SPIEZ
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At first glance, South Asia's prospects look grim. Pakistan is trapped in a cycle of violence. Bangladesh emerged from an Islamist government led by Khaleda Zia and successive caretaker administrations only three years ago. Sri Lanka is still recovering from the debilitating 27-year-old a civil war with the LTTE. Nepal and the Maldives are in political ferment. Afghanistan remains mired in war.
And India? The fulcrum of South Asia is at a fork in the road. A wrong turn could set it back years in its battle against corruption, political misgovernance and policy inertia. The converse could help it build South Asia into an economic and geopolitical power within a decade.
The informal talks last Sunday between the Indian prime minister and the Pakistani president have reinforced the growing conviction in Islamabad that peace in South Asia is a necessary condition to extricate Pakistan from its economic quagmire.
South Asia houses 23.50% of the world's population. But its 1.65 billion people are among the poorest in the world with per capita incomes ranging from $ 1,250 (Nepal) to $ 5,100 (Sri Lanka). Even adjusted for purchasing power parity (PPP), South Asia's median per capita income is around $3,000 – one-tenth of Greece, Europe's most distressed economy.
Apart from poverty, the region shares the same afflictions: widespread corruption, shambolic infrastructure, inadequate healthcare and huge socio-economic inequalities. So how can 23.50% of the world's population, packed together in just 3.20% of the world's land mass, steeped in poverty, sectarianism and fundamentalism, turn things around?
The countries of South Asia have a common civilisational heritage. Four of the world's nine great religions – Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism – evolved here. Two others – Islam and Christianity – arrived in the subcontinent mere decades after their founding in west Asia and established deep roots. A seventh and eighth – Judaism and Zorastrianism – came here through believers escaping persecution in Palestine and Persia. Only the ninth, Confucianism, stayed away. But its monks travelled frequently from China to India to exchange ideas and debate theology.
In such a plural subcontinent, conflict is inevitable. However, from violence a syncretic society can emerge, bound by a common heritage and common wounds. The scars of partition, the more recent trauma of state-sponsored terrorism from Pakistan and old memories of Mughal and Protestant conquests give all sides cause to be deeply suspicious of one another.
But now South Asia is at a turning point. Pakistan has belatedly realised that using terror as an instrument of state policy has brought it close to bankruptcy. Whoever wins the next general election will seek cooperation not confrontation with India, despite the rhetoric over Jammu & Kashmir. The military has no constituency or goodwill left. Islamic fundamentalists are feared but reviled. Thus the three "As" that defined Pakistan for decades – Allah, Army and America – are no longer omnipotent. From the wreckage, Pakistan can rebuild itself as a prosperous and peaceful nation – but only as part of a prosperous and peaceful South Asia.
Pakistan, in various back-channel talks, concedes that the militancy it unleashed on Jammu & Kashmir in 1989 has bled Pakistan, not India. It would, however, be unwise to underestimate the fanaticism that lurks within the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and other state-sponsored Pakistani terrorist groups, including Hafiz Saeed's JuD into which the LeT has morphed.
Bangladesh has meanwhile, under the secular leadership of Prime Minister Hasina, pulled itself back from the fundamentalist precipice former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia had pushed it towards. Sri Lanka too, freed finally from its devastating conflict with the LTTE, though not from the taint of alleged human rights violations against ethnic Tamils, is ready to move towards a better future for its people.
India is the key to South Asia's emergence as one of the world's most powerful regional blocs. It constitutes 75% of South Asia's total population and 82% of its combined GDP ($4.10 trillion out of $4.96 trillion, at purchasing power parity). How can India provide leadership to a region beyond the dated, bureaucratic confines of SAARC? Pakistan's grant of MFN status to India is a starting point. At an average annual GDP growth rate of 7.5%, India's economy will more than double in 10 years to over $8.50 trillion. Pakistan's own economy – even assuming annual GDP growth of 4% (twice its current rate) — would by then have hauled itself up to just $0.70 trillion – one-twelfth India's GDP.
In this statistic lies the future of India, Pakistan and the rest of South Asia. To counter the nuanced challenge of a rising China taking America's place in Pakistan's post-2014 geopolitical strategy, India will have to overcome political misgovernance at home and emerge globally as the third angle in the Isoceles triangle with China and the US.
The world's geopolitics will be dominated in 2022 by three economic zones: the American Economic Zone, bridging the Atlantic from North and South America to Europe; the Chinese Economic Zone, tracing an arc across the Pacific Ocean; and the Indian Economic Zone, sweeping through South Asia to West Asia and Africa. In this unfolding century, South Asia has the opportunity to overcome terrorism, corruption and poverty to give a quarter of humanity the life of peace and dignity so long denied them.
How India can lead the South Asian Century : Minhaz Merchant's blog-The Times Of India
And India? The fulcrum of South Asia is at a fork in the road. A wrong turn could set it back years in its battle against corruption, political misgovernance and policy inertia. The converse could help it build South Asia into an economic and geopolitical power within a decade.
The informal talks last Sunday between the Indian prime minister and the Pakistani president have reinforced the growing conviction in Islamabad that peace in South Asia is a necessary condition to extricate Pakistan from its economic quagmire.
South Asia houses 23.50% of the world's population. But its 1.65 billion people are among the poorest in the world with per capita incomes ranging from $ 1,250 (Nepal) to $ 5,100 (Sri Lanka). Even adjusted for purchasing power parity (PPP), South Asia's median per capita income is around $3,000 – one-tenth of Greece, Europe's most distressed economy.
Apart from poverty, the region shares the same afflictions: widespread corruption, shambolic infrastructure, inadequate healthcare and huge socio-economic inequalities. So how can 23.50% of the world's population, packed together in just 3.20% of the world's land mass, steeped in poverty, sectarianism and fundamentalism, turn things around?
The countries of South Asia have a common civilisational heritage. Four of the world's nine great religions – Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism – evolved here. Two others – Islam and Christianity – arrived in the subcontinent mere decades after their founding in west Asia and established deep roots. A seventh and eighth – Judaism and Zorastrianism – came here through believers escaping persecution in Palestine and Persia. Only the ninth, Confucianism, stayed away. But its monks travelled frequently from China to India to exchange ideas and debate theology.
In such a plural subcontinent, conflict is inevitable. However, from violence a syncretic society can emerge, bound by a common heritage and common wounds. The scars of partition, the more recent trauma of state-sponsored terrorism from Pakistan and old memories of Mughal and Protestant conquests give all sides cause to be deeply suspicious of one another.
But now South Asia is at a turning point. Pakistan has belatedly realised that using terror as an instrument of state policy has brought it close to bankruptcy. Whoever wins the next general election will seek cooperation not confrontation with India, despite the rhetoric over Jammu & Kashmir. The military has no constituency or goodwill left. Islamic fundamentalists are feared but reviled. Thus the three "As" that defined Pakistan for decades – Allah, Army and America – are no longer omnipotent. From the wreckage, Pakistan can rebuild itself as a prosperous and peaceful nation – but only as part of a prosperous and peaceful South Asia.
Pakistan, in various back-channel talks, concedes that the militancy it unleashed on Jammu & Kashmir in 1989 has bled Pakistan, not India. It would, however, be unwise to underestimate the fanaticism that lurks within the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and other state-sponsored Pakistani terrorist groups, including Hafiz Saeed's JuD into which the LeT has morphed.
Bangladesh has meanwhile, under the secular leadership of Prime Minister Hasina, pulled itself back from the fundamentalist precipice former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia had pushed it towards. Sri Lanka too, freed finally from its devastating conflict with the LTTE, though not from the taint of alleged human rights violations against ethnic Tamils, is ready to move towards a better future for its people.
India is the key to South Asia's emergence as one of the world's most powerful regional blocs. It constitutes 75% of South Asia's total population and 82% of its combined GDP ($4.10 trillion out of $4.96 trillion, at purchasing power parity). How can India provide leadership to a region beyond the dated, bureaucratic confines of SAARC? Pakistan's grant of MFN status to India is a starting point. At an average annual GDP growth rate of 7.5%, India's economy will more than double in 10 years to over $8.50 trillion. Pakistan's own economy – even assuming annual GDP growth of 4% (twice its current rate) — would by then have hauled itself up to just $0.70 trillion – one-twelfth India's GDP.
In this statistic lies the future of India, Pakistan and the rest of South Asia. To counter the nuanced challenge of a rising China taking America's place in Pakistan's post-2014 geopolitical strategy, India will have to overcome political misgovernance at home and emerge globally as the third angle in the Isoceles triangle with China and the US.
The world's geopolitics will be dominated in 2022 by three economic zones: the American Economic Zone, bridging the Atlantic from North and South America to Europe; the Chinese Economic Zone, tracing an arc across the Pacific Ocean; and the Indian Economic Zone, sweeping through South Asia to West Asia and Africa. In this unfolding century, South Asia has the opportunity to overcome terrorism, corruption and poverty to give a quarter of humanity the life of peace and dignity so long denied them.
How India can lead the South Asian Century : Minhaz Merchant's blog-The Times Of India
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. This i what i meant. It assumes everything will be alright. What if fanatics take over again?
. Come on, you know it right? It has moved past its violations? May be because there wont be any need for that, if you know what i mean
