“The division of the Indian subcontinent between two big states, India and Pakistan (as well as a minor one, Bangladesh), may not be history’s last word in political geography there,” Kaplan claims. History is a record of many distinct spatial configurations between the Central Asian plateau and the Burmese jungles, as I have stated. This, I feel, is a generally valid point of view, one that I have articulated myself. The diversity of culture, language, and terrain throughout South Asia coupled with its numerous weak states reminds one of the multi-lingual AustroHungarian Empire that was always a step away from disintegration. It would not be surprising if South Asia’s political landscape was rearranged to match its diversity.
Yet, the AustroHungarian Empire did not fall apart until the extreme stress of World War I and, while it lasted, it provided a benevolent political and economic space in central Europe, the collapse of which left a vacuum that was filled much worse things for most of the rest of the 20th century. Likewise, given the status quo nature of modern geopolitics and the fact that the elites of countries like India and Pakistan are fully comınitted to their states, it is unlikely that anything but a major shock will cause these states to disintegrate, experience secessions, or change their territories. This is especially true in India, which, despite the odds, has remained quite stable.
Kaplan is coirect in pointing out that India is a fabrication with few historical analogues, particularly in light of the fact that “the topography between today’s northern India and southern India was sometimes divided.” The cultural divide between northern and southern South Asia is perhaps the longest and most visible on the continent. Despite this, the playsical and religious linkages that exist today between noith and south India make the country functional.
On the other hand, he also correctly points out that all of northern South Asia was often a single cultural and political unit, one that only recently was divided because of the creation of Pakistan and Bangladesh (and Nepal). This northern region, shaped like an upside down “U” consists of the Indus and Ganges river valleys and was historically called Hindustan and Aryavarta. The division of this region lends a sense of artificialness to South Asia’s political geography. There are also strong historical and cultural reasons for this that I believe Kaplan does not emphasize enough in his macroscopic focus on geography but his overall point in valid.
South Asia’s current political configuration is the product of British actions and we can’t “assume that this particular British paradigm will last forever.” This is particularly true in Pakistan. Even without a detailed understanding of the region’s history and geography, it is clear that Pakistan is a volatile country for a variety of internal reasons. However, it is also insecure from a geopolitical standpoint. Unlike other huge multi-ethnic countries like India and Indonesia, Pakistan has done relatively little in the way of state building and economic growth, both of which can help a country’s adverse history and geograplıy. Although Pakistan is frequently viewed as a man-made entity, Kaplan shows out that this is not always the case.
While often part of the main culture or state in north India, nortliwestern portion of the subcontinent has long had a separate and distinct political and cultural history because of its location as the main entiy point into the region. It was the region of South Asia most often ruled by empires originating in Iran and Central Asia. Yet despite this, it has rarely existed as its own entity, like modern Pakistan, either existing as the eastern portion of some Persian or Central Asian state or as the western portion of some north Indian state. The ethnic groups of Pakistan transition into Afghanistan and India without any clear division that makes it difficult for Pakistan to act as a coherent, separate unit, especially if it has an incompetent government. It only takes a disturbance to blur Pakistan’s boundaries.
As Kaplan argues, this has in fact begun to happen on Pakistan’s western border. Kaplan writes: “Pakistan’s de facto separation from Afghanistan began to end somewhat with the Soviet invasion of the latter country in December 1979, which ignited a refugee exodus down the Khyber and other passes that disrupted Pakistani politics and worked to further erode the frontier between the Pashtuns in southem and eastern Afghanistan and the Pashtuns in western Pakistan.” Whether you agree or not with Kaplan, his insights are very interesting and his approach should be seriously considered by analysts.
Although his insights provide a generally applicable method for understanding the general direction geopolitics might take a state, they do not have the power of determining or predicting the future of states, such as what course the future borders of India, Pakistan, and Afghanistan may take. Indeed, no method can provide or predict this information. For those types of predictions, according to Kaplan, one must use the “Shakespearean” method, which operates on no specific formula and is based on insight into human nature and human governments.
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