An Overview of British Rule in the region
The Indian subcontinent and South Asia countries such as India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, and Sri Lanka were one of the most important regions in the Asian continent, not only because of their empires that have crossed over the region but also of the economical impetus that has raised over the decades. In addition, the region illustrates the very protected geopolitical and imperial interests of Great Britain in the continent. The British developed a system of domination over the Indian subcontinent’s population for several reasons and those reasons are,first, the size of the population of the region, being an important economic cluster as a consumer market, tax revenue, and axis of imposition of the desire for liberal colonialism of the crown and the historical process called paix britanica of the empire, all over the world. Second, geopolitically, it is an important counterweight to Russia’s expansion over the continent, especially the neightboring countries of Central and Inner Asia, holding the territories vital to colonial rule on the continent. In addition, the British Empire reinforced the economic importance and geopolitics of the region through the construction of transport infrastructures such as railways, the creation of cotton fields, and tea production.
The British rule in the Indian subcontinent deployed a lot of consequences nowadays, including the social craft of these countries, the political formation, economical activities, social disparity, exclusionary policies, and the regime. Regardless of the political regime in India and Sri Lanka both have the longest democratic tradition in the region, another type of effect and likely the most important than others, it’s the geographical separation of religious groups such as the Muslims in the north, and the non-Brahman movements in the south, fighting with the upper caste and the top hierarchical caste in Indian society.
These social exclusions of the Hindu brahmins, delivered a sense of “duty to rule”, creating roots in the Hindu nationalism and exclusionary policies over the other groups. Two main events have shown the inefficiency of British rule and the effects of a split society; the first one was the great Bengal famine ( 1769-1773), affecting directly 30 million people, claimed by locals, after the officials ignored the crop crisis, such as the lack of marginal prices and out of food stock, several droughts in the Bengal region and developing diseases to the populations, such as smallpox. Moreover, the event was the famine in 1943 when the British must fight the Japaneses in Singapore, because of the Japanese invasion in Southeast Asia during WWII, in the sequence,the Burma invasion by the Japanese, the major key in the rice production that sustains the region of Bengali. The last key event, was the Sepoy war or rebellion in the Subcontinent, that the major claims concerned first of all, obligatory enlistment by the British Indian crown army, gathering of members of different castes to the joint forces, and using cow and pig fat to lubricate the rifles.
The Independence Struggle and Partition and Sri Lanka’s Independence
The process continued his legacy, especially at nationalist division in independence of the region, characterized by a ethnic-religious independence struggle,in 1947. The legacy of Gandhi and all philosophy of non-violence principle, attracted millions of people, especially in the villages,enhancing its image of a peaceful personification and charismatic with moral authority. The truly struggle between these nations started over the India´s partition and the emergence of the two leaders and parties; in one hand the Indian National Congress, Hindu-majorirty with a high standard of institutionalization, ruled by Jawarhalal Nehru, and Muslim National league, emerged by a political inheritance in the Hindustan (Territory ocuppied by the hindu-majority) the actual territory ocuppied by India, it was not a nation-building process as the Nehru´s indian national congress. These league has created in the peak of partition of the the region by Muhammad Ali Jinnah and properly the division of two provinces the Punjab and Bengal and so on,India and Pakistan. These partitions caused an overwhelming calamity of one of largest mass and forced migrations of history, vitimating 20 to 30 millions of people into a deep refugee crisis. Since then, the region has splitted by three countries: India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, somehow oftenly insert Bhutan and Nepal in the region. Another special and important data it’s the fact that the first UN mission since his creation was in the region.
The Ceylon independence or now Sri Lanka differs from its neighbors, it was a complete process of transfer of power, following the recent events of the WWII resulted in a strong weakness of empires in general, but especially the british. The prelude decade of the independence, most certainly in 1931, several reforms were made in the local institutions and the statecraft resulted from experience gained in many branches namely: Agriculture (Tea culture, mainly), industry, education, healthcare and local administration. One more time, resulting from the choice of the British, a center-right party group has chosen to assume the power, the United National Party of Ceylon, headed by D. S. Senanayake, the leader and founder of the party. In this case, a sinhalese buddhist majority under Theravada buddhism, that deployed a cultural and political supremacy in the country, classified as westernized elites, exercised the control over political institutions. The exclusion and violence against other religious groups, was cleared in the island, especially against christian minorities. The longest and bloodiest civil war erupted in the country in the 1983 to 2009, gathering forces of Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam and the Sinhalese government, claiming a creation of an independent state, Tamil Eelam state. According to the UN reports 80,000 to 100,000 were killed in the conflict.
India versus Pakistan: Regional security, tensions and international politics
International politics of South Asia has more concern for security than any other kind of reason, one of the causes of that is the fact countries of the region such as India and Pakistan have developed nuclear weapons and plenty of wars that these countries were involved in over the last three decades ago. Academics and literature since the partition of the region in 1947 and 1948 the reason for the independence of Ceylon, they increased their studies about the region, especially about the nuclear disputes between India and Pakistan. In addition, the annexation of Jammu and Kashmir, the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan, the civil war in Ceylon, and its repercussions on the region.
Ethnic and religious violence terrorism in name of religion, and continuous failing states have upraised debates across the world. Tariq Ali, a Pakistani-British political activist, and journalist in his book released in 2008 “The Duel” criticized the United States foreign policy with imperialistic shape, on the occasion of nine eleven afterward, to square Pakistan as a submitted country, deepening each move the country in a process of failing state and the hostilities. The foreign policy of the United States over the region, for example, put Pakistan as a strategic target to fight terrorism, but the results were the reverse. Yet, Ali has appointed a lot of fails in the Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf, including the inefficacy to maintain the rule of law in remote regions of the country. India and Pakistan relations have been based on the construction of rivalry, related to the nationalism that rules each country’s doctrine. Several conflicts have broken out, from the partition in the half of the twentieth century until the last decade of the last century, the well-known Kargil conflict. The nuclear rivalry and weaponry had his baseline principle of self-help and misperception and miscommunication of each other over the nuclear concerns.
Some scholars appoint the fact of the two countries have structural and different characteristics in their domestic politics, Pakistan for example, has several years of a military regime of dictatorship, after a coup deployed in 1958, emerging in the power charge, Ayub Khan, and other coups in 1977, led by Zia-Ul-Haq and other in 1999 led by Pervez Musharraf, arresting long-serving PM Nawaz Sharif.
The nuclear dispute has a considerable growth in the coming years and each country is a public debate and shapes the axis of their foreign policy. Pakistan occupies the status of a unique Islamic country that possesses nuclear weapons and the strongest armies in the Islamic world. Military budgets increased in each country severally, as shown in the graphic, sixty billion dollars has been invested by India between 1989 to 2010, and ten billion dollars invested by Pakistan in the same years, and another graphic shows the nuclear arsenal.
Conclusion
The independence’s legacy n in the economic, social life and particularly and mainly on politics, since the state formation on the prelude of partition, and the relations among them, the hegemony of India and its hindu nationalism that excludes other religious faiths and its connotation as the “political heritage of the democracy”, that may jeopardize the relation and the resolution of disputes and impasses of security, increasing the sense of insecurity in the region. Diplomacy and inclusion in the domestic input and the international output, must be in the central spine of politics and policies of these countries, reducing the negative impacts of the British heritage and achieving the cooperation between. Governments are always capable of solving the disputes, seeking the diplomatic way, abandoning doctrines that regret the interdependence and distancing the mutual cooperation.The SAARC (South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation), it’s an interesting principle and way to seek cooperation, but the engagement on the cause will decide regional integration in a wide way within the region. One important fact is that these integration has dismissed the necessity of an external intervention, except on the United States “war on terror”, that put up the Pakistan as his major ally on the region.
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