“Civilizations die from suicide, not by murder.” Arnold Toynbee’s warning resounds powerfully across the contemporary South Asian landscape. Progress does not occur by accident, it demands conscious awareness, meticulous planning, and sustained reflection. For any nation, understanding its history and geography is not a luxury but a necessity. History serves as our collective memory, bearing witness to past struggles, triumphs, and failures.

Geography, meanwhile, is a natural unifier; rivers, mountain ranges, ecosystems, and climate zones ignore political boundaries. Decisions made in one territory often affect neighbouring states, particularly in matters such as water, agriculture, energy, and environmental management. Without geographic consciousness and cooperative frameworks, regions risk falling into competition over scarce resources, repeating past mistakes, and descending into confusion, or worse, decline.

History often unfolds in cycles, with major shifts recurring every 250 to 300 years. It would be short-sighted to draw long-term conclusions based solely on the geopolitical developments of the last eight decades. We bear the responsibility of course-correction for a region that along with South Asia, impacts neighboring countries including Afghanistan, Iran and Central Asian states; representing over 26 percent of the world’s population.

In the early 1700s, the Indian subcontinent accounted for nearly 30 percent of global GDP. That share fell to 16 percent in the 1800s and plummeted to 3 percent by the time of Partition in 1947. This prosperity was underpinned by sophisticated irrigation systems, expansive trade networks, and vibrant artisan economies that transcended linguistic and ethnic divides.

The rapid economic deterioration was driven largely by colonial exploitation and the extraction of wealth by the British Raj. Today, despite India’s recent economic rise, the combined GDP of India, Pakistan, and Bangladesh accounts for less than 4.5 percent of global output, whereas Iran, Afghanistan and Central Asian countries contribute a little under 1 percent to the global GDP. If our intelligentsia fails to understand this historical regression—and worse, to act upon it—then we risk being remembered as a generation of pawns that squandered its post-colonial potential.

At the heart of every functioning nation lies a social contract; a mutual agreement in which the state pledges to protect its citizens, ensure public goods, and create pathways to upward mobility. In South Asia, this contract has been severely undermined by perpetual hostilities, divisive politics, inefficient........

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