Fear of a Bihari nation
I’ve fascinated by regions that border each other and have very different fertilities. For example, Saudi Arabia has a TFR of 2.2 and Yemen one of 4. Today it looks like Bihar has a fertility of around 3.0 and West Bengal 1.6. Bihar surpassed West Bengal in the late 1990’s, and is still more populous … Continue reading Fear of a Bihari nation
Aurangzeb’s daughter
Posted by Peter Nemetz.
Ertugrul is badass
I watched a few episodes of Ertugrul and it’s pretty good. I would prefer less of a Marvel-comics style character…Ertugrul and his alps basically are just killing machines who never get injured while taking down dozens of Christian knights. But it is good for what it intends to be, a dramatic rendering of the origins … Continue reading Ertugrul is badass
Intellectual Brown Web
Sarah Haider, Shadi Hamid, myself and Murtaza Hussain recorded an impromptu podcast that we titled the “Intellectual Brown Web.” These are basically people I know well (I am good friends with both Sarah and Shadi) or who got involved in Twitter threads repeatedly (Murtaza). But there is no “Hindo-origin person.” Since I don’t give a … Continue reading Intellectual Brown Web
Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto
Every nationality or cultural group should have a song done like this. I’m writing a Substack on Vikings, who were quite nasty in many ways, but popular culture songs like this make them seem “bad ass.”
American University in Delhi?
India might open to foreign universities. That could be a game-changer: And India’s higher education system badly needs shaking up. Setting aside issues of quality (as if those can be set aside), India does not come close to providing sufficient seats to those aspiring to higher education — a glaring shortcoming as India’s burgeoning middle … Continue reading American University in Delhi?
Down with eggs?
I don’t have a big personal issue with vegetarians, though I really enjoy ribeye and you’ll take shrimp from my dead hands. My daughter has been a vegetarian since she was five due to ethical concerns about animal cruelty. But every now and then I hear that BJP-aligned governments or officials are removing eggs from … Continue reading Down with eggs?
Division
One of the things that has saddened and frustrated me on this weblog over the last 12 years has been the tendency of brown people, Indian subcontinentals, South Asians, etc. to engage in differentiation. As a geneticist, I am aware of differences, and I accept and admit it candidly to an extent that is rare … Continue reading Division
What is Islamophobia?
One of the problems with “traditional” familial and cultural systems is the level of depravity they can mask. This is not a “slam dunk” argument against them, but it is a real thing. The suppression of the evidence of clear sexual abuse in a certain community in the UK in the service of preventing negative … Continue reading What is Islamophobia?
A confused post-Empire
Truss learns the hard way that Britain isn’t America: If anti-Americanism was bad, look what its opposite has done. Britain is in trouble because its elite is so engrossed with the US as to confuse it for their own nation. The UK does not issue the world’s reserve currency. It does not have near-limitless demand … Continue reading A confused post-Empire
The truth still matters
On Twitter I ran into a peculiar argument about vegetarianism and Brahmanism: This is just factually wrong from what I know. The standard narrative I was taught is that the shift toward vegetarianism was driven by non-Brahmin-led religious movements, in particular the Sramanic sects like Jainism and Buddhism (that seem to have had a Kshatriya … Continue reading The truth still matters
Games within games
Many years ago I read Adin Steinsaltz’s The Essential Talmud. Steinsaltz was a Charedi (Chasidic more specifically) rabbi who spoke about the text and work from the perspective of an […]
Happy Rama Navami!
A Hindu friend clued me into the fact that this was Lord Rama’s birthday. Since I’m not Hindu or from a Hindu background I had no clue (to be fair, Google calendar is how I know when Ramadan starts). I don’t know much about Rama as I have not read the Ramayana (after all these … Continue reading Happy Rama Navami!
Against blood quantum as a measure of indigeneity
The figure to the right is from a Substack post I wrote last year, Stark Truth About Aryans: a story of India. In it, I posted about the different streams of ancestry that led to the variation in the modern Indian subcontinent. In short, there are three primary threads: 1) Steppe Indo-Aryans who are identical … Continue reading Against blood quantum as a measure of indigeneity
So what’s wrong with being kaala?
In the comments below there’s a lot of discussion on colorism among brown subcontinentals as well as a fixation on particular facial features. Since I’m an American coconut I don’t really understand many of the nuances, though I’m curious from an anthropological perspective. Much of it obviously seems ludicrous for American browns. What’s the point … Continue reading So what’s wrong with being kaala?
How Indians view themselves vs. how Westerners view Indians
As A South Asian Woman, Seeing Two Darker-Skinned Women On Bridgerton Means Everything. The headline is obviously a bit much. The casting of dark-skinned actresses of Indian-origin really isn’t going to change the norms of the Indian subcontinent, or the whole of Asia. But it’s an interesting window on aesthetic standards and cultural creation. Indians … Continue reading How Indians view themselves vs. how Westerners view Indians
Friendship in a time of evil
The shooting of this family in Ukraine is all over the front pages. Many Americans bemoan the humanitarian disaster. Russian restaurants are being boycotted in the US (many of the staff and owners are Ukrainian!). Below is a photo of a starving Yemeni child: A bit under 100,000 children have starved in Yemen in the … Continue reading Friendship in a time of evil
The universality of the res publica and reality of Greco-Roman contingency
A small discussion on social media has arisen about the idea that freedom and political and social freedoms are fundamentally Western. Setting aside the libertarianism present in non-Western traditions like […]