Upheaval in the South Asian
Subcontinent
As Indian voters were going to the polls in March, general strikes broke out in a number of Pakistani cities; scores of demonstrators were shot dead by police. An apocryphal story was making the rounds in Lahore, the capital of Pakistan: A special courier arrives from New Delhi with an urgent message from Indira Gandhi for Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, the Pakistani president: "Can we make a deal? We'll give you Kashmir and you send us your chief election commissioner. " The story reflects the close interrelationship of politics in the South Asian subcontinent. Gandhi's electoral defeat in India made Bhutto's position more precarious in Pakistan and has excited great expectations in neighboring Sri Lanka, where legislative elections are to be held within the next few months. Having been deprived of virtually all extraparliamentary channels of dissent, the masses are speaking through the ballot box. Below we present several articles examining recent developments in three of the countries of South Asia, India, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.
Morarii Desai