ABSTRACT
A contemporary European reader may perhaps be best able to put into perspective the events in South Asia since 1945 if she first reflects on the events of her own sub-continent. At the end of the First World War older empires in Europe disintegrated, and were replaced by many small nation states. This could have been a retrograde step economically, but it was inevitable in the search for self-determination. The end of the Second World War therefore marked a moment in history when Europe began yet again to seek a history of integration, the construction of a stable regional system of governance that simultaneously allowed representation without confrontation. At the end of the Second World War and the collapse of Hitler's Reich, individual nations in West Europe rediscovered their tradition of representative, government, and from there slowly and falteringly began to find some new system of integration which would provide political stability and economic prosperity.
