An existential matter

Southasia exists – at different levels of intensity and urgency, yes, but it does exist. To many, the region provides the fourth or fifth level of identity, beyond the clan, language-ethnicity, province and nation state. Despite the overwhelming seductive, chauvinistic power of the national identity as a part of reality of the modern era, it does not provide psychological fulfilment to everyone all the time. In such a situation, while remaining a citizen and passport-holder of one or the other member of SAARC, the solution is to revert back to a provincial identity on the one hand, or to reach out towards the Southasian signifier on the other. And, actually, the two go together. After all, Southasia will be the strongest when it brings together not eight countries, but the many regions, provinces and districts that are subsumed within each of them.

Unfortunately, the discourse of Southasia has been locked not only within the seven-and-now-eight countries, but also, almost exclusively, within the English-speaking sphere. Simply because English allows crossborder communication, and the class background of the Anglophone makes the airline ticket accessible. Unless the Southasian agenda gets picked up by the 'vernacular' discourse, in all of its hundred tongues, it will not generate political strength to impact politics in a way to push regionalism from the bottom up. For now, both SAARC and Southasia (two very different concepts) are ideas floated from the top, and the roots are weak.