WHEN people talk about South Asia, they reach for the usual clichés: nuclear flashpoint, poverty, migration, communal tensions. What they rarely acknowledge is something far more hopeful — this region is, quite literally, one of the world’s great democratic zones. One, 40 per cent of the world’s democracy lives in South Asia. Second, all eight countries have some positive or unique features that others can learn from.
That is the central argument of my new book, Democracy’s Heartland: Inside the Battle for Power in South Asia. Based on decades of engagement with elections at home and across the region, the book looks at Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka not only as theatres of crisis, but as a laboratory of democratic experiments — some successful, some deeply flawed, but all instructive.
For readers in Pakistan, this regional lens matters. Too often, India and Pakistan are compared only to score points. My aim, instead, is to ask what Pakistan has done that others can learn from, what India has done that Pakistan might adapt, and how both fit into a wider South Asian democratic story.
Pakistan’s recent constitutional history offers one of the region’s most striking examples of political self-correction. After years in which parliamentary practice became distorted, the 18th Amendment of 2010 restored a genuinely parliamentary system. It strengthened the office of the prime minister, reduced the scope for personalised discretion at the top and showed that constitutions can also be instruments of democratisation.
South Asia must see itself as a community of democratic practice.
Equally important was the federal dimension of that reform. The 18th Amendment did not simply rearrange powers in Islamabad; it pushed authority outward to the provinces. It recognised a basic truth many South Asian capitals resist: a diverse country cannot be run indefinitely from one centre. Provinces need real control over key subjects and resources, not symbolic recognition. Pakistan’s bicameral parliament, with its Senate built on provincial equality rather than population, reflects the same federal instinct.
Pakistan’s electoral framework also contains features comparatively advanced for the region. The National Assembly blends directly elected constituencies with reserved seats for women and non-Muslims, allocated through party lists. This ensures that groups often marginalised in majoritarian systems are present in the legislature by constitutional design rather than party goodwill. In a region where representation of women and minorities remains weak, Pakistan’s embedded guarantees merit serious study.
There is also a quieter story of democratic resilience that is easy to miss from the outside. Parties sidelined at different moments have repeatedly returned to the arena through elections. Civil society, lawyers and a vigorous media have pushed back whenever civic space narrowed. Voters have never abandoned the idea that elections are the only legitimate route to power. That stubborn commitment to the ballot is, in itself, a democratic resource.
At the same time, the fragility of these gains cannot be ignored. The recent 27th Amendment, passed in November 2025, has triggered a heated debate by reshaping Pakistan’s institutional balance. It grants lifetime legal immunity to certain office-holders and creates a new Federal Constitutional Court to take over constitutional cases from the Supreme Court. Critics fear this may weaken judicial independence and concentrate power in new ways. My purpose here is not to analyse one amendment, but to note what it underscores: democratic advances require constant vigilance. The same Pakistan that produced the 18th Amendment and deepened federalism now faces new tests in protecting those gains.
Just as other South Asian states can learn from Pakistan’s constitutional rebalancing, devolution and inclusive electoral design, Pakistan can also draw lessons from India’s experience. The first is the value of uninterrupted constitutionalism. India’s constitution, despite many amendments and a dark chapter during the Emergency, has happily survived. Institutions have had time to acquire habits; citizens have developed expectations about how power should change hands. Pakistan’s 1973 Constitution has now lasted longer than any previous charter. Protecting its continuity, rather than reinventing the state every decade, is essential for entrenching democratic reflexes.
A second area is election management. As former chief election commissioner of India, I have seen how much difference a credible election commission can make. For most of the republic’s life, the election commission of India has enjoyed cross-party legitimacy as a neutral arbiter. Pakistan’s Election Commission has been strengthened over time, but it operates in a more demanding environment. Further insulating it from day-to-day pressures, investing in a professional election machinery down to the polling station and allowing it to speak confidently in the public sphere are reforms that can draw on regional experience, while remaining Pakistani in design.
A third lesson is the normalisation of alternation in power. India has seen long periods of dominance, followed by coalitions and then by the rise of a new national formation. Governments have risen and fallen; leaders have lost and returned. Losing an election has become part of political life, not an existential crisis. Pakistan is already moving in this direction, with different parties and coalitions forming governments in Islamabad and the provinces over the last decade and a half. Consolidating that habit — accepting that no leader or party is permanent, only the rules are — may do more for democratic stability than any single constitutional clause.
In Democracy’s Heartland, I argue that South Asia must see itself as a community of democratic practice. Instead of treating each other only as cautionary tales, our eight countries should treat each other as case studies. Pakistan’s constitutional self-corrections, devolution of power and inclusive electoral design should be part of that shared learning; so should India’s constitutional continuity, large-scale election management and culture of alternation.
If Pakistani readers take away one message from my book, I hope it is this: South Asia is not just a region of crises. It is also a reservoir of democratic imagination. Whether we are prepared to learn from each other’s experiments — and mistakes — will determine whether this region can truly live up to its role as the heartland of democracy.
The writer is former chief election commissioner of India and the author of Democracy’s Heartland: Inside the Battle for Power in South Asia published in September 2025.
Published in Dawn, November 28th, 2025
