In the post-colonial era, religion has emerged as a powerful political force in South Asia. The key question that emerges is: how and why did religion become this potent political ideology in the South Asian region? Aiming to find the answer to this question, Ali Riaz, along with other scholars from the region—namely Abdulkader Sinno, Amalendu Misra, Subho Basu, Farhat Haq and A.R.M. Imtiyaz—offers a comprehensive analysis of the interaction between religion and politics in Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

• Md. Mizanur Rahman
• January 2014
• Strategic Analysis

There is immense strategic interest in the Af-Pak region. The US has spent over half a trillion dollars in Afghanistan and perhaps billions in Pakistan. NATO has spent money and sacrificed lives in Afghanistan. India, China, Russia and Iran have given large packages of aid and invested in the country. What will be the future of these trillion dollars of expenditure, huge investments and diplomatic efforts in the Af-PaK region? Ahmad Rashid offers a disturbing answer. Pakistan is on the brink of collapse, Afghanistan is in the midst of a civil war, and the Americans are pulling out.

• Naser Timory
• January 2014
• Strategic Analysis

This article highlights the current relevance of cultural diplomacy not as a panacea for the problems in India’s relations with its South Asian neighbours but as a way of dealing with the dilemma it faces. Against the backdrop of India’s position in South Asia and the importance of the region, the article makes an estimate of cultural diplomacy.

• Rabindra Sen
• January 2014
• Strategic Analysis

The politics of coalition has posed new challenges to India’s foreign policy. This problem becomes particularly evident in India’s neighbourhood, which inevitably becomes intertwined with domestic politics. The rise of regional political parties and their role as coalition partners makes it more difficult for the union government to ignore provincial sentiments. Competitive politics featuring both national and regional political parties provides primacy to local interest as this is linked to the vote bank politics.

• Smruti S. Pattanaik
• January 2014
• Strategic Analysis

In the run-up to the May 2013 elections, the political scene in Pakistan was absorbed in electoral rhetoric, active campaigning and a hectic poll process. It culminated with an expected set of results—the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) emerged victorious and took the reins of power after a decade and a half. The incumbent Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) was nearly decimated and Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) marginalised.

• Priyanka Singh
• January 2014
• Strategic Analysis

India has significantly invested in Nepal’s development through economic assistance since 1952. Despite deploying aid to win the hearts and minds of the people of Nepal, India has not entirely succeeded in doing so. Paradoxically, an analysis of Indian aid and gaps in the planning, processes, modalities and perceptions of India’s motivation shows that it has possibly contributed to the fuelling of anti-India sentiments among the Nepalese population.

• Monalisa Adhikari
• May 2014
• Strategic Analysis

A discordant political relationship, three and a half wars and Pakistan’s material support for secessionist militants in the border states of Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir compelled India to harden its international border with Pakistan. An inward-looking economy and the absence of an imperative for regional economic integration also resulted in restricted movement of people and goods across the border. However, in the past decade or so, an emergent Indian economy coupled with both countries’ desire to engage themselves constructively have paved the way for softening the border.

• Pushpita Das
• May 2014
• Strategic Analysis

India has stepped up its efforts to cooperate on security issues in general and on maritime security in particular with its island neighbours in the Indian Ocean Region (IOR). At the core of this lies the initiative to build a trilateral maritime arrangement with Sri Lanka and the Maldives. It is in this larger context that the second National Security Advisors’ (NSAs) meeting took place in Colombo in July 2013.

• P. K. Ghosh
• May 2014
• Strategic Analysis

Elections for the Northern Provincial Council (NPC) of Sri Lanka were held on September 21, 25 years after they were first held in 1988 under the Thirteenth Amendment (13A) to the Sri Lankan Constitution, which formed part of the Indo-Lanka Accord. It was, however, the first election since the demerger of the Northern and Eastern Provinces in 2006.1 With the end of 30 years of war that had culminated in the elimination of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), election to the NPC was politically crucial for the Tamils, especially in the post-war context.

• Smruti S. Pattanaik
• May 2014
• Strategic Analysis

• Satish Chandra , Arvind Gupta
• July 2014
• Strategic Analysis

India’s stand at the United Nations Human Rights Council on the resolution relating to human rights situation in Sri Lanka should be based on its long-term interests in the teardrop island.

• Gulbin Sultana
• March 19, 2021
• Issue Brief

Even as the India-Pakistan ceasefire decision on the LoC is in effect, India has affirmed that there would not be any let-up in its counter-terrorism efforts.

• Zainab Akhter
• March 12, 2021
• IDSA Comments

The rapidity and selflessness with which India rolled out millions of doses of vaccines as aid despite the massive requirements of its own vaccination drive, is being particularly appreciated by world leaders and observers.

• Ashok Sajjanhar
• January 29, 2021
• IDSA Comments

While Imran Khan’s efforts to build legitimacy around his ‘personality’ as a religious person and a crusader against corruption do not seem to have convinced many people, his government’s inability to bring the much-promised tabdeeli (‘change’) to Pakistan is beginning to hurt him politically.

• Nazir Ahmad Mir
• January 04, 2021
• IDSA Comments

India and Bangladesh fought together “in the defence of human liberty”, in the words of Sheikh Mujib ur Rahman, to liberate Bangladesh, fifty momentous years ago.

• Smruti S. Pattanaik
• December 16, 2020
• IDSA Comments

The street power of the ulema groups in Bangladesh is pushing the government to further Islamise the social sphere, which will pave the way for the ultimate political success of the Islamists.

• Smruti S. Pattanaik
• December 11, 2020
• Issue Brief

The COVID-19 pandemic, which has revealed the inherent weaknesses in the existing global supply chain and risks of over-reliance on China’s manufacturing industry, presents new opportunities for India to rethink its industrial strategy, especially policies concerning the growth of its manufacturing sector.

• Kogila Balakrishnan , Saurabh Kukreja
• November 13, 2020
• Issue Brief

There is a need to widely disseminate China’s insidious role as an illegal occupier of Kashmir’s territory, including its territorial grab in the trans-Karakoram tract, in order to raise public awareness of the issue – both in India and at the international level.

• Amb. Sujan R. Chinoy
• November 13, 2020
• Special Feature

Given the assertive foreign policy followed by China and the desperation of Pakistan after the abolition of Article 370, India has to follow a proactive foreign policy. It is only India’s proactiveness that can keep both China and Pakistan in check in Bangladesh.

• Anand Kumar
• September 18, 2020
• IDSA Comments

The growing assertion of presidential executive powers in the absence of parliament poses a critical challenge to functioning democracy in Sri Lanka.

• Gulbin Sultana
• July 17, 2020
• Issue Brief