The Great Game Age Is Coming To An End

Why the crisis in Nepal shows the old colonial superstructure of ideology and institution of the Indian subcontinent is coming to an end.

- HINDOL SENGUPTA

Many theories are swirling between Kathmandu and New Delhi about what caused the sudden, violent overthrow of the Nepalese government, including severe damage to its historic parliament, the Singha Durbar built in 1908. Was it another incident of a "youth revolution"? Were there deeper factors at play? Who gains from this? And who loses? Were there external parties involved?

These questions have been asked again and again in recent years in the Indian subcontinent, from Sri Lanka in 2022 to Bangladesh in 2024, and perpetually about Pakistan's regular crises. In some minds, the question also arises why this does not happen in India?

This essay aims to address some of these questions with the overarching argument that, in fact, what is happening in the Indian subcontinent, sometimes referred to as "South Asia"—which is a bit of a misnomer because the Indian subcontinent differs in many significant ways from the rest of Asia—is that the frame that was constructed at the end of British rule in the late 1940s is now coming apart. The "South Asia," a term popularized by American academics in the 1950s to reflect their own Cold War perspectives with its neat divisions upon which global politics could be played with ease and intrusion, is coming to an end. A combination of demographic restlessness, civic dissatisfaction, and social media sunlight upon everyday intrigue, a characteristic of the region, has vigorously disturbed the status quo.