High-Intensity Precedent

June 21, 2026 No Comments filed under X.T.M

Brown Pundits runs on attention. When we put hours into the site, it hums; when work and travel pull us across three jurisdictions at once, it slows. We have a backlog of pieces we want to write and lives that keep getting in the way. The June survey took the wind out of the schedule. We do not want to run this place as full-time editors, and we should not have to.

First, a thing worth saying plainly. Brown Pundits is not a magazine. It is a discussion community with essays attached, and it always has been. The life of the site is the conversation, not the rate of publication. Everything below follows from taking that seriously.

The principle is high-intensity posts. A lot of writing is rewriting, and we want authors to work their pieces hard before they go up. We have noticed the same thing for years. A post that carries real thought and attention never dies at ten or fifteen comments. Fifty is our quiet benchmark. Past a hundred, the thread stops being ours at all and takes on its own life, because people come here to argue with each other and use the post as fodder. Signal pulls signal. Thin posts pull nothing.

The rules:

  1. Fresh original writing is the post. Work it hard, put it up on its own, and let the comments run. This is the essay, and it keeps standing where it always has.
  2. Reposts do not each get a post. Links, columns, reviews, the odd video, other people’s work: these stack into a single running thread, one per author or theme. The author upranks the newest entry to the top, refreshes the timestamp, and lets the curation gather in one place. One dense thread beats ten thin link-drops that die overnight.
  3. Open threads, where the general cross-talk lives, stay scarce. We open a new one only when the current thread crosses fifty to a hundred comments, or once a week, whichever comes first. Two or three live threads, not twenty.

The obvious worry is that a long thread walls out newcomers. It does not, because the newest entry always sits on top, and the open threads rotate weekly or at a hundred, so the live conversation is never buried under a year of history.

An example. A contributor who shares a steady stream of links, a column here, a book review there, the odd YouTube, keeps one running thread for the lot instead of a dozen one-line posts. Each new link goes to the top. The older ones stay underneath. The regulars know exactly where to find it and argue about it, and the thread grows heavier and more valuable every week instead of vanishing down the feed in a day.

That is the whole idea. Original essays worked harder, reposts gathered in one place, cross-talk kept to a few live threads. We stay a discussion community with essays attached. We are just building better rooms for the discussion to happen in. Less churn for us, more weight for you.

Open Thread: AfPak – Cocktail 2

June 21, 2026 43 Comments filed under Uncategorized

We are busy but we found this comment amusing:

“And who knows, in the distant future we can prop up Afghanistan like China does Pakistan.”

We are going to watch this in a few hours?

 

 

The origin and variation of ethnic violence in South Asia

June 21, 2026 3 Comments filed under Uncategorized

It’s been a few days since I last appeared here, so I don’t know what’s going on here. Either way, I had previously mentioned in some of my past comments about a few useful sources for understanding communal and caste conflict. One of the books that I mentioned was “The Colonial Origins of ethnic violence in India” by Ajay Varghese. I have been meaning to make a post about the book, but I couldn’t really fully summarize everything in a meaningful manner until I remembered a summary the author wrote in the concluding chapter himself, which I am just going to fully quote below since I think it’s an interesting insight about violence in present-day South Asia.

Summary of the Book

This book has argued that patterns of ethnic violence in India stem from legacies of colonial rule that were reinforced over time through institutions. India is well known as having been the “jewel in the crown” of the British Empire; less well known is that the British never controlled the entire country. Most of the areas that were already British colonies prior to the conquest of India had been brought under direct rule, but the Rebellion of 1857 prevented the subcontinent from being entirely annexed. Afterward, roughly one-fourth of the Indian population lived in princely states ruled by largely autonomous native kings. This key historical divide forms the colonial origins of ethnic violence in contemporary India. Both the British administrators and the princely rulers governed heterogeneous populations, but they had very different conceptions of how to manage this ethnic diversity. In the provinces, British administrators emphasized the centrality of caste. Colonial officials chose this particular identity after the Rebellion of 1857, which they perceived as a religious(primarily Islamic) uprising, because they were intent on de-emphasizing religion. Caste (along with tribal identities) was promoted as the central organizing principle for a new, modern society. During the latter half of the nineteenth century, the caste system was divorced from its Hindu origins and became largely a system of social categories. It was subsequently viewed as scientific in character, bearing resemblance (depending on the administrator) either to race or to the class structure of Victorian England.

Continue reading The origin and variation of ethnic violence in South Asia

Gender statistics in India

June 21, 2026 25 Comments filed under Kabir

Normally I’m wary of India-Pakistan comparisons but since a comment was made on an earlier thread that “India is light-years ahead of Pakistan” when it comes to gender, let’s look at some objective statistics.   I have no problem conceding that India is indeed ahead of Pakistan in many things. For example, India has decriminalized homosexuality (by getting rid of the British colonial Section 377).  This is something that is currently unimaginable in Pakistan.  Partly this is because India is a constitutionally secular state while Pakistan is an “Islamic Republic”.  Islam has clear views about homosexuality which don’t need to be elaborated here.

Yet, India is by no means a Western feminist paradise. Arranged marriage remains the norm (just as it is in Pakistan). Marital rape is not a crime (just as it isn’t in Pakistan).   So Indians can indeed take satisfaction in being more progressive than Pakistan but they are nowhere near Western standards.

Take the Global Gender Gap Index for example. While Pakistan is the bottom ranked country on the list (with a score of 0.567) India is ranked at 0.644. This is just above Saudi Arabia at 0.643.  Meanwhile, the UK is ranked at 0.838 and the US is ranked at 0.756.   Clearly, India needs to make a lot of progress to catch up with the so-called “civilized world”. Continue reading Gender statistics in India

Lucknow’s Composite Culture and its Destruction in Qurratulain Hyder’s Novels

June 21, 2026 No Comments filed under Kabir

I am sharing an excerpt from this piece in the context of Fly Die’s piece on ethnic violence in India.  I believe that sometimes Literature provides a different lens on these issues than academic research does. 

I was tuning my tanpura for riaz in the morning to sing Khayal Jaunpuri, and one string snapped. Gautam, there’s symbolism for you. Hussain Shah’s tanpura broken into two,’ said Talat ruefully.

— Qurratulain Hyder, River of Fire, pg. 273

In the passage quoted above–from Qurratulain Hyder’s novel River of Fire (her own translation of her Urdu magnum opus Aag Ka Dariya)—the speaker, Talat, is a member of Lucknow’s Muslim elite. She is speaking to a group of friends—both Muslim and Hindu—after the Partition of 1947. Two new nation-states–“India” and “Pakistan”– have been created and the group of friends is splitting up in different directions: Talat’s cousin Amir Reza has already left for Karachi, Talat herself is imminently departing for further studies in England, and Gautam is soon to leave for America. The broken tanpura symbolizes the death of the composite culture, which could not survive the politics of religion and the force of the Two Nation Theory. This theme—the destruction of the Lucknawi way of life—runs through many of Hyder’s novels, particularly through My Temples, Too (Hyder’s translation of her debut novel Mere Bhi Sanam Khane) and the later sections of River of Fire.

In this paper I will examine Hyder’s novels and use them to discuss some arguments about the formation of the composite culture of Lucknow (and of UP generally) and the failure of this culture to prevent the Partition of British India and the creation of Pakistan in 1947. By focusing on Muslim elites who, despite all the odds, chose to retain their belief in a united India, Hyder problematizes the prevailing discourse that sees Hindus and Muslims as inherently opposed and Partition as the inevitable outcome of Independence.

The rest of the essay can be read on Substack.  See also my review of Hyder’s novel “Fireflies in the Mist” 

 

 

Review: Siren Song: Understanding Pakistan Through Its Women Singers by Fawzia Afzal-Khan

June 20, 2026 No Comments filed under Kabir

I am sharing this review in the context of the ongoing discussion on women’s rights in Pakistan.  Though Afzal-Khan’s book is specifically about women singers, it is relevant to this discussion since it makes broader points about “respectability politics”. 

Afzal-Khan’s book is wide-ranging and covers a time period from the years preceding Pakistan’s creation in 1947 to the present. It includes many genres, from khayal to Sufi-Pop. The central theme of the book is articulated in the first two chapters entitled “The Respectable Courtesan” (focusing on Malka Pukhraj) and “Roshan Ara Begum: Performing Classical Music, Gender, and Muslim Nationalism in Pakistan.” In these initial chapters, Afzal-Khan develops her notion of “respectability politics.” This refers to the ways in which these artists had to negotiate their public image in order to align themselves with the norms of ashraf Muslim families, which hold that a woman’s primary place is in the home. Though they were both great artists, Malka Pukhraj and Roshan Ara Begum identified themselves primarily as “good” wives and (in Pukhraj’s case) mothers. This allowed them to distance themselves from their alleged “courtesan” backgrounds, considered dubious by mainstream society. In Pukhraj’s case, she was a court singer in the erstwhile princely state of Jammu and Kashmir, ruled at the time by Maharaja Hari Singh. It is telling that, according to her daughter Tahira Syed (1958-) – herself an accomplished singer – Pukhraj’s children didn’t learn about this aspect of their mother’s background until she wrote her autobiography in her eighties (Afzal-Khan 2020: 5). It is also important to note that Pukhraj dedicated her memoirs to two men: first her husband and then her patron (Maharaja Hari Singh). Afzal-Khan deems this another “normative gesture of respectability” (2020: 3).

The rest of the review can be read on Substack. 

 

 

Is Pakistan primitive?

June 19, 2026 58 Comments filed under X.T.M

By new Precedent, ceasefires are lifted by default, and maintained only where a commenter requests one on Online Safety grounds, as K has (BB – RNJ – 0M).

We argued in “The Patriarchy Survives Everything” that has no religion.

Over the last month, in order not to be Islamophobic, a line was surreptiously moved. The proposition that women should be confined to the home and kept out of higher education stopped being an outrage to be dismantled in public and became a “perspective” to be weighed.

Silence on the right of a woman to leave her own house, and called the silence respect. A space loud for one liberty and mute on another has not been even-handed; it has been captured. That is the moment the emperor lost his clothes and the courtiers agreed not to mention it.

How a country starts eating halal

RNJ consistently brings up Nassim Taleb’s seminal piece on “The Most Intolerant Wins: The Dictatorship of the Small Minority.” Continue reading Is Pakistan primitive?

Review: Requiem in Raga Janki by Neelum Saran Gour

June 18, 2026 2 Comments filed under Kabir

Neelum Saran Gour’s novel Requiem in Raga Janki (Penguin Random House India, 2018) is a fictionalized biography of Janki Bai Ilahabadi (1880-1934), one of the most famous Hindustani classical singers of the early twentieth century. Janki Bai was an extremely successful gramophone artist in the early days of recording. She performed at the Grand Delhi Darbar in December 1911, where George V was crowned as Emperor of India. She also wrote Urdu poetry, most famously the Diwan-e-Janki.

Gour begins the novel by describing one of the most famous stories associated with Janki Bai, when she was stabbed by a jealous lover (depending on the version of the story, the man was either her lover or the lover of her father’s mistress). Janki received 56 stab wounds, which led to her receiving the nickname “Chappan Churi” (56 knives). After the stabbing, her father’s mistress, Lakshmi, ran away and Janki’s father abandoned his wife and children to go searching for her. Janki and her mother Manki Bai were then sold to a brothel in Allahabad. In order to protect her daughter from becoming an ordinary sex worker, Manki Bai arranged for her to recieve a high level of musical training from Ustad Hassu Khan of the Gwalior gharana (school) of Hindustani classical singing. Her success at this art is what made Janki a bai or courtesan– a highly valued female entertainer.

The rest of the review can be read on Substack 

 

Indus Water Treaty: What lies in the future?

June 18, 2026 32 Comments filed under Uncategorized

Indus Waters Treaty was signed in 19 Sept 1960 between India and Pakistan under mediation provided by the World Bank. As a political compromise between Pakistan and India seemed improbable the US and UK decided to pressure both into signing onto a technical treaty which could outline the claims and limits of both nations on the flow of the water. Over the years it was touted at the most successful and unequal water sharing agreement where the upper riparian nation only made claim to a minor portion of the river’s waters.

The Indus basin was categorized into two groups of rivers. With the Eastern Rivers (Beas, Ravi, and Sutlej) being controlled by India and the Western Rivers (Indus, Chenab and Jhelum) being controlled by Pakistan.

Many still blame Nehru for this treaty in India for only allowing India to control less than 20% of the Indus’ waters, while many in Pakistan still decry the unequal nature of the treaty in directly awarding a set of rivers to India as that may eventually cause droughts in the parts of Pakistan which are mainly fed by the Eastern rivers. However, the main calls for renegotiations of the treaty have originated in India which at this point has put it into ‘abeyance’. In this post we will go through the main areas of dispute in the treaty and what the possible solutions for the current impasse may be.

Continue reading Indus Water Treaty: What lies in the future?

Review: The Medici Boy-Art and Homoeroticism in Renaissance Florence

June 16, 2026 3 Comments filed under Kabir

Another great read for Pride Month.  I am a big fan of historical fiction, particularly those books set in Renaissance Italy. 

Renaissance Florence was a period of great artistic ferment. Under the patronage of the Medici family, artists such as Donatello, Michelangelo and Leonardo produced great works of painting and sculpture. Among the best known of these works are the sculptures of David produced by Donatello (c. 1440s) and Michelangelo ( 1501-1504).

John L’Heureux’s novel The Medici Boy focuses on the creation of Donatello’s David (the titular “Medici boy”). The story is narrated by Luca Mattei, a former monk who works as Donatello’s apprentice. Luca becomes jealous of his foster brother, Agnolo, who serves as Donatello’s inspiration for David and later becomes his lover. Donatello’s relationship with Agnolo serves as the major plot complication since Agnolo is repeatedly denounced as a sodomite. His illegal activities also threaten to bring down Donatello and through him his patron and friend, Cosimo de’ Medici.

The rest of the review can be read on Substack.  For a woman’s perspective on the Medici, see this review of Maggie O’Farrell’s The Marriage Portrait, which is inspired by the marriage and possible murder of Lucrezia de’Medici (1545-1561) at the hands of her husband Alfonso II d’Este, Duke of Ferrara. This alleged murder also served as the inspiration for Robert Browning’s poem “My Last Duchess“–itself a classic of English Literature.

Note: Modern historians believe that Lucrezia died of pulmonary tuberculosis

 

 

 

Brown Pundits