ABSTRACT
Indian politics has long been the focus of scholars interested in development research, peace studies and the sociology of identity. Unfortunately, much of this literature has remained unread in Asian studies departments in the West, as well as in political science and international relations departments. The tendency to study East or Southeast Asia rather than South Asia has long dominated Western research, especially in the United States. The reasons for this are largely to be found in a combination of geo-political and economic factors. Post-war development in Hong Kong, Japan, Taiwan and South Korea has certainly reflected a close geo-political interest in the Pacific region. The ‘China-card’, together with the real or imagined lucrative Chinese market, has further played a motivating role for Western interests in East Asia in general and for the US focus in particular. To this should be added the immigration patterns to the United States which have accounted for a greater number of people from East Asia than from South Asia making studies into this area of particular interest (Global Data Center: Migration Information Source). Also, while the East and Southeast Asian countries are on the verge of conquering and to some extent eliminating poverty from their societies, South Asia continues to remain a symbol of poverty and underdevelopment. The fall of the Soviet Union and the rapid changes in the Soviet successor states have furthermore produced a lot of research on democratization and the emergence of civil society in Eastern Europe and East and Southeast Asia, while similar processes have received less attention in South and Central Asia.
