South Asia stands at the cusp of possibilities

by Pran Chopra

(December 30, New Delhi, Sri Lanka Guardian) There have been many yearends and New Year eves all over South Asia with tantalising possibilities ahead of them. But I cannot recall any transition from one year to the next, since the mid-1940s, in which the South Asian subcontinent was so crowded with such far reaching possibilities as it is this time.

The transition that comes closest to the present since 1947 is the one which saw the creation of Bangladesh. But that and other transitions had bypassed the southern and northern extremes of South Asia. However, both these areas will be affected by events which are impending south of the Himalayas, and a lot of diplomatic and other efforts will be needed to ensure that the effect is wholly beneficial throughout the region.

To take the southern end first. There is every chance that the war which has engulfed Sri Lanka for over 40 years — and it has been nothing less than a "war" although it has not been between two countries — may come to a close a few months hence, or at least fewer months hence than the number of years for which it has ravaged a country that gave the English language another word for serenity.

How that war will end and what effect that will have on South India for example, is more difficult to foresee than to hazard a guess that the South Asian region as a whole would prefer an earlier rather than a later end to it. It is also easy to guess that the longer the war lasts, and casualties increase, the more difficult it will become for Sri Lanka to ensure that the outcome is equally welcomed by all parts of all countries in the region. On the other hand, the sooner it ends the easier it will be for all countries to help as best as they can in the huge task of rebuilding the country.

It is also clear that while the war can be ended only or mainly by the efforts of Sri Lanka itself, the task of reconstruction will call for a much wider and more participatory effort by many countries. India will be expected to be a more than willing party to that effort, and it will be easier for India to generate that effort if the war ends soon.

To turn next to the northern end of South Asia, the state of Jammu & Kashmir. The province of Jammu has continued this year too on the path of peaceful reconstruction, accompanied by fairly normal and democratic elections, and with little communal friction with the other two provinces, Kashmir and Ladakh. Pessimists may well have anticipated some, considering the wide religious differences between the three provinces — Jammu which is predominantly Hindu, Kashmir largely Muslim, and Ladakh with its uniquely Buddhist population.

But it is the province of Kashmir which seems to have set the most encouraging electoral and demographic precedent. The details of the voting outcome had not been announced at the time writing this, but it is clear that compared with all earlier elections in the state, the latest have had some very positive features. The voters have shown a greater will to vote and have defied the directives of some of their leaders to abstain or vote only as commanded.

This has been reflected in outcomes, but more so in the public moaning by many leaders over the defiance exhibited by voters. Some "separatists" are reported to have commented that they have separated themselves from the people. The most resolutely anti-Indian among Kashmiri politicians, Syed Ali Shah Geelani, has admitted that he never imagined such a high voter turnout to be possible. His more moderate counterpart Mirwaiz Farooq has urged "introspection and re-think… over lack of rapport with the ground" and to "understand" the problems of the people. He said "people need a break" from the politics of "strikes and protests," words which also have meaning for leaders in the rest of South Asia. Particularly the eastern wing of South Asia, where all of what was once Bengal, has had a bitter taste of it, whether as West Bengal, East Pakistan, or Bangladesh.

Bangladesh is now poised for another brush with democracy after a spell of a reasonably successful but soft-faced military rule. Therefore, the choice Bangladeshis make and what happens thereafter will be closely watched by the whole of South Asia.

But more so by the people of Pakistan, in the western wing of South Asia. The fate of democracy in Pakistan and the quality of its relations with India are closely interlinked. Each time Pakistan has turned away from military dictatorship towards at least some form of democracy, its relations with India, the country which constitutes the largest single landmass of South Asia, have improved, at times dramatically. Each time it has turned the clock of democracy back, its relations with India have suffered, always dramatically.

This has happened so frequently that the phenomenon can no longer be dismissed as a quirky coincidence. What is possibly a coincidence is that the wheel of democracy has taken the beneficial turn more frequently when Pakistan has been ruled by a leader whose last name was Bhutto. But that does not mean that before making another try at improving relations with Pakistan, we should wait till the young Bhutto grows up, who is currently a student in England. It means that we should do what we can with the Zardari we have, and with whom we had a good start before it got swamped by the global implications of what is happening in the badlands which lie between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

That brings me to my last point. The main actors in the sad story of relations between India and Pakistan are not these two countries. The main springs lie in countries which have so much at stake in what happens in these "badlands" that they cannot resist doing all that they can to squeeze all they can get for their own benefit in the whole of this region, which stretches far westwards and northwards into Central Asia and what for us is western Asia. For all that it is made to look like an Indo-Pakistan problem, that is the squeeze we are in. - Sri Lanka Guardian