Conflicts with Politics and Economic Changes in South Asia - Assignment Example

CONFLICTS, POLITICS AND ECONOMIC CHANGES IN SOUTH ASIA Name: Course: Tutor: College: City: Date: Conflicts, Politics and Economic Changes in South Asia Introduction Although Conflicts, politics and economic changes are not a recent phenomenon and scholars have devoted significant attention to Conflicts, politics and economic changes in South Asia since 1970s, what brought the subject into the spotlight was the end of the Cold War and the structural changes it created in global politics. The collapse of multi-ethnic countries such as the Soviet Union and Yugoslavia triggered various political tensions, economic changes and conflicts between and within the south Asia countries such as Pakistan, Syria and Norway. On the other side of the world, some East Asian states such as Sri Lanka and Burma suffered from bloodshed between different ethnic groups (Guha 2007). The result of this development in global politics was a developing literature on conflict and economic changes. Conflict is “a form of group conflict in which at least one of the parties involved interprets the conflict, its causes and potential remedies along an actually existing or perceived discriminating political and economic divide. Although Conflicts, politics and economic changes will be deeply discussed in this paper, I will briefly summarize them here since I believe that the decision to use force, whether adopted by soldiers or civilians, may transform the nature of Conflicts, politics and economic changes (BaqaI 2011). Research focus on economic and political greed and argue that economic and political benefits may lead individuals to provoke and support conflicts between groups (Arnold 2016). The probability of civil war is higher in low-income countries since the economic gains of fighting provide benefits for rebels, and the duration of ethnic conflict is dependent on the gains from the civil war. In this view, a conflict may increase economic gains from smuggling, arms- trading, natural resources in the conflicting area, diaspora donations, etc. and economic opportunities may explain the emergence of ethnic conflicts better than other motives (Rieck 2016). Others focus on political greed and point out that power ambitions of elites and their fear of losing power may lead to conflict. In this logic, if elites feel that their power is threatened, they may decide to undertake military action against a certain ethnic group to maintain their power. In order to do that, elites make the public believe that the nation is facing a grave danger. Although the public could not know who is mainly responsible for the conflict, they are inclined to believe that the other group may be threatening; therefore, they support violent policies offered by the politicians. Here, public fear and politician ambitions play an equal role in the emergence of conflict as a result of cost-benefit analysis on both sides. Conflict is likely if the minority group established its relations with the majority group illegitimately and the system within the state is unstable. In this kind of situation, the minority group tries to transform interethnic relations through force to get a positive social identity to replace its negative identity as a minority group. Since the majority group will try to prevent this challenge, conflict occurs. This type of group comparison is widespread especially in the ex-colonial countries like Asia because of the colonial policies that created advanced and backward groups. Colonial states favored some ethnic groups to the disadvantage of others and the main reason for conflict in the post- independence period in these regions is this inequality between groups. Connections between soldiers and politicians, the officers’ difficulty in putting ethnic affiliations aside and civilian intrusion into politics. These elements reinforce each other and lead the officers and civilians to cooperate with each other to increase the interests of their own groups. The result is ethnic competition over the army which ends either with military disquiet and military coups or homogenization of the army (Welborne 2016). Role of politics in economic changes Politics played a significant role in the independence process of most south Asia countries and the successive wars before 1923 made the military a highly-experienced political actor. While soldiers had been in the battlefield for the last years, the diminishing influence of the Sublime Porte and the lack of any societal class made them the only political actor after independence (Perkovich & Dalton 2016). This situation put the politics in the new state at risk from the beginning since former generals commanding arms may now have been against each other in the political arena. This military interference in politics with the danger of manipulation by foreign states was against Asian conception of an independent state. In addition to military accomplishments during the world war, one of the reasons for ability to restore unity after the conflicts was the remaining independent of discredited political factions throughout the constitutional period. Military interference in politics is dangerous both to a state’s independence and the political power of elites (Nahar 2016). The high conflict autonomy can be assessed with the significant role in the political decision-making. Country with strong economy backgrounds not only win the war of independence, they lay the foundations on which the new Turkey was based,” and among these men, three had incomparable status with others during the state-building process and no individual could give an important decision without it approval because of their economy. Contrary to some countries where the conflict controlled political decision-making through the governmental and constitutional framework and, as we will see, Pakistan, where the military officers directly ruled the country several times in its short history conflict influence on politics is quite a challenge (Tiwana 2016). This challenge is based on two facts. On the one hand, despite being surrounded by hostile states and being in a constant ‘state in war’, Pakistan has witnessed a military coup several times therefore, it has been a case disapproving’ which argues that the external threat environment may lead to dictatorial authority. On the other, comparing to democratic countries, the conflict influence on political decision-making is quite significant. The conflicting communities have always played an important role in shaping the political decisions. Pakistan Case This dual situation has always been an interesting topic to analyze for scholars who are interested in civilian control of the conflict influence in Asian countries. Asian countries has most experienced the conflict influence on political decision-making as the state was ruled by military generals for much. Since the foundation of their state, Asian people have witnessed successful military and the states was ruled by military generals (Shehabuddin 2008). Other than the first few years after independence and, to some extent, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s rule between 1971 and 1977, the conflict also indirectly controlled political decision-making as politicians either refrained from contradicting with the interests of the military officers or they were dismissed directly or indirectly by the military when they contradicted with those interests in Pakistan (Pio, Kamran, Zaidi & Syed 2016). In addition, the Pakistani army was also short of military facilities and supplies in the first years of the state. A high proportion of the military facilities of British India had been located within India and those that went to Pakistan were short-staffed. For example, out of the 46 training establishments in British India, only 7 were located in Pakistan. Similarly, three command workshops that helped maintain armored fighting vehicles, radar repairs and crystal cutting stayed in India while of the 40 ordnance depots, only 5 small retail depots were in Pakistan. Moreover, although Pakistan and India agreed to share military assets with a ratio of 64 to 36 in favor of India, with the clashes starting over Kashmir in the first months after independence, India slowed the implementation of the agreement. Three hundred trains were assigned to deliver 170,000 tons of military stores to Pakistan, only three reached in Pakistan and most contained trash. While this situation contributed to Pakistani hostility towards India, the Pakistani army remained short-supplied in the first few years as each man had five rounds of practice ammunition to use for a year (Craig & Stephen 2014). The second factor that may have eased civilian control of the military in Pakistan was the political culture inherited from British India. It is a fact that the role of the military in British India was critical to preventing internal and external threats. The Governor of Bombay in 1820s, the natives of India considered “the military power and those possessing it as pre-eminent” while British India had to show military superiority to protect its interests in India against foreign powers, especially the Russian Empire (Mudasir 2016). As a result, military officers significantly assisted the British leadership in India; nevertheless, the dominant power in this relationship was the civilians. British leaders held that civil-military relations in India should follow the British example as closely as possible and the dominant norm was the civilian viceroy’s control over the military commander. In this system, Indian officers were educated with “a belief that really civilized politics…requires civilian control and parliamentary processes” and they “learned the prudence of having no political views”. In the British military schools, Indian officers were discouraged to discuss political issues as their professional training focused on military-technical subjects such as fortifications, military history and geography rather than contemporary political issues (Oberst et al. 2016). Finally, a strong political leadership under Governor General Muhammad Ali Jinnah was an advantage for the politicians to effectively control the economy. As the founding father of the Pakistani state, Quad-i-Azam was highly respected among the military officers; nevertheless, in a couple of instances after the state was founded, Jinnah felt it necessary to emphasize the importance of civilian control over the economy. For example, on the day of independence when a young soldier complained about the appointments of British officers as chiefs of services, Jinnah warned the officer not to forget that Pakistani officers are “the servants of the people,” and stated, “You do not make national policy. It is we, the civilians, who decide these issues and it is your duty to carry out those tasks with which you are entrusted”. Jinnah reiterated the same point in his sole visit to the Staff College when he expressed his uneasiness with the attitude of “one or two very high-ranking officers.” In his speech, Jinnah called on the officers to study the constitution (the Pakistan Provisional Constitutional Order which is derived from the India Act and understand that “the executive authority flows from the head of the Government of Pakistan, who is Governor-General, and, therefore, any command or orders that may come to them cannot come without the sanction of the executive head”. While this warning shows early indications of military intervention in politics, Jinnahr was adamant about providing civilian control of the economy (Avari 2013). All these advantages notwithstanding, Pakistan fell under a military regime a little more than a decade after the state was established. The factors that led to this outcome are varied, some strikingly similar to the conditions in the Israeli state-building process. First, Pakistan was created out of a partition of the British colony in postwar political conditions and as soon as being founded, it faced a hostile threat environment. Not different from the Arabs who did not accept the presence of the Jewish state in the Middle East, Indians were not excited to see the creation of a Muslim state out of British India. After it became inevitable, they approved the partition; yet, disagreements over Kashmir soon turned into the first Indo-Pakistani War. The communal violence that cost the lives of nearly a million Muslims, Hindus and Sikhs, caused the mass movement of around fifteen million people after the partition and deadlocked the situation of the disputable areas, shaped the national identity of both India and Pakistan and, created a pathological socio-political system in those two states in the following decades (Martin & Mubashar 2015). Pakistani soldiers and politicians never believed that India saw the partition as the final settlement99 and in these conditions the military increased its role in politics as the state was facing an enemy stronger in terms of population, geography and military power again, not different from Israeli understanding of the Arab “existential threat.” Finally, and most importantly, strong economy helped the government to control the civilian conflict in this period. All this usage of the politics in civilian affairs was important for the growing influence of the South Asia politics and society. First, a close relationship emerged between the politicians and the people through these experiences as the people saw the government, around in times of difficulty. Leaders performing the duties of a civilian government “created an impression in the minds of the public that the government could restore peace and strong economy when all other devices had failed”. This belief undoubtedly eased public acceptance of the government ruling. Second, assuming conflict management gave the government its experiences with the management of conflict issues that they were lacking. These experiences not only encouraged the politicians to take over the management of the entire country, it also brought them public fame and appreciation which were difficult to resist. Bibliography Arnold, G. (2016). Wars in the Third World since 1945. Retrieved from: http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&scope=site&db=nlebk&db=nlabk&AN=1342815. Avari, B. (2013). Islamic civilization in South Asia: a history of Muslim power and presence in the Indian subcontinent. London, Routledge. BaqaI, H. (2011). Non traditional sources of conflict in South Asia: a study of non traditional sources of conflict in South Asia which exacerbate existing conflicts. Saarbrucken, Germany, VDM Verlag. Craig Jeffrey & Stephen Young (2014) Jugād: Youth and Enterprise in India, Annals of the Association of American Geographers, 104:1, 182-195, DOI: 10.1080/00045608.2013.847757. Retrieved from: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/00045608.2013.847757 Guha, Ramachandra 2007, 'Riches' in Guha, Ramachandra, India after Gandhi : the history of the world's largest democracy, 1st Ecco ed., Ecco, New York, pp. 682-708. Mudasir Nazar (2016) Islamic political parties and the nature of politics in Pakistan, Asian Journal of Political Science, 24:2, 237-265, DOI: 10.1080/02185377.2016.1210524. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02185377.2016.1210524 Martin Griffiths & Mubashar Hasan (2015) Playing with Fire: Islamism and Politics in Bangladesh, Asian Journal of Political Science, 23:2, 226-241, DOI: 10.1080/02185377.2015.1040039. Retrieved from http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/02185377.2015.1040039 Nahar, E. (2016). Inter-state conflicts and contentious issues in south asia: Challenges and Prospects for Saarc. Lanham, Kalpaz Publications. Retrieved from: http://public.eblib.com/choice/publicfullrecord.aspx?p=4674331. Oberst, R. C., Malik, Y. K., Kennedy, C. H., Kapur, A., Lawoti, M., Rahman, S., & Ahmad, A. (2016). Government and politics in South Asia. Pio, E., Kamran, T., Zaidi, A., & Syed, J. (2016). Faith-based violence and Deobandi militancy in Pakistan. Perkovich, G., & Dalton, T. (2016). Not war, not peace? Motivating Pakistan to prevent cross-border terrorism. New Delhi, Oxford University Press India. Rieck, A. (2016). The Shias of Pakistan. Oxford, Oxford University Press. Retrieved from: http://public.eblib.com/choice/publicfullrecord.aspx?p=4413955. Shehabuddin, E. (2008). Jamaat-i-Islami in Bangladesh: Women, Democracy and the Transformation of Islamist Politics. Modern Asian Studies. 42, 577-603. Tiwana, B. S. (2016). Socio-economic changes in South Asia. Welborne, B. (2015). The Politics of State Intervention: Gender Politics in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iranby Shireen K. Burki. Journal of Women, Politics & Policy. 36, 346-348. Read More

Here, public fear and politician ambitions play an equal role in the emergence of conflict as a result of cost-benefit analysis on both sides. Conflict is likely if the minority group established its relations with the majority group illegitimately and the system within the state is unstable. In this kind of situation, the minority group tries to transform interethnic relations through force to get a positive social identity to replace its negative identity as a minority group. Since the majority group will try to prevent this challenge, conflict occurs.

This type of group comparison is widespread especially in the ex-colonial countries like Asia because of the colonial policies that created advanced and backward groups. Colonial states favored some ethnic groups to the disadvantage of others and the main reason for conflict in the post- independence period in these regions is this inequality between groups. Connections between soldiers and politicians, the officers’ difficulty in putting ethnic affiliations aside and civilian intrusion into politics.

These elements reinforce each other and lead the officers and civilians to cooperate with each other to increase the interests of their own groups. The result is ethnic competition over the army which ends either with military disquiet and military coups or homogenization of the army (Welborne 2016). Role of politics in economic changes Politics played a significant role in the independence process of most south Asia countries and the successive wars before 1923 made the military a highly-experienced political actor.

While soldiers had been in the battlefield for the last years, the diminishing influence of the Sublime Porte and the lack of any societal class made them the only political actor after independence (Perkovich & Dalton 2016). This situation put the politics in the new state at risk from the beginning since former generals commanding arms may now have been against each other in the political arena. This military interference in politics with the danger of manipulation by foreign states was against Asian conception of an independent state.

In addition to military accomplishments during the world war, one of the reasons for ability to restore unity after the conflicts was the remaining independent of discredited political factions throughout the constitutional period. Military interference in politics is dangerous both to a state’s independence and the political power of elites (Nahar 2016). The high conflict autonomy can be assessed with the significant role in the political decision-making. Country with strong economy backgrounds not only win the war of independence, they lay the foundations on which the new Turkey was based,” and among these men, three had incomparable status with others during the state-building process and no individual could give an important decision without it approval because of their economy.

Contrary to some countries where the conflict controlled political decision-making through the governmental and constitutional framework and, as we will see, Pakistan, where the military officers directly ruled the country several times in its short history conflict influence on politics is quite a challenge (Tiwana 2016). This challenge is based on two facts. On the one hand, despite being surrounded by hostile states and being in a constant ‘state in war’, Pakistan has witnessed a military coup several times therefore, it has been a case disapproving’ which argues that the external threat environment may lead to dictatorial authority.

On the other, comparing to democratic countries, the conflict influence on political decision-making is quite significant. The conflicting communities have always played an important role in shaping the political decisions. Pakistan Case This dual situation has always been an interesting topic to analyze for scholars who are interested in civilian control of the conflict influence in Asian countries. Asian countries has most experienced the conflict influence on political decision-making as the state was ruled by military generals for much.

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