Fixing South Asia’s Broken Politics

Representative Image by Wix AI

The five-day period from July 20 to 25 in New Delhi, India’s capital was a high octane one as hundreds of youths under the rubric of Gen Z collected at Jantar Mantar close to the Parliament, a site earmarked for rallies and protests. Their immediate aim was resignation of the Union Education Minister and reform the examination system. India’s test scheme is unique in that thousands of youths in their teens appear in entrance tests for medical, engineering and management courses and the most coveted administrative services a bit later in the years. Of the thousands who appear only a few make the grade while others appear year after year being coached in sweat shops across the country. The education minister has resigned; a bill has been passed in the parliament increasing the level of punishment for lapses in conduct of examinations and a revered IT leader has been nominated to head a committee. Will these measures fix the broken system remains to be seen?  India’s youth challenge is unique, the education system produces thousands of youth but the system is unable to provide them jobs meeting their aspirations. Herein lies the challenge for the system if the Cockroach Janata Party [CJP] protests is to be a one off one- not only a collective examination system which is seen to be fair but remove elitism, corruption and entitlement and technological fix alone cannot bring about a change.

A protests led change is not unique to India; in fact, it is last of the countries in South Asia to experience one. Sri Lanka was the first to go in 2022. The Aragalaya movement were a series of mass protests that began in March 2022 against the government for mismanaging Sri Lankan economy with severe inflation, daily blackouts, shortage of fuel, domestic gas, and other essential goods. The protesters' main demand was resignation of then President Gotabaya Rajapaksa and key officials from the Rajapaksa family.  The political situation settled after the Rajapaksa left office and with holding fresh Presidential and parliamentary elections in September and November 2024.

In Pakistan the arrest of Mr Imran Khan Chairman of the Pakistan Tehreek Insaaf [PTI] led widespread protests on May 9, 2023, targeting Army establishments across the country. This was a follow up of Mr Khan’s removal from power through a no confidence motion in April 2022 which was essentially engineered by the Pakistan Army and the Inter Services Intelligence [ISI] demonstrating hold of the Establishment on the polity of the country. The current Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif of the PML N is holding office at the goodwill of the military and the Damocles sword hangs over him for easing out of power. While the case of Pakistan politics may seem relatively straight forward of military control there are multiple undercurrents of instability even as the people are caught in a spiral of endemic poverty and deprivation of rights.

Then we have Bangladesh two years back in July and August 2024, Sheikh Hasina the Prime Minister of 15 years had to be flown out to India as protests in the country spiraled out of control – the apparent cause was entitlement for the progeny of the Freedom Fighters even as unemployment marked large number of youths in the country.  Today Hasina’s opponent the Bangladesh Nationalist Party led by Prime Minister Tarique Rehman is in power and has there been a tangible shift in politics remains to be seen.

And in 2025 the first truly Gen Z protests happened in Nepal in September which saw the fastest and the most dramatic transfer of power from the established coalition to a relative newbie the Rashtriya Swatantra Party or RSP within six months in a democratically held elections. It may be too early to assess the transformation. And in Myanmar a straight forward coup in February 2021 was followed by elections carefully engineered by the military keeping the most popular party the National League for Democracy and its leader Aung Suu Kyi under house arrest.

To sum up the challenge for South Asian countries is to make democracy work in the true sense – autonomous institutions from the legislature to the judiciary and the election commission, a free media, accountability, elimination of corruption and de-elitism.

These are too idealistic for the pragmatism that drives the world today and not just South Asia.