In what ways does understanding history help in the analysis of the current situation in the region of the South Asia? Discuss giving a specific example
World Politics Essay Spring Term 2006
Question number 2
In what ways does understanding history help in the analysis of the current situation in the region of the South Asia? Discuss giving a specific example.
History is about gaining experience or knowledge from the past of others, it allows us to avoid making similar mistakes or understanding the cause of things that happen in certain situation. In this particular discussion, history also lets us see the reasons behind the status of an organization, government or country, thus the bigger picture of cause and consequence of their actions. A comparable scenario would be a doctor analyzing his/her patient. It would evidently be important to have a understanding of the patient's medical record, previous habits and behavior before the illness, and case history of this illness in order to thoroughly pinpoint the problem and provide suitable treatment. In this case we are the 'doctors' in attempt to examine South Asia, and South Asia can be treated as the illness. Therefore we must understand the history of South Asia to give a comprehensive analysis of the current situation.
South Asia is a large subcontinent, counting from the south of Himalayas to the Indian Ocean. It consists of eight countries, namely The Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka (Sri Lanka), The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (Afghanistan), The Islamic Republic of Pakistan (Pakistan), The Kingdom of Bhutan (Bhutan), The Kingdom of Nepal (Nepal), The People's Republic of Bangladesh (Bangladesh), The Republic of India (India) and The Republic of Maldives (Maldives).
The location of countries are as shown below in Figure 1:
[Figure 1]
The South Asia had frequently been though time of unifications, separations and invasions from other tribes through out it's history. Since 1498, colonialists from Portugal, Holland, France and the United Kingdom had been constantly invading South Asia endeavoring colonization of it. During the period near 1757, most of the places in South Asia had became colonies of the United Kingdom. Finally in 1947-1971 all the colonies had gradually regained independence of the United Kingdom and developed into the eight countries that we now know, and the present condition of them are majorly affected by this history.
The countries within South Asia were individually growing economically after their declarations. South Asia has benefited from more ideal conditions than any other places in Asia. It had a high population which implies sufficient human resources and it had a flatten landscape with fertile soil, etc. These should have provided a higher rate of growth for South Asia economically and in terms of the quality of life for people if the resources are used efficiently. However it's growth is significantly lower than expected. In fact, Bhutan, Nepal, Bangladesh had experienced being one of the world's poorest countries in the past 50 years. What had caused the relunctance in improving South Asia's economy?
The apparent economy had been altered radically since independence, but the net development appears to be declination. From 1965 to 1989, this region had managed less than two times gross domestic product growth, which was an increase notably lower than the average of all other developing countries. South Asia's share of total world population were more than 20%, while the total world gross domestic product took up an outrageous proportion of 2%. In 1989 , the gross national product per capita were actually less than 330 dollars. Considering the fact that South Asia had favorable natural conditions, and countries with access to more than 40 years of national independence for developing, the progress situation was unsatisfactory. There are many factors which contribute to this outcome, and in the following some main ones are discussed.
With the prompt and compact declarations of independence, tensions frequently arise in relations between countries due to lack of social and political stability. As this problem had not been appropriately handled, tedious social conflicts repeatedly occur. India's long-standing ethnic and religious conflict is a typical example. And the social unrest in Sri Lanka after 1983 not only caused the death of large numbers of people, directly or indirectly to the gross national product lost. This implies the vast effect political issues have on economic development of this continent.
Economic policies or development strategies have been set up ...
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With the prompt and compact declarations of independence, tensions frequently arise in relations between countries due to lack of social and political stability. As this problem had not been appropriately handled, tedious social conflicts repeatedly occur. India's long-standing ethnic and religious conflict is a typical example. And the social unrest in Sri Lanka after 1983 not only caused the death of large numbers of people, directly or indirectly to the gross national product lost. This implies the vast effect political issues have on economic development of this continent.
Economic policies or development strategies have been set up to promote productivity. The East Asian countries made their efforts to catch up with the world trend, earnestly learning from more successful countries which were conducive to the development of productivity allowed acquirement of necessary experiences and practices, such as introducing foreign investment, the development of export-oriented economy. However, some countries in South Asia remained stubbornly conservative with international relations for many years. Refusing many opportunities for foreign trade means restraining the chance of economic growth.
Population growth and economic development must be mutual adaptation. The growth of population in South Asia had not been controlled very well. Hence, affect the gross national product of South Asia. Also, as a result of long periods of colonial rule reunification over centuries, coupled with the traditional feudal relations of production constraints, the development of productive forces in South Asia is further reduced.
Prior to focusing on the political and economical development, some places now in South Asia need to put emphasis on the basis of fixed capital equipment in the country. For example Afghanistan in still in need of completing its infrastructure like water and power supply, the availability of transportations and roads, technologies involved in communication, the provision of simple medical facilities and education. In the 21st century, should it not be more than unacceptable that extremes between modern and very well developed countries that enjoy the luxury of excessive food, wealth and power and countries such as Afghanistan are still under infrastructure development still exist?
Perhaps this is the time when we should look back at its history. Afghanistan was once a prosperous country in 18th century. However, since the 19th century, the national power of Afghanistan was weakening because constant invasion from the United Kingdom and Russia had never ended until 1895 when both of them came to an agreement to divide Pamir region and Vanuatu Khan areas respectively as Britain and Russia's buffer areas. In 1919, Afghanistan finally defeated the invasion of the United Kingdom and regained its independence. This, however, was not the end to Afghanistan's misfortune. From 1973 onwards, Afghanistan's state sovereignty had never been stable. It had been ruled by many different parties and many other issues happened, For example, the People's Democratic Party launched a military coup to overthrow the government; invasion by Soviet Union's army; efforts had to be placed on establishing a number of armed resistive organizations against foreign aggression; the civil war within Afghanistan; and Taliban formed new force and forced out the Rabbani regime. Moreover, right after the 911 incident, the United States had not only launched military operations there and attacked Afghanistan, but also established a provisional government there. The country had not been stable in any sense over the years, which is why the country had never had the chance to base its time and effort on even the most basic essential infrastructure development.
Here is another evidence of this extreme. For many years, conflicts between two ethnic groups had not stopped and are currently still one of the major problems in Sri Lanka. Since the declaration of independent from Britain in 1948, there had been tensions between the two ethnic groups, the Sinhalese and the Tamils. The government then seemed to prefer for the Sinhalese to the Tamils. This had lead to discrimination in the sense of unequal opportunities for Tamils to get the same education and employment. In 1956, the government had introduced the Sinhala Only Act. This changed life for the Tamils, it was nearly impossible for Timals the minority to secure government employment and had restricted the chance for higher education since the policy made Sinhala the sole official language. In 1977, the Tamil United Liberation Font (TULF) representatives were banned by the government from the parliament for supporting an independent state. Youths then started to form militant groups and very soon civil war started in 1983. The war had been on and off over the years, many people were killed with in this incident. Although both sides agreed to ceasefire at the moment, discrimination and conflicts are still there. As both sides continuing the bickering, it is very likely that civil war would be on again. Until now, there are lots of attacks, violence, disagreements happening in all aspects in Sri Lanka. These would probably lead to civil war again in future if the government remains being incapable at coping with the whole of the country.
Obviously two countries cannot be the whole cause of a subcontinent's downfall. For a long period of time right after the both nations, Pakistan and India, achieved independence in 1947, the two countries went into serious conflicts and have been through 4 times of wars among the region of Kashmir in 1947, 1965, 1971 and 1999.
India and Pakistan were once a single country as they had the same ancestry. During the early centuries, the Hindus and the Muslims together created a splendid culture on the same piece of land in the same country. In early 17th century, the British began invading the South Asia. In 1757 part of the Parkistan and the whole India in 1849 became a colony of the United Kingdom, and was helplessly under its control. In 1947, the last British Governor, Louis Mountbatten, of India announced the partition of India and Pakistan. This leaded to the conflicts which are still an important issue nowadays between Indian and Pakistan.
To resolve conflicts between religions in the South Asia subcontinent that had been existing for many years, in 1942 the Muslims proposed the establishment of their own Muslim countries (Pakistan), thus advocated the rule of India should be divided into three zones, the Hindus area, the Muslim area and the territories state. However, the founder of the Republic of India, Gandhi, together with the Indian National Congress Party leader strongly disagreed towards this proposal. They had always opposed against the idea of partition of a nation. In response to this, the British government proclaimed the post war self governing status to India.
During 1947, Mountbatten officially announced to the world the program of the India-Pakistan partition. In this program, Pakistan was combined at the East and the West, known as Dongba and West, where the two residence of these places had different cultural and ethnic backgrounds. These big differences of ethnic, cultural and linguistic might potentially leave a predisposition for the country to start an internal conflict in future.
The Mountbatten program divided the territories merely by regions of common religion in the expense of overlooking language, culture or ethnic differences. This had caused endless consequences between Pakistan and India. And the issue on the Kashmir between the two countries was immediately resolved to arms after independence in 1947.
Kashmir should have had the freedom of choice to enroll in India or Pakistan as stated in the "Mountbatten Program". The place Kashmir had an uneven population where 77% were Muslims and only 20% were Hindus. When some conflicts were created between India and Pakistan because of the British government, Kashmir's sovereignty were handed over to the Hindus. The first Indo-Pakistan war in 1947 resulted in Pakistan conquering two fifth of the Kashmir and the remaining three fifth Indian. In 1965, India and Pakistan once again went into war for the splitting of Kashmir. Later on, the Soviet Union and the United States put pressure on India and Pakistan, so the second Indo-Pakistan war ended.
However, this program also suggested that the British Indian territories states the right not to join the newly established Indian Federation, which provoked this original united land to further subdivide into two, or even more political entities, thus opening the door for partition. This implied that the East Pakistan (Bangladesh) may become independent.
In 1971, Bangladesh successfully gained independence from Pakistan. In the same year there was another outbreak of war between these two countries, the had war expanded to West Pakistan, and had expanded into a full-scale war. It lasted for 27 days and this war was the dismemberment of Pakistan, thus greatly weakening the more aggressive competitors with India. This would imply a deficiency of motivation of international development within the South Asian subcontinent. In mid 1990s, Indian security forces began arming and training local auxiliary forces made up of surrendered or captured military hostage to assist in counterinsurgency operations. And in 1998, India tested five nuclear devices, in the months following the tests, there was a sudden rush in shelling and shooting by the Indian. The Pakistani remained with the ceasefire line. And again in 1999, India test fired a few long range missiles for in few days. Then Pakistan did the same in return. Yet another war between India and Pakistan.
From gaining a knowledge at the history, a brief idea of the reasoning behind past wars and conflicts lets us understand why they are still happening between India and Pakistan. History of a country enables us to draw a overall pattern of the change over time and leads to hypothetical prediction for the future. With this in hand it is more possible for things to be done before disasters happening again at no one's will. Seeing the amount of not only economic and social drawback, but more importantly brutal consequences of innocent people caused by actions which overlooked vital factors, the governments must now learn from the mistakes in the past and avoid any unnecessary mistakes.
South Asia is a very important region on earth. It entails over 1.4 billion people which is more than one-fifth of the world's population, the region it lands on is desirable for vegetation, on top of that it has other inherent abundant natural resources and there is a high rate of energy demand growth. Economically, South Asian countries have always dominated a large industrial proportion as rice, cotton, tea and jute in the world are playing an important role in world trades. This should potentially provide then a more well-off situation. Recent years, some countries have draw on the useful experience of economic development from other countries outside the South Asia and learn from them. They even have taken a number of practical measures. Despite striving to get better on its economic, political, social aspects and legal structure to support the growth, South Asia will have a long way to go as its foundation was never given the chance to be fully developed. The key to fundamentally improve underdevelopment is to compromise between all political parties in the hope of creating a better tomorrow for people they are each responsible for.
References:
Bullion, A. (2001) 'Norway and the Peace Process in Sri Lanka', Civil Wars 4 (3): 70-92. (Course-Pack)
Bullion, A. (2004) 'Norway and the Sri Lanka peace process -Waiting game', World Today 60 (2): 18-19. (Course-Pack)
Lewer, N.& J. William (2002) 'Sri Lanka: Finding a Negotiated End to Twenty-Five Years of Violence' in M Mekenkamp, P.Tongren & H.Van de Veen eds. Searching for Peace in Central and South Asian: An Overview of Conflict prevention and Peacebuilding Activities. London: Lynne Rienner Publishers. (Course-Pack)
Rieff, D. (2002) 'Afghanistan' in D Rieff 'A bed for the night: Humanitarianism in Crisis' (London: Vintage) (Course-Pack)
Vanx, T. (2001) 'Afghanistan: Pride and Principle', in 'The Selfish Altruist: Relief Work in Famine and War'. (London: Earthscan) (Course-Pack)
Center for Contemporary Conflict (2006), CCC Research: Asymmetric Conflict in South Asia -The Cause and Consequences of the 1999 Limited War in Kargil [online]
http://www.ccc.nps.navy.mil/research/kargil/index.asp (accessed 09/03/06)
