ABSTRACT
From the early 1990s South Asians engaged in creative ways with a heady phase of globalization that lasted at least until the 2008 economic crisis. Perhaps as significant for South Asia as the world-shaking events of 1989 were two events in the subcontinent's neighbourhood in 1979. A renegotiation of the powers of the centre with its varied constituent units would seem to be the most sensible way forward towards the resolution of South Asia's centre–region conflicts. Bangladesh appears to have found its own variant of democratic authoritarianism that has been increasingly witnessed in South Asia and beyond. Sri Lanka's post-colonial state structure was heavily centralized and the centre came to be dominated by the Sinhalese majority. Votaries of the centralized post-colonial nation-state have made uses of both ideologies. The Congress concordat with the communists began to unravel, however, over the forging of closer ties with the United States of America.
