As can be seen from the
connections of the global hierarchies with India, it is a
country which has been associated with optimal historical
realities in the ancient and medieval ages. Its relation with
the modern age is expected to be no different.
India’s transition from optimal pre-modern associations to
optimal modern association required a profound transformation,
involving a revolutionary overthrow of the pre-modern creeds and
systems of religion-rule and race-raid, so as to establish the
modern creed and system of reason-revelation.
Such an armed revolution was to coincide with India’s
movement for independence from British rule in the first half of
the 20th century.
The mainstream movement for India’s independence was led by
Gandhi. Gandhi, however, represented a culture rooted in
religion. Historical progress in the medieval age, involving
religion, happened through reformation. Gandhi adapted
non-violent reformation as the political ideology of the
Independence Movement.
The historical consequence of such an approach was the
persistence of the religio-political nature of the relations
between India’s majority Hindus and minority Muslims. The
prospect of Hindu majority rule in post-independence India was
increasingly deemed unacceptable by many Muslims. The outcome
was the Partition of India at Independence in 1947, and the
creation of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan.
The failure to make a clean break from the pre-modern creed
of religion-rule to the modern creed of reason-revelation,
continues to determine the modern history and polity of the
subcontinent, and is reflected in the basic quality of life.
Since independence there have been three major wars between
Islamic Pakistan and Hindu majority India. Subsequently there
have been proxy war through insurgency, particularly in the
Indian border state of Jammu and Kashmir.
Domestically, in democratical India, for about four decades
there was the three-generation long dynastic rule of the
Nehru-Gandhi Family through the Indian National Congress party.
This was followed by a transitional period of unstable
coalitions. Subsequently an alliance led by the religious
Bharatiya Janata Party became the first non-Congress government
to complete a full term in office. The last general election was
won by the Congress Party, led by the widow of a former prime
minister from the Family, though, because of a nationally
divisive controversy over her foreign origin, a former finance
minister, who had earlier managed India’s recovery from economic
__ruptcy toward economic liberalization, was nominated for the
prime ministership.
In Pakistan, presently with a restrictedly elected
Parliament, there is overall military rule.
Another pre-modern reality of race-raid is also significant
in the subcontinent in the form of caste and cultural conflicts.
A permanent historical consequence of ethnic division and
oppression was the creation of Bangladesh (formerly East
Pakistan) from Pakistan in 1971, through a war between India and
Pakistan.
For sometime now India and Pakistan are engaged in a peace
process, over the region of Kashmir, a bone of contention from
Partition. Establishing a comprehensive connection between the
divided Kashmir on either side of the border seems to be the
crux of the challenge.
With Bangladesh, economic integration is vital to tackle
issues like illegal immigration and insurgent activities.
Domestically, in India the emergence of coalition governments
imply greater democratization and federalism. While economic
liberalization has encouraged globally competitive enterprises.
There has been some movement toward addressing the problem of
alienation and insurgency in North-East India. Arriving at a
role for the Northeast frontier in the Indian nationstate is
crucial. There has been a realization that in the backdrop of
globalization and India’s look-east policy, the Northeast is
naturally positioned to be the gateway to South-East Asia, and
to southern China.