Asian Drama Revisited
A Synopsis
This study is confined to the four principal countries of the India Sub-continent or South Asian Sub-continent: India Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. For purposes of convenience the area is called the Region. the countries of South East Asia, which were part of the original Asian Drama have been excluded for a variety of reasons.
To begin with the original Asian Drama was mainly about India. It would not be an exaggeration to say that it was a study of India in comparison with the other countries of South Asia. Asian Drama was formidable in size and did not actually reach down to the intelligent laymen. Since Asian Drama was written the South East Asian region has developed more of its inner momentum. SEATO is dead. In tems of security and regional grouping the countries of South East Asia find themselves more in the ASEAN group. On the other hand, the countries of South Asia have become more and more involved and often embroiled with each other. The birth of Bangladesh were the cause and effect of one such conflict. Notwithstanding Simla the root of confrontation continues to exist. Added to this is the common history stretching back several millennium which make South Asia a natural region for a study.
The central concern of Asian Drama were stated to be the problems of economic underdevelopment, development and planning for development. The approach of the book was interdisciplinary. Much of the book was devoted to the political development in these countries leading to their independence. Gandhi and Nehru cast a long shadow over the book. In the present study even a greater importance will be attached to the political process because the basic thesis is that the arrested development is primarily due to the mismanagement of the countries. Mismanagement and the consequent misallocation or waste of resources is one of the two factors responsible for the continuing backwardness of these countries. The other is the polpolation explosion but in a way even that can be explained by the mismanagement or the lack of political will to control population growth rates.
MR. KAMAL AZFAR is an Advocate practising in the Supreme Court of Pakistan. He stood first in Economics Honours of the Pubjab University as a student of Government College Lahore and is an M.A. Philosophy Politics and Economics from Balliot College Oxford University. He is a Barrister-at-law of the Inner Temple.
Mr. Azfar is a practising Advocate of the High Court of Sindh for twenty-nine years and of the Supreme Court of Pakistan for twenty-five years. He was standing Counsel to the leading Karachi Law Firm of Orr Dignam & Co. from 1983 to 1988. He has appeared in a large number of leading civil, commercial and constitutional cases which have been reported in the Law Journals of Pakistan.
Mr. Azfar has been a Senator and Provincial Minister for Finance Plannig and Development in Sindh between 1972 and 1977 and was Federal Minister for Local Government and Rural Development in 1990.
Mr. Azfar has represented Pakistan in many international forums notably as Pakistan's representative at the Harvard International Seminar in 1969 and at the Conference of Heads of Government organized by the Club of Rome is Salzburg in 1975. Mr. Azfar was associated as a Research Assistant with Nobel Prize Winner, Gunnar Myrdal in his Magnumopus "Asian Drama". Mr. Azfar has continued an interest in research and writing. He is the author of the book "Pakistan: Political and Contitutional Dilemmas" published by Pakistan Law House, Karachi, in 1987. He has written numerous articles. He is one of the contributors to the anthology "Pakistan Under the Military" which was published by the West View Press in 1991.
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