Skip to main content Accessibility help
×
Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-05T11:27:49.288Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

5 - Postcolonial Patchwork States

from Part II - Historical Roots

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  09 June 2022

Adnan Naseemullah
Affiliation:
King's College London
Get access

Summary

This chapter explores the ways that postcolonial governments of India and Pakistan attempted to homogenize governance arrangements within their territories; this project was not entirely successful, but did lead to substantial revision of colonial categories. It begins with a discussion of the foreclosed possibility of Home Rule arrangements in which distinctions in governance practice might have persisted in practice after independence in a united India; the politics of Partition instead led to the formation of two sovereign states, but with significant variation in the power and authority of the state in each. It explores the particular politics in India and Pakistan that limited each country’s ability to undertake fundamental reform of the state and the homogenization of governance procedures, including differing perspectives among political leaders on how best to deliver security and development, and the persistence of bureaucratic structures. It also outlines the roots of a more even political geography in Bangladesh, an exception to the patchwork states of India and Pakistan. The chapter concludes with a discussion of how the colonial forms of governance translates into a postcolonial typology of governance arrangements, with distinctions in state capacity and state-society relations.

Type
Chapter
Information
Patchwork States
The Historical Roots of Subnational Conflict and Competition in South Asia
, pp. 104 - 130
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2022

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure no-reply@cambridge.org is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×