Some Thoughts on Pakistani Culture

Kabir · February 13, 2026 · No comments

From my Substack

I will be speaking at the 10th Faiz Festival being held in Lahore this weekend as part of a panel titled “Faiz and the Cultural Policy of Pakistan”. I was invited to be a part of this panel primarily because of my book A New Explanation for the Decline of Hindustani Music in Pakistan (Aks Publications 2024).1 Though my book–a republication of my M.Mus thesis in Ethnomusicology– focuses narrowly on Hindustani music, I did discuss the Faiz Cultural Report of 1968, particularly in the context of arguments that Hindustani music declined in Pakistan because it did not accord with the national identity of the newly formed Pakistani state.

While preparing for the session, I thought I’d briefly share some of my thoughts here since others might find them interesting.

What is the Faiz Report?

The Faiz Report was a report of the Standing Committee on Art and Culture, 1968. Faiz Ahmed Faiz–one of Pakistan’s greatest 20th century Urdu poets– was the Chairman of the committee. The committee submitted its report to the Ministry of Education towards the end of 1968. However, due to political upheaval, the report never saw the light of day and was never officially accepted or rejected.

In summary, the report concluded that:

  • Opposition to art and culture in Pakistan stems from social prejudice and political considerations rather than religious or moral scruples
  • Classical traditions being common to all regions of Pakistan are an important factor in national integration. These traditions must be remolded in the light of modern knowledge and contemporary conditions

Continue reading Some Thoughts on Pakistani Culture

On Breakup Fantasies and Basic Geopolitical Decency

X.T.M · February 13, 2026 · 29 comments

Following my conversation with Kabir; I mulled on the difference between criticising a state and fantasising about its dismemberment.

What should be the type of Critique?

Criticising a political party, a military institution, or a government’s failures is normal. It is necessary. Democracies depend on it. Even flawed democracies depend on it. Pakistan’s military can be criticised. India’s ruling party can be criticised. Iran’s clerical establishment can be criticised. No state is beyond scrutiny. But imagining the territorial breakup of a country, and doing so with visible satisfaction, is something else entirely.

Sacred States?

States are not debating societies. They are containers of memory, trauma, and blood. They are “almost” sacred spaces. For Pakistanis, 1971 is not an abstract lesson in federalism. It is a civilisational rupture. It was war, humiliation, loss of half the country, and a wound that still shapes the national psyche. For Indians, similar fantasies about Tamil Nadu, Punjab, or Kashmir breaking away would be equally triggering. Every nation has red lines embedded in its historical trauma.

Ex-USSR Continue reading On Breakup Fantasies and Basic Geopolitical Decency

Germany Is Rearming. Japan Is Shifting. And Desis Are Arguing Like Teenagers.

X.T.M · February 13, 2026 · 26 comments

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 “South Asia” 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.

Former Baloch Chief Minister resigns and says separation is only option

RecoveringNewsJunkie · February 12, 2026 · 6 comments

Akthar Mengal, former Balochistan Chief Minister has resigned from Pakistan’s ‘parliament’ and in the video below delivers a shocking speech.

Some highlights:

  • He points out that Balochistan was an independent state until March 1948 and Jinnah’s signed ‘agreement for the Baloch to join Pakistan has never been honored.
  • Laments that Pakistan has always falsified history.
  • Asserts that the situation in Balochistan has gone way past the point of no return.
  • Quotes the 1970 Bangladesh slogan of “Idhar hum udhar tum” and advises Pakistanis and “Punjab” to raise it again.

There’s a lot more in the speech, but TL;DR – when even the comprador politicians that have historically collaborated with the Pakistani state are openly giving such speeches, the territorial integrity of Pakistan as it sees itself, is questionable, at a minimum.

“Very Worried” India’s Giving a Lot More to US Than It’s Getting in Trade Joint Statement

Kabir · February 12, 2026 · 2 comments

One of India’s most highly regarded trade experts, Ajay Srivastava, the Founder of the Global Trade Research Initiative, says he’s “very worried” that the India-US joint statement, which outlines the framework for the interim trade agreement, suggests that India is giving a lot more than it is getting from the United States.

In this interview, Mr. Srivastava discusses in some detail serious concerns raised by the India-US joint statement of February 6th, which outlines the framework for the India-US trade agreement, but which haven’t got the attention they have deserve. You won’t find these issues raised in many of the newspapers or any of the television channels. Yet they are very much part of the trade deal and an important concern. They are potentially disturbing and worrying. I, therefore, suggest you watch this interview to find out the full truth.

How India Lost the Neighborhood

Kabir · February 11, 2026 · 9 comments

Over the past few years, South Asia has witnessed a striking wave of mass protests toppling governments and upending long-standing political arrangements in countries ranging from Bangladesh to Nepal and Sri Lanka. These upheavals are often explained in terms of domestic factors—such as corruption, economic mismanagement, and democratic backsliding. But in a recent Foreign Affairs essay titled “The Folly of India’s Illiberal Hegemony,” the scholar Muhib Rahman argues that there is a larger regional story at play—one that implicates not just local leaders, but also India and the United States. The essay challenges the assumption that India’s regional leadership has been a stabilizing force and asks whether New Delhi’s choices have instead helped create openings for China across South Asia. To talk more about the essay, Muhib joins Milan on the show this week. Muhib is a Perry World House Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania. His research sits at the intersection of international security, emerging technologies, and the politics of the Global South. He has served as a Postdoctoral Associate at Cornell University and holds a Ph.D. in Government from the University of Texas-Austin.

Pan-Sindhi Cross-Border Virality

X.T.M · February 10, 2026 · 33 comments

 

A Pakistani Sindhi song, Paiso Aa, has crossed the border and gone viral among Indian Sindhis. It is light, playful, and unselfconscious. And it exposes something we repeatedly forget.

Sindh has been Muslim for over thirteen centuries.

The region was conquered in 711 CE by Muhammad bin Qasim, the teenage governor of Fars—thirteen when he entered Sindh, dead by nineteen. Almost an Alexander figure in miniature. Since then, Sindh and Multan have known uninterrupted Muslim rule longer than many parts of the Islamic world itself.

That matters, because it complicates a habit of thought that treats Islam in the Indian Subcontinent as permanently “foreign.”

In Sindh, it is not. Continue reading Pan-Sindhi Cross-Border Virality

After the Begums: Bangladesh searches for a new order

X.T.M · February 10, 2026 · 45 comments

In the tea stalls of Bangladesh, where politics is consumed with the same sugary intensity as the cha, the mood is one of jittery anticipation. For 18 months the country has been a state in parenthesis.

On 12 February that parenthesis would close. Voters will go to the polls in a unique double act: casting one ballot for a new parliament and another in a referendum on the “July Charter,” a package of constitutional reforms designed to prevent the rise of another autocrat.

The election is framed as the culmination of a “Second Liberation,” born of the student-led uprising that ousted Awami League in August 2024 after 15 consecutive years in power.

Observers from the Commonwealth, the EU and other nations are in place; the ballot boxes are ready.

Continue reading After the Begums: Bangladesh searches for a new order

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