Welcome to Foreign Policy’s South Asia Brief.
The highlights this week: Pakistan remains at the center of U.S.-Iran mediation, 9 million people are struck from voter rolls shortly before elections in West Bengal, and India’s finance minister skips the International Monetary Fund-World Bank spring meetings.
What Next for Pakistan?
U.S.-Iran talks in Islamabad over the weekend didn’t lead to an immediate deal, but they still resulted in a string of victories for the host, Pakistan.
One is vindication. Critics doubted that Pakistan had the capacity to mediate, yet it succeeded in leading talks with senior U.S. and Iranian officials—the highest-level face-to-face negotiations between the two sides in decades. They reportedly came close to succeeding. Pakistan also played a role in advocating for Vice President J.D. Vance to lead the U.S. delegation.
Pakistan also gained a major reputational boost. The country doesn’t have a positive global image, mainly because of its long-standing problems with terrorism, and it has long struggled to attract foreign investors and tourists. But in this case, it was in the headlines for positive reasons, and journalists around the world converged on Islamabad.
Furthermore, Pakistan has bolstered its strategic interests by showcasing its clout in the Middle East—arguably the region that is most important for its interests, given its many allies and extensive trade and energy equities there.
The lack of a deal so far is a setback for Pakistan, which really wants the Iran war to end, given its proximity to the conflict and the several million Pakistani expatriates living in the Middle East. Across Pakistan, from within the policy community to the wider public, hopes were high that a deal would be struck over the weekend. The outcome put a damper on the national mood.
Not getting a deal also deprives Islamabad of useful potential leverage. If it helped end the war, Pakistan could go to its donors among the Gulf countries and make the case for loan debt forgiveness (or at least refinancing) based on its critical role.
This is no small matter: Pakistan requires external financing to ensure continued support from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). Last week, Pakistan announced that it would pay back a loan to the United Arab Emirates after the UAE declined to lower the interest rate. (Fortunately for Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have agreed to provide $5 billion in fresh assistance.)
All this said, Pakistan remains very much in the game. Axios reported this week that Pakistan, along with Egypt and Turkey, are continuing to talk to the United States and Iran to try to reach a deal. Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif is expected to visit Saudi Arabia and Turkey this week, presumably to discuss Iran.
On Wednesday, Pakistan Army chief Asim Munir arrived in Tehran alongside other Pakistani mediators in an effort to support the fragile U.S.-Iran cease-fire, which is set to expire next week. Islamabad is a possible venue for another round of talks—a choice that U.S. President Donald Trump endorsed on Tuesday. But given Sharif’s travel schedule, that is unlikely to happen this week.
No matter where and when talks may happen, Pakistan will have a prominent seat at the table. Pakistani officials are playing the long game. They have described last weekend’s talks as the first step in what they are branding the “Islamabad Process”—likely acknowledging that it will take more than a single summit to get two mistrustful rivals to reach a deal.
Still, an important test is fast approaching. Pakistan and its fellow mediators will be under pressure to convince the United States and Iran to continue to hold their fire when the current truce expires. That would buy more time for negotiations—and give Pakistan additional opportunities to flash its bona fides as a lead conflict mediator.
What We’re Following
West Bengal’s voter rolls. Shortly before voters go to the polls, West Bengal—one of four Indian states with elections this month—faces a controversy. Nationwide changes by India’s Election Commission have led 9 million people—more than 10 percent of the state’s population—to be struck from West Bengal’s voter list, sparking an uproar.
The move, purportedly intended to reduce the number of ineligible voters, has raised concerns among critics that New Delhi is exploiting the Election Commission’s changes to bolster the Bharatiya Janata Party’s electoral prospects. A sizable portion of the voters dropped from the list are Muslims, who tend to vote for the Trinamool Congress party.
The Trinamool Congress has long run the state government, and West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee—who has held power for nearly 15 years—is one of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s biggest rivals.
IMF-World Bank spring meetings. Indian Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will skip this week’s spring meetings of the IMF and the World Bank in Washington, reportedly due to domestic commitments. This is the third year in a row that Sitharaman has missed the event—which is striking but makes sense from New Delhi’s perspective.
Because of the strength of India’s economy, the government has no compelling need to send top officials to Washington to meet with multilateral donors. It’s also a delicate moment for India’s ties with the United States. But Sitharaman isn’t alone: Few finance ministers from South Asia are confirmed to be in Washington this week.
Two exceptions are Muhammad Aurangzeb of Pakistan and Amir Khasru Mahmud Chowdhury of Bangladesh. Aurangzeb is a recent fixture at the spring meetings, while Amir Khasru represents Bangladesh’s new government. The finance minister for the region’s newest government—Nepal’s Swarnim Wagle, a former World Bank economist—will also stay home, however.
South Asia’s housing crisis. The latest Gallup World Poll, a survey of more than 140 countries, finds that South Asia has some of the least affordable housing in the world. Four countries in the region rank in the top 10: Sri Lanka (2), Bangladesh (5), India (6), and Nepal (8). Fifty-four percent of Sri Lankans polled said they struggled to pay for shelter in the last year.
The poll results reflect some key challenges facing South Asian states: poverty, urbanization, high population density, and a lack of basic infrastructure. It also hints at economic fragility across the region: Sri Lanka is still recovering from a massive crisis in 2022, while Bangladesh and Nepal are dealing with major issues, from a lack of export diversification to brain drain.
Additional shocks—from the wars in Ukraine and Iran to natural disasters—have hit these countries hard and added to the public’s woes, including their difficulties affording housing.
FP’s Most Read This Week
Under the Radar
Starlink service has made major inroads in South Asia, with availability in Bhutan and Sri Lanka and launches expected soon in India and Pakistan.
Bangladesh is an especially curious case. Starlink has been available in Bangladesh since last May, with some of the lowest latency levels in Asia, referring to the time needed for data to travel from a device to a server. (Low latency essentially means strong service.)
A new report on Starlink in Bangladesh from tracking company Ookla explains that local ground stations around the country have reduced reliance on more distant facilities and kept latency levels low.
However, despite the strong service, the report concludes that Starlink isn’t a popular choice for Bangladeshi consumers because of its high costs. The service costs around $50 per month in the country—comparable to rates elsewhere in Asia—and Bangladesh’s GDP per capita is less than $4,000. This makes Starlink unaffordable for large numbers of Bangladeshis.
Industry experts predict that users in Bangladesh will prefer to stick with existing broadband services, which may be slower than Starlink but are considerably cheaper.
