Against Southasia

Southasia is a term that is now in vogue. There are histories of Southasia, there are journalists' associations that style themselves Southasian, there's SAARC, and every time a Test cricket match between India and Pakistan goes well we're all (temporarily) Southasian. As a region in a physical-geography textbook, Southasia makes sense. There's the monsoon that waters most of it, the great dust cloud that pollutes all of it, the mountains and seas that give it plausible boundaries. But if you trade in the physical map, all greens and browns, for a political map filled in with bright primary colours, if you consider Southasia as the idea that underwrites SAARC, it is hard to know what it really means.

Southasia consists of India and a bunch of countries that share a boundary (land or sea) with India, but not with each other (except for the late entrant to SAARC, Afghanistan). India defines Southasia, not only because it is by far the largest country, but also because the others are connected to one another at one remove, via India. Southasia feels unified when Punjabis cross the border and exclaim at similarities, or when Bengalis from either side of India's eastern borders do the same, or when Sri Lankan Tamils like Muralidharan come to find brides in Madras. It is India's diversity that gives Southasia meaning. Otherwise, Nepalis don't feel a special kinship for Tamilians, nor do Sindhis feel intimately linked with Sri Lankans.