ABSTRACT
Nations of South Asia have aspired but found daunting challenges of national integration and political consolidation that frequently set back their efforts to move from independence to a stable democracy. This chapter provides an overview of the region's journey to democracy and the kind of challenges the five contiguous countries of the subcontinent have faced. These are India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka. Despite short-lived coalition governments, India dismantled the regulatory regime and initiated market-based reforms, redefined its foreign policy, abandoned nuclear reticence to conduct nuclear weapons tests, and signed a border agreement to maintain a status quo on border with China. The years between 1990 and 2005, Nepal witnessed many upheavals and protests, short-lived governments and an effort to build stable political coalition at the center, but each new beginning ended in a dismal failure or was aborted midpoint.
