THE ELEPHANT IN THE ROOM:
INDIA AND ITS REGIONAL NEIGHBORS

Andrew Kahn

DESCRIPTION: India is the second most populous nation in Asia, and has the second largest economy. Following a policy of economic self-sufficiency developed by Gandhi and implemented by Nehru after independence, India has been slow to develop economic ties with its neighbors. Bi-lateral trade between India and Pakistan is less than $3 billion a year, and these nations still do not trust each other. India is a regional superpower which in the past has engaged in small scale military fights with both Pakistan and China. Its large size has encouraged India to meddle in smaller-sized nations like Nepal. India also took sides in the guerrilla war in Sri Lanka in the 1990s, when it sent 100,000 troops to oppose the Tamil Tigers. However, the democratic government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has largely ignored the human rights abuses of the generals next door in Myanmar. Locked in a global struggle for economic dominance with China, India has substantially beefed up its navy to protect its commerce on the Indian Ocean and in the South China Sea. The aim of this series is to address these issues and more.

EIGHT LECTURES:

1. India and Pakistan: The flower that has yet to blossom
   
2. India and Bangladesh: Big cousin vs. little cousin
   
3. India and Sri Lanka: Helping to tame the tiger has had its consequences
   
4. India and Nepal: New Delhi and Katmandu play cat and mouse
   
5. India and Myanmar: Turning a blind eye to the repression by the generals
   
6. India and China: Catch a dragon if you can
   
7. India and Japan: World War II enemies; postwar competitive friends
   
8. India and Afghanistan: The enemy of my enemy is my friend

BIOGRAPHICAL INFORMATION: Andrew Kahn has studied Political and Social Science on the undergraduate level at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and on the graduate level at the Universities of Pittsburgh and Maryland and at New York’s New School University. He has taught at St. Cloud University in Minnesota and Western Connecticut University. He was a James Madison Fellow in Constitutional Law at the University of Indiana, and a Commonwealth Fellow in American and European History at Swarthmore and Haverford Colleges in Pennsylvania. Mr. Kahn helped found AEGIS, the Association for Education in Global/International Studies, at Stanford University. Over the past several years, Mr. Kahn has taught a variety of global issues courses and delivered lectures for the Lifelong Learning Society at Florida Atlantic University.