South Asia
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    • About Centre

    South Asia is one of the main areas of research focus at IDSA. The region has been going through a period of turmoil over the last few years. Definitive steps have been taken in the recent past towards the establishment of democratic governments in the region. Given the importance of developments in the region for Indian security, experts at IDSA keenly watch and analyse unfolding developments in each South Asian country.

    Two projects that are currently under progress are ‘Developments in Pakistan’ and ‘Pakistan Occupied Kashmir’. In addition, individual scholars are engaged in researching various security related aspects pertaining to South Asian countries. The Centre has established bilateral institutional relations with leading think tanks in the region and proposes to undertake joint studies.

    Minutes of South Asia Centre Meetings

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    Pakistan Occupied Kashmir: Politics, Parties and Personalities

    • Publisher: Pentagon Press
      2019
    This book is a rersult of research undertaken on the subject by the scholars associated with the IDSA project on Pakistan Occupied Kashmir (PoK) - also known as Pakistan Occupied Jammu & Kashmir (PoJK) - Which includes both the so-called "Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK)" and Gilgit-Baltistan (GB), was legally a part of the erstwhile princely state of Jammu and Kahmir, which acceded to India in October 1947. The authors of this book seek to provide a critical analysis of the politics of the above mentioned two regions within PoK; throw light on the genesis and evolution of various political parties and interest groups, and acquaint the readers with different pesonalities playing important role in politics therein. The main aim of the publication is to help the scholars, analysts, and policy-makers to understand the dynamics of the political systems in PoK, the complex interaction of these systems with the government in Islamabad and the responses of the local leadership to Pakistan's strateghy of keeping them under strict control in the name of representative governance over the last 70 years.
    • ISBN: 978-93-86618-67-2,
    • Price: ₹.1495/-
    • E-copy available
    Surinder Kumar Sharma, Yaqoob-ul-Hassan and Ashok K. Behuria
    2019

    Re-Positioning Pakistan Occupied Kashmir on India’s Policy Map: Geopolitical Drivers, Strategic Impact

    The monograph urges a policy re-positioning by aggregating key geopolitical parameters concerning PoK which potentially impinge on India’s vital territorial and security interests.

    Priyanka Singh
    2017

    The Role of Media in Promoting Regional Understanding in South Asia

    The Role of Media in Promoting Regional Understanding in South Asia
    • Publisher: Pentagon Press
      2016

    This book collates a wide spectrum of views across South Asia, including Myanmar, and debates the role of media in forging regional understanding and goodwill. The media's role in South Asia is essentially conceived as state-centric, adhering to the standard templates of nationalism. This inherent tendency has, at times, cost neutral and balanced coverage of events and issues. The contributors to this volume acknowledge the potential of the media as an institution which could/should, in addition to its routine reportage, focus on regional issues of common interest and promote regional understanding.

    • ISBN 978-81-8274-868-2,
    • Price: ₹. 995.00
    • E-copy available
    Priyanka Singh
    2016

    Multi-party Democracy in the Maldives and the Emerging Security Environment in the Indian Ocean Region

    Multi-party Democracy in the Maldives and the Emerging Security Environment in the Indian Ocean Region
    • Publisher: Pentagon Press

    Maldives is the smallest country of South Asia. But its significance is no less because of its crucial geo-strategic location in the Indian Ocean. It sits astride on major sea lanes of communications (SLOCs). However, the crucial geo-strategic location of the Maldives has also caused problems for the country as it has aroused interests of major world powers.

    • ISBN 978-81-8274-895-8,
    • Price: ₹. 795
    • E-copy available
    Anand Kumar
    2016

    India and South Asia: Exploring Regional Perceptions

    India and South Asia: Exploring Regional Perceptions
    • Publisher: Pentagon Press
      2015

    Perceptions play a very significant role in South Asian politics. They have largely shaped and influenced state policies and politics among the South Asian countries, especially in relation to India, over the years. State policies have at times been hostage to negative or adversarial perceptions, well-entrenched in the popular psyche. The perception formation in South Asia is an extremely dynamic process and has evolved differently in different countries. Perceptions are not static and often change with the shift in domestic as well as regional and global politics.

    • ISBN 978-81-8274-812-5,
    • Price: ₹. 995/-
    • E-copy available
    Vishal Chandra
    2015

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    Political Indifference and State Complicity: The Travails of Hazaras in Balochistan

    Pakistan is a forbidding place for minorities—confessional, sectarian and ideological. Violence, direct and structural and exacted with eerie regularity has ghettoised minority communities and forced them to flee. Among them, no other community is being subjected to such annihilatory violence as the Hazaras in the Balochistan province. Hazaras are an ethnic group predominantly based in Afghanistan, but also with a sizeable population in Pakistan, with estimates ranging between 650,000 and 900,000.

    Shakoor Ahmad Wani
    July 2019

    Considered Chaos: Revisiting Pakistan’s ‘Strategic Depth’ in Afghanistan

    Pakistan’s historical insecurity towards India and the Islamisation of its military raises a curious question of strategy and identity rooted in Pakistan’s political genesis. This article examines the social and geostrategic factors underpinning Pakistan’s Afghanistan approach between its inheritance of security principles from colonial administration after Partition, and the Taliban’s capture of Kabul in 1996 and beyond. This article also critically analyses the existing link between the Taliban and Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI).

    Aidan Parkes
    July 2019

    The Challenge of Coordinating India’s Multiple Border Forces: An Analysis of Cross-Border Infiltration Across the India-Pakistan Boundary

    India’s international borders and disputed boundaries with its neighbours are guarded by five different Central Armed Police Forces, two Paramilitary Forces and the Indian Army.

    Vineet Gupta
    March 2019

    US-Taliban Talks for Afghan Peace: Complexities Galore

    The ongoing dialogue between the US and the Taliban has generated lot of interest among strategic analysts in the region and beyond. There are indications that the Taliban are hardening their position as the US appears to be in a haste to pull off an agreement.

    Ashok K. Behuria, Yaqoob-ul-Hassan and Sanya Saroha
    March 2019

    Decimating Democracy in 140 Characters or Less: Pakistan Army’s Subjugation of State Institutions through Twitter

    The Directorate General of Inter Services Public Relations (DG-ISPR), or the Pakistan Army’s media wing has perfected the form of subverting democracy and showcasing the dominant position of the Army in the entire Pakistani polity. This article sets out to prove the same in a quantified manner. By analysing almost 25 tweets from the official account of DG-ISPR in the period 2016 −18, the article tries to quantify, using the Merkel-Croissant model of embedded democracy, the priorities of the Pakistan Army.

    Akshat Upadhyay
    March 2019

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    Pakistan’s Foreign Policy: Trends and Challenges

    Pakistan's most critical foreign policy concerns in the last few years relate to the deadlock in relations with India and India's success in isolating Pakistan regionally and internationally due to its support for terrorism. The success of its peace overtures to Afghanistan are constrained by various complexities arising out of the unpredictable situation in Afghanistan and the role of external powers like the US, China and Russia in the ongoing peace process.

    Sumita Kumar

    Makran Gateways: A Strategic Reference for Gwadar and Chabahar

    The spirit of 'Connectivity', a salient motif in early-twenty first century international relations (IR), has provided an amenable context for a review of geo-determinism in IR theory and the defence of classical geopolitical models as analytical frameworks. No contemporary case study is perhaps more admissible in this regard than the scramble for connectivity leadership in Central and South Asia.

    Philip Reid

    Moving Beyond the Listing of Masood Azhar

    With China now willing to discuss issues of mutual interest with India, a well-structured bilateral dialogue on regional and global terrorism may go a long way in convincing Beijing of the need to put pressure on Islamabad to act against terror

    Sujan R. Chinoy
    May 16, 2019

    Sri Lanka: Securitising Minority Alienation

    The Easter bomb blasts is a grim reminder of how the undercurrent of ethno-religious violence remains a dominant factor in Sri Lanka’s chequered history.

    Smruti S. Pattanaik
    April 29, 2019

    One Year of Pashtun Tahafuz Movement

    Although the Pashtun Tahafuz Movement has been able to mainstream the Pashtun issue and has inspired popular empathy, its anti-establishment thrust has made it a soft target for the pro-establishment media and political actors.

    Zainab Akhter
    January 28, 2019

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