Democracy in South Asia

Catalog description

Born out of British India in 1947, the political trajectories of India and Pakistan (and following its creation in 1971, of Bangladesh) were markedly different. Following the role of the Congress in the nationalist movement during which Gandhi mobilized the marginalized untouchables, women, city workers, rural farmers and others to challenge British rule, leaders of the new India engaged in distributive democracy to address independent India’s myriad social, economic, and political problems. The new Pakistan, meanwhile, saw many decades of military rule and patronage politics by the landowning class. The seminar explores through literature, visuals and guest speakers how despite their common origins, the two nations (and later Bangladesh) took divergent paths.