Is there liberal opposition to what is going on, even in a more diverse India with a raucous democratic tradition?

Synopsis: Each fourth Friday of the month, The Straits Times' US bureau chief Nirmal Ghosh presents an Asian perspective of the biggest global talking points with expert guests.

In this episode, we discuss how and why, across the complex region of South Asia, majorities are convinced that minorities are a threat.

South Asia is a region of some two billion, but right-wing politics and religious majoritarianism, the arms of the state and the media, are coming together to threaten democracy and the health and longevity of states. The politics of hate in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka is fuelling, and feeds off, religious majoritarianism.

Nirmal Ghosh hosts Farahnaz Ispahani, a former journalist, former member of Pakistan’s parliament, and currently a senior fellow at the Religious Freedom Institute in Washington DC, and Salil Tripathi, author, journalist and member of the Board of PEN International.

Highlights (click/tap above):

1:40 Why Pakistan is the worst among "religious majoritarian states" in South Asia; add to that a "nuclear-armed Pakistan with an economy in free fall"

3:40 On the history and similar trajectory in Bangladesh and also, how "the liberal Pakistani used to look up to India for its democratic roots and tradition, when now… if you're Muslim, you can't be safe in India."