How cricket rivalry is reshaping Australia's view of India - and Southasia – Southasia Weekly #43
This week at Himal
As the Border-Gavaskar trophy kicks off in Australia, Benjamin Golby writes that the importance of the series goes beyond cricket, shaping Australia’s view of the Subcontinent and drawing attention to Australia’s growing Southasian community. Golby unpacks the Australian team’s history of touring the Subcontinent, questioning how Australians will make sense of an Indian team that is no longer deferential given their dominance on the pitch.
For our next Podcast of the Week, host of the Southasia Review of Books podcast, Shwetha Srikanthan talks to Tariq Ali about ‘You can’t please all’, a collection of diaries and letters spanning three decades of world history and politics.
There’s just three days left to catch Behind the Screen, directed by Aung Nwai Htway, our featured documentary for Screen Southasia! Sign up here if you haven’t already to watch.
This week in Southasia
India-Bangladesh tensions escalate with storming of Bangladesh consulate
This week, tensions between India and Bangladesh around the arrest of Hindu religious leader Chinmoy Krishna Das on sedition charges came to a head with Indian protesters forcibly entering the Bangladesh consulate in the Indian city of Agartala, vandalising the premises and removing Bangladesh’s national flag. The incident was met with protests in Dhaka, and Bangladesh suspended consular services in Agartala and summoned New Delhi’s top envoy in response to the attack. India has sought to distance itself from the attack, with the Ministry of External Affairs saying the attack was ‘deeply regrettable’. Tripura police also arrested seven people and suspended three police officers.
Relations between India and Bangladesh have grown increasingly frosty after the fall of former prime minister Sheikh Hasina’s government in July. New Delhi’s unstinted support of Hasina left the government scrambling to issue a coherent response after she was ousted from power. Critics have pointed out that India’s support of stable governments on its eastern flank for the purposes of trade also served to prop up authoritarian control in both Bangladesh and Myanmar, leaving India vulnerable to geopolitical fallout. This can be seen in the exchange between India and Bangladesh over Das’ arrest, with India’s ‘grave concern’ being dismissed by Bangladesh. These tensions are likely to continue to grow in the coming weeks.
Elsewhere in Southasia 📡
Two armed resistance groups based in areas along Myanmar’s border with China have agreed to peace talks with the ruling junta, a sign of China’s growing efforts to shape the conflict in Shan state, including through closure of key border gates, while separate rebel armies capture additional military posts in the western Rakhine and Chin states
Taliban bans Afghan women from attaining medical education, including midwifery and nursing training, restricting healthcare access for women and children as male doctors cannot see female patients without their guardian present
The senate of Progressive Party of Maldives will dissolve their party after a resolution was passed unanimously, ending stalemate within the ruling coalition
Sectarian violence in Pakistan’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwah province near the border with Afghanistan claimed at least 130 lives over the past 10 days, according to officials
Sri Lanka arrests Tamil man from Jaffna over Facebook post citing the controversial Prevention of Terrorism Act, with National People’s Power seemingly backtracking on campaign pledge to repeal the law, drawing criticism, government representatives insist PTA will be replaced with new antiterrorism laws
Indian journalist and fact-checker Mohammed Zubair facing fresh legal battles after sharing post highlighting hate speech from a Hindu priest with Ghaziabad police seeking his arrest for accusations of ‘endangering sovereignty, unity and integrity of India’
Sri Lankan President Anura Kumara Dissanayake discussed his administration’s policy priorities with World Bank Executive Director Parameswaran Iyer including ‘Clean Sri Lanka’ project
Nepali Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli visits China, breaking tradition of visiting India first after taking office, and sign long awaited Belt and Road Initiative cooperative framework, nine related deals and agreements
In good news for regionalism, Bhutan king Jigme Khesar Namgyel Wangchuck on a two-day visit to India, meeting Prime Minister Narendra Modi to deepen bilateral cooperation in various sectors including infrastructure and education
Only in Southasia
This week, a Bangalore-based marketer's oblivious tweet caused a stir online. She mused that there was a need for a startup teaching maids and cooks how to make 'high quality protein meals', adding that it was an 'untapped market'. She was perhaps unprepared for the response from X (formerly Twitter). 'Need a start up that teaches [Bangalore] techies class and caste consciousness. Untapped market', one person quipped, 'Need a startup to tell people not everything needs a startup', another said. 'Can always tell the location from the tweet itself, without looking at the bio', someone else chimed in. The marketer later clarified that she had meant that cooks might want to upskill themselves to earn more, adding that being unmercifully roasted by Indians online had been 'a learning experience'. (To which we say, welcome to Twitter!)
Got a meme or satirical post you'd like to share? Send us a meme that made you laugh from the past week here.
From the archive
2 December marks 40 years since the Bhopal gas tragedy, which saw thousands impacted by the release of methyl isocyanite from a United Carbide's pesticide factory. In this article from 2014, Freya Manecksha follows the survivors-turned-activists and their struggles for justice. Manecksha writes that the campaigns by survivors are a poignant reminder of the complicity of multinationals, the US and Indian governments and the state government of Madhya Pradesh in denying residents near the factory proper compensation.