My forefathers came from southern Gujarat, and settled further south along the western coast of India. With no kin across the newly formed border, and living in Bombay at the time of Independence, my family was insulated from the ravages of Partition and its aftermath. My closest encounter with the Southasian neighbourhood came through the charged atmosphere of the 1971 war between India and Pakistan – a memory of blackouts and suspenseful nights, followed by self-congratulatory headlines regarding a new country that we, Indians, had helped create.
My counterparts elsewhere in Southasia would surely have different memories of the event. I am also sure that my view of India may not coincide with theirs. Be that as it may, I am willing to hazard a guess that, for all of us members of the post-Partition generation, the concept of Southasia during those tumultuous times, not as a geographical unit but as a collective, would not have been a very persuasive one.
Indeed, the concept had not even crossed my mind till I was in my early twenties, when I met the 'Southasia correspondent' of an international newsmagazine. Increasingly thereafter, I was made aware of the widespread use of the term as a political category in the international context. I also remained acutely uncomfortable with it, perceiving it to be a unity forced upon us disparate and divided nations of the region by what appeared to be the West's need for simplification.
More than two decades later, in 2008, one could say little has changed in this regard, the emergence of SAARC notwithstanding. A nuclear race, a near war, internal conflict and militancy present no logical rationale for expecting an increase of goodwill among Indians, Bangladeshis, Nepalis, Pakistanis and Sri Lankans towards each other, or of their experiencing a greater sense of identification with the region as a whole. And yet, oddly, this is exactly what seems to be happening.