Swapneel

A true chilling crime story , the Ranga - Billa case of Delhi , director Prosit Roy. The writers Anusha Nandakumar and Sandeep Saket chose to portray Ali Fazal's as a Dalit police guy , his assistant as a Muslim, the honest journalist as a Muslim woman, and the lazy hawaldar as a Brahmin. A deliberately done thing under the guise of ‘creative freedom’ & to cosy up to certain verticals ! Whereas in the real Ranga-Billa case, the chief investigator was VP Gupta, his assistant was Ram Chander, and the Police Commissioner was JN Chaturvedi. None of the caste or communal angles shown in the series were part of the actual investigation. This is how leftist propaganda works. An ultra important horrific crime given a caste twist & then the series claims to be inspired by true events distorting facts 🙄

PAKISTAN: Today marks the twelfth consecutive day of the internet shutdown in Pakistan-administered Jammu and Kashmir, with mobile network services intermittently disrupted. The internet shutdown, imposed since 5 June, in response to a call for protest by the Jammu and Kashmir Joint Awami Action Committee, has resulted in an information blackout, disrupting people’s access to information and essential services and preventing documentation of human rights violations in the region. Amnesty International urges the authorities to immediately restore all communication services. Blanket or total internet cuts are inherently disproportionate under international human rights law and must never be imposed. Further, there are reports of a physical blockade, also imposed in response to the call for protest, of key entry points into the region that have disrupted the delivery of essential goods, including food supplies and medicine. Such restrictions are disproportionate and severely impact people’s rights to life, access to healthcare, and freedom of movement. Pakistani authorities must immediately lift the restrictions on movement and communication and restore unhindered access to the region.

1. Multi-alignment still preserves India’s core national interests and allows global shocks to be absorbed better - this should be India’s focus rather than vying for two-bit limelight of being the neutral third-country ‘war mediator’ : - With Israel, deep defence, tech, counter-terror, co-development etcétéras via ‘Special Strategic Partnership’ is important for India. ‘Talking’ Israel out on Lebanon operations risks alienating a key strategic partner that India must not risk - sure, have ‘quiet conversations’ but no need to influence Israel; - With Iran, Chabahar port investment (even with current downsized + “pause-and-preserve” status) still remains key for India<>Central Asia and INSTC corridor. Asking Iran to accept Israel’s status could jeopardise this and would render zero futility for India. Although, India should explore/accelerate INSTC alternatives (via Russia/Armenia). - With the U.S., multi-level partnerships exist, but here the relations have soured at the behest of American theatrics and downright murderous unprofessional conduct on all fronts. Safeguarding Indian interests still remain priority ( not just with the U.S., but leveraging U.S. on Iran and Israeli fronts too), India should now demonstrate more assertiveness to the U.S. 2. Persuading Iran on Israel’s existence, or be that Israel on Lebanon is quite unrealistic and could prove to be a costly affair for India that would be uncalled for: - Iran’s regime ideology outrightly rejects Israel’s existence; it is not India’s job to change Iran’s ideological beliefs. India neither holds leverage nor should try to change this core belief at Iran’s ideological level. India has no vital stake in resolving this core impasse; - India’s bandwidth should be better spent on direct Indian strategic interests rather than acting as unpaid diplomat on intractable issues that yield zero results for India. Prioritise safe Hormuz passage, lower energy volatility, proactively protect Indian Merchant Naval officers and seafarers, build leverage (with U.S.) on Chabahar, advance INSTC, advance IMEC where Israel-Gulf normalisation aligns with India, talk to the U.S. from a place of level-headedness - whilst ‘urging’ de-escalation to all three nations rather than trying to resolve others nations’ wars. India’s decisions must be rooted in unapologetic prioritisation of Indian national interests and not based on sentiments or aspirations to be a “broker nation” that India is not, nor reduce itself down to.

Emphasised that the Global South has immense expectations from the world. More than support, it seeks partnership. We must move beyond the donor-recipient mindset and work as equal partners! We must walk together and not merely alongside one another. Partnerships must be linked to dignity, not dependency.

Damm I just got back from vacation to see that Chinese CCP propaganda is being decimated by Indians on X and I missed all the fun. 😭😂

Imagine spending years telling the world Kashmir is a prison, only to end up complaining that too many people want to visit it. I feel bad for Iltija Mufti. Years of victimhood propaganda undone by one traffic jam. And the problem with victimhood mindset is, you don't know where to stop. Less tourism is a problem, more tourism is also a problem. Iltija Mufti tomorrow: "The total number of tourists that should visit Kashmir is 54,396. Any more is a disaster. Any less is a tragedy".

Not every place in the world can be examined through the historical template of the United States. One of the reasons conversations about India are so difficult for folks in the West to untangle is that many of the frameworks Americans use to understand power, intergroup dynamics, identity, and historical injustice do not map onto India. Not at all. For Americans who have adopted a critical lens, the template derived from American history is fixed. A dominant demographic majority group seeks to preserve power while marginalized demographic minorities fight for recognition and inclusion. Because this template is so fixed in the imagination, there is a tendency to view and interpret dynamics and events in other countries in exactly the same way. I have seen it myself. "We've all seen how this works," someone will say, and proceed to apply the American template to a different place. And the history of the Americas (both North and South) is dominated by European (white) Christian colonization. As a result, Americans are familiar with the legacies of European empire and Christian missionary expansion. By contrast, the history of Islamic conquest and rule, which shaped large parts of Asia, Africa, and Europe for centuries, occupies far less space in the American imagination. So too does the contemporary influence of petrodollar-funded religious institutions, transnational Islamist movements, and the global circulation of Islamist narratives. This does not mean these forces explain everything. It does mean that many Americans have little historical or conceptual framework for understanding how they might shape politics, memory, education, or intergroup relations in places like India. India's history is not the same as that of the Americas. For centuries, India experienced successive waves of colonization. The first came through a series of Muslim invasions and dynasties, culminating in the Mughal Empire. The second came through British colonial rule, predated by British mercantile and missionary efforts. Yet unlike many colonized societies, the civilizational majority was never fully displaced, converted, or absorbed. Hindu traditions, practices, languages, stories, temples, and collective memories survived. This is perhaps the single hardest aspect of India for many Americans to grasp because it has no real analogue in American history: the Hindu demographic majority is also the historically colonized population. For many Western observers, this creates immediate suspicion because it violates the assumptions embedded within our familiar frameworks. The expectation is that majorities defend power while minorities challenge it. As a result, contemporary debates about textbooks, public memory, historical figures, temples, and national identity are often seen and interpreted by folks in the West through frameworks that retrofit Indian history into contemporary American critical analysis through the reductive binaries of majority/minority, right/left, which are memeable and digestible, but obscure much more than they reveal about power, history, equity, policy, foreign influence, etc. When Hindus argue that violent and painful aspects of Mughal conquest have been whitewashed in public education, they are frequently accused of attempting to rewrite history to justify the alleged "Hindu right wing" suppression of a minority group today. (Please do read my analysis of religious-based violence in India. It's not what you think it is. Link in comments.) Yet Americans themselves are familiar with the process of revisiting historical narratives to advance truth and reconciliation. We have debated how slavery is taught, how Indigenous history is taught, how immigration is taught, and how women and minority groups have been represented in textbooks and in classrooms. We generally accept that historical narratives evolve as new evidence emerges and as previously marginalized perspectives are taken seriously. What makes India different is that the group seeking rigorous reconsideration of historical narratives is often the majority population. For many Western observers, this creates immediate suspicion. The assumption is that majorities seek dominance while minorities seek justice. But history does not always work that way. The result is that efforts by Hindus to recover historical memory are often denounced as nationalism (which is falsely equated with white or Christian nationalism in the United States) before they are examined on their own terms. Questions about historical representation become questions about political motives. Efforts to revisit narratives become "evidence of extremism" or, even more bizarre, "anti-intellectualism." And figures who have occupied a central place in Hindu memory for centuries are presented as newly invented symbols of contemporary political power. The result is that the Indian voices most readily amplified in Western media are often those whose analyses are already legible within familiar Western frameworks. Their arguments are immediately understandable, which lends them "credibility." Perspectives that do not fit those frameworks are frequently dismissed as "Hindu nationalist" before they are seriously considered. One need not agree with every argument made in these debates to recognize that they are, in fact, debates. The question is not whether history should be examined. The question is whether everyone is permitted to participate in that examination without having their motives presumed in advance.

Mutual trust is the most important strategic asset today. But, sadly, today, the world does not suffer from a shortage of resources…it suffers from a shortage of trust. And the future of our partnerships depends on re-building this trust.

I have been flagging this for a while Indian liberals have built a wall of arrogance around their own ignorance.