Department Of South And Central Asian Studies

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End date: 2020Subject: search.filters.subject.South Asia

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    Democratic transformation in south asia: Emerging trends
    (Central University of Punjab, 2014) Gulam, Mudasir; Singh, Bawa
    The South Asian region has experienced authoritarian and autocratic rule since its inception. India is the only country in South Asia to become a successful democratic country after independence. Sri Lanka has also adopted the similar model with presidential type of government. While the other countries of the region like Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan have experienced ups and downs in their political systems. Pakistan after attaining its independence witnessed a rapid erosion of hopes to move the new nation to a democracy. The general elections held on 11 May, 2013 in Pakistan brought the first transition between civilian governments in a country which clearly shows the transformation of democracy in the country. Bangladesh came into existence in 1971 and since then many pro- democracy movements were observed in the country. These movements led to the multi- party democracy since 1991 till late 2006. It is evident that after 2009 the country has moved towards marginal political stability in its political affairs. Nepal, a kingdom, had monarchy which kept on flip-flopping between absolute and constitutional monarchy and vice-versa for many years. Democratic regimes proved to be short lived and unstable. The Nepalese movement in 2007 created a history in the country and moved ahead towards the consolidation of the democracy and General Election 2008 was the first step towards democratic transition. This way the Constitutional Republic was adopted in Nepal with the v collapse of monarchy rule. Bhutan has transitioned from an absolute monarchy to a multi-party democracy. The growth of Bhutanese democracy has been marked since 1950s. The first democratic elections in Bhutan began in 2007, and all levels of government had been democratically elected by 2011. All this explains the transformation from an absolute monarchy to democracy in the Kingdom of Bhutan. It is now clear that the South Asian region has experienced a democratic resurgence in the recent past. All the South Asian countries now have a democratic system but this transition to democracy is still fragile and susceptible.
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    China's startegic forays in south asia : Contextualising india's concerns
    (Central University of Punjab, 2014) Lone, Mansoor Ahmad; Singh, Bawa
    China's terrific rise and all-round development in almost all fields have provided her an identity in the International system as one of the great power. China's focus has now changed and the older views are giving way to wider engagement in adjoining areas. China shares borders with many south Asian countries like India, Nepal, Pakistan and Bhutan. Therefore, within the Chinese foreign policy, South Asia is becoming an important element. South Asia's increasing strategic importance has resulted in the increasing Chinese involvement in the region. The compelling factors for China to have an increased engagement in South Asia involve; to sustain the fast growing economy by securing the resources in these countries; Containment of India's rise to become a global power so that it may not affect China's rise; to maintain territorial integrity. In order to achieve these objectives, China is cultivating relations with the countries in South Asia by giving much needed economic assistance, infrastructure building, arms and ammunition transfers and in some countries nuclear weapon technology transfers as well especially to Pakistan. The countries with which China is increasingly involved rival to India in one way or the other. Therefore, it is obvious that such engagement will automatically harm India's interests in many ways in these countries. China in order to secure the energy needs has started to pursue a strategy called 'String of Pearls' vi through which China is building port facilities in the littoral states of Indian Ocean through which most of the crude oil is imported by China. These states include Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, and Bangladesh. By the way, such a strategy has lead to the encirclement of India, which may be a potential danger in future. India fears that China, who has a long pending unresolved border dispute with her, could use such port facilities for military purpose in future. Thus has created concerns for India. India needs to search better policy options to cautiously counter such a strategy of China, in order to retain greater consistency in her economy, and to maintain territorial integrity.
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    Indian ocean : A life -line for south asia
    (Central University of Punjab, 2013) Raikhy, Swati; Singh, Kiran K
    Since the ancient times Indian Ocean has played significant role in dissemination of capital, goods, people etc. It has been a source of immense importance and has entered in the life of all the littoral countries .Natural harbours developed at coasts of Indian Ocean in South Asia culminated in to trading points to carry out trade activities across Asia, Africa and far Western world. Sri Lanka, being located in the middle of Indian Ocean was the main boarding station for the ships enrooting east-west or vice versa. Trade routes developed during this period were monopolized by one nation or other from time to time. The discovery of sea route to India via Cape of Good Hope brought Europe and Asia closer and the Industrial revolution that began in Europe gave impetus to trade activities and globalized the Indian Ocean world. The arrival of Portuguese followed by Dutch, British, French and other European powers led them into the tussle to gain power over the Indian Ocean region for its enriched resources, commodities and the strategic importance that naturally endowed to Indian Ocean. It later became bone of contention among various European powers that was responsible for Colonization of almost entire Africa and most of Asia. The British were successful in retaining the power over the region till the end of Second World War. After gaining control over this water-body, they became the masters of the seas. Since ancient time Maldivian economy was heavily dependent on Indian Ocean. Natural resources like fishery, cowries and coir obtained from the coconut was widely cultivated at the coasts. The natural scenic beauty of Indian Ocean sea shores gave the economy of Maldives a new dimension in the form of tourism industry. Britain used its atolls as secret harbors during the Second World War. The two island nations of South Asia heavily rely on Indian Ocean as no other mean to connect outside world since the air route is too costly and cannot handle bulk cargo. In Bangladesh trade was largely based on Indian Ocean water ways but due to problem of siltation in Chittagong port goods were collected at Colombo, Singapore ports and then iv brought to Bangladesh. The countries surrounding Indian Ocean were linked with one another through this ocean. The regular trade activities from India in ancient times catered the development of trade routes, Indian rulers from time to time carried out raids to secure their position for trade activities at the points of strategic importance. The Europeans made Indian Ocean coast as their base to expand colonies and British were successful. The period after Second World War is marked with the period of intense rivalry between major powers in Indian Ocean region. On the one hand Indian Ocean revealed a long story of transformation from a zone of conflict to a zone of peace while on another the Indian Ocean mobility experienced significant change because of growing economic activities of littoral nations. Soon after independence the south Asian countries, to cater their economic needs, relied largely on import of finished goods and export of raw materials in the initial years of their independence that had been largely traversed to various countries from the waters of Indian Ocean. The economic and strategic importance of South Asia is linked with the concentration of variety of raw material or natural resources of the world such as rubber, manganese, copper, tea, cotton, Jute and Gold in various littoral states. Indian Ocean did not only help in promoting economic growth in the region but also has played significant role in shaping the polity of south Asia. Since the Indian Ocean preserves the enormous quantity of natural resources and diverse culture it has naturally become a zone of importance in all spheres for the world and South Asia.
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    Violation of human rights of women in south asia: A case study of punjab 1978-1992
    (Central University of Punjab, 2013) Singh, Rajnbir; Kaur, Sandeep
    Irrespective of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) 1948, which was evolved to protect the fundamental rights of human beings for realization of human life and liberty with dignity, the violation of human rights has become a global phenomenon of intimidating scale and magnitude. South Asia is seen as a major site of human rights violation, particularly that of women. The present study is a modest attempt to look at the violation of human rights suffered by the women in the state of Indian Punjab during the time of movement for separate homeland and militancy. The study presume that women are more vulnerable to human rights violation in the modern world and various struggles at the national and sub-national levels against the state driven them to the receiving end of state repression. It is known that Punjab witnessed massive violation of human rights in the course of suppression of militancy which rattled life in Punjab since the creation of Punjabi Suba in 1966. However, the slew of anti-terrorist laws used by the government to suppress militancy led to incidents in which particularly women were detained and tortured illegally by the police to get information of armed Sikhs or on the pretext that these women harbour the armed Sikhs. The field work carried out as part of the study shows that the women concerned had to suffer severe degree of torture of varying methods, which made many of them victims of medical and psychological disorders like depression, severe pain in body, damaged muscles and anxiety. It is also found that many women became homeless due to the unrest and the rehabilitation of these women remains unrealised even today. So also is the case of compensation, a gesture of justice that is long pending