By The Way

Of all the wars fought between India and Pakistan, the first one, the 1947-48 conflict over Kashmir, is perhaps the strangest. It is mentioned in history textbooks as the “First India-Pakistan War,” as if the two countries were fully formed, sovereign rivals, fully ready with their armies, and their naval and air forces. But that is not how things really were. The reality is frankly quite bizarre. Indian troops landing on the Srinagar Airfield, 1947. In late 1947, India and Pakistan were not quite the “republics” in the sense we now understand them. They were dominions, legally still under the British Crown. George VI was the King of both countries. Yes,  the same King.  There was no President of India, no President of Pakistan. Jawaharlal Nehru and Liaquat Ali Khan were Prime Ministers, not heads of state. Their respective countries were still transitioning out of the British Empire, and in the middle of this awkward situation, a war broke out. A war in which both dominions h...

There is something quietly terrifying about the way intelligence has fallen out of fashion. We have all seen it. Scroll through social media or tune into a primetime debate on any news channel, and you will likely run into someone proudly dismissing “experts,” mocking nuance, or declaring that their personal feelings should override facts. It’s not new, of course. This suspicion of thinkers has been around forever, but there is something particularly aggressive and oddly mainstream about it today. It is not merely scepticism anymore. It is disdain. Anti-intellectualism, at its core, is a hostility to complexity of thoughts. It flattens  the arguments, mocks the reflections, and replaces debate with the idea of ‘vibes.’ And it is not confined to one group or ideology. It creeps across the political spectrum, disguised in different clothes. Sometimes it looks like populism; other times like cynicism. But its effect is the same, that is, a quiet war on thinking. What makes it wor...