From Narendra Modi’s landslide victory in India to a one-sided and violent election in Bangladesh, from mass demonstrations in Islamabad to campaigning for an early presidential poll in Sri Lanka, 2014 was a year of fast and furious politics for the fifth of the world’s population who live in south Asia.
Most was more or less democratic. Certainly in India no one complained that the elections, spaced over six weeks in April and May to allow security forces to be redeployed around the country, were fraudulent.
The Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata party powered home with a massive majority, though with only 31% of votes cast. The venerable Congress party, in power for a decade and hit by corruption scams, suffered its worst defeat in history.
Modi’s humble origins contrasted dramatically with those of his main opponent, Rahul Gandhi, the scion of India’s best-known political dynasty. Modi’s promise to bring development for all, promote honest and efficient governance, and restore Indians’ pride in their nation resonated with voters across the vast country. No other nation would force India to step down from a face-off, he had said before election, then surprised many by inviting Nawaz Sharif, the beleaguered Pakistani prime minister, to his inauguration.
Hopes of a peace of the strong were dashed, however. Two confrontations came swiftly. One was with Pakistan, which saw some of the heaviest exchanges of fire between the respective militaries for many years. A second was with China, over an alleged violation of the disputed border. Neither bodes well for regional security.
The security of individuals – specifically, women – across the region remained a concern. India’s authorities seemed unable or unwilling to allow half the population to live without fear of everything from systematic harassment on public transport to gang-rape. Officials pointed to figures showing relatively low levels of sexual violence per capita. Campaigners retorted that in India, a far lower proportion of such attacks is reported than elsewhere. Caste violence also continued.
In Pakistan, minorities of all sorts continued to suffer. There was insurgent, Islamist and separatist trouble as well. After years of foot-dragging, the Pakistani army finally moved to seize control of North Waziristan, a territory bordering Afghanistan that had fallen under the control of al-Qaida-affiliated groups. Sharif’s government had been reluctant to stir up trouble there, given resistance to the plan from cricketer-turned-opposition politician Imran Khan and predictions that it might trigger terror attacks in the country’s cities. In the end it was army chief General Raheel Sharif – not the prime minister – who ordered the operation in June. But the policy saw its biggest test on 16 December when more than 100 children were killed in a Pakistani Taliban attack at an army school in Peshawar in revenge for the army offensive.
Pakistan’s civilian and military rulers had already been feuding over the fate of the former 1999 coup-leader, the retired General Pervez Musharraf, whose high treason trial has dragged on since last December. With the government weakened by its battles with the army, Khan and the populist cleric Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri seized the chance to try to oust Nawaz Sharif. But months of street protests came to nothing.
The disputed region of Kashmir remained restive, though the long-term trends towards an end of the 25-year-old conflict there continued.
In Bangladesh, elections at the start of the year saw widespread clashes between security forces and opposition activists. The poll was boycotted by the conservative Bangladesh Nationalist party, which is allied with Islamist organisations, and the centre-left Awami League consolidated its grip on power. The campaign saw hospital wards filling with badly injured civilians caught in the crossfire.
In the Maldives, rising gang violence, often with a political edge, claimed more victims but the tourists kept pouring in, keeping an otherwise ailing economy afloat. In a still unsolved case, a journalist working for a respected independent news website on the holiday island nation disappeared.
In Sri Lanka, the media and dissidents remained under massive pressure from the government.
On the economic front, Pakistan slid further while Bangladesh continued to do well. Modi’s win and the prospect of wide-ranging reforms in India boosted confidence among local and international investors. Growth in the emerging economic powerhouse picked up, though only to about 6%, far below that needed to generate funds to make investments in infrastructure, education, health and everything else required for a population that is still growing fast.
Nonetheless, for most of the 1.3bn people in the region, life was better than before. Incomes continue to grow, literacy levels incrementally rise, lifespans lengthen, opportunities open up. The various nations’ film industries were as vibrant and creative as ever, with Bollywood expanding globally. Sport, and not just cricket, continued to fascinate hundreds of millions, even if few actually participated.
But the costs of growth were clear, too. The environmental impact of development was evident in the toxic air of south Asian cities – Delhi overtook Beijing as the most polluted in the world, according to the World Health Organisation. Floods in Pakistan and India caused massive destruction and loss of life. In the Himalayas, Nepal’s growing adventure sports industry suffered two high-profile tragedies. On Everest, Sherpas were killed in an avalanche, and more than 40 people were killed by a freak storm on the Annapurna walking circuit. The government promised reform.
As for next year, it’s already shaping up to be a typical south Asian stop-start mix of rapid change and stasis, much like the traffic in the region’s choked cities. The president of Sri Lanka, Mahinda Rajapaksa, has called elections that could see him win a third term but might, just, see a challenge to his well-entrenched power. Modi will try to force reforms through parliament, and face obstacles on the way that may distract him from his international diplomacy.
The garment industry will continue efforts towards improving workplace safety in Bangladesh, all while maintaining its profits. And we will find out whether Pakistan really has turned over a new leaf as regards its policy in Afghanistan. Will 2015 see a great leap forward for the whole region? No one is holding their breath, except in smoggy Delhi, of course.
