Welcome to Foreign Policy’s South Asia Brief.
The highlights this week: Pakistan’s judiciary-military rift deepens as the government attempts to ban Imran Khan’s party, the prime minister of Nepal is ousted, and student protests in Bangladesh turn deadly.
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Pakistan’s Judiciary-Military Rift Threatens a New Political Crisis
On Monday, Pakistani Information Minister Atta Tarar announced that the government planned to ban what is arguably the country’s most popular political party: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI), led by imprisoned former Prime Minister Imran Khan. The PTI, Tarar said, is “a direct threat to the fabric of our nation.” Deputy Prime Minister Ishaq Dar clarified the next day that the decision wasn’t final, though his comments—which include accusing the PTI of being a “foreign-funded party”—suggest that the government still intends to proceed with the move.
Any ban, however, is unlikely to hold up in court. On Friday, Pakistan’s Supreme Court—which, according to the constitution, must sign off on any decision to ban a political party—affirmed in a ruling that the PTI is a legitimate political party and thus eligible for an additional 23 seats in the National Assembly. The government’s plan to ban the PTI is likely a direct response to that decision.
These developments reflect an intensifying tussle between Pakistan’s judiciary and its military, which officially ruled the country for decades and continues to be its most dominant political actor. Usually, it’s civil-military relations that lead to political tensions in Pakistan. But at a time when the country’s civilian government is actually on good terms with its military leaders, the new judiciary-military rift has become the latest fault line threatening to spark a new phase of instability in Pakistan’s long-standing political crisis.
Pakistan’s judiciary has often been willing to inject itself into domestic politics. This inevitably leads to tensions with the military, which sometimes play out in bizarre ways. In 2007, a bitter confrontation between the Supreme Court and Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan’s last military dictator, culminated in Musharraf suspending the constitution and sacking Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry. The top judge joined large groups of lawyers to demonstrate for democracy. Chaudhury became an unlikely symbol of the democracy movement that contributed to Musharraf’s eventual ouster.
Today, the military no longer formally holds power, and the judiciary isn’t as overtly political. But a fresh confrontation is unfolding. Since Khan was ousted as prime minister after a parliamentary no-confidence vote in April 2022, the state—indirectly led by the military—has cracked down hard on Khan and his party, including by pressuring the courts to rein in the PTI. This has resulted in multiple charges and convictions against Khan, many of them likely politically motivated.
PTI leaders have repeatedly gone to the courts seeking relief. Sometimes, the Supreme Court has ruled in their favor, such as when it ordered Khan’s release after his initial arrest in May 2023; other times, it has not, such as when it forbade the PTI from using its symbol, a cricket bat, in this year’s elections.
Several factors make the recent judiciary-military confrontation especially worrisome. As civil-military relations have become more robust since Khan’s ouster, governing coalition leaders have willingly ceded greater say in policymaking to the military. This means the government, which shares the military’s goal of sidelining the PTI, will not try to check military pressure on the courts.
The military is further motivated to influence the judiciary to curb the PTI because of an ugly vendetta between Khan—who has resorted to withering criticism of the military from his prison cell—and the current army leadership. Violent public protests targeted army facilities after Khan’s initial arrest.
A stunning letter, written in March by six High Court judges to senior judicial figures, revealed the scale of this pressure. It accused Pakistan’s military-run intelligence agency of extreme forms of interference and intimidation of judges and their families, including abduction, torture, and even the installation of hidden security cameras in their bedrooms.
This confrontation distracts policymakers from other major crises. Pakistan is suffering a resurgence of terrorism, with major increases in attacks over the past year. On Monday, just a few weeks after the government announced a “reinvigorated” counterterrorism plan, militants assailed an army base in northwestern Pakistan, killing at least eight troops.
Additionally, Pakistan faces serious economic stress. On Friday, the International Monetary Fund (IMF), a critical donor, announced a new staff-level agreement to provide fresh funds, but the deal is subject to IMF board approval. The IMF has recently signaled the need for political stability in Pakistan, suggesting that it may delay releasing funds if instability worsens.
With Pakistan experiencing multiple crises, the potential costs of a dangerous confrontation between two critical institutions could go well beyond politics.
What We’re Following
Nepal’s Dahal is ousted. Last Friday, amid crumbling political prospects, Nepali Prime Minister Pushpa Kamal Dahal made a major gamble—and lost. Nepal’s politics had been in crisis for weeks, ever since the largest party in Dahal’s coalition, the CPN-UML, pulled out to support the main opposition party, the Nepali Congress. Dahal refused to step down, even as nearly a dozen government ministers resigned from his coalition. Instead, he called for a parliamentary vote of confidence, which he lost badly on Friday, resulting in his ouster.
A new government was formed quickly, as the CPN-UML and Nepali Congress had already agreed to a new alliance led by CPN-UML leader and former Prime Minister K.P. Sharma Oli. On Monday, Oli was sworn in as prime minister for the fourth time.
Given the notorious fractiousness of Nepal’s politics, a short-lived coalition is likely. Nepal has had 14 governments over the past 16 years, and disputes between coalition partners have led to five votes of confidence in the past two years.
Student protests rock Bangladesh. Tens of thousands of students have taken to Bangladesh’s streets to decry a quota system for civil service jobs in some of the largest anti-government demonstrations that Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has confronted in several years. At least six people were killed this week amid clashes with the police, and authorities have announced that schools and universities will be shut until further notice.
The protests began late last month in response to the High Court’s decision to reinstate quotas that reserve up to 30 percent of civil servant jobs for the descendants of liberation fighters who resisted the Pakistani army in Bangladesh’s 1971 war of independence. Last week, the Supreme Court halted the ruling for four weeks, but this did not appease the protesters.
Because the ruling Awami League led the independence fight, critics believe that the quota system is partisan and meant to ensure sufficient party support within the government, all while reducing the availability of merit-based jobs in a country with high youth unemployment. Indeed, the Awami League often politicizes the 1971 war. For instance, on Sunday, Hasina linked the quota system’s critics to people who collaborated with Pakistan’s army in the war. That remark prompted a fresh wave of protests this week.
India’s Ambani wedding. From Friday to Sunday, Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani feted his son Anant with an opulent wedding ceremony in Mumbai. In South Asia, weddings are often long and lavish, but the Ambani wedding was a whole other order of magnitude. It followed six months of extravagant pre-wedding festivities—including a Mediterranean cruise and a light show with 5,500 drones—that featured Rihanna, Katy Perry, and Justin Bieber, among other top entertainers. The total wedding-related costs reached an estimated $600 million.
It would be overly simplistic to characterize the wedding as an obscene display of wealth in a poverty-stricken country. India has actually made remarkable progress with poverty reduction, with 415 million people being lifted out of poverty between 2005-06 and 2019-21. However, in a nation of 1.4 billion, millions remain poor, and their plight is worsened by long-standing unemployment challenges and recent inflation surges.
This is in extreme contrast to the lives of the Ambanis and other members of India’s small super-elite. Ambani, to his credit, does his part to give back: He’s one of India’s biggest philanthropists, and he has made major investments in the country’s health and education sectors. But that can’t hide the country’s massive inequality—which, according to recent scholarship, is greater today than it was during the colonial era—that his son’s wedding brought into sharp relief.
Under the Radar
By many measures, Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina’s July 8-10 trip to China was a success: In her first visit to Beijing in five years, she met with Chinese President Xi Jinping and other senior officials; signed 28 bilateral agreements, largely centered on investment and trade; and elevated the China-Bangladesh relationship to a comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership.
Yet the trip became embroiled in controversy after Indian media outlets and members of Bangladesh’s opposition seized on the fact that Hasina left Beijing 12 hours earlier than expected. They offered a range of possible explanations for her early departure: Hasina wasn’t happy with how she was treated in China, she didn’t get featured enough on Chinese media, and Beijing failed to pledge as much financial assistance as she expected.
But this all sounds a bit fishy. Despite its close partnership with India, Bangladesh deeply values its relationship with China, which has strengthened militarily and economically in recent years. It would make little strategic sense for Hasina to embarrass her hosts—and risk burning bridges—by leaving early because she was unhappy about the visit. Dhaka’s explanation is that Hasina’s daughter had fallen ill and she wanted to return home to be with her.
That may be part of it, but it’s also worth keeping in mind what was happening back in Bangladesh: The protests against job quotas were just starting to heat up as Hasina left for China. As a wise contact of mine in Dhaka put it, she may well have concluded that with her formal business completed in Beijing, it was best that she return home early to deal with that growing challenge—one that would only worsen after her return.
Regional Voices
An editorial in Prothom Alo criticizes the Bangladeshi government for not taking firmer action against loan defaulters to shore up the banking sector: “Instead of following that path, the policymakers … are trying to provide everyone with a false sense of comfort by showing lower amount[s] of defaulted loans.”
Scholar Dharma Adhikari, writing in the Kathmandu Post, argues that Nepal’s media is more vibrant than some commentators suggest but that it still has much work to do. For starters, “Nepali media must encourage creativity and uphold professional standards to foster true innovation,” he writes. “Simply focusing on content is insufficient.”
Pakistani politician Zarqa Suharwardy Taimur, writing for the Express Tribune, slams the “lack of oversight and accountability of government employees and departments and the absence of commitment by public office holders to hold themselves and others answerable” in her country’s political system.
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