This week at Himal
This week, as India prepares for its gargantuan national election, we kicked off ‘Modi’s India from the Edges’, a special Himal Southasian series bringing you critical wide-angle analysis of the reign of Narendra Modi and its ramifications for Southasia, especially as he vies for a third consecutive term in power. We’ll be presenting you a new piece each week with insights from top journalists, academics and experts across the region. Over the course of the Indian election, Himal will examine how India’s relationships with neighbours like Pakistan, Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka have changed; how voters in Kashmir, Tamil Nadu and Manipur assess Modi’s tenure; and how India’s image and symbolic place in Southasia has been altered by a decade of Hindu nationalist rule.
In the first piece in the series, Salman Rafi Sheikh writes that Modi risks squandering an unprecedented chance at normalising India–Pakistan ties. Pakistan’s economic and internal crises have made it open to normalisation and increased trade with India, presenting New Delhi with an unprecedented strategic chance, but Modi and his government have their compass constrained by the anti-Muslim and anti-Pakistan agenda of Hindu nationalist politics.
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In the latest episode of State of Southasia, host Nayantara Narayanan interviews the activist and author Aakar Patel on the Indian government’s crackdown on political opposition ahead of the 2024 election. Patel compares India’s fraught election season, with growing accusations of an unfair playing field in favour of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party, to recently held elections in Pakistan and Bangladesh that were both marred by manipulation and repression.
Mohamed Shafeeq Karinkurayil reviews prolific Malayalam writer Benyamin’s work, finding an often ignored South-South connection in global migration and displacement. Karinkyrayil notes that Benyamin’s writings are testament to the range of geographies, styles and concerns that populate the Malayalam literary scene.
In our latest Southasian Conversation, we hosted an expert panel to discuss what Reliance’s runaway accumulation of wildlife at the conglomerate’s giant petrochemical complex says about the present and future of India’ wildlife and biodiversity management systems. The recorded event is now online.
Also read: Modi could squander an unprecedented chance at normalising India–Pakistan ties
Also read: State of Southasia #03: Aakar Patel on the unprecedented threats to India’s election
Also read: How Benyamin’s fiction upended the illusions of Gulf migrant lives in Malayalam literature
Also read: Southasian Conversation: The costs of Reliance's wildlife ambitions
This week in Southasia
Soaring temperatures across Southasia
Southasia is heating up – a lot!
On 9 April, a Yangon-based charity said it treated more than 100 people who lost consciousness from heat stroke, while a man in his 50s died while cycling. Myanmar’s department of meteorology and hydrology said temperatures are 3 to 4 degrees higher than average in Naypyidaw, Sagaing, Mandalay and Magwe regions, and in Shan state.
On 6 April, India’s Meteorological Department said parts of southern and eastern India would experience ‘heatwave conditions’, just one week after predicting hotter temperatures from April to June. There are rising concerns about millions of voters being exposed to heat waves during the country’s upcoming election, slated to run from mid April to early June.
Sri Lanka’s natural hazards early warning centre said the Heat Index was expected to increase to ‘caution level’ across most of the country on 7 April.
Last year saw record heat-waves across Southasia, with UNICEF reporting that 76 percent of children under 18 were exposed to extreme temperatures across the region. Southasia continues to bear the brunt of the impacts of climate change despite contributing just 8 percent of global carbon emissions.
Elsewhere in Southasia 📡
- Suspended Maldivian minister apologises after post on X mocking Indian flag and opposition Maldivian Democratic Party, shortly after India renewed quota allowing the Maldives to import essential commodities for 2024/2025 after a recent escalation of tensions between the two countries
- Bangladesh opens mosque for hijra community in Mymensingh, north of Dhaka, in a step forward for inclusivity despite opposition from hardline Islamist groups
- Canada Security Intelligence Service report claims India and Pakistan attempted to interfere in country’s federal elections. Report says India may have used government proxy agent to provide illegal financial support to pro-India candidates, though CSIS warns evidence is incomplete
- Air Quality Index reaches 413 in parts of Nepal after rise in forest fires across the country
- Sri Lanka petitions Myanmar junta for clemency for 15 fishermen detained while crossing Myanmar’s maritime boundaries in December 2023
- Chinese government shuts down popular Tibetan-language blog Luktsang Palyon (Tibet Sheep) claiming copyright infringement, in latest attempt to restrict Tibetan language content
- Nepal’s legislature obstructed by opposition parties demanding an official probe in the country’s new home minster
- Bhutanese public loses Nu 9 million (over USD 108,000) in digital scams over the course of one year, Bank of Bhutan runs awareness campaigns
- Taliban announces plans to restrict or block Facebook in Afghanistan, drawing condemnation from media watchdogs
- World Health Organisation warns that return of 600,000 undocumented migrants from Pakistan to Afghanistan is a threat to regional gains against polio
- Sri Lanka and creditors in final negotiations to suspend debt repayments until 2028 as IMF reports gradual improvement of Sri Lanka’s economic situation
- Myanmar’s military junta faces defeat in key town of Myawaddy, cancels planned evacuation flights to Thailand as anti-junta groups continue to make advances
- BBC to split operations in India, forms Indian company called Collective Newsroom after repeated raids by India’s tax authorities following the release of a documentary critical of Indian prime minister Narendra Modi last year
- Pro-monarchy demonstrators from Rastriya Prajatantra Party clash with police in Nepal, tear gas and water cannon deployed during 9 April protests
- Apple sends out threat notification to users in 92 countries, including India, warning that their iPhone was potentially attacked by 'mercenary spyware'. In October 2023, Apple sent out a similar threat notification to Apple users including journalists and politicians in India, and Amnesty International reported finding Israeli NSO Group's Pegasus spyware on Indian journalist's iPhones.
Only in Southasia!
Bollywood actress and BJP Lok Sabha candidate Kangana Ranaut left many Indians confused when she claimed that Indian nationalist leader Subhas Chandra Bose had been the country’s first prime minister during a Times Now summit. When the puzzled group editor of Times Now, Navika Kumar, pointed out that Bose was never prime minister, Ranaut remained unfazed. “He wasn’t,” she readily agreed, “But why not?” Ranaut appeared to be uncritically echoing rhetoric from India’s current prime minister, Narendra Modi, during a speech he made while unveiling a statue of Bose in September 2022.
Ranaut was not the only person who needed to brush up on her Indian history. The BJP chief for Tamil Nadu, K Annamalai, also went viral after saying that M K Gandhi was India’s first prime minister. Queue much derision on social media.
Well, that’s one way to know that it’s election season!
From the archive
Swear not by the moon (November 2021)
As Southasia celebrated Eid this week, a 2021 article by Shehroze Ahmed Shaikh on the politics of moon-sighting has enduring relevance – in Pakistan and beyond. Shaikh recounts the squabbles of clerics within Pakistan’s official moon-sighting committee that led to widespread confusion about when Eid should be celebrated in 2021, and also delves into the internal politics of moon-sighting committees across the region.
To all those who celebrated – a belated Eid Mubarak!