ABSTRACT
At the beginning of the new millennium South Asia seems to be standing at a
crossroads. Barring a few exceptions, South Asian states have made significant
progress over the last decade in fostering economic and industrial development,
lowering poverty, improving literacy and public health, and promoting the
general well-being of their populations. Over the same period, however, South
Asia has regressed politically and in terms of human, national and regional
security. Democracy, human rights and rule of law have been undermined or
significantly eroded in several states. Sectarian, communal and ethnic violence
has flared up in almost the entire region, undermining state and human security
and subjecting even the established democratic polities to enormous amounts of
strain. The tentacles of transnational terrorism have spread rapidly, no doubt aided
and abetted by short-sighted regimes in power and by the existence of various
types of disgruntled non-state groups professing various forms of extremist
ideology. Even regional economic progress seems to have unleashed brutal class
warfare in some areas, highlighting perhaps the injustice and inherent danger
associated with rapid but unequal development brought about by the forces of
globalization and liberalization. Intractable regional conflicts, too, such as
between India and Pakistan, have become more dangerous and unpredictable
as a result of the introduction of nuclear weapons into the equation; new lines of
conflict, such as between India and Bangladesh and Pakistan and Afghanistan,
have added to the further destabilization of the regional security environment.
Conflicts-in various shapes, sizes and forms-thus seem to have become an
enduring feature of the landscape in South Asia. In this essay, I focus on two major ‘internal’ conflicts in South Asia: the
secessionist insurgency in Indian Kashmir, which has extracted a huge cost in
terms of human lives and development and has periodically threatened to
precipitate a major war between India and Pakistan, with potentially catastrophic
consequences for the entire region; and the Tamil-Sinhalese conflict in Sri Lanka,
where a ruthless insurgency run by the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE)
is met head on by an equally uncompromising counter-insurgency operation
mounted by the Sinhalese-dominated Sri Lankan Government, leading to the
creation of a highly internationalized ‘dirty war’.
