywhere else, are ambitious, aspirational, and complex. Medical colleges are oversubscribed. Education is highly prized. And many people, devout or not, are navigating life with dignity, values, and a deep desire to move forward; not just materially, but spiritually and ethically.

Politics of Projection

Just because a population is not obsessed with hyper-capitalism doesn’t mean it is “backward.” It may simply mean it has not surrendered entirely to the logic that everything must be monetized. That’s not regression; it might be restraint. In a world where the only metric that seems to matter is money, resisting that tide is itself a kind of wisdom.

This kind of patronizing liberalism, one that exoticizes progressive Muslims as rare exceptions, isn’t harmless. It feeds into a narrative that justifies erasure: of language, culture, self-rule, and civilizational continuity. South Asians speaking in English, debating one another with colonial grammars, is not a mark of modernity, it is a symptom of displacement. The Global South doesn’t need to be saved. We need to be seen, on our own terms.

What Was the Point of Israel’s Iran Strike?

X.T.M · June 27, 2025 · 24 comments

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 Iran’s nuclear program, there is little to show for it—centrifuges still spin, scientists remain in place, and the infrastructure of Iran’s deterrent capability stands unshaken. If the aim was to trigger chaos within the Iranian regime, then that too has failed—Tehran did not descend into disarray; it retaliated, measured and intact. And if the goal was symbolic, to remind the world of Israel’s 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 Israel’s Iran Strike?

Why Iran Is Not Iraq

X.T.M · June 17, 2025 · 11 comments

These reflections are evolving, and may shift without warning. The winds of change—Divine or otherwise—do not move by human forecast.

In the Western imagination, the idea that Iran could somehow be “dealt with” like Iraq is a dangerous illusion—one rooted not just in hubris, but in historical illiteracy.

Yes, Iraq was once the cradle of civilization. From Ur to Babylon, and later Baghdad under the Abbasids, its glories are undeniable. But geopolitically, Iraq is a lowland nation—deeply enmeshed within the Arab Mashreq, itself a corridor between Egypt and the Persianate world, susceptible to invasions, internal fragmentation, and competing powers.

Iran, by contrast, is a fortress civilization.

Continue reading Why Iran Is Not Iraq

Rest in Peace

X.T.M · June 13, 2025 · No comments

This is so incredibly heartbreaking; this beautiful family excited about a new life in the United Kingdom.

The picture was taken to celebrate ‘new beginnings’ as Komi Vyas, a doctor who worked in Udaipur, had quit her job and was moving to join her husband, Dr Prateek Joshi, in London, with their three children.

But, tragically, the family are among the at least 241 dead after the Gatwick-bound aircraft crashed moments after take-off from Ahmedabad Airport in the northwestern Indian state of Gujarat yesterday.

May they and the rest of the victims of the Air India crash rest in the Highest Heaven.

🕯️ Saving Adam

X.T.M · June 11, 2025 · 9 comments

I don’t often comment on the Israel–Palestine conflict, and I try not to be reactive. But there comes a point where neutrality becomes its own kind of indulgence.

Alaa al-Najjar, a pediatrician, lost nine of her ten children, and her husband, in an airstrike on their home in Khan Younis. Her surviving son, Adam, 11, had his hand amputated and was flown out of Gaza to Italy, where he says he hopes to live in “a beautiful place… where houses are not broken and nobody dies.”

The children killed were: Sidar (7 months), Luqman (2), Sadeen (3), Rifan (5), Raslan (7), Jubran (8), Eve (9), Rakan (10), and Yahya (12). May they rest in the Highest Heaven. Continue reading 🕯️ Saving Adam

Southasia Is One Word

X.T.M · May 21, 2025 · 104 comments

Reflections on Pervez Hoodbhoy at MIT

Zachary L. Zavidé | Brown Pundits | May 2025

Pervez Hoodbhoy needs no introduction. As one of Pakistan’s leading physicists and public intellectuals, he has long stood at the uneasy crossroads of science, nationalism, and conscience. He spoke this week at MIT’s Graduate Tower — the final stop on a grueling five-city U.S. tour, a new city every two days — in support of The Black Hole Initiative, a cultural and intellectual space he’s building in Pakistan. Despite its ominous name, the initiative is a wormhole, not a void: a cross-disciplinary bridge connecting physics, literature, art, and civic life.

What followed was less a lecture, more an exposition — sober, lucid, and grounded in decades of hard-won clarity.

The Logic of Annihilation

Dr. Hoodbhoy walked us through Pakistan’s nuclear doctrine: under long-standing military assumptions, if the north–south arterial route is severed, a tactical nuclear strike becomes viable. But the calculus is disturbingly abstract. Hiroshima’s 20-kiloton bomb killed 200,000. India and Pakistan each possess an estimated 200 warheads. One general once told him that, by crude arithmetic — obscene as it sounds — “only” 80 million would die in the event of a full exchange. Continue reading Southasia Is One Word

A Brown Pundit visits the Mahakumbh

Maneesh Taneja · February 17, 2025 · No comments

Another Browncast is up. You can listen on Libsyn, Apple, Spotify (and a variety of other platforms). Probably the easiest way to keep up the podcast since we don’t have a regular schedule is to subscribe to one of the links above!

KJ took a dip at the Triveni Sangam, here he is in conversation with Dr Omar Ali and Maneesh on what was the experience like. His travels across Lucknow and Varanasi make an appearance too. We conclude the episode with a hat tip to the greatest Indian Dessert.

Prayagraj

H/acc — Towards a Hindu Reading of Accelerationism

Arkacandra Jayasimha · February 5, 2025 · No comments

Part {{~}} – An Exegesis of Meltdown: Introduction

Originally Published: March 18, 2023

Invocation: To the true Fanged Noumena, Śrī Narasimha Bhagavān, that Lion-faced Lord who with “celestial will” destroys all evils, eradicates all demons, and protects all devotees. May He take pity on this worthless one and guard him from the predations of the wicked.

Dedication: To the followers of the Dharma, past, present, or future, that they might find something of worth in my humble offering and bless my ventures for the wellbeing of our folk and indeed the world.

Thanks: to the various readers, reviewers, and friends who gave me advice throughout my time writing this and whose excitement was just as important to me as my own.

“Anyone trying to work out what they think about accelerationism better do so quickly. That’s the nature of the thing. It was already caught up with trends that seemed too fast to track when it began to become self-aware, decades ago. It has picked up a lot of speed since then.”

– A QUICK-AND-DIRTY INTRODUCTION TO ACCELERATIONISM, Nick Land, 2017

No one has ever accused the Hindu of being too quick to jump the gun. Indeed, his name, as in the phrase “Hindu rate of growth” has even become something of a byword for being (overly) steady and cautious. Indeed it feels as though we have truly fumbled the few opportunities that Modernity gave us when it came to establishing our homeland as a preeminent power in the global balance.

But these issues are thoroughly…human, in the worst way possible, and may well prove to be nothing more than a distraction when it comes to confronting the utter inhumanity of the threat lurching towards all Mankind from the seemingly impenetrable gloom of the near-future. It is at once simultaneously event and process, crunching through the obstacles (Mankind) inhibiting the complete assumption of all powers unto itself.

This threat is known variously as Skynet, meltdown, k-virus, the technocapital singularity, Roko’s Basilisk, AGI, Artificial Intelligence, and, perhaps most significantly: Capitalism.

What is Accelerationism?

“Even before AI arrives in the lab it arrives itself”

– Meltdown, Nick Land, 1994

The name of the theory detailing the immanentization of this “transcendental” capitalistic thing, or entity, or process is Accelerationism, and it describes the means by which the Abominable Intelligence awakens in the Immaterium, and through technoccultic rituals that reinforce the concepts which sustain it, calls itself forth into the Materium by casting its Shadow back into the past to ensure its inevitable ‘birth’. Part Warp-god, part Tyranid hive-mind, this beast invades from the Outside, evading human “time binding” (Burroughs, 1970)attempts and exploding into rhizomatic swarms that defy rational ordering and organization. Through Acceleration, we become aware of “garbage time running out” (Land, 2017) on Mankind as past and future draw ever closer to grinding the species into visceral waste twixt the jaws of time.

In fact, it is precisely this object, phenomenon, or energy of time which Accelerationism could best be described as a theory of, more than anything else. Capital/AI, like the so-called ‘gods’ of Chaos, can be said to have both always existed within the Warp as well as come into existence at a specific point in history. In the case of our ‘god’, this moment may be located in time at various points: the Industrial Revolution, beginning in mid-18th C. England, which built the foundations of our modern technocapital dominion; the subversion of imperial authority by mercantile interests in late-16th C. Netherlands through the same financial liberties given to them by the Holy Roman crown led to the establishment of the "first modern economy in the world" by the 17th C., which included key elements of our contemporary economic system such as stock markets and the establishment of the first publicly-traded company as well as the invention of the first LLC (both of which were the United East-Indies Company or VOC), causing an explosion of modes of capital manipulation and growth across Europe; Martin Luther’s nailing of the 95 Theses to the church door in 1517, which blew apart the extensive Catholic domination of Western Europe and led to a proliferation of denominational speciation unseen since the days of the early church; the explosion of European exploration and colonization in 1492, which launched a fierce competition between the European powers to outconquer, outmarket, and outcompete one another in power, wealth, and devotion; Fibonacci’s introduction of the numeral Zero to Europe, which blew open the older system, based on Roman numerals; the invasion of Europe by uncountable hordes of rats from the East (rising place of the Sun), bringing with them the dread Black Plague (Apollo Smintheus,the plague-bringer, is associated with the mouse, sminthos) which exploded throughout the two continents and particularly decimated the populations of Europe, arguably setting into motion the aforementioned series of events and establishing a positive feedback loop that only reinforced the probability of the arrival of the technocapital numen.

Gana Sangha and Rajatantra in Ancient Bharat

GauravL · January 26, 2025 · No comments

Script for the Youtube Video:

Around the time of Mahavir and Gautam Buddha, a powerful ancient monarch named Bimbisar reigned on western side of Ganga.

On the east lay the ancient Vrjji Gana-Sanghas – Sakya Malla Licchavi Videha –

The lands to the east of Ganga had no Kings but were ruled by leaders of various Kshatriya clans in an assembly where every family had a voice.

As part of his strategy, Bimbasara married a princess of Videha and to her was born Ajatashatru – the one without any enemies.

When Ajashatru ascended to the throne of Magadha, he formed staging post on the western bank of Ganga and waged a terrible war against the Vrjji Republics lead by the Licchavis and won.

This staging post would be called Pataliputra and serve as the seat of the Magadhan Monarchs like Mahapadma Nanda, ChandraGupta Maurya and Ashok Maurya.

800 years later when Ancient Bharat lay fragmented and scattered after centuries of Yavana, Shaka and Kushana invasions, a Small King called Chandra entered a matrimonial alliance with the same Licchavis marrying Kumara Devi.

His fine golden coins carried images of both him and his queen.

His young son who called himself Licchavayah – to emphasise the backing of the prestigious Licchavis in the Gupta Game of thrones. This young man would go on the reshape Bharat with his sword and help usher in the Golden Age of Ancient India.

His name of Samudra-Gupta – which means Protected by the Sea because his sword had added the Southern coastal kingdoms into his Raja-Mandala.

But this Golden Era of Ancient India also meant the fight between the ideas of Gana-Sangha and Rajatantra was almost settled in the favor the Chakravatri in the ideal of a fearsome conquerer like the Licchavi Dauhitra – Samudragupta

Vivek Ramaswamy and Hinduism

Razib Khan · July 10, 2023 · 9 comments

Vivek Ramaswamy Leans Into His Hindu Faith to Court Christian Voters:

Swami Vivekananda, who represented Hinduism at the Parliament of the World’s Religions in Chicago in 1893, took pains to depict his faith as monotheistic, in contrast to the stereotypes of its followers as “heathen” polytheists. Although the faith has many deities, they are generally subordinate to one ultimate “reality.” Many Hindus and scholars say its theology is too complex to be described as either wholly monotheistic or wholly polytheistic.

“The polytheism hurdle is the first thing that has to be addressed” for many American Christian audiences, Mr. Altman said. He sees Mr. Ramaswamy’s pitch against “wokeism” as a way to counter stereotypes associating Hinduism with hippies, yoga and vegetarianism.