If you know you know

@privatechand

Historian at a US university. Posts about history, India, technology, extremism. Do not feel safe, due to past Hindutva harassment, sharing identity publicly.

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If you know you know@privatechand· Jul 8

Fellow authors: without any context what’s the first line of your current work-in-progress?

In 2022, Subhash Velingkar, the former leader of the Goa branch of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), launched a campaign to “reclaim” the position of the beloved Goencho Sāhib or patron saint of the state.

If you know you know@privatechand· Jul 8

Colonized elites really risked everything to show off their wealth lol

Manmatha Mullick acquired two zebras from Alipore Zoo in the 1930s to pull his carriage. The image shows a traditionally dressed Bengali man accompanied by three uniformed bearers and a driver being ridden through the streets of Calcutta on a carriage drawn by a zebra.

If you know you know@privatechand· Jun 25

The media gives outsize attention to the vanishingly few conservative grifters on campus who use that attention to fail up and endanger the safety of our entire industry. I wish there was equal attention to this kind of student organizing which is often far more representative of how they engage.

Key findings from a recent Gallup survey showing how the overwhelming majority of college students feel that their degrees are valuable, prepare them for the job market (and actually does help secure good jobs) AND that they feel they can express their views freely on campus (including 97% of self-identified Republican students) https://www.luminafoundation.org/wp-content/uploads/2026/02/The.College.Reality.Check_.pdf

If you know you know@privatechand· Jun 22

The Iranian football team’s thank you note to Angelenos, many of whom did not agree with this regime’s vicious war crimes or its decision to force the team to leave for Mexico minutes after the game, without even a chance to recover.

Thank you note from Iranian football team to city of LA: “From the ancient Persia of thousands of years ago to the civilized Iran of today, the spirit of Iran remains alive and steadfast. We came to Los Angeles with pride, competed with honor, and leave with dignity. Thank you, Los Angeles, for your hospitality. And thank you to every Iranian who gave their heart, voice and soul for Iran throughout these 180 minutes.
May Peace, respect, and friendship prevail among all nations." The note also included
"#168" and "#minab" an apparent reference to the U.S. airstrike on a girl's school in the city of Minab early during the Iran war, which resulted in more than a hundred deaths.

If you know you know@privatechand· Jun 16

Started the morning with a spam call purportedly from the Indian consulate claiming Delhi police has registered a case against me for *get this* scamming via phone. I love the meta narrative here. PSA from Indian consulate btw.

Notice from Indian consulate in San Francisco warning against scam calls purporting to be from the consulate.

If you know you know@privatechand· Jun 14

I don’t even follow basketball and I am not from and have never lived in NYC but this thread is genuinely lovely.

Mamdani skeets: HISTORY. First reply: MY MAYOR MUSLIM. Next: MY BAGELS JEWISH. Next: THE POPE’S ON OUR SIDE. Last: KNICKS IN FIVE.

If you know you know@privatechand· Jun 13

The streets of LA have spoken.

Graffiti on a pavement in LA: “God, will I still be a pimp in heaven?” Reply in different font: “Yes-S4P”

If you know you know@privatechand· Jun 13

Jazz at LACMA might be the best party with a family in town. Just heaven.

If you know you know@privatechand· Jun 6

This toll did not include the millions of Bengalis who starved to death from a catastrophic war famine. Crop failures, the Japanese occupation of Burma and British and US indifference produced one of the worst humanitarian calamities of the 20th C which my grandfather barely survived.

The Communist artist Chittaprosad documented the devastating Bengal famine, WWII’s largely forgotten victims.

If you know you know@privatechand· Jun 6

In 1939 Viceroy Linlithgow unilaterally declared India a belligerent in the war on Britain's side. The British Indian army alone comprised 2.5 million men, with the Royal Indian Navy and Royal Indian Air Forces contributing an additional 50,000 fighters. Nearly 90,000 South Asian soldiers died 1/

If you know you know@privatechand· May 26

The weaselly letter AHA ExCo sent to its membership lambasting its members exercising the right to stand for election is exactly why so many of us are convinced you are sabotaging democratic governance of the AHA over Palestine-related academic freedom. Appalling. Vote for the HPAD slate 🗃️

The election for next year’s AHA Council open on June 1, and this year, your ballot will look a little different. In addition to two candidates for each slot selected by the member-elected Nominating Committee, the ballot will also list several “by petition” candidates, all of whom have been nominated by Historians for Peace and Democracy (HPAD), in collaboration with Historians4Palestine and the Palestinian Historians Group. Believing that this is a particularly important election for the Association’s future, and wishing to explain the origins of this “by petition” slate, the AHA’s Executive Committee is taking the unusual step of offering further context and alerting members to the implications of the “by petition” campaign.

As you are surely aware, we are living through a time of unprecedented attempts to rewrite history and threaten historians’ ability to access, study, and understand our past. In the past two years in particular, the AHA has been courageously engaging in monumental efforts to advocate for our discipline. Despite strong headwinds, we have had some recent wins, such as a successful outcome in our NEH lawsuit. Yet the AHA, like other
organizations and institutions, has faced internal disagreement as to the kinds of actions we should take. To date, the Council and staff have focused the AHA’s work on issues within our core mission: promoting historical studies and supporting and defending the rights of historians to research and teach honest, expert history. For this we have faced severe criticism from HPAD, a 501(c)(4) (political) group that advocates for a much more aggressive stance on specific, political matters

The antagonistic relationship of HPAD’s leadership towards the current AHA Council began in January 2025. HPAD had campaigned vigorously for a resolution on Gaza, which was passed at the Association’s business meeting. Afterwards, the Council vetoed that resolution because, as written, that resolution would have bound the AHA to actions, language, and commitments that lay outside our congressionally chartered mission and would have jeopardized our nonprofit and nonpartisan status, and therefore the legal and institutional foundations that make the AHA’s work possible. At the January 2026 meeting, HPAD again campaigned for a resolution that was again vetoed by the Council on the same grounds.

But we did hear members’ concerns, and since January 2025, the AHA Council and staff have worked diligently to address the resolutions’ central demands. We issued two statements condemning violence against scholars and students, and the devastation of historical sites and institutions. (Statement available here.) We provided numerous opportunities at the annual meeting to discuss and engage with the history of Palestine, genocide, and state violence. In response to the resolution, we created a committee that we hoped could do concrete good to support educational programs in the region, help preserve archives, and to aid Palestinian historians. But HPAD leadership and the groups that had proposed the resolutions have declined to participate, unless and until we accept their specific language. As a result, they have now labeled the AHA “anti-democratic” and have distorted the actions and motivations of the AHA.

Now these groups have used the “by petition” clause in the AHA bylaws to generate a full slate of candidates, the majority of whom sit on HPAD’s own steering committee or advisory board, to oppose the candidates put forward by the member-elected Nominating Committee. The petitions for their nomination were signed by about 200 members (less than two percent of our over 10,000 members). It should also be noted that among our 133 affiliated societies, HPAD is the only 501(c)(4) (political) organization, and the only one with an explicitly political mission. Its status means that it operates under the US tax code just as the National Rifle Association or Planned Parenthood, or any other 501(c)(4), and is not permitted to have formal members. HPAD, unlike the AHA, is not a membership organization and is therefore not obligated to any members and does not elect its own leadership.

The AHA, by contrast (and contrary to HPAD’s claims), has a governance structure very much like the other 501(c)(3) disciplinary associations, with a professional staff and a member-elected Council charged with decision-making. But the AHA is unique among the disciplinary associations in that it is the only one incorporated by a law, or charter, passed by the US Congress. That law charges us with a specific mission: “the promotion of historical studies, the collection and preservation of historical manuscripts and for kindred purposes in the interest of American history and of history in America.” (Other examples of congressionally chartered organizations include the American Red Cross and the US Olympic Committee.) Our foundational mission is to join together historians, whatever our personal and political views, in the common professional purpose of furthering the study and teaching of history. And we are able to join together historians from all regions, fields, and institution types because we adhere to this mission.

Today more than ever, we need the AHA, and historians need to work together effectively to support our colleagues. The wanton mutilation of institutions such as the National Endowment for the Humanities and the National Park Service and repeated attacks on academic freedom in universities have been devastating to historians and to the integrity of history itself; the destruction of our national professional organization by means of internal infighting will only add to the wreckage of our discipline. We hope to work in concert with historians of Palestine and of the Middle East, and with colleagues who feel strongly about political or diplomatic issues. But we need to work and act together constructively and through compromise if we hope to maintain public trust in our nonpartisan integrity and expertise.

Because we feel so strongly that this year’s election is crucial to the direction the AHA will take in the near future, we urge you to carefully examine your ballot with the context provided above in mind. We thank you for your support for the AHA, and your concern for the future of our shared discipline.

Executive Committee of the AHA Council

If you know you know@privatechand· May 24

Going down a rabbit hole of Indian modern art just to start the day with something inspiring and beautiful, here’s the work of one of my favorites Zarina

Dividing line, by Zarina, 2001. A woodcut of a thick black line which immediately evokes partition in all its senses

Kiss, by Zarina, 1968, two rectangular shapes, one black, one umber embraced by a single horizontal line

Refugee camp, Zarina, 2015. Row upon row of flat handmade paper tents on a black back ground.

Aleppo, Zarina, 2013. A collage of paper dyed in ink and gold leaf, evoking the delicate geometric artistry of Islamic architecture brutally damaged and interrupted in hollowed out sections

If you know you know@privatechand· May 12

India’s pre-modern architectural heritage is amazing (I love me a good baoli) but I love our vernacular expressions of modernism. The art deco houses of Hindustan Park in Calcutta, the socialist modern public buildings of 1950s Kerala, the lettering of 1930s cinemas is the visual landscape I miss.

House in Hindustan Park, Calcutta, documented by Calcutta Heritage Collective

If you know you know@privatechand· May 10

Suchitra Bhattacharya’s Mitin Mashi series. All Bengali kids grow up on a diet of detective/adventure/scifi fiction but it was electrifying as a kid to discover a female goenda and her female sidekick Tupur. Whiled away many afternoons with this series.

If you know you know@privatechand· Apr 22

Last day of teaching for me and treating myself with a ridiculous haul of books. Hopefully when my vision is better this will be the sea I drown myself in.

New books for leisure to mark the end of the semester: Everett’s The Trees, Bazterrica’s Tender is the flesh, collection of Chester Himes detective novels; re-issue of All Negro Comics, first Black comic book issued 1947

If you know you know@privatechand· Apr 16

Lmfao as a diplobrat the sheer joy of Iran’s diplomats on the internet right now is the soot black humor I need in the middle of Armageddon

Iran in Ghana tweets: Dear Italy,
Your PM just defended Pope and lost an ally in Washington — the Commander in Grief, yet the most 'powerfool'man on earth.
We'd like to apply for the vacancy.
Our qualifications: 7,000 years of civilization, a shared love of poetry, architecture, and food that takes longer to prepare than Trump's attention span.
The only thing Iran and Italy have ever fought over is who invented ice cream.
Faloodeh came first. Gelato came louder.
We've been in a 'cold' war over this for 2,000 years.

If you know you know@privatechand· Apr 10

The UN vote on reparations for slavery is so important because it is NOT a conversation about the past but rather one about the present. Witness what the US delegate said:

The text [of the UN resolution on slavery, on which only US, Israel and Argentina voted no] was “highly problematic in countless respects,” Ambassador Dan Negrea, US representative to the UN Economic and Social Council (ECOSOC), said prior to the vote.

He regretted that Washington “must once again remind this body that the United Nations exists to maintain international peace and security” and “was not founded to advance narrow specific interests and agendas, to establish niche International Days, or to create new costly meeting and reporting mandates.”

Furthermore, the US “does not recognise a legal right to reparations for historical wrongs that were not illegal under international law at the time they occurred.”

If you know you know@privatechand· Apr 1

Ducks have occupied the swimming pool and I am loving this example of squatting rights in my own backyard.

If you know you know@privatechand· Feb 17

This holds true as much for Modi’s India as it does for Starmer’s UK or Trump’s USA. The wreckage and outright corruption of neoliberalism was the foundations for the rise of the populist right who do nothing to address its root cause but provide a channel for the anger it generates through bigotry.

Here is how rightwing populism feeds on the wreckage of a broken economic model. People are left feeling trapped in a zero-sum game: if only there were fewer foreigners, there would be more homes, more jobs, more security for them. But tens of thousands are trapped on council-house waiting lists because the stock has been flogged off and not replaced. She notes, entirely reasonably, that flats are going up “everywhere you look in Manchester”, but assumes they are for refugees – when the real problem is that expensive flats are being built that local people cannot afford

If you know you know@privatechand· Feb 9

Fascist body fashioning lol.

If you know you know@privatechand· Feb 9

Whenever I hear sanctions I think of this poem by the Iraqi Saadi Youssef, written before the invasion. The slow strangulation comes before the final blow from the imperial master. The US has destroyed society after society with sanctions that only strengthen authoritarian states, before invading.

A Vision
By Saadi Youssef

This Iraq will reach the ends of the graveyard.
It will bury its sons in open country
Generation after generation,
And it will forgive its despot…
It will not be the Iraq that once held the name.
And the larks will not sing.
So walk – if you wish – a long time.
And call - if you wish - on all the world’s angels,
And all its demons.
Call on the bulls of Assyria
And the wetly gryphons…
Call them
And through the haze of phantoms
Watch for miracles to emerge
From clouds of incense.

- Amman, 1997

Translated from the Arabic by Khaled Mattawa.

This poem appeared in Al Jadid Magazine, Vol. 4, No. 25, Fall 1998.

If you know you know@privatechand· Feb 8

This is the hottest attire for men, no questions asked.

Saif Ali Khan in traditional Bangla dhuti

If you know you know@privatechand· Feb 8

Here’s my contribution to the Super Bowl- an example of 18th C Goan silver work mounted on a coco-de-mer shell. This is now in a private collection but you can see other examples if you visit the Menezes Bragança house in Chandor. The shell is from a palm that grows on only two islands in the world.

18th C Goan storage bowl, silver work mounted on coco-de-mer shell from Seychelles.

If you know you know@privatechand· Feb 8

Hahahaha say what you will about IFS uncles, this is a beautiful example of Indian bureaucratic truculence in the face of a sad attempt to flex 🤣🤣🤣 That he simultaneously slaps Epstein and that careerist power-hungry Hardeep Puri is going to warm me in the depths of my soul for days to come.

If you know you know@privatechand· Jan 30

Are there really people in her generation who find it cool to live according to the precepts of LAURA INGRAHAM? how uncool do you have to bein your 20s and think YES that’s the model, I want to live according to the rules of a 60yr old her brother denounced as a rage-filled Nazi who needs help?

If you know you know@privatechand· Jan 27

Lmfao absolutely nobody was alive between 2003 and 2026. Not one person.

Except from Ingraham’s 2003 Shut up and Sing in which she defends the expansion of the security state after 9/11 and connects it to immigration enforcement under the newly created DHS and notes approvingly how the acting director of interior under DHS noted there was a shift in priorities, directly contradicting her 2026 statement she had been against the creation of DHS.

Laura Ingraham tweet in 2018 reminding (correctly) that then Senators Obama, Biden and Hilary Clinton had all voted in 2006 for the Secure the Fences Act, which authorized the Department of Homeland Security to increase the use of advanced technology like cameras, satellites, and unmanned aerial vehicles among other things.

If you know you know@privatechand· Jan 26

lol US corporate media out here trying desperately to put lipstick on a pig but the pig in question is like absolutely the fuck not

Stephen Miller labeling Alex Pretti a “would-be assassin” immediately after his murder by federal agents.

If you know you know@privatechand· Jan 23

Lol late to this but adding this to my “but aren’t they all really just…Mexicans” file of US reportage. Anybody who has ever unironically heard a Cuban American use the phrase Marielito as a slur could probably do a better job than the NYT explaining why this happens www.nytimes.com/2026/01/19/u...

Quote from NYT article “To Their Shock, Cubans in Florida Are Being Deported in Record Numbers”: Polls suggest that most Cuban American registered voters, who tend to be Republican, continue to support Mr. Trump, said Michael J. Bustamante, an associate history professor and director of Cuban studies at the University of Miami who studies Cuban American political culture.

If you know you know@privatechand· Jan 21

90% surge in CDSs for Meta, Alphabet, Oracle, Microsoft lmao. Also have I told you guys how much I love FT graphs?

Credit default swaps surging on AI heavy US tech companies.

If you know you know@privatechand· Jan 16

I think about this graph a lot