What Have We Learnt From Our Neighbours' Misfortunes?

History, if you care to look, is not some boring classroom lecture. It is a living, breathing reality that keeps reminding us: “Power never comes with a lifetime warranty.” But human beings—especially those who smell the intoxicating aroma of authority—refuse to believe it.

Pick any date in Saddam Hussein’s bloody calendar and you’ll find a crisis hotter than the desert sun. The war against Iran bleeding Iraq dry. The financial debt mountain taller than his palaces. Israel casually bombed his nuclear toys. Kurds raising hell in the north. And later, Uncle Sam’s sanctions choking Iraq for nearly a decade. Yet Saddam’s moustache stayed upright and his statue taller than reason—until the Americans decided they’d had enough.

South Africa offers another case. A system so brutally racist it shocked even its Western friends. From the sixties onwards, global opinion began to turn. Sports boycotts, diplomatic isolation. Yet apartheid, shameless and gasping, dragged on for decades until Mandela finally nailed its coffin shut.

And the list could stretch from Pyongyang’s Kim dynasty to Santiago’s Pinochet, from the ayatollahs of Tehran to the butchers of Beijing who silenced Tiananmen Square with tanks. Odd, isn’t it? Some regimes collapse when people sneeze, others survive earthquakes.

The question popped into my head again after reading Shekhar Gupta’s column in Business Standard: Why Regimes Collapse. Gupta examined regime failures in India’s neighbourhood—Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Nepal, and that eternal theatre called Pakistan. Each, a masterclass in how leaders overplay their hand.

Pakistan: Imran Khan’s Fall

Let’s begin with the neighbour we love to hate. Pakistan. Imran Khan, the playboy cricketer turned messiah, turned prime minister, turned jailbird. Parliament threw him out with a no-confidence vote, but Khan decided rules were for the weak. He tried hanging on like a cat on a hot tin roof, whispering for army help, and calling for fresh elections. Rumours even had helicopters landing in his backyard to serve the eviction notice.

But here’s the rub: Khan himself was a Frankenstein creation of the very Army he later tried to tame. Once they cut him loose, he was like a batsman without a bat—lots of gestures, no runs. His supporters storm the Bastille (Jinnah House Lahore, the residence of Corp Commander) but failed, Why? Because, frankly, he was a lousy PM. U-turns, hubris, blunders—you name it. Half the country loathed him more than they hated the Sharifs or Bhuttos.

Lesson one: In Pakistan, even a “popular” leader falls if Parliament functions and an opposition acts wisely.

 Bangladesh: Sheikh Hasina’s Overreach

Now, Bangladesh. Sheikh Hasina was no ordinary politician—she came through the ballot, not the back door. But once in power, she embraced authoritarian habits. Opposition leaders jailed. Institutions bent. Dissent crushed.

The real blunder came when her government upheld special reservations for families of freedom fighters. The bill was further endorsed by the Supreme Court —essentially privileging party loyalists. For Bangladesh’s young, this stank. They poured into the streets. The police could not intimidate them. The Army chose not to rescue her. And her open friendship with Narendra Modi—hardly a darling in Bangladesh—only worsened her isolation.

Lesson two: You can bully institutions for a while. But when people smell betrayal, no foreign friend can save you.

Sri Lanka: Bankrupt in Paradise

Sri Lanka’s downfall was less politics, more arithmetic. You can’t run a country when you can’t pay your debts, import fuel, or sell tea and tourism. The Rajapaksas, smug after winning the civil war, thought they were untouchable. Then COVID shut the world down, tourists vanished, and the island went bust faster than a drunkard at a casino. People stormed the president’s house, splashed in his pool, and that was that.

Lesson three: Bankruptcy topples regimes faster than ideology.

Nepal: All Parties, No Governance

Nepal offers a different tragedy. Everyone who mattered was already in government. The Prime Ministers changed like characters in a rotating stage play—Oli, Prachanda, back again, round and round. Yet governance remained missing. The state became a joke. And eventually, people decided enough was enough.

Lesson four: Stuffing your cabinet with all factions can’t mask incompetence.

Now comes the uncomfortable question. What do these stories mean for India?

One, dictators and demagogues can survive almost anything—wars, blunders, famines—as long as there’s no serious opposition. Saddam proved it. So did the Chinese Communist Party.

Second, external enemies and friends matter. Nothing strengthens shaky governments more than an outside villain—or a foreign ally hugging them at summits.

Three, the day people lose faith in the entire political class—all of them—it’s game over. That’s when the streets take over, and no police lathi or legal loophole can hold the flood.

Narendra Modi and Amit Shah know lessons one and two very well. They have mastered the craft of ruthless politics at home, and the performance of Vishwaguru abroad. They bend Parliament to their will and ridicule the opposition. Unlike their neighbours, they seem secure.

But here is the irony: their own slogan of “Congress-mukt Bharat” could become their Achilles’ heel. A functioning opposition is not a nuisance—it is a safety valve. Kill it completely, and discontent has nowhere to go but the streets. Remember Anna Hazare? Back then, Parliament absorbed the anger. What happens next time if Parliament itself feels hollowed out?

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https://www.business-standard.com/opinion/columns/regimes-collapse-because-of-weak-institutions-not-leaders-or-ideologies-125091201625_1.html

 

 

 

 

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