Nepal’s democratic transformation

From civil war to inclusive peace, the country has travelled a long road in a remarkably short time.

South Asia is too often described in the language of crisis—of conflict, poverty, migration, or political instability. Yet beneath this noise lies an extraordinary democratic vitality. Nowhere else in the world do nearly two billion people, almost 40 percent of humanity living under elected governments, persist so stubbornly with the project of self-rule. It is a region of constitutional invention, of resilience and renewal, and, as I argue in my new book Democracy’s Heartland: Inside the Battle for Power in South Asia , of learning. Each of the eight countries of South Asia—Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka—has something distinctive to teach the others.