South Asia’s False Spring
Recent events in South Asia – from the ousting of the Maldives' president to the abortive coup in Bangladesh – indicate that the region's democratic advances are now being reversed. As a result, India is now the sole country in the region with a deeply-rooted pluralistic democracy, with all of the strategic disadvantages that follow from that.
NEW DELHI – From the armed coup that recently ousted the Maldives’ first democratically elected president, Mohamed Nasheed, to the Pakistani Supreme Court’s current effort to undermine a toothless but elected government by indicting Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani on contempt charges, South Asia’s democratic advances appear to be shifting into reverse.