Uniting the monsoon lands

Names and labels matter. They are redolent of identity and neighbourhood. 'Southasia' is, therefore, not merely a geopolitical expression, but also an association of ideas, experiences, interactive cultures and aspirations straddling the past and future. Southasia encompassed the monsoon lands cradled by the Himalaya-Karakoram to the north and the ocean to the south. These natural barriers defined a civilisational space with some outliers, within which, prior to the nation state, there was an ebb and flow of kingdoms and empires, often with a similarity of racial, linguistic and ecological types. The Asokan-Mauryan and Mughal empires were followed by the British Raj, which entailed a drawing together and then a falling away of the political entities that survive today.

It is not a shared past but rather the allure of a common future that now beckons and binds the seven (now eight) partners that first came together in December 1985 to form a South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, an entity that remains very much a work in progress. Southasia was never closed to the lands beyond, being connected by the Silk and Spice Routes along which sages and merchants travelled in both directions. During the middle of the 16th century, Sher Shah Suri built the Grand Trunk Road from Dhaka to Delhi and on to Peshawar and Kabul, a progenitor of the Asian Highway. The Buddha was born in Nepal and found enlightenment in India, from where his message radiated in every direction. Christianity and Islam came to Southasia very early on, and have long coexisted with Hinduism and other faiths that grew out of the soil.