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India aims to become a developed India (‘Viksit Bharat’) by 2047 (Vision 2017), the centenary of its independence. Achieving this will require sustained action in poverty reduction, job creation, climate transition, and human capital formation. This demands strategic capacity: the state’s ability to align resources, institutions and political authority around long-term goals. Vision 2047 is therefore as much a test of governance as it is an ambition.

Since the Planning Commission was abolished in August 2014, India’s strategic core has been detached from fiscal authority, regular coordination and politically authorised development diagnostics. Its replacement, NITI Aayog (Policy Commission), functions as a signalling node, producing vision documents and indices rather than being a strategic centre capable of arbitrating trade-offs or sustaining policy coherence across electoral and budgetary cycles.

Three structural deficits explain why this gap now threatens the Vision 2047 agenda.

Authority deficit: NITI Aayog operates as an advisory body without control over budgetary allocation, while the Ministry of Finance manages expenditure through an annual cycle optimised for short-term fiscal management. Long-term priorities therefore lack binding protection across budget cycles. When strategy is decoupled from resource allocation, it risks remaining aspirational rather than operational.

Knowledge deficit: Effective statecraft requires diagnostics that not only inform but also compel decision-making on trade-offs. The current architecture of governance privileges dashboards and indices that signal progress but often obscure distributional realities. Evidence shapes visibility rather than strategic choice, risking the trap of solving the wrong problem precisely while challenges like poverty, employment and regional inequality remain insufficiently addressed.

Coordination deficit: As federalism has become more performative, opportunities for collective decision-making have narrowed. Without regular coordination arenas, governance increasingly relies on nodality, where the Centre signals, states respond selectively, and hard trade-offs are displaced by informal bargaining, delay or shifting of blame.

These are not abstract concerns. The World Bank’s India Country Economic Memorandum 2024 warns that India is unlikely to reach high-income status by 2047 under business-as-usual reforms despite strong headline growth. The constraint is not ideas or ambition but the capacity to sustain complementary reforms over time. And that is a problem of governance.

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India does not need to recreate the Planning Commission or reintroduce directive planning. It needs a strategic anchor: a set of institutional arrangements that reconnect strategy to finance, knowledge to decisions and coordination to commitment (see Figure 1).

Four design principles give this concrete form.

Reconnect Strategy and Finance

Long-term priorities shape behaviour only when they survive annual budget bargains. A ‘Medium-Term Strategic Expenditure Framework’ should be established jointly by NITI Aayog and the Ministry of Finance, operating as a rolling five-to-seven-year envelope for major public investments. Projects above a defined fiscal threshold would be required to demonstrate consistency with Vision 2047 priorities at Cabinet approval and in subsequent budget cycles. Deviations would require political justification, raising the cost of short-termism while preserving flexibility in response to shocks.

Rebuild Authoritative Knowledge

Strategic capacity depends not on the volume of data produced but on whether trusted diagnostics structure debate, budgeting and accountability. The Development Monitoring and Evaluation Office (which already sits within NITI Aayog) should be expanded from scheme-level monitoring to system-level strategic diagnostics. It would authorise and synthesise assessments of where India stands on poverty, employment, regional convergence and human development. Each diagnostic would require a formal government response linked to strategic reviews and medium-term fiscal planning, shifting evidence from that which is informational to what is of consequence. A hub-and-spoke architecture, with state-level bodies such as state-level NITI Aayogs acting as analytical nodes, would preserve state autonomy while creating a shared diagnostic language across the federation.

Repurpose the Governing Council

The Governing Council in NITI Aayog exists as the apex platform for cooperative federalism, comprising the Prime Minister and all Chief Ministers. In practice its role has remained consultative and episodic, with a broad agenda, infrequent meetings and weak follow-through, which has limited its capacity for structured problem-solving frameworks. Three changes will redesign it into a genuine coordination forum:

• Its focus should be narrowed to two or three cross-sectoral priorities per cycle;
• A small Joint Secretariat should be created to prepare substantive diagnostics and track follow-through;
• Its decisions should be linked directly to the expenditure framework and biennial strategic reviews.

Decisions taken collectively at this level carry reputational and political weight not carried though by informal bargains.

Institutionalise Learning and Review

Long-term strategy fails when governments lack institutionalised mechanisms to learn and correct course. A biennial Strategic Review Cycle, integrated with the expenditure framework and linked to Vision 2047, should ask three governing questions:

• What is working and should it be scaled?
• What is failing and why?
• What should be stopped or redesigned?

Internal diagnostic discussion should be separated from external communication, with a concise public note signalling direction without exposing unfinished debate. Learning thus becomes a governing practice, not an evaluative afterthought.

Working with the Authorising Environment

If aligning strategy, finance, diagnostics and coordination is so valuable, why has it not already emerged? The answer lies less in lack of intent than in prevailing incentives. Visibility, speed and signalling generate immediate political returns, while binding commitments and contested diagnostics impose short-term political costs. Existing governance practice therefore favours performance metrics over settlement, and ambition over durability.

The strategic anchor is designed to work with this authorising environment rather than against it. It strengthens executive control by improving the Centre’s capacity to anticipate risk and manage inter-temporal trade-offs. Budgetary authority remains firmly with the Ministry of Finance while the expenditure framework improves coherence across cycles without mechanically binding annual decisions. States gain a credible return to negotiated coordination without losing the power to set the national agenda. Predictable risks, including perceptions of a planning revival and ministerial resistance, are mitigated through selective scope, piloting in priority domains and separation of internal learning from public signalling. This is a coordination reform, not a planning revival.

Implementing the Strategic Anchor

Rebuilding strategic capacity is primarily a problem of sequencing rather than institutional design. Attempting to impose a fully articulated strategic centre in one step would invite political resistance, bureaucratic avoidance and symbolic compliance.

The Strategic Anchor is therefore designed for incremental implementation.

In the first six months, the priority is to establish credibility without disruption through a Cabinet Resolution defining the strategic anchor as a coordination mechanism, identification of core Vision 2047 priority domains, and constitution of a Joint Strategic-Fiscal Cell through secondments. The second phase embeds alignment by integrating pilot priorities into the expenditure framework and convening a redesigned Governing Council in a focused strategic cycle. The third phase, running to 24 months, consolidates and upscales by formalising review cycles within the annual budget calendar and deciding on expansion based on performance.

At each stage, the test is not whether new institutions have been created but whether governing routines have changed.

Conclusion

Vision 2047 should be understood less as a development target than as a test of India’s governing capacity under conditions of complexity, federalism and political contestation. Its success should be judged not by new plans or indicators but by whether difficult trade-offs surface earlier, budgets become more predictable and course correction becomes routine. Without such a capability, Vision 2047 will remain performative rather than operative, ambitious in rhetoric but fragile in execution.

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The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent the views of the ‘South Asia @ LSE’ blog, the LSE South Asia Centre or the London School of Economics and Political Science. Please click here for our Comments Policy.

This blog is published under the Creative Commons License and may be reposted by anyone with the following Acknowledgement (including hyperlinks): ‘Originally published in ‘South Asia @ LSE’, the official blog of South Asia Centre, London School of Economics and Political Science, on 26 October 2026.

Please e-mail southasia@lse.ac.uk for queries.

Banner image © Paul Skorupskas, 2016, Unsplash.

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Have you ever been in a situation where you have been asked: ‘Apni shanakht karwaiay [Please identify yourself]?

What is this shanakht? Identity, sense of self. In simpler words, it makes us who we are and where we come from, for example, a ‘Pakistani’, a ‘worker’ or whatever. Our identities may seem fairly easy to explain, yet they are complex, fluid and intertwined. They are the stories told to us about who we are and who we are not, drawing on narratives that trickle down generations, deeply rooted in a socio-historical context that shapes how individuals and nations view themselves.

This reproduction of ‘selves’ via stories, myths and legends is always somewhat selective. Throughout human history, this is how empires have known that they are different, special and not like ‘them’, i.e., others. This is how boundaries of belonging and unbelonging are created, enforced and reproduced.

For instance, the idea of the Muslim ummah (brotherhood or community) transcends geographic boundaries and connects us to common shared accounts of how we came about, the meaning of life, etc and that is how we make sense of ourselves in fast-paced, post-modern societies. In post-colonial states like Pakistan and India, identities are even more multifaceted, shaped by a ‘shared historical trauma’ inflicted on the ancestors by the (British colonial) ‘Other’, which further cements the notions of ‘us vs them’. We only have to look at the partition of the subcontinent to understand this. The reported mass killings, unimaginable horrors, or some would say ‘crimes against humanity’ are still fresh in the socio-cultural memory of both Pakistanis and Indians. We cannot forget even if we want to because select narratives are widely disseminated via popular media, including in textbooks.

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This post focuses on those who are not responsible for the shared historical trauma of the majority but still have to face the consequences, i.e., the religious minorities (in Pakistan). In post-colonial states, the politics of belonging and the idea of nationhood are inexplicably connected via the intersection of religion (key factor), history and politics. Consequently, whenever there is an attack on one’s identity, there is always an increase in hostilities against minority communities. Evidence of this is visible in the sharp increase in hate crimes against Muslims in the West, persecution of Hindus in Pakistan after the destruction of the Babri mosque in India in 1992, and the targeting of Muslims in India in the aftermath of the Pahalgam attack in 2025.

For example, after the demolition of the Babri Mosque in 1992, communal riots in India where the Muslim minority were indiscriminately attacked by nationalist Hindu mobs resulted in a sharp increase in violence against Pakistani Hindus. In an incident after the Pahalgam attack, religiously motivated assaults were reported on Kashmiri shawl-sellers by local Hindus in Mussoorie in India, who were told to leave the country immediately. Such moments of national turmoil bring out the best and worst in people, which directly impacts the majority–minority relationship.

For the vulnerable, one way to deal with the situation is via hyper-patriotism, which translates into openly pledging allegiance to the majority’s cause since, subconsciously, the minorities are socialised into keeping quiet. Du Bois, while theorising race relations in America, explained this as ‘double consciousness, a “two-ness” of being an American and a Negro, two warring ideas in one dark body’. A Black man will always be perceived as the Other; hence, there must be a racial socialisation to mitigate this perception and to avoid bodily harm. Data from the Law Enforcement Epidemiology Project at the University of Chicago points out that Black African–Americans are twice as likely to be killed and five times more likely to suffer injuries needing medical care at hospital. Examples of this can be seen in various shootings of young Black men at traffic signals in the US.

Keeping aside the hyperbole of this emotionally charged statement, Sikhs of Pakistan openly voiced their support for Pakistan during the Pakistan-India conflict following the Pahalgam attack in January 2025. They swore allegiance with the Pakistani armed forces by supporting the narrative of the Pakistani army foiling an Indian attack on the holy Gurdwara Nankana Sahib.

Similar sentiments were echoed by other religious minorities (including Hindus and Christians) but Sikhs were somehow highlighted more in the media. One explanation of this hyper-vocalisation for national support is self-preservation of one’s self. Anthony Giddens calls this ‘ontological security’ which, simply put, means a sense of security-continuity in a person’s life. An ontologically secure citizen will be able to openly engage and interact with others without fear of repercussion; in other words, they will live their lives to the fullest.

Contrarily, the absence of ontological security will create ‘existential anxiety’, a constant fear of just existing within a particular socio-geographical location. Therefore, without ontological security, a person or a nation can get overwhelmed with the anxieties that can seep into the absolute core of their identities, distorting their sense of existence in the world. Therefore, to be considered a sovereign nation, one should have borders and protect them at any cost because if the borders are breached, it directly challenges a country’s nationhood, which must respond appropriately, as seen in recent wars between India–Pakistan, US–Israel–Iran, Russia–Ukraine, and others.

The fairly recent ‘post-modern’ India–Pakistan war was quite unconventional, with a lot of firsts on many fronts — that it was reportedly the largest air battle since World War II or the skirmishes on the digital front via memes. Interestingly, X (formerly Twitter), which is banned in Pakistan for national security reasons, was made available during this period for national security. Political dissidents once proclaimed digital terrorists became digital warriors, applauded by Pakistan’s Field Marshall Asim Munir, calling them the ‘iron wall’ against propaganda.

These unprecedented circumstances also demonstrated the capabilities of both countries not only on the battlefield but also in winning the war of narratives. On the digital front, both India and Pakistan tried to project an image of an inclusive state where minorities feel safe. In the war of optics, the symbolic naming of the military operation as ‘Sindoor’ and the inclusion of women officers from different faiths in press conferences by India, and videos of Pakistani Hindus living peacefully (when compared to Indian Muslims) by Pakistan let Pakistan claim a moral high ground.

In case of religious minorities, likely always viewed as the Other (which some social scientists call ‘suspect citizenship’), they have to overact their patriotism to mimic the majority to gain acceptance. Some examples of this can be seen when a Member of Parliament from the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party in India called Colonel Sofiya Qureshi, a Muslim army officer who was the military spokesperson at the daily news briefing in India during the India–Pakistan conflict in 2025,  ‘sister of the terrorist’ which sparked widespread backlash from within India, or reports of Muslims being targeted by mobs in India, like the incident of the attack on Karachi Bakery in India. The Pakistani government countered this narrative by presenting Pakistan’s soft image in the ‘war of optics’ by issuing record visas to Sikh pilgrims (visiting Sikh holy sites in Pakistan), underlining how even during periods of hightened tension with India, they neither revoked the visas of Sikh pilgrims nor closed the Kartarpur (Gurdwara) corridor even though it was closed from the Indian side. On a lighter note, ‘The Bombay Bakers’ in Pakistan was shown as safe and thriving.

The jingoistic and sensationalist coverage by Indian media sparked a meme fest in itself, which seriously questioned the credibility of India’s electronic media. On the Pakistani side, there were no reported incidents of minority persecution (during the war), and religious minorities wholeheartedly supported the army and their country on various forums.

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‘The king is dead, long live the King’ is a classic British adage symbolising the collective harmony that is intrinsic to the continuation of traditions. In no way am I implying that Pakistan is a safe haven for its religious minorities; it has its problems. However, our first post-modern war has offered an unprecedented space for the marginalised to hyper-vocalise their allegiance to the country which otherwise shuns them. News of communal violence from India has helped the cause of religious harmony in Pakistan. And managing the optics of war may have resulted in an ‘unanticipated’ positive way forward toward the inclusion of religious minorities in mainstream Pakistani society. The Pakistani government machinery should be commended for handling this situation in a way that a soft image of the country was projected globally.

I have my reservations if this will continue since the core identity of the nation draws upon an ethno-religious discourse which is fundamentally preferential toward Muslims. In such a scenario, it can be very challenging to include the Other and connect them with the mainstream but one can hope for a more inclusive Pakistani society in future.

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The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent the views of the ‘South Asia @ LSE’ blog, the LSE South Asia Centre or the London School of Economics and Political Science. Please click here for our Comments Policy.

This blog is published under the Creative Commons License and may be reposted by anyone with the following Acknowledgement (including hyperlinks): ‘Originally published in ‘South Asia @ LSE’, the official blog of South Asia Centre, London School of Economics and Political Science, on 19 October 2026.

Please e-mail southasia@lse.ac.uk for queries.

Banner image © Sameer Akhtari, 2019, Unsplash.

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When part of a glacier broke off in the Himalayas on 26 August 2026, the flood that followed swept through the Bhote Koshi–Trishuli river corridor in Nepal. The first images we saw were of lost lives, destroyed bridges and wrecked settlements. But behind those images is another loss that is getting less attention as Nepal recovers from the devastation: the food and income of farming families. An early assessment by the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)  found about 1,800 hectares of crops damaged, mostly paddy (rice), and thousands of livestock killed. Roads, bridges and markets were damaged too, so food, animal feed and milk could not move easily. The disaster also comes as glaciers across the Hindu Kush Himalaya lose ice twice as fast as in previous decades, which raises the risk of further floods and landslides.

Rural households already buy more of their food

Many farming households in Nepal no longer live only on what they grow. Case studies in the plains and hills of Nepal have shown that while labour migration has improved food security in the short term through remittances, it has simultaneously weakened local food production, creating a growing dependence on food imports and threatening access to food for the poor. Buying food is not bad in itself, but becomes risky when a household has no steady income and the roads and markets it depends on can be cut off with a single incident.

Physical distance from markets matters too. A study by the International Food Policy Research Institute found that access to markets often matters more for the diets of small-holder households in Nepal than growing a wider range of crops. So, when a flood cuts roads and markets, diets can suffer even where some fields survive.

When a climate shock becomes a food shock

A single flood can start a chain  of events. Crops are lost, income falls, and the family has to buy food just when it may be harder to find, and becomes more expensive. This is not automatic because it depends on land, savings and other sources of income but it is a real risk. After the devastating flood in August, experts warned that lost harvests could push Nepal to import more food, which in turn will raise prices. Nepal’s Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority expects food production in the affected areas to fall by 7,686 tonnes, according to a preliminary assessment.

The same Report also mentions that farmers had latterly been encouraged to grow climate-friendly paddy varieties. But a better variety cannot help if the river takes the field. For some families the loss is long-lasting: an official of the Nepal Agricultural Research Council quoted in the Report said some farmers no longer have farmland to cultivate. The FAO also reports that cropland has been buried under mud and sediment, and that fisheries, food stocks and agricultural infrastructure have been severely affected. If farmers miss the next planting season, FAO warns, the impact of the flood will last much longer.

Who carries the heaviest load?

When men migrate, women often take on more of the farm work and decisions. A study of 400 households in Nepal has found that women play a critical role in adopting sustainable farming practices, so their access to support and information matters for recovery from disasters.

Indigenous communities are affected too. Their food systems hold deep knowledge about local plants, farming practices, seasons, and how food is prepared and preserved, as the International Fund for Agricultural Development has documented. One climate-justice campaigner has noted that the flood hit an area with a large Indigenous population, and that for those communities recovery goes beyond rebuilding homes: it also means protecting their connection to the land.

Accountability starts at the local level

Nepal’s federal system puts local governments at the centre of climate resilience work. Yet a Dialogue Earth analysis argues that weak coordination between central and local government is holding back climate action, and says local governments often lack the capacity to design and deliver projects. With 753 local governments, that gap matters a great deal.

Some work is under way. An FAO project that began in May 2026 supports local governments and farmer groups, with model municipalities in Kavre and Ilam. The question is whether such models will reach flood-prone valleys like the Trishuli.

What should change?

Emergency response rightly starts with rescue, shelter and reopening of roads and restoring channels of communication. But a family with a roof and no income, or a road with no food travelling on it, is still not safe. Recovery has to treat food as part of the plan from the start. Five changes would help.

• Municipal disaster plans should include food access: stored grain, seed, animal feed, market routes and cash support. FAO says farmers will need seeds and surviving livestock will need feed and veterinary care, so these should be planned for before the next flood, not decided in the middle of a crisis.
• Damage assessments should record who lost land, livestock and income, including women, Dalit and Indigenous households, so that recovery money goes where it is needed; only counting total hectares lost to the disaster hides who has lost the most.
• Municipalities should publish what they receive and spend on resilience, so that residents can see whether support reaches affected wards.
• Climate information should reach women farmers in a manner they can understand and use because they carry much of the farm work and are often left out of the decisions.
• Communities should have a voice in how land is managed and how rebuilding is done. People who know the river, the soil and the seasons are best placed to say where it is safe to farm and where it is not.

This flood began with ice, rock and water but what it does to rural food security will be decided in ward offices, municipal councils and ministries.

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The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent the views of the ‘South Asia @ LSE’ blog, the LSE South Asia Centre or the London School of Economics and Political Science. Please click here for our Comments Policy.

This blog is published under the Creative Commons License and may be reposted by anyone with the following Acknowledgement (including hyperlinks): ‘Originally published in ‘South Asia @ LSE’, the official blog of South Asia Centre, London School of Economics and Political Science, on 12 October 2026.

Please e-mail southasia@lse.ac.uk for queries.

Banner image © Bob Frewin, ‘A group of women planting rice in a paddy field’, Dhading (Nepal), 2024, Unsplash.

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A constructivist reading of international politics shows that reality is always under construction. ‘Reality’ is  ‘social’ in the sense that what we see ‘out there’ is developed in interactions with others.  This is no more true than  in India’s developing relations with its SAARC member-neighbour, Afghanistan. Once separate and distant, India and Afghanistan have created  a new reality as seen by  Taliban leader Amir Khan Muttaqi’s visit to India in October 2025 and, more significantly, the  (re)opening of the Embassy of Afghanistan in New Delhi.

For the constructivist, global politics is guided by the intersubjective and shared ideas, norms and values held by the actors (states) which develops during their interaction. This intersubjective knowledge enables us to focus on the ‘social aspect’ of shared ideas and norms as an ‘ideational structure’ shaping behaviour. It is this structure which  lead actors to redefine their interests and identities about who they are, and what their goals and interests may be?

For India, Afghanistan is a geo-strategic asset situated at a crossroads between South and Central Asia. Amicable relations offer a lot in terms of trade, energy and  security dynamics, not only for India but for the region as a whole. For Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, globally notorious for human rights abuses, it provides an opportunity to redefine itself in the new geo-political context of being the most significant country between three giants — China, India and Russia.

For the constructivist, ‘agency’ is significant, meaning how an actor acts or reacts to a situation. India’s and Afghanistan’s agency is determined by the beliefs and values held by them. If they change, so do their social relationship with one another. For example, during his visit to India, Muttaqi was referred to as Foreign Minister of Afghanistan, with official meetings happening with no national flag (of Afghanistan) as is the customary backdrop, in order to avoid a global diplomatic controversy. Though India does not officially recognise the Taliban as legitimate rulers of Afghanistan (after their takeover in 2021), yet an operational Indian Embassy remained open and functional in Kabul, being reinstated in full capacity in October 2025.

India’s Afghanistan strategy operates at multiple levels: managing powers like China and Russia along with utilising the diplomatic fall-out between Afghanistan and Pakistan, especially since Pakistan’s renewed decision to return refugees back to Afghanistan from earlier this year, first initiated in 2023.  

India believes that for China, South Asia has been a playground to increase their economic (and political) influence. China has become a key trading partner and investor in infrastructure in Bangladesh, Myanmar, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, as well as a key provider of military supplies.  China is also instrumental in  shaping regulatory standards, education, media, and political influence in the region. Unlike India which does not share any direct boundary with Afghanistan, China’s Xinjiang province runs along the eastern border of Afghanistan, giving it access to east and Central Asia. Counter-terrorism efforts in Xinjiang need assurances from Taliban that they will not be vulnerable.

Russia was one of the very few countries that did not close their embassy in Afghanistan when the Taliban took power in August 2021. It was also the first country to sign an international economic treaty with the Taliban in 2022, where Russia agreed to supply oil, gas and wheat to Afghanistan, becoming the first foreign state to officially recognise the Taliban regime. Russia’s interests in Afghanistan centre on preventing the destabilisation of the Afghanistan-Central Asian border area. Three countries in this region — Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan — are signatories to the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) and the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU), and are political allies of Russia. For Russia, Afghanistan’s support is also needed for handling counter-terrorism efforts, especially with respect to Islamic State (ISIS-Khorasan).

It will be of immense importance for India to manage the geo-strategic aspirations of countries like China and Russia in the region since its energy stakes and projects in Central Asia are the most compelling aspects of its relations with Afghanistan. Also,  deteriorating relations between Pakistan and Taliban-led Afghanistan can muster some credible promises from the Taliban leadership regarding checking terrorism and supporting counter-terrorism measures for India’s security and benefit. India’s continuing border conflicts with Pakistan, most recently the Pahalgam attack in 2025,  and the calling of the Afghan envoy in Islamabad by Pakistan to protest against the joint Indo-Afghan statement following the Pahalgam incident show the shifts in geopolitical alliances. While Afghanistan’s position indicates a move away from being Pakistan’s weak neighbour, the border instability, human suffering and impact on trade presents a challenge to stability.

Aligned with Afghanistan’s multi-layered engagement with various countries, India’s strategy is multipronged. Since the Taliban is keen for recognition from other nations, India can augment the process without compromising on disquieting realities of the regime or till a consensus is built for formal recognition by the international community. India’s engagement with Afghanistan at multiple forums recently, like the Doha Dialogue, Oslo Forum and the Moscow Format, are testimony to her ability to bring Afghanistan to the global diplomatic table in howsoever limited a degree.

India has historical relations with Afghanistan going back centuries, and has been a development partner offering support in health, education and infrastructure projects for many years.  Helping rebuild Afghanistan’s economy can be one significant area of cooperation between the two countries. The restoration of the dedicated air freight corridor is a good starting point, followed by cautious and calibrated trade interactions since Afghanistan continues to have high volumes of untapped natural resources. For the United States of America, their interest in the Bagram base remains important to  monitor China’s and Russia’s ambitions, oversee counter-terrorism activities and, most importantly, retain a vital presence in the region. Given that the shadow of Western intervention continues to lurk, India should work to insert itself in the geopolitical dynamics of the region. In South Asia, where stability remains elusive and slippery, India should move at speed — the only option on slippery roads.

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The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent the views of the ‘South Asia @ LSE’ blog, the LSE South Asia Centre or the London School of Economics and Political Science. Please click here for our Comments Policy.

This blog is published under the Creative Commons License and may be reposted by anyone with the following Acknowledgement (including hyperlinks): ‘Originally published in ‘South Asia @ LSE’, the official blog of South Asia Centre, London School of Economics and Political Science, on 5 October 2026.

Please e-mail southasia@lse.ac.uk for queries.

Banner image © Markus Winkler, Diplomacy, 2022, Unsplash.

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There is a scene in almost every Bollywood film that baffles the Western viewer. The hero is mid-conversation, grief-stricken or lovesick, and then, without any warning, the scene dissolves; he is now on a Swiss mountainside or a rain-soaked rooftop in London, surrounded by dancers, and is singing.

The plot has not moved. No information has been conveyed. And yet the audience is fascinated, engrossed, swaying, sometimes weeping. A Western viewer, trained on the grammar of Hollywood, reaches for an explanation and finds none. This is not a flaw in the film. It is the film telling you something about the civilisation that made it.

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Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900), writing in 1872 in The Birth of Tragedy, identified two opposing impulses in Greek art. The Apollonian was the impulse toward form, individuation, the sculpted image, the dream made visible; the Dionysian was something older and more dangerous: the dissolution of the self into collective ecstasy, the intoxication that precedes all rational thought, the music that does not represent feeling but simply is it. Nietzsche argued that Greek tragedy was great because it held both in tension. Apollo gave it structure; Dionysus gave it life. When Socratic rationalism (the ideological current introduced by Socrates (470–399 BCE) tipped the balance permanently toward Apollo, tragedy died.

Nietzsche was writing about ancient Athens. Without knowing it, he was also writing about modern Mumbai.

Bollywood is the only major cinema tradition in the world that has institutionalised the Dionysian as its default grammar. This is not a romantic claim. It is a structural one. The sudden song-and-dance sequences that bewilder the foreign viewer are not a convention borrowed from the Hollywood musical, where song is always marked as a departure from reality. In Bollywood, the song is reality. It is the moment when the Apollonian machinery of plot and character stops pretending to contain what it cannot contain, and the Dionysian floods through. The individual on screen ceases to be a character with a name and a backstory and becomes a vessel for collective feeling. The audience does not observe this; it participates in it.

This matters far beyond film criticism because Bollywood is not merely a cultural product of India. It is the most precise map available of how the Indian consumer actually behaves. Western firms have been misreading the Indian market for decades, and the misreading follows a pattern. They arrive with frameworks built in Chicago and London, frameworks that assume a rational consumer optimising for utility, an individual making choices in isolation, aspiration expressed through restraint and minimalism.

They apply these frameworks to a civilisation whose aesthetic philosophy was fully developed before Greece had finished building the Parthenon, and they are confused by what they find. Indians, they conclude, are complex. Emotional. Unpredictable. The language of bafflement is always the same.

The actual problem is philosophical. The Western consumer is broadly Apollonian. The Indian consumer is constitutively Dionysian. And the distinction Nietzsche drew between these two modes is not merely aesthetic. It is a description of two different relationships to the self, to pleasure and to the act of wanting.

The Apollonian self is bounded. It knows where it ends and the world begins. It purchases in order to project a coherent individual identity. It responds to aspiration framed as elevation, as the movement from a lesser self to a greater one. Its pleasures are, at root, pleasures of form. The Dionysian self is unbounded. It does not want to be elevated; it wants to be dissolved. It purchases in order to participate in something larger than itself, a festival, a family, a feeling shared by millions. Its pleasures are not pleasures of form — they are pleasures of intensity.

Bollywood produces intensity industrially. The three-hour runtime, the five songs, the melodrama scaled to cosmic proportions, the villain whose cruelty is operatic, the love whose tenderness is unbearable. Nothing in Bollywood is calibrated; everything is maximised. And this is not because Indian film-makers lack sophistication. It is because they understand their audience with perfect precision. The Indian audience does not want a carefully modulated emotional experience. It wants to be overwhelmed.

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This instinct has a name older than Nietzsche. Bharata’s (1^st century BCE–3^rd century CE) Natyashastra, composed somewhere between 200 BCE and 200 CE, describes the purpose of art through the concept of rasa, which translates roughly as juice or essence, though neither translation is adequate.

Rasa is the felt experience that good art produces in the audience. There are nine rasas: love, joy, wonder, courage, peace, anger, sorrow, fear, disgust. The ideal audience member is the rasika, literally ‘one who can taste feeling’. The highest praise available to an artist in the classical Indian tradition is that they produced rasa in their audience. Not that they showed skill, not that they told the truth but that they made the audience feel. That they had an effect, an emotional impingement on their viewer.

This is Nietzsche’s Dionysian principle, stated 2,000 years earlier in Sanskrit. The primacy of felt experience over rational form. The dissolution of the watching self into the felt event. The soul as the site of knowledge, not the rational mind. Bollywood is rasa delivered at industrial scale to 1 billion+ people who were philosophically prepared for it by a civilisation that always believed feeling was the point.

Foreign firms that have understood this, even intuitively, have won in India in ways that still surprise their own strategists. Brands that designed for emotional peaks rather than rational journeys, that invested in spectacle where their global guidelines demanded restraint, that embedded themselves in the Bollywood economy not as sponsors but as participants in its stories, found that the Indian consumer rewarded them with a loyalty for which their Western models had no available category. Because what the rasika gives to the art that produces rasa in them is not preference. It is devotion.

The firms that failed are equally instructive. The luxury houses that priced for exclusivity and found Indians wanting visible abundance. Fast-Moving Consumer Goods (FMCG) companies that led with functional benefit and lost to local brands that led with festival and colour and the suggestion of collective joy. The tech platforms that built for the individual user journey and discovered that in India the relevant unit is almost never the individual. The pattern in every failure is the same. They brought Apollo to a Dionysian market.

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Nietzsche believed the Dionysian impulse was not destroyed by Socratic rationalism. It was suppressed and driven underground, where it waited. He was looking for its return in German music, in Wagner (1813–83). He did not find a satisfying answer in Europe.

The answer was always elsewhere. It was in a country where the suppression never quite took hold, where the philosophical tradition never fully conceded the primacy of reason over feeling, where a civilisation of extraordinary complexity and antiquity had built its aesthetic life around the proposition that the purpose of art is to make you feel something so completely that for a moment you stop being your rational, bounded self.

You want to understand the Indian market. Understand what it means to stop being yourself inside a darkened cinema hall in Patna or Pune, surrounded by strangers who are all feeling the same thing at the same time, watching a man sing on a Swiss mountainside for no narrative reason whatsoever.

Nietzsche would have understood immediately. The McKinsey deck will take longer.

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The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent the views of the ‘South Asia @ LSE’ blog, the LSE South Asia Centre or the London School of Economics and Political Science. Please click here for our Comments Policy.

This blog is published under the Creative Commons License and may be reposted by anyone with the following Acknowledgement (including hyperlinks): ‘Originally published in ‘South Asia @ LSE’, the official blog of South Asia Centre, London School of Economics and Political Science, on 28 September 2026.

Please e-mail southasia@lse.ac.uk for queries.

Banner image © Sudhanshu Yadav, Phoenix Palassio, Lucknow, India, 2022, Unsplash.

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The post Neitzsche, Natyashastra and the Indian Consumer first appeared on South Asia @ LSE.

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Over the last few years, digital technologies have completely transformed the way we engage with the world at all levels — individual, community and national. Across South Asia, this is reshaping what education, civic engagement and employment will look like in years to come. Increasing access to the internet and digital sphere, especially for women in Pakistan, has increased their visibility in public and professional spaces.

However, the very digital environments that are meant to be sources of empowerment and ‘visibility’ for women across the country have also introduced new avenues for perpetuating existing gender inequalities and abuse. This is cause for serious concern given the rapidly evolving digital landscape with access to AI platforms becoming increasingly common yet lacking in accountability.

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Technology-facilitated gender-based violence (TFGBV) is the weaponisation of online platforms to attack individuals based on their gender, and takes many different forms. Non-consensual image-sharing, blackmailing or threatening to release personal data, threats of rape or sexual violence, cyber-stalking and cyber-bullying or stalking, hate speech related to the individuals’ religious, sexual or ethnic identity or orientation, and wrongful impersonation are just some ways by which TFGBV happens.

Pakistan is no stranger to such forms of Gender-Based Violence, with repercussions that extend beyond online spheres in which they occur. It is common for many Pakistani women to be burdened with cultural norms that associate familial honour with their behaviour. TFGBV can magnify social consequences for women, and may lead to exclusion, restraint from future participation in social and professional spaces, restricted use of internet and technology and, in extreme cases, physical and psychological abuse.

It is important to realise that digital violence does not impact everyone equally. While women who utilises online spaces as part of their careers — including activism and advocacy, journalism and communications and even personal businesses and entrepreneurship are subject to critical and often unforgiving observation, those from other marginalised communities suffer as well. Online hate speech and discrimination often translates to offline abuse and can increase risk to the personal safety and well-being of religious minorities, and gender-diverse communities in Pakistan.  Limited digital literacy, varying socio-economic circumstances, fear of ostracisation, stigma, and general mistrust in existing means of reporting further intensify vulnerability.

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While Pakistan has taken some legislative steps when it comes to laying out new frameworks for addressing digital governance, data protection and cyber-crimes through the Prevention of Electronic Crimes Act (2016), the proposed Personal Data Protection Bill and, most recently, the Digital Nation Pakistan Act 2025, concerns remain about what it means for the rights and digital safety of the users.

Human rights groups have highlighted the ambiguity in application of these legislations especially when it comes to privacy and prevention of misuse. This emphasises the need for ongoing dialogue between vulnerable groups and legislative bodies to ensure national effort stems from a rights-based lens, and ensures transparency and accountability across all fronts.

National frameworks on controlling the use of AI-enabled technology, considering the increasing rise in the production and dissemination of harmful deepfake images of women and young girls, is a critical need. In the new (post-Covid 19) environment, as schools and families slowly adapt to the evolving digital landscape for their young ones, a proactive approach instead of a reactive one is needed to increase digital safety and privacy for them as they learn to navigate online platforms.

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Strengthening existing resources like improving the reliability of anonymous reporting may also increase trust in systems. The risk of misusing personal data can be reduced by greater scrutiny and revision of current data privacy legal frameworks with stronger implementation, and ensuring they are inclusive of the needs of vulnerable groups.

Most importantly, we need to recognise that TFGBV is a serious and relevant threat in Pakistan today. This can be achieved by raising awareness, challenging narratives that place the blame on victims,  organising peer support networks and partnering with on-ground organisations at individual and community levels to be able to better navigate digital risks. Integrating  mental health support for survivors into our collective response and providing digital education in schools that emphasise privacy and consent can be initial preventive measures.

In Pakistan’s evolving digital landscape, ensuring that these spaces are safe, inclusive and remain accessible to those from marginalised communities or varying socioeconomic circumstances is crucial. This is not just a digital issue, but a human rights issue, and remains influenced by the current social, economic, and cultural environment. By recognising these gaps and the measures that need to be immediately taken, Pakistan has the opportunity to provide all its citizens with a digital space that is built to empower rather than exclude.

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The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent the views of the ‘South Asia @ LSE’ blog, the LSE South Asia Centre or the London School of Economics and Political Science. Please click here for our Comments Policy.

This blog is published under the Creative Commons License and may be reposted by anyone with the following Acknowledgement (including hyperlinks): ‘Originally published in ‘South Asia @ LSE’, the official blog of South Asia Centre, London School of Economics and Political Science, on 21 September 2026.

Please e-mail southasia@lse.ac.uk for queries.

Banner image © Igor Omilaev, 2023, Unsplash.

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Two years ago, in an act of great courage, young Bangladeshis ousted a long-reigning autocrat in the hope of creating a politics free of fear, violence and favour. Ultimately, however, the popular uprising has barely altered the institutions that underpin the country’s politics.  

This failure matters. The newly elected Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) government faces two immediate challenges: the economy, once feted as one of the world’s fastest growing, has stalled, with the International Monetary Fund projecting GDP growth to fall below 3 per cent over the medium term in the absence of decisive reforms; and the potential return from exile of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina has added a source of political uncertainty.

These developments risk fuelling exactly the sort of political turmoil and economic inertia that many had hoped a new kind of politics would eliminate. Much of the reason it has turned out like this is down to the institutional gridlock holding back change.

The Interim Government of Muhammad Yunus (2024–26), which took office after the ouster of Sheikh Hasina, found itself in a favourable position. Unlike reformers in many other countries, it enjoyed a broad public appetite for a systemic overhaul. Deep frustration with corruption, economic mismanagement and political dysfunction had created a strong demand for a new direction. Seizing the momentum, the Interim Government presented an ambitious agenda to match the national mood. Its aim was to restructure state institutions, overhaul the way infrastructure is run and redesign the political framework. 

Yet most of these initiatives stalled, were diluted, or remain only partially implemented. This is not due to a lack of political will. The Interim Government enacted more than 100 ordinances and repeatedly challenged entrenched interests. But institutions are hard to change. After all, they tend to be the sum of decisions chosen for their consequences.

This challenge is illustrated by Bangladesh’s struggles to reform its tax authorities, modernise its biggest port and overhaul its constitution. 

The Power of Organised Insiders 

Bangladesh’s tax administration has long blurred the line between revenue collection and political patronage. Tax exemptions are often granted through discretion rather than transparent rules while tax policy is shaped to favour the élite. Reform was essential not only to improve governance but also to strengthen public finances in a country where the tax-to-GDP ratio is one of the lowest in the world. The Interim Government’s proposal was straightforward: separate tax policy from tax administration, a model widely used in modern revenue systems. 

Yet revenue officials responded with strikes, work stoppages and disruptions at customs facilities that threatened to paralyse trade. The resistance showed that the obstacle was not administrative design but entrenched institutional power. The existing structure concentrated authority and informal rents within a tightly organised bureaucracy. Those who stood to lose from reform were organised and capable of swift collective action; the far larger group that stood to benefit remained politically fragmented. 

Although the new BNP-led government has formally reaffirmed the separation of tax policy from tax administration, implementation remains in limbo. The broader lesson is that organised insiders can exercise an effective veto not only over the adoption of institutional reform but also its implementation. 

The Politics of Narrative 

Institutional resistance does not always originate within a single entity. The failed attempt to modernise Chattogram (Chittagong) Port shows how disparate groups can unite to defend the status quo. 

Chattogram Port, Bangladesh’s principal gateway to global trade, suffers from chronic congestion and inefficiency. The Interim Government sought to modernise it by bringing internationally reputed operators such as DP World and Maersk into container terminal management. The aim was to improve efficiency, attract investment and weaken entrenched rent-seeking networks.  

The initiative encountered resistance. Labour unions feared losing bargaining power, bureaucrats fought to protect their discretion, and business intermediaries resisted disruption of established patronage networks. Despite their different interests, they united to preserve the status quo. 

More striking was how the resistance was framed. Critics argued that foreign management of strategic port facilities would undermine national sovereignty and public control. The debate quickly shifted from operational efficiency to national identity, obscuring the vested interests that stood to lose from reform.

Critics also portrayed Non-disclosure Agreements (NDAs) with prospective operators as evidence of secrecy even though such provisions are standard in major infrastructure negotiations. In a low-trust environment, they became an effective vehicle for recasting reform as a threat to transparency and public accountability. 

The episode illustrates a broader challenge in polarised polities. Where citizens have repeatedly experienced opacity and corruption, even routine governance practices become objects of suspicion. Entrenched interests can exploit that scepticism, turning potential supporters of reform into reluctant opponents. 

The BNP government has not abandoned the reform. Negotiations with international operators remain formally alive, but competing proposals from politically connected domestic interests have left the process politically unresolved.

The lesson is not that concerns about sovereignty or transparency are insincere. Rather, institutional reform is fought as much through public narratives as through formal political processes. Once such narratives take hold, they can delay or dilute reform long after governments have reaffirmed their commitment to it.

Public Support is not a Coalition 

The July Charter — a broad reform agenda to reshape Bangladesh’s political institutions after the 2024 uprising — revealed a different obstacle to institutional change. Although the proposed reforms received broad public endorsement through a referendum, that support proved insufficient to sustain momentum. 

The debate quickly shifted from the substance of the reforms to the legitimacy of the process. Critics argued that the referendum lacked constitutional validity because such a mechanism was not explicitly provided for. The result was to shift attention from institutional change to competing understandings of constitutionalism and democratic authority. 

The weakness of the reform coalition also reflected the fragility of political commitments. The July Charter emerged from more than nine months of negotiations involving all major political parties, many of which endorsed key institutional reforms and campaigned for a ‘Yes’ vote in the referendum. But after the BNP won an outright parliamentary majority, its incentives changed. Senior BNP leaders later stated in the parliament that the party had backed the charter primarily to avoid delaying elections. Once in power, it had less incentive to pursue reforms that would constrain a majority government.

The BNP government continues to reaffirm its commitment to the July Charter, arguing that its implementation remains part of its reform agenda. Yet many of the document’s core institutional provisions have lapsed, been repealed or await redrafting after further consultation. The result is that, despite continued rhetorical support, the Charter has yet to translate into substantive institutional change.

The episode illustrates a broader lesson: political endorsement is not the same as institutional commitment. Reform coalitions are only as durable as the incentives that sustain them and public reaffirmation does not guarantee implementation.  

Beyond Political Will 

Taken together, these episodes reveal a recurring pattern. Reform threatens existing distributions of power and privilege. Those who stand to lose are concentrated, organised, and capable of collective action. Those who stand to gain are typically more numerous but less organised, leaving their support vulnerable to competing narratives about sovereignty, legitimacy and procedure. 

Consequently, institutional change becomes far more difficult than reformers anticipate. 

Institutional transformation requires more than sound policies and public support.  It requires durable political commitments that survive changes in electoral incentives, coalitions able to withstand organised resistance and persuasive narratives that legitimise change. Without these three, reformers in Bangladesh and beyond will continue to discover that the greatest obstacles to change are not a lack of ideas but the political forces that sustain the status quo.

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The views expressed here are those of the authors and does not represent the views of the ‘South Asia @ LSE’ blog, the LSE South Asia Centre or the London School of Economics and Political Science. Please click here for our Comments Policy.

This blog is published under the Creative Commons License and may be reposted by anyone with the following Acknowledgement (including hyperlinks): ‘Originally published in ‘South Asia @ LSE’, the official blog of South Asia Centre, London School of Economics and Political Science, on 14 September 2026.

Please e-mail southasia@lse.ac.uk for queries.

Banner image © Bornil Amin, Dhaka, 5 August 2024, Unsplash.

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The post The Stalled Remaking of Bangladesh first appeared on South Asia @ LSE.

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In my 15 years as field researcher, every time I have had to pull out a Consent Form in front of a participant, I have felt squeamish, sheepish, overbearing, and guilty. Why is it that, despite my sincere efforts to make my research as collaborative as possible, the simple act of requesting a signature on a form has often felt hierarchical, contractual, even exploitative — and fundamentally at odds with the spirit of collaboration?

During a Human-Centred Design (HCD) research on adolescent girl health in Chamarajanagar district of Karnataka (India), we found ourselves looking for ways to seek consent which caused less discomfort/hesitation and greater participation. The project sought to understand if adolescent girls’ health was a critical public health concern in the district, what realities influenced it and how communities themselves could help define the most pressing needs and solutions. To explore this, we held seven focus group discussions (FGDs) with 90 adolescent girls.

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Standing in school corridors, community halls and village squares, trying to start conversations about menstruation with girls and their families, it became clear that standard ethical requirements designed for Western/institutional contexts often do not work when researching sensitive issues in non-Western/Indian communities. Ethics is not just a matter of compliance and documentation; it is the difference between being invited in or being quietly shut out.

The on-the-go adaptation of participatory human-centred tools significantly shaped the participation we were able to build, improved the quality of data collected and may ultimately enhance the effectiveness of the interventions we go on to design in India’s diverse contexts.

What makes HCD an Ethical Research Choice?

HCD is a problem-solving approach (rather than a knowledge-generating one) that centres people’s needs, behaviours and lived experiences. In public health, HCD involves engaging communities to identify health challenges and co-create context-specific interventions through iterative prototyping, rapid feedback and constant adaptation.

At its core, HCD is hands-on, context-dependent and focused on creating practical solutions with and for communities. It is increasingly celebrated as a more ethical and effective way to improve healthcare in underserved settings because of its emphasis on collaboration, empathy and responsiveness. Multidisciplinary teams often use HCD methods that draw from traditional research while adapting them to the faster, more iterative pace of design.

However, this very pace and its design-driven ethos challenge conventional notions of research ethics. While HCD borrows from established research methods, it diverges significantly in ensuring ethics in data collection.

This post reflects on how holding on to HCD principles helps navigate the limitations of conventional research ethics, offering lessons from our exercise of embedding ethics into community-driven problem definition.

Consent Beyond Signatures

It is common knowledge that written consent inhibits even initial levels of participation. As we began discussing consent protocols with our field-based colleagues and local NGO partners, we were cautiously advised that reading out formal Consent Forms and asking for signatures might discourage both girls and their guardians from participating in discussions.

We had anticipated that conversations around menstrual health — especially in a district where female literacy is just over 54 per cent — would be sensitive and challenging. Yet, we felt compelled to first consider the most ‘foolproof’ and ‘credible’ method of recording consent: signatures on written forms! And once we were in the community and schools, our concerns were confirmed; written forms made participants visibly hesitant and uncomfortable.

However, the agility that HCD provides quickly came to the rescue and we soon engaged differently to seek and confirm consent in more intuitive, context-sensitive ways. In several FGDs, girls used emoji cards — sad, angry, neutral, happy, excited — to indicate whether they had been ‘sent’ to participate or were genuinely interested in talking. Those who selected ‘happy’ or ‘excited’ opened up with striking honesty about a subject usually wrapped in silence or shame.

Participants shared taboos, myths and local remedies like using Sprite (fizzy drink) or Eno (digestive salts) for cramps, along with deeper experiences — fears of harassment, lack of toilets and/or water at home, discomfort with sanitary pads, and other anxieties like fear of the father hearing about menstruation in ‘his’ household. These tools did not dilute ethical standards but adapted them to respect the girls’ literacy levels, social contexts and the sensitivity of the topic, making ethics both operational and empowering.

Group Consent for a Culturally Fit Participation

In remote, rural, tribal villages like Hongapura,* consent is not an individual act but a collective one. Western-biomedical ethical frameworks do not align with diverse local cultural contexts (in this instance, of India). HCD processes and tools honour communities’ collective decision-making when determining participation.

We therefore moved to group consent formats, where we engaged both groups of adolescent girls and groups of their guardians in open, collective discussions to express their willingness (or lack of it) to participate or let their wards participate. These conversations not only made consent more culturally appropriate and less intimidating but also became rich spaces for dialogue. The settings allowed inter-generational narratives and peer influences that would have been entirely missed in traditional consent-seeking mechanisms like signatures on written forms.

Collaboration > Trust > Accuracy

In places like Dalit-dominated Malligebetta,* where historically marginalised communities have had prior negative experiences with research extractivism of strangers coming to seek information, trust was understandably fragile. As we kept waiting for the participants to arrive, we realised standard protocols of a structured FGD with relatively unknown facilitators may be the cause of reluctance to participate.

Thankfully, our months-long community immersion and commitment to HCD principles — collaboration, empathy and context-sensitive engagement — made us understand that community-based representatives from NGO partners and frontline health workers (Accredited Social Health Activist (ASHA) and Auxiliary Nurse Midwife (ANM)), who were already known and trusted in the community, were the best agents to facilitate discussions with adolescent girls. Held in a safe and familiar space of the local community hall, the restructured FGDs helped make participation feel less intimidating.

This shift in who led the engagement significantly increased trust and participation, and led to honest conversations. Girls who were initially unsure of joining the discussion began sharing personal experiences: untreated menstrual pain, infection-related white discharge, challenges of accessing menstrual health services, and lack of hygiene facilities.

Ethics as Design

Over two months of planning these FGDs and encouraging participation, we were once again reminded that ethical procedures around consent, power and inclusion are not just formalities. They shape everything: who feels safe enough to come for these discussions, what is shared and how deeply we can understand what is shared. The emphasis on working  with, and not on, communities turns research from an extractive process into a co-created one. And with that shift, participation rises, quality of data improves and ethical engagement becomes the foundation (and not just the framework or a procedural requirement) of the research project.

By centring local forms of consent, participation and trust, HCD allows research to align with indigenous and non-Western moral worlds rather than imposing external frameworks of compliance. In doing so, it not only makes research more ethical but also more effective because what is co-created is also more likely to be embraced, sustained and transformative.

Caring by design, then, is not just an ethos; it is a pathway to decolonising how we imagine and practice ethics in public health research in non-Western contexts like India.

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* Acknowledgements: Names of research sites have been anonymised. The author acknowledges the invaluable support of Karthikeyan Gopinathan, Mallikarjuna and Nagendra P toward planning and execution of FGDs, and translations from Kannada into English.

The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent the views of the ‘South Asia @ LSE’ blog, the LSE South Asia Centre or the London School of Economics and Political Science. Please click here for our Comments Policy.

This blog is published under the Creative Commons License and may be reposted by anyone with the following Acknowledgement (including hyperlinks): ‘Originally published in ‘South Asia @ LSE’, the official blog of South Asia Centre, London School of Economics and Political Science on 7 September 2026.’

Please e-mail southasia@lse.ac.uk for queries.

Banner image © Reproductive Health Supplies Coalition, 2024, Unsplash.

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The post Caring by Design: Human-Centred Design and Research in India first appeared on South Asia @ LSE.

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Bangladesh–India relations run deep. The two countries share a heritage of history, language, culture, and contiguous geography — an organic, deep-rooted bond. Over the decades, India has supplied Bangladesh with cotton, cereals, minerals, refined petroleum, vehicles, iron and steel, electrical equipment, energy, medicines, and medical supplies. India has also offered reduced tariffs, allowed goods transport through its territory, and helped build infrastructure. Yet, this goodwill — and India’s crucial support for Bangladesh’s independence in 1971  — is often overshadowed by one unresolved issue:  the long-pending Teesta River Water-Sharing Agreement.

Politics, Perceptions and Protests

The rise of anti-India sentiments in Bangladesh is complex. While the tenure of former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina was termed a ‘golden era’ for Bangladesh–India bilateral ties, her resignation amidst widespread youth-led protests and subsequent ouster from power, followed by her flight to India in August 2024, has sparked fresh waves of mistrust.

When protests erupt in Bangladesh — even regarding internal political issues and the tragic incidents of youth leader assassinations — fingers are often pointed at India’s alleged involvement in Bangladeshi politics. However, political alliances are only part of the story. The visible, tangible root of dissatisfaction is on the unsolved transboundary Teesta River Water-Sharing Agreement that has become a symbol of grievance and mistrust. Many protesters view India as the upstream  ‘hegemon’. Such an emergence of anti-India sentiments in Bangladesh is a reminder of how quickly water and politics mix with one another.

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India and Bangladesh share 54 rivers that cross their borders. The unresolved Ganga River Treaty sparked anti-India sentiments before 1996; Bangladesh, being downstream, blamed India for diverting water through the upstream Farakka Barrage, leaving less water for Bangladesh during the dry season when demand is at its highest.

It took years to recognise the Ganga as an international river since Indians consider it their national sacred river. Only in 1996 did both countries reach consensus on equitable (50–50) water-sharing, with India following a ‘neighbourhood first’ policy to strengthen relations.

In Bangladesh, 93 per cent of water demand is for agriculture, while 40 per cent of the population is involved in farming. The northern region, where the Teesta flows, is prone to drought, making it a decisive water resource. Bangladesh has built its own barrage to divert Teesta water to irrigate 750,000 hectares in the northern districts. Unfortunately, during dry seasons when water demand peaks for rice cultivation, this infrastructure cannot supply enough water. The apparently drying riverbed makes people suspect that upstream Indian dams are depriving Bangladesh of its fair share of Teesta water.

The Teesta Question: Why Not Replicate the Ganga Formula?

Globally, treaties often use a quantitative/volumetric formula for sharing river waters. South Asian transboundary water treaties,  without exception, rely on equitable quantitative frameworks — essentially, a  ‘50–50’ splitting of water, focussing narrowly on water division. In 1996, both nations agreed to the Ganga treaty to satisfy their people, and was politically gainful — especially to former Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, who used its  success for electoral advantage for decades.  But after the Ganga treaty, both sides felt pressure during low-flow years, while demand kept rising:

• When river flow is low, a fixed split in the Treaty satisfies neither upstream nor downstream water needs, causing dissatisfaction and growing mistrust.

• Climate change and variability make dry-season flows even less reliable.
• The Joint River Commission (JRC) was formed to manage 54 shared rivers; however, restricted data-sharing, inadequate joint operational mechanisms, and an absence of adaptive management strategies have fuelled water-sharing tensions.

After the Ganga treaty, Bangladesh hoped for a similar agreement on Teesta:  a 50–50 water split. In the Teesta, the dry-season flow has reportedly fallen sharply since the 1990s. Upstream, India faces challenges for its own irrigation and hydropower needs, so downstream dependence on reducing Teesta’s flow for massive irrigation expansion is unrealistic. Consequently, groundwater use is surging, with 80 per cent of Bangladesh’s agricultural development now depending on groundwater rather than surface water. This shift reduces surface water dependence in practice, yet the politics of rivers remains powerful.

In South Asia’s post-colonial legacy, borders and resource controls stir deep emotions, resulting in shared rivers often becoming political rivers. Hence, anti-India sentiment and provocation among Bangladeshis is common, based on the widely held belief that the upstream water hegemon deprives the downstream nation of development opportunities.

Beyond  ‘Water-Sharing’, Toward  ‘Benefit-Sharing’

If treaties are only about dividing water, they will keep failing in dry years under changing climate conditions. An alternative approach is to move from sole water-sharing to benefit-sharing. This will  mean that both countries work together to get the most value from the river system — then share those benefits in a mutually acceptable fair way, taking into consideration the river’s ecology. This aligns with the principles of equitable and reasonable use, and the no-harm principle. For example, Bangladesh’s massive groundwater extraction needs (clean) energy. If India shares hydroelectricity equivalent to the dam-induced flow reductions in the Himalayan Teesta while transparently explaining the challenges of extracting hydroelectricity and managing flood risks, it might foster mutual understanding about challenges both nations face in extracting river benefits, reducing mistrust.

This only works when joint river basin management led by an independent JRC with multidisciplinary teams gets priority, backed by strong political will for regional cooperation through shared river treaties.

Why This Matters Now

This year (2026) is decisive for Bangladesh–India relations. The Ganga Water Treaty is due for renewal. India’s long-term development goals depend on stable, cooperative ties with neighbours. Rivers can either deepen divide or build trust ensuing shared river diplomacy.

A goodwill gesture from India on Teesta water-sharing by overcoming domestic political hindrances — paired with a practical benefit-sharing strategy could transform public opinion in Bangladesh. Likewise, Bangladesh can recognise the real constraints of dry season flows and the shared risks from climate change. Both sides gain by moving from zero-sum politics to win-win cooperation.

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India and Bangladesh cannot change geographical realities. They cannot change their shared history either. But they can choose how to manage their shared rivers by learning from history. If India leans forward — reviving the spirit of 1996, backing the JRC, embracing benefit-sharing on Teesta and beyond, it can ease anti-India sentiments and open the door to wider cooperation. If Bangladesh meets that goodwill gesture beyond politics and joint problem-solving, bilateral relations will be stronger.

Nations may alter allies and enemies but they cannot choose their neighbours. For Bangladesh and India, the choice now is simple: to turn rivers from political flashpoints into shared ties.

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The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent the views of the ‘South Asia @ LSE’ blog, the LSE South Asia Centre or the London School of Economics and Political Science. Please click here for our Comments Policy.

This blog is published under the Creative Commons License and may be reposted by anyone with the following Acknowledgement (including hyperlinks): ‘Originally published in ‘South Asia @ LSE’, the official blog of South Asia Centre, London School of Economics and Political Science on 31 August 2026.’

Please e-mail southasia@lse.ac.uk for queries.

Banner image © Kazal Mahmood, ‘Boat on the Teesta River at Mahipur, Rangpur (Bangladesh)’, 2025, Unsplash.

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The post Teesta: Bangladesh, India and a Shared River first appeared on South Asia @ LSE.

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The Artificial Intelligence (AI) Index Report 2025 by Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence (HAI) shows that rate of adoption of AI is unprecedented, as millions now use AI on a regular basis. Alongside, Stanford University’s Global AI Vibrancy Tool (GVT) offers a comprehensive comparison of AI readiness and strengths across 36 countries. The ranking of these countries in GVT is determined on the basis of multiple factors such as Research and Development (R&D), talent, infrastructure, policy, and societal engagement.

According to the latest rankings of GVT, the United States of America is currently leading in AI across multiple domains with China a close second, followed by India at third place. Pakistan does not feature in the 36 listed countries that are ranked, indicating significant gaps in the country’s AI progress.

AI is no longer an optional technology; it has become one of the central pillars of modern governance, economic productivity, military modernisation, and geopolitical power. Nations that will lead in AI will also set global standards, achieve high-value economic growth and govern digital norms in future. Logically, therefore, countries that lag in AI development will face risks of becoming mere consumers of foreign systems.

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Over the past few years, the policy discourse in Pakistan has repeatedly invoked AI-driven governance and digitisation of public services calling for smart policing, biometric identity management, digital public services, and even digital courts. However, these ambitions largely remain disconnected from basic structural and governance constraints that hinder AI development in the country.

One key challenge is the lack of required infrastructure. AI development, especially training of large models and their deployment, depends on stable energy supply, reliable high speed internet, data centres, and advanced computational power. The digital infrastructure of Pakistan is currently struggling in all these areas. Energy instability is one of the basic challenges in AI development as sustainable research and deployment of AI demands huge amount of energy. In May 2025, Pakistan announced an allocation of 2,000 megawatts (MW) of electricity to Bitcoin mining and AI data centres, which signals the national priority towards the development of AI. However, such initiatives can only be effective if key underlying structural issues like frequent power outages, rising electricity cost, circular debt, and an over-burdened power grid, are resolved first.

Similarly, the country also struggles with securing uninterrupted high-speed internet, with service degradation and loss of connectivity being a common occurrence. Although Pakistan is now moving toward 5G and satellite internet, the overall pace has been lethargic so far. Next, while indigenous data centre infrastructure is emerging slowly and gradually,  it remains comparatively small as of now. Currently, there are 27 data centres spread across the major cities of the country. One of the most notable developments is the hyperscale data centre, which is to be established in partnership with National Aerospace Science & Technology Park (NASTP) and Khazana Cloud. However, despite the growing local data centre infrastructure, majority of users in Pakistan remain dependent on foreign cloud services (like Google Cloud, AWS, and Azure) due to reliability, scale and cost-effectiveness offered by these platforms.

Access to high-performance computational tools, including Graphics Processing Units (GPUs), is also limited in Pakistan. Thus, the AI ecosystem in Pakistan remains largely dependent on foreign services, tools and platforms, which carry serious risks of data sovereignty and security. Such dependency also leads to passive consumption of AI models rather than being an active leader in the development of AI. In terms of talent, around 73 thousand students graduate in Information Technology (IT) and Computer Sciences (CS) annually in Pakistan; however, it struggles to retain skilled workers due to lack of research funding and growth opportunities.

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The global tech ecosystem is also becoming increasingly exclusionist and competitive with contrasting tech ecosystems in the West, and in China. Developing countries like Pakistan have minimal participation in the global governance of emerging technologies such as AI; as such, Pakistan’s technical oversight and regulatory capacity is limited for now. The country therefore faces the risk of being exposed to unregulated AI tools, weakly moderated information systems and data exploitation.

AI is bound to revolutionise the global economy, governance, defence, growth, and society in the years ahead, irrespective of the readiness of individual nation-states. The technology is already integrated in governance, economic, political and security practices around the globe. For Pakistan, the window of opportunity is closing fast. With AI development taking place at breakneck speed globally, Pakistan needs to act urgently if it wants to catch up and secure a place in the global AI race.

Pakistan needs to actively build AI governance and regulatory capacity as it serves as a prerequisite for AI development. The underlying structural issues related to stable energy supply and high speed internet connectivity also need to be addressed. Similarly, access to high performance GPUs and expansion of local data centre infrastructure are highly critical for building national computational power for AI. Finally, Pakistan needs to explore South–South AI cooperation which could be highly effective in addressing shared challenges. Such cooperation could also offer a greater participation of the Global South in setting customised norms and standards of AI globally.

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