India's South Asia policy in the twenty-first century: new approach,old strategy

Maintaining regional supremacy and stability and denying extra-regional actors a military foothold in South Asia have long been key objectives of India's regional policy. In pursuance of these objectives, India displayed a willingness to undertake coercive action against its smaller South Asian neighbours. Evidence of this is seen in the military intervention in Sri Lanka (1987–1990) and a virtual economic blockade of Nepal (1989–1990). However, during the past decade, India appeared to draw away from such overt interventionist policies and even accepted outside actors like Norway and the United Nations being involved in the peace process in Sri Lanka (2002–2006) and Nepal (2006–2011), respectively. Notwithstanding India's apparent shift in behaviour, these actions do not represent a fundamental change in the country's traditional policy towards the region.     

Suicide on the Indian subcontinent

The Indian subcontinent comprises eight countries (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Afghanistan, Bhutan, and the Maldives) and a collective population of more than 1.3 billion people. 10% of the world's suicides (more than 100,000 people) take place in just three of these countries, viz. India, Sri Lanka, and Pakistan. There is very little information on suicides from the other four countries. Some differences from suicides in Western countries include the high use of organophosphate insecticides, larger numbers of married women, fewer elderly subjects, and interpersonal relationship problems and life events as important causative factors. There is need for more and better information regarding suicide in the countries of the Indian subcontinent. In particular, studies must address culture-specific risk factors associated with suicide in these countries. The prevention of this important public health problem in an area of the world with myriad socio-economic problems, meager resources, and stigmatization of mental illness poses a formidable challenge to mental health professionals, policy makers, and governments of these countries.     

Public management in South Asia: dimensions and directions of change

Public management in South Asia has been influenced by the colonial past which has resulted in the domination of administrative systems by the bureaucrats. Bureaucracies remained firmly entrenched as powerful groups and performed both administrative and political functions. India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Sri Lanka represent cases with similar backgrounds which opted for different political and economic systems after achieving independence. Consequently, a number of issues have emerged in public management in South Asia. These include debureaucratization of the policy process, complex relationship between specialists and generalists, integration of administrative structures, reconciliation of merit and equity, choice between professional and political patronage, revitalization of management, bridging the ever widening gap between the citizens and administrators, and the establishment of a sound ethical base of administration. The success of South Asian governments in dealing with these issues will determine, to a considerable extent, the dimensions and directions of change. While some of the issues will have to be addressed in the natural course of development, others will require a substantial degree of commitment from the governments as well as the societies.     

Evaluating US soft power in Asia: military,economic and sociopolitical relationships between Asia and the United States

The changing dynamics of international politics such as the expansion of the European Union, the growing importance of Asia, and the post-11 September environment have raised great concern about US soft power all over the world. At the governmental level, transpacific relationships may have encouraged military, economic and sociopolitical collaboration. The Asians' perceptions about US soft power at the individual level, however, may not be consistent with the governmental level. By using the 2003 AsiaBarometer survey, this article examines the factors that contribute to individuals' perceptions about US soft power in seven Asian nations – China, India, Japan, Malaysia, South Korea, Sri Lanka and Thailand. Three main factors – military, economic and sociopolitical – are considered. Higher assistance by the US government engenders positive responses from the respondents. For causal relationships, economic and sociopolitical variables, rather than the military variable, enforce individuals' positive perceptions about US soft power, according to the multilevel estimates.     

PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION REFORM IN SRI LANKA

In 1996, the government of Sri Lanka enlisted the help of international consultants to address significant weaknesses in the countr's public administration. Their study focused on reorganization of public administration structures, rationalization of public sector cadres and introduction of results-based management systems and procedures. The analysis focused on five main topics: consolidation of core strategic functions in the President's office; improvement of the policy coordination process at cabinet and ministerial levels; separation of policy-making, service delivery and regulatory functions of public administration; enhancing the effectiveness of line ministries through realigning tasks; and introduction of a results-based management system that links resource inputs with well-defined outputs of departments and offices. The urgency of public service reform has been an issue on the national agenda for some time. Until the institutional capacity and effectiveness of the public administration system is upgraded, the credibility of government efforts to bring about a more liberal and competitive market environment will be seriously in doubt. The recommendations in this article can be extended beyond Sri Lanka, serving as a general model of civil service reform for other South Asian nations.     

Security dilemmas of nuclear-armed Pakistan

Pakistan's security environment has deteriorated through its adoption of a declared nuclear weapons posture in May 1998. Internal fissures have widened along regional and sectarian lines as the Pakistani economy falters, unable to sustain even limited external sanctions following decades of internal mismanagement. Tensions with India have also increased as Pakistan's security managers adopt interventionist policies, based on a misplaced belief in the deterrent value of nuclear weapons. The international community, in particular, the USA's failure to reverse South Asian nuclear proliferation, has emboldened Indian advocates of nuclear deployment. If India deploys nuclear weapons and their delivery systems, Pakistan will follow suit. Operation-ready nuclear weapons will increase the prospects of an India - Pakistan conflict that could assume a nuclear dimension. Pakistan's nuclear weapons capability will not prevent an Indian conventional attack nor will the presence of nuclear weapons deter an Indian accidental, unauthorised or preventive nuclear attack. Changed domestic and external priorities alone can buttress Pakistani security.     

‘Knowing’ Pakistan: knowledge production and area studies

Abstract

This article explores the processes that contribute towards the image of Pakistan as portrayed to the West. It does this by critically analysing the discursive practices through which knowledge, and a general idea of Pakistan, are created, for example in South Asian area studies journals and South Asian studies centres in Western universities. This article demonstrates that most scholarly research on Pakistan, as published in South Asian studies journals, is in fact heavily influenced by the research of American and European scholars. It argues that as the positionality of these Western scholars is further based on ‘academic quality’, this causes a continuous circle of knowledge production. In this circle, the Western academic produces ‘quality’ work in top area studies journals. Their work then receives wider circulation due to the scholar’s positionality and status within elite, Western centres of knowledge production, whereas research in South Asian studies centres is predominantly India-centric. While true to their proposed research ambit, research conducted on India in South Asian studies centres is multidisciplinary in nature. In Pakistan’s case, most of the research, however marginal, remains centred on the country’s security and its international affairs.     

Mechanisms of the ‘Aid Curse’: Lessons from South Korea and Pakistan

Recently scholars have argued that, far from contributing to development, foreign aid hinders development. But in the 1960s the East Asian countries developed rapidly despite receiving large amounts of aid. To examine why aid seems to undermine development in some cases but not in others, we conduct a detailed comparison of the mechanisms of the ‘aid curse’ in South Korea and Pakistan. We show that South Korea saw astonishing levels of corruption, but this did not hinder its development; and Pakistan had a strong bureaucracy, which did not help it to grow. The key difference between the two countries was in the strength of their tax systems: foreign aid in the context of underdeveloped tax administration leads to increasing cycles of debt that undermine development. When foreign aid arrives in the context of commitment to strong taxation, a country can avoid the ‘aid curse.’     

Gender,Palestinian Women,and Terrorism: Women's Liberation or Oppression?

Contrary to claim, the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) are not overwhelmingly secular in their practices. While their successes as a liberation movement have been built on organizational skills and techno-military prowess, they mobilize both the Hindu majority and a significant Christian minority within the Sri Lankan Tamil population via modalities that are deeply rooted in the lifestyles and religious practices of Tamils in India and Lanka. To grasp these capacities a reading of the deep history of Tamil civilization writ-large as well as the anthropological literature on religious cross-fertilization in Sri Lanka is essential. The weight attached to propitiatory rituals in Tamil culture inform the LTTE's burial of the dead and the building up of a sacred topography centered on their fallen (the mavirar). Just as heroic humans were deified in southern India's past, regenerative divine power is conceivably invested in today's Tiger mavirar. These facets of Tamil Tiger practice suggests that “enchantment” can nestle amidst secularized rationality in the structures of a modern political movement.     

Crisis intervention after the Tsunami in Phuket and Khao Lak

After the Tsunami disaster in Southeast Asia, India, Sri Lanka, and Africa, the German government set up a crisis task force that implemented crisis-intervention teams covering Thailand (Phuket and Khao Lak), Sri Lanka, and Sumatra. Two crisis teams were sent to Phuket; the first one on 28 December 2004, and the second one on 3 January 2005, each for an average of 1 week. This intervention was primarily for the benefit of German citizens and their expatriates and relatives caught up in a major catastrophe as well as the German helpers. This article describes the organizational structures of the German crisis intervention, protective factors for the helpers, psychiatric syndromes--often acute traumata, the problems of the identification process for relatives, and crisis intervention itself. Consequences for further crisis intervention after natural disasters are discussed.     

Governance in Developing Countries: Sri Lanka and South Africa Compared

In this article, we investigate the main features of the governance model in two developing democracies, Sri Lanka and South Africa. We believe that these two countries are interesting test cases for a comparative study. Both countries are former British colonies and have inherited a similar administrative system heavily influenced by the British colonial model and have experienced an ethnic conflict to different extents in the past.

This comparison allows us to examine the determining factors for and against the level of effectiveness of governance in both countries. The findings suggest that the socio-political system within which they operate is dynamic and is an important influence for integrated governance. The study concludes that the outcomes of governance in both countries are better explained by taking into account the features described in an integrated governance model. This provides a better understanding of the dynamics of governance in developing countries.     

Losing ground: a critical analysis of teachers’ agency for peacebuilding education in Sri Lanka

This paper aims to explore the agency of teachers for peacebuilding education in Sri Lanka through a critical multiscalar analysis of the interplay between context – education policies and governance – and agent – teachers as strategic political actors. It draws on two studies conducted in Sri Lanka in 2006 and 2011 to give insight into a changing context from conflict to post-conflict. While peace education and social cohesion were high on the political agendas before the official ending of the conflict, the need for a continuous and integral peace education approach seems to be losing political ground in present-day Sri Lanka. The paper seeks to contribute to the broader debate on the complex role of education and teachers in conflict and post-conflict situations.     

Building the Tamil Eelam State: emerging state institutions and forms of governance in LTTE-controlled areas in Sri Lanka

Sri Lanka's civil war has created a political – territorial division between the government of Sri Lanka and the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (ltte), where ltte is engaged in a process of state building within the areas they control. The article examines this state formation with an emphasis on the functions and forms of governance that are embedded in the new state institutions. It is observed that the emerging state formation has a strong focus on external and internal security, with an additional emphasis on social welfare and economic development. In terms of governance, the ltte state apparatus is marked by authoritarian centralisation with few formal mechanisms for democratic representation, but there are also partnership arrangements and institutional experiments that may foster more democratic forms of representation and governance. Hence, resolving the security problem in tandem with political transformations towards democratic governance remain prime challenges for peace building in northeast Sri Lanka.     

From global workers to local entrepreneurs: Sri Lanka’s former global factory workers in rural Sri Lanka

Abstract

Working in Sri Lanka’s urban free trade zones (FTZs) introduces Sri Lanka’s rural women to neoliberal ways of fashioning selves, which subsequently not only shape village entrepreneurial activities but also initiate negotiations in kinship, marriage, domestic arrangements, and community relations. The knowledges and networks that they develop while at the FTZ allow former workers to connect with global production networks as subcontractors, making them part of the cascading system of subcontracting that furthers the precarity of regular FTZ work. This article explores how these former workers manipulate varied forms of capital – social, cultural and monetary – to become local entrepreneurs and community leaders, while simultaneously initiating changes in rural social hierarchies and gender norms. When neoliberal economic restructuring manifests within local contexts it results in new articulations of what it is to be an entrepreneur and what it is to be a worthy, young, married woman. Overall, the paper sheds light on the fragmented and uneven manner in which neoliberal ethos take root in rural South Asia.     

Learning peace (and conflict): the role of primary learning materials in peacebuilding in post-war Afghanistan,South Sudan and Sri Lanka

Post-war education is usually considered a positive contributor to peacebuilding; however, it can also reinforce divisive perspectives. Textbooks and learning materials can be instrumental in maintaining or exacerbating existing inequalities. This paper uses case study literature reviews of Afghanistan, South Sudan and Sri Lanka to explore the ways in which primary learning materials extend existing challenges of post-war education and potentially create new ones. An analysis of the literature on learning materials from these countries reveals that textbook development and uses are intertwined with larger national and international political and social power structures. We draw from Bourdieu and Giroux to consider how learning materials contribute to the reproduction of cultures of hostility, violence, divisiveness and silence or to transformatory cultures of peacebuilding, inclusivity and critical thought. Our resulting conceptual lens highlights how education can take on the role of being a victim, accomplice or transformer of conflict – roles that are often overlapping. Each case study country is taking steps towards peacebuilding through their primary learning materials; however, there are many elements of the textbook design, development, production and distribution process in each country that also reinforce contributing factors for conflict.     

Resolving the Kashmir Conflict: Pakistan,India, Kashmiris and Religious Militants

This article introduces a conflict resolution framework to address the Kashmir ¹ 1. Henceforth in this article, ‘Kashmir’ refers both to the independent territory under Dogra dominion since 1846 to 1947 and to the territory that nowadays encompasses ‘Jammu and Kashmir’ (JK), under Indian control, and ‘Pakistan Administrated Kashmir’ (PAK), under Pakistan. Throughout the article the term ‘Pakistan Administrated Kashmir’ encompasses both Azad Kashmir and the Federally Administered Northern Areas. View all notes conflict. Firstly, Kashmir is mapped out as a multi-dimensional dispute between various parties: besides the interstate dispute between India and Pakistan, Kashmir is also an armed conflict both between India and the Kashmiris over the right of self-determination and between India and the religious militants who are waging a jihad to create a theocratic state. Secondly, in order to understand the complexity of Kashmir, I introduce an original framework based upon six levels of sovereignty that helps us in underscoring the implications of the bargaining process between India, Pakistan and Kashmir. Based on this, I propose a roadmap for peace, which comprises three successive steps: confidence-building measures, restoration of the asymmetric original status of Jammu and Kashmir and, finally, shared sovereignty (partial or total condominium) between India and Pakistan.     

Home Thoughts from Abroad: Diasporas and Peace-Building in Northern Ireland and Sri Lanka

This article looks at the dynamics of Diaspora groups as a possible catalyst for peace-building within violent segmented societies. With the help of two case studies, Irish-America's role in Northern Ireland and Sri Lankan Tamil Diaspora's role in Sri Lanka, it locates the variable impacts of Diaspora involvement in violent conflicts within their homelands. Despite their unique histories and individual complexity, both of these cases illustrate that Diasporas have a significant role to play in peace-building, are diverse rather than homogenous communities, and that they represent an important and often underutilized resource to bring negotiated settlement to violent conflicts.     

Sanctions under the EU Generalised System of Preferences and foreign policy: coherence by accident?

This article investigates the relationship between the European Union's withdrawal of trade benefits for developing countries under the Generalised System of Preferences (GSP) and its sanctions under the Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP). Our expectation is that GSP withdrawals and CFSP sanctions will not cohere. However, our research reveals that GSP suspension has been coherent with CFSP sanctions when the latter exist prior to the decision-making process on GSP sanctions and when the International Labour Organisation has set up a Commission of Inquiry condemning the country, as with Myanmar/Burma and Belarus. The presence of separate institutional frameworks explains the GSP suspension towards Sri Lanka in the absence of CFSP sanctions.     

The administrative legacy of ancient India

Marx and Weber considered ancient Asian bureaucracies as irrelevant for the modern world. But one important element of the Indian bureaucratic legacy namely, the district overlord or collector, was taken over by the British and instituted all over their Asian and African possessions. It still forms the foundation of field administration in all these countries after independence. This paper traces the textual origins of centralized Indian bureaucracy in Kautilya's Arthasastra, its dilution over the centuries due to the failure of imperial integration in India, compared to its success in China and the survival of the district overlord institution which the British resuscitated and modernized. The paper also speculates about the reasons for the failure of Marx and Weber to interpret or predict Indian development.     

When is a wife not a wife? Some observations on the immigration experiences of South Asian women in West Yorkshire

This article uses black feminist analysis to explore the ways in which the racialized stereotypical image of the passive South Asian woman has informed the categorizing of this group of minority ethnic women within the system of British immigration control. Such stereotypes have led to a very specific category of 'South Asian woman' being regarded as a legitimate immigration applicant: namely that of the traditional South Asian wife dutifully going to live in the country in which her husband is settled. Using interview data from a study of South Asian women's immigration experiences, this article assesses the extent to which South Asian women entering the system of British immigration control actually fit this racialized category of 'wife'. It is also shown that those wives who sponsor a husband to come to the UK, and therefore do not fit the immigration service's assumptions of the South Asian wife, face even more difficulties, due to gender and racial discrimination within the system of British immigration control.