Description
Much of the scholarship on the Cold War has tended to be great power- and Western-centric in orientation. This has deflected attention from interesting experiments in forging solidarity in the Global South that had informed identity making in South Asia in the 1980s; some which it was home to, others that drew the region into their ambit. Articulations of national identity, already evident in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, marked shifting definitions of the politico-cultural community in South Asia. Concurrently, there was a congealing of ideological connections that straddled continents such as the leftist solidarity epitomised by Afro-Asianism. Further, the rise of pan-Islamism brought into sharp focus not only the transregional networks that connected West Asia, Central Asia and South Asia, but also the sectarian contestations within the Islamic world. These cross-currents were to inform India’s worldview and how it positioned itself as a regional and global actor. How did social imaginaries such as these, variously imbued with nationalist and internationalist ethos, impinge upon Indian strategising and influence India’s self-image? Such solidarities, the paper argues, were moot to India’s assessment of its own state capacity in the 1980s and beyond. While some Cold War solidarities fragmented, others proved more resilient. It examines why and how certain ‘imagined collectivities’ continue to carry strategic potential for contemporary India.
