Fstretching from Islamabad to Colombo provides a comprehensive view of the fallout of war on the subcontinent. The three nations under the road are all ruled by nationalists who rose to power by trading populism. Having come to power, these politicians tend to have a messianic faith in their ability to effect sweeping change. This belief is being tested, perhaps to destruction, in South Asian democracies with a combined population of 1.6 billion people.

Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan – who was in Moscow when the tanks rolled into Ukraine – claimed last week that the United States had “threatened” him and tried to induce regime change. Mr Khan has been at odds with the West since Pakistan abstained in the UN resolution condemning the Moscow attack. Over the weekend, the national military – long seen as the power behind the throne – openly sided with Washington. Mr. Khan refused to leave quietly. Instead of facing a vote of no confidence which he almost certainly would have lost, he precipitated a political crisis by dissolving parliament. Pakistani judges now have a casting vote on the fate of the prime minister.

At the other end of the flight path is the extremist President of Sri Lanka, Gotabaya Rajapaksa. He decrees a state of emergency to prevent a popular revolt. With four brothers in the cabinet, the Rajapaksas dominate Sri Lankan politics. Their supremacy is largely due to the country’s damaging polarization along religious and ethnic lines after a bloody civil war. Mr. Rajapaksa’s fanciful economic policies unraveled when the war in Ukraine sent energy and commodity prices skyrocketing. There are few signs of rational measures to stop the downward spiral.

South Asia’s biggest strongman is Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Like Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil and Mohammed bin Salman in Saudi Arabia, Mr Modi has remained neutral on the war – refusing to condemn Vladimir Putin and circumventing US sanctions. Delhi is caught in a bind. Despite clashes along their common border, India’s trade with China has set new records. While the past decade has seen India deepen its security ties with the United States to balance Beijing, Russia still supplies around half of India’s arms imports. This reliance could explain why, when Indian students in Ukraine were killed by Russian bombs, Mr Modi’s ministers blamed them for being in danger.

Mr Modi is silent about his true intentions. This raises hopes in Moscow for Indian support, hopes in Beijing that Delhi might abandon Washington, and concern in the west that India’s prime minister is prioritizing his nation’s immediate interests over its aspirations to be. a natural ally. This may reinforce Mr Modi’s sense of India’s difference and see him embrace greater self-reliance. It would be welcome if his country’s economic performance had been helped by his policy. But his penchant for dramatic gestures has stunted India’s rise.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could shape the contours of a larger coming global struggle between autocracy and democracy. History might buy into that perspective – but it seems like a straw man argument in a region where the slide into right-wing nationalist populism should be, at the moment, a bigger concern.