So we are supposed to be proud to be Southasians. For what? That we have the distinction of being the most violent place on earth? Take a look at just two instances from the past month: the terrible toll exacted on Tamil civilians in order to destroy the LTTE, and the raging war in Swat, where the Pakistani army woke up to Taliban dangers and decided to scorch the earth. So in our south and the north, there was a ground and air offensive each, both of which amounted to conventional war.
Darfur saw oppression, there remains a standoff in the Philippines, Xinjiang is restive, the Palestinians continue to suffer. But in no other part of the globe was there war, other than in Southasia's south and northwest. Suicide bombers continue to threaten Afghanistan, Karachi is tense, and Bangladesh is still trying to make sense of the killings at the Bangladesh Rifles headquarters in February. Naxalite insurgents exact a heavy toll from the police and peasantry across the spine of India. Large parts of Nepal are lawless, where impunity rules. But Swat and the Lankan northeast saw outright war.
Yet if it is proper to state that no other region across the seven seas has seen armed conventional conflict over the last year as have parts of Southasia, why doesn't this factor hit our Southasian mindset more prominently? Is this not stark proof of the failure of Southasian regionalism – when we fail to develop empathy, even when the most horrific things happen next door, as brought to us on the television screens?
The answers must lie on several fronts. Firstly, the fact is that we really do not feel beyond our immediate neighbourhood, even within our own countries. This may have to do with the physical and emotional distance involved, in which no amount of calling oneself Southasian or Indian or Pakistani will help to develop empathy. Meanwhile, the borders have helped us to compartmentalise our empathies and understandings. Swat is in Pakistan's north, and we live elsewhere. The Tamils did suffer, but that too is somewhere else.