Just as a new year 2024 is less than a month away from us today, there is hope of an overall positive progression in South Asia despite the doom that is pervading geopolitics with Israel resuming the pounding of Hamas positions in Gaza. In Ukraine the second winter has frozen the battlefield to a stalemate even as both sides have resumed standoff attacks with the Ukrainian secret service reportedly succeeding in an explosion on trains loaded with fuel on the Baikal-Amur Mainline, running from southeastern Siberia to the Pacific Ocean in the Russian Far East. This is also the link to North Korea where ostensibly hundreds of wagons of munitions have been sent by Pyongyang to Moscow. With these two ongoing wars, impacting mainly the economies in South Asia though there have been some direct fatalities reported as Nepali youth who joined the Russian armed forces have reportedly been killed the fighting seems far away. A flash point nearer home will be the so called Taiwan contingency – a military operation to take over the separated island by Beijing. Despite the apparent shadow boxing of sorts between the US and the Chinese President in San Francisco on the sidelines of the APEC economic summit has hardly cleared the air with mutual suspicions continuing. What happens in Taiwan’s Presidential elections in January next year may assume importance. China’s muscle flexing if it happens will not be good for South Asia where there is a degree of wariness over India’s aggressive diplomacy over the past decade or so. If two regional powers adopt the same trajectory – smaller nations in the region will be vulnerable which is already fraught with prospects of expanding ambitions of China and the United States on the Indo Pacific idea.
Apart from the regional and geopolitics the key factor in 2024 in South Asia would be the economy. But for India each country from the best growth case in the region Bangladesh to the debt defaulter Sri Lanka, the main driver for stability will be economy. Many as Bhutan and Nepal have yet to recover from the vestiges of COVID 19, Pakistan and Afghanistan are surviving on external doles that latter more so with the United Nations pumping in currency every month. Sri Lanka is undergoing a plan of successful debt restructuring while Maldives under a new administration is also staring a dark economic tunnel. On Myanmar the conflict situation is so parlous that even a factual assessment during the year has not been made by any external agency.
Politics is another major factor that will dictate stability in South Asia – a region that is singularly blessed by the spread of democracies – though this reputation has been marred by Afghanistan under the Taliban and Myanmar under military rule, but these are likely to be hopefully temporary phenomenon at least in the latter.
In the chronological order Bhutan, Bangladesh, Pakistan, and India are expected to go through national elections followed by Sri Lanka later in the year. Of these elections in Bhutan are likely to remain the least contentious and the People’s Democratic Party or PDP which has been in power in the past is likely to form the government in case the outcome of the first round is to be relief upon.
Bangladesh elections are likely to be the one of the most contentious the other being of Pakistan. With the main opposition party Bangladesh Nationalist Party opting out of the polls and planning to scuttle holding of the hustings, there are fears of violence and if the elections go through as these are likely to be than the Awami League is expected to return to power – a verdict that is expected to be questioned by the United States amongst others. A wild card here is the anti India vote which proved a turning point in recent Presidential elections in Maldives. India will once again have to play an important role in calming the West. In Pakistan the Establishment – Army and the ISI always pitch for a coalition – this time the Khaki appears to favour Mr Nawaz Sharif and his Party the PML N to lead the same. No lessons have been learnt by either side – the military or the political as this path of so-called hybrid regime has led the country to economic and security ruin.
India’s Lok Sabha elections are due in April May and the country seems to be on course towards the same even though a move for one nation – one election is evident; it has not gathered traction so far. Given recent trends during the State polls – the polls are likely to be far more fractious in terms of polarisation of parties on issues than before with the social media playing a cacophony of hate to mobilise the hardcore loyalists. The Election Commission’s efficiency will be sorely tested once again.
War and terror will also be a defining trend in South Asia in Myanmar, Afghanistan, Pakistan with embers burning in India as well. There is no end in sight to Myanmar’s civil war even as the military is facing a survival crisis having lost to ethnic militias on the periphery, will it succumb or revive in the Bumar mainland remains to be seen? A massive humanitarian tragedy looms in Myanmar which is unaccounted and thus lacking external support and Afghanistan with hundreds likely to suffer hunger, shelter, and deprivation.
China’s role in South Asia much as India would like to contain the same cannot be wished away be it the major projects under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) some of which are stuttering or the stranglehold on the polity in Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Maldives. India China regional contestation will thus continue to be a marked trend ahead and while a major escalation on the Line of Actual Control [LAC] is unlikely so seems de-escalation.