A lawless Subcontinent

The creeping tendency towards rampant lawlessness in South Asia has accelerated in recent times to become an institutionalised practice. Given its vast size and large population the numbers involved may not seem as alarming as the violations they represent. On the one hand there is the question of justice for those already affected. On the other hand, there is the problem of restraining the organs of the state both legally and judicially so that the state itself does not transform into an overbearing, unaccountable leviathan. That process is underway in all the countries of the Subcontinent. This is all the more dangerous since the regions is afflicted by conflicts of a violent kind, which, if not resolved promptly and in appropriate ways, will degenerate into a self-perpetuating cycle of brutality that could become institutionalised.

Some of the longest running conflicts in post-war global history have been going on in South Asia. The duration of these conflicts has undeniably increased because of the attempt to resolve them through military solutions. This has not only increased the death toll across the board, it has also seen the emergence of legal mechanisms that confer extraordinary powers on the security organs of the state. This in turn has led to mounting repression of ordinary citizens unconnected with any act or movement that may be construed as a threat to the state. Sometimes this repression extends also to areas that are not even in the so-called conflict zones. As a consequence, the legitimacy of the state and its laws is further undermined leading to greater doses of opposition and repression. Unless this problem is urgently addressed, a Subcontinent already afflicted by numerous other maladies that require democratic political solutions can expect to find itself crippled by the lack of institutional mechanisms to deal with them.