Collaboration and Loyalty in British India

This topic comes up a lot and there are many (contradictory) nationalist myths about who did and did not collaborate with the British during their rule in India. Major Amin has a short podcast about this topic that is worth listening to:

India was conquered by the East India Company using (mostly) the Bengal army, recruited primarily from what is now eastern UP and Bihar. Most of these soldiers were Hindus and a large section were Brahmins, but all religions, ethnicities and castes joined the EIC army at various points and all have examples of mutinies (many small, one large), frequently triggered by grievances over pay and conditions, but sometimes acquiring or having a nationalist color as well. Have a listen.

Browncast Episode 33: an ethnography of doubting Darwin

Another BP Podcast is up. You can listen on LibsyniTunes, Spotify,  and Stitcher. Probably the easiest way to keep up the podcast since we don’t have a regular schedule is to subscribe at one of the links above.

You can also support the podcast as a patron (the primary benefit now is that you get the podcasts considerably earlier than everyone else…). Would appreciate more positive reviews.

Today I am posting a podcast that I decided to record on a lark. I talked to Benjamin Dierker, the author of Why One-Third Of Biologists Now Question Darwinism. To be frank, this is a case where you need to read beyond the title…

Dierker and I had a lot of common ground and his main project is not a defense of Intelligent Design, as much as an ethnography of it. We hashed out what Neo-Darwinism means, as well as how conservatives should bury the hatchet when it comes to their historical enmity to evolutionary theory. In fact, we discussed extensively how the left’s revolt against human nature in the past generation opens up an avenue for conservatives to be on the side of science.

Podcasts by Major Amin. India, Pakistan, Proxy Wars

Readers of this blog are familiar with Pakistani military historian Major Agha Humayun Amin.  Major Amin has recorded a number of podcasts on the Anchor app and they are worth a listen if you are interested in military history, Indian history and related topics.

This podcast in particular is a good introduction to Major Amin’s own background (he has worked with the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan, has been a Taliban prisoner, and then a contractor in post-American Afghanistan, with extensive experience in the region). He also mentions his mentor Edward Luttwak.

In this podcast he makes many interesting observations and has his usual blunt and sometimes harsh opinions. Some of his topics here include:

  1. His view is that there is no such thing as a “non-state actor”. All actors in Afghanistan are proxies of some state or the other. In the case of the Taliban, that means Pakistan.
  2. How the Americans were fooled into bombing (via drones) and paying for bombing (Pakistani armed forces) the FATA region, while Taliban were actually located in Balochistan.
  3. How Kiyani prolonged the FATA operations to milk American coalition support funds.
  4. FATA Pakhtoons as “Red Indians” , subject to endless operations, not just today but many years ago, regarded as “our firing range”. Regarded as such not just by non-Pakhtoons, but also by many “settled area” Pakhtoons.
  5. Some of the nuts and bolts of this endless war.
  6. Pakistan’s theory of nuclear brinkmanship, developed initially with American acquiescence (because they did not want India to attack Pakistan and disrupt their Afghanistan operation).
  7. Siachen, Kargil.
  8. The renewed Kashmir infiltration in the last few years.
  9. Pakistan army’s mindset and some of the more interesting nonsense that is promoted in its cause (such as Javed Hasan’s classic “India, a study in profile”).
  10. The security setups of both sides leak like a sieve. Nothing is really secret, yet most things are unknown to their own politicians and common people.
  11. No Indo-Pak war is likely, but proxy war will accelerate.
  12. Trump will abandon Afghanistan for electoral reasons, civil war will accelerate.

You don’t have to agree with Major Amin’s views. But his detailed knowledge of this murky world is worth a listen. At a minimum it should make you wary of all state propaganda narratives.

Browncast Episode 30: Philippe Lemoine on philosophy, politics, French immigration & The European Union

A creature of the night

Another BP Podcast is up. You can listen on LibsyniTunes, Spotify,  and Stitcher. Probably the easiest way to keep up the podcast since we don’t have a regular schedule is to subscribe at one of the links above.

You can also support the podcast as a patron (the primary benefit now is that you get the podcasts considerably earlier than everyone else…).

I’m toying with an “AMA” on a YouTube live stream for “Patrons” only another benefit. Since there aren’t too many Patrons it might be a simple thing to do if no one shows up!

But I would definitely appreciate more positive reviews. Many of you listen to us, but don’t leave any reviews!

Best with Bourdeaux

This week we talked to Phillipe Lemoine, a philosopher, pundit, and data scientist. Phillipe has his own blog, but I would also recommend his pieces in Jacobite magazine

Informally I think of this episode of the BrownCast as “frawg-talk.”. We addressed Phillipe’s intellectual journey, from computer scientist to philosopher of science to data scientist. How he got involved in various assorted issues, and hard-headed analysis of migration into France, as well as sanguine attitude toward the European Union.

Browncast Episode 29: Zaid Jilani on the discourse, the primaries, and culture

Another BP Podcast is up. You can listen on LibsyniTunes, Spotify,  and Stitcher. Probably the easiest way to keep up the podcast since we don’t have a regular schedule is to subscribe at one of the links above.

You can also support the podcast as a patron (the primary benefit now is that you get the podcasts considerably earlier than everyone else…). Would appreciate more positive reviews.

Today I talk to Zaid Jilani, who runs the Extremely Offline podcast, among other things.

We talk about his current project, trying to bring people with different views together, as well as where his own views came from. Zaid also dished a little dirt on Ezra Klein and Matt Yglesias, and talked about growing up in the “Dirty South” (OK, he didn’t say it was the “Dirty South”, but it was the sort of rural South). Finally, we talked a fair amount about Democratic party politics and primaries, a topic which Zaid has a lot of knowledge of.

Podcasts incoming!!!

I just want to remind readers that if you are a patron of the podcast, I post them early on Patreon. Two podcasts were posted today, and two will be posted tomorrow. I’ll probably roll out the podcasts over the next week. I assume when I post the posts you get notifications, but usually, I post that I posted them early on the “open thread” if you are using an email you don’t usually check.

On one of the podcasts I posted Zach describes Pakistan as the Republic of Gilead!

Tomorrow I’m going to talk to Zaid Jilani of the Extremely Offline podcast. When I went to the iTunes page for his podcast, I noticed that Brown Pundits is one of the podcasts that subscribers to Extremely Offline also listen too!

It’s been a while, so I want to exhort those of you who listen through something like iTunes or Stitcher to LEAVE A POSITIVE REVIEW. I mean only a single Stitcher review, seriously?

BrownCast Podcast episode 25: Christoph, center-left edgelord on social justice, Islam, and cosmopolitanism

Another BP Podcast is up. You can listen on LibsyniTunes, Spotify,  and Stitcher. Probably the easiest way to keep up the podcast since we don’t have a regular schedule is to subscribe at one of the links above.

You can also support the podcast as a patron (the primary benefit now is that you get the podcasts considerably earlier than everyone else…). Would appreciate more positive reviews.

Today I talk to Christoph, the erstwhile “Eurasian Sensation.” Long-time readers of this weblog will know that Christoph was an early contributor to this weblog. Over the past few years, he has gained prominence on Twitter as a verbal pugilist of sorts, punching Right and punching Left from the de facto center.

We talk about his own mixed-race identity, and cosmopolitan lifestyle choices and orientation. Both of us also talk about the interesting fact that we are regularly lectured about Islam by non-Muslim progressives.

All things “Brown” with the Brown Pundits – thoughts on the Carvaka Podcast

Further to Anan’s post below I thought I would share a few thoughts of my own below.

BrownCast Podcast episode 15: conversations with a Carvaka

I enjoyed doing the video cast with Kushal and Omar (Razib was unfortunately not able to join in).

I let myself “go” in this podcast since I had to get up at 4.30 in the morning to get it done so I thought I earnt a bit of a respite.

Ordinarily I’m rather reticent on the podcasts since they aren’t my guests and I also don’t want to venture too many opinions; surprisingly I’m becoming more circumspect in my old age.

At any rate it was a great discussion lots of fun and my penchant for dramatically diverging the conversation was rather welcome (Omar was very on point and it was refreshing to see that Kushal was opinionated as opposed to simply querying).

We did a fair amount of India-Pakistan but I don’t think they were the conventional perspectives. I also have to acknowledge my own biases stem from my background and life experiences.

I wrote a longer post but I decided to private blog it since I didn’t feel it was entirely relevant and I meandered (as I do).

All in I enjoyed the conversation and I found Google Hangouts a surprisingly easy interface. It’s a nice feeling to be “Live”; it was so dark that I didn’t want to switch on video but perhaps I should have and treated the audience to the dawn of a new day..

BrownCast Podcast episode 24: Shadi Hamid, American politics, Egyptian politics, being online

Another BP Podcast is up. You can listen on LibsyniTunes, Spotify,  and Stitcher. Probably the easiest way to keep up the podcast since we don’t have a regular schedule is to subscribe at one of the links above.

You can also support the podcast as a patron (the primary benefit now is that you get the podcasts considerably earlier than everyone else…). Would appreciate more positive reviews.

Today we talk to Shadi Hamid, a Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution. The author of Islamic Exceptionalism and Temptations of Power.

The range of topics was diverse, from the new live-action Aladin film, the role of religious minorities in Egypt, and what it’s like to seem politically heterodox online. I say seem because Shadi’s sympathies with a sort of Left economic populism that isn’t quite exotic, but he evinces less fixation on epistemological hygiene than is common for modern public intellectuals.

We also talked extensively on his views about the role of religion in life, and religious identity in his own life, and the incentive structures of the careers of D.C. intellectual types.

BrownCast Podcast episode 23: Dr. Jeffery Long on Hinduism, history and politics

Another BP Podcast is up. You can listen on LibsyniTunes, Spotify,  and Stitcher. Probably the easiest way to keep up the podcast since we don’t have a regular schedule is to subscribe at one of the links above.

You can also support the podcast as a patron (the primary benefit now is that you get the podcasts considerably earlier than everyone else…). Would appreciate more positive reviews.

Today we talk to Jeffery Long, a professor of religious studies at Elizabethtown College. A practitioner of Vedanta, he is also the author of Historical Dictionary of Hinduism, Jainism: An Introduction, and A Vision for Hinduism: Beyond Hindu Nationalism. Dr. Long is also an editor of Buddhism and Jainism.

We discussed a variety of topics, from the nature of Hindu philosophy, the interaction with Islam, the distinction between astika and nastika schools, as well as Dr. Long’s impressions of Tulsi Gabbard (someone who he actually met at some point).

Brown Pundits