The model appeared remarkably successful. Airlines obtained aircraft with limited upfront capital commitments. Japanese investors received attractive tax-adjusted returns, often in the range of 5–8% after accounting for depreciation benefits. Banks generated stable lending income secured by globally mobile assets. The interests of airlines, investors and lenders appeared aligned.

Today, however, the foundations of that model are weakening.

Industry participants often attribute current difficulties to cyclical headwinds: higher interest rates, a weaker yen, delayed aircraft deliveries and temporary turbulence in airline profitability. Yet such explanations risk missing the larger story. The more consequential challenge is structural. A combination of accounting reforms, evolving tax policy, tighter regulation, shifting investor preferences and changing capital-market conditions has steadily eroded the advantages that once made Japanese aircraft-leasing structures uniquely attractive.

Moreover, the international tax environment has become significantly more complex. Japanese investors must increasingly consider cross-border tax issues arising from the OECD’s Base Erosion and Profit Shifting (BEPS) , the global minimum tax framework and evolving international tax rules. As these developments affect the economic assumptions underlying JOL and JOLCO transactions, a growing challenge lies in whether domestic leasing companies and trading houses — the principal arrangers of such structures — can adequately explain and manage these risks for investors. Insufficient understanding of international tax exposure may itself become a material risk factor for the market.

The question is no longer whether JOLCO survives. The question is whether a model designed for the financial environment of the late 20th century can remain competitive in the 21st.

The three pillars of success

Historically, JOL and JOLCO transactions rested on three powerful advantages. The first was tax efficiency. Accelerated depreciation and interest deductions allowed investors to reduce taxable income while generating attractive after-tax returns. The second was accounting treatment. Airlines could lease aircraft while avoiding much of the balance-sheet impact associated with ownership or conventional debt financing. The third was predictability. Aircraft values, lease cash flows and funding costs remained relatively stable throughout much of the 1990s and 2000s.

Together, these factors created a powerful ecosystem. A typical JOLCO transaction involved 20–30% equity and 70–80% debt financing. During the era of ultra-low interest rates, leverage amplified returns while depreciation enhanced investor economics.

Today, all three pillars are under pressure.

The end of off-balance-sheet leasing

Perhaps the most significant change has been accounting reform.

For decades, global airlines viewed operating leases as an attractive means of financing aircraft because lease obligations remained largely off balance sheet. That advantage largely disappeared with the introduction of International Financial Reporting Standards ( by the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB). Under the new standard, most leases must be recognized through right-of-use assets and corresponding lease liabilities.

The impact has been substantial. According to the International Air Transport Association (IATA), IFRS 16 added approximately of lease liabilities to airline balance sheets worldwide.

Japan is moving in the same direction. The Accounting Standards Board of Japan (ASBJ) Lease Accounting aligns Japanese accounting treatment more closely with international standards.

The implications are straightforward. Airlines can no longer justify operating leases primarily on accounting grounds. Instead, leasing decisions increasingly depend on actual economics: financing costs, operational flexibility, fleet strategy and liquidity management.

As a result, JOLCO structures now compete directly with bank loans, export-credit facilities, enhanced equipment trust certificates (EETCs), and large global lessors such as , and Avolon.

As a result, one of the principal historical attractions of JOLCO structures — the ability to improve reported leverage through off-balance-sheet treatment — has largely vanished.

At the same time, the investor base that has traditionally supported JOLCO transactions may also be narrowing. Many Japanese investors participate through relatively small equity commitments rather than funding entire aircraft. As economic conditions become more challenging and domestic businesses face greater cash-flow pressure, these investors may become less willing or able to allocate capital to aircraft-leasing investments. This could gradually shift the market toward a smaller pool of more sophisticated and professional investors.

While such a transition may improve investment discipline and due diligence, it could also reduce transaction volumes and place pressure on the existing business models of leasing companies and trading houses that rely on a broad retail and middle-market investor base. Maintaining current staffing levels and fee structures may become increasingly difficult in a more concentrated market.

A business model dependent on tax policy

If accounting arbitrage has diminished, tax efficiency remains central to the economics of many JOLCO transactions. This dependence creates a structural vulnerability.

Although JOLCO is often presented as an aviation investment, many participants have historically been motivated less by aircraft economics than by tax benefits. Accelerated depreciation and interest deductibility frequently constitute a significant share of expected returns.

Aircraft leases typically extend for eight to 12 years, while aircraft themselves remain in service for 25 years or more. Tax policy, by contrast, can change within a single budget cycle.

Over the past decade, OECD-led BEPS initiatives have encouraged governments to tighten rules governing tax-driven investment structures. Japan has gradually strengthened earnings-stripping regulations and anti-avoidance provisions. The framework is summarized by the National Tax Agency of Japan’s .

The risk is not prohibition. The risk is uncertainty. A structure whose economics depend heavily on favorable tax treatment becomes inherently fragile when that treatment is subject to political or regulatory reinterpretation.

Unlike Ireland’s leasing industry — which benefits from scale, operational expertise, treaty networks and diversified funding sources — Japan’s leasing model remains unusually dependent on the continuation of specific tax advantages.

The end of free money

The rise of JOLCO coincided with one of the most extraordinary monetary-policy environments in modern history.

Many investors entering the market today are also part of a generational transition. Unlike earlier participants who experienced periods of higher inflation and interest rates, a large share of Japanese investors built their investment expectations during an era of ultra-low borrowing costs and abundant liquidity. As a result, they are entering a market environment that is fundamentally different from the one in which JOLCO structures originally flourished.

This shift makes a deeper understanding of both the benefits and the risks of aircraft leasing increasingly important. Once committed, investors are typically locked into transactions for four to 12 years, limiting their flexibility and requiring assumptions about future interest rates, tax rules, aircraft values and airline creditworthiness over a long horizon. In an environment characterized by greater economic uncertainty, such long-term forecasting has become considerably more difficult.

Between 2010 and 2021, Japanese interest rates remained , while global borrowing costs reached historic lows. Such conditions were highly favorable for leveraged investment structures.

Aircraft leasing is particularly sensitive to financing costs because debt typically finances 60–80% of acquisition value. Consider a $100 million aircraft financed with 70% debt. A one-percentage-point increase in borrowing costs reduces annual cash flow by approximately $700,000. Over a ten-year lease term, the cumulative impact can exceed $7 million even before considering any refinancing costs or changes in future credit conditions.

Since 2022, benchmark interest rates in major economies have risen by roughly 500 basis points. The shift is documented extensively in the Bank for International Settlements Annual Economic .

Even if policy rates decline, few investors expect a return to the near-zero funding environment that characterized the previous decade. The economics of leveraged aircraft leasing have therefore changed fundamentally.

Delivery delays have become a systemic risk

Aviation finance has traditionally focused on airline creditworthiness and aircraft residual values. Today, operational risk may be more important.

Both Airbus and Boeing continue to face production constraints and supply-chain disruptions. Airbus delivered 766 aircraft in 2024 but has repeatedly warned of bottlenecks affecting engines, avionics and structural components. The company’s outlook is outlined in its Aircraft Production Ramp-Up .

Boeing’s challenges have been even more severe following manufacturing-quality concerns and regulatory intervention. A detailed assessment is available in ’ analysis of Boeing’s 2024 crisis.

For airlines, delivery delays are frustrating. For JOLCO structures, they can be destabilizing. Aircraft-financing transactions depend on precise coordination between equity subscriptions, debt drawdowns, lease commencement, foreign-exchange hedging and tax recognition. When deliveries are delayed by months or years, financing commitments expire, hedges become ineffective and transaction documents require renegotiation.

Large lessors managing portfolios of hundreds of aircraft can absorb such disruptions. Single-aircraft special-purpose vehicles cannot.

Legal certainty is no longer assumed

Aircraft leasing has long been regarded as a legally robust asset class. Recent litigation has challenged that assumption.

Particular attention has been paid to termination-payment provisions frequently embedded in JOLCO transactions. Although English courts have generally upheld such provisions, litigation has highlighted a broader reality: Recovery outcomes depend on contractual drafting, jurisdictional interpretation and insolvency frameworks.

Detailed analyses are available from both Clifford Chance’s JOLCO Termination Sum Review and Morgan Lewis’ English High Court . For investors, the significance lies less in individual court decisions than in the uncertainty they reveal. Recovery values cannot simply be assumed; they must be analyzed.

This issue is particularly important in the Japanese market, where investor discussions have traditionally focused on tax benefits, projected returns and aircraft residual values rather than legal-enforcement risks. Many investors have limited experience evaluating complex cross-border insolvency proceedings, jurisdictional conflicts or contractual enforcement risks. As a result, legal risk is often treated as a secondary consideration despite its potential impact on recovery outcomes.

The challenge is compounded by the highly specialized nature of aircraft-finance disputes. While transaction documentation is typically prepared by experienced legal counsel, the practical outcome of a distressed lease often depends on litigation, restructuring negotiations and insolvency proceedings conducted across multiple jurisdictions. These factors can be difficult for non-professional investors to assess and are not always fully reflected in traditional investment presentations.

Currency risk has become more punitive

Currency exposure has also become increasingly significant. Aircraft are priced globally in US dollars, while Japanese investors provide capital largely in yen.

The yen from approximately ¥103 per dollar in early 2021 to nearly ¥160 per dollar during 2024. As a result, the yen cost of acquiring a $100 million aircraft increased from roughly ¥10.3 billion to ¥16 billion — an increase exceeding 50%. In our view, the recent weakness of the Japanese yen has materially reduced the attractiveness of dollar-denominated aircraft investments for many Japanese investors. The sharp depreciation of the yen has significantly increased the domestic-currency cost of acquiring aircraft, while higher hedging costs and greater exchange-rate uncertainty have further reduced expected risk-adjusted returns.

While hedging strategies can mitigate some exposure, long-dated currency protection remains expensive and imperfect. For many investors, foreign-exchange volatility now represents a greater source of uncertainty than aircraft performance itself.

Why insurance companies are looking elsewhere

These structural weaknesses become particularly apparent when viewed through the lens of insurance companies.

Japanese life insurers collectively manage assets exceeding ¥400 trillion. Yet JOLCO remains largely absent from their strategic asset allocations. The reason is straightforward. Insurance companies are not tax-driven investors. Their objective is to generate predictable long-duration cash flows while minimizing regulatory capital consumption. JOLCO performs poorly on both measures.

The structures involve airline credit risk, residual value uncertainty, legal enforcement complexity, delivery delays and opaque valuations. Under emerging solvency frameworks, including Japan’s Economic Value-Based Solvency Regulation (), such characteristics attract relatively high capital charges.

Consequently, institutional participation remains limited despite the industry’s long history.

This limitation is unlikely to disappear in the future. Publicly listed companies and institutional investors face increasing scrutiny regarding tax planning, governance and capital allocation. As a result, participation in aircraft-leasing structures primarily motivated by tax benefits is becoming more difficult to justify. Rather than investing through traditional JOLCO arrangements, professional investors may prefer direct ownership stakes in aircraft-leasing companies, dedicated aviation-investment platforms or strategic acquisitions that provide greater control, transparency and scale. The trend suggests that future participation may become concentrated among a smaller number of sophisticated investors rather than the broad base of tax-oriented investors that historically supported the market.

A broader question of capital allocation

The deeper issue extends beyond aviation finance.

Historically, JOLCO has been marketed primarily to profitable, privately held companies, including owner-managed firms in construction, real estate, healthcare, logistics and leisure industries. Industry presentations frequently acknowledge that tax benefits remain the primary attraction for many participants. A representative overview is provided in the Airline Economics JOL/JOLCO Market .

This raises broader questions about capital allocation within Japan. When capital flows into highly engineered structures because depreciation benefits enhance returns, investment decisions become increasingly detached from underlying productivity. Financial engineering begins to substitute for genuine value creation.

The result is a subtle but important distortion. Capital that might otherwise support innovation, digital transformation, productivity enhancement or wage growth is instead directed toward tax-efficient ownership structures tied to aircraft operating thousands of miles away.

Such behavior may be rational from the perspective of individual investors. It is less obvious that it is optimal from the perspective of the Japanese economy.

Adaptation rather than extinction

None of this implies that JOLCO will disappear.

The global commercial aircraft fleet is to expand from approximately 29,000 aircraft today to more than 47,000 by 2043. Boeing and Airbus together forecast demand for more than 40,000 new aircraft over the next two decades, representing trillions of dollars of financing requirements.

There will continue to be opportunities for Japanese capital. But the conditions that once supported JOLCO’s rapid expansion — off-balance-sheet treatment, abundant tax advantages, ultra-low interest rates, stable supply chains and limited competition — have largely vanished. The challenge confronting Japan’s aircraft-leasing industry is therefore not one of survival but reinvention.

The next phase of global aviation finance will reward scale, operational expertise, capital efficiency and economic substance rather than tax optimization and financial engineering. Whether JOL and JOLCO can successfully adapt to that reality may determine their relevance in global aviation finance for the next generation.

The era in which Japanese aircraft leasing thrived because of accounting advantages, tax benefits and cheap money is drawing to a close. The industry’s future will depend on whether it can compete on economic merit alone. That may prove a far more demanding test than any it has previously faced.

[ edited this piece.]

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This is what I call “sachet citizenship.” Just as sachet products allow consumers to purchase small quantities of shampoo or coffee instead of a full bottle or package, citizens are increasingly receiving state benefits in small, transactional increments. These may include one-off cash transfers, temporary welfare programs or simplified policy messaging designed for immediate consumption. Rather than strengthening durable rights and institutions, governance is increasingly delivered through isolated interventions that offer immediate benefits but little lasting security.

As a result, citizenship risks becoming less about a sustained relationship between citizens and the state and more about a series of short-term transactions. While this approach may appear efficient and responsive, it can discourage investment in the stronger institutions and long-term public goods that underpin democratic accountability and national resilience.

The politics of microtransactions

In the political sphere, the concept of sachet citizenship is most visible in the calculated blurring of social welfare and electoral loyalty. The recent election cycles at national and subnational levels underscored a troubling where social assistance (bansos) programs became functionally indistinguishable from sophisticated . Rather than engaging the electorate in long-term ideological discourse, the state-citizen relationship has been reduced to a series of micro-transactions.

This is “pay-as-you-go” governance. When the state provides a sachet-sized portion of rice or a direct cash transfer in the immediate lead-up to a ballot, it is not investing in a shared national vision; it is purchasing a one-off service. Once the “product” — the vote — is extracted, the “packaging” — the citizen — is frequently discarded. This leaves behind a pervasive “political plastic” waste: a landscape of deep-seated cynicism and eroded institutional trust that persists long after the promotional cycle has ended.

Fulfillment through digital merit

This fragmentation extends into the burgeoning sharia economy. Indonesia has witnessed a significant surge in , where spiritual and economic obligations are increasingly fulfilled through sachet-style Islamic finance. The traditional emphasis on community-led designed to build lasting infrastructure, such as hospitals or universities, is being eclipsed by highly individualized, digital microdonations.

While the democratization of via financial technology is laudable, it frequently leads to a fleeting sense of spiritual satisfaction gained through very small digital transfers, such as a 5,000 rupiah (approximately $0.29) zakat payment. Such microinterventions lack the structural weight required to address the systemic roots of inequality. It risks reducing the profound complexities of Islamic social justice to a superficial retail experience, in which citizens purchase small units of merit without ever challenging the economic disparities that necessitate such charity in the first place.

Episodic defense

Even the most monolithic sector, such as national defense, is showing signs of sachet-style procurement and strategy, particularly within the maritime domain. For an archipelagic nation of over 17,000 islands, sovereignty requires a continuous, integrated presence. Instead, Indonesia’s approach often resembles a series of reactive, sachet-sized interventions.

For instance, in the North Natuna Sea, the state frequently deploys a sudden of patrols in response to viral incidents of illegal fishing or territorial incursions, only to retreat when fuel budgets or political appetites wane. Rather than a unified maritime architecture — where the Navy, Coast Guard (Badan Keamanan Laut/Bakamla) and fisheries surveillance operate as a single, durable entity — there are fragmented packets of . The Indonesian government may high-end Rafale jets in small batches, but without a robust chain and sustained , the shield remains brittle and episodic.

The regressive cost of retail logic

Culturally, the medium of citizenship is being reconfigured through the lens of social media brevity. The Indonesian government increasingly bypasses formal parliamentary debates and rigorous press briefings in favor of key opinion and “buzzers” who are organized to amplify specific narratives.

When complex legislation requires public buy-in, the state enlists to market the policy in 60-second, easily digestible sachet videos. This approach prioritizes the aesthetic of engagement over the substance of civic discourse. It is a professionalized version of propaganda that sells the feeling of progress while stripping away the nutritional value of actual policy debate.

The tragedy of this “retail logic” is that it is mathematically regressive. Just as sachet shampoo is far more expensive per milliliter than the bottle, sachet citizenship imposes a heavy “poverty tax” on the very people it claims to serve. It creates a culture of immediate, small-scale gratification that obscures the crumbling foundations of healthcare, education and labor rights.

Toward durable citizenship

Indonesian people have long been masters of the sachet economy. It is a testament to their ingenuity and a necessary tool for surviving precarious cash flows. But while the sachet is a brilliant strategy for individual survival, it is a disastrous blueprint for national governance. From the rice packets of bansos to the hit-and-run patrols in the Natuna Sea, the state is offering a version of governance that is easy to open but impossible to sustain.

If the common people are forced to accept their rights in these tiny, transactional increments, they cannot be surprised when the “product” fails them during a systemic crisis. It is time to demand a model of citizenship that is not just easy to consume, but one that is built to last.

[ edited this piece]

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The recent financial transactions cited by some commentators as evidence of a weakening strategic partnership are, in fact, routine operations governed by pre-existing commercial agreements. The and return processes in Pakistan and the UAE should not be used to create false geopolitical significance, as the two nations have maintained extensive diplomatic ties throughout their history.

The Pakistani government and its foreign affairs department have made every effort to that the process of returning matured deposits from the UAE constitutes a standard banking procedure. The transactions arise from existing commercial contracts, which enable both investment activities and liquidity control while establishing trust among government financial institutions.��

An evolving relationship

The relationship between Pakistan and the UAE has evolved from its into a comprehensive partnership spanning multiple fields. Pakistan became the first country to provide military assistance to the UAE before any formal defense agreements existed between the two nations.��

The Pakistani military trained UAE defense personnel and developed vital training centers that produced commandos who became essential to the UAE’s defense system. This contribution to the country’s underscores the level of mutual trust and respect between the two nations.

The in the UAE, with 1.6 million members, is the clearest evidence of this partnership. The men and women serve as essential links between the two nations, providing significant support to the UAE’s socioeconomic framework.��

They work in various industries, including construction, infrastructure development, healthcare, education, and the hospitality and service sectors. Their work and expertise have helped develop and sustain the UAE’s top-tier infrastructure system, which comprises major ports, highways, residential areas, utility systems and community facilities.

The work of Pakistani engineers, technicians and skilled professionals has made essential contributions to engineering projects. The UAE has built its infrastructure system through decades of expert knowledge exchange, producing valuable pathways for knowledge transfer and human development. The economic ties between these professionals have strengthened trade connections, helping private businesses collaborate with government agencies on investment and trade projects.

UAE and Pakistan’s social ties

The enduring bond between these two countries is strengthened by shared cultural and religious ties. The citizens of Pakistan and the UAE maintain a strong connection through their shared Islamic heritage, common tribal customs of hospitality and social practices. Cultural festivals and educational exchanges, together with regular interactions among citizens from both countries, build a better understanding between the two groups, leading to social unity. 

The UAE serves as a secondary homeland for numerous Pakistanis who travel there to work, engage in tourism and shopping, undertake pilgrimage, attend family gatherings and participate in recreational activities. The personal relationships between people from both countries create stronger diplomatic ties than official diplomatic channels can.

The economic ties between Pakistan and the UAE have existed since ancient times and continue to develop. The two countries established key investment and cooperation agreements worth more than in 2024, including infrastructure development, logistics and trade facilitation. These agreements demonstrate that Emirati investors trust Pakistan’s economic future, while Pakistan wants to establish partnerships that will benefit both sides and create job opportunities and drive economic development.

A deepening of relations

The between the two parties was confirmed through high-level leadership engagements, such as the Memorandum of Understanding (), that took place in 2025. The two sides demonstrated their commitment to broadening their partnership through official visits and ongoing discussions, which focused on trade and investment, energy and regional security.

The two countries carried out their work through meaningful activities aimed at achieving concrete results rather than using display language. The two parties maintain a well-established partnership that enables them to address current challenges as they pursue new opportunities to work together.

The current situation requires acknowledging that standard financial activities, including the maturity and return of sovereign deposits, do not affect the strategic partnership between Pakistan and the UAE. Financial markets operate based on two key elements, which are contractual obligations, liquidity requirements and risk management practices. 

The standard process of interstate economic transactions includes the settlement of financial instruments that financial markets use to operate. The interpretation of these actions as evidence of a breakdown in diplomatic relations and a collapse in strategic alignment shows a complete misunderstanding of how sovereign financial relations function.

An indestructible bond

The comprehensive engagement activities between Pakistan and the UAE, which include security partnerships, economic development, human resource sharing, cultural ties and strategic discussions, create a strong relationship foundation that financial market activities cannot break. 

Strategic partnerships of this nature require multiple decades to develop through shared interests and common values that countries sustain across different fields. The organization maintains operational flexibility through actual joint initiatives while monitoring external economic developments and international political changes.

The relationship between Pakistan and the UAE is built on strong, unbreakable foundations, as both nations have established trust through their diplomatic ties. The defense alliance and economic partnership between the two nations, along with their active people connections, create a strong foundation that supports stability and development throughout the region. 

The standard process for returning financial deposits should be understood as a common occurrence within its normal framework, rather than as material for sensational stories. The relationship between the two countries remains strong despite attempts to misinterpret it, as both nations continue to strengthen their ties in line with their shared objectives.

[ edited this piece.]

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Over the past three decades, Hollywood has become increasingly dependent on international markets. A quick dive into the revenue data from 2024 tells you everything you need to know about who is truly driving the film industry right now. With international markets now responsible for upward of of revenue, foreign audiences have become impossible for major American studios to ignore. Naturally, this financial lifeline comes with serious strings attached. Hollywood is in a constant process of cultural negotiation, regularly altering its narratives and softening their political edges just to ensure a film actually plays well overseas.

This is where the limits of American soft power begin to appear. For decades, Hollywood worked effectively because it did not look like state propaganda. It sold American values through entertainment: individual freedom, heroism, patriotism and the American Dream. Films such as English film director Tony Scott’s (1987) and American actor and filmmaker Sylvester Stallone’s (2008) projected military confidence and American superiority, while many Hollywood biopics promoted the belief that personal struggle, discipline and talent could lead to success.

There was a time when Hollywood exported these cultural ideals with remarkable confidence. That one-way flow is far less secure today. Because international markets now shape box-office revenue, studios are forced into a more delicate game of cultural negotiation. They cannot simply project American ideals without adjustment. Globalization, which once expanded the reach of US soft power, now also dilutes it by forcing Hollywood to compromise with the very world it seeks to influence.

Asia’s rise as a cultural power

Asia has become central to this shift. The region is no longer only a destination for Hollywood films. It is also producing its own cultural narratives, industries and standards.Hollywood’s share of the global box office has from 92% to 66% over the past two decades, alongside the rise of Asian film industries, particularly China. The success of China’s animated film , which grossed about $2 billion worldwide, signals more than commercial growth. It reflects a changing cultural order.

The old assumption that Western culture alone dictates global taste is increasingly difficult to defend. Entertainment today is becoming more multipolar. Asian cinema, television, music, anime and literature are no longer merely responding to Hollywood. In many cases, creators across the region are setting new standards for global popular culture.

South Korea offers one of the clearest examples. Through the “Korean Wave,” the country has transformed popular culture into a powerful diplomatic instrument. Korean pop (K-pop), Korean dramas, films, fashion, food and cosmetics now circulate globally, shaping not only consumer taste but also perceptions of South Korea itself.Le Monde has the Korean Wave as having “conquered” the planet, a phrase that captures how far South Korean popular culture has traveled.

Japan provides another example through anime. The country has increasingly treated anime and manga as part of its cultural influence abroad, withBloomberg them as central to Japan’s soft-power strategy. Anime does not merely entertain global audiences. It also shapes how many people imagine Japan and, more broadly, Asia.

Indonesia and local storytelling

Indonesia presents a different but equally important case in this global shift. Local filmmakers may not be able to compete with Hollywood in terms of visual effects or production budgets, but they do not need to. Rather than imitating Western blockbusters, the domestic industry has found strength in stories that foreign studios cannot genuinely reproduce: Indonesian fears, humor, family tensions, religious anxieties and everyday social realities.

Domestic films captured around of Indonesia’s cinema market and attracted more than 80 million viewers, putting real pressure on imported films, including Hollywood releases. The numbers say something simple: Indonesian audiences are not just waiting for whatever comes from outside. They also want stories that sound familiar, feel close and speak to the way they actually live. In that sense, watching local films is not only about entertainment. It is also about recognition. Indonesian filmmakers do not need to attack Hollywood head-on to challenge its place in the market.

The decline of American cultural dominance

China has taken a more direct route. The geopolitical tensions in 2025 provide a useful example. noted in 2025 that Beijing began cutting back on Hollywood imports in response to US tariff increases. That kind of political retaliation puts real pressure on American studios in a market they are eager to keep. Combined with the growth of China’s domestic film industry, this policy shows how cultural power is increasingly tied to economic and geopolitical competition.��

The scholar Chua Beng Huat’s on East Asian popular culture helps explain this broader transformation. Hallyu, Japanese pop (J-pop), Asian dramas and regional cinema can all be read as signs that American media dominance no longer operates without competition. Asian audiences are not passive recipients of American culture. They choose, reject, reinterpret and produce alternative forms of popular culture.

Soft power is no longer one-way

Hollywood’s soft power has not disappeared. It remains influential, profitable and globally visible. But it is no longer absolute. Its dependence on international markets means it must increasingly negotiate with the very audiences it once assumed it could simply influence. At the same time, Asia is no longer only a market. It has become an active cultural producer.

The future of global popular culture will not be shaped by Hollywood alone. It will be shaped through negotiation, competition and exchange between multiple cultural centers. The United States remains a major cultural force, but it no longer defines the global conversation alone. Increasingly, Asia is helping determine what stories travel, what values resonate and how the world imagines itself.

[ first published a version of this piece in Indonesian.]

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This transformation carries consequences extending far beyond Afghanistan itself. The collapse of civil liberties, exclusion of women from public life and suppression of pluralism are not simply domestic governance concerns. They directly affect long-term regional stability, humanitarian conditions, migration pressures and the future trajectory of extremism across South and Central Asia.

Despite repeated Taliban efforts to secure international legitimacy, conditions inside Afghanistan continue moving in the opposite direction.

The systematic removal of women from public life

The Taliban’s restrictions on women now represent one of the most extensive systems of gender exclusion in the modern world. Since 2021, according to the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), more than Afghan girls and women have been denied access to secondary and higher education. The prohibition on education for girls beyond grade six has now entered its fifth consecutive year in 2026, creating consequences that will shape Afghanistan’s economic and social future for decades.��

A new United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) says nearly 28 million Afghans live in poverty under Taliban rule, with three in four unable to meet basic daily needs. Afghanistan’s GDP grew by 1.9% in 2025, but rapid population growth, estimated at 6.5%, worsened per capita income and living conditions. More than 80% of households are in debt, while three-quarters rely on negative coping mechanisms to survive. The return of approximately 5 million Afghans since 2023, including 2.7 million in 2025, has strained resources, with 92% of returnees unable to secure basic necessities.��

The restrictions extend well beyond education. Women have steadily disappeared from large sectors of public employment, including government institutions civil administration, while female participation in economic life has been constrained through overlapping restrictions on mobility, employment and public interaction.

Even international institutions have become targets of Taliban policies. Since September 2025, , including UN staff members, contractors and visitors, have been prohibited from entering UN compounds nationwide.

The mechanisms enforcing these policies have become increasingly intrusive. Inspectors from the Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice actively monitor women’s clothing, movement and behavior in public spaces. In Herat, women were reportedly removed from taxis and buses on January 11 and February 12, for allegedly failing to wear chadors.

Healthcare restrictions further demonstrate the extent of over women’s daily lives. Authorities in Kandahar, Paktya and Uruzgan reportedly instructed health centers not to treat women unless accompanied by a male guardian, or mahram. Female healthcare workers themselves were ordered to travel only with male escorts.

Economic activity has likewise become heavily constrained. In Uruzgan and Ghazni, Taliban inspectors shopkeepers not to sell goods to women unless they were accompanied by a mahram and wearing a Taliban-approved hijab. In Kandahar, real estate agents were instructed not to rent property to women independently, further weakening women’s economic autonomy.

Governance through surveillance and social control

The Taliban’s governing model increasingly relies on mechanisms designed to regulate both public and private life. Between January 1 and March 31, alone, Taliban authorities reportedly carried out at least arbitrary arrests and detentions alongside 59 incidents of ill-treatment targeting Afghan men and women.

Citizens are routinely monitored for dress, fasting practices, social interaction and perceived moral conduct. The Ministry for the Propagation of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice has evolved into a nationwide apparatus with expanding authority over everyday life.

Religious observance has become subject to active state monitoring. During Ramadan between February 17 and March 18, Taliban inspectors reportedly mosque attendance and fasting compliance. The broader objective appears increasingly clear: The state is attempting not simply to enforce religious norms, but to regulate social behavior and public morality through coercive oversight.

The Taliban’s intervention into cultural life reflects the same pattern. On February 14, Taliban officials targeted flower shops to discourage celebrations. On March 21, Taliban authorities publicly warned citizens against celebrating Nowruz, the Persian New Year observed across much of the region.

The result is a society in which ordinary social behavior is increasingly politicized and regulated by the threat of punishment.

Codifying authoritarian rule through Taliban decrees

One of the most significant developments under Taliban rule is the gradual formalization of restrictions through legal and judicial decrees. What initially emerged through arbitrary practices is increasingly being institutionalized through codified controls.

Under Decree on Criminal Rules of Courts, circulated by the Taliban Supreme Court on January 7, women can reportedly face imprisonment for remaining outside their husband’s home without permission. Relatives who refuse to force women back into those homes may themselves be jailed for up to three months.

The decree also institutionalizes sectarian hierarchy by formally declaring dominant while describing alternative beliefs as “heretical.” Such provisions reveal the increasingly sectarian character of Taliban governance and raise growing concerns among Afghanistan’s minority communities.

Criticism of Taliban authorities and their interpretation of has likewise been criminalized. Insulting an imam is punishable by 39 lashes and one year of imprisonment, while insulting Taliban leaders carries penalties including prison terms and corporal punishment. Failure to report meetings involving alleged “opponents of the government” can reportedly result in a two-year prison sentence.

The implementation of these also reflects unequal social enforcement. Clerics and elites often receive warnings or admonishments, while lower- and middle-class individuals face lashings, detention and imprisonment.

The Taliban justice system itself increasingly relies on as a visible instrument of control. At least 312 individuals, including 269 men, 39 women and four boys, were reportedly subjected to corporal punishment during the period. In Bagram district on February 5, Taliban courts ordered five men and three women to receive 39 lashes each inside school premises over alleged “illicit relationships,” with several additionally sentenced to prison terms.

These punishments are designed not only to penalize individuals but also to reinforce compliance through public intimidation.

The collapse of independent media and civic space

Independent journalism in Afghanistan has undergone systematic dismantling since the Taliban takeover. operate under constant threat of suspension, censorship and retaliation, while journalists increasingly face detention, intimidation and exile. Afghanistan ranks out of 180 countries in the 2026 World Press Freedom Index, reflecting an extremely critical environment for journalists and media workers.��

On January 26, the Taliban Ministry of Information and Culture revoked the licenses of all media support organizations except three. A month later, was suspended after its head criticized Taliban policies publicly. On March 3, was suspended because female students spoke with a male host during a live broadcast. No transparent legal mechanism exists to challenge or appeal such suspensions.

have nearly disappeared from the Afghan media landscape altogether. Hundreds of journalists have fled the country, fearing arrest or persecution, while more than half of Afghanistan’s media outlets have reportedly shut down since the Taliban’s return to power.

The destruction of independent journalism has created a controlled information environment dominated by censorship, propaganda and enforced silence. Public criticism has become dangerous, civil society organizations have weakened dramatically and political dissent has effectively been criminalized.

Former Afghan government officials and of the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces continue facing retaliation despite Taliban promises of amnesty following the 2021 takeover. Reports during the current reporting period documented at least arbitrary arrests and detentions, nine incidents of torture and ill-treatment and at least five killings involving former Afghan security personnel.

The Taliban’s promised amnesty increasingly appears to have functioned less as reconciliation and more as a mechanism for identifying and neutralizing former opponents.

Why Afghanistan’s trajectory matters internationally

The international debate surrounding Afghanistan has increasingly narrowed to questions of humanitarian aid and diplomatic engagement. Yet the Taliban’s trajectory carries broader geopolitical and security implications that extend well beyond Afghan borders.

Restricting in the workforce and education could cost the Afghan economy up to 12.5% of its GDP. Conversely, integrating women into the economy and reversing bans could expand the country’s GDP by up to 35% over their working lifetime. Therefore, the systematic of women from education and employment is steadily weakening Afghanistan’s long-term economic viability and institutional capacity. The erosion of pluralism and suppression of dissent risk creating conditions historically associated with radicalization, underground resistance movements and chronic instability.

Over time, the continued dismantling of independent institutions may deepen state fragility and reduce Afghanistan’s ability to function as a stable political system. Governance structures built primarily around religious policing rather than institutional legitimacy often struggle to sustain long-term social cohesion and economic resilience.

At the same time, international normalization of Taliban rule without meaningful conditions risks legitimizing a governing model rooted in authoritarian religious control and gender exclusion. The Taliban continues seeking diplomatic recognition and economic engagement while simultaneously deepening internal restrictions.

For regional actors, particularly Pakistan, Iran and the Central Asian Republics (CARs), Afghanistan’s trajectory remains closely tied to refugee flows, cross-border militancy, narcotics trafficking and long-term security dynamics. Pakistan continues to face challenges related to cross-border terrorism and refugee management, while Iran confronts migration pressures and border security concerns. The CARs remain concerned about the potential spillover of extremism, transnational crime and instability into their territories. For the US, Afghanistan’s trajectory raises longer-term concerns regarding regional instability, extremist safe havens and the strategic consequences of disengagement following the US withdrawal. 

The Taliban frequently argues that territorial control and reduced large-scale conflict constitute evidence of stability. But stability imposed through exclusion and centralized coercive control is inherently fragile. A political system that systematically suppresses women, criminalizes criticism and eliminates civic space may consolidate authority temporarily, but it also deepens social fragmentation and institutional decay.

Afghanistan today increasingly resembles an authoritarian state where fear has replaced political participation and compliance has replaced accountability. Ordinary Afghan life is increasingly shaped not by citizenship, but by enforced obedience.

[ first published a version of this piece.]

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A deeply rooted problem

Pakistan’s trajectory reflects a broader global pattern in which hybrid regimes struggle to balance security priorities with democratic governance and economic development. Across several regions, political systems where unelected institutions retain substantial influence often deliver short-term stability but generate long-term institutional fragility. Pakistan’s evolving political landscape illustrates many of these tensions.

Since the of civilian rule in 2008, Pakistan’s political order has frequently been characterized by the coexistence of democratic institutions and strong military influence. Elected governments and parliamentary structures formally exercise authority, yet key domains, particularly national security, foreign policy and aspects of economic strategy, remain heavily shaped by the military establishment. This imbalance has created a political environment in which civilian governments operate within constraints that limit their ability to exercise independent authority.

The historical roots of this arrangement run deep. Since the country’s creation in 1947, democratic institutions have repeatedly struggled to consolidate authority in the face of powerful non-elected actors. With the partial exception of the political period under Zulfikar Ali Bhutto following the secession of East Pakistan and the emergence of Bangladesh in 1971, civilian governments have often functioned within a framework shaped by military influence. This enduring imbalance has profoundly shaped Pakistan’s political trajectory.

Debate over Pakistan’s hybrid governance intensified after the of 2022, when the government of Prime Minister Imran Khan was removed through a vote of no confidence in the National Assembly. Although the transition followed constitutional procedures, many observers argued that it unfolded within a political environment influenced by the military establishment. The episode significantly amplified public debate about the nature of Pakistan’s governance, and there has been an intensifying power struggle between the military establishment and Khan.��

Increased sense of failure

A significant share of Khan’s support base comprises , often identified as Generation Z, who are digitally connected, vocal and ambitious. Generation Z has reshaped political dynamics in Pakistan, as digitally mobilized youth increasingly use online platforms for political engagement, activism and of power structures, including state institutions.��

International assessments have also reflected these concerns. In comparative politics, Pakistan has frequently been described as a hybrid regime — one in which democratic institutions coexist with substantial influence by unelected actors. Global governance assessments, such as the Economist Intelligence Unit , have repeatedly highlighted this imbalance. In its 2023 report, the index downgraded Pakistan from a hybrid regime to an authoritarian regime, underscoring growing concerns about democratic backsliding.

The military as a political actor

These perceptions have been reinforced by the increasingly visible role of the military leadership in diplomatic and strategic affairs. Asim Munir was promoted to the five-star rank of on May 20, 2025, becoming only the second officer in Pakistan’s history to receive the title after Field Marshal Ayub Khan. A widely circulated of Munir presenting rare-earth mineral samples to US President Donald Trump during a diplomatic engagement in September sparked criticism and renewed debate about the military’s expanding role in Pakistan’s economic diplomacy.��

These developments, followed by the 2025 restructuring of through the 27th Constitutional Amendment, signal a shift toward a more centralized, army-centric command system — enhancing the authority of the army chief while raising critical concerns about civil–military imbalance and democratic oversight.

Supporters of the hybrid model often argue that such arrangements provide stability in a region marked by geopolitical tensions. Yet the promised stability has proven elusive. Instead, the coexistence of civilian and military power centers has frequently generated political uncertainty and blurred lines of accountability. Civilian governments struggle to exercise independent authority, while key policy decisions, particularly those related to national security and foreign policy, remain strongly influenced by military priorities.

Security concerns at the forefront��

One consequence of this arrangement has been the gradual militarization of national policymaking. Security considerations increasingly dominate Pakistan’s domestic and foreign policy agenda. Relations with neighboring countries remain tense, reinforcing a climate of regional distrust. Recent between Pakistan and Afghanistan illustrate these dynamics, particularly given Pakistan’s long-standing involvement in Afghan political affairs.

At the same time, the enduring with India continues to shape Pakistan’s strategic outlook, while periodic frictions along the border with Iran further complicate the regional environment. Together, these pressures reinforce the dominance of security considerations in national policymaking.

The consequences are also visible within Pakistan itself. Islamabad has recently witnessed growing concerns about governance capacity and . Rising political tensions and sporadic security incidents reflect deeper institutional challenges that cannot be resolved through coercive measures alone.

Socioeconomic hardship

Economic pressures further complicate the picture. Pakistan’s economy continues to face , declining investor confidence and recurring balance-of-payments crises. Political instability and perceptions of excessive military influence in governance discourage foreign investment and undermine long-term economic planning. Instead of focusing on structural economic reforms, national discourse often remains dominated by security narratives.

For ordinary Pakistanis, these developments are not merely abstract political debates; they are deeply personal realities. Rising fuel prices, persistent inflation and increasing costs of essential commodities have placed severe pressure on households. Economic hardship has intensified public frustration and weakened confidence in

Many citizens are also increasingly weary of Pakistan’s persistent entanglement in regional tensions. Escalating confrontations with Afghanistan and periodic crises with India have already affected tourism, investment and economic stability. The has exacerbated Pakistan’s socioeconomic vulnerabilities, as rising energy and fertilizer costs have driven food inflation, deepened hunger and exposed the fragility of its economic and governance structures. For ordinary people, the costs of geopolitical rivalry are immediate and tangible.

Strength through democratic power

Pakistan’s recent trajectory increasingly resembles global case studies in which hybrid regimes to deliver sustained political stability or economic growth. Military institutions are designed for national defense, not for the complex political and economic management required in modern governance. When security institutions dominate policymaking, institutional imbalance and policy inconsistency often follow.

Ultimately, sustainable governance requires credible political leadership and strong democratic institutions capable of managing both domestic challenges and international relations. Countries that long-term stability typically do so through accountable civilian authority, transparent policymaking and robust democratic oversight.

For Pakistan, the path forward lies in strengthening democratic institutions, restoring civilian primacy in policymaking and prioritizing economic development over geopolitical rivalry. A gradual but decisive transition toward genuine democratic governance, where elected institutions hold primary authority over national decision-making, would help restore policy coherence and public trust.

Pakistan’s future will depend on whether the country can move beyond a security-dominated governance model toward one grounded in democratic accountability, economic reform and constructive regional engagement. Without such a transition, the cycle of political instability and economic vulnerability is likely to persist, with significant consequences not only for Pakistan but also for the broader region.

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India’s response was immediate and unequivocal: Pakistan was responsible. The Indian government pointed to what it described as the involvement of Pakistan-based militant groups, specifically , a shadow organization linked by Indian intelligence to Lashkar-e-Taiba. For India, the attack fit a familiar pattern — cross-border terrorism it has long attributed to Pakistan’s security establishment, which India accuses of involvement and which called the accusations baseless. It called for a neutral international investigation. India refused.��

What followed was not diplomacy. Within two weeks, India had suspended the , expelled Pakistani diplomats and on May 7 launched — missile and air strikes targeting sites deep inside Pakistani territory. Pakistan responded with four days of fighting, involving drones, missiles and air-to-air engagements. This would become the most intense military exchange between two nuclear-armed neighbors in over two decades.

On May 10, a ceasefire was held. The world exhaled. And then, almost immediately, moved on.

What the coverage missed

Most international reporting on the May 2025 conflict followed a familiar script. Two nuclear powers are on the brink. American diplomats are racing to prevent a catastrophe. Fingers hovering over buttons. That script is not wrong. But it is incomplete.

From the start, Western media coverage was shaped by an asymmetry in narrative access. Indian officials, diplomats and think-tank voices flooded English-language media within hours of the Pahalgam attack. The framing was fixed before Pakistan had issued a formal response: This was Pakistani-baked terrorism, and India had the right to respond. Outlets including , and the Associated Press ran Indian government attribution almost without qualification, while Pakistani denials were typically buried or framed as predictable deflections.��

By the time Operation Sindoor began, the editorial template was already set. India was acting. Pakistan was reacting. The possibility that Pakistan might be telling the truth — that it had no verifiable connection to Pahalgam — was treated not as a serious legal question but as a talking point.

Specific choices were made in coverage that deserve scrutiny. When Pakistan shot down Indian aircraft, including reportedly several advanced , most Western outlets gave that fact minimal prominence. When Pakistan called for a UN Security Council session to address Indian strikes on its soil, that request received a fraction of the coverage granted to India’s Sindoor announcement. When the US brokered the ceasefire on May 10, President Donald Trump publicly credited American diplomacy — a claim Pakistan welcomed and India pointedly rejected.

India’s refusal to acknowledge American mediation was driven by domestic political imperatives. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government has built its political brand on muscular nationalism — an India that does not need outside help and handles Pakistan on its own terms. Admitting that a ceasefire required American intervention would have undercut that narrative at home, so India denied it. Most Western coverage, reluctant to call New Delhi out on a factual matter, largely let the contradiction stand.

Religion, military and why both matter

The Pahalgam attack did not occur in a vacuum. To understand it and India’s reaction, two factors are essential: religion and the military establishment’s role on both sides.

The victims of the Pahalgam attack were predominantly Hindu tourists. According to survivor accounts and early , the attackers asked victims to identify their religion before opening fire. This gave the attack a communal dimension that inflamed Hindu nationalist sentiment across India at extraordinary speed. For Modi’s government, which has governed since 2014 on a platform of Hindu majoritarianism, the political pressure to respond forcefully was immense. Restraint would have been read domestically as weakness. The attack landed at the intersection of India’s most volatile political fault lines — Kashmir, religion and national security — and the government’s response reflected that.

On the Pakistani side, the military institution carries a weight in strategic decision-making that has no direct parallel in most democratic states. Pakistan’s army has historically regarded India as an existential threat and Kashmir as unfinished business from the Partition of British India in 1947. The military’s decision to name its response Bunyan-ul-Marsoos and to conduct it with visible operational restraint was itself a strategic and institutional choice — one made by an establishment that understood it was operating under the world’s scrutiny and chose to act accordingly.

The Indus Waters Treaty and what its suspension means

One detail in the conflict that received far too little attention outside South Asia was India’s decision to suspend the Indus Waters Treaty. 

The Indus Waters Treaty was signed in 1960, brokered by the , and has survived three full-scale wars between India and Pakistan. It divides the waters of the Indus river system between the two countries, giving India control of the eastern rivers and Pakistan control of the western ones. For Pakistan, this is not a technicality. The Indus basin provides water for roughly 80% of Pakistan’s agriculture and supports the livelihoods of tens of millions of people. It is, in the most literal sense, a lifeline.

By suspending the treaty as a punitive measure in the wake of Pahalgam, India weaponized water, turning a foundational agreement that had outlasted decades of hostility into a pressure tool. Pakistan called it a red line. International legal scholars noted that unilateral suspension violated the treaty’s own dispute resolution mechanisms. The suspension remains in place and has received a fraction of the media attention given to the missile strikes.

Marka-e-Haq: the battle of truth, and what it means today

Pakistan officially named its response Marka-e-Haq, meaning “the battle of truth” in Urdu and Arabic. The operational name was Bunyan-ul-Marsoos, drawn from a Quranic verse in Surah As-Saff describing believers who stand in a solid, unified wall. Both names were chosen with deliberate intent.

The religious framing was not incidental. In a conflict where India had used the religious identity of the Pahalgam victims to galvanize domestic support, Pakistan’s choice of a Quranic operational name communicated to its own population that this response was not merely military but based in religious principle. The wall metaphor is particularly significant: It describes defense, not advance; holding ground, not taking it.

May 10 has been designated a national commemoration day — not to celebrate a conquest, but to remember a defense. That distinction matters enormously. The sequence of events the name Marka-e-Haq encapsulates is this: We were attacked without evidence being presented. We called for an investigation that was refused. We defended our territory when our soil was struck. We accepted a ceasefire as soon as one was possible. We are still asking for dialogue.

A monument is now being built in Rawalpindi at Kutchery Chowk to honor the soldiers and civilians who gave their lives. It will carry the name Marka-e-Haq. Pakistan fought a war. Then it chose peace. The world barely noticed. But the battle of truth, as Pakistan named it, is still being fought — in diplomatic halls, in international newsrooms and in the growing body of analysis slowly correcting the record.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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Rahman’s ascension among Bangladesh’s minority Hindu community, which faced relentless during the that began in August 2024. After the Awami League, a political party considered more secular than its rivals, was banned from contesting the 2026 elections, the BNP quickly stepped in to the void with its pledge to protect minorities.

However, the party’s past treatment of minority communities continues to be a source of controversy. In 1977, the BNP’s , Ziaur Rahman, was responsible for the word “secularism” from the Constitution, and party members have repeatedly been associated with against the country’s Hindu minority. Despite the BNP’s less-than-ideal record on secularism and minority protection, Hindus voted for the party as the only viable alternative after the Awami League.

While Rahman has promised to restore law and order and guarantee for all religious groups, he has so far remained silent on the painful legacy of property seizures targeting primarily Hindus — a historical injustice that remains unresolved. The institutional entrenchment of the — a longstanding legislation widely criticized as discriminatory for enabling the confiscation of Hindu-owned property — has been cited by rights groups and researchers as a key factor behind the dramatic decline of Bangladesh’s Hindu population share.

The demographic decline and land loss of Hindus in Bangladesh

According to the first census of 1951, conducted after the creation of Pakistan in 1947, Hindus in East Pakistan, also known as East Bengal (present-day Bangladesh), accounted for at least of the population. However, Bangladesh’s 2022 national census shows that the Hindu population share has fallen to below . The proportion of Christians, Buddhists and other religious minorities has not experienced a similar decline over the same period.

Referring to the demographic contraction of the Hindu population, renowned Bangladeshi economist Professor issued a stark in 2016 stating that “no Hindus will be left in Bangladesh after 30 years.”

Barkat’s studies reveal that a large-scale outmigration of Hindus took place, with 11.3 million from Bangladesh between 1964 and 2013. This translates to an average of 632 Hindus leaving the country each day and 230,612 every year. Barkat’s findings highlight that decades of land grabbing by the government under the Enemy Property Act during the Pakistan regime and the Vested Property Act have resulted in a staggering 60% of Bangladeshi Hindus becoming .��

Estimates show that between 1965 and 2006, 1.2 million Hindus lost a total of acres of land and other assets. In 2005, the US Department of State published that approximately 2.5 million acres of land were grabbed from Hindus, and nearly all the Hindus in the country were affected. In 2009, Bangladesh’s reported that the Hindu community had lost as much as of their landholdings.����

In monetary terms, the total loss of land and movable assets incurred by Hindus exceeded $12 billion — roughly in 2000.��

The legal machinery behind the eviction of Hindus��

The Vested and Non-Resident Property (Administration) Act of 1974 (), or the Vested Property Act of Bangladesh, has a history marked by institutionalized marginalization and of the country’s minority communities, particularly the Hindus. Critics have called it a for systematic land expropriation and for stripping Hindu families of their homes and possessions.��

The Vested Property Act traces its origins to discriminatory laws enacted in Pakistan after the 1947 , when communal violence forced millions of Hindus from both West and East Pakistan (now Bangladesh) to seek refuge in India.

The following year, the East Bengal (Emergency) Requisition of empowered the government to acquire property for state purposes. Although intended for administrative needs in the newly formed province of East Bengal (East Pakistan), minority rights experts say it was widely used to belonging to religious minorities, particularly Hindus who had left Pakistan.

The law later evolved into the (Administration of Immovable Property) Act, authorizing the state to take over property belonging to “evacuees,” largely Hindus who had fled to India temporarily amid the communal violence. Their assets were declared “abandoned” and seized without compensation.

The Act established the Evacuee Property Management Committee, granting it to recover such property with minimal oversight, while barring judicial review of its actions. Many reported cases emerged of Hindu residents still residing in East Bengal who became classified as “evacuees” with their properties being .��

Following the 1964 , the government enacted the East Pakistan Disturbed Persons Rehabilitation . Although intended to assist those affected, it barred Hindus leaving East Bengal from selling or transferring property without official approval. With limited access to authorities and fearing for their safety, many were forced to their property and flee without compensation.

In 1965, following the , the military government introduced the Enemy Property Act (), declaring India an enemy state and authorizing the takeover of assets belonging to Indian nationals. While framed as a national security measure, researchers note that in practice, the government designated Hindus as “” of the state, regardless of their nationality, by portraying them as supporters of India, making Hindu-owned properties the primary targets of the Act.

In contrast, Muslims who migrated to India or held Indian citizenship while residing in Pakistan were not deemed as “enemies” under the EPA, underscoring the law’s . A government circular allowed any seized Muslim-owned properties to be restored to owners or heirs, while minorities whose land was declared “enemy property” lost ownership permanently.

The EPA thus became an expedient tool to seize property from Hindus who either fled to India or stayed in East Bengal but were labelled as “enemies.” Critics argue the Act’s intent and application Hindus.��

Bangladesh’s Vested Property Act as a continuation of discriminatory laws

After seceding from Pakistan in 1971 to form an independent Bangladesh, Hindus continued to face challenges despite the country’s independence being achieved with India’s support. In 1974, the government reinforced earlier provisions under the VPA. Although the stated objective was to take control of properties formerly owned by Pakistanis and Hindus who fled during the liberation war, the law was widely Hindus still residing in Bangladesh.

In many cases, even a was enough for authorities to seize property, and the absence of a single family member sometimes led to the confiscation of the entire family’s assets.

Beyond its structural bias, the VPA enabled between local officials and powerful landowners to seize minority-owned land under the guise of state property. Some officials personally benefited, and a 1977 circular Tehsildars (local government officials) to arbitrarily designate land as “enemy property.” They were incentivized to expand the list, enabling the takeover of Hindu-owned assets with scant regard for displaced families.��

Land grabbing was often by violence.��

Shipan Kumer Basu, president of The World Hindu Struggle , noted that apart from the VPA, cases have emerged of Hindus falling prey to by authorities in order to acquire their land more easily.

The Vested Property Return Act and its limitations

In 2001, the government led by the passed the Vested Property (Repeal) Return to return confiscated properties to the rightful owners.��

However, the new legislation imposed strict conditions on restitution. Claims were limited to properties declared “enemy” or “vested” February 1969 and only if such properties remained under government control, excluding large amounts of previously seized Hindu-owned land that had been sold or transferred. Properties in active government use or leased to authorized parties were also and could not be contested in court.

Claimants were required to prove and residence in Bangladesh, with a narrow 90-day filing window, effectively excluding many who had fled communal violence.

Although special tribunals were established to resolve cases within 180 days, properties not validated or filed in time to the state. The act also offered no compensation to those unable to file claims, while its narrow scope limited access to justice for many affected families, including those whose properties were excluded from the official “vested” list.

In 2002, the new BNP-led coalition government further diluted the legislation through an amendment allowing the government indefinite time to release the list of “vested” properties and implement the restitution process. Consequently, the return of properties did not occur, and continued. Estimates suggest that nearly 200,000 Hindu families were deprived of their lands since the BNP assumed office, and of the total incidents of land grabbing took place between 2001 and 2006 after the Return Act was enacted.��

The 2011 amendment: gaps between law and implementation��

Barkat and his team’s extensive research gained significant traction and played a key role in mobilizing a coordinated nationwide demanding the implementation of the Vested Property Return Act (VPRA) and the return of properties snatched from religious minorities.

Finally, the Awami League government passed the (Amendment) Act in 2011. Between 2011 and 2013, were passed, the last being the Vested Property Return Bill. These amendments included the of the “B” Schedule — which referred to properties listed as vested but not in government possession — and the of the “A” Schedule, comprising properties held by the state, as “restorable property.”

Despite the legal reforms, human rights groups note that the actual restoration of property has been limited, with thousands of cases entangled in legal proceedings. Although large areas of vested land were officially “released” after the 2011 amendments, evidence suggests that this did not automatically translate into actual restitution. Rights groups reported that, in many cases, land was not returned even after tribunal rulings, while in 2018, the Bangladesh Hindu Buddhist Christian Unity Council that no land had yet been returned to victims.��

Persistent delays, administrative resistance and noncompliance with court decisions further indicate that much of the released land did not reach the original owners in practice. According to the Human Development Research Centre (HDRC), arise at multiple stages of the process — from local administration and land offices to the courtroom involving lawyers, public prosecutors and judges. A shortage of judges and the lack of priority given to cases under the Act further slow proceedings.

The financial burden is particularly heavy for poor and middle-class claimants, many of whom struggle to afford the legal fees and administrative costs. Moreover, are often required to move cases forward. Rights activists also allege that illegal occupiers and land grabbers frequently the system, sometimes in cahoots with government officials.��

In sum, these procedural shortcomings reflect a gnawing gap between legislative intent and implementation, highlighting the limited effectiveness of the restitution process in achieving the intended outcomes.

So far, the Awami League appears to be the only political leadership to have sought redress for Hindus by attempting to restore property rights. Now, with the country’s sole secular-leaning party pushed into political oblivion, the Rahman-led government has positioned itself as a defender of minority rights and as a guarantor of their protection. The continued failure to ensure effective restitution for Hindus raises concerns about the protection of their fundamental rights. This may serve as a critical test of Rahman’s stated commitments to minority rights and protection, as well as his ability to secure the trust of the Hindu community that extended significant electoral support to his party.

[ edited this piece.]

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As the EU moves toward full implementation of its Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism () — a policy that places a carbon price on imports based on the emissions generated during their production — exporters around the world are confronting a new reality: Access to the European market will increasingly depend not only on price and quality, but also on the carbon intensity of manufacturing. CBAM was introduced by the EU to prevent “carbon leakage,” in which companies shift production to countries with weaker climate regulations to avoid stricter environmental costs in Europe.

For countries like Indonesia, the implications are especially significant. The EU remains an important for Indonesian industrial goods, including steel, aluminum and other carbon-intensive manufactured products. At the same time, Indonesia’s industrial sector still heavily on coal-powered energy, making many of its exports vulnerable to higher carbon costs under the EU system.

For exporters in these sectors, CBAM is no longer a distant Brussels regulation; it is becoming a market access requirement. The question is not whether Indonesian industry will adapt, but whether that adaptation will be orderly and cooperative, or chaotic and punitive.

That is why Brussels and Jakarta should immediately establish an EU–Indonesia CBAM Working Group — a formal platform that brings together government agencies, industry representatives, technical experts and exporters from both sides to coordinate compliance, share standards and prepare industries for the transition to carbon-based trade rules.

Without such coordination, the risks are substantial. Indonesian exporters could face rising compliance costs, declining competitiveness and gradual exclusion from one of the world’s largest markets. Europe, meanwhile, risks turning a climate policy designed to encourage global decarbonization into a source of geopolitical resentment and trade friction with emerging economies.

The case for a working group

A working group would help turn that potential friction into structured coordination. The benefits of such a working group would extend beyond avoiding trade disputes. If designed properly, it could become a practical mechanism to help Indonesia’s industry transition to a carbon-regulated global economy while ensuring that Europe’s climate agenda does not alienate key economic partners.

Its first priority should be solving the biggest practical challenge facing Indonesian exporters: . For many firms, especially outside multinational supply chains, the main barrier is not the carbon price itself, but rather the technical complexity of compliance. Companies will need to calculate and report the emissions embedded in their products, provide verified production data and meet European reporting standards in order to continue exporting smoothly to the EU market once CBAM enters full implementation in 2026.

Emissions accounting, product-level data, accredited verification, default values and the treatment of indirect emissions are not minor bureaucratic details. They will increasingly determine which companies remain globally competitive and which struggle to access foreign markets.

Second, the working group could help ensure that decarbonization efforts in countries like Indonesia are not overlooked. Indonesian industries are in cleaner production, carbon market development and renewable energy integration. But without structured coordination with European regulators, many of these efforts may not translate into lower compliance burdens under CBAM. A formal bilateral platform could help develop mutual understanding on reporting standards, carbon accounting methodologies and potential recognition mechanisms before disputes emerge.

But achieving these outcomes will require the working group to be designed as more than a narrow diplomatic forum. It should be industrial, not merely governmental. That means bringing together not only officials from Brussels and Jakarta, but also manufacturers, industry associations, financiers, technical experts and exporters themselves. Too often, trade dialogues remain confined to ministries while companies are left to navigate complex regulatory transitions alone. In the case of CBAM, that approach would almost certainly fail.

The group’s mission should therefore be practical and industry-focused: developing sector-specific road maps, expanding technical training, coordinating emissions verification systems, supporting smaller exporters and creating early-warning mechanisms for future regulatory changes as the EU gradually expands CBAM’s scope.

Balancing domestic reforms and international compliance

Skeptics that Indonesia should focus primarily on strengthening its own domestic carbon pricing system rather than building special coordination mechanisms with Europe. But this is a false choice.

Indonesia indeed needs stronger domestic climate governance and more credible carbon market reforms. Those efforts will be essential for the country’s long-term industrial competitiveness in a decarbonizing global economy. Yet domestic reform alone will not solve the immediate compliance pressures Indonesian exporters will face when CBAM enters full implementation.

Many companies do not have the luxury of waiting for ideal policy sequencing. They will soon need to comply with complex European reporting standards, emissions verification requirements and carbon accounting rules in order to maintain access to EU markets.

Some policymakers and business groups in both Europe and Indonesia also that existing trade dialogues, chambers of commerce and occasional industry seminars are already sufficient to manage the transition. Their assumption is that CBAM compliance will gradually evolve through market adaptation, as companies learn to adjust over time without the need for a dedicated bilateral mechanism. But that underestimates the scale and speed of the transformation now underway.

CBAM is not simply another technical trade regulation involving product labeling or customs procedures. It directly links market access to carbon emissions, industrial energy systems and climate governance. That means the transition will affect not only exporters, but also investment decisions, manufacturing competitiveness and long-term industrial strategy.

Occasional consultations and fragmented business forums are unlikely to provide the level of coordination required for such a structural shift. Without a more institutionalized framework, misunderstandings over compliance standards and uneven readiness across industries could quickly escalate into wider trade tensions.

Coordination matters more than ever

History offers several warnings about what happens when major regulatory or environmental standards are introduced without sufficient coordination between developed and developing economies. European restrictions on palm oil linked to deforestation, for example, years of political backlash in Indonesia and Malaysia, where policymakers viewed the measures as discriminatory trade barriers rather than cooperative climate policy. The lesson is clear: When global rules are imposed without meaningful adjustment mechanisms or institutional dialogue, they often harden into geopolitical grievances.

CBAM risks creating a similar dynamic if countries like Indonesia are left to navigate complex compliance requirements alone. But if Europe and Indonesia instead build structured coordination early — through technical cooperation, industrial transition planning and regular dialogue — the mechanism could evolve into something more constructive: a framework that supports decarbonization while preserving trust between advanced and emerging economies.

Europe CBAM is designed to prevent carbon leakage, not erect green trade walls. Establishing an EU–Indonesia CBAM Working Group would be the clearest way to prove it. Because by 2026, carbon policy will no longer sit at the margins of trade. It will be trade.

[ edited this piece.]

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Russian President Vladimir Putin Beijing last week as a friend and supporter of China. Over the past decade, as the West has imposed embargoes and tariffs on Russia, China has been crucial to its economic endurance, just as Russia has been a useful supplier of resources to China, particularly of oil and gas. The meetings between US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping the week before were, by necessity, two-dimensional, while those between Putin and Xi last week were exercises in three-dimensional diplomacy.

A partnership forged by circumstance

Russia and China are not formally allied and differ markedly culturally and politically. They are collaborators by necessity, united more by shared external enemies than by deep historical affinity. America, which formed its critical economic partnership with China in the 1970s out of a mutual fear of the Soviet Union, has since driven Beijing and Moscow closer together than at any time since the 1950s — unwittingly creating a partnership capable of resisting and eroding US military and trade primacy on its own.

President Putin brought his most senior politicians and officials to Beijing. There were eight government ministers, three senior Russian bankers, and leaders of the energy and resource sectors, which dominate Russian exports to China. With trade exceeding over each of the last five years, Russian and Chinese bankers discussed further streamlining renminbi-ruble settlements, which account for of the countries’ trade transactions. The renminbi accounts for over 40% of daily foreign exchange trading in Moscow. By weaponizing its currency and striving to direct global currency flows, Washington has weakened the dollar’s primacy, not just in China’s trade with Russia, but throughout the BRICS trading system.

Yet despite this growing financial integration, the broader economic relationship remains uneven in both scale and structure. The US is China’s second-largest trading partner, behind the EU, while China is the US’ third-largest after Mexico and Canada, primarily owing to the latter two’s shared borders and close integration with the US economy. Russia, while important, is only China’s trading partner, behind Vietnam.

Although ��ܲ�������’s economy possesses a narrow resilience due to its industrial war footing and high global oil prices, inflation — and, by necessity, interest rates — are also high, and consumption, together with domestic investment in other sectors, is weak. Russian-Chinese bilateral trade appears to have reached its zenith.

Oil and gas make up of ��ܲ�������’s exports to China, while over 85% of its Chinese imports are manufactured or processed goods. China has replaced the West as the supplier of most imported consumer and industrial goods, and Russia is saturated with Chinese products ranging from electric vehicles to skateboards. China can buy oil from many countries, and, contrary to the received Western opinion, sources no more than 8% of its pipeline gas from Russia. The completion of a second gas pipeline through Mongolia would change that and disrupt global liquefied natural gas (LNG) markets. However, although the sides purportedly discussed the second pipeline in Beijing, no agreement was reached.

Diplomacy in contrast

The contrast between the Putin-Xi summit and the preceding Trump-Xi meeting was especially visible in the conduct and presentation of diplomacy itself. Following President Trump’s visit, no joint statements on either commercial or diplomatic matters were issued, leaving each side to cite points discussed independently of the other. Some of Washington’s publicly stated positions, such as those related to Iran and Taiwan, conflicted markedly with Beijing’s.

Putin’s team signed more than governmental and corporate agreements in China covering energy, transport, industrial cooperation, nuclear technology, education, science, artificial intelligence and media. These agreements were a conspicuous reflection of diplomatic professionalism and maturity, in contrast to the ad hoc and transactional American display the previous week.

Public perception and historical shadows

Beneath the formal displays of unity, however, public opinion and historical memory continue to complicate Sino-Russian relations. The Chinese public is conflicted when considering Russia, and Putin in particular. Opinion on social media is split. Some see Putin as an unusually capable strongman — like Xi — waging defensive rather than hegemonic wars, and therefore worthy of respect in a world of otherwise ineffectual leaders. Others see him as a dangerous expansionist, waging a pointless war on Ukraine, while the Ukrainian and Russian peoples suffer unnecessarily. Three years ago, social media was almost unanimously supportive of Putin.

Russian–Chinese relations have a checkered, bloody history. During China’s “century of humiliation,” Russia 1.5 million square kilometers of Chinese land, equivalent to all of Western Europe. In the closing months of World War II, Soviet divisions occupied northeastern China from August 1945 to March 1946, and may have absorbed it into the Soviet Union had the US and its allies not deterred Soviet Leader Joseph Stalin, including through the implied threat of the then-recent nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Stalin’s armies withdrew but stripped the region of over $2 billion in industrial machinery and equipment. The of 1969 over Zhenbao Island on the Ussuri River and clashes along the Xinjiang border cost hundreds of lives on both sides, prompting Moscow to float the idea with Washington that the Soviet Union conduct a pre-emptive nuclear strike on China’s nuclear facilities.

Even so, contemporary geopolitical realities have encouraged both governments to manage these historical tensions pragmatically. Putin and Xi have a good personal relationship, but there is a deep underlying distrust between the two nations. China is glad to be the dominant partner in this phase of Sino–Russian relations and can afford to be magnanimous. Given the economic trends in both countries, China’s dominance will likely prevail for many years to come.

The previous week, President Xi met President Trump as an economic equal. Putin met Xi as a reliable collaborator, confidante and compadre, but in economic and geopolitical terms, a junior, dependent partner. Behind the at-times histrionic public displays of undying fraternity, China and Russia enjoy a steady geopolitical resonance. Neither interferes with the other. Xi did not express the thinly disguised admonitions he directed at Trump in his welcome speech to Putin, and both Putin and Xi indirectly the US for disrupting global peace and security in their respective addresses last week.

Chaos as a catalyst for China’s rise

Taken together, these diplomatic encounters point to a broader shift in the international balance of power — one from which China appears to be benefiting. Recent events, while chaotic, have strengthened China. Xi has just hosted the commander-in-chief of the world’s most powerful military, Trump, who is losing a war with Iran, followed by the commander of the world’s second most powerful military, Putin, who is stalled in a conflict in Ukraine that his forces are too strong to lose but too weak to win. While it is in China’s interests for the US to be distracted by both conflicts, it has more to gain from a cessation of hostilities so that global trade can flow unimpeded again and global consumer confidence can recover.

In the last six months, China has received the leaders of the other four permanent members of the UN Security Council: France, the UK, the US and Russia. China blundered in its role as a great power five, and even three years ago, appeared unprepared, dispatching wolf warriors instead of diplomats to the world’s capitals and issuing peevish statements in the face of regional slights from Washington and Tokyo. Few nations are ready for the power circumstances thrust into their hands at first, but, in time, they adjust. Over the last fortnight, China has resembled and behaved as a great power.

China can demonstrate its greatness further by resisting the provocations of other powers — particularly regarding Taiwan, Japan and the Philippines — and by working to make its own economy and society models of the just, stable and prosperous world it says it desires, and of which it seeks to be an indispensable pillar.

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When explaining why he took an unpaid position rather than keep searching for a paid one, Ahmed responded: “I took it because there weren’t enough open positions in the job market … unpaid roles often have a higher chance of selection. You need to take unpaid opportunities to create more internships for yourself.”

Ahmed described the routine as mentally exhausting. After spending a full day contributing to projects at the AI startup, he would commute home, wondering whether the experience he was gaining would eventually translate into stable, paid employment. The internship provided exposure to one of the world’s fastest-growing industries, but it offered little financial security and no guarantee of future employment.

Ahmed’s experience may have taken place in London, but it reflects a broader, global reality. In fact, it is one that Pakistani graduates are all too familiar with as they search for work in a country where internship protections are even weaker.

According to the Pakistan Institute of Development Economics , in Pakistan, more than 60% of internships in fields such as IT, media, marketing and finance are either unpaid or offer negligible compensation.

The prevalence of unpaid internships reflects broader pressures within Pakistan’s . As more students pursue university degrees and white-collar remain limited, employers can draw from a large pool of applicants willing to accept unpaid work in exchange for experience, networking opportunities or the possibility of future employment.

Internships and education

Internships have simultaneously become part of academics. The Higher Education Commission (HEC), which regulates higher education institutions across Pakistan, has made it mandatory for students to complete at least one internship in their respective fields to graduate. Interns are not required to be compensated, so the policy effectively shifts part of the workforce training cost onto students. Increasingly, employers treat experience as a prerequisite for paid work. Obtaining that experience, however, often means working for free. 

It is also important to note that for middle-or lower-class students, choosing to take an unpaid internship is a difficult decision. With neither reimbursement for commuting expenses nor a stipend to support living costs, they often have to forgo opportunities that would both provide valuable experience and enrich their resumes. This financial barrier prevents long-term growth and only deepens the class divide. 

Students from wealthier families are often better positioned to absorb the financial costs associated with unpaid work, whether through family support, savings or access to housing in major urban centers. For lower-income students, however, accepting an unpaid internship can mean sacrificing income from part-time work or taking on additional financial strain simply to remain competitive in the job market.

As a result, access to professional experience is increasingly tied not only to talent or qualifications but also to financial circumstances. The internships designed to help students build careers may simultaneously reinforce existing social and economic inequalities.

The experience gap��

People often describe internships as opportunities. On average, interns work between ten and 20 hours per week, varying depending on the organization’s needs.��

“When you’re working at a firm, the organization needs you,” said Saliha Shah, a lawyer specializing in employment matters. “But with interns, that dynamic becomes more complex.” 

Her comments highlight one of the central ambiguities surrounding internships. Organizations often frame internships as educational opportunities intended to help students develop skills and workplace familiarity. At the same time, interns may still perform productive labor that directly benefits employers, blurring the line between training and unpaid work.

She explained that the nature of the work determines how that relationship evolves:

If the firm is making you do their work, which includes traveling for business purposes, paying Uber charges, or covering any expenses related to the firm’s operations, then the organization must compensate you. These costs should not fall on the intern.

At the same time, she observed that different organizations structure their internships in various ways. “If you’re not doing a long-term internship and you’re only working for one or two months, then you’re not a necessity for the organization. You’re there to gain experience and develop your skills.” 

This highlights how variation in internship structure means the experience differs from intern to intern. 

Legal frameworks in Pakistan��

When it comes to Pakistan’s labor laws, internships exist in a grey area. Legislation such as the 1934 makes no mention of them, leaving interns without any formal legal protection.��

This is a bleak reality when compared to countries like France, where the national internship policy has been dubbed “Best Practice” by the . French law mandates that employers for any internship exceeding two months, considers unpaid internships outside education to be illegal and grants interns the same rights as regular staff, including sick leave and transport subsidies.��

No such legal framework exists to protect interns in Pakistan. 

The contrast highlights how different countries approach the relationship between education and labor. In parts of Europe, increasingly view internship protections as necessary safeguards against exploitation and economic exclusion. In Pakistan, however, internships remain largely , leaving employers with broad discretion over compensation, expectations and working conditions.��

Why unpaid internships persist despite ethical backlash��

For some employers, financial and operational constraints shape .��

“Mostly because we are operating on a lower budget and can’t finance every talent we are supervising to continue as full-time,” said Waheed, an HR representative at a local pharmaceutical company. “It’s also a way to test talent for the future. It lets us know which candidate has the potential to contribute to the company or not.” 

Many employers view internships as a mutual decision rather than an imposed responsibility. 

“The company hires when it sees its own benefit. The candidates apply because they see theirs,” Waheed said. “There is no compulsion or force. They are fully aware of the expectations and compensation.” 

When asked about legality, Waheed responded, “Illegal? No. Unethical? Maybe. But it isn’t a simple question, and as a company, you have to make decisions that are in your best interest. The market is tough, and although this may not be an ideal situation for graduates, it is just a common practice now.” 

Waheed’s comments reflect a broader reality within competitive labor markets. In industries where companies face budget constraints and applicants significantly outnumber available positions, employers often have little economic incentive to offer compensation when candidates are willing to accept unpaid roles in exchange for experience.

Waheed also pointed to how internships occupy a different position from jobs. “Internships are not advertised as part-time or full-time jobs. People may pursue them for corporate experience, work culture or just an insight into how organizations operate.” 

For applicants like Ahmed, that trade-off is a critical part of the decision-making process. 

Employer alternatives��

Mahad Imran, who runs operations management at an AI automation agency, described a different approach to hiring interns. “We were better off hiring ambitious university students rather than full-time graduates,” he said. “We could identify raw talent and then train them up to our standards.” 

Internal priorities, rather than external pressure, drove the decision to compensate interns. “We offered compensation because we could do it. I’ve been very conscious of the culture I grow in this company, so I ensured that interns were compensated fairly for their work,” he added. “It didn’t feel right not to pay when we had the resources.”

Still, he noted that compensation does not necessarily determine long-term outcomes. “I don’t think there’s any relation between paid internships and full-time jobs,” he stated. “I’ve seen people get jobs after unpaid internships, and I’ve also seen people not get jobs after paid ones.” 

A competitive market��

We cannot understand the issue at hand without acknowledging the wider employment context in which it exists. According to , Pakistan’s unemployment rate was approximately 5.4% in 2025. The youth unemployment rate is considerably higher — almost double. According to , it stood at 9.59% in 2025. When one in ten young people can’t find work, there is immense pressure to accept whatever role, paid or unpaid, comes one’s way.��

“Everybody has the same level of education, and the competition per position has increased significantly,” remarked Ahmed. “Previously, people used to get degrees with a stronger idea of what they wanted to do post-graduation. Nowadays, many people get degrees just for the sake of having one and continue without a clear goal.” 

He also pointed to hiring processes as a contributing factor. “AI runs the hiring process, which means a lot of people are filtered out before reaching interview stages,” he said. “There should be more human intervention.” 

As companies increasingly rely on automated recruitment systems to manage large applicant pools, graduates often feel pressure to accumulate additional internships, certifications and extracurricular experience simply to remain competitive. Many applicants believe that the hiring process has become more algorithmic and less personal, which makes them less certain about how evaluators assess them. 

This is an extremely pressing concern for both internship and job seekers. For many applicants, this adds another layer of uncertainty to an already difficult hiring process. It may be a step aiming to streamline processes, but it also means less and eventually minimal human consideration. 

Where it leaves graduates��

The current HEC policy means that internships play a crucial role in graduation. “Graduates today have it harder,” sighed Ahmed. “There are more people, more degrees and fewer opportunities.” The data, as well as the widespread experience of thousands of young people, confirms this. He added, “There should be better allocation, making sure people who actually want to work get the chance to reach that stage.” 

The debate surrounding unpaid internships reflects broader questions about labor, education and economic mobility. Students often rely on these gateways to enter professional careers, but their access depends on whether they can afford to work without compensation. As economic pressures continue to grow, the gap between gaining experience and earning income becomes increasingly difficult for many graduates to navigate. 

Graduates today are entering a world marked by political turmoil, economic uncertainty and an increasingly tough job market. When they show up ready to work and prove themselves, we should make sure they are not required to do so for free. It’s 2026, and internship protections should be regarded as standard, not a luxury.

[ first published a version of this piece.]

[ edited this piece.]��

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Kerala’s recent policy trajectory also supports this lived impression. In November 2025, the state itself free from extreme poverty, becoming the first Indian state to claim that milestone under a targeted, micro-plan-based welfare program.

Tailored interventions across housing, health, food security and livelihoods covered more than 64,000 families identified as extremely poor. Whether one debates the precise thresholds or not, the significance lies in what this signals: Kerala has largely moved beyond first-generation anxieties of destitution and survival.

This is perhaps the most distinctive feature of the Kerala experience. People here do not seem merely job-thirsty; they seem dignity-thirsty. Work is not viewed solely as an economic necessity but as an extension of self-respect. This social psychology, difficult to capture through data alone, may explain much of what makes Kerala different from the rest of India.

For decades, scholars have described the Kerala model as one of the most experiments in the Global South. The state’s trajectory, shaped in part by the political legacy of the world’s first democratically elected communist government, produced a rare paradox: exceptionally high human development outcomes without corresponding industrial wealth.

Literacy, life expectancy, primary healthcare, political consciousness and social redistribution reached levels that often rivaled those of middle-income countries, even when Kerala’s per capita income and industrial base did not.

Yet to read Kerala only through welfare indicators is to miss the deeper economic story.

The visible social stability of the state, from household assets to intergenerational mobility, rests significantly on migration. Much of the physical landscape of Kerala, particularly its robust housing stock and relatively secure household finances, bears the imprint of decades of outward migration, especially to the Gulf. In many ways, the remittance economy did for Kerala what industrialization did for many other regions: It created capital, widened aspiration and financed dignity.

The hidden architecture of the Kerala story

Migration is not merely a demographic fact here; it is an economic institution. Across several districts, the quality of family housing, educational expenditure and healthcare access cannot be fully understood without accounting for the long arc of migration-led remittances. What appears as local prosperity is often the cumulative result of decades of earnings from abroad, transmitted back into the state through family networks and household investments.

But something important is now changing.

Kerala is no longer only a story of outward blue-collar migration to the Gulf. A second transition is underway: the movement of skilled workers, students, healthcare professionals and young graduates to other parts of India and increasingly to Europe, the UK and Australia. This is not simply brain drain in the conventional sense. It is more accurately a high-skilled workforce drain, driven less by immediate income distress and more by the search for institutional opportunity.

This anxiety no longer confines itself to academic discourse. As former Union Minister for Defence A. K. Antony , sustained youth migration to “greener pastures” could fundamentally alter Kerala’s demographic future.

His caution that the state risks turning into an “old-age home” if this trend persists is more than rhetorical politics; it reflects a structural concern that Kerala’s most mobile and skilled demographic cohorts are increasingly seeking opportunities elsewhere, even as the local economy grows more dependent on inbound for construction, services and care work.

A demographic shift

The demographic numbers make this concern impossible to dismiss as mere political rhetoric.

Kerala is already India’s most state. The share of citizens above 60 years is projected to rise sharply over the coming decades. Within a generation, nearly one in every three persons in the state may be elderly. More tellingly, the old-age dependency ratio will climb significantly, implying that every 100 working-age individuals may need to support more than 34 senior citizens. This places growing pressure on pensions, public healthcare systems, family care structures and the wider social economy.

This is where youth migration acquires a deeper . Every young professional leaving the state is not merely an individual success story; it is also a reduction in Kerala’s future dependency-support base. And yet, paradoxically, Kerala today exports skilled minds even as it imports manual labor at scale.

Three pillars for the future

This dual movement may well define the state’s next developmental question. The first Kerala model was built on social welfare and remittance-led household prosperity. The second must be built on institutions capable of retaining talent, supporting an aging society and transforming its strategic geography into economic strength.

The first pillar of this transition must be institutions of excellence. Kerala has succeeded in creating a broad educational base, but the next decade must focus on building apex institutions that can compete nationally and globally in research, technology, public policy, healthcare and management. The migration of its most capable youth is not merely a labor market issue; it is a signal that the state must create ecosystems where ambition can find local expression.

The second pillar lies in leveraging geography. With Cochin Port and Vizhinjam International Seaport, Kerala is uniquely positioned to emerge as India’s most sophisticated maritime and logistics gateway. As trade routes increasingly reorient toward Africa, the Middle East and the wider Indo-Pacific, the state’s coastline can become the backbone of a new service-led economy anchored in logistics, warehousing, financial services and international trade support systems.

The third, and perhaps most underappreciated, opportunity lies in building an integrated silver economy that links healthcare, assisted living, wellness services and senior-focused urban design, while generating skilled employment. In this respect, Kerala could emerge as India’s leading silver economy, echoing the future-facing vision recently articulated by Shashi Tharoor in his on aging and social resilience.

Tourism, too, requires a . Kerala already possesses globally marketable assets: coastline, backwaters, hill landscapes, culture and high public safety. Yet these strengths have not always translated into a frictionless visitor experience. The next phase must move beyond natural beauty to professionalized tourism architecture: integrated urban mobility, heritage circuits, standardized hospitality and globally benchmarked transport systems beginning from the airport itself. Kochi, in particular, can serve as the test bed for this transformation.

Kerala’s first growth engine was migration. The second must be institutions.

If it gets its next transition right, Kerala may once again offer a development model that the rest of India, and perhaps parts of the world, will look to with curiosity and respect.

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The outcome represented the breakdown of an assumption that had shaped Indian strategic thought in the period following the 2019 India-Pakistan crisis: the belief that advanced fighter aircraft platforms could decisively determine future battlefield outcomes in India’s favor.

In 2019, the PAF two IAF planes (a Sukhoi-30MKI and a MiG-21 Bison) in a retaliatory air operation following the Indian Balakot strike, with the MiG-21 crashing in Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK). This resulted in the capture of its , Wing Commander Abhinandan Varthaman. Per Pakistan’s , the Sukhoi-30MKI crashed in Indian-occupied territory across the Line of Control (LoC), a claim that India denied but was echoed in . While Abhinandan was released after his capture as a “peace gesture,” the episode marked a major shock for the IAF, which had been outmaneuvered by a rival force despite possessing advantages in terms of fleet size, budgetary resources and force depth.

The lesson was unmistakable: Conventional military superiority alone cannot guarantee battlefield success.

India’s assessments

Rather than internalizing this implication, the IAF, aligning with the government’s position, downplayed the losses while perpetuating the narrative that acquiring more advanced platforms can shape future battlefield outcomes in India’s favor. In April 2019, the then Chief of Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal BS Dhanoa, categorically that the results would have been skewed in India’s favor had it inducted Rafale aircraft in time. He also said that their would shift the technological balance in India’s favor, mirroring Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s earlier that India would have achieved much more if the country had the Rafale aircraft.

While electoral dynamics and the need to boost the population’s morale explain the timing of the messaging, there also appeared to be an actual sense of within decision-making circles.

Messages along were echoed in subsequent years, as New Delhi received the first batch of Rafale fighters in , with deliveries completed by late . Notably, following the arrival of the first batch of Rafale fighters, Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh famously , “If it is anyone who should be worried about or critical about this new capability of the IAF, it should be those who want to threaten our territorial integrity.” has corroborated that leaders and decision-makers can easily succumb to mutually reinforced positive illusions, especially if other domestic actors do not meaningfully challenge those assumptions.��

What has been learned

Within the aviation community, the Dassault Rafale is rightly a platform of stature for its range, strength, agility and highly potent weapons suite. But as Stephen Biddle, the author of the book Military Power, it, “many nations failed to master complicated modern-system force employment and variations in such behavior have been more important than technology per se for observed outcomes.”

In May 2025, India and Pakistan fought a four-day war that was almost entirely an aerial conflict. This air conflict served as a practical demonstration of why mastery of complex systems matters more than technology. Indian strategists not only misjudged the PL-15 missile’s engagement range but also the PAF’s resolve, professionalism and strategic acumen. This allowed the PAF to achieve tactical surprise and a first-shot advantage. At the same time, the PAF a networked “kill chain,” by linking radars, airborne warning systems and fighters through a data link. This allowed the fighters to receive targeting data from airborne early warning and control aircraft and engage targets without using their own radar, while (EW) disrupted Indian sensors and communication, reducing the IAF’s situational awareness. The challenges were further compounded by limitations in cross-platform data integration within the IAF, which constrained coordination during the engagement.

As a result, the Pakistani military could claim a seven-nil outcome. Notably, the Indian military leadership acknowledged IAF failings. The Indian Chief of Defence Staff (CDS), General Anil Chauhan, responded to an inquiry about IAF losses by that “what is important is not the jets being downed but why the jets were downed.” He claimed the IAF its tactical mistakes and implemented the improved strategy two days later. Chauhan’s words suggest that the IAF likely withheld its air operations for two days to reassess its strategy — an indication of operational shock. To regain lost pride, the IAF resorted to launching stand-off weapons from within its own territory against targets inside Pakistan, which could be read as an implicit acknowledgment that it could not match PAF in the air.

The episode thus served as yet another sobering reminder that battlefield outcomes rarely unfold the way the initiating states may have anticipated. From the Vietnam War of 1955–1975 to the US/Israel–Iran War of 2026, war literature is replete with examples of conflicts that were started on assumptions about the ability to achieve rapid military victory, which proved untenable over time. For India, it is all the more important to internalize this lesson, as every successive crisis in nuclear South Asia has shown increasing intensity, and the region cannot afford such a trajectory.

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On , the Parliament of India officially passed a law which directly tells a transgender person they don’t know who they are.

For context, this was an amendment to the Transgender Persons (Protection of Rights) , 2019. This act was inherently not perfect, but it at least did the very basics of following the Constitution. It explained how gender identity was to be determined by oneself and that a person doesn’t require a doctor’s permission to know their own name. The amendment blatantly this. It eradicates self-identification and narrows the definition of transgender so radically that trans men, women and non-binary people are no longer recognized under Indian Law.

The Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment Parliament that the objective was to protect transgender persons. Apparently, you protect a community by requiring them to prove their identity to a government-appointed doctor before the state will recognize them.

If the government has to appoint a doctor to determine who a person is, then the government has already decided the person cannot be trusted. This is not protection; it is suspicion in fancy words. The legislature does not undercut the judiciary without a constitutional amendment and without consultation with the communities whose existence the law governs, yet here we are.

Let’s now move to the Constitutionality of this amendment directly against the Supreme Court. But what demands questioning is the dishonesty — as the government claims that this law protects people while it controls them — the colonial ways of thinking this amendment restores and how every institution that could have stopped this — the Opposition, The National Council For Transgender Persons (NCTP), the President and more — are either blind or they too have fallen.

The parliament cannot erase what the Supreme Court has written into the constitution

To understand why this law is legally indefensible, we must look back to 2014 and the landmark judicial precedent that the current legislature has chosen to ignore.

In , a Constitution Bench of the Supreme Court held that the right to self-determination of gender identity is a fundamental right. Not a bureaucratic entitlement. Transgender people are entitled to full constitutional protection, Article 14 (Right to Equality), Article 15 (prohibition of discrimination on the grounds of Religion, Race, Caste, Sex or Place of Birth), Article 16 (equality of opportunity in public employment), Article 19 (Right to Expression) and Article 21 (Right to Life with Dignity). The court was unambiguous. A person can assert their gender as male, female or transgender as they experience or perceive it, psychologically and socially, with no medical procedure as a condition. This ruling, since 2014, has been by two constitutional benches in Navtej Singh Johar and and by several High Courts across the country. It is settled constitutional law.

The 2026 amendment ignores all of it.

It Section 4(2) of the 2019 Act, which directly mentions the right to self-perceived gender identity. It replaces this with a system in which a medical board tests you, makes a recommendation and a District Magistrate then decides whether the state will recognize who you are. The parliament has legislated directly against a fundamental rights ruling of the Supreme Court, without a constitutional amendment, which is the only way the ruling could be overruled.

Let’s be specific about what this medical board actually would be, because the government would want you to think it’s just some administrative formality. The bill provides on the scope of the board’s examination, its procedure or what criteria it uses. There is no standard whatsoever. The Centre for Law and Policy Research correctly out that this ambiguity “could result in invasive examinations and opportunities for harassment.” This also directly violates , the Supreme Court’s 2017 ruling that established the Right to Privacy as a Fundamental Right. Submitting your body to an unofficial panel of government-appointed doctors, on no defined criteria, to receive permission to be yourself, is not, on any level, a fair process. It is a fundamental breach of bodily privacy and nobody — a man, a woman or a transgender person — should be put through that on moral and ethical grounds.

Then there is the arguably worse problem of definition. The amendment the existing broad definition of transgender under the 2019 Act, which is “a person whose gender does not match the gender assigned at birth,” with a very narrow list of three categories: sociocultural identities like hijra (transgender, intersex, or eunuch people who live in communities that follow a kinship system known as the guru–chela system) and kinnar (a more respectful, modern term frequently used for transgender people who may not be part of that traditional structure), persons with five specific intersex variations and those “compelled” to present as transgender. This is very different from the previous definition, which acted as an umbrella. Trans people, women outside those communities and non-binary persons could all fall under it. Now there is no umbrella and just a narrow list; if you are not in that list, you do not exist under Indian law.

This creates two classes of transgender persons: The first are those who are legally recognized, entitled to identity certificates and protected under the act; the second are everyone else.

The purpose of this law is to “protect” transgender persons from discrimination. So what is the logic behind protecting a hijra but not a non-binary person? They are both oppressed in society and the bottom line is that they are both transgender. The classification offers no data, no evidence or a constitutional reason for this exclusion, only vague to “complexities in enacting statutes.” That is the government admitting they don’t have a reason. Under Article 14, a classification that creates a hierarchy within a community with no intelligible basis is unconstitutional. A classification that determines who receives protection and who doesn’t is what this Article aims to prevent.

This law has picked which transgender people it will allow to exist and which it won’t, in direct violation of the fundamental rights granted by the Supreme Court. The same Prime Minister (PM) Narendra Modi, who took an in 2024 to “bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution of India as by law established,” has turned a blind eye to something as unconstitutional as this.

A colonial law in democratic clothing

Let’s come to of the amendment: The Criminal Provisions. This is where the government’s claim of protection almost completely collapses. The amendment introduces two new offenses. First, kidnapping and causing grievous hurt by emasculation, hormonal procedures or severe injury to force a person to assume transgender identity, punishable with ten years to life imprisonment. Second, using force or undue influence to compel someone to present as transgender and employ them in begging, solicitation or forced labor is punishable with five to ten years’ imprisonment. If the victim is a child, the penalty extends to life imprisonment.

This seems very reasonable. Forced identity and trafficking are real harms. Nobody argues that, but read the statements again. The offense is not just kidnapping or trafficking, but rather ambiguous. It is “compelling, forcing, or alluring” a person to present as transgender. Now, what do compelling, forcing and alluring refer to? Is a social worker helping a young child understand their gender identity alluring? Is a parent supporting their trans child compelling? Is a doctor providing gender affirming care forcing? The bill does not say. This ambiguity doesn’t seem accidental; it seems to be the very point.

This is very old thinking under a mask of child protection.

In 1871, the British colonial government passed the . It is presumed that entire communities, including gender non-conforming persons, were inherently criminal by nature. It eunuchs (all persons of the male sex who admit themselves, or on medical inspection clearly appear, to be impotent) from having a boy under the age of 16 years in their house. It criminalized their relationship structures, their community networks and basically their way of existing. The Supreme Court in NALSA described it as plain brutal legislation with a vicious and savage mindset. In fact, it was one of the first laws that was repealed after independence.

The 2026 amendment builds on the same presumption. It looks at a trans person’s family, their network and support systems and it sees a criminal conspiracy. The same logic that was used to break apart gender non-conforming families in 1871 is now a law passed by an elected parliament in 2026.

The Telangana High Court, in Vyjayanti Vasanta Mogli v. State of Telangana, about similar criminalization provisions and declared that they held a direct chilling effect on freedom of expression and right to privacy and that they furthered derogatory stereotypes of the transgender communities. That ruling is on record, yet the parliament passed this bill.

Mind you, this is the same government that renames cities, rewrites textbooks and makes new parliament buildings in the name of decolonization. Then why this colonial thinking? Why are we reviving the legal architecture that the colonial government used to surveil and criminalize gender non-conforming people?

The reality

Now, what exactly does this amendment do to a transgender person on any Tuesday morning?

Let me take a few examples: You want to renew your Aadhaar Card, open a bank account, get admitted to a hospital, apply for a job or even book a flight. All of these require you to hold some kind of identity document. And under this amendment, these documents, which determine whether India recognizes you as who you are, can only after a medical board has examined you, however they want to and a District Magistrate signing off on your existence. This is not bureaucracy.

The French philosopher Michel Foucault wrote about what he called “biopower”, which is a state’s ability to control populations not through direct violence but through the management and surveillance of bodies. The state decides what a body is, what it can do and where it belongs. It does not control you but makes your ability to move conditional on its approval. This is exactly what this amendment does. It doesn’t put them in jail, but in a waiting room, indefinitely, till a government-approved doctor decides whether or not their identity is legitimate enough to be recognized.

In practice, a trans man who doesn’t fall within the amendment’s list of recognized categories has to a legal identity certificate. Everywhere he goes, he is presented with a document that doesn’t reflect who he is. He must either present as someone he is not or someone the country doesn’t recognize. There is no other option and the law has made sure of it.

Now, someone will argue that a trans man can simply identify as a male and get on with his life. This makes sense technically, but honestly, it means his transgender identity is permanently concealed due to legal functionality. It means the law doesn’t protect him but gives him a choice between being erased and being left alone. For any non-binary person, for any intersex person outside of the five listed variations, for trans people who cannot or choose not to strictly pass as male or female, even this choice is unavailable. And for every trans person, the moment their old documents resurface, there is no escape, but only a choice between two kinds of invisibility.

This is the so-called protection offered by the government; it is not protecting but caging transgender people to be something they are not.

The right to privacy by Puttaswamy v. Union of India was not about keeping your data safe. The Supreme Court made it clear that privacy includes preservation of personal intimacies, the sanctity of family life and, crucially, the right to define yourself without interference. The amendment does not just neglect this right due to the medical examination, but because it makes self-definition legally impossible.

The government has created a system that requires a person to obtain government permission before their existence is legally valid. This is not protection or welfare, but an older, almost ancient way of thinking, and this government has just found a way to say it in a cleaner way.

A few actors shouldn’t lead to a whole community being oppressed

Now, every time you talk about transgender rights, one argument that gets brought up, which needs to be addressed, is that if self-identification is allowed, without medical interference, bad-faith actors, specifically men, will fraudulently claim to be women to access women’s spaces, shelters, prisons, or sporting categories.

This sounds concerning; however, countries that have implemented self-identification laws, such as since 2012, since 2015 and since 2014, have produced no documented evidence of widespread fraudulent claims. None. These claims are driven by ideology and not documented harm. The apocalyptic scenario has had over a decade to prove true across multiple countries, yet it has to do so. What has been documented, extensively and in all of these countries, is that legal recognition improves mental health, economic stability and safety of transgender people. The harm from not allowing self-identification is real and measurable and from allowing it is, in most cases, still theoretical.

More importantly, even if this is a legitimate concern, the government’s response is simply not proportionate. To address the hypothetical bad faith of a small group of people, the parliament has caused every single transgender person in India to go through medical examination, certification and legal invisibility. It has punished millions for the crimes of a few. That is not policy but prejudice.

And if the concern genuinely is about safety, the law already clarifies it. Fraud isn’t a new crime. Using any legal process with the intent to deceive is already punishable. A person who enters a space to commit harm is committing a crime, irrespective of what their identity documents say. Removing self-identification does not stop a determined bad-faith actor; it just makes everyone else’s life harder. Practically, legal gender changes are recorded and traceable and might be the worst strategy for someone actually trying to hide their identity or history. And in a country like India, are we expected to believe that a predator would go through the discrimination, harassment and violence that a transgender person goes through? He would never go through this stigma to commit a crime.

When we come to sports, where physical characteristics actually create practical tensions, it is a valid argument. But those are conversations for sports bodies and federations to have. Parliament does not have to narrow down the definition of gender for every transgender person in the country. You simply do not take away a community’s right to exist in order to solve a challenge in athletics. The proportionality puzzles me because it is quite absurd.

The institutional failure

How did this law get passed? Because a law of this extent, which is constitutionally indefensible, does not pass both the Houses of Parliament in 13 days by accident. It requires a failure from every institution that could have stopped it.

Let’s start with the government. Union Minister Virendra Kumar walked into the Lok Sabha on March 13, introduced the bill, and 13 days later, it had cleared both the Houses and was on its way to the President. There was no standing committee referral, no consultation with the trans communities, no consultation with legal experts or civil society beyond what the government chose to hear. This is a dilution of Democracy. When asked to justify the situation, the Statement of Objects and Reasons “complexities in enacting statutes.” So the Government’s reason is complexity, for a law that determines the lives of millions. Complexities are not the problem of these people but a problem the government has to deal with.

Dr. Virendra Kumar then stood before the Rajya Sabha and , “The government is compassionate towards the well-being of the transgender community” and that “the bill has provisions to empower transgender people and give them dignity.” Is this not the same bill that removes self-identification? The same bill that adds a medical board? The same bill whose own advisory council members resigned in protest the moment it passed. Compassion these days doesn’t require the consent of the people you’re being compassionate towards.

Then there is the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) Medha Vishram Kulkarni, who the bill in the Rajya Sabha and thanked PM Modi for bringing it forward to “ensure that the benefits reach the deserving people.” The deserving people? She also said there is a need for a law that “brings justice to real transgender individuals and punishes fake ones.” On the floor of Parliament, a person has openly said that some transgender persons are real and some are not and the government gets to decide who is fake and who isn’t. This is not my inference; this is a BJP member of parliament (MP) explaining the law in her own words.

How this law was passed puzzles me. Is our legislature blind or just blatantly ignorant?

The failure of the opposition, the President and the PM

Now let’s talk about the Opposition. Congress MP Renuka Chowdhury the bill dilutes constitutional privacy and that self-identification cannot be taken away through bureaucratic certification. Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) MP Tiruchi Shiva the bill violates Articles 14, 15, 19 and 21 and predicted it would be struck down by the Supreme Court. Rashtriya Janata Dal (RJD) MP Manoj Jha perhaps the most honest observation of the debate: “There is a fundamental difference between legislative majority and moral majority. Just because you have the numbers does not mean you are right.” These are not bad and in fact very valid arguments. The opposition identified every constitutional problem this paper laid out and then it walked out.

I understand that the opposition is in the minority and fully support them, but walking out, even after procedural resistance, is not just a statement of displeasure — it is one that, frankly, the other side doesn’t care about and wins anyway. Shiva made a motion to refer the bill to a select committee. It was defeated. The opposition raised the objections, registered their dissent and left. The bill was passed by voice vote. Thirteen days and two houses is all it took. It isn’t the opposition that is at fault, but still very disheartening.

And then there is the President. A group of 140 lawyers, law students, feminists and activists to President Droupadi Murmu asking her not to give her assent and return the bill to Parliament for reconsideration. The Supreme Court-appointed expert committee on transgender rights the government to withdraw the bill entirely. The two members of the National Council for Transgender Persons (NCTP), the government’s own advisory body created specifically to guide policy affecting this community, the moment the bill passed. Rituparna Neog and Kalki Subramaniam called it “a step backward for our fundamental rights to self-identification and dignity.” These are not opposition politicians; these are people whom the government has added to its advisory structure. Their resignation is the government’s own appointees telling it, clearly, that they got this wrong.

President Murmu it anyway, showing just how ceremonial her powers are and at the end of the day, she remains just a rubber stamp.

This is the same woman who speaks publicly about inclusion, dignity and constitutional values. She was presented with a bill that her own government’s advisory council resigned over, that 140 legal professionals had asked her to return and the Supreme Court’s own expert committee had asked to be withdrawn. She had every constitutional and moral basis to send it back, but she didn’t. She signed a law that tells us exactly how much institutional protection those persons can expect from the highest office in the country.

And then there is our prime minister, Modi, who said nothing.

On June 9, 2024, Modi stood before the nation, with his hand on the Constitution of India and took an oath for a third consecutive term. He swore that he would bear true faith and allegiance to the Constitution, without fear or favor, affection or ill-will.

We shouldn’t forget this, because when his government introduced a bill that goes against fundamental rights and the Supreme Court’s binding rulings, he said absolutely nothing.

Not even a statement or clarification. And a press conference? Who are we kidding? His minister introduced the bill. His party’s MPs thanked him by name for bringing it forward. And Modi, whose government and majority in the parliament made this possible, who’s always talking about Sabka Saath, Sabka Vikas, Sabka Vishwas — everyone’s support, everyone’s development, everyone’s trust — remained dead silent.

What does this silence mean? This isn’t one of those cases where the government was unaware of the controversy. The opposition walked out of the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha produced some of the best constitutional criticism in years. We’ve already discussed the Supreme Court’s own expert committee’s demand for the withdrawal and the resignation of the members of the government’s own advisory council. Trinamool Congress’s (TMC) Saket Gokhale stood in Parliament and that 31% of transgender people in India have attempted suicide because of the discrimination they face and warned that the government was going to add institutional discrimination to social discrimination. All of this happened in Parliament, in public, on record. The Prime Minister heard none of it, apparently. Or chose not to.

Sabka Saath means everyone’s support. Not everyone except those whose identity India has decided to confirm. The oath Modi took does not say “do right to all manner of people except those whose fundamental rights are inconvenient to your political alignment.” It all manner of people. Without fear or favor. Without affection or ill-will.

A Prime Minister who takes that oath and then uses his parliamentary majority to pass a law that the Supreme Court declared unconstitutional in principle 12 years ago has not honored that oath.

And then, on March 30, 2026 — a day before — Murmu the bill into law. Whether this was intentional or simply that the government had already stopped paying attention, it is ironic how, one day before the day specifically dedicated to making transgender persons visible, the Indian government chose to make them permanently invisible.

Does this, folks, not tell us a lot? The legislature overrules the judiciary. Is this the doom of this country? The doom of this democracy?

What have we learned?

We have recently learned more about India’s relationship with its transgender citizens than ever before.

They tell us that a law passed in 2019 to protect a community can be removed in barely 13 days without consulting that community, a fundamental right by the Supreme Court can be taken away without a constitutional amendment. That a government can stand before Parliament and call control protection, call erasure precision and call surveillance dignity and face no consequence for any of it.

They tell us that the opposition can identify every constitutional violation correctly, make every right argument and then walk out, giving the government exactly the empty chamber it needed to pass the bill by voice vote. They tell us that a President can resignations from her own government’s advisory council, a petition from 140 legal professionals and a withdrawal request from a Supreme Court-appointed expert committee and sign the bill anyway. They tell us that a Prime Minister can take an oath to do right by all manner of people, use his parliamentary majority against the fundamental rights of some of his most vulnerable citizens and say nothing publicly.

The government knew exactly what it was doing and did it anyway.

The transgender persons this law governs did not ask for this amendment. They asked for the opposite. They were not consulted. They were not heard. Their own representatives on the government’s advisory council resigned rather than be associated with what was done in their name. And the communities most affected — trans people who no longer legally exist under this law, non-binary persons erased by a closed list, support workers who now risk life imprisonment for helping a young person understand themselves — will bear the cost of this law. While the institutions that failed them decide, at their own pace, whether to correct the error. This case has already been in the Supreme Court by the famed activists Laxmi Narayan Tripathi and Zainab Patel. The constitutional fight is not over.

The Constitution of India does not belong to the government. It belongs to the people. All of us. Including the ones this government has decided do not deserve to know who they are.

We were told this was a democracy. We were told the Constitution was its foundation. We were told the three organs of government exist to check each other, to protect rights and to ensure no branch overreaches.

Look at what they did instead.

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For decades, the world has fought the Global War on Terror (GWOT). Yet, as the US withdrew from Afghanistan in 2021, Pakistan was left alone to fight the menace of terrorism. Terrorism emanating from Afghanistan has become a transnational threat, affecting regional countries as well as those further afield in Europe and the , as recent incidents indicate. However, a question still remains: What prompted Pakistan to launch a military action inside its neighboring country with whom it has historically maintained brotherly ties?

Post-2021 Taliban takeover and militant regrouping

As Kabul fell to the Taliban in 2021, the first order of business was to release the terrorists held captive by the US and its allied forces. The released almost 1,500 individuals belonging to different terror groups, including Al-Qaeda, the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) and others who had been apprehended during 20 years of the GWOT.��

Over the years, these individuals have regrouped and reorganized under the patronage of the ruling Afghan Taliban. These regrouped terrorists have from leftover weapons of the US and allied forces, while also logistically and financially exploiting humanitarian aid meant for Afghan locals.��

Multiple reports by international bodies have over the years that rampant corruption within the Taliban regime has strengthened terrorism in Afghanistan, affecting Central Asia and South Asia, specifically Pakistan. The 35th and 36th of the UN Monitoring Team assessed that Al-Qaeda and TTP had regrouped in Afghanistan with documented facilitation by the Taliban regime. The Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction () reports confirmed the presence of 6,000–8,000 TTP fighters in Afghanistan, while also noting the country hosts senior leadership of Al-Qaeda, the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISIS-K) and TTP.��

Recently, Ministry of Foreign Affairs released an independent report indicating the presence of 20,000–23,000 terrorists in Afghanistan, just months after normalizing diplomatic ties.��

Diplomatic engagement and exhaustion of channels��

Pakistan has always engaged with Afghanistan diplomatically, from playing a significant role in the 2020 to bring all parties to the dialogue table, to demanding the curtailment of terrorism.��

Since 2021, Pakistan has been raising concerns over terrorism emanating from Afghan soil with the Taliban, which has yet to take cognizance. In its efforts, Pakistan all diplomatic channels of bilateral engagement with Afghanistan. These included four Foreign Ministers’ visits, two Defense Ministers’ visits (one of which also included former Chief of Inter-Services Intelligence [ISI], Lieutenant General Ahmed Nadeem Anjum), five Special Representatives’ visits, five Secretary-level meetings, one visit by the National Security Advisor, eight Joint Coordination Committee sessions, 225 border flag meetings, 836 protest notes and 13 formal demarches to the Afghan representative in Pakistan. All these channels were used to highlight a single-point agenda: that Afghanistan must ensure its soil is not used for terrorism against Pakistan.

However, in response, Afghanistan has not only hosted and harbored terrorist organizations, but also them logistical and financial support, along with human resources, arms and ammunition. This assistance is not limited to religious groups, but extends to Baloch terrorist groups as well.��

Escalation of cross-border attacks (2025–2026)��

In February 2025, a significant development rattled security analysts watching Pakistan’s southwestern province of Balochistan. A senior commander of the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) — a terrorist group — Mushtaq Kohi, was assassinated in Kabul’s Khushal Khan area.��

This development once again reaffirmed Pakistan’s claim that terrorist attacks on its soil were being orchestrated from Afghanistan. In 2025 alone, major attacks in Pakistan have been linked to terrorists present in Afghanistan. In March 2025, the BLA a hostage attack on a Quetta-bound train, the Jaffar Express, in the Bolan area. The attackers on the ground were found to be commands from their handlers in Afghanistan.��

Similarly, an attack in May 2025 on a school bus of Army Public School in Khuzdar, which seven young girls and a boy, was also traced back to Afghanistan. It is important to note that the suicide attack on the Judicial Complex in Islamabad in October 2025 was carried out by an Afghan national, Qari Usman alias Zubair. From to , Peshawar, Besham and Waziristan, Afghan nationals have targeted civilians across Pakistan in multiple terrorist attacks, including the attack on Wana Cadet College.

In 2025 alone, Afghan nationals were reportedly killed in two separate military operations against terrorism conducted by the Pakistan Army. However, terrorist infiltration across the Pakistan-Afghanistan border did not cease, and continued into 2026 as well.

Operation Ghazab Lil Haq and military response��

In February 2026, a horrific terrorist attack on a congregation at an Imambargah in became a decisive moment for Pakistan to act against terrorist camps and hideouts across the border in Afghanistan. The Pakistan Army and Air Force launched Operation Ghazab-lil-Haq against TTP hideouts, initially hitting seven targets in the Khost, Paktika and Nangarhar provinces adjoining the border.

To date, Pakistan has targeted locations across Afghanistan, with the largest being Bagram Airbase. In recent airstrikes, Pakistan destroyed a weapons depot at Bagram Airbase containing leftover US weaponry that had been illegally transferred to terrorist organizations.��

Strategic justification and security narrative��

Pakistan acted against Afghanistan as a last resort after exhausting all diplomatic options and multiple failed dialogues. Afghanistan’s stubborn refusal to expel terrorist organizations poses a threat to Pakistan’s national security, regional stability and world peace. In the war against terrorism, Pakistan has paid heavily, sacrificing nearly of its nationals, including civilians, military personnel and children.

Pakistan has made its position clear at international forums and at the Security Council that terrorism emanating from Afghanistan is unacceptable. For regional peace to prevail, Afghanistan must stop its soil from being used for terrorist attacks against Pakistan.

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The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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Pakistan’s resource base is substantial, and the of the Ministry of Energy has long catalogued copper, gold, coal, iron ore, chromite, limestone, marble, gypsum and gemstones. Yet resource wealth on paper is not the same as value in the treasury. The political temptation is to point to large headline numbers at and treat them as future income.

Serious investors do not work that way. They look for certified reserves, detailed engineering, water availability, power access, transport corridors, tax stability and dispute resolution they can trust. That is why the updated feasibility study for , the project’s and the International Project Disclosure () matter more than sweeping claims about buried wealth. They move the conversation from fantasy to finance.

Reko Diq is a governance test

The strongest symbol of that shift is itself. If Pakistan can keep the project on track, protect the contract structure and maintain public credibility, it could alter the country’s export mix for decades. Barrick Gold Corporation’s target of 2028 is important, but the institutional lesson is even more so. Pakistan already paid a heavy price for the earlier legal conflict around this asset. A successful mine would show that the country can manage a long-horizon project effectively without turning every commercial disagreement into a national crisis. It would also show whether the state can enforce environmental and community standards through a genuine environmental and social impact — not just a ceremonial one. In a world shaped by the and the push for , governance quality is no longer a side issue; it is part of the asset’s value.

Thar coal offers a harder lesson. The project helped expose the cost of relying too heavily on imported fuel and too little on domestic resources. The case made by Sindh Engro Coal Mining Company () is : Local coal reduced some import pressure and created domestic energy capacity that Pakistan had long delayed. In a country that still struggles with energy insecurity, that matters. But it is only a partial answer. Coal can buy time, yet it cannot define a future facing stricter environmental scrutiny, constrained climate finance and rising global pressure for cleaner supply chains. Even Pakistan’s current of ores and related products shows how limited the country’s value capture remains. Import substitution can ease short-term pressure. It does not, by itself, build a modern industrial base.

The real prize lies beyond the pit

That is why Pakistan should stop talking about minerals as if extraction alone were development. The real prize lies further down the value chain: processing, refining, smelting, cutting, certification, engineering services, logistics and specialized manufacturing linked to copper, industrial minerals and gemstones. To get there, the country needs better geological data, predictable licensing, reliable electricity, water planning, roads, rail links and vocational training. It also needs rules that people can trust.

Pakistan already has environmental review , but rules on paper are not enough when local communities feel excluded or provincial interests feel ignored. In Balochistan especially, the question is not only how much copper or gold leaves the ground, but also who gets jobs, receives royalties, gets clean water and bears the environmental cost. A mining boom without local legitimacy will remain politically fragile and difficult to sustain, no matter how attractive the reserve estimates appear in an official .

Pakistan should see minerals as a bridge to a more competitive economy, not as a substitute for one. The country still needs tax reform, export diversification, a healthier power sector and a business climate that rewards production rather than access. Minerals can support that transition, but only if policymakers resist two temptations. The first is fantasy: the belief that enormous in-ground valuations are the same as usable national wealth. The second is laziness: the belief that exporting raw material is enough. It is not.

The world is looking for new suppliers of copper and other strategic inputs, and Pakistan has a chance to matter. But that chance will close if the country remains content to dig up rocks while other countries capture the refining margins, the industrial know-how, and the skilled jobs. Pakistan cannot export rocks forever. At some point, it must build around them.

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The enmeshment of our lives with digital spaces poses a deeper reckoning that cuts to the heart of the world’s basic tenets and norms we aspire to inhabit. Acclaimed author Amitav Ghosh, on the post-pandemic world, stated that “The old world is gone and the new world is still revealing itself.” There are two significant features of our increasingly unraveled new world: widespread access to social media and the celebration of individual mobility, especially female mobility. The problem is not that our world is changing, but our ignorance of whether it is changing in a direction conducive to our Children’s well-being.��

We are selectively critical of social media consumption when it comes to harmful content or extreme cases of addiction, as in the tragic����of three teenage sisters in India who committed suicide when their parents withdrew their phone access, preventing them from engaging on social media for a week.��However, we fail to reflect on our everyday, uneventful interactions with social media, such as weddings being planned based on what is trending on Instagram, partners jokingly commenting on each other’s Instagram addiction and watching video reels even while driving. Such online behaviors are not innocuous. Instead of pausing to reflect on the short and long-term implications of our online behavior, we have normalized various social media interactions that do not fall on the extreme ends of addiction.��

On India’s Republic Day this year, I visited a city park in Noida, Uttar Pradesh, that was bustling with people. While elites were few, the aspirational middle class was large. They were actively using the park not just as a space for leisure and sport, but also as an appealing backdrop for Instagram reels and YouTube shorts. On more than one occasion, my toddler mistakenly interrupted a group of young people attempting to record a video. In my friend group, two people spent almost 20 minutes on the phone during a 2-hour picnic. Today, in large metropolitan cities, when young people get together, the conversation is dominated by the videos they have watched. It is commonplace to see groups of people, young and old alike, on their phones while sitting together. 

Social norms that once discouraged phone use in the company of others have broken down, as we quietly acquiesce to living in a digital bubble, a mediated existence. Our world is subsumed by the promise of efficiency and convenience, while actively disincentivizing engagement in complicated human relationships. The overreliance on social media for content consumption elevates individual preferences, making it harder to make the sacrifices needed to build a family and foster a community.

��A proactive approach��to combating excessive social media use

As India becomes richer, the country’s leadership must learn from the mistakes of other societies that have buckled under the passive adoption of technology. Jonathan Haidt, a leading American psychologist,�� the prevalence of smartphones for the “collapse in young people’s mental health since 2010.” His claims are corroborated by numerous����asserting that extensive use of social media sites is associated with an increased risk of depression, anxiety and psychological distress. Such reprcutions are ��for young girls, who are more likely to use image-based platforms that perpetuate body image issues.

According to an Indian government press release, 85.5% of Indian households at least one smartphone. India is home to the second-largest number of smartphone users globally and is an important market for social media and AI companies. It is therefore important that Indian leadership learn from the missteps of the Western world, drawing on its civilizational ethos and cultural dynamism to adopt a more critical approach towards social media consumption.

The��urgent need to digital technology is rapidly becoming the global consensus position. Countries such as Australia, France, Italy, China and Indonesia have banned social media use for children under 16. In India, the Karnataka government is�� a proposal to ban smartphones for students under 16. Last year, the principal of Mayo College, one of India’s premier boarding schools,����a ban on smartphones on campus. Explaining his decision, Saurav Sinha stated that “access to smartphones at a young age can mean constant distraction instead of deep focus,” leading to “social media anxiety at the cost of genuine friendship.”

While restricting social media usage for children at an institutional level is a desirable first step, more action to combat the scourge of social media addiction is needed. Pulling children away from phone screens is not enough. There is an urgent need to provide them with alternative spaces that offer mental, emotional and physical stimulation.

Social media resilience in the Indian city of Rajgir��

�Ჹ������� several norms that society must establish to regulate smartphone use. His most significant proposal concerns “unsupervised play and childhood independence,” arguing for the need to provide children with spaces to explore and play freely with peers. These spaces, however, do not emerge spontaneously. They require a connected, secure community where people look out for each other’s children. Away from the homogeneity and hubris of metropolitan cities, India’s vast diversity includes communities that maintain a tenuous relationship with technology, offering a fertile, vibrant space for social and cultural development.

An example of such a space is the ancient city of Rajgir, a quaint city with a small population of 41,000. Rajgir is home to various Buddhist, Jain and Hindu temples and is replete with tourists from India and abroad. Malls and multiplexes are conspicuously absent from the city landscape. Unlike parks in other Indian cities, such as Noida, where digital technology use among visitors is prevalent, Rajgir offers a different lived reality.

In Rajgir, on a warm winter afternoon, large families throng the Pandu Pokhar Eco Adventure park. Mothers in their late thirties can be seen playing badminton while their children tug at them, demanding their attention. At the playground, children occupy the same space as a woman in her early fifties, who tells her husband she is scared to try the swing. The husband encourages her to give it a go, and her adult children join in goading her. She hesitantly sits down on the swing. When her son pushes her, ever so slightly, she begins crying in fear, much to the amusement of her family and other onlookers.

This environment is a far cry from playgrounds of Noida, where anxious parents actively surveil their children, often intervening to break up fights or respond to tantrums. In Rajgir, the parents express a sense of calm reassurance. They also navigate the park differently, as a space of leisure, where digital engagement, while occurring, is not the focal point.

Globally linked but locally rooted

What makes Rajgir fundamentally different from a city such as is that Noida is a large city and a hub for software companies and mobile manufacturing. While this makes Noida economically viable and attractive for migrants, it also dilutes its cultural ethos. The fertile land, once tended by farmers, has been replaced by factories, malls and schools. While benefiting handsomely from the acquisition of their lands, the farmers have been pushed to the fringes of the city.

Moreover, the majority of Noida inhabitants are migrants who moved from all parts of India to build their future. They are highly aspirational and willing to embrace the celebratory narrative of individual mobility that is pervasive on social media. They are also distant from their cultural ethos and less committed to building a community space that privileges the collective over the individual. Without such a space, creating social environments that draw young minds away from screens will be difficult.

In Rajgir, people are unwilling (at least for the moment) to abandon the social environment that provides them with a sense of community warmth. They are comfortable aligning their individual aspirations with what is acceptable for their family unit. This means that the negative ramifications of their digital interactions are offset by the social enrichments of their everyday lives. This allows for an organic balance and contributes to resilient social formations, which, while leaving space for digital connections, prioritize social engagement and belonging. Such a harmonious environment fosters greater tolerance for the untidiness of human interactions, encouraging children to explore and socialize with one another more freely.

Such a space provides a model for remaking the new world in ways that serve our long-term interests and well-being. While India must learn from the experiments of other nations, it should also look inwards to identify spaces of community resilience. The country must calibrate its engagement with technology to foster global connections while preserving its social ties and cultural moorings.

[ edited this piece.]

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For example, the Assam Tribune recently that Bangladesh is involved in a conspiracy to send “illegal immigrants” to West Bengal ahead of the province’s Legislative Assembly elections. On February 26, Indian law enforcement agencies a major crackdown on alleged Bangladeshi “illegal immigrants” in Bengaluru. This demonstrates that the Indo–Bangladeshi relations remain in flux after the recent parliamentary elections in Bangladesh.

Compartmentalization in foreign policy

In foreign policy, the concept of compartmentalization refers to a situation in which states compartmentalize the issues in their relations, leading to cooperation on some issues and disputes in others, while avoiding complete rupture.

In the 21st century, the relationship between Russia and Turkey best the notion of compartmentalization in foreign policy. Since the 2010s, Russia and Turkey have engaged in competition for influence and in some instances, proxy wars in several theaters, including Syria, Libya and Transcaucasia. Simultaneously, Russia served as the principal source of natural gas for Turkey, built a nuclear power plant in Turkey and sold advanced air defense systems to it, while millions of Russian tourists continued to visit Turkey every year.

Even now, Turkey supports Ukraine’s territorial integrity, supplies it with weapons and seeks to undermine Russian influence in the South Caucasus and Central Asia, yet it continues to act as a mediator between Russia and Ukraine, buys large quantities of oil and gas from Russia, and acts as a hub of key EU-origin military goods for Russia. This is a classic example of compartmentalization of bilateral relations, in which Moscow and Ankara cooperate on several issues and compete in others, while avoiding outright conflict.

Partial compartmentalization: Indo–Bangladeshi relations after the July uprising

After the overthrow of the Bangladesh Awami League-led government, which was closely aligned with India, on August 5, 2024, an interim government took power in Bangladesh, and bilateral ties between Dhaka and New Delhi went downhill. Between August 5, 2024, and February 12, 2026, India undertook several hostile actions against Bangladesh. New Delhi suspended most visa services for Bangladeshi citizens, withdrew nonessential staff and their families from Indian diplomatic missions in Bangladesh, canceled transhipment facilities for Bangladesh, started forcibly pushing migrants over the border and refused to normalize ties with Dhaka pending additional elections.

Moreover, Indian media outlets a sustainable information warfare campaign against Bangladesh. Indian politicians accused Bangladesh of conducting a “genocide” against Hindus. The Bangladeshi High Commission in New Delhi and the Assistant High Commission in Agartala were attacked, and some Indian politicians and analysts indirectly called for and of Bangladeshis.

In response, Bangladesh undertook some reciprocal actions against India, including the suspension of bus services to India, the of a $21 million defense deal and a to sign an energy deal with India’s H-Energy. Moreover, Indian commentators viewed Bangladesh’s rapprochement with Pakistan, recalibration of ties with China and defense procurement negotiations with Turkey negatively.

Yet Dhaka sought to avoid a complete rupture in bilateral relations, leading to continued cooperation between the two countries in some sectors. For instance, Bangladesh a joint naval exercise with India in the Bay of Bengal in March 2025, to import diesel from India and prisoners with its neighbor in January 2026. Also, Bangladesh from formally joining any anti-Indian bloc or alliance.

Thus, under the interim government, Indo–Bangladeshi relations underwent a process of partial compartmentalization. This means that bilateral issues were dealt with separately instead of collectively, leading to disputes on some issues and cooperation in others.

Towards full compartmentalization?

After the formation of a government led by the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), both Indian and Bangladeshi officials have expressed optimism about the normalization of bilateral ties and some steps. These steps include the sent to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the inauguration of the BNP-led government and the resumption of the India–Bangladesh bus service and visa services for Indians, which have already been taken in this regard.

Yet, the BNP’s political legitimacy is largely based on a narrative of “protecting Bangladesh’s sovereignty” vis-à-vis external actors, particularly India. It has repeatedly strong stances on issues such as border killings and water-sharing. While the new government in Dhaka has extended an olive branch to New Delhi, Pakistan is likely to Prime Minister Tarique Rahman as the chief guest to the Pakistan Day parade next month, indicating continued rapprochement between Dhaka and Islamabad.

Moreover, if the BNP-led government is viewed as “too soft” on India by opposition parties, such as the Bangladesh Jamaat-e-Islami and the National Citizen Party (NCP), it is likely to face significant domestic political backlash. Similarly, the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party-led (BJP) government would be hard-pressed to make any concessions to Bangladesh, especially as the BJP’s domestic political narrative a lot of anti-Bangladeshi rhetoric.

Hence, it is highly unlikely that the Indo–Bangladeshi partnership is going to reach the level it achieved under the Awami League government. Nonetheless, it would be in the interests of both Dhaka and New Delhi to cooperate on a range of issues, including water-sharing, transnational crime, migration, trade and connectivity. Such cooperation could prevent the outbreak of conflict.

The Ganges Water-Sharing is set to expire on December 12, 2026, and the two parties would need to negotiate to avert another crisis about the sharing of the waters of the transboundary Ganges River. On the other hand, issues such as Bangladesh’s growing strategic ties with China, Pakistan and Turkey, border killings, the potential denationalization of millions of Bengalis in Assam and the use of xenophobic rhetoric in domestic politics would continue to complicate bilateral ties and preclude full concord. Thus, under the BNP-led government, Indo–Bangladeshi relationship is likely to slide towards full compartmentalization.

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The result is a war in which the heaviest economic consequences are being absorbed by those with the least influence over how it ends. That is not an unintended side effect. It reflects how modern conflict now interacts with an interconnected global system.

A war that moves through systems

The violence of the war may be concentrated in the Gulf, but the disruption is not. Pressure around the , which carries a substantial share of global oil and liquefied natural gas, is already translating into broader instability. Insurance premiums for shipping have . have been adjusted or delayed. Even limited disruptions have forced rerouting through longer and more expensive corridors. Energy markets have responded with volatility that reflects not only current supply risks, but uncertainty about how far escalation could extend.

These effects are not linear. They move through the same channels that sustain the global economy. Energy flows, maritime logistics, financial markets and supply chains react simultaneously, but unevenly. A disruption at one point in the system propagates outward, reshaping conditions elsewhere.

The Gulf states are encountering the first layer of this pressure. Infrastructure, once treated as secure, is now exposed. Oil facilities, ports and shipping terminals are at increasing risk. More critically, , which provide the majority of potable water in several Gulf countries, have emerged as potential vulnerabilities. Any sustained disruption to these systems would not only affect economic output but also the basic functioning of daily life.

These states are not directing the war, but they cannot distance themselves from it. Their exposure is structural, rooted in geography and infrastructure. Beyond the Gulf, the effects become less visible but more complex.

South and Southeast Asia are absorbing the next layer of impact. Countries such as , which rely heavily on imported energy, are particularly sensitive to even modest price increases. Currency pressure intensifies as import costs rise; inflation begins to move; governments face difficult trade-offs between stabilizing prices and maintaining fiscal discipline. These pressures do not appear all at once; they build gradually, often unnoticed at first.

Recent movements in global have already begun to translate into higher domestic costs across several Asian economies. Airlines face rising fuel expenses, manufacturing sectors dependent on energy inputs adjust output and households encounter rising costs that are not immediately traceable to the conflict, but are directly linked to it.

There is also a human dimension that remains largely overlooked. Millions of from South Asia are employed across the Gulf. Their income supports families and local economies back home. As uncertainty increases, their position becomes more precarious. Flight routes are disrupted; insurance premiums increase; mobility becomes more constrained at the very moment when flexibility is most needed. They are not participants in the conflict. Yet they are embedded within its consequences.

Further east, the constraints tighten. Japan and South Korea sit at the far end of the same energy chain, but with far less flexibility. Their dependence on Middle Eastern energy imports is not marginal; it is structural. A significant portion of their oil imports passes through the same contested maritime routes. When supply tightens, they are forced into competition for alternative sources, often at higher cost.

This has immediate effects: Industrial output begins to slow, petrochemical production adjusts, and financial markets react to uncertainty in input costs and output expectations. What begins as an energy shock extends into industrial and financial systems. The war is not expanding geographically in the traditional sense; it is expanding through systems.

The economies that carry the burden

The most consequential aspect of this dynamic is not simply the scale of disruption, but its distribution. The countries bearing the greatest economic pressure are not those setting the conflict’s trajectory. They are not determining strategy or shaping escalation. Yet their economies, infrastructure and populations are directly exposed to the consequences. What emerges from this is a structural imbalance that is difficult to correct.

The US, despite its central role, is relatively insulated from the immediate energy shock. As a major energy producer, it experiences price fluctuations differently. Domestic pressure exists, but it does not threaten systemic stability in the same way. Iran, for its part, is already operating under long-term economic constraints. Additional pressure intensifies existing challenges, but does not fundamentally alter the conditions under which it operates. Israel’s exposure is primarily security-driven, rather than rooted in systemic economic vulnerability of the same kind.

The most severe pressures are concentrated elsewhere. They are felt most acutely in economies that are deeply integrated into global systems, but lack the capacity to shape them. This is where the situation becomes more complex than it initially appears.

If energy prices continue to rise, governments across affected regions will be forced to respond. Subsidies may be expanded; strategic reserves may be drawn down; emergency fiscal measures may be introduced to stabilize domestic conditions. These responses are not cost-free; they shift pressure into financial systems.

Several large Asian economies hold substantial foreign-currency reserves, including . In periods of sustained stress, the liquidation of such assets can serve as a tool for maintaining domestic stability. If undertaken at scale, these actions would transmit pressure into global financial markets, affecting borrowing costs, liquidity and investment conditions.

A regional conflict begins to generate global financial consequences. At that point, the distinction between participant and observer begins to weaken.

A system that redistributes risk

What is unfolding is not simply economic disruption. It is a redistribution of risk across an interconnected system. Energy markets are beginning to fragment, as different regions experience different price pressures and supply constraints. are adjusting, but not uniformly. Some states are able to absorb shocks through reserves and diversification. Others face more immediate constraints. The longer the conflict persists, the more these differences widen.

Recent developments suggest that even limited escalation can have disproportionate effects. Temporary disruptions to shipping routes have already extended delivery times and increased costs. Insurance markets have adjusted faster than physical supply, amplifying the economic impact. Financial markets are reacting not only to current conditions, but to the possibility of further escalation.

Over time, this begins to resemble a feedback loop. Uncertainty drives cost. Cost drives policy response. Policy response introduces new distortions. The system does not stabilize quickly. It adjusts, but unevenly and often with delay. This is not a temporary disturbance that will dissipate once the conflict slows. It reflects a deeper shift in how war interacts with global systems. Conflict is no longer contained by geography. It is transmitted through connectivity.

The wrong economies

The countries most exposed to the economic consequences are not the ones making strategic decisions or defining objectives. Yet they are the ones managing inflation, stabilizing currencies, protecting supply chains and absorbing social pressure. They carry the cost without controlling the cause. This is increasingly how modern conflict operates. Power is exercised in one place. Consequences are distributed across many. The further a country is from the center of decision-making, the more likely it is to experience the conflict as an external shock rather than a controllable process. And the longer the war continues, the more entrenched this pattern becomes.

Wars are still fought between states, but their effects are no longer confined to them. They move through the systems that connect economies, societies and markets. And in that movement, the burden does not fall where power is concentrated; it falls where exposure is greatest. That is why this war is not just reshaping the balance of power; it is reshaping the distribution of vulnerability. And in doing so, it is placing the heaviest burden on the economies least able to shape the outcome.

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In the emerging global order, control over critical minerals increasingly defines technological leadership, industrial competitiveness and military power. Rare earth elements feed precision-guided munitions and advanced electronics. Copper underpins electrification, defense manufacturing and grid modernization. Lithium anchors the battery economy. According to data from the US Geological Survey, the is effectively 100% import-dependent for separated rare earth elements, while roughly 85–90% of global rare earth processing capacity — even when the ore itself is mined elsewhere.

Demand pressures are accelerating rapidly. Under global energy transition scenarios, demand for minerals such as lithium, cobalt, nickel and copper is projected to increase several-fold over the coming decades as electric vehicles, renewable energy infrastructure and battery storage systems expand worldwide.

At the same time, widening instability across the Middle East and South Asia, including between Iran, Israel and the US, and growing Pakistan-Afghanistan military , are reshaping the strategic environment in which mineral supply chains must operate.

These overlapping conflicts are turning the region into a strategic intersection of resource security, maritime access and geopolitical competition. This structural asymmetry has reframed access to minerals as a national security imperative. Diversification is no longer optional; it is strategic insurance. Diversification, however, does not remove risk; it merely shifts it. In this shifting landscape, Pakistan has once again become a critical factor.

Pakistan’s mineral reserves in the US–China supply chain competition

Pakistan possesses significant untapped mineral reserves, particularly in Balochistan. The Reko Diq project alone is widely regarded as one of the world’s undeveloped copper-gold deposits. Public feasibility estimates suggest potential annual output in the range of 200,000-250,000 tons of copper at peak production, a meaningful contribution at a time when global copper is projected to rise more than 40% by 2040 under energy transition scenarios.

Moreover, Pakistan has extensive mineral resources that extend beyond its currently discovered deposits. Pakistan possesses substantial coal reserves, located in Sindh, Punjab and Balochistan, 186 billion metric tonnes and copper reserves, with estimates placing the overall value of its mineral wealth at approximately . The US needs this resource potential as it seeks to diversify supply networks amid the growing demand for electrification and advances in military technology.

Washington has noticed. The Export-Import Bank of the US has support for mineral-sector financing in Pakistan, reportedly backing projects valued at around $1.25 billion. Pakistan, for its part, is actively seeking foreign direct investment to stabilize its economy and unlock its extractive potential.��

Compared to heavily regulated Western jurisdictions, where mine permitting and environmental review can beyond seven to ten years and sometimes longer, Pakistan offers the possibility of faster development timelines and lower extraction costs, provided security and governance conditions stabilize. Geographically, access to the Arabian Sea enhances the appeal. Proximity to major maritime lanes the Middle East, Africa and Asia creates export optionality. Pakistan is not yet central to US mineral strategy. But it is no longer peripheral.

China’s economic presence in Pakistan is institutionalized through the , including development at , often described as a strategic maritime node connecting western China to the Arabian Sea. Yet Beijing’s mineral security rests less on Pakistan specifically than on its dominance over global midstream and downstream processing. China’s leverage derives from refining capacity and industrial integration, not reliance on any single upstream supplier.

Therefore, Pakistan’s mineral reserves hold comparatively greater diversification value for Washington than for Beijing. For the US, new upstream access reduces concentration risk. For China, it supplements an already integrated ecosystem. Yet the promise of mineral wealth cannot be assessed without confronting the security conditions that define Balochistan’s operating environment.

Security constraints and investment risk

Balochistan has long experienced insurgent violence. The Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), by the US State Department as a Foreign Terrorist Organization, has targeted infrastructure and foreign personnel. High-profile attacks on Chinese projects illustrate the vulnerability of large-scale investment in the province. Beyond localized insurgency, Pakistan’s western frontier remains unsettled. Islamabad that elements of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) are operating from Afghan territory, straining bilateral relations. Persistent cross-border militancy increases insurance costs, complicates logistics and erodes investor confidence.

Islamabad has responded by a dedicated Frontier Corps formation tasked with protecting mineral installations and strengthening border security along the Iran and Afghanistan frontiers. The initiative reflects recognition in Pakistan’s security establishment that economic corridors and extractive projects require hardened protection to remain commercially viable.

For American firms, the issue is practical. Mining requires secure transport corridors, predictable regulatory enforcement and reliable export routes. If disruption becomes chronic, even if episodic in intensity, capital will gravitate toward jurisdictions with lower political risk — regardless of higher operational cost. Diversification carries its own exposure profile.

A further complication lies in the evolving regional security matrix. Pakistan’s leadership increasingly frames instability in Balochistan and along the western frontier as being exacerbated by an emerging , suggesting that regional rivalries intersect with militant safe havens in ways that sustain pressure on Pakistan’s southwestern corridor. India such allegations. Afghanistan’s internal political fragmentation adds ambiguity. Yet perception itself influences strategic behavior.

Strategic tradeoffs in diversification and regional connectivity

From Washington’s perspective, attribution may be contested, but impact is measurable. If persistent proxy dynamics, whether state-sponsored or opportunistic, sustain insecurity in mineral-rich corridors, US diversification efforts could face structural constraints. Political risk perception alone can redirect capital flows. In geopolitics, instability need not be formally coordinated to be strategically consequential.

Beyond extraction lies connectivity. Central Asian states seeking to reduce transit dependence on Russia view southern corridors through Afghanistan toward Pakistani ports as potential alternatives. But connectivity presupposes security. If Afghanistan remains permissive terrain for transnational militancy, confidence in infrastructure erodes. Cross-border instability undermines corridor reliability, complicates energy diversification and constrains regional integration.

Preventing Afghanistan from functioning as a hub of destabilization is therefore not solely a counterterrorism objective — it is an economic prerequisite for broader Eurasian diversification strategies. The policy question becomes unavoidable: Will the US allow sustained regional instability to obstruct or stigmatize potential access to Pakistan’s critical minerals?

Washington is expanding domestic production, strengthening allied supply chains, investing in recycling technologies and pursuing substitution strategies. Yet full self-sufficiency remains distant. Import dependence in key categories persists. Pakistan sits within this diversification portfolio as a prospective contributor, not yet indispensable. But diversification away from China cannot be entirely risk-free. Engaging fragile environments is sometimes the price of reducing structural dependency elsewhere. If Washington avoids exposure in volatile regions entirely, concentration risk persists. If it engages more deeply, it must accept calibrated political and security exposure. That is the strategic tradeoff.

Pakistan’s mineral frontier remains a strategic possibility rather than a strategic necessity. Its evolution will depend on whether security stabilizes long enough for sustained investment to take root. Geology does not dictate strategic value. Governance and stability do. In an era defined by supply-chain leverage, today’s marginal option can become tomorrow’s hinge point. Whether Pakistan becomes that hinge will depend less on rhetoric and more on whether instability from insurgency, cross-border militancy, or proxy competition can be contained. Diversification is not about perfect partners. It is about managing imperfect realities. The question for Washington is no longer whether risk exists. It is how much risk it is prepared to absorb to reduce dependence elsewhere and whether strategic hesitation will entrench the very concentration it seeks to escape.

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Nationalism, strategy and electoral muscle

Chambers describes the vote as “a landslide victory for the forces of the right,” marking a sharp setback for progressive reformists. Early polling had favored the social democratic People’s Party, successor to the dissolved Move Forward and Future Forward parties. Yet a convergence of political forces shifts the outcome.

A border clash between Thailand and Cambodia in July 2025, which resulted in Thai casualties, fuels nationalist sentiment. A leaked phone call between then-Prime Minister Paetongtarn Shinawatra and former Cambodian strongman Hun Sen, in which she spoke negatively about the Thai army, further intensifies public anger. Chambers argues that Anutin capitalized on the moment and used “nationalism to glide towards a victory.”

But nationalism alone does not explain the result. Chambers points to allegations of vote buying in several provinces, coordination among conservative parties to avoid splitting the vote and the strategic use of local power brokers. Bhumjaithai also benefits from access to bureaucratic networks while in office, helping channel resources through provincial structures. Legal and questionable tactics combine to produce a commanding win.

Urban–rural divide, not an ideological earthquake

The election reveals a stark geographic split. The People’s Party wins every district in Thailand’s capital of Bangkok and nearly all seats in the northern city of Chiang Mai. Rural provinces, particularly those near the Cambodian border, tilt heavily toward Anutin.

This pattern seems to reflect structural differences rather than a sweeping ideological realignment. Urban voters gravitate toward progressive platforms, while rural constituencies respond more strongly to nationalism and patronage networks. Chambers does not see the result as evidence of a permanent conservative turn, however. Instead, he calls it the “temper of the times,” shaped by border tensions and political mood.

He also criticizes the People’s Party’s internal weaknesses. Compared to its predecessors, it fails to organize effectively at the grassroots level and struggles to resonate beyond urban centers. The loss, then, stems not only from repression or manipulation but from strategic shortcomings within the reform movement itself.

Monarchy, military and managed democracy

The structure of Thai power serves as a major talking point. Chambers explains that King Rama X, the king of Thailand, stands above politics and democracy. He says Thailand operates through a partnership between the monarchy and the military, with the armed forces acting as guardian and junior partner.

The Senate, appointed rather than elected under the 2017 constitution, plays a decisive role in selecting the prime minister alongside the lower house. Parliament functions, but within strict boundaries. The lower chamber can debate budgets and investigate issues, yet it operates under the shadow of potential military intervention. Any serious challenge to royal prerogatives risks triggering a coup.

This framework shapes electoral politics. Even when progressive parties perform well, institutional levers remain firmly in conservative hands. Courts, oversight bodies and security forces collectively reinforce elite dominance.

Section 112 and the cost of dissent

The discussion turns personal when Chambers recounts his own prosecution under Section 112 of Thailand’s criminal code, the lèse-majesté law. The statute prohibits insulting the monarchy and carries severe penalties. He describes it as “a very ambiguous law,” one that allows broad interpretation and political weaponization.

In April 2025, Chambers was sentenced to 15 years in prison over a conference flyer stating that the king holds more power than the prime minister. Although he did not write or post the material, his name appears in connection with the event. He spent two nights in a rural prison before being released on bail. Charges were eventually dropped by the attorney general, but immigration authorities retained his passport until he boarded a flight out of Bangkok. “Yes, I had to flee,” he tells Khattar Singh.

His case is not isolated. More than 280 individuals face Section 112-related cases. Anti-monarchy protests between 2020 and 2023 drew thousands of young demonstrators. The state responds not only with arrests but with subtler tactics: visits to families, legal pressure and selective prosecutions. Prominent activist Arnon Nampa remains imprisoned. Such measures weaken the reform movement incrementally rather than through dramatic mass repression.

Constitutional reform at a crossroads

Alongside the election, voters support a referendum to begin drafting a new constitution to replace the military-backed 2017 charter. Reformers hope to curtail the appointed Senate’s power and restore a more democratic framework akin to the 1997 constitution.

Yet the path forward is steep. Three separate referendums are required to amend the charter. Chambers doubts the new government will push aggressively for further votes. With a fresh electoral mandate, Anutin can argue that voters have rejected sweeping change.

Meanwhile, judicial pressure intensifies. The National Anti-Corruption Commission forwards a case against 44 People’s Party members to the Supreme Court. If upheld, the ruling could strip them of political rights and potentially dissolve the party altogether. Chambers sees this as part of a broader strategy to erode progressive reformism bit by bit.

Thailand’s election thus reflects more than a partisan shift. It exposes the tension between popular demands for democratic change and a resilient alliance of monarchy, military and judiciary. Whether reformers can overcome institutional barriers or whether conservative dominance hardens further will shape the country’s political future and reverberate across Southeast Asia.

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Tariffs in a crowded Indo-Pacific market

The 18% tariff rate is only marginally lower than those applied to other Indo-Pacific exporters. Vietnam faces tariffs of approximately 20%, Bangladesh around 19%, while Japan and South Korea are subject to rates closer to 15%. China, despite being framed as Washington’s principal geopolitical competitor, currently faces a nominal reciprocal tariff rate of about 10%. Additional sanctions and trade restrictions, however, are likely to raise China’s effective tariff burden to around 30%. In practical terms, India’s advantage over many competitors may amount to only two to three percentage points in several sectors. This margin is frequently absorbed by structural cost differences rather than translating into sustained competitiveness.

In the apparel sector, at roughly $120 billion annually in US imports, India exports about $9 billion, accounting for approximately 7% of the market. Vietnam exports over $22 billion, Bangladesh around $11 billion and China, despite tariff pressures, continues to ship more than $25 billion. Operating margins in apparel typically range between 3% and 6%, meaning that a modest tariff differential is often outweighed by Bangladesh’s labor cost advantages and Vietnam’s scale efficiencies and faster production cycles.

Electronics and electrical machinery an even starker contrast. US imports in this category exceed $500 billion annually, yet India’s exports remain relatively small, at an estimated $11–13 billion. Vietnam exports more than $43 billion in electronics to the US market, while China’s shipments remain above $120 billion despite diversification efforts. These disparities reflect deeper structural factors, including component ecosystems, logistics integration and supply-chain reliability — areas where tariff relief alone offers limited leverage.

Pharmaceuticals are frequently cited as a comparative strength for India. The US more than $230 billion worth of pharmaceutical products annually, and Indian firms supply roughly $13 billion in finished formulations and active pharmaceutical ingredients, accounting for nearly 40% of US generic prescriptions by volume.

Historically, tariffs in this sector were minimal, but since October 2025, the US a 100% tariff on branded and patented drugs to incentivize domestic manufacturing. The trade deal leaves these measures unchanged, limiting its relevance for Indian pharmaceutical exporters. In this sector, competitiveness is shaped more by regulatory approvals, intellectual property regimes and compliance costs than by customs duties.

Indian goods exports to the US total approximately $86 billion annually. Even an optimistic export expansion of 6–8% under improved tariff certainty would generate only $5–7 billion in additional exports. After accounting for imported inputs, exchange-rate effects and trade elasticity, the net impact on India’s GDP is estimated at around 0.15–0.3%. For an economy approaching $4 trillion, the gain is measurable but far from transformative.

Oil diplomacy and the cost of alignment

Parallel to trade discussions, political attention has focused on of Russian crude oil. India imports roughly 5.2 million barrels of oil per day, amounting to nearly 1.9 billion barrels annually. In recent years, approximately 35% of these imports have come from Russia.

Russian Urals crude has typically at a discount of about $8–10 per barrel relative to Brent benchmarks. At an average discount of $8, India’s annual savings on roughly 550–600 million barrels could approach $5 billion, rising toward $6 billion when discounts widen. Replacing these volumes entirely with North American crude oil, relative to the West Texas Intermediate (WTI) benchmark, would eliminate this discount. This could potentially increase India’s import bill by $4–6 billion each year. Additional freight and insurance costs associated with Atlantic routes could increase expenses by a further $0.5–1.5 billion annually. Moreover, refineries optimized for medium-sour Urals blends may require technical adjustments, entailing capital expenditure and temporarily reduced refining margins. These costs are comparable to the projected export gains from tariff relief.

Concerns are further amplified by indications that India may reduce or eliminate tariffs on a wide range of US industrial and agricultural goods. The US currently around $40 billion worth of goods to India each year, including aircraft, advanced machinery, medical devices, chemicals, energy products and agricultural commodities. Significant tariff reductions would likely benefit US capital goods manufacturers, which operate at larger scales and with higher automation intensity.

In agriculture, US producers of corn, soybeans, dairy and processed foods combine high productivity with extensive federal support mechanisms. Increased access to the Indian market could exert downward pressure on domestic prices in sensitive categories, affecting millions of smallholder farmers whose margins are already thin. With agriculture more than 46% of India’s workforce, the distributional consequences could be substantial, even if consumers see modest price declines.

Benefit first, pressure last

The broader policy environment also warrants consideration. US trade policy in recent years has been marked by volatility, with tariffs imposed, suspended and recalibrated in rapid succession. Any tariff advantage secured today could be eroded if Washington extends similar concessions to competing Asian exporters or introduces new measures in response to domestic political cycles. As a result, projected export gains remain inherently uncertain.

Taken together, the agreement offers India limited but tangible economic benefits while exposing it to potentially higher energy costs and intensified domestic competition. At the Munich Security Conference in February 2026, External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar that India’s decisions would be guided by calculations of economic interest and national priorities rather than external pressure. The durability of that principle may ultimately determine whether the trade deal proves advantageous beyond its headline figures.

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Rohan Khattar Singh, 51�Թ�’s Video Producer & Social Media Manager, speaks with Kuber Chalise, a journalist for Nepal Khabar, about the election that has upended Nepal’s political order. At the center of the discussion is the rise of Balen Shah, a 35-year-old engineer, former rapper and former mayor of Kathmandu, who has become prime minister after the Rashtriya Swatantra Party’s sweeping victory. Khattar Singh and Chalise explore why traditional parties collapsed so quickly, why young voters turned so sharply against the old guard and why Nepal’s new leaders now face a harder test in government than they did at the ballot box.

A revolt against the old parties

Chalise presents the result as a long time coming. Nepal’s established parties, including the Nepali Congress and major communist factions, lost public trust over years of corruption, nepotism and poor governance. These parties had once expanded rights and shaped the post-monarchy political system, but they failed to adapt after the 2015 constitution.

That failure created a widening gap between political elites and the public, especially younger voters. Chalise says the old parties behaved as though politics could continue as usual even after their original mission had ended. Public frustration deepened over stagnant leadership, weak performance and a closed political class dominated by insiders.

Khattar Singh places the election in the context of the September 2025 Generation Z protests, which erupted over these frustrations and forced the resignation of then-Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli. Despite the unrest, the subsequent vote was peaceful. Chalise calls the election’s conduct “a miracle,” given the violence that preceded it.

The scale of the political shift

The results show how decisively voters turned away from the traditional order. Chalise explains that the Rashtriya Swatantra Party (RSP) dominated the lower-house contest and is expected to hold 182 of 275 seats. By contrast, the Nepali Congress fell sharply. The Communist Party of Nepal (Unified Marxist–Leninist), led by Oli, and the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Centre), associated with former Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal (or Prachanda), were reduced to minor roles.

For Chalise, the message is clear. The public has handed the RSP a workable majority and the chance to govern for five years, but not a mandate to rewrite the constitution. Because the party lacks upper-house representation, it cannot change the constitutional framework alone.

The result also breaks a longstanding assumption that no single party could secure a stable majority. Khattar Singh notes that Nepal has seen 32 governments in 35 years. Still, Chalise warns that a majority alone is not enough. The real question, he suggests, is majority versus maturity.

Why Shah rose so fast

The discussion then turns to Shah. His rise began with his victory as mayor of Kathmandu, which gave voters a chance to judge his performance. His reputation rests largely on contrast. In a system associated with financial scandals, Shah emerged without a personal corruption case.

That clean image becomes his main political asset. Chalise describes it as Shah’s “USP,” the unique selling point that distinguished him from many local leaders facing corruption allegations. He also notes Shah’s unusual style. Unlike many senior leaders, Shah speaks sparingly. Chalise calls him “a very mysterious character,” and Khattar Singh notes that this unpredictability can appear both as strength and weakness.

The youth dimension is equally important. Chalise argues that for decades, Nepal’s young people drove political movements but were sidelined once power was distributed. This election reflects a democratic revolt against that pattern, with younger voters choosing to take power through the ballot.

A party with power but no identity

Even after its landslide, the RSP remains politically unsettled. Chalise says the party lacks a clear ideological identity and has not yet held its first convention. Its elected members come from varied backgrounds, including democrats, leftists and some with monarchist leanings.

Its appeal rests on delivery rather than doctrine. Khattar Singh suggests that voters increasingly prioritize jobs, prosperity and competence over ideology. Chalise agrees, noting that the party’s commitment paper points toward liberal economic instincts and a role for the private sector, though he stops short of calling it ideologically defined.

That ambiguity creates risk. If the new government performs, it may dominate Nepal for years. If it fails, support could collapse quickly. From a political science perspective, Chalise says, the RSP is “not yet a party.” It must evolve while governing.

The real test starts now

The conversation concludes with the challenge ahead. Khattar Singh points to Nepal’s difficult geography, limited state capacity and dependence on India and China for trade and energy. Nepal cannot insulate itself from regional instability or global shocks.

Chalise agrees that foreign policy may prove decisive. Nepal’s next government must navigate shifting regional dynamics and domestic expectations simultaneously. Shah’s nationalist symbolism, including the “Greater Nepal” map seen in his office, adds uncertainty. Chalise returns to the same point: Shah is unpredictable, and whether that becomes an asset or liability depends on how he governs.

For now, voters have rejected the old political class and chosen youth, anti-corruption politics and the promise of delivery. But protest energy and electoral success are only the beginning. The real test starts with governing.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article/video are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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For many watching around the world, it was the first time they had heard Manipur described so plainly — not through the lens of conflict bulletins or political briefings, but through the voice of an artist simply asking to be seen.

But what exactly is happening in Manipur, and why has this small state in India’s Northeast — along with the wider region — long been described as neglected and underrepresented? And, crucially, what can be done to solve this problem?

For the past few years, Manipur has been torn apart by communal violence between the Meitei and Kuki ethnic groups, with hundreds of deaths and around 60,000 . Despite the scale of the situation, Prime Minister Narendra Modi only visited the state two years later, a move that has been sharply criticized. The leaders of the opposition Congress party his visit as a “farce” and argued that he should have visited much sooner.

The government has also been criticized by human rights groups, such as . which has claimed inaction on the part of the authorities in Manipur.��The government did implement Presidential Rule in the state, and the Parliament voted on a resolution to it further, but many felt this was too little and too late.

So, why wasn’t more done for Manipur? Most importantly, why do people in India’s North-Eastern states continue to feel neglected by the centre?

A structural imbalance at the heart of Parliament

This sense of neglect is not new. India’s Northeastern states, home to numerous Indigenous communities, have long felt sidelined by New Delhi, both politically and culturally. Addressing this requires more than reactive governance; it calls for institutional reform that ensures regions have a meaningful voice in national decision-making.

India has a two-house Parliament: the Lok Sabha (House of the People) and the Rajya Sabha (Upper House/Council of States). One of the most practical and impactful reforms lies in rethinking the Rajya Sabha.

Currently, representation in both the Lok Sabha and the Rajya Sabha is based on population. While this method works for the Lok Sabha, which is meant to reflect the will of the people, it limits the Rajya Sabha’s ability to represent the states equally.

As a result, large states dominate both houses of Parliament, leaving smaller states, especially those in the Northeast, with limited influence. 

What the Upper House was meant to be

In the Lok Sabha, larger states naturally have more members, while smaller states have fewer. For example, Uttar Pradesh has to reflect its large population, while northeastern states like Meghalaya and Manipur with much smaller populations, have only two seats each. This is fair, as the Lok Sabha is supposed to be proportional.

The Rajya Sabha, or Upper House, on the other hand, is supposed to represent the states. This should act as a countermajoritarian body that gives equal representation to each state so they can have a voice in government. However, here too, the number of seats depends on the population. This means that bigger states end up with far more representation than smaller ones. Uttar Pradesh holds 31 seats in the Rajya Sabha. In contrast, the small Northeastern states such as Manipur, Nagaland and Meghalaya each have only one seat. Large states dominate both houses of Parliament, leaving smaller states, such as those in the Northeast, with very little influence in national decision-making.

A reformed Rajya Sabha could create more balance. India could adopt a system where each state is guaranteed a minimum level of equal representation, similar to models seen in other federal systems. 

What India can learn from other federal systems

In the US, every state has equal representation in the regardless of population. This means that California, with a population of nearly 39 million, has the same number of Senators as Wyoming, with just 600,000 people. The purpose of this system is to balance the voices of both large and small states, ensuring that no region feels neglected or overshadowed.��

Similarly, the EU balances representation through a dual-threshold system. Each member state has equal representation in the Council of the European Union, which operates similarly to the Upper House of the legislature. A “” process is used for many important decisions, where a proposal needs the support of 55% of EU member states representing at least 65% of the population. This prevents big states from dominating, but also stops a few small states from blocking decisions on their own.

Reimaging representation in India

India could apply a similar idea. Instead of allocating seats purely by population, each state could be guaranteed an equal base number of seats in the Rajya Sabha and major votes could require two thresholds. For example, the support of at least half of all states and representing at least half of India’s population. 

Such reforms would increase the influence of smaller states in national decisions. But, more importantly, equal representation in the Rajya Sabha would force politicians to take smaller states seriously because neglecting them would carry a real political cost. Today, the situation is very different.

Take Manipur, for instance. It currently has only two seats in the Lok Sabha and one in the Rajya Sabha, a pattern found across much of the Northeast. With such limited numbers, their voices are easily drowned out by larger states. 

This creates a dangerous imbalance. Major political parties and lawmakers have little incentive to prioritize the concerns of small states, because focusing on bigger states with more seats simply offers greater political rewards. Hence, regions like the Northeast are often overlooked.

Ensuring every region counts

If every state had equal representation in the Upper House, this dynamic would change dramatically. National parties would no longer focus primarily on larger states for electoral gains, as smaller states would also carry a great weight in the legislative process. Neglect would no longer be consequence-free.

Equal representation in the Rajya Sabha would not only strengthen democracy but also ensure that no part of the country is treated as an afterthought. It would ensure that democracy in India does not simply mean “rule of the majority,” but a system where every region matters equally — whether it’s the political powerhouse of Uttar Pradesh or a small Northeastern state like Manipur.

When politicians know they cannot afford to neglect Manipur — or any state — then real change will follow.

[ edited this piece]

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Khattar Singh and Barfield examine deeper structural forces shaping the conflict, including Pashtun identity, contested borders and regional rivalries. Together, Barfield and Khattar Singh explore whether Pakistan now faces a prolonged insurgency rooted in choices it helped create.

The Taliban victory and Pakistan’s strategic miscalculation

Barfield explains that the escalation stems largely from the Taliban’s relationship with the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, an insurgent movement targeting the Pakistani capital of Islamabad. The Taliban, he notes, see the group as ideological and ethnic allies, which complicates Pakistan’s expectations of cooperation. “They see them as brothers in arms,” Barfield says, emphasizing the shared Pashtun identity that transcends state boundaries.

This dynamic represents a reversal of Pakistan’s earlier strategy. For decades, Islamabad supported the Taliban to secure influence in the Afghan capital of Kabul and limit Indian involvement in Afghanistan. Yet once the Taliban gained power in 2021, they no longer depended on Pakistan. According to Barfield, the Taliban “made good clients as long as they needed Pakistan,” but independence allowed them to revert to longstanding Afghan positions. These included rejecting the Durand Line and tolerating anti-Pakistan militants.

As a result, Pakistan achieved its objective of a Taliban-led Afghanistan, only to discover that the new government does not share Islamabad’s priorities. Instead, ethnic solidarity and historical grievances now outweigh past patronage, leaving Pakistan confronted by insurgent violence emanating from territory once expected to be friendly.

The Durand Line and Pashtunistan

A central theme of the conversation is the Durand Line, the 1893 boundary drawn between British India and Afghanistan. Barfield stresses that every Afghan government, regardless of ideology, has refused to recognize the border as legitimate. The dispute persists because the line divides Pashtun communities, many of whom maintain cross-border family ties and social networks.

For Barfield, the issue is both historical and emotional. Peshawar, once linked to Afghan political life, is a symbolic loss. Barfield notes that it remains “a phantom limb” in Afghan memory. Territorial divisions imposed during colonial rule continue to shape modern politics.

The Pashtun dimension complicates any settlement. While Afghanistan includes multiple ethnic groups, Pashtuns have historically dominated political leadership, ensuring that cross-border identity remains central to national policy. Barfield suggests that governments led by Tajiks or Uzbeks might have been more open to compromise, but the Taliban’s overwhelmingly Pashtun composition reinforces resistance to recognizing the border. The dispute therefore persists as a reflection of enduring ethnic solidarity.

Pakistan’s military dilemma

Khattar Singh presses Barfield on whether Pakistan might escalate to a ground offensive. Barfield argues that Islamabad faces a strategic trap. Conventional military superiority offers limited advantage against insurgent tactics, particularly in terrain historically resistant to external control. “Fighting an insurgency, as the Americans saw, is expensive and long-term,” he observes, highlighting lessons from previous conflicts in Afghanistan.

Even if Pakistan could seize major cities, the challenge of governance would remain unresolved. Barfield notes that Pakistan lacks a clear alternative leadership in Afghanistan and risks becoming entangled in another prolonged conflict. At the same time, Islamabad faces domestic instability, tensions with Iran and broader regional pressures, creating what Barfield calls a “monsoon season for troubles.”

These constraints limit Pakistan’s options. Airstrikes and border operations may continue, but a decisive solution appears elusive. The Taliban, meanwhile, rely on insurgent warfare and cross-border networks, prolonging instability along the frontier.

India, economics and regional competition

The discussion also turns to India’s role, which Pakistan views with suspicion. Barfield explains that India has historically cultivated ties with Afghanistan and invested in infrastructure projects designed to bypass Pakistan, including routes linking Afghanistan to Iran’s Chabahar port. These initiatives reduced Islamabad’s leverage over Afghan trade and provided Kabul with alternative partnerships.

Economic realities further complicate the situation. Afghanistan’s economy contracted sharply after the withdrawal of foreign aid, yet the Taliban have sought to maintain governance through taxation and limited revenue sources. Despite financial constraints, the movement continues to assert sovereignty and pursue diplomatic engagement with multiple regional actors, including India.

Barfield concludes that Afghanistan is returning to familiar geopolitical patterns: balancing regional powers while resisting external control. Pakistan’s attempt to shape Afghan politics through proxy influence has instead empowered a neighbor that pursues its own interests. The Durand Line conflict reflects deeper structural forces that are unlikely to disappear quickly. The Afghanistan–Pakistan frontier thus remains a volatile flashpoint, where historical grievances, ethnic politics and strategic miscalculations converge, raising the risk of a prolonged and destabilizing confrontation.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article/video are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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Khonoma is a village of Angami Nagas. The Angamis are a major Naga ethnic group who were the first of the Nagas to come into contact with the British. The Angamis are known for building terraced fields on hill slopes. Like most of Nagaland, most of them are now Christians, the vast majority now belonging to the American Baptist Church.

What I found remarkable, reading Charles’s book, is the success of Khonoma’s reconciliation process among clans and families in the village. Conflict began within the village with the British occupation of Nagaland and the subsequent handover to the Government of India in 1947. Some clans and families accepted British and Indian rule, started working with or in the state apparatus, while others resisted or rebelled. 

Nagas had obtained a promise from the British that their land would become autonomous, but that promise was lost when the Government of India took over. This caused a divide; some Nagas thought that they needed Indian support before they could create their own state and infrastructure, while others believed they should fight for independence from the start. This divide led to violence that engulfed the village. Fast forward to 2000, and over the course of ten years, the Khonoma Public Commission facilitated face-to-face meetings between perpetrators’ families and victims’ families. The reconciliation process addressed 22 of the killings, decades of blood feuds and deep clan divisions, leading to forgiveness, restitution and renewed unity. We asked Charles Chasie what made this possible.

Roberta Campani: Explain the conflict that happened in Khonoma and why this made the reconciliation process necessary? How did it begin? How did it unfold?

Charles Chasie: Khonoma had long been a warrior village whose clans were bound by codes of honor in which the duty of revenge passed down generations without time limit. This tradition of revenge tore apart the very fabric of the Naga national movement. When Angami Zapu Phizo and Theyiechüthie Sakhrie — both from Khonoma, both believers in Naga sovereignty — fell out over means rather than ends, the village found itself at the epicenter of a conflict that was at once political and intensely personal. When Sakhrie was abducted and killed in January 1956, this became the first fratricidal killing of leaders in the Naga national movement history, triggering ancient instincts and splitting the Khonoma into armed camps along clan and khel (cluster of clans) lines.

What followed were years of mutual siege, displacement and accumulating grief. The Indian Army burned Khonoma to the ground more than once. Those who went underground starved in the forests, and those who remained behind faced blockade and harassment. When the fighting subsided, the four khels did not return together but settled in separate locations, living effectively as four villages for nearly a decade. The wounds did not heal with time. It was only when a younger generation, tired of having their elders remind them of hatreds they had not chosen, asked to be given their future back, that the village resolved to face what it had buried.

Roberta Campani: What triggered Khonoma’s need for reconciliation after such a long and bloody conflict?

Charles Chasie: The immediate trigger for reconciliation in Khonoma was a request made by the young men of the village asking the elders to “Give us our future.” In the wake of the Naga National Movement — as the struggle for autonomy/independence from India came to be known — and the resulting division, many intra-village killings had taken place, which continued to poison the life of the village over many decades. Every time the young people wanted to do things together as fellow villagers, they were reminded of old enmities. 

Over time, the young became fed up with this continued bitterness and wanted the elders to heal these divisions. The village elders felt they could not ignore such a request from the younger generations. This led to a three-day seminar on the theme Healing the Soul of Khonoma. This seminar enabled the participants to take a frank look at where the village stood. The areas of division were drawn up, and the young men wrote to the village authorities to help heal these divisions. The authorities set up the Khonoma Public Commission (KPC) to go into each of these divisions with the objective of achieving healing and reconciliation through forgiveness so that the future of the village could be secured.

Roberta Campani: The KPC took on 22 cases of killings, plus numerous other instances of social divisions. What surprised you most about how people responded when they finally sat face-to-face after decades of enmity? Can you describe the process and the reconciliation sessions?

Charles Chasie: We, the members of the KPC, were representing our individual clans as well. We sat down with our clansmen who had either committed or suffered wrongs to hear their stories. In each case of wrongdoing, KPC members would examine the past with the involvement of clan members themselves. In other words, KPC members who met a victim’s family included those who were from the victim’s clan. Likewise, those meeting a perpetrator’s family included KPC members representing the perpetrator’s clan.

The NPC reviewed each case thoroughly, examining the background, the details of the events and the legacy passed down. Where actual perpetrators or victims were no longer alive — in some cases, about half a century had elapsed since the events — the stories relied on the testimonies of women and elders who knew what had happened in the past. In each case, the story would be reviewed minutely with the family concerned. Only with their readiness and full consent would the case be taken to the next step.

The KPC also met and reviewed each case to see if the stories from the two opposing families found commonality. In the event of common ground, expression of genuine sorrow and readiness to forgive, the KPC would proceed to set up meetings of the concerned families for reconciliation. Usually, the KPC would facilitate meetings in the family home of the victim. We prayed together before kicking off such meetings.

When families of victims and perpetrators met, each would tell their side of the story. Often, such a retelling was not necessary, as the KPC members would have informed each party of the other side’s story, and an expression of sorrow was enough. The perpetrator’s family would ask for forgiveness and the victim’s family, in turn, would pronounce forgiveness. The two families would then have a cup of tea together, which symbolized a full and proper reconciliation. In Khnoma’s social code, partaking of food or drinks together for the two families was taboo because of the family feud. A cup of tea in this context means much more than mere tea. In fact, it is an outcome of a peace process and symbolizes the end of a simmering feud.

At such meetings, both families signed a simple written agreement that was drafted by the KPC, declaring an end to the feud and a promise not to raise the issue again. KPC members representing both families/clans would vouch for their family/clan members and bring closure to the feud. Traditionally, one’s word was enough in Naga society. The KPC took the extra step of a written agreement to ensure the peace settlement was binding. We would end the meeting with another prayer together, asking God’s blessings for one another.

The process usually took many meetings, both at the family/clan levels and at the KPC level. Sometimes, the process took several years, especially when the concerned perpetrators/victims were dead and the fog of time had made their stories unclear. Yet what usually stood out in our reconciliation process was that everyone demonstrated goodwill. Once people sat face-to-face, there were usually no surprises, and the final formal act of reconciliation took place smoothly. They usually shook hands. Where those reconciling were Christians, they sometimes exchanged the Bible as well.

The experience was different for each reconciliation. For me, the genuine act of contrition and the deep desire of each family to leave behind a legacy of peace stood out, especially given the fact that these families had done unspeakable things to one another in the past. It took them tremendous courage to squarely confront past facts and painstakingly examine them to ensure a better future freed from the toxic legacies of bygone feuds.

Roberta Campani: You write about how the traditions of Khonoma Village made it almost impossible to reconcile issues such as clan feuds. But you mention other traditions that were helpful and how the KPC drew on these to begin the reconciliation process. What were some of these customs and traditions?

Charles Chasie: Although killings and clan feuds were never reconciled because vengeance was considered a filial duty, the notion of reconciliation always existed in Khonoma. As a community-based society, people in Khonoma practiced forgiveness in daily life. 

In Khonoma, social ostracism instead of laws or the police is the main way norms are enforced. The of being excluded from social, economic and civic life is very real. In the past, such was the high level of trust among the Angami Nagas of Khonoma that homes had no locks on doors, the village had no jails and family granaries were often outside village precincts because there was no fear of theft.

The Angamis lived for their progeny and future generations. The family tree was key, and people did what they could to keep that tree healthy. Angamis would inherit their home and fields from their father, but these were to be held in trust for future generations. The Angamis could not sell them. Villagers could use their homes and fields to make a living and feed their families. There was an expectation from Angami villagers to improve both their homes and their fields for the benefit of their inheritors. This sense of immovable multigenerational property not only gave Khonoma Angamis a sense of belonging but also identity. This strong sense of identity and community made reconciliation possible.

Furthermore, Khonoma Angamis are devout Christians, and religion forms the warp and woof of life. Villagers say the on a daily basis, in which they ask God to forgive their trespasses and promise to “forgive them that trespass against us.” This facilitated reconciliation as well.

In addition to their Christian faith, pre-Christian beliefs helped with reconciliation, too. Khonoma Angamis believe in life after death. Per tradition, those who live a good life are rewarded by becoming shining stars in the night sky. Living a good life has great rewards in the afterlife. So, forgiveness and reconciliation are good deeds. 

In a nutshell, a strong sense of community, the Christian faith and traditional beliefs all helped Khonoma Angamis achieve reconciliation. 

Roberta Campani: Traditional Angami culture required blood vengeance: “life for life” with no time limit. Yet Khonoma villagers broke this cycle. Did Christianity help in breaking this cycle of vengeance, which traditionally had been held to be a sacred duty?

Charles Chasie: It is true that traditionally, vengeance was considered sacred and a filial duty that was passed down the generations from father to son. British colonials compared the Angami blood feuds to Corsican vendettas or worse. 

[Roberta Campani’s Note: The Corsican vendetta was a deeply entrenched tradition of inter-family and inter-clan blood revenge on the island of Corsica, particularly in the 18th and 19th centuries. A killing obligated the victim’s family to kill in return, which would then oblige the other family to do the same, and so on. These cycles could persist for generations and devastate entire communities. The Corsican tradition became so notorious across Europe that the word “vendetta” (originally just the Italian/Corsican word for “revenge”) became synonymous in English with this specific kind of prolonged, hereditary blood feud. By the 19th century, it was a stock reference in European writing — Prosper Mérimée wrote about it and so did Alexandre Dumas — so very much part of the cultural vocabulary of British colonial officers.]

However, it is important to note that reconciliation did exist in Angami culture. It was extremely rare, though, and only occurred after the intervention of a third party, usually after both sides had exhausted themselves! 

As mentioned above, Christianity helped, but so did tradition. At the KPC, we drew on both faith and tradition to end the culture of vendetta.

Roberta Campani: You describe a crucial moment — the village-wide day of silence in August 2004, when even the animals seemed to fall quiet. What shift did that silence cause among the people of Khonoma that made reconciliation possible?

Charles Chasie: “Speak Lord, for Thy Servant Heareth” is the prayer of Samuel in the Bible. There is a certain quality to prayerful, or even reflective, silence that only practitioners understand. Explanations cannot capture the effect of reflective silence to those who do not cultivate the practice. 

In August 2004, we observed a day of silence, and it had a profound effect. “Even the animals seemed to sense something solemn was happening and had fallen quiet,” said one villager after another. 

There were cases of individuals being moved by the silence to put things right in their own lives, things that did not necessarily fall within the mandate of the KPC. For some, it was just a period of quiet repose and nothing more. For others, it was a time to renew their faith. People did not work in the fields, did not talk to strangers and spent time in communion with God. But what seemed clear was that this collective silence set a certain mood in the community, creating an openness where people were willing to do what was right instead of trying to find excuses or justifications for past actions. 

The apology of Sebi Dolie, the eldest son of the Dolie Clain, is a case in point. 

Roberta Campani: Tell us more about Sebi Dolie, an 88-year-old, nearly blind man taking moral responsibility for his clan’s role in the assassination of the legendary leader Theyiechuthie Sakhrie. Sebi’s apology on behalf of his clan was pivotal. What enabled him to do what political leaders often refuse to do?

Charles Chasie: Sebi Dolie’s time of quiet has already been described in the book, Healing the Soul of Khonoma, in his own words. On the morning of the period of silence, Sebi later told a younger friend, when he got up and opened his door, he noticed “the silence and the absence of the pigs, chicken, dogs, etc., usually scavenging for any eatables lying around. He felt goose bumps and his hair standing on end, and he thought God had surely come down to our village today.” With this thought, Sebi went to the nearby church to pray and reflect. He also decided to rededicate his life to God.

The relationship between Sebi’s clan, called Dolie, and the Sakhrie clan had become estranged ever since Theyiechuthie Sakhrie, or T. Sakhrie, was assassinated in January 1956. T. Sakhrie was the general secretary of the Naga National Council (NNC) while Phizo of Dolie clan was the president. The NNC fought for Naga self-determination. Sakhrie was widely acknowledged as the ideologue of the movement, while Phizo was the charismatic figure who managed to establish direct emotional touch with the people. 

Sadly, their beliefs in the means to achieve the Naga goal differed. Sakhrie was a staunch believer in nonviolence, while Phizo was more focused on keeping up the momentum of the Naga struggle by using arms to fight. At a meeting in the village, Phizo described Sakhrie as a hurdle to the Naga goal. Sebi, who had witnessed this as a young man, had felt Phizo had gone too far. When Sakhrie was assassinated by unknown gunmen, people recalled Phizo’s words. Phizo, even as the president of the NNC, failed to own his moral responsibility for Sakhrie’s killing. Sakhrie’s clan had already decided to forgive his killers, but the silence from Phizo and the rest of the Dolie clan prevented proper rapprochement between the two clans. 

Now, fifty years later, as the eldest in the Dolie clan, Sebi felt it was his responsibility to set things right. Note that Khonoma also has the institution of the khel, a cluster of clans, and comprises three khels. At a meeting of their khel, Sebi expressed that he would have felt exactly what the Sakhries had felt all this time. He not only apologized but also asked to be told, in friendship, of any unspoken hurts his clan may have caused. Sitting in the same meeting was the eldest person from the Sakhrie clan, who got up and said, “Sebi, I have to shake your hand. We have stopped thinking your side will say anything like this that you have said today.” 

This magnanimous gesture of shaking hands by the two eldest persons from the embittered clans and khels rolled away years of bitterness. Later, when the eldest person from the Sakhrie clan was asked about the incident, he replied, ��پ��ٳܳ���,” meaning that is exactly what happened.

What may need to be mentioned here is that the matter of Sakhrie’s assassination had also led to the first division among the Naga people and in the NNC. The rapprochement in the matter of Sakhrie’s killing, thus, was not only an inter-clan or intra-village matter but had wider ramifications. Later, Khonoma village put up a stone memorial for Sakhrie in the village, which was unveiled by the president of the Naga Hoho, a federation of Naga tribes from four Indian states, namely Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur and Nagaland, and some parts of Myanmar.   

Roberta Campani: You write that reconciliation worked in Khonoma but has failed elsewhere in Nagaland. What specific conditions or particular choices made Khonoma different?

Charles Chasie: There was nothing especially different about Khonoma except the collective determination of villagers to put the past behind them. Some other villages had also tried reconciliation in their own way, but most had failed. What made Khonoma succeed was that villagers completely rooted out the causes of hate and bitterness so that division and vendetta never reappeared again.

Today, Nagas are devout Christians, and Christianity is all about reconciliation between God and man. Sadly, Christians often have an inadequate understanding of reconciliation. One easy example is the saying, “forgive and forget,” which is often used as a mere punchline. By removing contrition and restitution, which are vital parts of reconciliation, this saying thwarts true reconciliation. For that, there has to be genuine forgiving and a clear sense of being forgiven. If somebody is not sorry, where is the point of forgiveness? 

As Nichaloas Frayling has pointed out, such forgiveness is bad theology and does not happen in real life. People can forgive, but they do not forget. Neither are they meant to. Instead, Frayling recommends “forgive and remember” (pardon and peace) so that the same mistake is not repeated.

Also, quite frequently, many who pray to God do little or nothing to further their own prayers. As I pointed out earlier, the Lord’s Prayer says, “forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” If you pray for peace and leave it to God alone, peace will not fall from heaven unless you do your part in putting right the wrong and upholding justice. The difference between Khonoma and other villages is the fact that people here had the courage to face the past and set things right so that future generations will not have to face the same problems again. Thus, a legacy of peace won the day.  

In Khonoma, we experimented with one more step. The people not only reflected upon the mistakes they made, or the wrongs they suffered, but they also reflected on when and how they might have provoked others to do wrongs to them. This exercise in empathy helped the people to walk in the shoes of the other person!   

Roberta Campani: Every conflict feels unique to those who are trapped in it, yet you suggest Khonoma’s experience holds lessons beyond Nagaland. What would you say to communities elsewhere, whether in Northeast India, Myanmar or beyond, who are trapped in cycles of revenge and counter-revenge?

Charles Chasie: True, every conflict is different, as are the cultures of the people who find themselves trapped in various conflicts. This is why we should be very careful about passing quick comments or judgments. But human nature is also the same everywhere. It is only the trappings of modernity or what have you that are different. I must be able to recognize that I have the same abilities to commit the heinous crimes that others have committed. Such realizations should make us humble. For instance, the colonial British came with their canons and ability to kill in great numbers from a distance, behaving as if everything belonged to them. Seeing our spears and daos (machete), they called us “barbaric” because they felt superior.

In the story of the British Empire, colonial forces trampled upon the rights of others and killed large numbers. Our people were killed indiscriminately with no sense of who or what was right or wrong. The of 1879 is a classic example of British oppression. Yet we Nagas have to remember that we have the same human capacity to inflict violence and oppression.

Whether it is Khonoma or Palestine or Ukraine, human suffering is the same. What worked here, I believe, will work elsewhere too. If you are willing to forgive and actually take steps to do so, you may find that your enemy, too, is only human! Sadly, the perspectives we see in the world today are topsy-turvy. People demand respect and subservience from others. The saying that there is enough in the world for everyone’s needs but not for everyone’s greed is almost a cliche, but, unfortunately, too real. It is this lust for revenge, power and greed that we have to avoid.

In the context of reconciliation, Maya Angelou’s message that “history despite its wrenching pain cannot be unlived” is true, but I would add that history faced with courage need not be lived again. This worked for us, the people of Khonoma. I am confident it will work for others, too, who are willing to try it.

I end with a poignant story about a man from Khonoma village, who had decided and even attempted to exact vengeance for his cousin’s killing. After agonizing for many months, he said, “If I can have the courage to kill a man, why can’t I also have the courage to love him enough to make him a different man?” This man then went to his intended victim and asked forgiveness for his bitterness. The two went on to become friends. In a nutshell, attaining the courage to forgive is the challenge for every man of good conscience.

The uniqueness of a grassroots-led reconciliation in Khonoma reconciliation

The Khonoma experience resonates within a broader global tapestry of truth and reconciliation efforts. Similar efforts include South Africa’s landmark Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) under Archbishop Desmond Tutu; Liberia’s post-civil war healing process; Rwanda’s community-based justice system, gacaca; and Colombia’s transitional justice mechanisms. 

Khonoma is unique when it comes to truth and reconciliation efforts because the village relied on a bottom-up, grassroots-led process. In South Africa, the TRC was state-sponsored. Almost all truth and reconciliation have been state-sponsored, even if they have community involvement. Khonoma pioneered a community-driven and a community-led truth and reconciliation process rooted in indigenous social structures. This process relied greatly on both the villagers’ devout Christian faith and intergenerational dialogue.

While national commissions often grapple with political constraints and institutional inertia, Khonoma demonstrates that meaningful reconciliation can emerge organically when ordinary people choose to confront their shared history with honesty and courage. The lessons from Khonoma complement, rather than replace, other frameworks for truth and reconciliation frameworks. In particular, Khonoma offers a model that is replicable in settings where formal institutions are absent or distrusted.

However, for this knowledge to truly serve as a blueprint for others, it must be documented, shared and critically examined alongside similar experiences. We invite other communities — whether in Northeast India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Colombia, Rwanda, banlieues in France, inner cities in the US and elsewhere — to record their own reconciliation journeys. Are there other villages  —  grey zones, suburbs or any other living communities —  that feel stuck in broken cycles of vengeance or violence? What methods worked, and what failures taught hard lessons? By collecting these stories through interviews, oral histories and community archives, we can build a living repository of peacebuilding wisdom that transcends borders and cultures. 

To the readers of this interview: If your community has walked a similar path, we encourage you to share your experience. Your story may be the catalyst another village needs to find its own way out of the shadow of the past. As Charles Chasie reminds us, “history faced with courage need not be lived again” — but this is only possible if we take the time to listen, learn and pass on what we have learned from the past.

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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It is within this unequal monetary landscape that Ankur Bhatnagar and C. Saratchand’s 2025 , Foundations of Money and Banking in India, must be read. On the surface, the book is a comprehensive guide to India’s money and banking institutions. But beneath its careful exposition lies a deeper and more unsettling question: How much monetary sovereignty can a developing economy truly exercise in a dollar-centered world?

Money is not just technical, it is political

One of the book’s strengths is its refusal to treat money as a neutral instrument. From the opening chapters, the authors situate currency within social trust and state authority. Their discussion of India’s 2016 demonetization captures this vividly. Rather than analyzing it as a narrow policy error, they frame it as a rupture in the social contract of money itself. Currency works because people believe in its stability. But when that belief is shaken, the costs are not evenly shared. Poor workers and small enterprises in the poorer countries absorb the shock first.

This framing sets the tone for the rest of the book. Monetary policy is not presented as a mechanical adjustment of levers, but as a practice embedded in power relations between the state and citizens, between regulators and markets, and increasingly between national economies and the global financial system.

The chapters on interest rate determination are particularly revealing. Bhatnagar and Saratchand note that developing economies often adjust their policy stance in response to movements in external “anchor rates,” especially those set by the US Federal Reserve. This is not a minor observation. It is an admission that domestic monetary policy frequently operates in reaction to global benchmarks.

When the Federal Reserve tightens, emerging economies must often follow or risk capital outflows and currency depreciation. In such circumstances, interest rate decisions become defensive measures rather than purely domestic judgements about growth or employment. Monetary sovereignty exists, but within boundaries drawn elsewhere.

The book recognizes this asymmetry, though it does so in measured language. Inflation targeting, presented as a framework of transparency and credibility, also functions as a signal to international markets. Stability becomes not only a macroeconomic objective but a reassurance to global investors that policy will remain predictable.

The contrast with advanced economies is striking. Central banks at the core of the international system can expand balance sheets dramatically, as seen after 2008, without fearing immediate external constraint. Emerging economies rarely enjoy that latitude. The rules are formally similar, but the power embedded within them is not.

Banking reform in a world of global liquidity

The institutional account of India’s banking reforms from asset quality — the identification of an institution’s asset value and risk on a financial balance sheet — to insolvency — assessing an institution’s ability to prevent the failure of paying off debts — is thorough and accessible. The narratives of reform are laid out clearly, allowing readers to see how domestic institutions attempted to repair balance sheets and restore confidence. This includes examinations of nonperforming assets (), which are loans or debts with missed payments; , or changing a company’s capital structure; and mechanisms, the management of financial institution failure.��

Yet banking stress does not arise in isolation. It is deeply shaped by global liquidity cycles. Periods of abundant capital encourage borrowing and risk-taking; tightening cycles expose fragility. The book documents the domestic response to stress effectively, but the broader international transmission mechanism could have been foregrounded more strongly. Asset crises in emerging markets often mirror shifts in global risk appetite and funding conditions.

The comparative discussion of India and China is instructive here. China’s state-owned banks retain sector-specific mandates aligned with industrial strategy, reflecting a distinct approach to finance and development. India’s post-liberalization trajectory, by contrast, emphasized regulatory convergence and market discipline. The book presents this divergence analytically, but in a geopolitical context, the pressures of integration into a dollar-dominated system sit somewhat in the background.

Fintech, crypto and the new monetary frontier

To its credit, the book engages with contemporary developments such as fintech platforms and cryptocurrency. These are not peripheral topics; they are reshaping payment systems, cross-border transactions and even debates about monetary sovereignty. Digital currencies and alternative settlement systems have entered geopolitical discourse, especially amid discussions of de-dollarization.

However, while the book acknowledges these developments, it could integrate them more deeply into its broader analysis of international monetary power. Fintech and crypto are not merely technological innovations; they challenge or reinforce existing hierarchies. Digital payment infrastructures can reduce transaction costs, but they can also deepen financial surveillance and concentration. Central bank digital currencies raise questions about whether emerging economies might gain greater autonomy or become further embedded within global standards. By touching on these themes without fully developing their geopolitical implications, the book leaves readers with an important but unfinished conversation.

Why a measured critique of monetary orthodoxy matters now

Perhaps the book’s most important contribution lies in its restraint. It does not present itself as a manifesto. Instead, it carefully maps institutions, policies and debates. Its tone is cautious, sometimes deliberately so. For readers seeking sharper normative conclusions, this measured approach may feel unsatisfying.

Yet there is value in this moderation. By presenting the architecture of India’s monetary and banking system without polemic, the authors allow readers to see the contours of constraint for themselves. The limits of policy space, the discipline of capital mobility and the asymmetry of currency hierarchy become visible precisely because they are not overstated.

The international monetary system is entering a period of uncertainty. Persistent geopolitical tensions, debates over reserve currency status and tightening global liquidity have revived questions that many assumed were settled. Who controls money? Who absorbs risk? And who decides the boundaries of economic choice?

Foundations of Money and Banking in India does not answer these questions definitively. What it does is remind us that they exist and that they shape everyday policy decisions in emerging economies.

For a global readership, the book offers more than a national case study. It is a window into how a large developing economy navigates an unequal financial order, balancing credibility with growth, stability with development and autonomy with vulnerability. Money, the authors suggest, is never just a technical instrument. It is a site of power and in an unequal world, understanding that power is the first step toward questioning it.

[ edited this piece.]

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Given these constraints, the of approximately 55% in participating constituencies is relatively high for a country affected by widespread displacement, armed violence and political polarization. The military authorities presented the elections as a step toward restoring political order and ending open hostilities, though critics remain skeptical about their inclusiveness and intent.

The political process was also closely watched by neighboring countries, including India, as the situation in Myanmar is increasingly shaping not only border security and refugee flows, but the geoeconomic ambitions of regional players, as well.

Consolidation of power

The Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), closely associated with Min Aung Hlaing’s military regime, won the majority of the contested seats. The USDP now has a majority in both chambers of Parliament. They secured 232 of the 263 seats in the lower Pyithu Hluttaw and 109 of the 157 seats announced so far in the upper Amyotha Hluttaw. Combined with the constitutionally mandated allocation of 25% of parliamentary seats to unelected military appointees, this outcome gives the military junta effective control of the legislature and forecloses meaningful parliamentary opposition. In practical terms, the election has reinforced existing power structures, lending formal political cover to continued military authority rather than altering the balance of power.

The Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) to certify or endorse the election, stating that conditions for a credible and inclusive process were absent and confirming that no ASEAN observer mission would be deployed. Meanwhile, neighboring states that have direct security and economic interests in Myanmar took a more pragmatic position.

China publicly welcomed the completion of the election and reiterated its support for stability and continued bilateral cooperation, framing the vote as part of a domestic political process. India had previously support for Myanmar’s plan to hold elections in a “fair and inclusive” manner and sent monitoring teams. These actions and rhetoric reflect New Delhi’s priority for stability and sustained engagement over diplomatic isolation. Vietnam and Cambodia also sent observers, signaling a willingness among some regional actors to maintain channels of contact with Naypyidaw despite broader international skepticism. This position reflected longstanding divisions within the bloc regarding engagement with Myanmar’s post-coup authorities.

Myanmar’s instability and India’s security

For New Delhi, developments in Naypyidaw are directly related to domestic security concerns. The Indian states of Arunachal Pradesh, Nagaland, Manipur and Mizoram share a 1,643-kilometer border with Myanmar. The conflict in Myanmar has intensified since 2021, creating instability in weakly controlled border regions, such as Mizoram and Manipur.

Indian law enforcement agencies have reported an increase in cross-border crimes, including weapons and drug smuggling, militia infiltration and the establishment of insurgent training camps. In Mizoram’s Champhai, Saiha and Lawngtlai districts, operations have led to the seizure of explosives, weapons and narcotics. Between September 2025 and January 2026, the value of confiscated illegal substances $15.5 million. Further north, Manipur authorities 22 drug smuggling cases and 12 arms trafficking cases in the first quarter of 2025 alone.

The instability in Myanmar, caused by conflict between the junta and the NUG as well as deep internal divisions between local national insurgents fighting on the side of opposition forces, creates conditions for a growing number of refugees and causes civil and ethnic unrest.

In mid-2025, clashes between the Myanmar militia groups Chin National Front (CNF) and Chin Defense Force (CDF) up to 4,400 people to flee to the Indian state of Mizoram. By March 2026, the number of officially registered Myanmar nationals in Mizoram had 28,355. Of these, 27,574 had passed biometric registration. The total of Myanmar asylum seekers in India is more than 86,000. Despite the deep ethnic kinship between the majority Mizo people in Mizoram and the Chin people in Myanmar, this prompted the deployment of additional police and Assam Rifles units.

The influx of Myanmar refugees has led to growing tension amongst the locals due to the increase in competition for limited job opportunities as the state grapples with rising youth unemployment, which is to be around 12%. Furthermore, the situation is worsening due to the rising crime rate. In June 2025, Mizoram Home Minister K. Sapdanga that more than 50% of criminal cases in the state were linked to individuals who had entered the country illegally or as refugees.

The rising cost of internal strain

While Mizoram is more tolerant of refugees from Myanmar, neighboring Manipur is notorious for ethnic violence. On May 3, 2023, a dispute between the Meitei majority in Manipur and the Chin communities over Scheduled Tribe status escalated into a . Rooted in territory and identity, the situation was significantly exacerbated by the influx of approximately 10,000 refugees from Myanmar, resulting in at least 260 deaths and the displacement of over 60,000 people. Meitei groups also the growth of new settlements and a 30% increase in poppy cultivation as evidence of a “narcoterrorist” threat from Myanmar. This the Indian government to scrap the Free Movement Regime, which allowed local tribes to travel freely without visas, and to start construction of a border fence in February 2024.

This situation poses a significant threat to India’s domestic security and challenges its geoeconomic ambitions. Regions affected by conflict, such as Manipur in India, which borders Chin state, one of the three regions bordering India, are of particular concern as they are along the India–Myanmar–Thailand . This route is a flagship connectivity project under India’s Act East policy. New Delhi has invested over $250 million in the project directly and has extended more than $1 billion in credit lines for broader ASEAN connectivity initiatives.��

Studies on ASEAN-India cooperation that extending these corridors to Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam could generate up to $70 billion in additional regional GDP and create around 20 million jobs by the middle of the decade. India is to benefit from this expansion through increased trade and development in its northeast region. However, persistent insecurity in Myanmar and its derivatives continues to construction, raise costs and cast uncertainty over the project’s long-term viability.

Elections in the border regions

Ahead of and during the electoral process, the junta pursued local negotiations with ethnic armed organizations to secure ceasefires or tacit noninterference, thereby enabling limited polling, particularly in border areas. These efforts yielded mixed results. Chin State was almost entirely excluded from the electoral process because resistance forces linked to the NUG and local People’s Defense Force units retained significant territorial control there. These armed groups rejected the vote outright, preventing the establishment of conditions for polling.

In Sagaing and Kachin, the situation was similarly fragmented. Armed actors repeatedly attempted to disrupt the election by targeting logistics and security deployments. In Sagaing, 11 of the 34 townships were from voting due to security concerns, and clashes were reported in seven others during the election. In Kachin State, elections could not be held in four townships and additional incidents were recorded in two more.

While areas immediately adjacent to the Indian border remained relatively calm during the initial phase, security conditions deteriorated further inland as the process continued. Myanmar Witness over 150 conflict-related incidents in townships that were officially designated as “active” or “stable” for voting. Insurgent groups sought to derail the process by threatening officials and voters, attacking supply routes and otherwise intimidating people.

An unsettled outcome

Although the junta held elections in most accessible areas and established institutional control, stability remains elusive because the NUG and affiliated insurgent groups have invested significant resources in preventing ceasefires and disrupting electoral activity rather than facilitating political de-escalation.

The elections showed that the war in Myanmar won’t stop in the short term and that political dialogue is the only way forward. All foreign actors should assist in this dialogue, and the idea of “isolation” should not be supported. The election was a reminder to all critics of Min Aung Hlaing’s military regime that the USDP has its supporters, even if their number is less than the official electoral statistics indicate. It’s impossible to ignore this part of the population and their interests. Otherwise, the situation will be mirrored, and the NUG will become another totalitarian regime.

The stance of key international actors, such as India and China, has reinforced the rationale behind taking a calibrated and pragmatic approach to Myanmar. India’s strategy prioritizes stability, dialogue and reducing violence over ideological positioning, aiming to achieve tangible results. New Delhi continues to engage with the authorities in Naypyidaw, not to endorse military rule, but to preserve border security, sustain humanitarian access and maintain channels for political de-escalation.

This stance contrasts with that of several ASEAN members, whose refusal to engage with the junta has enabled opposition forces to reject ceasefires and disrupt the electoral process through armed conflict. Only a change in approach among ASEAN countries and mediation could bring peace closer. Without offering feasible political solutions, isolating the Naypyidaw authorities could prolong the conflict and have regional consequences, including human casualties and destroy Myanmar’s economic potential for years. Moreover, it will affect neighboring countries with escalating refugee crises and ethnic tensions, as well as undermine projects that would promote social and economic growth in Myanmar and throughout Southeast Asia.

[ first published a version of this piece on February 6, 2026.]

[ edited this piece.]

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One of the most consequential provisions involved the release of approximately prisoners. While the agreement conditioned their release on their refraining from combat, within weeks, these fighters ranks, reinforcing insurgent capabilities across Afghanistan. Prior intelligence assessments had warned of this outcome, highlighting structural weaknesses in the agreement’s enforcement mechanisms.

Counterterrorism commitments and regional security risks

The Doha Accord obligated the Taliban to prevent Afghan territory from being used to threaten the security of the US and its allies. In practice, however, this provision has proven largely ineffective. The Taliban’s tolerance and facilitation of transnational militant groups, including al-Qaeda and Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), constitutes a clear violation.

, the leader of al-Qaeda, reportedly lived openly in Kabul before being killed in a US drone strike in 2022, nearly a year after the Taliban assumed power. His presence in the Afghan capital raised questions about the effectiveness of counterterrorism assurances. Additionally, reports that members of Osama bin Laden’s family continue to reside in Afghanistan fueled debate over whether the Taliban have fully met their commitments.

These developments extend beyond Afghanistan. They complicate border insurgencies and compel regional powers to rethink their security arrangements.

Khalilzad’s advocacy and selective framing

Former US envoy Zalmay Khalilzad’s portraying the Taliban as ready to engage constructively with regional actors, including Pakistan, echoes a familiar pattern of misrepresentation. Khalilzad presents the group as cooperative and compliant, claiming any agreement would prevent extremist groups like the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and TTP from using Afghan territory to threaten others, with third-party monitoring. In reality, the Taliban’s record under the 2020 Doha Accord tells a starkly different story: promises of intra-Afghan dialogue were ignored, and the group marched unopposed on Kabul, exposing the failures of Khalilzad’s diplomacy.

Khalilzad’s repeated framing of the Taliban as reasonable actors overlooks the broader regional consequences and security risks, while his renewed advocacy for agreements modeled on Doha risks repeating past strategic mistakes where enforcement mechanisms were lacking and accountability is absent. Despite no longer holding a US government position, Khalilzad continues to in Afghan affairs, raising serious questions about his motives, judgment and credibility. The pattern is clear: overstatement, miscalculation and self-serving maneuvering consistently undermine meaningful conflict resolution, leaving the region to grapple with the consequences.

Multiple Pakistan–Taliban agreements

Over the past three years, Pakistan and the Taliban have engaged in several rounds of security dialogue. These efforts included a bilateral agreement guaranteed by the United Arab Emirates, promises made in backed by Turkey and Qatar, as well as follow-up discussions in Istanbul.

Despite repeated diplomatic engagement, none of the agreements yielded the expected results, thereby indicating the Taliban’s continued inability or unwillingness to fulfill their commitments.

Recent Saudi-mediated in Riyadh reportedly stalled when the Taliban rejected the proposed verification mechanisms, reinforcing a consistent practice of demanding recognition and legitimacy without taking responsibility. Pakistan has emphasized the need for enforceable monitoring frameworks, drawing lessons from earlier agreements: trust cannot be extended based on words alone; it must be secured through actual performance.

Regional fallout and security implications

The Taliban’s noncompliance has broader for South and Central Asia. Neighboring countries — including Pakistan, Iran and Central Asian states — face heightened risks of cross-border attacks because of the unregulated movement of militants. Activities linked to the anti-state Pakistan-based militant group were facilitated by the areas under Taliban control, while the presence of al-Qaeda in Kabul complicates regional counterterrorism coordination, exposing significant fault lines in regional cooperation.

Instability also affects economic cooperation. Trade corridors, humanitarian assistance channels and regional integration initiatives depend on predictable security conditions. As a result, the shortcomings of the Doha Accord have become a matter of transnational concern.

The Doha legacy

The Taliban’s consolidation of power also carried significant humanitarian consequences. Communities protesting coercion, resource seizures and governance abuses have faced violent repression. These actions highlight a governance model prioritizing power consolidation over human life, exacerbating instability within Afghanistan.

The Doha Accord failed because it lacked compliance and transparency, illustrating the importance of enforceability in diplomatic agreements. Verification is not a procedural luxury; it is essential for credible security cooperation and sustainable regional stability. Agreements that rely primarily on trust risk creating gaps between formal commitments and actual behavior, allowing the Taliban to consolidate power while projecting an image of compliance and perpetuating insecurity both inside and outside Afghanistan.

The Doha legacy is defined by strategic failure and its cascading effects on regional security. Taliban violations, internal repression and facilitation of militant networks have undermined intra-Afghan peace prospects and South Asian stability. Future diplomatic efforts depend on prioritizing enforceability, transparency and accountability frameworks with measurable performance to prevent further erosion of trust and mitigate the political, security and human costs that have defined the past three years.

[ edited this piece]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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The Rohingya: an endless exodus

The Rohingya, a Muslim minority from Myanmar’s Rakhine State, were stripped of citizenship and rights by a . Victims of what the described in 2017 as a “textbook example of ethnic cleansing,” over 740,000 people to Bangladesh. Today, approximately one million of them in the Cox’s Bazar district, home to Kutupalong, the world’s largest refugee camp. The 2021 shattered any hope of repatriation, fueling a desperate, multi-stage journey toward Southeast Asia.��

This hell begins in Teknaf, on the coast of Bangladesh. There, refugees brave the deadly currents of the Naf River on small, overcrowded boats that frequently . Those who survive fall into the hands of traffickers, who clandestine departures toward the Andaman Sea from hidden mangrove inlets, packing hundreds of people onto fishing vessels to evade the Coast Guard.

Welcome aboard the “ghost” ships

Once at sea, the operational phase known as the “Ghost Protocol” begins. This involves the Automatic Identification System (AIS) — a tactic technically referred to as “going dark.” By switching off these electronic transponders, traffickers eliminate all traceability of the vessel’s route and position. By becoming invisible to radar, the vessels into floating prisons. Deprived of Wi-Fi, traceability and legal protection, refugees are ammassed in fish holds. This lack of connectivity is not a technical limitation, but a deliberate strategy by smugglers to prevent the reporting of abuse and torture used to extort money from families.��

In this technological limbo, the crews themselves invisible slaves, recruited through deception and forced into months of sailing without pay. The of going dark eliminates any chance of assistance: In the event of a breakdown, no signal exists to guide rescuers. Data from 2025–2026 confirms the lethality of the Andaman Sea route: One in five people is missing or dead. With over 600 victims in the past year, the true toll remains tragically uncalculable.

The Junta link: the ship-to-ship operations fueling the airstrikes

Myanmar’s instability has transformed the Andaman Sea into a military corridor disguised as a migration route. The networks Rohingya south toward Malaysia and Indonesia are often the same ones that, through ship-to-ship (STS) operations in international waters, the military junta with sanctioned fuel (Jet A-1). Without these maneuvers, the regime would be unable to power the Chinese-made jets and drones responsible for bombing civilians. Precisely because it is prohibited, the junta must rely on STS operations to bring fuel into the country while concealing its origin.��

Large “mother ships” loaded with crude oil from the Russian Federation or Iran — countries officially under international sanctions — transfer their cargo on the high seas to the Burmese shadow fleet, which operates on behalf of the junta. Once there, the fuel is “” by falsifying documents to make it appear to have originated from legitimate Southeast Asian ports: a proven mechanism that finances authoritarian regimes through these invisible fleets.

Justice at sea: the cynical game of bouncing and reflagging

The tragedy is amplified by “.” In the absence of a coordinated Search and Rescue (SAR) system, such as the one in the Mediterranean, boats are bounced between the Exclusive Economic Zones (EEZs) of Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia. Extreme abuses have been documented, including refugees forced to into the open sea and swim for miles back toward Myanmar under armed threat. Despite the High Seas Treaty () entering into force in January 2026 — adopted by the UN — the protection of human life in Southeast Asia remains a mirage.��

While the treaty aims for transparency, Myanmar’s instability and the region’s fragmented sovereignty allow shipowners to bypass all oversight. By changing flags () with staggering speed, vessels mask their maritime criminal records. By exploiting “shadow states” like the Comoros, Panama or the Cook Islands, they operate within a bureaucratic gray zone. Small island nations become involuntary accomplices in a system that guarantees impunity. International authorities find themselves chasing not physical ships, but “ghosts” that switch identities every time they approach a new port or a refueling operation, making their capture nearly impossible.

While the International Court of Justice in the Hague with the genocide case against Myanmar, the Rohingya tragedy in the Andaman Sea remains the result of a criminal architecture that exploits the physical and digital geography of Southeast Asia. As long as the world permits the existence of a ghost fleet beyond any rules, the sea will continue to be a place of silent violations. To save lives, we must first turn on the radars, enforce on-board connectivity and recognize that every deactivated AIS signal is a potential crime against humanity. Breaking the cynicism of the “bouncing game” is the only way to restore dignity to these people that the world has left invisible for too long.

[ edited this piece.]

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Deluge of drought

The elections initially appeared to be a breath of fresh air for Bangladesh’s politics, driven by the Gen Z revolution — also dubbed the “monsoon uprising”. However, the momentum this revolution brought quickly faltered.

A dehydrated mandate, with heavyweight student coordinators who had held key positions, has shattered; it seems the fresh polish and the shine have both come off. The student-led National Citizen Party performed dismally in the recent elections, securing victory in only 6 of the 30 contested seats (20%). The defeat was exacerbated by the NCP’s alliance with JIB, which proved suicidal due to the party’s checkered past — particularly its role during Bangladesh’s 1971 .

On top of this history, JIB has drawn a lot of for making derogatory and extremely vulgar comments against women. They have also faced grave of violence, intimidation, financial irregularities and a failure to provide safety, especially among minorities. These failures alienated many voters, shaped public perception and ultimately eroded the revolution’s initial promise.

Alongside the general election, voters also cast their ballots in a national referendum on the , which was proposed following the ousting of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina in July 2024. The charter was approved with 60.26% of the vote.

However, the modest turnout was a historic dwarf compared to the two previous referendums held in Bangladesh. In an interesting turn of events, the overwhelming majority of the freshly elected BNP Members of Parliament (MPs) boycotted the second parliamentary oath. This action followed their earlier of a note of dissent against the referendum’s ratification, signaling deep divisions within the political elite. While the JIB and the NCP vowed to implement the reforms, they lack the clout in parliament to pass them.

A major bone of contention remains the constitution amendment, as the council that will oversee this reform will have a significant vacuum from the ruling dispensation, who may overturn it, resulting in a predicament.

Balancing the banker’s book

The political turbulence intertwines with economic challenges. Nobel laureate Dr Muhammad Yunus, who was the epicenter of the previous 18-month interim government, faced from the sitting president, Mohammed Shahabuddin, for the grim state of affairs that prevailed during Dr Yunus’s tenure. The president accused Yunus of being uninformed and deliberately obstructing key decisions, such as the trade tariff negotiations with the US — decisions carrying deep and significant ramifications for Bangladesh.

Bangladesh’s ready-made garments industry, the backbone of its dollar cash crop, provides not only employment but empowerment, especially for women who play an active role in the vibrant Bengali social fabric. Any political formation aiming to alter and possibly marginalize this very significant section takes an enormous risk.

JIB also drew phenomenal criticism as they made about working women, which included comparing them to sex workers, proposing reduced working hours and hinting at the enactment of harsh Islamic laws if voted into power. JIB’s blunder in not embracing gender equality directly antagonized students’ aspirations.

With the (AL) suspended from political participation, an inclusive void prevailed, and JIP expected a monstrous verdict. However, the electorate did not play ball. Not only was the AL suspended from political participation, but the sitting Bangladeshi president also that, on the occasion of a royal invitation by the state of Qatar, his participation was blocked by design. Bangladesh had descended into a violent spiral of violence, arson, attacks targeting minorities, and an almost omnipresent law and order in the last 18 months following Sheikh Hasina’s departure.

The role of the interim caretaker, in association with student minister designates, must be examined impartially, and the whole timeline needs a holistic, overarching inspection. If these acquisitions hold, then the “banker of the poor” has much to disclose as to what transpired in the corridors of power in Dhaka. 

Collage of challenges

Prime Minister Tariq Rahman, returning after 17 years of self-imposed exile in London, faces a task if he wants to restore stability and usher in a new golden era for Bangladesh. He must also keep extremist elements at bay and avoid squandering the trust and faith his party has earned and paid for with blood.��

The BNP pledges to double the current decelerating economy to a trillion by 2030. Achieving this goal requires regional security, economic solidity and the restoration of peace in society. Tariq must leap onto an almost insolvent economic baton and propel it at lightning speed. International partnerships, with people-to-people contact as a core strategy, will be pivotal in this novel journey.��

Circumspection may prove a boon when expanding engagement with other neighbors and perceived friendly nations such as Pakistan and Turkey. It remains to be revealed which country Tariq will visit first after taking the oath, but for the moment, there seems to be a glimmer of optimism between the known ditch and the unknown deep blue bay.

[ edited this piece.]

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What is the NCERT, and what does it do?

The NCERT is an autonomous body under the Ministry of Education, which has for several decades designed curriculum frameworks, syllabi and textbooks for schools aligned to the central government’s CBSE board of education. It is also one of the bodies tasked with designing and implementing teacher training in the country. To put things in perspective, let us recall that India has nearly 250 million school students, over of whom follow the CBSE board of school education. The rest follow mostly state boards of education or a few other central or international boards. Besides, NCERT textbooks have traditionally been regarded as major references beyond the classroom. Preparing and publishing textbooks across all disciplines is therefore a weighty responsibility.

In recent years, two different committees formed by the Ministry of Education formulated a 65-page new National Education Policy (), followed by a 562-page National Curriculum Framework for School Education (). These two major documents together seek to revolutionize India’s school system by offering a new philosophy of education and making schooling stimulating, engaging and enriching — not just a mere accumulation of facts, figures and other data to be learned by rote. Apart from spelling out a new pedagogy in great detail, they lay much emphasis on encouraging the students’ ability to critically reflect on the material, and preparing them to meet the challenges of today’s world. We will return to this last point.

In other words, the new textbooks are mandated to be written on the new foundation laid down by these two documents. So far, only textbooks of various disciplines for grades 1 to 8 have appeared, and are available for download from the ���䷡���’s . A complex system of committees oversees this work. From top to bottom: two overarching committees — the National Syllabus and Teaching/Learning Material Committee () and the National Curriculum Frameworks Oversight Committee () — are ultimately responsible for the preparation and finalization of the new syllabi and textbooks. The former creates Curricular Area Groups (CAGs) for the various disciplines — the (CAG-SS), in our present case — which, in turn, form Textbook Development Teams (TDTs) of experts, one per grade or textbook. According to the official notifications, these various groups and committees are expected to work in collaboration with the NCERT, the textbooks’ publisher.

The CAG-SS, together with the CAG-Economics, had so far produced textbooks for grade 6, grade 7 (in two parts) and grade 8 (part one). In a departure from the past, they brought geography, history, cultural heritage, political science and economics together, rather than keeping them as separate books. This meant a substantial reduction in the overall syllabus for the Middle Stage.

India’s Supreme Court took issue

On February 24, the day after the NCERT put the new textbook for grade 8 part two on sale, The Indian Express published with the catchy title, “���䷡���’s new Class 8 book lists ‘corruption in judiciary’, ‘massive backlog’ as challenges,” focusing on two or three paragraphs of the chapter. The next day, a few Supreme Court advocates, including Kapil Sibal and Abhishek Singhvi, drew the attention of a Supreme Court bench headed by the Chief Justice of India (CJI), Justice Surya Kant, to the article, expressing shock at the content of the textbook — without having read more than the article, it appears. The CJI expressed his strong displeasure, protesting at what he perceived to be a “conspiracy” to defame the Judiciary, and announced his intention to pass against the textbook and the NCERT, which he did the next day.

The order, issued in the name of Justice Surya Kant, Justice Joymalya Bagchi and Justice Vipul M. Pancholi, found that the offending passages had been written “in a reckless, irresponsible, contemptuous, and motivated manner” which revealed “a discernible underlying agenda to undermine the institutional authority and demean the dignity of the judiciary.” It issued a show-cause notice for contempt of court to the Secretary, Department of School Education and Literacy in the Ministry of Education, and the NCERT director Professor D.P. Saklani. It asked for “all copies of the book, in hard or soft form … [to be] forthwith seized and removed from public access.” It imposed “a complete blanket ban … on any further publication” of the textbook. And it asked the NCERT to provide, by the next hearing on March 11, the details of the NSTC committee, the “specific names and credentials of the Textbook Development Team responsible for drafting” the said chapter, and all records of meetings pertaining to the chapter. The NCERT and the Ministry of Education tendered unconditional apologies, affirming that the offending passages were unintentional and reflected an “error of judgement.”

Because the banning of a textbook is unprecedented in India’s legal and educational history, there followed a flurry of articles in the press or on online media platforms, a few news items or debates on TV channels ( from Palki Sharma on Firstpost), YouTube videos (such as by Pradeep Singh, in Hindi, praising the authors of the textbook), and numerous social media posts — all of it generating thousands of comments generally critical of the Supreme Court’s strictures. Leaving aside plain news reports, some articles (examples and ) broadly endorsed the Supreme Court’s views, while most others, to which we will turn, argued that the Supreme Court’s line of action was excessive or even questionable in law.

It is noteworthy that comments and analyses covered the whole political spectrum, from so-called “right-wing” media (an example ) to so-called “left-wing” ones (an example here). Let us clarify that we use these labels in their popular acceptance and without any judgment; our perspective here is strictly apolitical.

The legal angle: the ban and the use of “criminal contempt”

There has been much debate on whether the Supreme Court was right in imposing a ban. In a detailed analysis on the respected Bar and Bench platform, two legal academics, , asked, “Even assuming that protecting judicial integrity is a legitimate aim, was a complete blanket ban necessary? Could the Court have directed revision, contextual clarification, or expert review instead? A prohibition on any further publication appears at first glance to fail the least restrictive means test.”

Several commentators suggested that “a complete ban must meet an exceptionally high threshold,” and since the facts presented in the concerned chapter were all based on official figures and authentic quotations (including one by the previous Chief Justice of India, Justice B.R. Gavai, on judicial corruption), the absolute necessity and urgency of a ban were debatable. In fact, the Bar and Bench analysis, taken together with an article by the Supreme Court advocate in The Indian Express, another by in The Federal, and an unsigned one in The Statesman, titled “,” made the point that the Supreme Court had milder options before going all the way to a ban. Citing earlier judgments, several commentators (let us add here in The Indian Express and Saurav Das in Frontline Magazine) argued at length that the ban was detrimental to academic freedom and public debate, contrary to the assurance in the Supreme Court order that it did not intend to “stifle any legitimate critique or to bring to task any individual or organisation exercising their right to scrutinize public institution, including the Judiciary.”

The legal scholar posed a challenge to the order through an intriguing legal argument. He first observed, “The Court does not possess unlimited power. It is crucial to seriously consider what constraints the Constitution places upon judicial power.” He went on to question the Court’s power to ban a book and argued at some length that “The judiciary does not have the constitutional power to directly restrict speech (that is, to ban books or censor films via judicial decree).” In his opinion, “Judicial orders banning books are without jurisdictional foundation, and incorrect in law.” This, of course, opens up a fascinating debate, which we cannot probe deeper here.

Finally, the question of the show-cause notice issued for criminal contempt of court received less media attention, but over the years, several High Court or Supreme Court judges, such as , have stated, “The contempt of court is a special jurisdiction to be exercised sparingly and with caution.” In (with many similar observations on record), the judge observed, “Every important issue needs to be vigorously debated by the people and the press, even if the issue of debate is subjudice before a court. … ⁠For the improvement of any system and that includes the judiciary, introspection is the key. That can happen only if there is a robust debate even on issues which are before the court.”

Many social media posts also pointed out that by imposing such a ban, the Supreme Court had in effect drawn far greater attention to the contentious passages in the chapter — a well-known and unavoidable fallout of book banning. observed in his article that “The more the judiciary tries to suppress discussion or restrict access to information, the more distrust is likely to grow in the minds of citizens. As the judiciary is not above scrutiny and is accountable to the people, there is no doubt in my mind that the inclusion of references to judicial corruption and delays in the NCERT curriculum is in keeping with the constitutional values of transparency and accountability that surely must pervade the judiciary above all other institutions in the county.” In the same line, wrote, “Removing references to judicial corruption from educational material does not remove corruption from the judiciary itself. Documented instances over the years show that the problem cannot be erased by silence.” Or in Saurav Das’s words, “… blanket bans and threats of contempt against curriculum makers sound like censorship.”

Altogether, there is a good case to argue that the Supreme Court’s order could easily have been more measured, especially since, as the Justices are well aware, they are the ultimate legal authority and their order cannot be appealed.

However, in the end, the legal angle is not the core issue.

The educational angle: the NEP 2020’s mandate

To lay our finger on that core issue, let us return to the Supreme Court’s order and its central argument, which needs to be quoted in full: 

The necessity for judicial intervention nevertheless has arisen not from a desire to suppress criticism but from the imperative to safeguard the pedagogical integrity of the national curriculum. Young students in their formative years are only beginning to navigate the nuances of public life and the constitutional architecture that sustains it. It is fundamentally improper to expose them to a biased narrative that may engender permanent misconceptions at an age when they lack the perspicacity to appreciate the manifold and onerous responsibilities that are discharged by the judiciary on a day-to-day basis.

So it is not really the textbook that the Justices have passed judgement on; it is India’s school students who, still “in their formative years,” will be incapable of discernment. At this point, the Justices have shed their robes and turned into educationists. Indeed, deciding what students are capable of reflectively engaging with, and at which stage, is not the task of our courts; it is the job of educationists. And not just any educationists — only those who have closely studied and understood the NEP 2020 and the NCF-SE 2023.

Let us therefore recall that the NEP 2020 “envisages that the curriculum and pedagogy of our institutions must develop among the students a deep sense of respect towards the Fundamental Duties and Constitutional values, bonding with one’s country, and a conscious awareness of one’s roles and responsibilities in a changing world.” The mandate is clear: the new education must make students aware of the challenges facing our society and institutions so as to “truly shape our next generation of citizens”. For this to happen, “cognitive capacities, such as critical thinking and problem solving” need to be developed.

The NCF-SE 2023 develops the point: “Culture is thus not seen as merely an ornament or a pastime, but an enrichment which equips the student (and Teacher alike) to face the many challenges of life, challenges which may be personal or collective in nature.” Turning specifically to Social Science, the document offers these guidelines: “It [the content in Political Science] should also include an understanding of inequity and discrimination in society, and its reasons, alongside the progress that has been made and the ways and efforts that have been made towards inclusion and justice and its successes, failures, and challenges. Students are expected to explore probable solutions to these challenges, including what people can do individually to address these issues.” It also invites projects that will let students “investigate, explore, and respond to complex questions, real-world challenges, and problems.”

In the order, the Supreme Court nowhere mentions the NEP 2020 under which new syllabi, textbooks and (later) digital material are mandated to be developed. The order’s depiction of a passive, impressionable, indiscriminating student who must be protected from real-life situations is rooted in the 20th century, while the NEP 2020 offers a roadmap for 21st-century education. The Supreme Court has not taken into account the whole educational context in which the new textbooks are conceived and prepared. It has also failed to notice that today’s thirteen-year-old has access to a wide array of news, information (and misinformation) and national and international debates. It is true that any form of indoctrination through education should be condemned, but the Court’s order has failed to establish such a charge.

Nor are we trying to blame the Court for stereotyping today’s students. The tasks facing Justices daily in Court are onerous and of far-reaching consequences, often directly affecting the lives of crores (tens of millions) of Indian citizens. They cannot be expected to have expertise in fields that are not their own — a widely accepted principle, which explains the courts’ frequent recourse to expert advice. Except in the present case.

Did the textbook “selectively” target the Judiciary?

When senior advocates brought the issue to the Chief Justice of India’s attention, they accused (according to press reports) the textbook of “selectively” targeting or focusing on the Judiciary. One of them asked why corruption in the Executive or Legislature was not equally highlighted. This very question revealed their ignorance of the new textbooks for Social Science. Had they merely glanced at them, they would have realized that the textbooks published so far have highlighted social, cultural, political, bureaucratic, environmental issues and challenges. Let us mention a few closer to the current controversy.

• From grade 7, part 1 textbook, pp. 206-207: “… It is important to keep in mind, however, that even democracies have their problems. Issues such as corruption, wealth disparity, excessive control by a few over democratic institutions, erosion of the judiciary’s independence, manipulation of information channels, and several more, can cause hurdles in achieving the ideals of democracy. What can we do as individuals, and as a society, to remain vigilant and minimize these issues and hurdles?”
• From Grade 7, Part 2 textbook, p. 156: “… The above roles of the government are executed through India’s Constitution, thousands of laws, many layers of elected representatives, a vast bureaucracy, and a judiciary (brief description in the next section), all of which help us greatly in our daily lives. However, you might wonder why, then, our country and her people also still face so many problems. Why do we still hear of cases of bribery and corruption in public office? We still encounter many issues that need to be addressed — people in difficult socio-economic conditions, lack of access to good education and healthcare, infrastructure that is of poor quality, inadequate access to government schemes, and so on. How do you make or help the government do what it is meant to do? How do you ensure that your grievances with the government are addressed?”
• From Grade 8, Part 1 textbook, p. 131: Cartoons portray election candidates using abusive language, being caught by the police with bundles of banknotes in their car and government officials campaigning for the ruling party.
• From Grade 8, Part 1 textbook, pp. 158-159 (in a section entitled “Challenges to the Effective Functioning of the Legislatures”): the chapter has a table showing that the number of sittings in the Lok Sabha declined steadily from 1952 to 2004, followed by a statement by a former chairman of the Rajya Sabha noting the sharp decline of productivity of the Rajya Sabha “under the impact of disruptions.” The text asks, “What conclusions can you draw from this statement? What implications does this have for the role that the Rajya Sabha is expected to play?”

The text goes on, “Concerns have been expressed by sections of the society about the fact that a substantial proportion of their representatives in the Lok Sabha have criminal cases against them, and that many sessions are marked by angry or biased debates that do not seriously address issues affecting the people.” It then reproduces cartoons poking fun at politicians/election candidates, with the remark, “The media also plays an important role in communicating the concerns of the electorate. These cartoons express them with humour, a practice common to all healthy democracies.”

The above examples highlighted problematic aspects of our democratic systems. The charge that the impugned chapter selectively focused on the Judiciary is simply untrue, as several media pieces also stressed (e.g. in Hindustan Times or ’s introduction to a TV debate). This is a good reminder that tearing a few lines out of their context — both textual and educational — is bound to distort their intention and message.

Did the impugned chapter portray the Judiciary in a bad light?

This is perhaps the central question. What did the chapter “The Role of the Judiciary in Our Society” say about the Judiciary? Going by the discussion started by senior advocates, and by the Supreme Court’s order, it painted a very dark picture of the Judiciary. Unfortunately, with the Supreme Court having suppressed the textbook, the public is not in a position to independently appraise its contents. This regrettably prevents a national debate on the new textbooks’ approach — a debate which should also involve parents, teachers and the students themselves.

However, some of us perused the chapter’s contents when the textbook was first released, and the impression we formed was very different. We should first note that the passage on “Corruption in the Judiciary” was only one subsection of a section on “Challenges Faced by the Judicial System.” More importantly,

• The chapter effectively conveyed (in a simplified manner) the principles and concepts behind the Judiciary’s role and functioning.
• The chapter highlighted the Judiciary’s important role in imparting justice, protecting the Constitution and human rights, intervening in social and environmental issues, and striking down laws if they are found to be unjust or unconstitutional.
• The section on “Challenges Faced by the Judicial System” was presented factually; it explained the complexity of the field and the issues involved and engaged the student’s reflection at several points.
• The impugned subsection only used official and public data, which has long been debated by members of the Judiciary and in the national press. It also used a public speech made by the previous Chief Justice of India. In other words, it showed that the systemic issues in the Judiciary have been flagged by members of the Judiciary themselves. (In fact, had the textbook’s authors wanted to tarnish the Judiciary’s image, they could have drawn on a wide choice of members of the legal fraternity condemning judicial correction. Suffice it to mention here ’s anguished remarks in 1997, ’s public lecture of 2011, ’s scathing remarks in 2010 on the Judiciary’s failure “to eradicate the phenomenon of corruption” and long debates on the issue in the Rajya Sabha in 2003 ( and ), with remarks by Kapil Sibal and Arun Jaitley, among others.
• The entire section stressed principles of accountability and transparency, which are the pillars of democracy.
• The section did not point fingers towards anyone and ended on this positive note: “… Efforts are constantly being made at the state and Union levels to build faith and increase transparency in the judicial system, including through the use of technology, and to take swift and decisive action against instances of corruption wherever they may arise.”

In our opinion, therefore, there was no attempt in this subsection to tarnish the image of the Judiciary. As in earlier chapters of political science, it simply informed the student of the real-life challenges facing India — challenges which the Judiciary itself has often expressed concern about. The chapter effectively and positively conveyed the enormous responsibility of the Judiciary as the guardian of the Constitution and the Law.

We find, however, that there could have been a better choice of words for the title of the contentious subsection and a more nuanced approach of its content, stressing in particular the Judiciary’s own efforts in improving its service to citizens. We hope that such a revision will be permitted.

How do we best prepare tomorrow’s citizens?

If the new education fails to equip students to reflect on — and help resolve — the challenges of the 21st century, the purpose of NEP 2020, with its emphasis on the need to develop the students’ critical thinking, will be defeated. The school system will continue to produce passive minds groomed to accept all taught material as final and sacrosanct.

Almost all the challenges our Indian society presents ordinary citizens with on a daily basis — whether it is corruption at all levels, deficient infrastructure, social discriminations, social injustice, lack of concern for the environment, red-tape, delayed justice, etc. — are deeply entrenched problems that go back many decades or, in some cases, centuries. None of those challenges can be humanly solved overnight. As many leading lights of the country, right from the makers of the Constitution, have pointed out, it is only if the public becomes aware and remains vigilant that things can and will change. It is one of the objectives of education to help build such an awareness through critical thinking. In our opinion, the discussions in several chapters of the new Social Science textbooks are aligned with this objective.

We noticed, incidentally, that other chapters — of geography, history, cultural heritage and economics — have also contributed to such awareness-building at different levels, without hesitating to highlight challenges, controversies and problems in those areas. We find that these textbooks take a holistic approach to our nation, including its historical and cultural foundations, and should be read as a whole — not just one isolated paragraph, which is bound to give a wrong impression. This is the educational angle which the Supreme Court failed to appreciate.

As we stated earlier, today’s students have access to a wide range of information and are prone to become cynical about our country’s problems: Let us keep in mind that about two hundred thousand young Indians Indian citizenship every year. We owe our children honesty and transparency — both about the unique and great features of India and about ailments affecting governance and society alike — while at the same time conveying the hope that these ailments can be cured.

In the end, let us quote again from ’s article, which refers to “the daily experience of litigants who wait years for a hearing and of lawyers who navigate a system stretched close to breaking. By invoking contempt and ordering a blanket ban on the [NCERT] book, the court has chosen to treat this discomfort as defamation rather than diagnosis.” Or ’s positive conclusion, “Age-appropriate discussion of corruption, inefficiency, and case backlogs does not weaken democratic values. It reinforces them by encouraging accountability.”

We hold India’s Judiciary in high respect. The above analysis is offered in a constructive spirit, and in the hope of shifting the focus back to students and the need to prepare them for an increasingly competitive, unstable and challenging world.

[We are a group of educationists, academics, jurists and concerned citizens, who prefer anonymity at this juncture.]

[Note: In all text and quotations, all emphasis in italics is ours.]

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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Post-election reform is the key concern for the new government following the transitional period. The BNP-led government is likely to face pressure and competition from conservative groups whose fortunes had increased during the interim period. Four challenges and key questions for the ruling party as they assume power are: the politics of memory involving imposing one memory over another, how reform mandates will be handled, negotiating the rise of Islamic right-wing identity politics, and managing geopolitics and foreign policy with pragmatism and multilateralism. Without setting up a clear ideological standpoint, however, it will be hard for the BNP to address these challenges.

New memory politics in the rebuilding process?

The politics of memory has been an important tool for identity formation, state-building and ideological reproduction amid a for legitimacy for many post-colonial states. In Bangladesh, the moralized binary between pro-liberation and anti-liberation entities served as a key factor in electoral politics for decades. This binary was not merely rhetorical but also instrumental to the constitutional self-description of the republic and the moral origin of the polity. Four fundamental principles of the constitution, viz. nationalism, secularism, democracy and socialism, were by the Liberation War of 1971.

Many argue that the moral binary of pro-liberation versus anti-liberation became a tool of political exclusion when the memory of liberation served as a credential for prolonged incumbency, thereby delegitimizing rivals. The memory of liberation was by certain key political parties to seek legitimacy for their leadership lineage. It also turned to excessive idolization and glorification centered on the memory of certain leaders to build political legitimacy. For instance, the AL cultivated a cult of personality to President Sheikh Mujibur Rahman’s name in the collective memory of Bangladesh as the nation’s founding father.

In the recent election held in February 2026, the memory of 1971 was not a key factor, where neither the pro nor the anti-liberation narrative played a critical role, unlike previous polls. The spirit of the July revolution was incorporated into the NCP and the Jamaat’s central moral vocabulary, shifting the narrative from 1971 as the moral origin of the state to 2024 as the “true independence” of the country. While the NCP, represented by a segment of the youth, may not strongly with the sacrifices and memory of 1971, for Jamaat, this shift serves as an incentive, given the party’s historical opposition to the independence movement. The BNP maintained a balanced position, upholding the July spirit without attempting to erase the memory and values of 1971.

The BNP, as a nationalist and centrist political actor that endorses nation-building with moderate Muslim ideals, has managed to establish itself as one of the two main political parties. Although Jamaat tried to itself as a “moderate” Islamic party with democratic ideals, it also resorted to conservative politics to consolidate support. The use of religion for political gain, particularly playing the Islamic card for electoral currency, was highly visible.��

However, the electorate voted otherwise, giving a two-thirds majority to the BNP, which pledged to prioritize justice, the rule of law, human rights, women’s safety and religious freedom. Overall, they voted for Tarique Rahman, who his vision for rebuilding the state with a curious slogan, “I have a plan.” His vision of a “new Bangladesh” entails a roadmap to create permanent employment for 40 million youth and several hundred thousand women.

What will be BNP’s ideological standpoint on guiding the country after receiving a huge mandate following a period of transition? Will the party consider the July spirit as the singular guiding ideological force for the rebuilding process, or complement it with the values of 1971?

Reform: July Charter or 31-point?����

The July Charter was of the post-uprising political settlement seeking comprehensive reforms and significant constitutional and political changes in the areas of elections, public administration, the police, the judiciary and government. The Charter, which was by the National Consensus Commission, provides frameworks of institutional reforms, including constraints on executive power, stronger judicial independence and a stronger parliamentary architecture.

While an inter-party consensus was finally after many rounds of discussions, certain parties opposed certain issues. For instance, the BNP was of changing the first-past-the-post system that larger parties like itself over proportional representation, which is better suited to multiparty democracy.��

As the referendum a “YES” majority (held on the same day as the elections), the elected members of parliament will sit as members of the Constitutional Reform Council to implement the provisions of the Charter for a constitutional and institutional redesign within 180 working days. The BNP has its flagship 31-point reform agenda, which will a guiding force for governance and reform.

While the majority of the recommendations of the July charter with the party’s reform agenda, the BNP is unlikely to grant the Charter a full constitutional status. The party a few “notes of dissent” to the Charter before signing it, particularly on the points on the balance of power between the Prime Minister and the President, the legislative role of the upper house, setting up of an independent entity for certain appointments and the caretaker government mechanism. It remains to be seen how the BNP treats the July Charter vis-à-vis its 31-point reform agenda and negotiates with the other political actors.

Identity: Can “moderate Muslim” expression ensure inclusivity?��

Post-election, BNP leaders have defined the victory as a mandate for “liberal democracy”. The party’s as a nationalist, and to some extent a centrist, force is likely to have brought relief that politics in Bangladesh might be governed in a more moderate manner, particularly on issues of women’s rights, fundamental freedoms and civil liberties. The party to be the “most progressive force” currently in the country amid the mainstreaming of religious-based politics and the political sidelining of the AL (although it should be noted that the BNP lacks ideological coherence where progressive, nationalist and even religious elements coexist).

The rise of Islamist parties, especially Jamaat, can be to extensive campaigning and mobilization. Jamaat’s victories in student elections at several universities have its presence in these educational spaces and urban youth networks. In the absence of AL, Jamaat is likely to play a bigger role in the opposition arena through more confrontational politics. It will continue to project itself as different from patronage-based, nepotistic and elite-based politics associated with the BNP and the AL. Jamaat is also likely to continue stressing on its so-called moral conscience, discipline and guardianship of Islam in the country.��

While the BNP is likely to maintain its reputation as a moderate Muslim political entity, it remains to be seen how it would accommodate Jamaat and other Islamist parties in the country, and also serve the public who are ideologically, economically, socially and culturally diverse. The incoming government is expected to craft a clearer vision of a moderate Muslim majority democracy that does not undermine the Liberation War’s plural foundation, let alone “secularism.” At the same time, the BNP may also be required to give space to religious politics after gaining ground post-July.

Foreign policy: populism or pragmatism?����

The BNP is known for its pragmatic statecraft, with experience in governing the nation and strong regional ties with neighbors. There has been a populist surge and temptation to use foreign policy as a domestic distraction by relations with New Delhi and ties with Islamabad. There are prevailing sentiments that bilateral relations between New Delhi and Dhaka were on the India-AL axis, where the AL New Delhi’s security and strategic interests in return for patronage and legitimacy, thereby hindering the country from formulating a more balanced foreign policy.

Tarique Rahman has consistently advocated for a balanced diplomatic approach with major powers, including India, China, Pakistan and the West, through his “Bangladesh First” policy. Many senior BNP leaders hold that a consistent foreign policy and disciplined statecraft are needed for stability in the Bay of Bengal, which depends less on slogans and more on multilateralism. However, pressure might from the opposition, such as Jamaat and the NCP, particularly on the issue of extraditing Sheikh Hasina from India.

Nonetheless, early signs of a diplomatic reset, such as consular services that were suspended under the interim government, indicate the BNP’s willingness to restore relations with New Delhi. As the reform clock has started ticking during this pivotal period, the BNP must focus on the immediate rebuilding process without losing sight of the ideological compass. The hope is that, in his first post-election press address, the prime minister hinted at national unity and promised reconciliation through the rule of law.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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Managed interdependence and structural uncertainty

Contemporary global politics is not defined by the collapse of institutions. International organizations still convene, legal rules are invoked and procedural norms are performed with remarkable regularity. What has changed is the relationship between institutional form and the distribution of power, risk and strategic intent that once gave those institutions coherence. Rules remain, but they no longer align smoothly with the realities they are meant to govern.

What has emerged in place of postwar liberal universalism is not , nor a simple retreat from globalization, but a system of managed interdependence. Markets, finance and supply chains continue to bind states together, access to them is increasingly conditioned on political alignment rather than legal entitlement alone. Efficiency, once the dominant organizing principle of the global economy, now competes with resilience. Uncertainty is no longer episodic, arising from crises or shocks, but structural, embedded in the routine operation of the system.

This shift reflects a deeper transformation in how power is exercised. The postwar order rested on the assumption that economic exchange could be largely insulated from geopolitical rivalry and that legal and procedural constraints would discipline state behavior. That assumption has eroded. Economic relationships are now routinely through the lens of security, vulnerability and strategic dependence. Trade agreements, industrial policy and investment screening increasingly function as tools for managing exposure in a fragmented environment rather than as neutral mechanisms of liberalization.

Japan, Taiwan and the recalibration of ambiguity

Japan’s evolving approach to Taiwan how states adapt to this new landscape. Tokyo’s signaling has grown more explicit in recent years — not because Japan seeks confrontation, but because ambiguity alone no longer guarantees stability. As the strategic environment around Taiwan has hardened, silence and procedural neutrality have come to carry their own risks.

Japan’s response has been multifaceted. Trade frameworks such as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (), to secure semiconductor and advanced technology supply chains, and selective forms of security coordination have become instruments for navigating uncertainty. These measures do not amount to a formal abandonment of long-standing policy constraints, but they do reflect a recalibration of priorities. Economic openness is no longer treated as an unconditional good; it is increasingly filtered through concerns about continuity, leverage and alignment.

In this context, recent remarks by Prime Minister Takaichi particular attention. Her suggestion that a naval blockade around Taiwan could constitute a “survival-threatening situation” for Japan implied the possible mobilization of the Self-Defense Forces under existing legal frameworks. The importance of such remarks lies less in their immediate operational implications than in what they signal about shifting thresholds for action. Statements once avoided in the name of ambiguity are now articulated openly, not to provoke escalation, but to clarify stakes in an environment where silence may be misread.

This shift reflects a broader change in how strategic ambiguity works. In the past, ambiguity was often seen as a stopgap — a way to postpone difficult decisions while shared rules and norms kept the peace. Today, it plays a difficult role. Clear red lines can rivals to test how serious those threats really are, and overly specific promises can trap governments in commitments they later regret. By contrast, leaving some things unsaid can create caution. When adversaries are unsure where the real limits lie — or how a country might respond —�� they are often less willing to take risks.

The emergence of a G1.5 world order

The broader international system in which these dynamics unfold does not fit neatly into familiar categories. It is neither a leaderless marked by pure disorder, nor a G2 condominium in which the US and China jointly manage global affairs. Instead, it resembles what can be described as a G1.5 world. In this configuration, the US retains primacy over critical margins of access and enforcement, while China possesses growing leverage without shared rule-making authority. Power remains concentrated, yet obligation has thinned. Rules persist, but their application is selective and increasingly shaped by political considerations.

The time, then, is out of joint not because order has vanished, but because its components no longer move together. Power, law and legitimacy have fallen out of alignment. The resulting system is neither chaotic nor stable in the traditional sense. Instead, it is marked by friction — by the continuous negotiation of access, obligation and risk. In a G1.5 world, the challenge is not to resolve every tension, but to manage misalignment with patience, restraint and a clearer understanding of evolving risks.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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What is worse, serious and productive diplomatic were being conducted by the US and Iran with Oman’s mediation. The Omani Foreign Minister, in a bid to prevent a US strike, had said publicly in an with a US news channel that Iran had agreed to all US demands on its nuclear program on enrichment, stockpiles, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspection and a formal commitment to never acquire nuclear weapons. According to him, Iran had gone beyond what it had conceded in its 2015 nuclear deal with former US President Barack Obama. The IAEA chief himself was involved in these negotiations. The next round of discussions at the technical level was to be held in Geneva.

But before these could be held, US President Donald Trump short-circuited the diplomatic effort and decided to attack Iran. This is the second time that Trump has decided to attack Iran in the midst of negotiations. The first was when the in June 2025 was initiated while talks were being held.

Iran’s concessions, US double standards

The Iranian nuclear issue has to be seen in perspective. Iran is a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (), but under the framework, it has the right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes — a right that Iran has been unwilling to forswear, though in the latest round of negotiations with the US, it made concessions on enrichment limits. This is something it had not done earlier.

Irrespective of all this, the fact is also that the US ignores the of Israel, which is an open secret. The US has also to North Korea’s repudiating the NPT and acquiring nuclear weapons. It has been complicit in Pakistan becoming a nuclear power and has not made an issue of continuing nuclear cooperation between Pakistan and China. The US has walked out of all disarmament treaties negotiated with Russia and has announced that it will nuclear testing.

Against this background, Washington’s focus on Iran’s nuclear program, which is under strict IAEA supervision, seems to be dictated by considerations related principally to Israel’s security and regional preeminence. Trump had announced in June 2025 that during the 12-day war, the US had Iran’s nuclear program. If that is the case, then why make Iran’s nuclear issue the casus belli, or, case for war?

Where are the nuclear weapons, anyway?

That Iran is either a few months or a few weeks away from acquiring nuclear weapons is a narrative assiduously pushed by Israel and the US for a long time. However, years have passed without Iran going nuclear. Accusations that Iran has pursued a clandestine program in secret facilities have never been proved.

No doubt, Iran has increased enrichment levels, possibly as a negotiating tactic — a phased response presumably to Trump walking out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action () during his first term. Perhaps Iran wanted to use its growing enrichment capacity as a bargaining chip in negotiations for obtaining sanctions relief.

Can’t expect a country not to defend itself

The US under Obama, too, had demanded curbs on Iran’s missile capability and its regional role, which the latter had rejected. The JCPOA was thus limited strictly to the nuclear issue. But Trump revived these demands in the recent negotiations, primarily in view of Iran’s demonstrated capability to attack Israel with devastating effect — which was seen during the 12-day war — and its support for Hamas and Hezbollah.

The point here is that there is no international regime, such as the NPT, that bars countries from possessing missile capability. To expect that Iran would give up its deterrence capabilities would have been unrealistic. 

No rights and wrongs here

If Iran’s regional role is a problem for the US, then Iran could view the regional role of the US and Israel as a problem, too, especially Israel’s expansionism. In these matters, no clear judgment can be made on rights or wrongs, though it can be said that Iran has committed a serious strategic error by projecting itself as the biggest opponent of Israel and the principal supporter of the Palestinian cause, way beyond the support the leaders of the Arab countries have given to the Palestinians.

Arab countries have been more open towards Israel, either openly or more discreetly. Israel and the US, therefore, see Iran as the main obstacle to the regional acceptance of Israel, which the Abraham Accords represent.

Is the Gulf disillusioned?

One can seriously question Trump’s strategy in seeking regime change in Iran without putting boots on the ground and encouraging the opposition elements to take over power from a weakened clerical dispensation. Earlier regime changes in the region undertaken by the US have failed abysmally in achieving their objectives, be it in Iraq, Libya or Syria. Political instability, divisions, violence, Islamism, economic distress and refugee flows have ensued. It is not clear why Trump and his advisors believe that the consequences of destabilizing Iran would be any more manageable.  

After all, Iran had repeatedly and publicly warned the world that if attacked, it would target US bases in the region. The existence of these bases allows the US to exercise power regionally, and this includes providing security against Iran, which is viewed as a threat by Gulf states. That Iran is attacking bases and other sites in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Qatar, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia — even Oman — is not surprising. However, this has caused consternation in these countries, which thought they were protected by these US bases but now find that US power and presence are insufficient to provide security.

Did they not see it coming?

It is likely that the Gulf states did not quite believe that Iran would target their territory. They thought it would confine itself to retaliating against Israel and the US forces deployed in the region. The UAE is doing enormous business with Iran, and a large number of Iranian nationals are present on its soil. Diplomatic relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia have been restored as part of a political reconciliation between the two countries.

Because Iran is fighting for its survival, the Gulf countries did not anticipate that the Iranian playbook would include attacks on economic nerve centers to disrupt economic flows, drone attacks that shut down airports and disrupt air traffic, with all its downstream consequences for economic activity, tourism, logistics, flow of goods, etc. This entails major economic losses, besides the possible loss of confidence in the stability of the region and the attractive environment it provides for foreign investors and entrepreneurs for business activity and comfortable living.

A lot is at stake

The consequences of these Iranian attacks are likely to be long-lasting, as the Gulf countries will want to protect themselves even more from Iranian power in future contingencies. What security arrangements will emerge is not clear.

If the Strait of Hormuz is blocked and the oil trade is disrupted, the spike in oil prices can be a big blow to oil-importing countries like India. We are very vulnerable to disruptions in the region in view of our stakes there in the size of the diaspora, the volume of remittances and massive imports of oil and gas. The fallout of what is happening is potentially grave for us. For us, de-escalation of the situation is of vital importance.

India’s statement on the US/Israeli attack on Iran has been muted. We have not condemned the attack, which is understandable because we did not condemn the Russian military intervention in Ukraine. The issue will come up in the United Nations General Assembly, where our diplomacy will be put to a hard test in the developing situation.

[Kanwal Sibal was Foreign Secretary and Ambassador to Turkey, Egypt, France and Russia, and Deputy Chief Of Mission in Washington.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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In his post-election statements, Tarique Rahman espoused a “” approach, asserting that the country’s foreign policy would henceforth be guided by national interest and the welfare of the people. However, uncertainty clouds the next administration. Will the incoming BNP government’s foreign policy mark a sharp departure from its predecessor, or will structural and regional constraints limit it to pragmatic adjustments?

India–Bangladesh relations at a crossroads

Bangladesh and India maintained a particularly strong bilateral relationship during the tenure of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, which was largely shaped by New Delhi’s objective of maintaining political stability in Dhaka. Given Bangladesh’s strategic geographic location, India has consistently sought to ensure stable access to its northeastern provinces via the Siliguri Corridor through transit agreements with Bangladesh. At the same time, India was concerned about China’s growing presence in the Bay of Bengal, which influenced these ties. However, following the of Sheikh Hasina’s government in a mass uprising in 2024, relations between New Delhi and Dhaka worsened significantly.

The diplomatic fallout was marked by Indian accusations of religious minority repression in Bangladesh, misinformation campaigns and trade restrictions. Most significantly, India’s to extradite Hasina, who fled to the country following her ousting, despite Bangladesh’s International Crimes Tribunal having sentenced her to death for her role in the 2024 protests, exacerbated the diplomatic tensions further.��

Under the interim government led by , anti-Indian narratives gained increased prominence among opposition groups and segments of the broader public in Bangladesh. Moreover, India’s continued for the Awami League in recent elections contributed to rising public dissatisfaction in Bangladesh and heightened perceptions of Indian interference in the country’s internal politics. These developments have complicated bilateral relations and ignited domestic debates over issues of sovereignty and foreign policy autonomy in Bangladesh.��

Nevertheless, India has started to adapt to the new political reality in post-Hasina Bangladesh. In February 2026, Indian Foreign Minister attended the funeral of former Prime Minister Khaleda Zia, whose son Rahman is poised to assume leadership. In addition, following the BNP’s victory, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi congratulated Rahman and reaffirmed his country’s support for a democratic and inclusive Bangladesh.

Informed observers predict that the BNP will adopt a pragmatic approach toward India, grounded in mutual benefit and strategic necessity. Given India’s status as Bangladesh’s closest neighbor, the new government has significant incentives to restore a productive working relationship with New Delhi, irrespective of whether the relationship reverts to the level of political intimacy seen during the Hasina administration. Therefore, Dhaka must adopt a cautious middle ground in its relationship with India.

For the BNP government, redefining relations with India will require recalibrating the country’s strategic cooperation with New Delhi while maintaining Bangladesh’s political autonomy and decision-making authority. Maintaining such a delicate diplomatic balance amid prevailing anti-India and anti-Bangladesh sentiments among certain groups in both countries will be challenging, especially given that such vitriol is often amplified by rumors, misinformation and political propaganda.

In this context, the BNP government may face domestic pressure to adopt a firmer rhetorical stance toward New Delhi, even though strategic interdependence and regional stability require continued engagement and cooperation with India.

A recalibrated engagement with China?��

Relations with are likely to pose the most consequential strategic challenge for the incoming BNP government. Under former Prime Minister Sheikh, Beijing expanded its influence in Bangladesh through infrastructure projects linked to its Belt and Road Initiative and closer defense cooperation with Dhaka. This trend continued after the political transition, with the interim government reportedly receiving over USD 2.1 billion in Chinese loans and grants, as well as diplomatic recognition, through high-level talks with Beijing.��

In 2026, China is expected to remain Bangladesh’s largest trading partner and a core part of the country’s defense plans. This growing defense relationship is evident in the , under which China agreed to build a drone manufacturing plant in Bangladesh, as well as ongoing talks to acquire . China has successfully institutionalised its close relationship with Bangladesh, thereby narrowing the strategic choices for the next government. The BNP is therefore likely to continue economic engagement with Beijing, as protecting Chinese investments in the country aligns with Bangladesh’s national interests.��

Although historically perceived as aligned with Beijing, the BNP’s diplomatic record reflects a pragmatic foreign policy strategy of alliance diversification. Under ’s administration (1977–1981), Bangladesh strengthened diplomatic and military ties with China to broaden external partnerships beyond India and the Soviet bloc. This hedging approach continued under , when military cooperation and economic engagement with China expanded through several agreements, including infrastructure, trade, and technical assistance.��

However, Dhaka’s hedging strategy toward China will likely come under intense scrutiny from great-power players, pressuring the incoming government to navigate mounting hostility from India and the United States to China’s expanding regional influence. Questions about the sustainability of large-scale infrastructure financing and accusations of Chinese debt entrapment will further shape Dhaka’s approach toward Beijing. Consequently, BNP is likely to strike a balance between strategic prudence and economic collaboration in its engagement with China. It would be wise for the BNP to avoid placing Bangladesh at the center of the intensifying strategic competition between China, the United States and India.

Pakistan’s bid for re-engagement

During the Awami League government, remained relatively distant from Bangladesh, largely due to Dhaka’s long-standing strategic alignment with New Delhi. Furthermore, unresolved historical grievances over Pakistan’s atrocities during the Bangladesh Liberation War continued to shape Dhaka’s diplomatic posture and constrained the prospect of closer bilateral engagements. However, this dynamic changed during Muhammad Yunus’ interim government, when Bangladesh and Pakistan took steps to restore ties. In an effort to rebuild mutual trust, the two countries resumed direct air links, increased civilian and military exchanges, and relaxed visa policies. Moreover, Islamabad explored renewed defence cooperation with Dhaka, including discussions on the potential sale of fighter aircraft.

Beyond official diplomatic channels, Pakistan has pursued soft-power outreach by engaging Bangladeshi cultural figures and media platforms, including the participation of Bangladeshi artists in . Amid persistent anti-India sentiment among segments of Bangladeshi youth, Pakistan appears to be leveraging cultural diplomacy and public engagement to shape public opinion in its favour and encourage closer ties with the new government in Dhaka.

Looking ahead: Bangladesh’s foreign policy choices

For Dhaka, diversifying external partnerships is an ideal strategy to reduce overdependence on any single regional actor. This approach involves balancing relations with both Islamabad and New Delhi and engaging with partners in the Middle East. Bangladesh will also need to maintain a transactional approach toward both India and Pakistan, ensuring that its engagement with both regional players remains transparent, structured and guided by clearly defined national interests rather than ideological alignment. 

For the incoming administration to be successful, the BNP’s “Bangladesh First” policy must prioritize the country’s national interests, diversify external partnerships and address regional challenges, such as the Rohingya crisis. The incoming BNP government, therefore, should avoid entanglement in great-power rivalries between the US, India and China. Instead, the new administration’s diplomacy should be grounded in pragmatism and strategic calculation rather than rhetorical posturing.

[ edited this piece.]

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Border tensions, “dehyphenation” and the logic of restraint

Singh opens with the core question: Can trade and economic ties be separated from the border dispute and wider strategic rivalry? Mahon says yes, pointing to periodic high-level pragmatism and long stretches of restraint along disputed lines. He argues that escalation offers little strategic gain for either side, noting, “To have any military conflict there at this point for either side is actually pointless.”

Singh counters with India’s security anxieties: Beijing’s ties with Pakistan, the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor and the broader “string of pearls” concern over Chinese influence in South Asia. Mahon acknowledges these fears but suggests Delhi often overestimates Beijing’s political control in neighboring states. He cites Nepal as an example, arguing that domestic grievances, not Chinese orchestration, better explain recent unrest. Reduced engagement breeds suspicion, while dialogue, even without trust, limits miscalculation.

The trade imbalance and India’s supply-chain dependence

Turning to economics, Singh highlights India’s roughly $100 billion trade deficit with China and its continued reliance on Chinese-manufactured inputs, despite post-2020 restrictions. Mahon frames the imbalance as a structural feature of China’s role as the world’s manufacturing hub rather than a uniquely Indian failure. He agrees that the dependency is real, however.

Singh lists the pressure points: industrial machinery, electronics, solar cells and active pharmaceutical ingredients that underpin India’s drug exports. Even where India’s exports are rising, such as Apple smartphone assembly for the US market, key components still originate in China. Diversification is occurring at the margins, but core industrial linkages remain Chinese.

China as a catalyst: Mahon’s Zhu Rongji argument

Mahon proposes that India treat China less as a threat to exclude and more as a competitor-investor to harness. He invokes former Chinese Premier Zhu Rongji, who used China’s entry into the World Trade Organization to force domestic reform. External competition compels regulators to simplify rules, courts to enforce contracts and firms to raise productivity.

Applied to India, this means selective openness. Mahon proposes allowing Chinese investment in sectors such as electric vehicles under clear conditions that require technology transfer and skill development. The aim is not speed but discipline: gradual engagement that strengthens India’s manufacturing base rather than overwhelming it.

Singh reinforces the institutional critique, arguing that India’s administrative and judicial systems impose severe friction on investment. Together, they suggest that without regulatory reform, India’s ambitions to rebuild manufacturing — from roughly 13% of GDP today — will remain constrained.

China’s slowdown, US pressure and a multipolar reality

Singh challenges the idea that China’s economic slowdown will turn India into a dumping ground for excess production. Mahon rejects the narrative of collapse, calling the idea that trade drives China’s growth “an IMF myth.” He stresses that “5% in an economy of the size and scale and complexity of China is absolutely huge.”

On investment, Mahon broadens the lens, arguing that India’s weak foreign direct investment reflects a global slowdown and uncertainty generated by US policy under US President Donald Trump. Singh maintains that domestic policy choices have amplified the damage.

Both agree that India cannot ignore the United States, given its trade surplus and deep cultural ties. Mahon’s answer is structured hedging: deepen selective economic engagement with China while attracting other investment so no single relationship dominates. He even suggests concentrating early reforms in one or two Indian states, echoing China’s early special economic zones.

Pragmatism, nationalism and execution risk

Mahon outlines three broad outcomes. The best case is a “beneficially transactional” relationship in which business proceeds despite political friction. The worst-case scenario is a nationalism-driven shock or a poorly managed opening that triggers scandal or industrial accidents and poisons public opinion. Singh adds leadership risk: Both Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi are aging leaders, and succession periods can encourage opportunistic nationalism.

India and China may distrust each other, but supply chains, investment needs and a weakening Western-led order make engagement more likely than separation. For Mahon, the strategic opportunity is to turn that engagement into a catalyst for Indian reform rather than a story of permanent dependence.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article/video are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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From lauding Trump’s “peacemaker” role to a Nobel Peace Prize nomination and now jumping on the bandwagon of Trump’s adventurism — the “” — Pakistan has delivered masterful diplomacy, which, although glaringly obsequious, remains .

A strategic windfall for Islamabad

As Islamabad enjoys the perks of this upswing, the diplomatic fanfare remains a strategic hit. Not only have there been back-to-back high-level meetings between the top brass of both countries, but Pakistan is also set to US-made Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missiles (AMRAAM) and a disbursement from the International Monetary Fund (IMF).

Islamabad has also positioned itself as a nascent hub for cryptocurrency mining, as the Pakistan Virtual Asset Regulatory Authority recently reached an with SC Financial Technologies. Eyeing Pakistan’s untapped geological potential worth trillion, the US announced a financing for critical minerals mining at Reko Diq in Balochistan — a project viewed as a strategic for Pakistan’s ailing economy.

With such geopolitical openings, one might question if the tides have actually turned in Pakistan’s favor after years of drift. While a major strategic win for Pakistan out of this detente is that it has regained relevance after a long hiatus and secured a seat at forums of multilateral gravity, this surface-level “bromance” remains, at best, transactional; tethered to Pakistan’s strategic utility, supported by pragmatic calculus.

Trump’s transactional pivot

By offering a lucrative deal to Pakistan’s oil reserves and reciprocal tariffs to 19%, President Trump is nailing his colors to the mast. The US is mending fences with Pakistan to harness its energy resources and supply chain networks in the Indo-Pacific to circumvent Chinese chokepoints.

Another scenario where the US wants to strike while the iron is hot is Pakistan’s engagement with the Gulf, especially since it recently a mutual defense pact with Saudi Arabia. By using Pakistan as a buffer state for its proximity to the region, the US not only aims to deter Iran and curtail Yemen with allies, but also to coordinate in the event of oil market shocks.

Trump’s pivot to Pakistan also left India in the lurch, and New Delhi continued to show open defiance by Russian oil. As the US–India liaison went awry, what was once America’s darling became Trump’s . Gone are the days when India was mollycoddled, as it now also faces Trump’s unpredictable “carrot and stick” approach, with the US reducing its “punitive tariff” to 18% exclusively on the of India’s commitment to stop purchasing Russian oil, which the Modi administration has confirmed thus far.

Due to his proclivity for cowboy diplomacy, much of Trump’s second term is also marked by hackneyed appeals to American exceptionalism, a rhetoric that has thus far remained successful, albeit in stirring up a hornet’s nest in the geopolitical arena. Afterall, the fruits of his unilateralism are obvious — Gaza was , Venezuela , Greenland is under and Iran is faced with an . This hegemonic hubris that the US currently carries should make any country wary of its unctuous support.

Given the confrontational tenor of Trump’s administration, Pakistan’s expectations should remain tempered. Islamabad is now faced with a Washington that weighs partnerships by what they bring to the table. Simply pitching itself as a hub of oil reserves, critical minerals or presenting itself as a willful participant in counterterrorism operations is sufficient — Pakistan needs to deliver tangible results. Otherwise, this relationship will ebb from these halcyon days of bonhomie.

China: the enduring constant

In contrast to the tactical romance, Beijing has maintained an all-weather friendship with Islamabad throughout the course of history, particularly tilting the scales in its during the May 2025 Indo-Pak conflict itself. Not only does Pakistan stand as the of Chinese defense hardware, but China also remains its trading partner.

Nevertheless, the Sino-Pak ties are not smooth sailing either. As Pakistan has become China’s with $29 billion in loans, it now hovers at the precipice of a deadly debt-trap crisis. The partnership faces headwinds as a casts a shadow over economic relations. Regardless of the camaraderie, the escalating security dilemma, owing to in Balochistan, also remains a bone of contention.

Despite these challenges, however, the $65 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is now in its with enhanced strategic synergy. Under the (2025-2029), it offers in Chinese investments compared to a mere $1.25 billion in US financing.

As the strategic depth of the partnership covers a gamut of cooperation, its salience cannot be supplanted by the transient “honeymoon” phase that the United States has beguiled Pakistan into savoring — and Beijing has spared no effort to highlight the of such courtship.

Pakistan itself is well aware of the travails at the heart of this triangle. Allaying any concerns Beijing may have about Islamabad’s budding romance with Washington, Pakistan has that this thaw will not eclipse its ties with China and will not provoke its longtime ally’s ire.

Beijing has also maintained high-level engagement with Islamabad as Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi and Pakistan Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar the 7th round of the Pakistan–China Foreign Ministers’ Strategic Dialogue, terming Pakistan–China friendship “vital” for regional peace and stability.

Navigating the great power tightrope

Now, whether this ironclad brotherhood between China and Pakistan will wane due to the revival of US–Pakistan ties remains to be seen. Sooner or later, it will face a reckoning in the wake of the great power competition.

Regardless, Pakistan should eschew entrapment in the US–China bifurcation that risks pulling it into the labyrinth of bloc politics. It should err on the side of caution. Severing ties with the US would limit Pakistan’s access to global financial institutions and security collaborations, while excessively pivoting towards China would expose Pakistan to economic vulnerabilities should CPEC investments yield limited success.

At this critical juncture, Pakistan needs to redefine the contours of engagement with both powers to reconcile the conflicting expectations and reject zero-sum alignments. The strategic sweet spot lies in maintaining hedging between these powers while also leveraging multivector diplomacy with other partners, predicated on the convergence of interests. Ultimately, Pakistan will have to play chess, not checkers, in this US-China tightrope game.

[ edited this piece.]

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Increasing Taiwan’s defense

Against this backdrop, Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te has advanced proposals to enhance Taiwan’s defense capabilities. He has for a special military budget of approximately $40 billion, which is roughly 3% of GDP, with a longer-term objective of increasing defense spending to 5% of GDP by 2030.

The proposed expansion emphasizes asymmetric capabilities, force modernization — the ongoing process of upgrading military equipment and technology to maintain combat superiority against future threats — and closer security coordination with the United States. Although Washington and the Taiwanese capital of Taipei lack formal diplomatic relations, US policy, guided by domestic legislation and longstanding strategic commitments, continues to prioritize Taiwan’s defense resilience.

In February 2026, members of the US Congress reportedly with Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan, encouraging support for increased defense allocations in light of mounting security pressures. Nonetheless, domestic political contestation remains significant. Opposition parties, including the right-wing Kuomintang and the center-left Taiwan People’s Party, have resisted the scale of the proposed budget. Together, they hold a legislative majority.

The parties have an alternative package of approximately $12.7 billion, citing fiscal prudence, cross-strait stability and broader political considerations. Taiwanese Minister of National Defense Wellington Koo has that legislative obstruction could impede military development and weaken deterrence at a critical juncture.

From a strategic perspective, enhanced defense capabilities serve as a core component of deterrence. By raising the anticipated costs of aggression, Taiwan seeks to complicate China’s operational planning and strategic calculus as Chinese President Xi Jinping’s hopes. Effective deterrence, however, requires more than declaratory policy; it depends upon credible readiness, force survivability and sustained political commitment. Taiwan’s geographic constraints, economic interdependence and limited strategic depth underscore the importance of asymmetric defense investments and external security partnerships.

The US’s support and participation is one of China’s main reasons to invade Taiwan. It not only strengthens its presence in East Asia, but also China to become Sino-centric. Consequently, Taiwan is being perceived as persistent. US President Donald Trump’s hawkish view on China sent a signal to Taiwan. Last year, the US was in the process of an $11.1 billion arms package for Taiwan, consisting of an artillery system, antitank and antiship missiles, and spare parts for helicopters.

Deterring Chinese aggression

Despite triggering China’s fury, it would strengthen Taiwan from China’s provocation. Since 2017, China has deployed over a hundred activities and military units around Taiwan, circling the islands for political reasons. Xi has been serious and ambitious about reunification. On January 1, 2026, he that reunification was an unstoppable goal of China’s long-term interest, and Taiwan was an inseparable part of the motherland. Additionally, the Chinese government has categorized Taiwan as a “separatist group” and warned other countries, including the US, not to meddle its internal affairs.

As by Taiwan’s Ministry of National Defense in December 2025, China operated over 100 aircrafts, 13 warships and 14 official ships around Taiwan. In addition to circling the islands, China also fired 27 rockets from Fujian province, signaling its military posture. Furthermore, the Chinese government issued an increase to its military budget from 2024, which valued ¥1.77 trillion ($11.5 billion) or increased 7.2%. China is planning to build a wartime command complex or the Beijing military city, which equates to the size of 50 Pentagons.

Unlike the tensions between the US and the Soviet Union during the Cold War, cross-strait tensions do not operate as a simple tit-for-tat dynamic. Rather, they reflect a complex interplay of deterrence, domestic politics, national identity and great-power rivalry. Communication channels between Lai and Xi remain limited, and mutual distrust constrains diplomatic engagement.

In this environment, Taiwan’s strategic posture hinges on credible deterrence, institutional cohesion and sustained international support. For a geographically constrained and diplomatically isolated polity, defense preparedness constitutes not merely a military imperative but a central pillar of political survival and strategic autonomy.

[ edited this piece.]

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With a population of more than 240 million people, over half being under the age of 30, digital transformation has shifted from being a policy choice to a strategic necessity. Pakistan’s leadership, under pressure from financial constraints, bureaucratic inefficiencies and global technological shifts, is optimistic that digital public infrastructure will not only reinforce the state’s authority but also create economic opportunities and restore public trust in government.

From paper files to platforms

The implications of Pakistan’s digital measures are significant. The federal e-Office system was fully adopted in 38 39 divisions, reducing the average file-processing time from 25 days to four days and saving the government approximately . Moreover, the introduction of performance dashboards has enabled senior leadership to monitor workflows in real-time and ensure accountability.

Citizen-focused platforms are also expanding rapidly. The PAK App 1.37 million users, processes more than 1.3 million applications and collects 22.86 billion Rupees in taxes. This has thereby facilitated the movement of skilled workers across provinces. In the healthcare sector, the One Patient One ID program has significantly improved efficiency. It has processed 813,000 registrations and 1.5 million lab tests, which has cut waiting times by three to four hours. Furthermore, the program has increased the daily outpatient capacity at major hospitals, such as the Pakistan Institute of Medical Science (PIMS), to 7,500 patients.

Inclusive digital services and provincial innovation

Alongside the steady expansion of digital access across underserved regions, a range of targeted initiatives under the Benazir Income Support Program (BISP) are playing a transformative role in deepening social and financial inclusion. Programs such as Smart Villages, Asaan Khidmat Centers, Business Facilitation Centers and Women’s Digital Wallets collectively work to bridge structural gaps that have historically limited marginalized communities, particularly women, from fully participating in economic and civic life.

integrate connectivity, digital services and community-based infrastructure to ensure that rural populations can access education, healthcare information, government services and financial platforms without the barriers of distance or cost. Complementing this, provide streamlined, citizen-focused service delivery by consolidating multiple administrative and welfare services into accessible local hubs, thereby reducing bureaucratic friction and improving transparency.

further contribute to inclusion by supporting micro-entrepreneurs and small enterprises with registration assistance, regulatory guidance and access to financing opportunities. These services are especially critical for individuals in the informal economy who lack the resources or knowledge to formalize and scale their businesses.

Perhaps most impactful are , which enable direct, secure and transparent transfer of financial assistance to female beneficiaries. By giving women personal control over funds and access to digital financial tools, the initiative strengthens financial autonomy, encourages savings behavior and enhances women’s participation in household and community decision-making.

Together, these interconnected efforts demonstrate a comprehensive approach to inclusive development. This not only expands digital infrastructure but also ensures that vulnerable populations can meaningfully benefit from it through improved service access, economic empowerment and greater social equity

The establishment of the as a gender-sensitive digital governance model has shifted women’s roles in decision-making and enforcement, while simultaneously highlighting that digital reform can go hand in hand with social inclusion.

Strengthening digital sovereignty

Over the past few years, Pakistan has been building its and deploying no less than 140 applications, launching 126 portals and automating 31 ministries. Telecom development is remarkable, with 200 million subscribers, 60% of the population using mobile broadband and 31 million locally-produced handsets. The installation of three (Africa-1, 2Africa and SEA-ME-WE 6) helps to increase the capacity of the internet while enhancing the country’s control over digital connectivity. The government is also implementing regulatory changes that will soon enable 5G technology, Mobile Virtual Network Operators (MVNOs) and infrastructure sharing, all of which are expected to transform the internet access landscape in the coming decade.

Innovation, skills and the digital economy

The dream for Pakistan keeps on changing along the lines of technology and innovation. Through the and the National Semiconductor Program, 7,200 people have been trained in chip design. Plus, more than 300 startups have received support and the Pakistan Startup Fund helps international accelerators. Furthermore, SkillTech and DigiSkills have given 920,000 learners certifications from Google, Huawei, Microsoft and AI companies.

Pakistan has achieved in IT exports, participated in 14 global exhibitions and attracted foreign direct investment worth Rs 700 million as its achievements. Furthermore, the representation of women has been increasing, with women accounting for 25-38% of the trainees and 84 women-led startups achieving success. Collectively, these initiatives point to a developing and digitally empowered ecosystem that not only promotes economic growth but also facilitates social inclusion.

The Ministry of IT & Telecom the Prime Minister’s leadership, the Field Marshal’s support and the regulatory and operational teams’ unyielding efforts as the primary factors behind turning the vision into reality. Pakistan has a straightforward plan: establish enabling environments, implement procedures, set guardrails and provide training when necessary. The year 2025 was a phase of laying the groundwork. 2026 is expected to be a year of large-scale, robust and leading initiatives. Pakistan is poised to be a technology powerhouse, not just embracing the digital era but driving the next three decades of technological advancement. This positioning is expected to generate significant wealth, enhance inclusivity and boost the country’s international competitiveness.

Artificial intelligence: Promise and risk

AI is rapidly emerging as one of the most influential technologies of the 21st century, offering significant potential to improve efficiency, governance, education and economic opportunity. In Pakistan, this promise is already being explored in some institutional arenas. For example, courts and several provincial governments to experiment with AI tools to improve administrative efficiency, such as case management and document review, helping reduce bureaucratic delays and improve service delivery.

Alongside government adoption, regulators are actively considering how to govern AI in complex sectors like finance. The State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) and related bodies in drafting frameworks and guidelines that could govern how AI and algorithmic systems are used in the banking sector, with an emphasis on issues such as data security, fairness and transparency, aligning with broader digital policy priorities found in Pakistan’s national AI strategy discussions.

In the education sector, AI-driven technologies are reshaping traditional practices. Smart learning platforms, virtual tutors and automated assessment tools have begun to offer more personalized learning pathways for students and reduce routine administrative burdens for teachers. Studies show experiencing efficiency gains and improved engagement when using AI for lesson planning and content generation, though these benefits are highly uneven across contexts.

However, these technological advances are not evenly distributed. Persistent challenges inadequate digital infrastructure, limited internet access, uneven device availability and low levels of digital literacy continue to hinder equitable AI adoption across Pakistan’s education system and beyond. Research on digital inclusion highlights how rural and marginalized communities, in particular, remain disproportionately excluded from the advantages of AI, compounding existing inequalities rather than closing them.

Moreover, without robust governance, AI systems can pose real risks, from reinforcing biases or misinterpretations to exposing sensitive data if privacy safeguards are absent. around algorithmic fairness and transparency are increasingly part of policy debates, especially as stakeholders call for frameworks that protect both citizens and institutions as AI becomes more widespread.

The Pakistan Digital Authority: A central role

The is positioned as the principal institutional mechanism for translating the country’s digital vision into coordinated national action. Tasked with implementing the , built upon the pillars of digital economy, digital society and digital governance, the Authority is responsible for aligning federal and provincial initiatives, formulating a National Data Strategy and establishing standards for cloud infrastructure and data interoperability. Through these functions, the PDA seeks to transform fragmented digital efforts into a unified and strategically directed national framework.

When effectively implemented, the PDA Pakistan’s diverse digital initiatives into a cohesive, future-ready system capable of delivering measurable social and economic benefits. Coordinated governance structures, interoperable data systems and standardized infrastructure can significantly enhance administrative efficiency, enable evidence-based policymaking and expand access to public services across regions.

The Authority’s long-term effectiveness, however, will depend on governance capacity, institutional coordination and sustained political commitment. Transparent , clear implementation roadmaps and measurable performance benchmarks are essential to ensure that digital strategies translate into tangible outcomes. Strengthened collaboration among federal institutions, provincial governments and private-sector stakeholders can further reduce duplication, optimize resource allocation and accelerate nationwide digital progress.

Equally significant is the PDA’s potential role in fostering citizen trust and inclusive participation. Prioritizing data protection, accessibility and user-centered service design can ensure that digital transformation improves everyday governance, economic opportunity and social welfare. Investments in digital skills development, infrastructure expansion in underserved areas and support for innovation ecosystems will be necessary to broaden participation in Pakistan’s evolving digital landscape.

Over time, a fully functional PDA could serve as the institutional backbone of a modern digital state, supporting sustainable growth, administrative modernization and improved quality of life. Its success will ultimately be measured by how effectively digital transformation contributes to inclusive development, regional competitiveness and tangible improvements in citizens’ lived experiences.

The real test ahead

The success of Pakistan’s digital future will not be based on the number of apps launched or platforms used, but by the tangible impact of technology on public trust, opportunities and citizen rights. A digital Pakistan must be inclusive, encompassing all urban and rural populations, as well as both the connected and the isolated.

Pakistan is moving beyond AI in courts and fintech (financial technology) innovation; it is also leveraging satellite programs and inclusive digital services. Cutting-edge technology will play a crucial role in the success of these initiatives, provided it is supported by transparency, ethical safeguards and inclusivity. The PDA now faces the central challenge-its decisions will determine whether Pakistan’s digital revolution becomes a model of effective governance or a cautionary example.

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In addition to Walujo, Director of Public Affairs and Communications Ade Mulyana, and Commissioners Pablo Malay and Winanto Kartono, have tendered their resignations.  

The market may interpret the leadership change as a preparation for something significant that requires someone with a different view, yet seasoned and familiar enough to take the helm at a critical period focused on merger execution and continued profitability. 

Hans Patuwo, who is set to replace Walujo, has led various business lines within the company. As the chief operating officer and president of on-demand services, he oversaw all operations across the ecosystem. Patuwo was once credited by his team as the reason behind the growth, strength and transformation of GoTo’s fintech arm GoPay, thanks to his focus on problem-solving. 

As the merger between Southeast Asian giants GoTo and Grab is gaining steam, it’s time to look closer at the potential deal that would dramatically reshape the region’s ride-hailing and food delivery industry. It has direct effects on customers, online drivers, merchants and competitors. However, with Indonesia’s sovereign wealth fund Danantara in the mix, the proposed merger has become a lot more interesting to watch.

Begin (again)

The GoTo-Grab merger speculation began as comes-and-goes industry chatter in the past couple of years, captured initially only by niche business media. Earlier this year, DealStreetAsia the resurfacing of talks between the two tech majors, only to be called off in September.

Competition between GoTo and Grab has been costly for both parties due to intense price wars and investments in technology, marketing and expansion. For example, and have spent 34.5 trillion rupiah (about $2 billion) and 23.55 trillion rupiah (about $1.4 billion), respectively, on sales and marketing expenses to date. That is, on average, about 85% and 19% of their quarterly revenues, respectively.��

It indeed makes sense for both companies, as a merger can be seen as an effort to strengthen the balance sheet. The new entity can cut operating expenses, freeing up capital for innovation and expansion. That could mean wider geographical coverage, an unrivaled logistical and digital network. 

The merger may restore investor confidence. GoTo could benefit from access to Grab’s stronger international presence and broader capital resources, while Grab could tap into the scale and grasp GoTo has in Indonesia. It remains unclear whether Grab would absorb GoTo or vice versa. Still, data suggests that Grab has much bigger liquidity. By absorbing GoTo, Grab can remove its biggest rival, solidifying dominance in ride-hailing and delivery.

In an interesting turn of events, State Secretary Prasetyo Hadi that either a merger or an acquisition is afoot between GoTo, Gojek, Tokopedia and Grab Holdings — and that Daya Anagata Nusantara Investment Management Agency (BPI Danantara) is involved to realize such a plan.��

Hadi, as quoted by CNBC Indonesia, said the plan was the result of a three-way meeting between President Prabowo Subianto, GoTo and Grab representatives as part of the efforts to create better services for the public, to keep the company running and to create jobs.

Shares of GoTo and Grab had a slight uptick on the next trading day following Hadi’s comment on the potential merger on Friday, July 11th. The following Monday, GoTo’s shares went up to 67 rupiah apiece from 61 rupiah previously. Grab’s shares went up to $5.90 apiece, from $5.56 apiece previously. That being said, both shares are still far below their Initial Public Offering (IPO) prices.

Public concerns

Being the first and largest ride-hailing players in Southeast Asia, GoTo and Grab could control a significant share of the ride-hailing and online food-delivery markets in the region. In other words, a monopoly. In hindsight, it threatens consumer choice and gives the combined entity a potentially unchecked power over pricing and data.

The national commission overseeing business competition in Indonesia, also known as KPPU, can’t do much at this stage. According to , KPPU can only assess mergers and acquisitions that have already happened. In a to the media, KPPU Chairman M. Fanshurullah Asa said the commission is open for GoTo and Grab to hold a voluntary consultation with the agency.

KPPU has begun conducting independent research to identify potential impacts from the merger. If the transaction is finally notified to KPPU, the agency can immediately conduct a set of assessments. However, the question remains. If the state is involved and millions of dollars and precious time have been spent to make this merger come true, how far would KPPU maintain its ground?

On the other side, there is also a real possibility that the authority in Singapore will move to block or impose conditions on a merger between GoTo and Grab, especially if the deal risks unfairly reducing competition in the city-state. 

The Competition and Consumer Commission of Singapore (CCS) is of media reports about the potential merger, but it has not received merger notifications from either of the companies.��

Danantara’s involvement is another point of concern. Danantara, Indonesia’s new sovereign wealth fund with 1,000 trillion rupiah (about $59 million) in capital, needs nine months to set up a proper website that includes basic information such as its management and official statements.

As the public continues to question its transparency, the new Sovereign Wealth Fund (SWF) is reportedly exploring a potential minority stake in the combined entity. Danantara is poised to play a government-driven strategic role to ensure commercial return and market balance. 

It is still fresh in the memory how the state-owned mobile operator also intended to make a strategic investment in Indonesia’s digital economy by injecting billions of rupiah into GoTo through convertible bonds and equity purchases between 2020 and 2021. It, however, resulted in a major financial loss after GoTo’s shares plunged following its IPO.

The transaction received public criticism, not only due to the massive loss but also because of the potential . Prominent businessman Garibaldi Thohir, who was an independent commissioner of Gojek and later became GoTo’s president commissioner, is the sibling of State-Owned Minister Erick Thohir. Bono Daru Adji, Telkom commissioner, was a legal consultant for GoTo’s IPO.��

A name who’s involved in both Telkomsel’s investment in GoTo and potential Danantara’s investment in the GoTo-Grab entity is Pandu Sjahrir. Sjahrir was a commissioner for Indonesia’s Stock Exchange. He has been an early investor in Gojek and later became the president commissioner of GoTo’s financial services arm. These roles placed him, arguably, on the “GoTo side” of the relationship due to his close association with the company. 

Now, being the CIO of Danantara, Sjahrir the media that the transaction will be a business-to-business one. The optics are already murky. Danantara has to ensure nobody has financial or relational ties to GoTo and Grab. The SWF should ensure that no one uses this agency to secure positions or bail out existing positions in GoTo under the cover of “national interest.”

Securing local interests

For Danantara to take a stake in the merged GoTo-Grab entity, one would argue that it signals a major step in state involvement over the nation’s digital economy. It’s clear Danantara has the full support of the state. 

Knowing that the foreign entity has access to larger capital, Danantara’s involvement in this potential transaction may be the right way to secure Indonesia’s interest in the deal. It can address concerns over strategic assets and the direction of the digital market. Danantara’s stake could mean safeguarding data sovereignty, ensuring jobs and innovation stay onshore and securing regulatory compliance for the new entity.

However, having Danantara — along with its political influence and access to government data — invest in the new entity, the competition will be a bit tougher, if not impossible, for other ride-hailing companies. The merger itself would arguably create a near-monopoly, giving the platform far greater power to cut incentives, raise commissions and limit alternatives if conditions worsen for drivers, merchants and customers. Political backing will fuel this dominance even more. 

Fewer incentives, higher commissions and insensitivity to complaints are detrimental to both the drivers and their customers. The latter would pay more, yet the drivers could get less. In the grand scheme of things, the potential impact could be rising inflation, dropping purchasing power and worsening quality of life.

As the combined entity could control the majority of the ride-hailing market in the region, it will be harder for online drivers — and to some extent merchants and customers too — to voice and advocate their rights. The potential merger has received from the Indonesian Transport Workers Union (SPAI) and . They’ve sensed the potential decline of their take-home pay following this merger.��

There are looming questions on the deal structure itself: which one will become the surviving entity? What does it mean to have either of the entities as the surviving one? Where would it be based? What kind of taxes should it pay? How much share will Danantara have? Even if it’s not a majority stake, are there any government officials taking positions in the new entity? If so, what will their responsibility be? 

There are also questions regarding the customers, the merchants, and the online drivers. What does this merger mean to them? Do they need to pay more to use the ride-hailing service? Will it be more convenient for customers but less bargaining power for merchants? 

Just like KPPU and CCS, the public will have to wait for new developments and watch the results closely.

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Nowhere is this strategic incoherence more evident than in India’s approach toward the Taliban. The of the Taliban captured Kabul in August 2021, and India immediately pulled its diplomats out and closed its mission. In contrast, the mastermind of the Taliban movement, , was elated. Subsequently, Indian diplomats realized that they had given Pakistan a carte blanche (blank check) on the Afghan affairs. The last time Pakistan got the better of India in Afghanistan was in 1989, and it led to a dramatic increase in militants entering Jammu and Kashmir. Therefore, to avoid history repeating itself, Indian diplomats are trying to build a working understanding with the Taliban.

However, engagement does not require legitimization. Giving a highly media-driven welcome to Afghanistan Foreign Minister and allowing him to visit seminary does not advance any articulated strategic purpose. This approach demonstrates that tactical changes have overtaken strategic planning.

At the same time, Bangladesh has plunged into radicalism, directly affecting long-term Indian interests. The interim government, inadvertently or advertently, has given ideological and operational space to the and Hizbut-Tahrir Bangladesh () in the state. Multiple reports even suggest that intelligence is looking to knit an alliance with extremists in Bangladesh. The results are turning out to be horrific, with pervading society, the economy is and social tensions, with being specially targeted, are reaching acute stress.

In such a situation, one expects a coherent Indian response. However, the Indian solution to this anarchy is anything but coherent. The policies are made on a case-by-case basis, untethered by any overarching architecture of grand strategy.

The necessity of the National Security Strategy

This malaise of incoherence is largely due to the absence of a National Security Strategy (). In the absence of a guiding philosophy that defines national interests, threats and priorities, India’s response is fragmented and erratic. Although the National Security Council () decided to begin work on the NSS in 2018, it is not yet ready. The secretary of the NSC is the National Security Advisor (NSA); thus, the NSA was tasked with its formulation.

This delay is especially consequential given the scale of global change since 2018. The great-power competition is rapidly intensifying. Military technology is advancing on an alarming scale. of warfare, such as cyber and space, are expanding the scope of threat perception by altering recruitment and training. And within all these changes, the regional stability in the subcontinent is plummeting. In such an environment, an NSS becomes a necessity.

However, what is an NSS, and why is it indispensable? These questions are foundational to grasping the essence of an NSS. An NSS is fundamentally a political-strategic document that integrates the military, diplomacy, the economy and technology. From a realist perspective, it brings multiple elements of state power together to reduce vulnerability in an anarchic system where the distribution of power drives conflict.

An NSS consists of two parts: one confidential, for top-ranking serving officers, and the other declassified, for scholars and thinkers. The declassified part succinctly presents a nation’s view on the prevailing balance of power and international politics. It presents an assessment of the present. The NSS also lists a nation’s interests in the external world. It tells us which region, ocean and sea are most critical for its trade. It also informs us about the status quo from military and political perspectives in the trade-critical regions. Finally, once the interests are clearly defined, it outlines ways to protect them. The means can vary depending on the comprehensive national power. As the power increases, the ways to influence others to your way change. These are the three basic elements of an NSS.

Threat perception, relative power symmetry, economic power shifts, technology and its military applications are constantly changing. Thus, a timely revision of the NSS is necessary. This revision helps a nation to face the new threats with strategic clarity.  

In this sense, the NSS is the very core of a state’s security architecture. Much like the Preamble of a constitution, it lays the normative and strategic foundation for a much grander scheme to secure interests. This document is the driving force in the functioning of the most important elements of state power. Yet, India does not have it. This strategic amnesia is costing Indian national security dearly. 

What follows the NSS: the National War Doctrine

The immediate doctrinal corollary for the military is the National War Doctrine (). The NWD articulates the way the military will fight the next war. It is the brain and guiding philosophy for the military. This study defines how the military conceptualizes warfighting. It translates the national interests defined in the NSS into military concepts and operational preparedness.

Once this comprehensive assessment is done, the military moves to building capability and increasing capacity. Hence, it is the NWD that decides the approach to warfare. So, whether the military chooses an Integrated approach in the form of joint theater commands with integration across domains such as cyber, electronics and space, or fights as individual services, is decided solely by the NWD. Therefore, implementing such an approach is the final step in planning. Surprisingly, implementation is occurring first in our case, driven by the of commands.��

It is not just theaterization but also changes in recruitment patterns, new doctrines for and , and the raising of that are happening. Meanwhile, both the Special Forces (SF) doctrine and the Cyberspace doctrine, and the operationalization of the Joint Armed Forces Special Operations Division (AFSOD) in 2019, are welcome additions. But the underlying fact remains that this should ideally be done after we have defined our interests and areas of interest broadly. Such an exercise will be more impactful in utilizing the special forces and exploiting the cyber domain.

For instance, numerous SF veterans have written that our SFs are engaged in counterinsurgency operations in Jammu & Kashmir, even though such operations can easily be carried out by the Ghatak platoons of any infantry battalion. The veterans are of the opinion that SF must primarily be used to achieve strategic objectives. 

Given such a haphazard state of affairs, the former Chief of Army Staff (COAS), General MM Naravane, in 2022 that talking about theaterization before having the NSS is akin to “putting a cart before the horse”. Thus, implementing such reforms without doctrinal clarity risks fixing the military in a misaligned organizational setup. Such a scenario will not bode well for the country nor the military.

The way forward

If India intends to claim its long-lost seat among the great powers, then having the NSS is the first step. This will set the tone for India’s engagement with the rest of the world. It will give much-needed clarity and usher in economic and military reforms on the basis of long-term objectives. It will save Indians from pursuing ill-defined aims.

However, the NSS is not a panacea. It is not a substitute for bureaucratic, economic and political reforms. But it is the foundation, over which the state’s capabilities can be built and strengthened. Thus, the immediate task for the NSC is to frame the NSS and list out the Indian interests, threats and ways to deal with them clearly.

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and union campaigns for living wages also echo living wage concerns beyond statutory minima. This debate, however, is unfolding at a time when a large share of India’s micro, small and medium enterprises — employing the bulk of the workforce — continue to struggle with compliance even with existing minimum wage requirements.

Unlike minimum wages, which are explicitly linked to the nature of work, skill levels and hours performed, living wage frameworks are typically anchored in household consumption needs and do not explicitly account for the quantity or productivity of work.

As a result, they may generate wage benchmarks that appear arbitrary from the perspective of firms’ productivity and economic capacity, particularly for small enterprises operating with low productivity and thin margins. Yet in India’s labor market, an increasing focus on living wages risks diverting attention from a more immediate and consequential task of the wage laws India already has.

Living wages and developed vs developing economies

Living wage frameworks have largely emerged in developed economies, where per capita incomes are often more than ten to 20 times that of India, informality is limited and most employment is in high-productivity sectors. In such contexts, governments and employers have the fiscal and economic capacity to absorb consumption-based wage benchmarks.

India, however, remains a developing economy with low average productivity, widespread informality and nearly 90% of enterprises classified as micro or small units. Policy instruments suited to rich economies cannot be mechanically transplanted into a labor market with fundamentally different structural realities.

At its core, the living wage approach shifts wage determination away from work performed towards household consumption. Wages are benchmarked against food baskets, housing costs, education choices and lifestyle expectations.

This departs from a principle long embedded in Indian labor law and trade union practice — and more broadly in India’s civilizational ethos — where work itself is accorded dignity, the belief that labor, skill and effort (karma) deserve fair reward. By tying pay to household needs rather than work, the living wage framework disconnects remuneration from productivity, effort and skill acquisition.

This shift raises practical contradictions. Should two workers performing the same job earn different wages because one has a larger family? In a country as diverse as India, with sharp regional price differences and household structures ranging from single migrants to joint families, a consumption-based wage formula quickly becomes arbitrary, inequitable and administratively complex.

More importantly, such an approach weakens incentives for skill formation and productivity enhancement — the levers India must strengthen if it is to realize its ambition of becoming a by 2047. For an economy still climbing the income ladder, linking wages explicitly to the quantity and quality of work performed remains important for aligning remuneration with productivity.

Since productivity is shaped not only by effort but also by workers’ skills and working conditions, wage-setting mechanisms that recognize these factors can promote efficiency as well as fairness. When embedded within a framework of statutory minimum wages, skill-linked wage systems are therefore not merely pro-employer; they can also be pro-employee, as they encourage skill acquisition by linking wage rates directly to employees’ skill sets.

Laws on the book: a failure to enforce

India’s real wage crisis lies elsewhere. It is not the absence of a living wage benchmark, but the failure to enforce minimum wages already notified . Across agriculture, construction, domestic work and small manufacturing, many workers continue to be statutory minimum wages. Revisions are often delayed, inspection capacity is limited and compliance remains weak. For many workers, minimum wages remain a legal entitlement rather than a lived reality.

It was precisely to address these shortcomings that Parliament enacted the , 2019. By consolidating four earlier laws covering minimum wages, wage payments, bonuses and equal remuneration, the Code seeks to simplify compliance while strengthening worker protection. Its most significant reform is universal coverage.

Although its predecessor, the , 1948, existed for decades, its application was limited to “” notified by governments, leaving large segments of India’s informal and service sector workforce (like housemaids, cooks, caregivers, workers in small eateries like dhabas and roadside restaurants) outside its legal ambit.

The Code on Wages, 2019, removes this occupational filter, making minimum wages protected for the first time. Now, minimum wages have become a statutory right for all workers across organized and unorganized sectors.

The Code also introduces a statutory floor wage to be fixed by the central government, based on minimum living standards, with scope for regional variation. States cannot set minimum wages below this floor. This creates a national baseline of wage protection without abandoning the principle that wages remain linked to work and skill. Minimum wages are to be fixed using transparent criteria, including skill categories, geographic conditions and the nature of work, such as exposure to heat or hazardous environments.

Beyond wage levels, the Code strengthens core labor protections. It prohibits gender-based discrimination in recruitment and wages for similar work. It extends provisions on timely wage payment and restrictions on unauthorized deductions to all employees by removing earlier wage ceilings. Overtime wages at twice the normal rate are mandated, and responsibility for wage payment is clearly assigned to employers.

Equally important is the rethinking of enforcement. Inspectors are now designated as “”, combining oversight with guidance to improve compliance. First-time, nonserious offenses can be compounded through monetary penalties, while repeat violations attract stricter sanctions. This compliance-oriented framework recognizes India’s enforcement constraints while retaining legal accountability.

Searching for a just marketplace

Taken together, the Code on Wages, 2019 already incorporates many objectives advanced by living wage advocates: universality, adequacy, equity and enforceability. What it deliberately avoids is anchoring wages to individual household consumption patterns. Introducing a parallel living wage framework alongside the Code would blur legal clarity, complicate enforcement and weaken the incentive structure needed in a developing economy.

The economic risks of such a shift are significant. Most Indian enterprises operate on thin margins and have to capital. They can plan for and comply with clearly defined, work-linked minimum wages. But wages are tied to evolving consumption baskets, often devised without adequate sensitivity to the capacity to pay unpredictable labor costs. The likely outcomes are reduced hiring, greater informality and weaker compliance.

India’s labor market faces structural challenges: informality, low productivity and limited enforcement capacity. The Code on Wages, 2019, offers a pragmatic, Indian response aligned with the country’s development stage and long-term aspirations. The priority now is implementation through regular revision of minimum wages, stronger enforcement and universal compliance.

The debate, ultimately, is not between compassion and growth. It is between a wage system anchored in work, skills and productivity and one anchored in consumption. If India is serious about becoming a by 2047, the task is clear: make the Wage Code work, and ensure that the minimum wage promised by law is paid in practice.

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While such arguments may appear persuasive to those unfamiliar with the region’s history and economic realities, they collapse under scrutiny. The idea that Pakistan benefits financially from war ignores the devastating cost borne by the country, economically, socially and politically, and grossly misrepresents the motivations behind its security policy.

A popular narrative without economic grounding

The origin of the “war economy” myth is not academic. It is rooted in the rhetoric of anti-institutional and anarchist movements that seek to portray the Pakistani state, particularly its military, as profiteers of perpetual conflict. These claims often appear in activist discourse and certain international commentary, asserting that Pakistan’s engagement in post 9/11 operations was driven by financial incentives rather than national security imperatives.

Central to this argument is the notion that Pakistan received billions in aid, particularly through the US Coalition Support Fund (CSF), and used this as a revenue stream. The implication is that peace was undesirable for institutions that allegedly benefited from instability. However, the economic data and ground realities paint a far different picture.

Counting the cost, not the gains

According to Pakistan’s Ministry of Finance, the country suffered over in economic losses between 2001 and 2020 as a direct result of terrorism and conflict-related disruption, losses that dwarf the total foreign assistance received during the same period.

In contrast, the US disbursed approximately to Pakistan in Pentagon military payments, primarily through the CSF between 2002 and 2017. Crucially, this payment was not an open-ended financial reward. It was a reimbursement mechanism for logistical and security support rendered in connection with NATO operations in Afghanistan.

Independent research institutions echo these findings. A published in Small Wars & Insurgencies estimates that Pakistan has endured over due to terrorism, hardly the profile of a nation exploiting war for its benefit.

Strategic necessity, not opportunism

Accusations that Pakistan chose war for dollars neglect the regional security environment that followed after the US invasion of Afghanistan. With terrorist networks, including Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan and Al-Qaeda, establishing footholds along porous borders and violence spilling into Pakistani territory, neutrality was not an option. The state faced real and urgent threats to national cohesion and public safety.

To suggest that these decisions were made for mere economic gain is not only analytically unsound, but it also implies that Pakistan willingly invited terrorism onto its soil, destabilized its economy and lost thousands of lives for international financial aid, which it could neither fully control nor freely spend. While all institutions, including the military, must be subject to transparency and accountability, the idea that a nation enters war for reimbursement, much of which was withheld or conditional, is a distortion, not a diagnosis.

The power of the narrative and who it serves

So why does the myth persist? Because it serves a purpose. By casting national security decisions as economically motivated, anti-state narratives shift the focus from the complexity of militancy, cross-border terrorism and regional geopolitics to a simplified story of greed. It reframes a fight against extremism as a tool of oppression and reduces sacrifice to opportunism.

Such distorted framing appeals to international audiences unfamiliar with the region’s internal dynamics and is often repeated by anarchist factions seeking to erode public trust in state institutions.Ironically, this narrative not only misrepresents Pakistan but also undermines the very the country has made in reversing the tide of terrorism over the last decade.

No profit in pain

The war economy myth is a powerful speculation, but it is not an economic fact. Pakistan’s security decisions have often come at an extraordinary cost rather than as a benefit. The state has faced intense , and immense resource strain in its pursuit of stability, not profit.

As the world revisits the consequences of two decades of war in the region, it is critical to separate facts from speculative narratives. Reducing Pakistan’s complex national security challenges to a monetary transaction does a disservice not just to truth, but to the countless civilians, soldiers and institutions that continue to strive for peace in one of the world’s most difficult neighborhoods.

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However, there is a yawning gap between the approaches taken by the makers of The Hunt and Dhurandhar that couldn’t have been starker. It is worth examining Dhurandhar and The Hunt for their logical consistencies, their comparisons to Hollywood franchises and what the creation of such media indicates about the future of the prevailing pseudo-nationalist narrative in India.

Two stories, two perspectives

The Hunt follows the events after the assassination of former Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and the subsequent investigation. Rajiv Gandhi was on May 21, 1991, by a suicide bomber belonging to the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (). The LTTE was an insurgent group that sought to establish an independent Tamil state.

While The Hunt doesn’t hit the high-water mark of Adolescence, another procedural smash hit of 2025, it faithfully depicts the inter-agency friction that happens when multiple personalities with overlapping jurisdictions and constitutionally or statutorily limited powers collaborate in national interest. There are occasional mentions of political dithering, but the final product ends up highlighting the true nationalism of dedicated investigators during the politically tumultuous India of the 1990s.

Dhurandhar, on the other hand, makes a mockery of India’s institutions. It does this by linking the movie’s fictional, sensationalized events to real-life tragedies such as the of IC-814 by militants linked to Pakistan-based Islamist group Harakat-ul-Mujahideen, as well as the Mumbai attacks orchestrated by terrorist group Lashkar-e-Taiba. In particular, the fictional portrayal of , India’s current National Security Advisor, is another insult to viewers’ intelligence and basic understanding of history and civics.

The hypocrisy of the on-screen Ajit Doval bashing the previous Congress-led administration would have been tragic if it were not comically illogical. This is the same administration that seemingly kept funding his undercover operation, started during the Vajpayee-led government’s tenure before that, in order to demonstrate institutional maturity in national security matters.

In the film, the character of Ajay Sanyal is inspired by Doval. He is portrayed as the only bureaucrat in the sprawling military establishment who cares about the country and, at the same time, as an arbiter of others’ nationalism. He is the one who sends the film’s main character, Hamza Ali Mazari, into Pakistan as an undercover spy.

In one of the scenes, Mazari is seen riding a motorcycle while drunk. Behavior such as this would be a red flag for any spy handler, but not for the juvenile caricature of Doval. Given the embarrassing details that have emerged from the botched plot against Sikh separatist leader Gurpatwat Singh Pannun on American soil by hired gun Nikhil Gupta, perhaps a drunk, bike-riding spy in Pakistan is a fitting tribute to the incompetence demonstrated by the Indian government. Logic, it seems, is the first casualty of pseudo-nationalism.

Despite such glaring holes, several commentators have on the Dhurandhar bandwagon by comparing it to Western military propaganda spread by franchises such as Top Gun and the Bourne trilogy. Dhurandhar’s financial success might have tapped into the cultural demand for India’s own James Bond. However, there is a difference: most of the other global franchises it is being compared to are outward-looking. They might occasionally criticize their own national security establishments or utilize rogue spy characters to highlight a country’s political values, but Western global franchises rarely elevate one politician at the expense of all other previous leaders of the home country.

Similarly, making the fictionalized Doval claim that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) is directly or indirectly responsible for all the terrorist attacks in the world has no comparison in any of the above-mentioned global hits. While monolithic in their portrayal of Western democracies as the good guys, the films don’t assume that their audiences are stupid or naïve regarding history. 

The Hunt is more similar to Western military films than Dhurandhar is. Not because of its content, but because of its approach in portraying government responses and procedures. In addressing the complexities of LTTE terrorism, The Hunt aspires to drag typical Indian black-and-white, no shades of grey storytelling towards more nuanced Western military propaganda films such as Black Hawk Down. In comparison, by making the Doval-inspired character deliver childish lines, Dhurandhar does a disservice to decades of rich Indian history of espionage, showing it in a poor light. It truly is a bastion of pseudo-nationalism.

Connecting the dots shouldn’t be difficult

As an advocate of freedom of expression, I defend the right of the creators of The Hunt and Dhurandhar to make any kind of content. In return, instead of the success of Dhurandhar to the supposed demise of outdated, elitist gatekeepers of entertainment in the New India, it would help if the supporters of Dhurandhar could address a few issues. 

First, they should address why the government of this mythical New India, particularly the Central Board of Film Certification (), has not changed its decades-old habit of content censorship since assuming power in 2014. India the BBC’s documentary on Narendra Modi in 2023, even going so far as to block people from circulating clips on social media. Similarly, the CBFC continues to order inordinate amounts of — often inane — cuts to films such as , All India Rank and countless others since 2014. When it comes to censorship in India, the way George Orwell ended his classic Animal Farm is instructive: “The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”

However, after a decade or so of similar propaganda efforts in the media, Dhurandhar should not come as a surprise. The sequel has been predictably teed up to be released on the eve of the upcoming West Bengal state . Given the mechanics of film production, it makes one wonder whether — India’s military response to the latest terrorist in Indian-administered Kashmir — happened in the middle of the making of the two-part saga. This would have most likely forced the filmmakers to stretch the first film to almost three-and-a-half hours to ensure the latest operation would be accommodated in the sequel.

Since the caricature of Doval in Dhurandhar has been bizarrely lamenting the lack of nationalism in any previous leaders and waiting for the messiah to arrive, it is safe to assume that Modi will make a grand entry in the second edition. He will most likely magically justify the botched 2016 while simultaneously ushering in a mythical New India that eliminates the scourge of Pakistani terrorism with cross-border strikes. Just don’t ask questions about the ever-changing justification of demonetization by Modi in its immediate aftermath, or the fact that Union Home Minister Shivraj Patil resigned after taking moral responsibility for the 26/11 attack, while neither the Home Minister nor the National Security Advisor has resigned after multiple terrorist attacks since 2014. 

There is one thing audiences can be sure of: In the nuance-free world of Dhurandhar, India’s geopolitical and political reality will be nowhere on the radar. One can only hope that other filmmakers follow the lead of The Hunt and pick more historic events in the recent past to make realistic, respectable content.

Until then, viewers will have to contend with the reality not shown in Dhurandhar. Mukesh , owner of the group that runs �ٳ�ܰ����Ի�󲹰�’s production house Jio Studio, was worth $62 billion in 2014 and is now worth over $98 billion in 2025. Ambani exists in a time when 800 million (80 crore) Indian citizens are below the poverty line, making them eligible for Modi’s free monthly food . As net foreign investments in India are , even Indian companies are in expanding domestically. For the gainfully employed, inflation has far outpaced wage growth in the past decade. And with hundreds of unemployed young Indians showing up for every government job opening, sometimes even graduate degree holders have to accept clerical jobs.

When you cannot provide your fellow citizens the dignity of a decent job and two square meals, you have to keep feeding them pseudo-nationalism. In this case, it comes in the form of Dhurandhar.

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Glenn responds with humor and irony:

Looked at from outside, as a non-Indian India hand, India follower, the picture that has been painted, that one thinks one sees at least in part, is that Modi and his party have said they wanted to decentralize the economy, deregulate the economy and energize the private sector, that there has been a sea change in Indian culture at least among the ruling elites recognizing that colonial centralization, top-down government and socialist economies are less able to provide growth, wealth, health and so on than a well-regulated market economy and that huge changes are underway.

Glenn goes on to ask:

What exactly is happening then? What is Modi doing to the economy? Does he know — and I am not being facetious here — does he know what he is doing? Does he believe what he is doing is the opposite of what is happening? Many socialists I have known, quite sincerely, told me that all was going as well as possible in the best of all possible worlds, even as their economies and societies were imploding. So, tell me what is happening?

Atul clarifies his metaphor by pointing out that Modi is no Joseph Stalin. Unlike the Soviet strongman, Modi is not killing millions and sending hundreds of thousands to the gulag. No Lavrentiy Beria is raping and killing young daughters of Indian citizens. However, Modi is certainly centralizing power in the same way as Indira Gandhi did during the heyday of socialism in the 1970s. 

The anatomy of Vegetarian Stalinism

Stalinism is a form of Marxist government in which all power is concentrated in the hands of a single ruler. In this deterministic political theology, capitalism is the final state of human development after which communism would emerge worldwide and the state itself would dissolve. Communism was the creation of an elite that saw the masses as needing help and itself as the vanguard of a political revolution. This elite seized power from the exploiters — the Tsarist elite — through a bloody revolution and placed all levers of production in the hands of the state. The new communist elite assumed all power, claimed the absolute right to the truth and the right to tell the people how to be free.

Joseph Stalin took over the reins of power of the Soviet state and was not just murderous but really genocidal. This Georgian (the country in the Caucasus) began by destroying his rivals and ended up killing millions. Stalin was training to be a priest. He walked out of his seminary. In came Karl Marx’s tomes and out went the Bible. 

In Stalinist theology, the ruler claims complete authority over truth, economic life and social behavior. An elaborate state apparatus enforces the ruler’s authority. Stalinism was not just authoritarian but totalizing, eliminating rivals and suppressing feedback. Stalin did not spare his rival Leon Trotsky, even when he fled to faraway Mexico despite his mythic leadership in the 1917 Russian Revolution and in creating the Red Army.

Post-independence India was greatly inspired by the Stalin-led Soviet Union and adopted a socialist economy. The colonial bureaucracy came to occupy the commanding heights of the economy in addition to the state. The Indian Civil Service (ICS) of the British Raj became the Indian Administrative Service (IAS) and gained even greater powers post-independence. In 1976, Prime Minister Indira Gandhi amended the constitution to declare India to be a socialist country and created a license-permit-quota raj where the babu (bureaucrat) was king.

While Pakistan became, in the words of the scholar Ishtiaq Ahmed, a garrison state, India became a babu state. Under Modi, this babu state is back. It secures compliance of citizens by tormenting them through administrative red tape and interminable judicial proceedings. As Atul points out, “You’re not sent off to the gulag but the Enforcement Directorate or the Income Tax [Department] or the Central Bureau of Investigation shows up at your door.” They start proceedings in court, which often last a decade or more. People end up traveling to dusty offices or decrepit courts, waiting interminably and wasting time, money and energy for years. They might end up innocent in court, but might be bankrupt by the end of their judicial ordeal. The Indian system is not Kafkaesque; it is Kafka.

Three features define the political system under Modi. First, Modi has centralized power to an excessive degree. Like Stalin, he wants all power for himself. The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) is all-powerful now, and elected leaders in the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) count for less than nothing. Modi exercises power not through the BJP but through a colonial-era bureaucracy led by the IAS. A coalition of big business, the bureaucracy and the BJP runs the country with an iron fist. This has led to a top-down babu state that lacks feedback loops of freer economies. Unlike a fascist system, this babu state does not corporatize or industrialize. Instead, India’s babu state has paralyzed the economy through bureaucratic oppression of the citizenry.

The perception and the reality

Glenn points out that the standard external perception of India is rather positive. From the outside, Modi appears to have deregulated, energized the private sector and presided over major infrastructure expansion. Glenn notes that when he visited India, the infrastructure was improving. Construction was underway on roads, airports and other logistics projects.

Atul says that we have to give credit where credit is due. Modi has an outstanding minister named Nitin Gadkari, who is efficient and dynamic. Improving infrastructure, a historic weakness, counts as a genuine achievement for the Modi government. It has also ameliorated the lives of hundreds of millions through better micro welfare measures. Thanks to direct bank transfers, the spread of digital payments and identification based on India’s Aadhaar ID system, leakages in welfare delivery have decreased greatly. So, less government money is stolen or wasted in welfare programs. Indians are better fed, taller and live longer than before. This is indeed an impressive achievement.

Economic growth rates have been volatile but remain relatively high. Note that achieving high growth rates is easier for developing countries than for advanced economies, though. Since India is operating from a low base, a higher growth rate is easily achievable. The World Bank tells us that India’s per capita income is only $2,694.7, which leaves a lot of headroom for growth.

Also, India’s economic numbers are no longer reliable. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has given India a “C” grade (the second lowest) for its national accounts data. India failed to get the A (adequate) and B (broadly adequate) ratings. A C rating means economists, investors, and policymakers fail to get a completely accurate and timely picture of the Indian economy. Atul’s sources in the IMF, the World Bank and the Indian establishment reveal that the Modi government has cooked up its books, fiddled with the numbers and gamed World Bank indices. For example, the government has made it super easy for anyone to get electricity in Delhi and Jaipur, which are the two cities World Bank measures. They reveal that the improvement in ease of doing business in India is largely a myth and the World Bank’s indices for India are misleading.

India’s inflation figures are now highly misleading. Per government figures, inflation was 0.71% in November and 1.33% in December. Many fear that the government is the numbers. Atul’s mother Sudha believes that either Nirmalanomics is right or Sudhanomics is right. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman must be either unaware of the cost of groceries or is lying about inflation figures.

Yet it is true that inflation under Modi on average has been 5.1% per year, lower than 8.1% under his predecessor Manmohan Singh. However, growth has been lower too: 6.8%per year under Modi in contrast to 7.7% under Singh. The rupee has fallen under Modi too. It was less than ₹60 per USD when Modi was elected and is now more than ₹90 per USD.

Atul makes the point that Modi is super sharp. He is cunning and charismatic. The prime minister is a decent orator who wins election after election. Yet Modi is not terribly well educated and began life as a teaseller. The prime minister has the instincts of a control freak who believes he will wave the wand and the elephant will dance. Fundamentally, Modi does not understand economics and policymaking.

The toxic legacy of the past

India became independent on August 15, 1947, two years after the end of World War II. Independent India chose socialism because it had been traumatized by British rule. The British had stripped India bare, engaged in an exploitative transfer of wealth and life expectancy was just 32. Remember the East India Company conquered India, not the British state.

At that time, the Soviets, communism and socialism seduced many Indian leaders. Vladimir Lenin’s Imperialism, the Highest Stage of Capitalism was deeply influential. Many subjects of imperial powers who were Western and capitalist were looking for alternatives. Other than nationalists around the world, the only party supporting independence movements was the Soviet Union. The US only paid lip service to these struggles. It was a capitalist power that was the inheritor of the British Raj.

Mahatma Gandhi chose Jawaharlal Nehru as his successor. Gandhi was from the trading caste, believed in small business and freer markets. Nehru was a Brahmin who had gone to Cambridge and was deeply influenced by socialism. He was very impressed by the Soviet Union where he went to fake factories where actors pretended to be workers and managers, and ate together. 

Nehru inherited an imperial state, a shadow empire with widely disparate parts that he tried to yoke together with the slogan “unity in diversity,” Gandhi’s center-right followers, including his relatives, were marginalized. Nehru was an idealist who brought in Soviet-inspired five-year plans, started the Indian Institutes of Technology, tried to create a public sector and built large dams to increase agricultural production. By the time Nehru died, India had become an elected monarchy.

Yet, at the end of the day, Nehru was using a colonial state to impose socialism. Harshan Kumarasingham, an outstanding scholar, has come up with the idea of the Eastminster model to describe former colonies. The British Viceroy in these colonies left for the UK and so did many of his officials. The brown sahibs moved into their bungalows and became even more power drunk because they acquired overweening powers under socialism. There was none of the Anglo-Saxon philosophy or parliamentary tradition of the UK to keep the brown babus in check.

Under Indira Gandhi, Nehru’s daughter, India lurched left and embraced hardcore socialism. She nationalized banks, promoted her sons and destroyed inner-party democracy in the Congress. Indira was charismatic, decisive and capable in many ways but also paranoid, a control freak and very dynastic. She destroyed all rivals in the party and ruled the country through the IAS who came to be more powerful than erstwhile feudal lords. Its predecessor, the British-era ICS, was the steel frame of the empire. British collectors ruled districts as representatives of the Viceroy. Their job was to collect revenue from these districts and send them on to London. Today, IAS officers, often in their early 30s, are district collectors who wield all power. Elected mayors or officials are toothless tigers with no power.

Today, the IAS has greater power than the ICS. During British days, the Surveyor General of India was a military man and an archeologist headed the Archeological Survey of India. Today, IAS officers head both these organizations. In the US, the UK, Japan and elsewhere, an economist heads the central bank. An IAS officer heads the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) despite never having studied any economics. In India, the IAS occupies the commanding heights of not only the state but also the economy.

Montesquieu’s philosophy of separation of powers that involves checks and balances does not exist in India. In addition to the sclerosis of the system, there is a moral aspect: Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

After independence, India came to have political freedom but not economic freedom. Today, it is a land of elected monarchies. The prime minister of the country and the chief minister of India’s 28 states rule like kings and queens with a handful of IAS officers. Members of the IAS have no domain specialization. One day, they run agriculture, another culture and a third day finance. They are the winners of the annual civil services examinations that tests for all services from diplomats to auditors. The reservation system means that 50% of the seats are for those of lower castes. So, anyone who misses the IAS lives a life of simmering regret.

The annual civil service examination does not test for aptitude. Most people coming into the elite bureaucracy come for a fat dowry and a fatter marriage. More people of humble backgrounds are getting into the IAS and other civil services but they are far more corrupt than their more affluent predecessors who served the Indian state in the past. Since the judicial process in India does not work, there is no accountability for the IAS officers. They do as they please and are answerable to no one. There are indeed heroic IAS officers who proverbially work 25 hours a day but India remains a flailing state because the colonial system no longer works.

The dangers of competitive populism

In 1991, India liberalized its economy. The IAS and other babus lost power. Indian growth rates went up but the state shrunk and politicians lost some of their power. When Modi came to power, the IAS sold him the story that they were the best and brightest of India because they had cleared the world’s toughest examination. As a control freak, Modi bought into the idea and the IAS came back.

Modi inaugurated the era of what noted analyst Manu Sharma and Atul have called Sanatan Socialism or what noted economist Arvind Subramanian has called “New Welfarism” has led to a number of populist welfare schemes that have indeed benefited millions. No less than 810 million  get five kilograms of free food every month. 

The BJP is not an exception. Every party is promising freebies. The Congress is the grand old party of India led by an energetic chap. Rahul Gandhi, the great grandson of Jawaharlal Nehru and the grandson of Indira Gandhi, has walked all the way from the south to the north of the country. This blue-blooded heir of the Nehru dynasty does not see a rollback of the state. The Samajwadi Party of Uttar Pradesh, Atul’s ancestral state with 240 million people, is socialist too. Samajwad literally means socialism and its name translates as the Socialist Party.

The new Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) is promising free water and electricity. In West Bengal, the Trinamool Congress (TMC) is run by a former Congress leader and was ruled by communists for decades. West Bengal is a basket case with hardly any business left in the state. Kolkata, the former imperial capital of India and the capital of West Bengal, is a shell of its former self. Tamil Nadu, a relatively better-run state with industry, is ruled by a politician called Muthuvel Karunanidhi Stalin known as M.K. Stalin or just Stalin of the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK). You have guessed right — he was indeed named after Stalin.

The Swatantra (Freedom) Party and the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) were the more free market parties in the past. The former died decades ago and Modi has taken the BJP in a statist direction. Now the three Bs — the BJP, big business and babus — have created a nexus that promotes oligopolies and monopolies. India now has the Adani-Ambani problem. The two big business houses control almost everything. Modi’s compliance raj has replaced the license-permit-quota raj.

Modi’s catastrophic policies

Two catastrophic policies have done incalculable damage. Demonetization in 2016 destroyed small and  medium businesses. Modi arbitrarily withdrew high-denomination notes, causing massive economic dislocation in the country. In 2017, he rolled out the goods and sales tax (GST), a good idea in principle, in the middle of the financial year to disastrous results. The black economy, which was an estimated 60% of the Indian GDP, crashed.

There is a real argument to be made that India’s real GDP has actually shrunk under Modi. The cataclysmic demonetization and horrendous implementation of GST was a double whammy that killed off millions of small and medium sized businesses, many of which were a part of the black economy. Even assuming high growth, the real economy might have gone down from 160 to 100 by the end of 2017 and is yet to rebound to its pre-2016 level.

Today, the most important thing affecting taxpayers is tax terrorism. The tax babus under Modi have become increasingly arbitrary, extortionate and draconian. An American company was charged by the customs department for underinvoicing and by the income tax department for overinvoicing. Clearly, both of them could not simultaneously be right. Both departments were sending out inflated tax notices to meet top-down targets. People and businesses have to deposit 10% of the claimed amount and then fight it out in court. Millions of cases are stuck in Indian courts for an indeterminate period. The Indian system is not Kafkaesque but Kafka.

Given such catastrophic policies, businesses have collapsed. There are no jobs. Wage suppression and financial repression are destroying the middle class. Animal spirits are really low, a culture of fear prevails and demand has cratered. India is experiencing deindustrialization: Manufacturing has gone down from 17% to 13%, a similar level to 1965.

Protectionism through the back door means that tariffs and non-tariff barriers make goods expensive for the middle class. Thousands of quality control orders make it difficult for smaller American or European businesses to export to India. The same car costs more in India than in the US. Petrol costs much more in India than in the US thanks to taxes. Direct and indirect taxes are now extortionate. Atul’s business executive friend speaks about a rupeeization of incomes and dollarization of expenses. The middle class is feeling the squeeze. 

Foreign direct investment (FDI) has evaporated over the last two years: 2024 and 2025. Foreign institutional investors (FII) have been pulling significant money out of Indian equities since 2024, marking their biggest exit year in 2025. Capital and talent are fleeing India. Earlier 100,000 Indians left India every year. Since 2022, 200,000 Indians have been voting with their feet and leaving the country. 

Modi promised “minimum government, maximum governance” but has delivered “minimum governance, maximum government.” Doing business in India today is like pulling teeth, your own teeth, and is incredibly painful.

US President Donald Trump’s tariffs are hurt dollar earnings and India needs dollars for imports

If the US acts against Iran and oil prices hike, India faces a 1991-style balance of payments crisis. Two other crises that are hurting the economy: rising pollution and decreasing water. The air pollution in Delhi is hazardous. Ground water is falling, glaciers are melting and river flows are declining. 

The Modi government has some real achievements but has made one historic blunder. He has recentralized like Indira Gandhi and brought back a new form of Emergency. Modi has filled his cabinet with sycophants with no competence who focus on slogans, not substance. They are lightweights with no competence. The Modi government makes lots of announcements but with little implementation. An economist comments that the government has a half-assed everything must happen now approach which gets nothing done. 

The Modi government has an obsession with perception management. Cabinet members are fixated with Twitter (now X) and Instagram. Atul’s classmate Ashwini Vaishnaw is called Reel Mantri (Minister) because is always posting Instagram Reels. He holds three ministries. Vaishnaw is the 39th Minister of Railways, the 35th Minister of Information and Broadcasting and the second Minister of Electronics and Information Technology since 2024. Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman is ignorant and arrogant. Neither Vaishnaw nor Sitharaman have been elected or are electable.

An example of the orgy of incompetence is IAS Officer Shaktikanta Das. As head of RBI, India’s central bank, he blew $70–$100 billion of foreign reserves in a misguided effort to maintain the price of the rupee. He also launched a disastrous tax-free gold scheme that cost the government many tens of millions. Instead of being punished, Das has been rewarded for his catastrophic reign by being made No. 2 in the Prime Minister’s Office. An English partner when Atul was a lawyer once quipped, “Only two things float to the top: shit and cream.” Atul leaves the listener to conclude what is floating at the top of the Indian system.

Futures, not certainties

Glenn asks whether India is facing an existential crisis. Atul agrees and offers three future scenarios. First, India can return to the Hindu rate of growth without demand, manufacturing, technology or private investment. India can feed its huge population and may muddle along. Second, India might face a 1991-style balance-of-payments crisis because of a lack of foreign exchange reserves. This would force India to reform and a freer market would unleash higher growth. A culture of fear would go, animal spirits would rise and business activity would increase. Third, India could face institutional and environmental crises. South India might resent subsidizing North India or funding Kashmir and the Northeast. The words of William Butler Yeats — Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold — might come true. The age-old fears of Balkanization might actually transpire.

The best case scenario is reform and the worst case scenario is disintegration. The future is contingent on choices that Indians make. The outcome is not predetermined. India still has entrepreneurs, human capital and a global diaspora. Reform would require rolling back the compliance raj, restoring professional competence in economic institutions and rebuilding trust. If India can rationalize, there is a lot of potential. Glenn says there is hope for India yet. Atul concludes, “We are not doing a podcast for the opposition at all. We are saying, for heaven’s sake, get a grip. All political parties have inner party democracy — get rid of competitive populism and reform, reform, reform.”

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Among the reported cases is the of Dipu Chandra Das, a 29-year-old garment factory worker, who was lynched by a mob in the northern district of Mymensingh, following what police described as false blasphemy allegations. Local media reported he was tied to a tree and set on fire. In a separate incident in the same district, Bajendra Biswas, a 40-year-old paramilitary officer, was by unidentified assailants.��

Elsewhere, Khokon Chandra Das, a 50-year-old businessman in Shariatpur district in central Bangladesh, was by a group of men armed with sharp weapons. He was beaten, set on fire and died in hospital three days after the assault, according to media reports.��

In Jessore district in southern Bangladesh, Rana Pratap Bairagi, a 45-year-old businessman and a newspaper editor, was in the head, with the attackers also slitting his throat.��

Other incidents include the to death of Sarat Mani Chakraborty, a 40-year-old grocery shop owner in Narsingdi district in central Bangladesh, and the to death of Samir Das, a 28-year-old auto-rickshaw driver in Feni district in the country’s southeast.��

All the victims identified in the incidents were members of the Hindu community, Bangladesh’s largest religious minority, which comprises around of the population according to the 2022 national census.

Post Hasina unrest

Bangladesh experienced a wave of following the ouster of longtime Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on August 5, 2024, amid student-led protests that led to her . Amnesty International that, in the immediate aftermath, houses, places of worship and business establishments belonging to religious minorities were attacked in various parts of the country.

Local media outlets widespread vandalism, looting and arson targeting Hindu temples, houses and businesses. Reports also emerged of beatings, sexual assaults and killings involving members of the Hindu and Christian community, with the BHBCUC warning that many families were left displaced and without livelihoods. Members of the Ahmadiyya community, a minority sect within Islam, were also subjected to attacks, according to rights organizations and media reports.��

Community groups, including the BHBCUC and the Bangladesh Puja Udjapan Parishad (BPUP), at least 205 incidents targeting minority communities across 52 districts in the days following the fall of Hasina’s government. Media reports from August 2024 documented damage to 228 Hindu homes, 240 Hindu-owned businesses and 15 temples. According to , these figures are most likely an undercount because they reflected only incidents reported to authorities or covered by the media.��

The BHBCUC said that at least incidents of communal violence were reported across the country between August 4 and 20, 2024.��

In a public statement, India deep concern for what it describes as the “unremitting hostility against minorities in Bangladesh, including Hindus, Buddhists and Christians at the hands of extremists”.��

While the interim government led by Muhammad Yunus has described the violence as largely political, the nature of many attacks suggests a more complex picture. Numerous incidents involved the vandalism of Hindu temples, the burning of homes identified by religious symbols and lynchings following allegations of blasphemy. 

The United Nations Human Rights Office () noted that religious identity and communal tensions, in addition to political affiliation, have played a role in the violence. According to the UN report, witnesses to some of the incidents have identified the attackers as local supporters of the Bangladesh Nationalist Party () and , two major political forces in the country. In one documented case, a victim told investigators that local BNP leaders were among those involved in the attack.

Background and contested histories of the two main political parties

Jamaat-e-Islami (Jamaat) has a long and controversial history marked by religious extremism and political violence. Founded in 1941 in Lahore, British-ruled India (now in Pakistan), the party aimed to advance an explicitly Islamic social and political order across the subcontinent.  

In Pakistan, Jamaat played a central role in the anti-Ahmadiyya agitation called the in 1953, which resulted in widespread violence and the deaths of an estimated 2000 people, according to some historians.

Jamaat had opposed the of 1971 and aligned itself with the Pakistani Army, assisting its campaign against the independence movement. Scholars and human rights organizations have documented that Jamaat-linked militias collaborated in widespread abuses during the conflict, including the selective and targeted killing of Bengali Hindus and Bengali intellectuals, irrespective of religion. These crimes formed part of a broader campaign of mass violence that many scholars and international observers have as genocidal, in which up to three million people are estimated to have died and millions more displaced or injured.

In Pakistan, Jamaat subsequently supported General ’s program following the military overthrow of Prime Minister in 1977.

Founded in 1979, the Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) identifies itself as a nationalist rather than an Islamist party. However, critics have long pointed to its with Islamist groups, most notably with , which helped mainstream religious discourse in its politics. In 1977, during the presidency of , the Party’s founder, Bangladesh’s constitution was to remove “secularism” as a foundational principle of the state.

Reports and judicial probing have linked supporters and leaders of the BNP-led coalition and its Jamaat allies with targeted violence against religious minorities, including killings, rape, arson and looting in the aftermath of the 2001 elections in Bangladesh.

As Bangladesh is preparing for general elections scheduled for February 12, the future of the country’s religious minorities remains uncertain. 

The BNP and Jamaat have emerged as two of the principal forces seeking to shape the post-election landscape. For the first time in its history, Jamaat has a candidate from the Hindu community. The BNP, meanwhile, has sought to project a secular-friendly image ahead of the elections. However, the historical record of both parties and recurring episodes of minority-targeted violence raise concerns about minority protection in Bangladesh.

Whether a future government led by either formation will demonstrate the political will to ensure minority protection and systemic justice in Bangladesh remains an open question.

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A purge without precedent since Mao

Xi’s removal of Zhang Youxia, the seniormost PLA officer and a longtime personal ally, is historic. Since early 2023, only seven of 30 senior Chinese generals and admirals have survived in their posts. Of the seven members of China’s Central Military Commission, only two now remain. One of them is Xi and the other is a general who is in charge of enforcing loyalty to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) in the PLA. Such a purge has not occurred since CCP Chairman Mao Zedong’s death in 1976. 

Xi’s dismissal of Zhang is especially striking. Like Xi, Zhang was a “princeling” whose father had marched with Mao. The 75-year-old was one of the very few senior PLA figures with real combat experience. He fought with distinction in the 1979 China–Vietnam War. Zhang’s removal signals that revolutionary pedigree and loyalty to the CCP no longer guarantee protection.

Glenn stresses that Zhang’s stature within the Chinese system makes his fall exceptional. Among China’s senior officers, Zhang stood out not only for lineage but for battlefield experience in a force whose modern leadership has never fought a war. Removing such a figure suggests a willingness on the part of Xi to sacrifice institutional credibility for political security.

Atul emphasizes the purge’s scale. Alongside Zhang, Xi removed or placed under investigation other senior figures — including Liu Zhenli, the second seniormost PLA officer — effectively gutting the Central Military Commission. As mentioned earlier, just two of the seven members remain. Analysts compare this concentration of power to Joseph Stalin’s consolidation of control over the Red Army through his relentless purges. Loyalty to Xi now ensures survival and promotion with the officer corps of the PLA.

Atul and Glenn disagree slightly about Xi’s purge affecting the PLA’s fighting capability. Glenn believes that the purge tightens Xi’s control over the PLA but does not, by itself, undermine its immediate military capability. Atul thinks of the scale of the purge and its high-profile casualties as evidence of deep-seated insecurity on the part of Xi. There must be massive dissatisfaction among Chinese elites and Xi must feel paranoid enough to crush any alternative power centers at the expense of weakening command and control within the PLA.

Note that reports of dissatisfaction within the CCP elite have circulated for years. As 2027 kicks off, Xi’s continued rule could become more openly contested. When even loyal figures with independent stature may appear threatening, that is not a good sign for the regime. Zhang’s longevity and prestige made him powerful and, therefore, dangerous. Now, the PLA is bereft of effective leadership and thereby stands weakened.

How good is the PLA and what about Taiwan

Militarily, the PLA still remains vast, well-funded and increasingly capable. Glenn points out that one man’s removal does not erase years of investment, training and modernization. He cautions against overstating operational disruption. The PLA’s material capabilities continue to grow, and its training has improved markedly over the past decade. A single purge does not suddenly render the force ineffective.

Atul counters by stressing the institutional consequences of Xi’s actions. Repeated purges create uncertainty, taint lower-ranking officers by association and disrupt clear promotion pathways. Unlike Western militaries with relatively stable professional norms, the PLA operates within a highly politicized system, compromising professionalism and amplifying the effects of changes in leadership. When senior leaders fall, those beneath them — who worked for them, were promoted by them or trained under them — become suspect by association. Fear distorts incentives, encouraging conformity over initiative and loyalty over competence.

No current PLA general has real experience with modern warfare. Zhang’s 1979 Vietnam service made him an outlier. His removal further thins an already shallow reservoir of combat experience at the top. Earlier purges, notably within the Rocket Force beginning around 2023, reinforce this pattern. While Xi’s regime cited corruption and modernization failures as justifications for the removal of top officers, the cumulative effect of the purges must sap the confidence and decision-making ability of top PLA officers.

This has implications for Taiwan, though not the apocalyptic ones many assume. Although no invasion is likely in the near term, a military whose command structure is brittle and politicized is also more prone to miscalculation in a crisis, even if it is not seeking war.

Finally, it is clear that Xi has taken Mao’s maxim to heart: Power flows from the barrel of a gun. By ensuring that no rival authority exists within the PLA, he has reduced the risk of organized resistance to his regime. Yet the very methods that secure control may increase systemic risk.

A military that is powerful but internally distrustful, modern but institutionally unstable, poses dangers not only to adversaries but to its own leadership. In that sense, the purge strengthens Xi’s position today while storing uncertainty for tomorrow — a familiar trade-off in highly centralized authoritarian systems.

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From the volcanic soils of Indonesia to Vietnam’s Central Highlands, coffee now sits at the intersection of economics, climate stress, tourism and diplomacy. This is not a lifestyle story. It is a strategic one.

Southeast Asia today the global coffee economy. Vietnam is the world’s second-largest producer, harvesting an 31 million 60-kilogram bags in 2025–26, generating export revenues $8 billion amid historically high prices. Indonesia follows closely as the fourth-largest producer, supplying more than 11 million bags annually, with exports 6.5 million bags despite climate volatility and aging trees. Together, these two countries shape global Robusta markets at a moment when climate shocks in Latin America and Africa have destabilized supply.

This scale matters. Coffee is no longer a peripheral commodity. It is a macroeconomic stabilizer, a rural employer and a diplomatic asset. In Vietnam alone, more than 600,000 households directly on coffee cultivation, while export prices by over 50% year-on-year in early 2025 amid global shortages. Indonesia’s sector is even more socially embedded: around 98% of coffee farms are of one to two hectares, binding the livelihoods of millions to global demand and regulatory decisions far beyond the archipelago.

The challenges faced by coffee growers in a global market

The European Union’s new deforestation-free supply chain regulations, which will fully into force in 2025, have effectively coffee a test case for credibility. Vietnam has by fast-tracking traceability systems and national standards with EU requirements, seeing compliance as a competitive advantage rather than a burden. Indonesian cooperatives, especially in Sumatra and Sulawesi, have organic and Fairtrade certification, with about 25 certified cooperatives now operating the country, nearly all of which are organic. In a fractured global trading system, reliability has become the currency.

Coffee also exposes a deeper paradox in Southeast Asia’s development model. Urban café culture is . Thailand’s coffee consumption has more than in two decades, while and the Philippines rank Asia’s fastest-growing consumer markets. Cafés have become social infrastructure — places of work, dissent and aspiration. Tourism agencies now market coffee trails with the same enthusiasm once reserved for beaches and temples, from Sarawak’s farms to Laos’s Plateau.

Yet value continues to pool at the top of the cup. The Institute of Southeast Asian Studies (ISEAS — Yusof Ishak Institute) notes that while café profits and tourism revenues surge, these gains do not necessarily translate into increased incomes for coffee growers or into sustainable production. The imbalance echoes older commodity traps seen in cocoa and sugar: smallholders absorb climate risk while global markets capture margins.

Diplomatic implications of coffee diplomacy

Laos provides a rare example of an alternative approach. On the Bolaven Plateau, more than 20,000 farming families on coffee, up about 6% of the country’s employment. The Bolaven Plateau Coffee Producers Cooperative, established in 2007, now together over 1,800 smallholders and exports over 1,000 tons each year via direct, relationship-based trade. Japanese buyers focused on quality improvements instead of certifications, creating a trust-based value chain that sidesteps traditional extractive models. This isn’t charity; it’s a strategic partnership built on mutual dependence.

The diplomatic implications are increasingly explicit. Indonesia has institutionalised “coffee diplomacy,” regional blends during state visits and trade missions to symbolise unity in diversity while quietly opening markets for premium beans. Vietnam coffee at embassies and trade expos as evidence of industrial maturity and regulatory reliability. These gestures are not soft symbolism. They align culture with commerce at a time when middle powers must differentiate themselves through credibility rather than coercion.

Comparison sharpens the picture. Latin America coffee decades earlier but remains exposed to price cycles and cartel politics. Africa ceremonial depth but with infrastructure. Southeast Asia’s distinctive contribution in its integration: domestic consumption growth, export diversification, tourism linkage and state-led coordination unfolding simultaneously. Few regions combine scale, cultural embeddedness and policy ambition in this way.

Why Southeast Asia’s coffee future matters to Australia

Climate change, however, threatens to unravel the balance. Rising temperatures are pushing Arabica cultivation to higher altitudes, while erratic rainfall yields across Vietnam and Indonesia. Without coordinated replanting and climate-resilient varieties, productivity risks long-term decline. The absence of a regional replanting drive, noted repeatedly in United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) assessments, is a strategic vulnerability disguised as inertia.

For Australia, this matters more than caffeine. Southeast Asia supplies the bulk of coffee consumed domestically, while Australian aid, climate finance and trade diplomacy increasingly intersect with agricultural resilience. Coffee is a live indicator of whether regional supply chains can adapt to climate stress without social fracture. It is also a test of whether sustainability rules imposed by wealthy markets strengthen or hollow out neighboring economies.

And while the immediate frame is the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) and Australia, the cup reaches well beyond our region’s shores — coffee is a truly global conversation. Consumers in Europe, North America and East Asia sip a product grown in Southeast Asian soils. Hence, the policy choices made in Canberra and Jakarta ripple through roasteries in Milan, cafés in New York and supermarket aisles in Tokyo. That means wealthy markets must share responsibility: not only by demanding deforestation-free, traceable beans, but also by financing technical assistance and long-term purchasing commitments that let smallholders meet those standards without being driven off the land. 

The politics embedded in everyday consumption

Equally, multilateral forums — from the International Coffee Organization (ICO) to climate funds and trade fora — need to treat coffee as a cross-cutting test case for how to marry green rules with social protection. If we get this right, we can transform coffee into more than an export commodity. It can serve as a scaffold for global cooperation. It can showcase what equitable decarbonisation looks like. Additionally, it can demonstrate that we can brew ethical consumption and diplomatic goodwill together.

Coffee ultimately reveals the politics of everyday life. It shows how climate regulation becomes trade leverage, how tourism reshapes rural economies and how trust replaces power in a crowded region. In Southeast Asia, the cup on the table carries centuries of colonial history and decades of development ambition. What now emerges is something newer and more fragile: a regional attempt to transform an extractive past into a cooperative future.

That experiment deserves attention — not for its romance, but for its consequences.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

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In early 2026, Japan’s political class has rediscovered this temptation with remarkable unanimity, and markets are paying attention.

As Prime Minister Takaichi Sanae  the country toward a February 8 Lower House , an unlikely consensus has formed across lines: cut the . The slogans differ, the justifications vary and the proposed mechanisms range from temporary relief to more durable restructuring. But the direction is unmistakable. From the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) to fragments of the opposition, the political system has converged on the idea that households need relief now, visibly and unambiguously.

Ahead of the snap election, Prime Minister Takaichi has gone further, pledging to scrap the consumption tax on food. Yet the absence of a clearly articulated funding strategy is beginning to unnerve both financial markets and voters, raising questions about fiscal credibility even as political momentum for tax relief accelerates.

Market unease has been driven less by electoral politics than by the substance of the policy debate, especially proposals to cut the food consumption tax from 8% to 0% for a two-year period. While such a measure would provide short-term support to household spending, it is estimated to reduce government revenue by around ¥5 trillion (~$32.2 billion) annually. Given that the consumption tax is a cornerstone of Japan’s social security financing, the absence of a clear funding framework has raised concerns about further strain on already stretched public finances.

In electoral terms, this makes sense. In market terms, it rarely does.

Consensus in politics is comforting to voters. In financial markets, it is often interpreted as a warning sign. It surfaced most clearly in the bond market on January 20, 2026, when long-dated Japanese government bond (JGB) yields rose sharply, with 30-year yields reaching multi-decade highs of , reflecting investor caution over increased borrowing and fiscal uncertainty. When ideological disagreement disappears, it usually means constraints have loosened. And when constraints loosen, prices adjust.

At the same time, across the Pacific, the world’s reserve currency is absorbing its own political signal. US President Donald Trump, with characteristic bluntness, has that a weaker dollar is “great.” Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent has with the familiar incantation that the United States maintains a “strong dollar policy.” The market, however — ever literal, never sentimental — has listened more carefully to the president than to the footnotes.

These two stories — Japanese fiscal populism and American dollar ambivalence — are not parallel lines. They intersect. They meet most visibly in the yen, in Japanese Government Bonds and in a deeper question that increasingly defines advanced economies: whether social contracts are being renegotiated quietly through currency depreciation rather than openly through reform.

The consumption tax as political Esperanto

Japan’s consumption tax has always been more than a tax. It is a symbol — of intergenerational fairness, of fiscal realism, of Japan’s uneasy truce with arithmetic.

Introduced cautiously, raised painfully and defended technocratically, the tax served for decades as a signal not just to voters but to investors. It told a story: that Japan, despite its extraordinary public debt, understood the difference between stimulus and surrender; that its political system retained at least one instrument it was willing to adjust upward when necessary; and that aging, however daunting, would be financed rather than wished away.

That signal is now fading.

What is striking about the current election cycle is not merely that the LDP is flirting with tax cuts — Japanese incumbents have done so before — but that almost everyone is. The Centrist Reform Alliance, elements of Ishin no Kai (the Japan Innovation Party) and even voices historically associated with fiscal caution now frame consumption tax relief as unavoidable, almost self-evident.

The reasons are . Inflation has returned to Japan after a long absence, but wage growth has lagged. Households feel poorer even as employment remains high. Energy prices, food costs and housing-related expenses are more salient than abstract discussions of debt sustainability. And politics, like water, flows downhill — toward pain points that are immediate, visible and easily moralized.

The consumption tax is uniquely suited to this role. It is flat, transparent and paid by everyone. Cutting it feels like justice. Raising it feels like betrayal. It can be reduced without designing new bureaucracies or confronting entrenched interest groups. It produces instant political gratification.

For voters, this is relief.

For markets, it is ambiguity.

Because the issue is not the tax cut itself. It is the transformation of the tax’s meaning. Once a consumption tax becomes a bargaining chip rather than a pillar, it ceases to anchor expectations. Investors do not require proof of irresponsibility; they respond to the weakening of commitment. And in long-duration markets, commitment is everything.

When arithmetic meets electoral gravity

Japan’s government bond market has survived decades of theoretical insolvency by cultivating something rarer than discipline: credibility without illusion.

Investors tolerated extraordinary debt levels because they believed three things. First, that the Bank of Japan would remain accommodative enough to suppress volatility. Second, that inflation would remain structurally low. Third, that politicians — whatever they promised in campaigns — would eventually blink before crossing fiscal red lines.

The February election puts pressure on all three assumptions.

A consumption tax cut, especially if framed as permanent rather than explicitly temporary, does more than widen a deficit. It changes the story investors tell themselves about Japan’s political economy. It suggests that the system is becoming less willing to exchange short-term pain for long-term solvency. And markets, more than any electorate, trade on stories.

The emerging story is uncomfortable in its simplicity: Japan wants growth without reform, relief without funding and stability without sacrifice.

That story steepens yield curves.

Already, traders quietly that a decisive victory for the LDP could paradoxically weigh on JGBs rather than support them. A strong mandate for Takaichi might embolden fiscal expansion without revenue offsets. The irony is sharp but familiar: Political stability can increase financial volatility when it removes constraints.

As one strategist put it privately, with the candor markets reserve for off-the-record conversations: A weak coalition forces discipline; a strong one invites temptation.

This is not a crisis narrative. Japan’s bond market remains deep, domestically anchored and institutionally supported. But it is a repricing narrative. rise not because default risk has increased, but because political uncertainty has. Investors are demanding compensation for a future in which fiscal anchors appear more negotiable.

The yen as a political barometer

If JGBs represent Japan’s balance sheet, the yen is its mood ring.

The currency has weakened not simply because interest differentials remain wide, but also because policy signals have grown noisier. Markets are attempting to reconcile three competing forces that do not naturally coexist.

First, a Bank of Japan that has technically exited emergency policy, but cautiously, almost apologetically, mindful of Japan’s long struggle with deflationary psychology. Second, a government signaling fiscal generosity without articulating credible anchors. Third, an election calendar that rewards ambiguity and penalizes candor.

Against this backdrop, the yen behaves less like a currency and more like a — on belief.

The February election matters because it may clarify this uncertainty, or it may institutionalize it. A narrow result could restrain fiscal excess. A landslide could accelerate it. In foreign exchange markets, clarity matters more than ideology. Markets can price almost any policy. What they struggle to price is drift.

The uncomfortable truth is this: Japan does not need intervention to strengthen the yen. It needs belief.

Belief that inflation above target will be met with normalization rather than reinterpretation. Belief that tax cuts will be financed rather than deferred into abstraction. Belief that the social contract still includes arithmetic.

Absent that belief, any yen rally risks being temporary — another bounce in a structurally downward channel, another opportunity for markets to test official tolerance.

Trump, Bessent and the theater of the dollar

Across the ocean, the dollar is telling a different but related story.

When Donald Trump says that a weaker dollar is “great,” he is not making a technical argument. He is making a moral one. In Trump’s worldview, currencies are not prices; they are instruments of power. A strong dollar, like a strong ally, is only useful if it obeys.

Scott Bessent the danger of this framing. His insistence that the United States maintains a strong dollar policy is less a declaration than a firebreak — a reminder that institutional memory has not been entirely erased by political rhetoric.

But markets trade on power, not reassurance.

The dollar’s recent slide reflects more than interest-rate expectations or growth differentials. It reflects a growing suspicion that the United States may tolerate depreciation as a policy outcome, even if it refuses to name it as such, as in the Mar-a-Lago Agreement. That suspicion matters because it alters the behavior of global investors long before it crystallizes into formal policy.

For Japan, this shift is consequential. A weaker dollar removes one of the external constraints that once supported the yen. If Washington is ambivalent about dollar strength, Tokyo cannot rely on moral suasion or tacit coordination to stabilize its own currency. The old architecture — where the US defended dollar prestige, and others adjusted around it — is giving way to something looser and more transactional.

This does not require coordination to be destabilizing. It requires only plausibility.

The metaphor of the escalator

Think of global currencies as standing on a set of escalators.

For decades, the dollar rode upward, powered by growth, institutional credibility and political consensus around stability. Others adjusted around it. Now the escalator slows. It does not reverse — at least not yet — but the speed changes.

Japan, meanwhile, is stepping onto a different escalator — one that moves downward unless actively resisted. Consumption tax cuts, if unfunded, are like choosing lighter luggage while stepping onto a steeper slope. You feel freer. You move faster. But not necessarily in the right direction.

What connects Washington and Tokyo is not coordination, but convenience. Both are discovering that depreciation — explicit or implicit — can substitute for difficult conversations. It can delay reform. It can redistribute costs quietly. It can smooth politics while unsettling markets.

But appreciation or depreciation is not reform.

It is delay, priced daily.

And markets, unlike electorates, keep score continuously.

[ edited this piece.]

The views expressed in this article are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect 51�Թ�’s editorial policy.

The post The Politics of Cheapness: Japan’s Consumption-Tax Truce, the Yen’s Fragility and the Long Shadow of a Weaker Dollar appeared first on 51�Թ�.