Welcome to the New Year 2024. Even though the onset of the New Year is celebrated across the world as just another customary annual occasion, the year 2024 is not an ordinary moment, especially for the people of South Asia, a cluster of eight nations comprising Pakistan, India, Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, and the Maldives. Being the world’s most populous region, amassing about 1.938 billion people under its roof, South Asia is at a critical crossroads yet again, and the significance of 2024 is mostly attributable to the region’s continuous democratic progression and ceaseless political processes amidst formidable challenges and rapidly-evolving geopolitics.
It is pertinent to note that the year 2024 will see the holding of general elections in many South Asian countries, including India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Nepal, and Bhutan. What makes such nations identical to each other is their ceaseless journey on the democratic path despite their chequered governance records tainted with military rule, emergencies, and one-party authoritarianism. As ill luck would have it, none of the South Asian countries, other than India, has been able to witness a smooth transition to democracy since their beginnings as independent nations free of colonialism, dictatorship, oligarchy, imperialism, and succession of kingly reigns. In the last few decades, in particular, the South Asian region, as a whole, has fared quite remarkably in terms of its incremental transition of the democratic system while contributing towards the devolution of power to the masses like clockwork. The common perception is that the electoral politics of South Asia matters most to the global powers, who are not only keeping a close eye on the situation but also trying to realign the region’s political structure with a single brush to serve their own interests. Still, it is understandable that this interest has been revived once again, and the scale of caution has come to an end because the global community has once more reached the Cold War era, making local alliances to compete with those of the largest economies and countries of immense geopolitical significance.
Oddly enough, a common point of interest in major South Asian countries like India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh is that in all three countries, the prime ministerial candidates include those currently or have been in the prime ministerial position, and the people of these countries are now vying for a stable political environment and policy continuity to let the development process to flow smoothly and go forward. Also, what makes these South Asian nations almost similar in their geographic compositions and socio-economic makeup is a melange of shared griefs and similar concerns, e.g. environmental vulnerability, glacial retreat, burgeoning populations, widespread poverty, acute malnutrition, massive unemployment, and poor human rights records. In this regard, much onus lies on India, the world’s largest democracy as well as the region’s most robust economy, to play an exemplary role. Instead of being reduced to a pawn of global powers that be, it’s high time for South Asian nations to foster a shared sense of community and work in tandem to strengthen their prevailing political order, ruled by democratic norms and advances in democratic institutions. Let the South Asian region shine brightly on the global stage with all its promising progressive indicators and growth-driven policy measures, catalysed through a smooth transition of power.
Syed Jawaid Iqbal
President & Editor in Chief