Abstract
Since the young South Asian states officially gained independence from colonial rule, democratic transitions were hampered namely by the entrenched authoritarian traditions, rise of Islamic fundamentalism, communal violence and endemic corruption. The proclamation by some analysts, possibly guided by a minimalistic definition of democracy, of a successful South Asian ‘new democratic wave’ may however overemphasise the technical criteria for holding elections while ignoring the threat of potential return to authoritarian patterns. Having this in mind, this chapter is assessing the state and the art of democratic processes in South Asia based on the cases Bangladesh, India and Pakistan; on their respective backslashes and hindrances; as well as factors which can help to entrench democracy. The analysis will focus mainly on the period which starts with the 2013 General Election in Pakistan, and will take into account the transitionary phase of the 2014 elections in Bangladesh and India as well as elaborate on the latest developments. It will be argued that just looking at the holding elections as indicator for successful democratic transition is misleading in the South Asian context. It neither gives a clear description of the status of fundamental rights, freedoms, quality of (democratic) good governance nor if the will of the people as supreme authority in a democracy is respected. In order to prove this rationale, the chapter will apply the concept of (liberal) ‘embedded democracy’ by Wolfgang Merkel.
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Notes
- 1.
The 2014 national election was boycotted by the BNP and 19 allied parties (BTI BDH 2016). The BNP-led party alliance refused the polls “to protest what they said were unfair circumstances” (FH BDH 2016b). This left the majority of elected seats (153) uncontested, ensuring an AL victory. The AL won 234 parliamentary seats, the Jatiya Party (JP) won 34—led by the former military ruler Hussain Muhammad Ershad—, and independents and minority parties captured the remainder (FH BDH 2016b). Only 12 parties out of the 40 registered with the Bangladesh Election Commission participated in the election (Riaz 2016, p 67). Despite international and domestic critics, the old and new AL government did not recognize the critics on the conditions under which the polls were held and resisted calls for fresh elections (FH BDH 2016b).
- 2.
In this context, one must be aware that much of the credit for these measures goes to the last military backed caretaker government between 2006 and 2008 (ANFREL 2009) which is also linked with large scale human rights violations and truncation of political rights of the Bangladeshi people.
- 3.
- 4.
Especially last year, the government imposed “temporarily bans on gatherings or any activity designated a threat to public order” (FH PAK 2016).
- 5.
Some of these new special powers includes that “individuals illegally crossing national boundaries can now be tried by military courts”, the “federal government can transfer any case, pending in any trial court, to military courts”, that “those convicted by military courts will have no right of appeal before civilian courts”. Additionally, the “new legislation gives a judicial mandate to an executive functionary” (Asad 2015).
- 6.
- 7.
The 21st amendment to the Constitution also provides for entering the Pakistan Army Act 1952, the Pakistan Army Act 1953, the Pakistan Navy Act 1961 and the Protection of Pakistan Act, 2014 in the first schedule of the Constitution. The first schedule of the Constitution contains laws which are exempted from the application of Article 8 (1) and (2) of the Constitution. These articles are part of Chapter 1 of the Constitution relating to the fundamental rights of Pakistan’s citizens (Geo.tv 2015).
- 8.
This counts also counts for Afghanistan , Bhutan , Maldives , Nepal and Sri Lanka .
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Wolf, S.O. (2017). State of Democracy in South Asia: The Cases of Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan. In: Bandyopadhyay, S., Torre, A., Casaca, P., Dentinho, T. (eds) Regional Cooperation in South Asia. Contemporary South Asian Studies. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-56747-1_19
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