Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses
मनोहर पर्रिकर रक्षा अध्ययन एवं विश्लेषण संस्थान

Publication

Global Order in COVID-19 Contagion: A Literary and Philosophical Interpretation

This article interprets the COVID-19 pandemic as a profound existential event that exposed the moral, political, and structural fragilities of the global order. Drawing on existentialist philosophy—Sartre’s ontology of freedom, Camus’ ethics of solidarity, Foucault’s bio- politics, and Agamben’s state of exception—it argues that the pandemic mirrored the human condition of interdependence, anxiety, and moral choice. Through literature and philosophy, crises are revealed as tests of responsibility within constraint, as tensions between freedom and surveillance, sovereignty and solidarity, inequality and justice. The study also integrates Marxian critiques of global capitalism and analyses how vaccine nationalism, digital surveillance, and emergency governance redefined sovereignty and ethics. It concludes by articulating an ‘existential diplomacy’ grounded in recognition, responsibility, and redistributive justice, signalling a movement away from technocratic management towards moral and democratic accountability.

Ethnocratic Statecraft and Conflict: The Case of the Chittagong Hill Tracts, Bangladesh

An ethno-conflict erupted in the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) of Bangladesh in 1975 which lasted for more than two decades. It came to a formal end when the Bangladesh government and the ethno-guerilla group reached a negotiated settlement in 1997. Since then, a peace process has been underway, but violence still persists. This article illustrates why ethno-conflict erupted in the CHT and why violence still continues. It argues that Bangladesh since its inception has been an ethnocratic state and the ethnocratic statecraft has led to the rise of ethno-conflict and contributed to the persistence of violence in the post-accord CHT.

Material and Ideational Factors Behind Conceptualisation of the India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor

In recent years, partnerships with non-conventional allies have emerged as the norm in the world order, amid dynamic global polarity and unanticipated challenges. The India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) announced at the 2023 G20 Summit exemplifies this trend, linking three diverse regions with shared vulnerabilities and interests. This article aims to identify the key material and ideational drivers behind IMEC and analyse its opportunities and challenges. The European Union’s search to de-risk their engagements, Gulf countries’ push for non-oil economic diversification and India’s adept navigation of shifting alliances presents a congruence of their interests. Despite normative differences of the three regions, shared geo-economic and geo-political concerns underpin IMEC’s vision. While opportunities arise from the October 2025 Gaza Peace Summit, implementation faces hurdles from Middle East instability.

Minilateralism for Reinforcing ASEAN Centrality?: The Case of Intra-Regional Mechanisms in the Mekong Region

This paper examines how ASEAN-led minilateralism in the Mekong subregion contributes to reinforcing ASEAN centrality amid great power competition, particularly between the US and China. Some intra-regional initiatives such as the Ayeyawady-Chao Phraya-Mekong Economic Cooperation Strategy, the Mekong River Commission, and the ASEAN Mekong Basin Development Cooperation are examined to evaluate how ASEAN states employ minilateralism to sustain cooperation amid both development needs and intensifying great power competition in the Mekong subregion. ASEAN-led minilateralism is neither purely normative nor purely strategic. Instead, it is a pragmatic blend of cooperation and competition, designed to preserve institutional coherence while responding to geopolitical volatility.

Soft Power Through Education: Realist Regional Dynamics in Asia

This paper examines education as a realist tool for soft power in West and East Asia, responding to Jane Knight’s call for regionalisation research. Challenging her liberal vision of knowledge diplomacy, it argues that states leverage higher education to navigate power struggles, counter external influence, and secure national interests. Historical and contemporary examples reveal education’s unpredictable outcomes, necessitating state learning from successful models. While complementing hard and economic power, education’s ideological divides, notably China’s non-liberal norms, fuel regional rivalry, risking instability. Asian states, including India, can strategically use education to enhance security and influence in a competitive global order.

Liberal International Order: Bursting at the Seams

With the collapse of the Soviet Union in late 1991, US political scientist Francis Fukuyama in his book The End of History and the Last Man (Citation1992) triumphantly declared that the event marked the universalisation of Western liberal democracy as the final form of human government (Fukuyama Citation1992). However, time has since mellowed the now septuagenarian Fukuyama, whose earlier writings made him an ideologue of neo-conservative thought. In his book, Liberalism and Its Discontents, he accepts that the war-like misadventures of neo-liberals and the race and gender-based Left-wing identity politics of US ‘progressives’ have increased inequality around the world and caused the perception that liberal ideas are outdated (Fukuyama Citation2022).

Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah and his Biographers

Sheikh Mohammad Abdullah (1905–1982) occupies an enigmatic position in Kashmir’s political memory. To his supporters, he remains the Sher-i-Kashmir; to his critics, a symbol of political compromise. Lockwood observed long ago that Abdullah’s politics were shaped by the ‘test of wills’ between his regionalism and nationalisms (Lockwood Citation1969, 384). This ‘test’ became the defining feature of his political life. This review essay critically examines Chitralekha Zutshi’s Sheikh Abdullah: The Caged Lion of Kashmir and Altaf Hussain Para’s The Making of Modern Kashmir: Sheikh Abdullah and the Politics of the State. Zutshi interprets Abdullah primarily as a figure shaped by postcolonial nationalist narratives, arguing that his leadership was continuously reconstructed through symbolic representation and political pragmatism (Zutshi Citation2024). Para, in contrast, attributes Abdullah’s contradictions to his personal political development, asserting that Abdullah used ideologies ‘to raise his own stakes rather than to build a consistent political philosophy’ of his own (Para Citation2019, 280).

Aid, Politics and the War of Narratives in the US–Pakistan Relations: A Case Study of Kerry Lugar Berman Act

Pakistan has longed for external patronage, mainly because of its ambition to achieve parity with its eastern neighbour, India. It has often got external support, for two reasons: firstly, its geopolitical location in the region has attracted attention of great powers; second is its nature of emanating security threats from the region in the form of transnational terrorism. But the question arises—how has Pakistan benefitted from these and why? One of the factors that has marred the growth and stability of Pakistan is the abysmal state of its economy. One after another simmering economic crises, on one hand, have undermined the credibility of the political leadership and, on the other, they have emboldened the military to interfere in political affairs, leading to a power tussle, in which each has been trying to dominate the country’s domestic and foreign policy at the expense of restructuring the economy and polity. In such a situation, it is foreign aid that has helped the country survive. Pakistan has knocked at the door of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) 23 times, the highest by any country.

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