Podcast with Avinash Paliwal, author of “India’s Near East: A New History”

After student protests toppled Bangladesh prime minister Sheikh Hasina last year, New Delhi and Dhaka have been at odds. Indian politicians complain about Hindus being mistreated in the Muslim-majority country; Bangladesh’s interim government fears that Hasina may launch a bid to return to power from India.

It’s the latest development in what’s become an extremely complicated environment in what Avinash Paliwal calls India’s Near East: India, Bangladesh (or East Pakistan before the 1970s), and Myanmar (or Burma before the 1980s). As Avinash explains his book India’s Near East: A New History, successive Indian leaders tried to get a handle on international tensions and ethnic conflict—and with a major external threat in China looming in the distance.

Avinash Paliwal is Reader in International Relations at SOAS University of London, specialising in South Asian strategic affairs. A former journalist and foreign affairs analyst, he is also the author of My Enemy’s Enemy: India in Afghanistan from the Soviet Invasion to the US Withdrawal (Hurst, 2017).