This study offers a panoramic view of the evolution of the South Asian state's military system and its contribution to the effectiveness of the state itself."--BOOK JACKET.

This book traces the rise and fall of Anglo-American relations with India and Pakistan from independence in the 1940s, to the 1960s.

This book presents and analyses the oldest sub-national war of postcolonial South Asia, between the Indian state and the Nagas of Northeast India. It offers a serious and thorough political history on the Naga region over three periods, pre-colonial, colonial, and post-colonial. Drawing on a wealth of primary sources and comparative and theoretical literature, Marcus Franke demonstrates that agency and identity-formation are an on-going process that neither started nor ended with colonialism. Although the interaction of the local population with colonialism produced a Naga national élite, it was the emergence of the Indian political class, with access to superior means of nation and state-building, that was able to undertake the modern Indo-Naga war. This war firmly made the Nagas into a 'nation' and that set them onto the road to independence. War and Nationalism in South Asia fundamentally revises our understanding of the existing 'histories' of the Nagas by exposing them to be influenced by colonial or post-colonial narratives of domination. Furthermore, by placing the region into the longue durée of state formation with its involved technique of imperial rule, the book presents a new approach to the study of nationalism and war in South Asia in general. This book will be of interest to students and scholars of politics, history, anthropology and South Asian studies.

This comprehensive but accessible text provides students with a systematic introduction to the comparative political study of the leading nations of South Asia: India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Nepal. The seventh edition is extensively revised and updated, benefiting from the fresh perspective brought on by adding a new author to the team. New material includes discussions of political parties and leaders in India, the Zardari regime and changes to the Pakistani constitution, the rocky relationship between Pakistan and the Obama administration, new prospects and dangers facing Bangladesh, continuing political violence in Sri Lanka, and the troubles facing Nepal as it attempts to draft a new constitution. Organized in parallel fashion to facilitate cross-national comparison, the sections on each nation address several topical areas of inquiry: political culture and heritage, government structure and institutions, political parties and leaders, conflict and resolution, and modernization and development. A statistical appendix provides a concise overview of leading demographic and economic indicators for each country, making Government and Politics in South Asia an invaluable addition to courses on the politics of South Asia

“Statemaking and Territory in South Asia: Lessons from the Anglo–Gorkha War (1814–1816)” seeks to understand how European colonization transformed the organization of territory in South Asia through an examination of the territorial disputes that underlay the Anglo–Gorkha War of 1814–1816 and subsequent efforts of the colonial state to reorder its territories. The volume argues that these disputes arose out of older tribute, taxation and property relationships that left their territories perpetually intermixed and with ill-defined boundaries. It also seeks to describe the long-drawn-out process of territorial reordering undertaken by the British in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries that set the stage for the creation of a clearly defined geographical template for the modern state in South Asia.

Political violence has remained an integral part of South Asian society for decades. The region has witnessed and continued to encounter violence for achieving political objectives from above and from below. Violence is perpetrated by the state, by non-state actors, and used by the citizens as a form of resistance. Ethnic insurgency, religion-inspired extremism, and ideology-driven hostility are examples of violent acts that have emerged as challenges to the states which have responded with violence in the form of civil war and through violations of human rights disregarding international norms. This book explores various dimensions of political violence in South Asia, namely in Bangladesh, India, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka. Each chapter either speaks to an important aspect of the political violence or provides an overall picture of the nature and scope of political violence in the respective country. Political violence is understood in the larger sense of political, that is, above and beyond institutions, and also as an integral part of social relationships where social norms and the role of individual agency play seminal roles. The contributions in this book incorporate both institutional and non-institutional dimensions of political violence. Exploring how everyday life in South Asian states and societies is transformed by the engagement with violence through direct and indirect methods, this book adopts an interdisciplinary framework; diverse methods are employed – from ethnographic readings to more macro level analyses. The phenomenon is explored from historical, sociological, and political perspectives. This book will be useful as a supplementary text in courses on South Asian Studies in general and South Asian Politics in particular.

The advent of two nuclear powers in South Asia, discoveries of nuclear trafficking, and insurgencies and terrorism that threaten important U.S. interests and objectives directly have transformed the region from a strategic backwater into a primary theater of concern for the United States. The United States, to a great extent free of the restrictions of earlier sanction regimes and attentive to the region's central role in the global war on terrorism (GWOT), has engaged the states of South Asia aggressively with a wide variety of policy initiatives. Despite the diversity of policy instruments, few are very powerful; indeed, only the U.S. military seems to offer many options for Washington to intensify further its security cooperation and influence in the region. This monograph highlights key factors in the region that imperil U.S. interests, and suggests how and where the U.S. military might play an expanded, influential role. The report notes that the current U.S. military force posture, disposition, and lines of command may not be optimal, given South Asia's new status in the U.S. strategic calculus, and suggests seven key steps the military might take to improve its ability to advance and defend U.S. interests, not only in South Asia, but beyond it, including the Middle East and Asia at large. Beyond the specifics, however, the broader message arising from this analysis is straightforward: the region's salience for U.S. policy interests has increased dramatically. It is therefore prudent to intensify Washington's involvement in the region and to devote the resources necessary to become more influential with the governments within the region. Given the area's potential for violence, it is also prudent to shape a part of the U.S. military to meet the potential crises emanating from South Asia, just as the United States once shaped its military presence in Western Europe for the contingencies of the Cold War.