State and Democracy in South Asia : Issues and Challenges

Contents: Introduction. 1. Plurality, poverty and democracy in South Asia: the need for consociational political technologies/P.C. Mathur. 2. State and democracy in the SAARC countries/S.L. Verma. 3. Globalisation and politics in South Asia: a search for peace and stability/R.K. Barik. 4. Fundamentalism in South Asia/Sunita Gangwal. 5. Constitution and democratic governance in India/Ashwini K. Ray. 6. Globalisation: governance without government an Indian experience/Prem R. Bhardwaj. 7. Managing ethnic relations in Pakistan: a case study of Baluchistan/Savita Pande. 8. Crises of democracy in Pakistan: role of ruling elite/Shashi Upadhyay. 9. Fundamentalist challenge to democracy in Bangladesh/Pramod Mishra. 10. Military in politics of Bangladesh: a review/Rajinder Singh Chauhan. 11. Democracy in Nepal: problems and challenges in a transitional polity/B.C. Upreti. 12. Maoists\' problem in Nepal: threat to democracy/Deeptima Shukla. 13. Democracy and decentralization in Bhutan/R.C. Misra.

"Democracy, as a system of governance is widely acknowledged and well established phenomenon all over the world. Though complex, yet it remains flexible, debatable as well as critical at times. The growth of democracy is not uniform in all the parts of the world. However, the mere establishment of democracy is not sufficient. It has to be nurtured, sustained and institutionalized which is possible if there is distributive justice; social equality, economic growth, civic culture along with good government. State is an important institution as it creates necessary conditions for the growth and sustenance of democracy. However, with the end of cold war and emergence of globalization there is greater emphasis on democracy all over the world. Globalization has not only posed challenges of varied nature before the state and growth of democracy but it has generated pressures and created requirements of its own kind before the nation states.

South Asian region does not remain unaffected with the global developments. However, the historical circumstances proved decisive not only to the fate of the nation states but to the growth of democracy as well. The urge of modernization, shared borders, weak territorial base, overlapping ethnicity, weak governance has frequently exploded into wars and interventions in these countries. Thus, challenges to and conflict between state and democracy is not only wide in South Asia but has left a deep impact on the fate of democracy in the region. This kind of scenario calls for a comprehensive discussion of the nature and dimensions of state and democracy in South Asia." (jacket)