This week, Jeff Joseph writes about Nepal’s inescapable trap of migration, agriculture and climate change – with farmers driven to migrate due to low agricultural incomes, only to return to farms impacted by growing climate risks.
Amanda Lanzillo asks how we might define a Southasian 20th century, delving into three recent books where historians move beyond the notion of a bounded Subcontinent by focusing on regional and local politics, complicating simplistic nation-state narratives.
For Episode 2 of the South Asia Review of Books podcast, host Shwetha Srikanthan interviews Smriti Ravindra on her debut novel The Woman Who Climbed Trees. The podcast discusses the underrepresentation of Madhesi women in Nepali literature, Mithila folklore and mythology, and contemporary conversations around ethnicity and citizenship in Nepal.
India's continued support to Myanmar junta despite indiscriminate air-strikes
A new report highlights India’s continued backing for Myanmar’s ruling junta through military support, infrastructure and training. The advocacy group Justice for Myanmar has named the Indian Air Force and ten Public Sector Undertakings, most of them administered by India’s Ministry of Defence, as being complicit in war crimes. As the military junta continues to lose ground against coordinated resistance by anti-junta armed groups, it has resorted to air-strikes, particularly in Rakhine state, leading to civilian deaths. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Volker Turk, described the human rights situation in Myanmar as “a never-ending nightmare”, adding that the junta showed “a chilling disregard for human life.”
India’s support has included the supply of Automatic Weather Stations, which can be used to enhance the effectiveness of air-strikes; spare parts for MiG military aircraft; training for a propulsion plant for Myanmar’s navy, which has been involved in shelling coastal villages; over USD 3.7 million worth of fuel; equipment for coastal surveillance; and portable bridges, among other equipment. India has also entered into talks to supply Myanmar with missiles and has provided training for Myanmar’s military. India is reportedly the third biggest supplier of arms and equipment to Myanmar, behind China and Russia, and has continued to cultivate close ties with the junta, even post-coup, due to a multitude of factors including geopolitical forces and growing securitisation within the Modi government.
The release of the report coincides with Myanmar’s Armed Forces Day on 27 March, usually marked by military parades in Naypyidaw. However, the show of military strength this year may have little impact given that the junta continues to sustain losses in northern Shan, Rakhine and Kachin states. Anti-junta groups have also killed ten junta officials and detained 7 others involved in forced conscription. As the conflict intensifies, civilians continue to pay the price.
Amid rising tensions between India and the Maldives, the Maldivian president Mohamed Muizzu seeks debt relief from India, saying his country owed MVR 6.2 billion (USD 400.9 million) to India as of last year. Meanwhile, India doubles its assistance to Bhutan to INR 10,000 crore (USD 1.2 million) for the next five years, after Indian prime minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Bhutan in a bid to strengthen ties. Bhutan’s prime minister says India is Bhutan’s “elder sibling” rather than Big Brother, prompting comment on social media
Five Chinese and one Pakistani driver killed after a suicide bomb attack in Khyber Pakhtunkhwah, marking the third attack on Chinese-funded projects in Pakistan in a week
Indian banks are forging documents after illegally deducting money from customers accounts and enrolling them in Modi’s life insurance, accident insurance and pension schemes
Supporters of jailed Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal detained as they try to march to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s residence in the Indian capital. Kejriwal’s arrest for an alleged liquor scam is seen as part of a broader crackdown on India’s opposition parties ahead of elections
Attack on Moscow’s Crocus City Hall concert venue resulting in 139 deaths is attributed to Islamic State-Khorasan, with increasing attacks by the group reported outside Pakistan and Afghanistan
Climate activist Sonam Wangchuk ends a 21-day hunger strike in Ladakh, drawing fresh attention to longstanding calls for statehood for the territory and protection of Ladakh’s fragile ecology
Bangladesh and Bhutan sign three new Memorandums of Understanding covering the establishment of a Special Economic Zone in Kurigram, as well as pledges to improve ties on trade, connectivity, power and agriculture
Nepal’s new home minister Rabi Lamichhane appears before the State Affairs Committee to deny involvement in a cooperatives fraud case, while the opposition Nepali Congress reiterates calls for him to step down until the investigation into the alleged fraud is concluded
Six judges in the Islamabad High Court write to Pakistan’s Supreme Judicial Council highlighting the intrusion of Inter-Services Intelligence into judicial matters after a court decision on the “illegal” removal of the former IHC Justice Shaukat Aziz Siddiqui and hte intimidation of judges involved in cases against Imran Khan
Hundreds of detained Tibetans protesting a proposed dam project in Dêgê county released, reports of severe beatings and starvation in detention
Galagodaththa Gnanasara, the general secretary of the Buddhist nationalist Bodu Bala Sena, sentenced to four years rigorous imprisonment in Sri Lanka for comments around the contested Kuragala site in a 2016 press briefing
Conflict-ridden Myanmar is flooding Southasia, and the rest of Asia, with cheap methamphetamines
Some good news for regionalism: the Southasia Peace Action Network celebrates its three-year anniversary, and is hosting a webinar on art and Southasian voices on 31 March
Responding to a question about the Bharatiya Janata Party’s poor performance in elections in the Indian state of Kerala, the veteran BJP leader O Rajagopal was startlingly honest. He pinpointed Kerala’s 90-percent literacy rate as a reason the BJP was unable to make headway in the state.
“They are thinking, they are argumentative… These are the habits of educated people. That is one issue,” he said. Perhaps this is why the BJP was left without candidates in four constituencies for the Indian parliament in Kerala just last week, with the country’s general election imminent.
There’s room to debate exactly what ails the BJP in Kerala, but we’re inclined to take Rajagopal at his word.
Victory's silence (December 2008)
As this week marks 53 years since the 1971 Liberation War, Bina d’Costa’s article on the “war babies” born during or after the birth of Bangladesh is worth revisiting. D’Costa argues that there is a need to revive stories of these marginalised voices in order for Bangladesh to understand its history and reconcile itself with its past. The complex relationship between India, Pakistan and Bangladesh can also be better understood through tracing bitter memories of Partition, d’Costa writes.