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Recognizing the increasing geopolitical importance of South Asia to U.S. strategic interests, the South Asia program endeavors to more effectively address issues of concern to the U.S. policy community vis-à-vis South Asia. The program looks at internal political and social trends in South Asia and their impact on regional stability and security; the emerging international relations of the region, with a particular focus on the rise of India as an economic, political, and military powerhouse in Asia; and the juxtaposition of investment opportunities in one of the fastest growing economies in Asia with embedded infrastructure and institutional challenges to sustainable growth.
The last decade has witnessed an intense search for faith and community throughout the Muslim world. Asia, home to over 65 percent of the world’s Muslim population, has become a formidable battleground for the “hearts and minds” of Muslims who are adapting to the quickly changing environments wrought by globalization and modern technology. Many of Asia’s Muslims live on the peripheries of society, contesting limited access to public services and representation. Muslims perceive the war on terror, in conjunction with attempts by state regimes exploiting the “terrorist” threat, as unjust discrimination, revealing the widening gulf between the West and the Muslim world and fundamental misunderstandings of Islam, which is seen as inherently peaceful. There has been a rise in radical violence throughout Asia accompanied by the growing popularity of Islamist parties, which often provide Muslims with their only means to power and solidarity.
On August 3, 2007, NBR convened a team of experts at the International Convention of Asia Scholars (ICAS) 5 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, to share findings from an ongoing NBR study that explores these various manifestations of Islam in Asia and assesses policy implications of current trends for the United States. Discussing the religio-political environments of countries from Eurasia, South Asia, and Southeast Asia, the panelists, all of Asian origin, provided invaluable “insider” perspectives illuminating the diversity, challenges and hopes of today’s Asian Muslim world. The conference proved a fruitful venue for debate and further exploration of these questions of critical relevance to the U.S. policymaking community.
In November 2006 NBR hosted a private discussion workshop in Washington, DC to assess U.S. engagement with Muslim Asia since 2001. In the five years since the September 11 attacks, the policy agenda in the United States has been dominated by the war against terrorism—a "war" that has focused particular attention on the Muslim world and the rise of radical Islamism. In NBR's 2004-05 Strategic Asia volume, Ashley Tellis warns of the risks inherent in this concentrated policy focus on international terrorism for long-term U.S. strategic interests. From the perspective of non-Arab Muslim Asia—home to over 65 percent of the world's Muslims—NBR research projects on South Asia, Southeast Asia, and Eurasia have examined the impact the war on terror has had on Muslim societies and politics in Asia, and the potential implications thereof for the United States. On this fifth anniversary of the September 11 attacks, NBR brought together expert panelists Robert Hefner (on Southeast Asia), Vali Nasr (on South Asia) and William Fierman (on Eurasia) to address the dynamics among politics, religion, and society in Muslim Asia, with particular attention to current perceptions of the West; the driving forces behind growing anti-Americanism and support for Islamist ideas; and the implications of current social and political trends for the United States. A summary of the discussion workshop is available below:
This three-year initiative investigates trends in religious and secular education in South Asia, with a particular focus on Islamic education. In its first year, the project developed a baseline assessment of Islamic education in four South Asian states that are of critical importance to security in the region—Afghanistan, Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan. During the second year, the project will investigate in greater depth trends in madrassa curricula, gender variations, educational networks, school funding, and government responses; and provide a baseline assessment of trends in secular educational institutions in Bangladesh and Pakistan.
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