If instability, anarchy, mayhem and insecurity be the stuff of life, then we should be happy to be living in the Subcontinent, in many regards the most violent part of the globe today. Although it is also true that because there are so many of us – nearly a fourth of the world's population – this cumulative violence does get diluted when it comes down to individual experience. But I am already getting away from the point, which is: How happy would we be living in, say, staid Sydney?
Let's take a random day – 20 May, as this column is being written – to see what is roiling the minds of the residents of some randomly picked cities of Southasia, and compare them with the capital of New South Wales, as a representative city of the developed West (or North, albeit Down Under).
Starting at the Himal home base, in Kathmandu, the discussion is existential, the matter of extending the Constituent Assembly's tenure because the constitutional draft is not ready and a political void stares the country in the face. The Maoists, as the largest party in the House, are saying 'no' to an extension unless the prime minister (of the UML-led coalition) resigns. The National Security Council has met to warn the Maoists not to get violent or else, while the latter threatens to start parallel governments all over the country. A dozen 'small parties' meet and ask the three biggies to act responsibly, while the Maoist supremo Pushpa Kamal Dahal (aka 'Prachanda') goes on a retreat to a country resort to mull things over.
In Guwahati, the news is mostly about the tensions between Assam and Meghalaya, and Nagaland and Manipur. Guwahati and Shillong are exercised about border disagreements, triggered by a flare-up at Langpih, which saw many deaths and a bandh. There were communal clashes and deaths when the Naga leader Thuingaleng Muivah sought to visit his birthplace, which happens to be in Manipur. These separate incidents provided a window into the deeper schisms in the Northeast, simmering below the surface. Meanwhile, other news of the day includes the possibility of Paresh Baruah, the underground leader of the ULFA organisation, having been arrested in Bangladesh (later denied).