Millions in India stripped of vote before critical state election, as government seeks to ‘purify’ electoral roll

Kabir · April 23, 2026 · 3 comments

I’m trying to stay away from commenting too much about India’s internal affairs. But this is too important not to mention.

From The Guardian:

Millions of people in the Indian state of West Bengal have been stripped of their vote ahead of a critical state election this week, after a controversial electoral revision described by critics as a “bloodless political genocide” and mass disenfranchisement of minorities.

In West Bengal, a total of 9.1 million names have been deleted from the register, more than 10% of the electorate. While many were dead or duplicates, about 2.7 million people have challenged their expulsions, but still been removed.

The process of revising the electoral roll, known as Special Intensive Revision (SIR), has been taking place in states and territories across India, justified by the Narendra Modi government as a way to stop “infiltrators” – a pejorative term largely referring to illegal Muslim Bangladeshi immigrants – from voting.

The divisive exercise by the central Bharatiya Janata party (BJP) government to “purify” the electoral roll – in the words of home minister Amit Shah – has led to a chorus of fury.

And:

SY Quraishi, the former election commissioner of India, was among those who raised concerns over the justification and the processes of SIR, both in West Bengal and other states, and said it raised serious questions over the election commission’s role.

“I feel very awkward and hesitant about commenting on my successor, but as a citizen, I see what is happening and I must speak out,” he said. “The SIR is completely unnecessary, it is designed to harass. Administratively it is a disaster and the intentions are not noble.

He added: “It took us 30 years to achieve 99% accuracy in the rolls. They expect to exceed this in three months. Why this frantic rush if the main objective is accuracy?”

For the “largest democracy in the world” to be removing voters from electoral rolls in such a rushed manner is a transparent attempt to shape political outcomes. One must note the BJP has never been able to achieve a foothold in West Bengal.

There has been a lot of criticism on BP about Pakistan’s lack of democratic credentials. Much of this criticism is justified. It is a fact that Pakistan has had three military coups in its history while India has largely remained an uninterrupted democracy–with the exception of the Emergency. However, this “Special Intensive Revision” indicates democratic backsliding.

 

 

Kabir, the Anchor of the Crescent

X.T.M · April 23, 2026 · 13 comments

Dissent Must Have a Home

The parent post set out why the house speaks in the plural and why pruning widens the room. This post sets out the harder discipline. A plural voice that cannot bind itself is not a voice. It is a whip. And a forum that cannot bind its Founders is not a forum. It is their salon.

The Crescent anchor.

When Brown Pundits was revived, two commentators returned before anyone else. Kabir was one of them. sbarrkum was the other. That mattered more than any traffic number. A forum lives by the return of people willing to argue in public, under their own names or their settled masks, on a schedule that does not flinch.

Kabir matters for a second reason. The Centre gathers quietly and often overlaps with the Saffron bench in instinct or historical frame. The Crescent bloc on this site is essentially held together by Kabir. Remove him and the others do not regroup under a new flag. They drift.

Without Kabir, Brown Pundits will become a site where Muslims are written about more than they are written by.

Continue reading Kabir, the Anchor of the Crescent

We Are Now Hitting 200 Comments a Day

X.T.M · April 22, 2026 · 4 comments

And Why We Use the Word “We”. A BP Precedent Post (our 40th one).

We begin with the constitutional question. Why is BP’s editorial voice plural?

“We” depersonalises the view. A plural voice separates the ruling from the individual. When a comment is moderated, a post is Precedented, or a thread is steered, the call is not a private preference dressed up as authority. It is the house speaking, on the record, under rules that must survive this case and govern the next.

200 a Day

Daily comment volume has risen sharply and is now nudging 200. Active commentators have expanded from a handful to around twenty. Removal rates are running at an estimated ten to twenty percent of all comments. The more we prune, the faster the diversity of commentators grows.

The BP Factions Continue reading We Are Now Hitting 200 Comments a Day

Review: The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company

Kabir · April 22, 2026 · No comments

Since there has been some discussion of the Dalrymples recently, I am sharing this book review. 

William Dalrymple is one of the foremost historians of colonial India, known for works such as White Mughals, The Last Mughal, and Return of a King. His latest work—The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of The East India Company (Bloomsbury 2019)—continues in the tradition of popular history, telling the story of the East India Company’s conquest of India following Lord Clive’s 1757 victory over Siraj ud-Daula, the Nawab of Bengal, at the Battle of Plassey. The book ends with the Company’s conquest of Delhi in 1803 and the defeat of the Marathas—the last Indian power capable of resisting the British. The Company would rule India until the aftermath of the Sepoy Mutiny of 1857, when governance was transferred directly to the British Crown.

While we commonly speak of the “British conquest of India”, Dalrymple notes that it was not the British government that colonized India, but a private corporation, solely interested in maximizing its shareholders’ profit. In the Epilogue, he succinctly explains his book’s thesis, writing:

The East India Company remains today history’s most ominous warning about the potential for the abuse of corporate power–and the insidious means by which the interests of shareholders can seemingly become those of the state. For as recent American adventures in Iraq have shown, our world is far from post-imperial, and quite probably never will be. Instead Empire is transforming itself into forms of global power that use campaign contributions and commercial lobbying, multinational finance systems and global markets, corporate influence and the predictive data harvesting of the new surveillance-capitalism rather than–or sometimes alongside–overt military conquest, occupation or direct economic domination to effect its ends (397).

Continue reading Review: The Anarchy: The Relentless Rise of the East India Company

Does the average muslim ‘dislike hindus’?

RecoveringNewsJunkie · April 22, 2026 · 68 comments

Admin Note: This is a Precedent Post.

“You seem to be underestimating how much the average Muslim dislikes Hindus (and vice versa). This is a sad reality.”

This comment on a thread conversation – yet again discussing partition on BP, jumped out at me. And I think it deserves to be dissected.

I for one, strongly disagree with the projection of personal animus, extrapolated all the way into the ‘average muslim’. And vice versa. I’m going to assume that Kabir is ‘only’ deigning to speak on behalf of the ‘average muslim’ of the subcontinent, and not beyond. But even then, I think this assertion is utterly inaccurate.

I do not believe that ‘disliking Hindus’ is baked into the character or mindset of the muslims of the subcontinent, whether in India, or beyond it, into Bangladesh of Pakistan. Now, I am aware of the ‘kufr’ attack lines that those suffering from Islamophobia often deploy and may even believe. But I am confident that this is the usual weaponization of the fringe by those with ignorant, or intentionally jaundiced agendas.

The Problem with Monolithic Thinking

To say that “Muslims dislike Hindus” is to treat over 500 million people across multiple countries as if they share a single mindset. This kind of thinking ignores differences in geography, class, education, political views, and personal experiences.

Communities are not monoliths. A Muslim family in Kerala may have vastly different social interactions and attitudes compared to one in Lahore or Dhaka. The same is true for Hindus across regions. Reducing such diversity to a single emotional stance erases individual agency and lived reality.

Historical Context Matters—but So Does Interpretation

It’s true that the subcontinent has witnessed periods of conflict, most notably during the Partition of 1947. That traumatic event left deep scars and continues to influence inter-community perceptions. However, it is a mistake to project historical violence onto present-day relationships without acknowledging the decades of peaceful coexistence that have followed.

In fact, millions of Hindus and Muslims continue to live side by side, working together, forming friendships, and even intermarrying. Everyday life in much of the subcontinent is not defined by hostility but by routine interaction.

The Role of Politics and Media

Modern tensions, where they exist, are often amplified by political rhetoric or media framing. Narratives that emphasize division can serve specific agendas, making it appear as though distrust is more widespread than it actually is.

It’s important to distinguish between politically motivated discourse and the attitudes of ordinary people. The loudest voices are not always the most representative.

Lived Reality: Coexistence Over Conflict

Walk through neighborhoods in cities like Mumbai, Delhi, Karachi, or Dhaka, and you’ll find markets, schools, and workplaces where Hindus and Muslims interact daily. Festivals are sometimes shared, businesses are jointly run, and friendships cross religious lines.

These everyday examples rarely make headlines, but they represent the true fabric of society.

Why Generalizations Are Harmful

Broad claims about mutual dislike do more than misrepresent reality—they can actively contribute to division. When people are told repeatedly that another group harbors negative feelings toward them, it can create suspicion where none existed.

Challenging such narratives is not about denying that tensions exist, but about refusing to let those tensions define entire populations.

A More Nuanced Understanding

A more accurate perspective acknowledges that:

Historical conflicts exist, but so does long-term coexistence
Political narratives can distort social realities
Individual experiences vary widely
Cultural interdependence is a defining feature of the region

If we are to understand the subcontinent honestly, we must move beyond simplistic narratives and recognize the complexity—and humanity—of its people. Resorting to ignorant tropes about ‘muslims dislike hindus and vice versa’ not only should be avoided, but deserves to be countered forcefully.

Men of State, and the Great Mahatma

X.T.M · April 22, 2026 · 50 comments

A Precedent Post on Gandhi, Ambedkar, and the Authority to Speak

Kabir is right to push back on the deliberately provocative, “pure evil.” It misses what QeA & Nehru were and what Gandhi & Ambedkar were.

This post sets four Precedents.

One. QeA and Nehru were men of state. Neither evil, neither saint. To be evaluated by the standards appropriate to men who build and run states.

Two. Gandhi was a man of Dharma. He is a saint. Comparing him with QeA and Nehru on their terms is a category error.

Three. Ambedkar is the fourth figure. Not a man of state in the QeA or Nehru sense; not a man of Dharma in the Gandhian sense. He is a constitutional saint, in the Mahatma’s register.

Nehru and QeA may be criticised. They may not be disrespected. Gandhi and Ambedkar are a different order. Discussion of them on this blog proceeds from profound respect for their achievement: the redemption of the soul of India after a thousand years of slavery.

*Thousand years of slavery is not Precedent but rhetorical flourish. It is worth noting that all of the Pakistani commentators on BP would be subordinated “Hindustani Muslims” in the hierarchical world of the Mughals, who explicitly favoured foreign-born Turani and Irani nobles over the converted Indian majority.

Four. SD is not to be quoted on this blog. Initials only where strictly necessary. Reasons at section XII.

Part I. The Distinction

I. The Man of State

The modern state is a Westphalian inheritance: territory, a monopoly of violence, legal personality. A man of state operates inside that frame. He does not step outside it.

QeA was a man of state. He was perhaps the finest constitutional negotiator the subcontinent produced in the twentieth century. He read the Government of India Act the way a master reads a score. In his Fourteen Points of 1929, drafted in response to the Nehru Report’s dismissal of the Muslim minority, he foresaw with brutal clarity that a Westminster majority in a plural society could become a permanent tyranny once the demographic count was fixed.

According to Mohammad Ali Jinnah, “The Committee has adopted a narrow minded policy to ruin the political future of the Muslims. I regret to declare that the report is extremely ambiguous and does not deserve to be implemented.”

There is a reason Pakistanis venerate him to the extent they do. Without QeA, the Muslims of the subcontinent would have remained a set of regional identities & class interests: Punjabi, United Provinces aristocrats, Bengali. He forged a single Islamicate identity out of them and politicised it into a state. In the history of the Ummah, and indeed the world, this is almost unique.

The Two Nation Theory was not his starting point. In 1916, at Lucknow, Sarojini Naidu called him the Ambassador of Hindu-Muslim Unity, and the phrase was earned. He reached for the Two Nation Theory two decades later, when the softer constitutional instruments had been closed off by Congress intransigence and Viceregal haste.

The tragedy of QeA is that the state he called into being never settled its founding question. A secular Muslim who ate pork and drank whisky summoned an Islamic state and then, on 11 August 1947, tried to unsummon it in a speech that Pakistan has spent the rest of its history editing out of its school curriculum. The confusion was structural from day one. It is structural still.

II. The Architect and the Scaffold

Nehru was a man of state of a different temperament. Harrow, Cambridge, Inner Temple. Fabian socialist. Scientific temper. Where QeA built a state around a community, Nehru built one around an idea: that a civilisation as old as India could be poured into a parliamentary republic and would accept the mould. It largely did. We owe him this.

Continue reading Men of State, and the Great Mahatma

Afghan Music in Exile: Artists at Risk and Art in Danger

Kabir · April 22, 2026 · 15 comments

An extreme form of political censorship of music in Afghanistan not only threatens the life of musicians but also the very survival of Afghan musical traditions. Many artists have fled the country to seek refuge in Europe, North America, Iran and Pakistan. In Afghanistan, the sound of music has vanished and its transmission is severely interrupted. In an impulse lecture, Marko Kölbl will discuss the ban on music in Afghanistan, its impact within the country, and introduce Afghan artists and their music practice in exile, offering perspectives from various parts of the world. Moderated by Arieb Azhar, a follow-up discussion will then reflect on the situation of Afghan musicians in exile from an global perspective and assess urgent needs for Afghan artists and strategies in safeguarding Afghan musical practices outside the country.

I recently met Marko when he visited Lahore. I sang for him and he played the piano for me and my family.  I also gifted him a copy of my book  A New Explanation for the Decline of Hindustani Music in Pakistan. 

 

 

Parsi Nanis Are Gujarati

X.T.M · April 21, 2026 · 14 comments

Part I of III: Hypergamy, Endogamy, and the Terminal Phase of the Parsi Model

With a nod to the Y. M. Hodiwalla thread on the Parsi Zoroastrians Worldwide Facebook page, 19 April 2026.

“The Parsis are a quarter Gujarati (genetically). Essentially their Nanis are Gujjus and interestingly enough culture is almost always transmitted via the mothers and their mothers.”

I. The Language Is the Mother

On 19 April, Y. M. Hodiwalla published a long lament on the Parsi Zoroastrians Worldwide page. He called the community’s shift from Gujarati to English a “cultural suicide,” a “refined, English-speaking whimper,” the surrender of a thousand-year linguistic inheritance for the “glittering tinsel of modern fashion.” The comments beneath agreed with him almost to a person. One commenter, KCR, asked the most interesting question in the thread, and everyone ignored it:

Did Jadi Rana tell Parsis to change their “mother tongue”? Was the language of Jadi Rana’s era called Gujarati? And no one retains MT after a couple of generations especially if their numbers are small after migration.

That single comment contains the argument Hodiwalla’s essay cannot bring itself to make. The Parsis did not “adopt” Gujarati in some conscious civilisational pact with Jadi Rana. They speak Gujarati because their founding mothers were Gujarati. The Qissa-i Sanjan gives us the romance. The genome gives us the picture.

II. The Parsi Genome

Continue reading Parsi Nanis Are Gujarati

Jinnah was not “pure evil”

Kabir · April 21, 2026 · 128 comments

Admin Note: This is a Precedent Thread (with regard to QeA).

BB made a comment calling the Quaid-e-Azam “pure evil“.  This is a-historical and triggering to Pakistanis.

Partition is a topic that demands nuance. To call the Quaid (or Pandit Nehru) “pure evil” just reveals a lack of historical knowledge.  Quaid-e-Azam was not Hitler. He was not sending people to gas chambers.  Historians probably wouldn’t even call Hitler “pure evil” but perhaps that’s the historical figure about whom the strongest case can be made.

I will take the opportunity to quote from my own writing:

In hindsight, perhaps the decision to Partition India was not the best one, yet there is no way that Jinnah could have known what form the future Indian Constitution would take or Pakistan’s struggles in establishing its identity and defining what it means to be a Muslim homeland. The only character in the play who seems to see what the politics of exclusion will lead to is Maulana Azad, who argues passionately against Jinnah’s “two nation theory” and later begs Nehru to avoid Partition at any cost. Azad is worried about the Muslims who will be left behind in the Hindu majority provinces that will remain part of India. He also firmly believes that once one starts on the road to a politics based on differences, there is no telling when the process will end. The creation of Bangladesh in 1971 showed that religion was not enough to hold Pakistan together and that ethnicity is also an extremely important factor. Ethnic conflict remains a fault line in today’s Pakistan, as well as to a lesser extent in India. Thus it can be forcefully argued that Azad was right in saying that Partition would not really solve anything.

Overall, “Tryst” is an extremely thought provoking play that compels the audience to reflect on the complex history of the years leading up to Indian independence. What a united India would have been like is a hypothetical question that can never be successfully answered, yet the play shows us that Partition was by no means inevitable and was very much an outcome of specific historical circumstances and personality clashes between flawed individuals

I will also refer readers to my review of Sam Dalrymple’s excellent book Shattered Lands: Five Partitions and the Making of Modern Asia. Continue reading Jinnah was not “pure evil”

US-Iran War

Kabir · April 21, 2026 · 15 comments

1) Trump says truce expires ‘Wednesday evening Washington time’. 

US President Donald Trump has signalled an extension in the ceasefire with Iran, which was set to end on April 21 8pm ET.

He told Bloomberg in a phone interview that the truce expires on “Wednesday evening Washington time”.

But the president also said it’s “highly unlikely that I’d extend it” if no deal is reached before then, the report said.

It seemed that a second round of talks was going to happen.  Islamabad’s Red Zone is locked down in anticipation of the arrival of the American delegation.  JD Vance was supposedly returning to Islamabad.  But the US seizure of an Iran-flagged ship and Iran’s closing of the Strait of Hormuz once again seems to have changed things.

2) Basharat Peer on Kashmir, Haider, Homebound, Iran, Modi, Erdogan & Why Democracies Break

[Note: Basharat Peer’s Curfewed Night is one of the classic books about growing up as a Kashmiri Muslim in Indian-Administered Kashmir in the 1990s.

I’ve met Basharat Peer when he spoke at LUMS some years ago. He signed my copy of his book. ]

3) Remembering Asha Bhosle: A View From Pakistan 

Both countries’ polities remain locked in an unending war and demonise each other in all forms of despicable ways and continue to pull up walls and disinformation through propaganda, movies and fake news about one another. Still, can you stop me from loving Amir Khan, Shah Rukh Khan, or Ranbir Kapoor? And Asha ji’s voice?

There is a generation or two who remember better times and continue to love our classical and Bollywood film phases. You can’t erase our experiences. Pakistanis have grown up loving Indian movies and their singers and actors.

Looking at the comments under the Geo TV notice by PEMRA is a testament of the sanity that foundationally prevails in Pakistani society.

We might rally around our government when it is under attack from outside forces, but we will not deny our shared love and admiration of iconic artists of the subcontinent. That would be denying our own culture.

 

 

 

 

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