Pathways To Power- The Domestic Politics of South Asia

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Pathways to Power introduces the domestic politics of South Asia in broad comparative perspective, revealing the interplay between politics, cultural values, human security, and historical luck. While these are important correlations everywhere, nowhere are they more compelling than in South Asia where such dynamic interchanges loom large on a daily basis. Identity politics-not just of religion but also of caste, ethnicity, regionalism, and social class-infuses all aspects of social and political life in the sub-continent. Recognizing this complex interplay, this volume moves beyond conventional views of South Asian politics as it explicitly weaves the connections between history, culture, and social values into its examination of political life.

The volume covers the five major South Asian states and includes a comprehensive grounding of the politics of modern South Asia in their shared colonial history, tracing how institutions inherited from British rule-parliament, constitutions, judicial systems, the civil service have diverged in the context of the different social and cultural forces that shape politics in the successor states of Britain's South Asian empire. The book examines the many factors that bring together the disparate countries of the region into important engagements with one another, forming an uneasy regional entity.

South Asia, one of the world's most important geopolitical areas and home to nearly one and a half billion people, is poorly known and little understood by many in the West. The region is dominated by India, which exceeds-in territory, size of economy, and population-the rest of the South Asian countries combined. India and its rival, Pakistan, which have fought three major wars since independence in 1947, continue in a state of nuclear-armed mutual hostility, with the status of Kashmir, divided between them, a continuing flashpoint. Although many of the poorest people in the world live in this region, it is home also to a rap- idly growing middle class wielding much economic power. India, Paki- stan, and Bangladesh, together the successor states to the British Indian Empire-the Raj-form the core of South Asia, along with two smaller states on its periphery: landlocked Nepal sprawling across the Himalaya and the island state of Sri Lanka. Many factors-cultural, historical, geo- graphic, economic, and political-bring together the disparate countries of the region into important engagements with one another, forming an uneasy regional entity.

This volume explores the domestic politics of South Asia in the broad- est possible sense, studying ongoing transformative social processes grounded in cultural forms. In doing so, it reveals the interplay between politics, cultural values, human security, and historical luck. While these are important correlations everywhere, nowhere are they more compel- ling than in South Asia, where such dynamic interchanges loom large on a daily basis. To take one example, religion is woven into politics throughout the region, a fact symbolized in the national flags of every South Asian state. Even the flag of India, the most avowedly secular of the South Asian states, harkens back to India's cultural history with its representation of King Ashoka's wheel of righteousness (dharma chakra). Every other flag includes religious representations (see box I.1 on Sri Lanka's flag); where else in the world is political identity grounded in or shaped by religious identity in every state? Identity politics-not just of religion but also of caste, ethnicity, regionalism, and social class-infuses all aspects of social and political life in the subcontinent. Recognizing this complex interplay, this volume moves past conventional views of South Asian politics as it explicitly weaves the connections between history, culture, and social values into its examination of political life.

**Contents and Sample Pages**