It’s been a minute—I’ve been quietly recovering from Sizdeh Bedar, the thirteenth day of Norouz when you’re meant to go outside and shake off bad luck. I chose to take it literally: less screen, more sky.
To be fair I did go for two consecutive daily outdoors runs, which I haven’t properly done since the late pandemic but instead of the customary picnic; I went to the Afghan restaurant, Helmand, which was excellent- Afghani cuisine is truly the dark horse of the Indo-Persianate world.
In the meantime, Razib’s dropped two excellent posts—one on Tibetans, the other on Great Men: is Trump the product of his age, or did he make the age what it is? It’s the kind of question that haunts our era, especially as 2024/25 starts to feel historically charged.
Meanwhile, the above is courtesy of Anand on our Global Politics chat & over on Twitter, a post’s been circulating about how South Asians are desperate to leave the desh, but the moment they do—they long for it obsessively.
It’s complicated. I love the homeland (Chennai is my vibe), but I’m 1.5 generation: I migrated at 14, but had spent meaningful time in the West beforehand. So what am I? Not quite immigrant, not quite native. That liminal space is familiar to many of us. It’s a tension you carry everywhere—between passport and memory, practicality and nostalgia.
On cue, our resident Pundit is once again being spammed by Pakistanis “discovering” they are the last Gandharans and telling a Kashmiri Pandit to back to the “Ganges” (the last Kashmiri Pandits who did come from the Ganges founded South Asia’s most prominent and enduring political dynasty so I guess that’s a wish for us to be under good Brahmin rule again).
I don’t care much about “native inhabitants” of anywhere. Nativism is overrated & such claims don’t impress me. And I’m not “from the Ganges” (whatever that means).
Antagonists in MBh were the kaurava-s (ablaut of kuru). Calling them gāndhāra-s is like calling Jahangir a Rajput. https://t.co/oZiohynazL
— उद्ररुहैन्वीय (@kaeshour) April 3, 2025
Now, as a rule, you should never intellectually duel with a thrice-born. It rarely ends well. But here we are: Pakistan, in search of yet another usable identity, this time reaching deep into the vault and pulling out Gandhara.
Will it work? Possibly. Yugoslavia held for 74 years. Pakistan’s at 78. Identity is a strange, sticky thing—and with enough coercion and charisma, even myths can harden into nationhood.
But I do believe this: Hinduism is not just a religion—it’s the civilizational grammar of South Asia.
Yes, Buddhism once dominated. And yes, Islam reshaped the subcontinent in deep ways. But when you look at the cultural superstructure—the myths, the aesthetics, the metaphysics, the languages—the Hindu substrate is undeniable.
There’s a reason the descendants of the conquerors of Rome now embrace Rome as their own. Westerners know how to narrate themselves into continuity. That solidarity-through-heritage is something South Asia has yet to master—perhaps because we are still choosing which past we wish to inherit.
But at some point, you can’t keep borrowing identity. You have to build one that fits—and wear it without flinching.
Agree somewhat with the comment by Anand. Most young Indians do not want to leave India anymore ( say last few years or so); though there is a certain stratum ( I’ll stick my neck out and say this is pretty much the economically wealthy upper class or the nouveau riche types) that are still obsessed with the US passport. Its all about the status ( eye roll); the one thing missing to brag about. Not generalising, but this has been my observation amongst people I’ve interacted with. India has moved on so much so that now there’s a sense of envy amongst the recent migrants ( last 20 years) on how the standard of living in India has increased beyond their wildest expectations. What to do, c’est la vie!
But I digress from the more important point you brought up, that of Hinduism being the soul not just of India but pretty much of SE Asia. People can fight, scream, distance themselves, but there’s no getting away from it. In fact if most people accept it and embrace it fully, irrespective of religion, it would go a long way in healing past trauma to finally move into the future. Which paves the way for India the country to finally move from a middle power to an aspiring superpower.
I think the question is what does that Hinduism look like and who has patrimony over it?
Personally I think it would be very helpful for Pakistanis to “Hindufy” their Islam.
I think Pakistani kids should own / strut / show off / LARP being the invading ārya on chariots. It just is rather unimpressive without learning Sanskrit. Even bots do a better job these days! I’ll shut up when a ‘gāndhāra’ corrects my grammar.
That does make sense – since Sanskrit is the core legacy of those Aryans?