Running a platform is not the same as winning an argument. It is about tone, trajectory, and whether the conversation rises or sinks. I edit out BB’s comments not because I fear disagreement, and not because I am fragile about India or Pakistan. I edit them because they are crude. Crudeness is not courage.
Between Critique and Provocation
There is a difference between sharp critique and coarse provocation. Kabir and I disagree deeply about India. He defends the fake term โSouth Asiaโ as necessary. It’s a neocolonialist invention designed to dissolve the world’s oldest and most prominent civilisation (the Indian Subcontinent) into a compass direction. We argue. We contest premises. We clash over legitimacy, sovereignty, and naming. But the disagreement is structured. It is intelligible. It is civil. It forces clarity.
BB’s interventions, by contrast, tend to flatten everything into sneer and insinuation. That degrades the space. A forum that tolerates permanent coarseness slowly becomes defined by it. Readers do not return for noise. They return for thought. There are, to be fair, strong exceptions; for instance when he analysed the cricketing economy to illustrate how much weaker the Pakistani consumer-tax base is compared to its Indian counterpart.
Japan & Germany wake up
Continue reading Germany Is Rearming. Japan Is Shifting. And Desis Are Arguing Like Teenagers.