Asian Themes

There was an inevitability in Pakistan’s decision to assist the United States against the Taliban/Al-Qaeda partnership after the attacks of September 11, 2001. Yet, as the repeated reports of sustained Taliban activity on the Pakistani side of the border with Afghanistan suggest, the dynamics of that assistance have not been that unambiguous. Zahid Hussain, a reporter based in Pakistan, seeks to explain the context in which Pervez Musharraf made that 2001 reversal and the blowback “unleashed by the jihadis” as a consequence (though the Karachi photograph printed above is of a police crackdown on piracy).

Writes Hussain: “Musharraf’s support for the US-led war on terror, his tactical cooperation with certain militant groups, and his refusal to embed a culture of democracy and accountability have intensified social, ethnic and religious differences in Pakistani society. These are the faultlines from which a geo-political earthquake could at some point erupt —an earthquake which would make the current regional security situation look positively calm by comparison. Pakistan’s battle for itself is far from over.” The scenario Hussain apprehends is not of a total Islamic fundamentalist takeover of Pakistan. But he fears that there could be fragmentation with radical elements gaining control of parts of the country. Read this book to understand the trouble in Balochistan and Waziristan.

The River of Lost Footsteps:

Histories of Burma
Thant Myint-U

Three themes come together in this book. Thant Myint-U — who is of Burmese origin but grew up overseas — treads through the recent history of his country, trying to understand how much of today’s military state is a consequence of the difficult legacies of colonialism, a legacy that includes, among other things, the longest civil war in history, a civil war that extracts its price even today. He surveys the difficult and so far elusive goal of trying to democratise the country. And then he wonders how the rest of world could gainfully engage with Burma.

The question is this, and it has significance even beyond the situation in Burma: when a country’s leadership does everything possible in defiance of the rule of law, should it be sanctioned out of all engagement? That is the tack being followed by most countries vis-à-vis Burma. Thant Myint-U wonders whether the West’s tendency to identify so much with Aung San Suu Kyi is in the interests of ordinary Burmese. Isolation may take its toll on repressive regimes, but they hurt the common people even more.

The King Never Smiles: A Biography of Thailand’s Bhumibol Adulyadej

Paul M. Handley

This book has been rather controversial in Thailand. But it is a good starting place for readers keen to understand the dynamics of the recent coup — blessed by the palace, and some say even set in motion by it — removing Thaksin Shinawatra. It conveys the central space held by monarchy in Thailand’s politics. And on the sidelines, one gets a sense of the country’s long and turbulent history of coups, of the importance of having the military on one’s side to retain power in “the land of smiles”.