South Asia Citizens Web

Eighteen years after it rejected the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the Indian government remains implacably hostile to it, and bristles even at attempts to raise the issue of its entry into force (EIF). This was demonstrated again last week when a member of an eminent persons’ group, established by the Preparatory Commission for the CTBT Organisation to promote EIF, visited India.

Looking back at developments over the last few years, most of us academics have been complacently blind to the sea of change that has overtaken our institutions, beginning with the courts from 2006, paving the way to militarisation of our academic life.

On November 14, 2014 some of us responding to communal conflagrations in parts of Delhi — notably Bawana, Trilokpuri, Ghonda, and Madanpur Khadar — called a meeting of concerned citizens, groups and organisations while tensions still prevailed. The narratives that came forth at this meeting made it clear that communal violence was set deliberately to simmer in the city as Delhi’s assembly elections were announced. This is in tune with the recent trends during general and assembly elections which were turned into offensive exercises in communal polarisation.

India’s neighbours are often skeptical about it. The merger of Sikkim in India way back in 1975 introduced a new term in political vocabulary of this subcontinent- ’Sikkim-isation’. Discomforted with the developments Nepal reoriented its foreign policy to assimilate its northern neighbour China into it. Its socio-cultural relations with the southern neighbour India were long and deep-rooted compared to the economic ties although the event named Sikkim-isation compelled it to look northwards. Now a new term is unfolding in Nepal’s context at this turn of 21st century- ’Modi-fication’.

Should Sirisena win the vote, the president and his brothers could find other means to retain power, including resorting to the politically compliant Supreme Court to invalidate the result, or using the military as a last resort. In this volatile pre-election context, foreign governments and international institutions concerned with Sri Lanka’s long-term stability – among them, China, India, Japan, U.S., the UN, European Union (EU), World Bank and Asian Development Bank (ADB) – should seek to limit the risks of serious political violence