Welcome to Foreign Policy’s South Asia Brief—the last edition of 2024.
This year produced many surprising developments in South Asia. In May, Maldivian President Mohamed Muizzu made good on a campaign pledge to expel all Indian troops from his country, a close partner of New Delhi.
In August, Pakistan for the first time arrested a former chief of intelligence—retired Army Gen. Faiz Hameed—in a country where top military officials are rarely held accountable.
In October, India signed a border deal with China despite serious mistrust between the two rivals since a deadly clash along their disputed Himalayan frontier in 2020. And in November, the U.S. Justice Department indicted Gautam Adani, an Indian billionaire with a massive business empire, on fraud charges.
But four surprises stood out from the rest. We round them up here.
Pakistan’s Military Clash With Iran
As 2024 began, Pakistan confronted challenges along its frontiers, from its restive disputed border with India to cross-border terrorism risks from Afghanistan. But in January, its relatively stable border with Iran was plunged into crisis: Iran staged cross-border strikes in Pakistan, and Pakistan retaliated in Iran.
Tehran claimed that it was targeting anti-Iran militants, and Islamabad said it was hitting anti-Pakistani fighters. The crisis ended as quickly as it started: With both countries dealing with multiple internal and external crises, they had strong incentives to seek off-ramps.
But the brief clash was an unsettling reminder of Pakistan’s hot borders, causing a momentary scare for Islamabad about getting dragged into growing instability in the Middle East.
Modi’s Electoral Setback
Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi had an aura of electoral invincibility for most of his political career, going back to his days as the chief minister of the state of Gujarat. He and his Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) have regularly won elections and by wide margins. He was India’s most popular politician by far. Political obstacles never seemed to make him vulnerable.
This is why the BJP’s performance in national elections this spring was so stunning. The BJP won handily, and Modi became the first Indian prime minister since independence hero Jawaharlal Nehru to win a third term. But the party won only 240 seats—well short of the 272 needed for a parliamentary majority, obliging Modi to govern in a coalition for the first time.
The sobering result is likely attributable to voter concerns about economic stress, repressive governance, and Hindu nationalism; anti-incumbency sentiment; and the political opposition’s savvy campaign tactics.
Sheikh Hasina Out in Bangladesh
In January, longtime Bangladeshi Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina won reelection in polls boycotted by the opposition. With her government having cracked down relentlessly on critics across the political spectrum, Hasina was seemingly in complete control as she prepared for her fourth consecutive term.
But as the summer began, protests broke out against controversial new civil service job quotas. After Hasina’s security forces responded with egregious brutality, the demonstrations morphed into a mass movement against her rule. On Aug. 5, Hasina boarded a military plane and flew to India, where she remains.
The Bangladeshi leader was done in by the pent-up grievances of a public that had experienced years of repression and, more recently, growing economic stress. The new interim government faces major challenges with law and order, retributive politics, and soaring expectations, but it has vowed to remain committed to restoring democracy and implementing reform.
Pakistan’s Cricket Stunner
Pakistan has long been a global cricket powerhouse. The United States, by contrast, is essentially a cricket nonentity. But this spring, it hosted the Men’s Cricket World Cup—and the U.S. team scored an upset for the ages by defeating Pakistan.
The U.S. squad was helped by talented players originally from India and Pakistan; immigrant communities are a big part of U.S. cricket. The Pakistani team, meanwhile, was suffering one of its worst slumps in years. Commentators called the match one of the sport’s biggest-ever upsets (and the most stunning one by a U.S. national team since its Olympic hockey team defeated the Soviets in 1980).
The United States soon came back down to earth with losses to England and eventual champion India. But the upset sparked hopes for a long-delayed cricket resurgence in the United States—and for opportunities for more substantive U.S. cultural exchange with cricket-mad South Asia.