KATHMANDU. Dec 11: Recent polis in Pakistan and by-elections in India showed that religion and politics do not always mix in South Asia. Islamic parties were routed in Pakistan and in India the rightwing Hindu Party lost its key state, reports IPS.

Democratic secularists have hailed the demise of the religious parties and maintain that the South Asian voter has sent a clear message that for them, the economy is paramount.

That may be,true this time. But If South Asian economies continue to fail to deliver the goods and an increasingly younger and more restive electorate sees no end to hardships they could still be swayed by populist, pseudo-religious demagogues.

The initial euphoria that greeted the return to political pluralism in some South Asian countries over the past few years is being replaced with a creeping sense of disillusionment.

The October election in Pakistan was a rare ray of hope. It was the fairest in decades, and showed that Pakistani politics was eroding the pull of religious radicals, out-growing the military and evolving into a mature two-party system.

But even in Pakistan, politicians have largely discredited themselves. What good are free elections. people ask. if there is really no choice?

It was in Pakistan that South Asia's own third wave of democracy got going In 1988. Bangladesh and Nepal soon followed, overthrowing authoritarian leaders.

In many cases. Jailed pro-democracy.acUvlsts went straight from their cells to swearing-in ceremonies for cabinet posts. Giddy with new-found freedom, dissidents who had fought long and hard for the cause of freedom drew up new constitutions that ensured civil liberties and rule of law.’

But across South Asia, and even in countries with long traditions of free multi-party elections, politicians are busily giving democracy a bad name.

Suffering decades of detention, persecution or exile does not seem to dissuade dissidents when they assume office from being any less shortsighted. venal and self-serving than their predecessors.

It may have been too much to expect that after decades of centralised power, mismanagement and corruption, these countries would transform themselves overnight into economic miracles.

But that Is exactly what millions of South Aslans were willing to believe, despite getting vivid demonstrations of the limitations of west-

ern style parliamentary democracy in India and Shri Lanka which are being torn apart by secessionist and communal forces.

In India, decades of dynasty rule corroded democracy to the point where squabbling within the ruling party has made it vulnerable to an onslaught from the religious right.

East Asian proponents of capitalist authoritarianism today present India as a glaring example of the unsuitability of western-style freedoms for ensuring rapid economic progress In developing countries.

Politics, they say. has become an end in itself and not linked to improving peoples' living standards.

Shri Lanka used to be a mode! of how a Westminster-type government coyld thrive in the Third World and still provide Its population with basic needs. But it did not take long for a system that evolved over centuries In a liberal, homogeneous European setting to be doomed by ethnoreligious chauvinism.

Pakistan. Nepal and Bangladesh suffered long years of authoritarianism and there is apprecia tion here of the political space that democracy has brought. But transferring the loyalty of the electorate, the military or extremist parties to pluralism has been more difficult.

A headline in a Karachi newspaper on elec-

tion day in October said: "Unstable democracy is better than dictatorship".

But although South Asia's Intelligentsia may be convinced about democracy's longterm merits as the least risky path to economic development. Its impoverished millions are far too Impatient to wait for democracy to work its way out of a messy transition.

Unless democracy can show economic and material results rapidly, the right to vote will be regarded as a trick. Radicals of left or right, religious zealots and separatists will fill the Vac-uum.

In the past three years. South Asia's elected governments have shown fecklessness, skewed priorities and a fatal deficiency in the art of governance.

In Nepal, former political detainees are still grappling with state-craft, and squandering away their mandate in petty infighting while the economy stagnates, foreign aid sits unused, inflation. unemployment, power cuts and water shortage* radicalise a seething urban population.

The South Aslan lesson is clear: The longer political pluralism falls to bring social rights to its long suffering poor the greater (he danger of democratic reversal.