Five billionaires have as much wealth as half of humanity ~ Vandana Shiva
Prime Minister of Uzbekistan, Singing Raj Kapoor’s Song.
Seems LV also stole its TM design from India.
Continue reading Open Thread: Bharat overawes France
Tag: soft power
Open Thread (Birthday)
Imran Khanâs sons speak out: âOur fatherâs prison conditions arenât bad, theyâre awful.â Whatever one thinks of Pakistani politics, the treatment of a former prime minister is a measure of a stateâs institutional health.
Is the Paknationalism or Indophilia; the strange twist of Pakistan is that both can be true at the same time.
It was my birthday two days ago on the 15th. The official celebration will be later this month in Sri Lanka, but the last few weeks have been unusually hectic with travel and work. Continue reading Open Thread (Birthday)
Dhurandhar showcases Bollywoodâs New Obsession: The Sexy Pakistani Villain
We watched Dhurandhar last night at Apple Cinemas (the last time we went to see Ishaan Khatter’s Homebound). It is the best mass-market Bollywood film Iâve seen since Animal, and far more immersive. What struck me most was not the action, nor the plot, but Bollywoodâs new formula: a full-scale fetishisation of Pakistan.
Kabir keeps claiming that Bollywood casts Pakistanis as villains. This misses the point. The villain is always the sexiest figure in any film. Bollywood has finally realised this. Raazi hinted at it. Animal stumbled on it with Bobby Deol’s star stealing turn. Dhurandhar perfects it.
For the first time, Hindu actors are not performing cartoon versions of Pakistan. They are cosplaying Pakistanis with forensic precision; the clothes, the diction, the swagger, the social codes. In earlier decades the attempt was clumsy. Now the calibration is exact. Pakistan, in these films, becomes the Wild West of the subcontinent: familiar enough to feel intimate, distant enough to feel dangerous. Continue reading Dhurandhar showcases Bollywoodâs New Obsession: The Sexy Pakistani Villain
Threads, Carpets, and PM Modi’s 75th
Happy Birthday Pradhan Mantri:
I watched several videos â four or five, maybe more â of public figures sending their wishes. Among them: Donald Trump, Narendra Modi, Benjamin Netanyahu, Shah Rukh Khan, Aamir Khan, Mohammed Siraj, and Mukesh Ambani.
Mukesh Ambani, of course, remains closely aligned with the establishment, and Aamir Khan seemed to lean heavily into his Hindu heritage â adorned with Rakhis on his wrist, even a Bindi. Heâs presenting himself now in a distinctly Hindu cultural idiom, though he comes from a very prominent Indian Muslim family.
By contrast, Shah Rukh Khan stood out. His message was subtly sardonic â he remarked that the recipient was âoutrunning young people like me.â It was light, but just subversive enough to feel intentional. Interestingly, both Shah Rukh and Aamir spoke in shuddh Hindi, which added a certain performative weight to their gestures.
Hindu Art
Iâve been fairly busy the past few days, mostly focused on BRAHM Collections;Â writing about carpets, curating Trimurti sculptures, and exploring Ardhanarishvara iconography. Itâs been a deep dive into the civilizational grammar of India and by extension, the porous boundary between sacred art and civil religion.
In the background, Iâve also been chipping away at longer-form reflections; trying to crack the formula for my newsletter (believe it or not the readership is neck to neck with BP but different demographics). Itâs all a bit scattered, but the writing has become its own brown paper trail.
On the Commentariat (and Why Iâm Stepping Back)
I still follow the commentariat but Iâm slowly easing off. Thereâs a rhythm to it, sure, but too often it turns into exhaustion. Iâve removed all of Honey Singhâs abusive posts. Abuse is now a hard red line for me, but beyond that, Iâm stepping back from constant moderation or sparring. Continue reading Threads, Carpets, and PM Modi’s 75th
𧔠Open Thread: Hate Speech, Travel Notes, and Diplomatic Surprises
I just saw a comment that genuinely crossed the line; not just a misstep, but something hateful, dehumanizing, and deeply communal. It invoked Partition violence in a way that glorified massacre. Thatâs not just a dogwhistle, thatâs a foghorn.
As most of you know, Iâm a light-touch moderator. I tolerate a lot. I believe in messy dialogue. Iâve been fair on my WhatsApp groups, fair on BP, and generally try to err on the side of letting things play out. But this? This wasnât a close call. It was a clear failure of moral language.
Even if the commenter didnât âmean it,â this kind of rhetoric has consequences. When youâre speaking about events like 1947, where entire families were destroyed, you need to speak with care, not contempt. Thereâs no room for casual violence, coded language, or historical gloating. None. Zero.
Before this commenter contributes further to the blog, he will need to fully retract and apologise for the communal language he used. Criticism is fair game. But hate speech is not. Kabir can be theatrical, yes but he does not traffic in dehumanization. The standards must be consistent, and that comment clearly crossed the line.
Please observe this on the thread. Iâm traveling, and this is an open post. Iâll be back with more soon. Iâve written a bit in my newsletter but I will expand on those.
In the meantime:
âĄïž Yes, it appears Pakistan is running smart diplomacy â both with Iran and the U.S.
âĄïž I don’t have time to share the links (plane about to take off); theyâre all Google-able.
âĄïž But credit where itâs due. There is no infallibility in foreign affairs. But when someone cannot stand to see Pakistan get anything right, it reveals more about their own biases than about geopolitics.
This isnât about defending states or “sides”; itâs about defending basic decency in discourse.
India, Pakistan & the Central Asian Dancefloor
India and Pakistan used to dance together; locked in step, even if offbeat. Now, they move in opposite directions, occasionally brushing shoulders, never quite facing each other.
Take this month. On one hand, India is set to join the Central Asian Football Associationâs (CAFA) Nations Cup; a sporting signal of its growing diplomatic footprint across post-Soviet Asia. On the other hand, India pulled out of the WCL 2025 cricket semi-final against Pakistan, citing the tragic Pahalgam terror attack. The result? Pakistan walked into the final uncontested.
Two headlines. Two very different moods. One shows India gaining legitimacy in a new regional club. The other reflects how fragile the bilateral dance with Pakistan remains. Continue reading India, Pakistan & the Central Asian Dancefloor
War in the Sanskritopolis
The long-running dispute between Thailand and Cambodia dates back more than a century, when the borders of the two nations were drawn after the French occupation of Cambodia.
Things officially became hostile in 2008, when Cambodia tried to register an 11th Century temple located in the disputed area as a Unesco World Heritage Site – a move that was met with heated protest from Thailand.
Why A Cluster Of Hindu Temples Is At Heart Of Thailand-Cambodia Conflict
Itâs striking to see just how deeply Dharmic culture shaped Southeast Asia â not just as historical residue, but as a living civilizational layer. Buddhism, in many respects, prepared the civilizational terrain that Islam would later traverse.
Buddhism, too, was not monolithic. The Sri Lankan TheravÄda tradition influenced the western flank of Indo-China, while Mahayana currents, traveling through Sumatra, appear to have looped back toward Guangzhou, feeding into the Sinosphere.
The sectarian divergence between Thailand and Cambodia â TheravÄda vs. Mahayanaâ adds nuance to territorial and cultural disputes like the Preah Vihear Temple, whose iconography and inheritance clearly align more with Cambodian history.
These are not just archaeological debates. Theyâre about cultural legitimacy, historical continuity, and civilizational memory.
In such moments, India, that is Bharat, must not remain a bystander. As the civilizational fountainhead, it should be playing a constructive role in cultural mediation and soft power diplomacy.
Hans Zimmer and the Polite Dismissal of the Ramayana
When producer Namit Malhotra began explaining the Ramayana to Hans Zimmer, the legendary composer cut him off:
âYou donât have to explain it to me. Something that has lasted thousands of years clearly has meaning. Letâs just do our best. Itâs beyond us.â
Malhotra took this as reverence. In fact, it was erasure.
No serious Western artist would score The Ten Commandments or Schindlerâs List without knowing the story. Imagine a composer saying, âDonât explain the Illiad to me, itâs beyond me.â Theyâd be fired. But when it comes to Indian epics? The bar is subterranean. Thatâs not reverence.
Thatâs: Iâm Western, Iâm famous, Iâm here for the cheque; not the history. The tragedy isnât Zimmerâs line. Itâs Malhotraâs awe. A Westerner shrugs off our most sacred text, and we call it wisdom. Thatâs not cultural pride. Thatâs civilizational confusion. Itâs a pattern. Many elite Indians are fluent in the language of Islamic grievance; but tone-deaf to Western condescension.
Divide and rule still works:
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Hindus thank the British for âfreeingâ them from Muslim rule
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Muslims thank the British for âprotectingâ them from Hindu majoritarianism
Meanwhile, the West shrugs at our stories and we applaud.
Shravan Monday at the New England Temple
Continue reading Hans Zimmer and the Polite Dismissal of the Ramayana
đȘ Whatâs in a Name? Mukesh, Not Mukash.
While reading Brad DeLongâs fascinating newsletter on centi-billionaires and political power (I’m going to ignore Elon’s self-imploding stunt), I noticed something that jarred me more than it should have: Mukesh Ambaniâs name was misspelled as âMukash.â A minor slip, perhaps. But it was the only error in a list that included Bernard Arnault, Warren Buffett, and Michael Bloombergâmen whose names command a certain global familiarity.
What does it say that even after spending nearly half a billion dollars on a wedding for his son, Indiaâs wealthiest man doesnât merit a spellcheck? It says a lot.
đ§ The Chimera of Respect via Capital Continue reading đȘ Whatâs in a Name? Mukesh, Not Mukash.
âA Foreign Class of Servantsâ â JD Vance and the Great American Amnesia
Vice President JD Vance recently declared that America doesnât need to âimport a foreign class of servantsâ to remain competitive. âWe did it in the â50s and â60s,â he said. âWe put a man on the moon with American talent. Some German and Jewish scientists who had come over during World War two, but mostly by American citizens.â
The line is memorableânot for its nationalism, but for its breathtaking amnesia.
The moon landing was not the product of some closed, white-bread meritocracy. It was powered by German engineers, Jewish refugees, and immigrant scientistsâmany quite literally âimported.â Wernher von Braun, the face of NASAâs rocket program, was a former Nazi, repurposed by America for its Cold War dreams.
Today, the immigrant pipeline Vance sneers at includes his own in-lawsâhis wifeâs parents, Indian-born academics. I’ve highlighted this problematic tendency before. They werenât servants. They were scholars. Like hundreds of thousands who have powered this countryâs universities, tech firms, hospitals, and labs. America doesnât run on pedigree. It runs on brains. And yes, those brains often have accents.
America First doesnât mean America stays first Continue reading âA Foreign Class of Servantsâ â JD Vance and the Great American Amnesia