South Asia

A interview conducted by The Fletcher School Forum with Ambassador Nicholas Burns, Former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs.

Kate Cronin-Furman compares and contrasts Sri Lanka's post-civil war memory projects with Rwanda's genocide commemoration as the basis for a broader discussion of the relationship between memory and justice.

Richard Verma’s two-year tenure as U.S. Ambassador to India concluded last month with the new incoming presidential administration. During his time in New Delhi, Verma established himself as one of the most consequential envoys to ever occupy the prestigious post once held by such foreign policy legends as John Kenneth Galbraith and Frank Wisner. The first Indian American to serve in the role, Verma leaves behind a far-reaching legacy. He raised the U.S-India strategic partnership to unparalleled heights in virtually every arena of bilateral cooperation while serving as a skilled and talented public diplomat.

During the 1971 Bangladesh war for independence from Pakistan, the Pakistan army carried out a genocide that killed hundreds of thousands of Bengalis in what was then East Pakistan. The perpetrators never faced trial. Archival documents reveal how India and Bangladesh sacrificed the opportunity for war crimes trials to gain Pakistan’s agreement on key security goals—the Simla peace agreement and recognition of Bangladesh’s independence. The legacy of this decision continues to blight Bangladesh’s politics.

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi traveled to Washington last week, making his fourth trip to the United States since taking office just two years ago. India and South Asia Program Fellow, Ronak Desai examines the strategic approach to India's relations with the United States.

When do states acquire nuclear weapons? History shows that only two types of states decide that the bomb is essential to their security: 1) very powerful states; and 2) weak states that lack ironclad security guarantees.

In The Blood Telegram: Nixon, Kissinger, and a Forgotten Genocide,Gary Bass argues that both the Nixon administration and the global community purposely ignored Pakistan’s genocide of civilians in East Pakistan. Sumit Ganguly reviews the book and reflects on the significance of the 1971 genocide.

Critics of ethnofederalism—a political system in which federal subunits reflect ethnic groups’ territorial distribution—argue that it facilitates secession and state collapse. An examination of post-1945 ethnofederal states, however, shows that ethnofederalism has succeeded more often than not.