Modern South Asia: Politics, State, Diaspora: Notes - Part 3
- modernglitch
- Aug 1, 2021
- 10 min read
Here's Part 3 of the notes. Part 1 can be found here and Part 2 here. Part 3 focuses on India under Indira Gandhi, the emergence of Bangladesh, Pakistan and Bangladesh post-1972 and contemporary South Asian international relations.
Enjoy reading and email me at modernglitch99@gmail.com for any comments/queries.
Modern South Asia: Politics, State, Diaspora
Chapter 11: Challenges to Nehruvian India
post-Nehru: short-lived Shastri premiership. (1964-1966)
Shastri gave renewed influence to agriculture in the planning process following its earlier neglect.
He sought technological rather than institutional solutions to low productivity: where Nehru encourages cooperative farming, Shastri turned to green revolution to increase yields.
the private sector and foreign investment played a bigger role in the economy
1965 Pakistan war: Shastri directed the Indian army to advance toward Lahore when the tide of battle was going in Pakistan’s favour in Chhamb, Kashmir. Pakistan ran out of ammunition and faced with a US embargo, agreed to a UN ceasefire. Shastri died after signing a ceasefire with Ayub Khan.
Indira Gandhi
moved away from non-aligned stance and developed close ties with Soviet Union
state control and leftist move led to the 1969 split: congress organisation led by Syndicate with Gandhi's congress clinging on to national power with the support of the Communist Party of INdia and Tamil nationalist DMK.
1971 election: won 70% of seats. delinking of parliamentary and state elections further assisted the turn away from old-style patronage.
However, within 2 years, populiist movement in Gujarat and Bihar and legal challenges to her leadership(Allahabad High Court judgement that Gandhi had been guilty of electioneering violations during her contest in 1971) led to the declaration of emergency.
Emergency (1975-1977)
Twenty-Point Program announced:
land reform
agricultural minimum wage for rural population
tax relief and price reductions for urban population
emergency excesses
Sanjay Gandhi family planning and slum clearance: the poor, not the poverty, were the problem
government vasectomy program meet quotas by rounding up minorities and poorer classes for forced sterilization
police firing on antivasectomy riot by Muslim population of Turkoman Gate
abandoned Shastri’s halting steps towards economic liberalisation in favour of state control.
internal Maoist insurgency
Gandhi used the refugee influx into west Bengal menaced by the Naxalite movement (maoist peasant revolutionary movement beginning with occupation of landlords’ fields) to justify military intervention in east Pakistan in 1971.
Emergence of Bangladesh
tipped the balance in India's favour but cut short Islamabad’s sponsorship of the Naga and Mizo insurgencies in the northeastern periphery.
acquisition of Sikkim (1975)
Delhi supported resistance against rule and Sikkim became 22nd state of Indian Union on 16/5/1975
1977 elections
opposition united to form the Janata Front
Congress could not rely on traditional Muslim and Untouchable voters because of their victimization during the sterilization campaign. Sanjay died in a failed air stunt in 1980>> rajiv taking mantle
janata won 330 constituencies with congress winning 154.
janata interlude: press freedom restored, non alignment favoured. coalition dependent on license-permit Raj culture.
the government's failure to break with the past and increasing inflation and communalism led to its downfall.
1980 polls
restored Gandhi’s power. continued to see centralisation as the means to stability: weakened INdian federalism.
political climate: strengthened caste based and communal politics. Jana Sangh and RSS gained power. BJP= Jana Sangh’s successor.
Gandhi encouraged communal mobilization thru her involvement in the Punjab crisis:
resistance to a Sikh threat in Punjab was seen as a useful means to undercut the rising power of the Hindu RIght in North India
ousted Punjab's sikh led state government.
exaggerated Akali Dal’s request for greater Punjab autonomy.
turned to civil disobedience when negotiations stalled. police harassment of SIkhs.
took sanctuary at Golden Temple Amritsar and supported the need to achieve sovereign authority for the khalsa
june 1984: Operation Blue Star against Golden Temple led to the death of Bhindranwale
october 1984: assassinated by 2 sikh bodyguards. led to sikh pogrom in delhi where two thousand Sikhs died.
Chapter 12: Pakistan's National Crisis and the Birth of Bangladesh
some writers have stated that the “geographical absurdity” of the separation of the western and eastern wings of Pakistan and the existence of a strongly defined Bengali collective consciousness as making the creation of Bangladesh inevitable
marginalisation of Bengali influence within the Muslim League Council and Working Committee.
political and cultural tensions between the Bengali and Urdu speaking Muslim elites
Khawajas of Dacca and Urdu speaking business classes of Calcutta felt that Bengali was Hinduized and Sanskritized and thus Urdu was the legitimate language for Muslim interests.
East Pakistan Renaissance Soicety conflicted with the Muslim League ideology: they claimed that religion and culture were not the same thing and this differntiated east and west Pakistan.
not allowed to vote in the 1946 elections but greeted the League's candidates. Khawaja, who was committed to a one-nation, one-culture policy, became prime minister.
Dhaka Student Protests 1948: in favour of Bengali as the language of Pakistan, or atleast east pakistan.
oppostition Party: United Front:1954 provincial elections: campaigned on a 21 point manifesto: regional devolution of power except defense, foregin affairs and currency control.
Pakistan’s Military Dictatorship and Consequences for National Integration
Ayub Khan: did not like democracy: it was not suited to the “genius of the people”
nomination instead of election and thus the elite civil service formed the backbone of a system of governance that privileged administration over popular participation.
only legalized party organisation reluctantly post 1962
1959: Public Offices and Elective Bodies Disqualification Order: aim was to root our corruption but it was used to root our political opponents instead.
restricted press freedom as well
the stifling of democracy overall had an especially pernicious impact in East Pakistan: Bengalis grossly underrepresented in army and bureaucracy.
Ayub Khan’s popularity abated with the ill-advised launching of Operation Gibraltar (1965) in an attempt to wrest Kashmir from India.
encouraged by young foreign minister: Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto
1967: Bhutto forms Pakistan People’s Party (PPP)
public fed a diet of victory reports so were surprised with loss and the Tashkent Declaration of Jan 1966 + extent of Ayub’s surrender.
1965 war impact
increased popularity of PPP
increased anti-American sentinment + army’s engagement with jihadist group.
defenselessness of East Pakistan: demand for separate army/
alienation of Sindhis from ayub’s regime with the decision to introduce Urdu as a medium of instruction + closure of SIndhi medium schools
Ayub's modernisation efforts:
economically: land reforms used to penalize opponents rather than to abolish feudalism
liberalisation + private sector growth: increased inequality and wealth concentration.
note: assisted by the Development Advisory Service of Harvard University: Pakistan was a laboratory for modernisation theory prescription for a takeoff into sustained economic growth via massive infusions of capital to industry + entrepreneurship.
culturally: 1962 constitution removed islamic from title of country but it was reinstated affter ulema’s dissent.
disenchantment + economic inequality + alienation of east pakistan as wealth concentrated in west: awami league demands for regional autonomy
The Agartala conspiracy case (a sedition case in Pakistan during the rule of Ayub Khan against Awami League, brought by the government of Pakistan in 1968 against Sheikh Mujibur Rahman, the then leader of the Awami League and East Pakistan, and 34 other people) backfired and the Awami League were seen as martyrs not traitors.
contributed to Ayub's resignation in 1969 and successor Yahya Khan, instead of co-opting Bengali aspirations, confronted them instead.
Yahya Khan
first pakistani national elections in 1970
elections delayed by cyclone of nov 1970 and gov’s slow response used by awami league to prove west pakistan’s long term callous indifference to Bengali interests
results: Awami League captured 160/162 seats in east and PPP 81/140 in west.
now: negotiations between Bhutto, Yahya and mujib (awami)
mistrust prevented compromise and student militias paraded with the Bangladesh flag and two days later, army launched Opeartion Searchlight
crisis provided Indira Gandhi with opportunity to cut Pakistan down to size and to close transborder camps for Naga and Mizo rebels.
new dehli provided military and diplomatic support to bengali rebels.
US pro Pakistan stance prevented india from declaring war but the Pakistani Air force’s raids on northwestern Indian airfileds (3 dec 1971)led to declaration of war and c third indo-pakistani war: lasted 2 weeks + under diplomatic pressure from Washington, Pakistan surrendered.
some blame the war on Bhutto’s intransigence and Yahya’s incompetence
Chapter 13: Bangladesh since independence
Sheik Mujibur Rahman declared an emergency 3 years after independence.
Nationalisation, as in Bhutto’s Pakistan undermined business confidence + Politicization of bureaucracy to weed out opposition bore similarities with Bhutto’s populism.
Emergency
Curb freedom of press and judiciary. Banned rival parties and amended the Constitution in 1975: replacing the prime ministerial system with a presidential one.
Mujib created a rival military organisation that aggrieved the army. Promoted freedom fighters over repatriates; those interned at West Pakistan in 1973.
Led to army coup: daughter Sheik Hasina survived as she was in india.
Two more coups before Zia established regime: Zia (served as the President of Bangladesh from 1977–1981)
Zia
Formed Bangladesh National Party.
Islamization of Bangladesh
4 years until he was assassinated in Chittagong in an army coup: provided an islamic gloss to the state and reopened the Chittagong Hill Tracts as a training area for tribal insurgents fighting against India.
1991 elections: against Sheik Hasina’s Awami League and BNP’s Khaleda Zia
Sheik Hasina did not compromise the party’s foundational principles as much as Benazir Bhutto
Khaleda Zia won and ruled for 5 years
1996 elections
Awami League formed coalition
Implemented long-awaited local government reforms.
Increased Jemaah Islamiyah influence on gov.
Returned to parliament in 2004.
January 2007
Military intervention: army backed an adminsitration headed by Fakhruddin Ahmed: proclaims independence of the judiciary and sought to root our corruption
Imprisoned Sheikh Hasina and Khaleda Zia but later released them in preparation of 2008 election
2008 election: Awami League won.
Grameen Bank
Microfinance as a tool for development and social empowerment.
Women able to secure loans that they were unable to do with formal banks.
Higher female literacy and female participation in Bangladesh than Pakistan.
But the downside is that these new economic opportunities have to be set alongside the continuing traditional burdens of childcare and other domestic responsibilities + makes women dependent on the organiser and thus disempowers them.
Chap 14: Pakistan since 1971
Loss of East Bengal: asymmetrical power relationship with India and increased:
Search for allies to counterbalance india
Defense expenditure
Use of islamic proxies to destabilize india’s position in Kashmir.
1971-1977: Bhutto’s regime
> defense spending but army did not like Bhutto’s nationalisation and political empowerment which threatened army's power.
Bhutto was a Sindhi and although he did advance the cause of Sindhi-speakers, he returned to the centralizing impulses of his predecessors at the national level.
Used force to suppress Baloch nationalism
Overall weakly institutionalised Pakistani party and Zia alleged that Bhutto had murdered Nawab Muhammad, father of his fiercest critic, and hanged the former prime minister
1977: bloodless coup by Zia
Increased Islamic militancy and islamization of Pakistan: Deobandi influenced religious piety
Women’s rights limited: Islamic law of evidence Qanoon O- Shadaat which regarded the value of a woman’s testimony to be half that of a man and sexual crimes failed to distinguish between rape and adultery.
Elections were only held after 90 months, not days as promised. Lifting of martial law in 1985. Benazir Bhutto, who was in exile in Pakistan, returned in 1986 and following Zia’s unexpected death in 1988> victory of PPP in the election.
Post-1986: failure of future gov to mobilise Pakistan.
Halfheated measures to roll back Zia’s islamization legacy
Benazir Bhutto assasinated in 2007: 2008 elections were fair and it brought party leaderships closer together.
2007 onwards: militant groups linked with Al-Qaeda had increasingly turned firepower on Pakistan’s “apostate” rulers and the state had to pay the price of its long term use of Islamist proxies.
Chapter 15: India Shining
BJP 2004 defeat:
Dalit-based Bhajan Samaj Party (BSP) kept BJP out of power by providing support to Congress-led coalition of Manmohan Singh
Resurgence of caste-based politics: previously short lived National Front gov of V.P. Singh (1989-1990): implemented Mandal Commission Report and consequent quota for dalits and OBCs in gov administration
Blow to prev clientele-style politics of Congress
BJP initial breakthrough
1989 elections post 1986 chariot to break down mosque
BJP withdrew support from National Front gov.
1991-Rajiv Gandhi assassinated by member of LTTE: opposed Congress leader’s sending Indian peacekeeping force to the Island.
1992- protests broke through police cordon and swarmed over Babri Masjid + used electoral registers to identity businesses and residences to attack (much like Congress had done in the anti-Sikh pogrom of 1984.
BJP later used Babri Masjid issue and rewrote hist textbooks in state schools to include a stereotyped view of Muslim destruction of Hindu temples in the medieval period.
This + Kashmir + Punjab insurgenicies: displaced onto a demonised Muslim “other”
Mandir movement: restore Hindu sacred temple sites occupied by Muslims opposed Mandal as the locus of political mobilization
2002 pogrom against Gujurati Muslims: Gujurati CM Narendra Modi was complicit in attacks + gave him a brand to eventually secure the 2014 election.
Economic liberalisation
Rajiv failed to achieve major liberalisation as he was unable to change the mindset of his colleagues and overcome opposition to planned economic development.
Reforms came later in the 90s and Manmohan Singh’s appointment as finance minister in 1991 (favoured liberalisation)
Infrastructural issues and poverty remained in the 2000s and Manmohan Singh led coalition gov in 2005 adopted policies to address poverty alleviation in the countryside
Ch 16: Contemporary International Relations of South Asia
Sino-Indian relationship
Dispute over Arunachal Pradesh: China claims it as South Tibet
Dalai Lama and followers entered India as they fled Chinese repression post-abortive Tibetan rebellion 1959
Continued discontent after the opening of China-Tibet railway: Chinese development in Tibet has had profound ecological consequences.
But China needs Tibet: ambitious hydrological plans to feed plains of North China via water from Brahmaputra River in Tibet (just before the river enters India) + feed Chinese energy demands
But this would decrease Indian rice cultivation in Assam + major effect downstream in Bangladesh
To counter the above, China developed “string of pearls” policy: acquisition of port facilities in the Indian Ocean/ naval military agreement with SEA nations: containment policy
China’s presence in South Asia
China= important arms supplier to Sri Lanka against Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)
Pakistan= main recipient of Chinese armaments + jointly produced military equipment with the Chinese for 4 decades (important for Islamabad especially during periods of US military embargo)
By 2010: chinese economic aid to Pakistan was exceeding US’s
Bangladesh: arms supplier + infrastructure development
Sheik Hasina maintains ties with China
Indo-Nepal
Post 31 July 1950: Treaty of Peace and Friendship: recognised Nepal’s independence but regulated arms imports
Migration from India + India annexation of Sikkim (ethnic Nepalis played a role): concern in Kathmandu >> Kathmandu imported arms from China and Delhi suspended trade and transit arrangements with Nepal>> trade between Nepal and China increasing
India’s influence was threatened by loss of power by its monarchical ally to the Maoist government following the 2008 elections.
Sino-Myanmar
Chinese aid during government repression of pro-democracy movement in Myanmar
Established listening posts to monitor Indian naval activity
India responded to Chinese presence by its own road-building projects + increasing trade + secure cooperation against insurgents in the Northeast.
Indo-US relationship
End of cold war + Indo-Soviet security relations under Indira Gandhi >> closer ties between US + India
US amended Atomic Energy Act to enable civil nuclear cooperation with India, turned down Pakistani request for a similar deal
Indo-Pakistan r/s (+ Afghanistan)
India’s peaceful explosion of a nuclear bomb in 1974
During Zia’s time, Pakistan used US need for its support in Afghanistan in the 80s to build a bomb> US responded by cutting off aid + halting arms sales until capping of nuclear program
Testing of bombs/ detonating to signal military might in the 90s: led to greater US engagement with South Asia: supported Pakistani’s involvement in Kashmiri insurgency in 1990s
Pakistan abandoned Taliban post 2001 and aided US via intelligence post 2001: gained international acceptance
But the new Afghan regime brought non-Pakhtuns to power + increasing Indian support to Afghanistan in the wake of 9/11
Pakistan supported militant groups in India: 2001 and 2004 terrorist attacks halted attempted peace process
Opmerkingen