Constitution as it has grown today, and how
by J.L. Gupta

Working a Democratic Constitution — The Indian Experience by Granville Austin. Oxford University Press, New Delhi. Pages 771. Rs 995.

A NODDING familiarity with the essential features of the Constitution of India is good for every Indian. Knowledge of the important provisions and the philosophy thereof is still better. But a serious citizen and a keen student of law should have access to an in-depth study of various provisions, the application thereof, the inadequacies therein and the amendments thereto. This book provides just that.

The author is no stranger to the Indian reader. In 1996, he had published. "The Indian Constitution: Cornerstone of a Nation" which has been described as "the most authoritative study of the basic law of this country". The present book gives a graphic account of the working of the Constitution during the formative years between 1950 and 1985. It is truly "a history and.... a law book". It is the story of the independent India by one who chooses to call himself "an outsider". The book has something for everyone.

The work has been broadly divided into seven parts. Each part has several chapters. Part I (chapters 1 to 6) embodies the "The great constitutional themes" which emerged during the period from 1950 to 1966. In Part II(chapters 7 to 12), the author notices "The great constitutional confrontation" for supremacy between the judiciary and Parliament during the years 1967-1973. Parts IIIand IV (chapters 13 to 22) deal with the days of the emergency followed by "The Janata interlude". In Part V(chapters 23 to 26) the book alludes to Indira Gandhi’s return to power. The ever-alive issue of centre-state relations finds its echo in Part VI (chapters 27 to 30). Finally, there is the summing up in Part VI(chapter 31).

The story begins with "the spring of 1947". The last British Viceroy, Lord Louis Mountbatten, had "announced that India and Pakistan would become independent countries on 15 August". Also that the "Constituent Assembly could move ahead with... Constitution-making". The members of the Assembly had met and deliberated. The final document was the Constitution of India.

It has been "summarised as having three strands: protecting and enhancing national unity and integrity; establishing the institutions and spirit of democracy; and fostering a social revolution to better the lot of the mass of Indians". These "three strands are mutually dependent and inextricably intertwined". Ultimately, while "summing up", a fourth strand, culture, is added.The "product pleased nearly everyone". However, there were some critics who thought it was "insufficiently Indian". It was said:"We wanted the music of (the) veena... but there we have the music of an English band".

All in all, the author believes that it embodies "two constitutions in one: a constitution for the nation and the central government, and one uniform constitution for all the state governments". A "philosophy of the seamless web infuses the Constitution..." It "is a live document in a society rapidly changing and almost frenetically political".

On January 26, 1950, the republic was established. The Constitution made the preambulatory promises of "justice — social, economic and political; liberty of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship; and equality of status and of opportunity" to all citizens. The Federal Court Chief Justice HarilalKania administered the oath of office to President Rajendra Prasad. Then the President in turn administered the oath of office "to the Cabinet, to the Speaker of the Lok Sabha, to Harilal Kania as the Chief Justice of the new Supreme Court and to his fellow justices". Thus had begun "the great enterprise of nationhood...."

And how was the day chosen? Why January 26? Because on that day in the year 1930, "the party (Congress) had adopted the "pledge taken on independence day", dedicating itself to Indians’ "inalienable right... to have freedom.... and complete independence".

Soon the "government and citizenry both were confronted with the great issues arising from the Constitution’s goals...." The author, like a legal eagle, records the questions that had arisen. "How, while applying the rule of law, would social-economic reform be fostered and democratic institutions strengthened in a huge society in which religion and tradition sanctioned inequality and exploitation?" Problems like President’s powers conflicts within the Council of Ministers, Nehru’s repeated threat of leaving office, "imbalance in the power equation in Parliament" and those between the executive and the judiciary are also noticed. In hindsight, the author rightly concludes that the "Nehru years set standards against which others would be measured — and many fall short."

Before long "India added its name to the long list of democracies whose constitutional ideals were tested against the government of the day’s perception of national needs". Remedies for "conflicts were sought... through amendments to the Constitution". The Constitution guaranteed certain freedoms under Article 19. The country experienced certain difficulties. Amendments became imperative. These were made. The issues and the views leading to the provision to impose reasonable restrictions on the freedoms of speech and expression, etc. in the interest of sovereignty and integrity of India have been examined at length.

In particular, there is a detailed examination of the sequence of events which had lead to the provisions for preventive detention. These were made despite a strong dissent that it would "increasingly stain the country’s democracy". The "critics were heard but not heeded". And "successive Preventive Detention Acts were passed in 1952, 1954, 1957 and 1960".

Besides placing restrictions on fundamental freedoms, there was also an apparent "predilection for socialism.... the antithesis of imperialism...." The leaders "agreed that zamindari must be abolished". However, with "the Constitution inaugurated, the courts dealt the social revolution a series of setbacks involving both property and special consideration for disadvantaged citizens.... The judiciary reinforced the government’s sense that its entire social revolutionary programme was endangered... The spring of 1951 was the ‘year of the locust’, said the Times of India, reporting the winged creatures swarming over Bengal.

"Nehru may have felt that he was fighting pests of another kind. First on March 12 the Patna High Court struck down the Bihar Land Reforms Act ruling it unconstitutional on the ground that the differing rates of compensation for different categories of zamindars violated Article 14.... the first amendment... the Ninth Schedule was the amendment’s most radical component.

"This constitutional vault into which legislation could be put, safeguarded from judicial review, the judges being denied the key, was distasteful to several of the Cabinet members who voted to introduce the amendment in Parliament. although the Supreme Court had found a way around the Ninth Schedule when upholding Darbhanga’s challenge to the Bihar Land Reforms Act. It took some 30 years, as will be seen, for the Supreme Court to master the keys to the Ninth Schedule and to protect the Constitution from those who might abuse it."

In the interregnum, the Constitution was amended. There was talk of committed judiciary. Parliament’s claim to "unlimited constituent power confronted the view that the judiciary with the Supreme Court at its head was the Constitution’s ultimate interpreter — and therefore protector." The Kesavananda Bharati case — "eleven opinions by 13 judges" — the decision which "entrenched the fundamental rights — as even the Constituent Assembly had not done — while strengthening the courts under the Constitution, the government’s resolve to tame the Supreme Court", the supersession of Judges; the imposition of emergency, the futile attempt of Chief Justice Ray to reopen the Kesavananda Bharati case, the 42nd amendment, the defeat of Indira Gandhi, the restoration of democratic government by the Janata Party and so on figure prominently. The book gives the inside story in detail. Even regarding the meetings of the Judges of the Supreme Court.

With uncanny insight, the author sums up the story: "The country lost its maternal immunity late in the sixties with the decline of the founding generation. For the next two decades it had a difficult youth. Approaching maturity in the nineties, its most difficult times lie ahead." How prophetic!

The book is a credible work of search and research. Not withstanding the fact that "the files on constitutional amendments kept in the Law Ministry are hidden by a conspiracy of silence", the author has reached the source material on every issue. The account of events appears to be authentic. Historical facts and political reasons, which have shaped the Constitution, have been faithfully chronicled. The interpretation appears to be fair and truthful. Different aspects of the working of the Indian Constitution have been thoroughly covered. The book is a treasure trove of knowledge. It should be of use to students of law and history in an equal measure.

A district which mothered 23 banks
by B.S. Thaur

The Banking Saga: History of South Kanara Banks by N.K. Thingalaya. Pages 386. Price not mentioned.

THIS book draws the banking profile of South Kanara, a small district in Karnataka. History of banks is not uncommon these days. Almost all big banks like the Canara Bank, Allahabad Bank and the Bank of Baroda have got their history written. The State Bank of India has, of course, been a pioneer in the field, having long back brought out two volumes covering its working between 1876 and 1914 and thereafter. The SBI has a permanent history department with the noted economist A.K. Bagchi as its head. But the book under review is an unique piece of bank history inasmuch as it confines itself to South Kanara district.

What motivated author N.K. Thingalaya, a noted economist and a former chairman and managing director of the Syndicate Bank, to select South Kanara, as the theme of the book under review is obviously its unique banking growth. The district has the distinction of witnessing the birth of as many as 23 banks (not bank branches) alone. Out of those, four — Canara Bank, Snydicate Bank, Vijaya Bank and Corporation Bank — are now among the 19 nationalised banks while a fifth, the Karnataka Bank Ltd, is a private sector bank and operates at the national level. The author attributes this unusual growth of banking in the district to the frugal living and saving habits of its people.

The author has observed that even today South Kanara district has the largest number of bank branches compared to any district in India excluding the four metropolitan areas. With a population of 26.92 lakh it has 491 branches of different commercial banks. There is a branch for every 6000 people as against the national average of 14,000.

The district has 264 rural branches, the second highest in the country. The number of accounts in these rural branches is 29.60 lakh, again the highest in any district. At the national level rural banking transactions constitute only 15 per cent of the total volume of business handled by all banks, while it is 30 per cent in South Kanara. Mangalore city, the headquarter of the district, had the privilege of having a clearing house in 1936 when there were only 13 in all of India.

Although two of the four nationalised banks owing their origin to this district — the Canara Bank and Vijaya Bank — have shifted their corporate office to the state capital, the other two, the Syndicate Bank and Corporation Bank, continue to function from their home district.

The author has tried to find out the secret behind the phenomenal growth in the district. Apart from the famed saving habit, the other reason was growing sea-borne trade which in 1931 rose to Rs 10 lakh in imports and Rs 9.52 lakh in exports. Local patriotism too played a part as the British colonialists promoted banks like the Bank of Madras which opened its branch in Mangalore in October, 1869. But those "foreign" banks were indifferent to the local population.

Yet another reason was their community sponsorship. Community wise classification of the Canara Banking Corporation (Udipi) Ltd in 1908 shows the socio-economic picture of the district. Communities like the Saraswats and the Goud Saraswats were having a large share in the banks.

An unusual characteristic of these banks was that some proprietory banking companies were established like the Pandit Bank Ltd in 1938 and the Mangalore City Bank in 1939. These banks also had communal identities like Canara Hindu Permanent Fund Ltd (now the Canara Bank). Significantly, the Canara Bank and Corporation Bank were started as mutual funds.

A peculiar feature of banking service was that the Nagarkar Bank Ltd, set up by the Goud Saraswat community having a lifetime managing, director, collected rent on behalf of absentee landlords and turned it into deposits.

The Jaya Karnataka Banking Co Ltd, started in a small village with a population of 2650, had only Rs 1410 as paid up capital and would give a small loan of just Rs 10. In fact there was no need for obtaining a licence from the Reserve Bank of India for setting up a bank. This too appears to be a factor in setting up new banks.

While narrating the history of different banks, the author has taken note of the following characteristics with regard to the staff.

(i) No fixed working hours; (ii) no recruitment policy and recommendation of the director or some big customer would suffice; (iii) overtime wage was unheard of till trade unions set new staff relations; (iv) payment of bonus started only in the late 1930s, and (v) bank staff was not considered important enough to figure in the annual report of the banks.

In conclusion the author mentions that as many as 41 banks merged into five banks which ultimately emerged on the national scene. Another peculiar feature was that 40 per ceent household savings went to the banks and an equally large share to the LIC.

Significantly, banks like the Syndicate Bank and Canara Bank were already helping the agricultural sector, while others entered the field after nationalisation in 1969. The Syndicate Bank had already introduced an agri-card.

While making the banks in South Kanara district the main focus of the book, the author has also briefly touched on events and developments in the banking industry as a whole and important issues like social control of banks, nationalised banking and private sector banks which for a student of the subject could be interesting.

The author has put in arduous labour in collecting data and collating them to bring out the broad picture of banking before 1950 when even the RBI did not maintain statistics of banks with a paid up capital of less than Rs 50,000. For the earlier period no system of any economic data was available, even in the district gazetteers.

A rich resource going down the drain
by D.R. Chaudhry

Waters of Hope — From Vision to Reality in Himalaya-Ganga Development Cooperation by B.G. Verghese. Oxford & IBH Publishing Co. New Delhi. Pages xvii + 498. Rs 495.

THE book under review is a monumental work, dealing with the immense land and water resources of the economically rich Ganga-Brahamputra-Barak basin covering Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal and Tibet. The three rivers carry 214 million hectre-metres of water to the sea and has a staggering 250,000 MW hydro-electric potential. The basin has one of the richest river systems in the world. It has such magnitudes of arable land, water availability and energy that its 600 million inhabitants today can lead a comfortable life.

In spite of this rich treasure, the basin is in the grip of grinding poverty, hunger and malnutrition, high infant mortality, low literacy and unemployment. The paradox of the coexistence of the generous bounty of nature and human misery is attributed to the failure to make proper use of this gift.

The author calls for an optimum use of the nature’s gift without disturbing the ecological balance and this requires constructive cooperation among the basin states. Some progress has been made in this direction but still a lot remains to be done.

Inadequate regulation of water leads to alternating flood and drought. Eastern UP, Bihar and West Bengal have an irrigation potential of 35 million hectares but in 1987 no more than 9.3 million hectares were irrigated. Punjab produces over five million tonnes of paddy from 1.5 million hectares while Bihar produces barely six million tonnes from 5.4 million hectares. Poor water management, especially inadequate drainage system has resulted in water logging, salinity and alkalinity. Some seven million hectares of otherwise fertile land has become unfit for cultivation, almost half of this in the Indo-Gangetic plains.

Feudal land relations, especially in east UP and Bihar, have severely hampered agricultural growth. The dismal record of land reforms has led to serious agrarian unrest in Bihar and some other states, marked by Naxalite violence and counter-violence. Operation Barga in West Bengal launched by the Left Front government went a long way to vest legal rights with the share-croppers but much needs to be done to boost agricultural production.

Promoting animal husbandry and dairy farming can play an important role in improving the economy in the basin. Soil health can be restored by curbing monoculture, which induces diseases and by promoting a variety of rotating crops and which includes green manure and legumes that fertilise the soil. There is need to avoid the excessive use of pesticide and fertiliser. Fisheries can play an important role in providing protein rich food in the basin that boasts of over 1200 species of fish. Mindless use of ground water has led to a sharp decline of subsoil water level, especially in Punjab and Haryana, leaders of the green revolution. Ideally, the rate of extraction should be equivalent to annual or periodic recharge but no attention is being paid to this aspect.

Forestry deserves special attention in the basin. One-third of the land mass should ideally be under forest cover. But India has only 19.7 per cent of its land mass under forest. There is a constant decline in forest cover which poses ecological hazards. The basin is rich in water resources but its defective use has a serious adverse effect on health, sanitation and quality of life. Water pollution, especially in that case of the Ganga and the Yamuna, has assumed alarming proportions, posing a serious threat to the health of millions. The problem has been compounded by air pollution in cities.

The canvas of the book is so vast that it is not possible to do justice to it in a newspaper review. It deals with almost every issue which has a bearing on land and water — direct or remote — in the basin: agriculture, livestock, fish and forest, land use and crop planning, hill farming and watershed management, irrigation, flood control, energy from biomass and hydel electricity generation, water transport, drinking water and sanitation, industrial effluents, pollution and water-borne diseases, agrarian relations and social structures, the environmental impact of water resource development, displacement and rehabilitation, legislation and planning, organisation and funding, etc. In short, all the ramifications of water resource development have been taken into account. What has been achieved in the basin countries has been detailed and what needs to be done has been stressed.

B.G. Verghese, as a fellow of the Centre for Policy Research, which sponsored this study, has done a commendable job. This reviewer, or for that matter any other reader, would have no quarrel with him on his masterly treatment of the subject. But the trouble begins when one seriously focuses attention on the basic premise of his developmental model.

The concept of "poverty being the biggest polluter" enunciated at Stockholm in 1972 has shaped the author’s approach. Poverty is undoubtedly a curse but it cannot be substantially mitigated, let alone eliminated, simply by maximising the use of natural resources. It is built into the social system and fully exploiting nature, without reshaping the social structure, would only stretch the fragility of the eco-system to a breaking point, pushing mankind into greater peril.

The extensive alluvial spread, rich water resources, plant diversity and phenomenal hydro-energy potential make the Ganga-Brahamputra-Barak basin one of the greatest natural resource regions in the world. "Yet, sadly," laments Verghese, "it encompasses the largest single concentration of the world’s most poor, wretched heirs to once proud civilisations." And he advocates the fullest possible use of the this natural bounty to eradicate poverty. He advocates the building of big dams and massive hydro-electric projects to tap the available resources. He does stress the need to maintain ecological balance in the process of development, but dismisses environmentalists, ecologists and social activists opposed to mega projects as a bunch of myth-makers.

Harnessing nature to its fullest by itself has no corelationship with the well-being of the people at large in a particular area. If that were so, the Jharkhand area in Bihar should have been an island of affluence. It is extremely rich in minerals which have been fully exploited but still it groans under poverty. The state-centric paradigm of development in a class-divided society has its own logic. The fruits of development in such a situation are always cornered by those who dominate the social structure.

In the debate on small project versus mega projects, Verghese’s position is unequivocal. A host of environmentalists argue in favour of small projects because this approach minimises the problem of displacement of people and is at the same time eco-friendly. Their idea that small projects are not merely better than — but can also be a substitute to — big projects and large dams is dismissed as a fallacy by Verghese. He finds large storage dams regulating large catchment areas more dependable. There is rich literature on this controversy and it is not possible to take stock of it in a review article. But one or two points need to be stressed.

Those opposed to mega projects or their votaries like Verghese stand for development. But the difference lies in the perceptions about the beneficiaries of development and its relationship with ecological balance. Development, yes. But development for whom? This is the basic question in an iniquitous social system. This reviewer had the opportunity of having a close look at the Tehri dam under construction and the surrounding areas some time back. In many villages women trudge a long distance to fetch drinking water. Will the completion of the dam bring any relief to them. No. Rather, it would marginally reduce the volume of water available in the surrounding areas.

It would, however, mean more water for the posh colonies of Delhi and its five-star hotels. What is this development? Why should the local inhabitants, many of whom are likely to be displaced from the land they have been living for generations, not oppose this kind of development? The question is equally relevant for the oustees of Sardar Sarovar Project.

"Developmenters" like Verghese, if one could coin the term, stand for proper rehabilitation of those who are displaced in the process of development but it is easier said than done. The very idea is a pious wish in the present social system. More than 2,100 families were displaced in the wake of the Bhakra dam construction. Hardly 730 of them were properly rehabilitated. The experience of the Pong dam oustees in Himachal Pradesh has caused more agony. Many of these hill men were asked to settle in the desert of Jaisalmer in Rajasthan!

The issue of environment and ecology in the context of mega projects is of crucial importance. Nature has got enough to meet the needs of man but it has no resources to match his greed, as emphasised by Gandhi. Raping nature may add to the illusory comforts of the elite but it invariably worsens the quality of life, on the one hand, and adds to the misery of those who live on the margin of society, on the other.

Once a worshipper of mother earth, man has now become its ruthless exploiter. It is this journey of man from the realm of the sacred to the dark zone of the profane that is responsible for environmental pollution. "Whatever I dig from the earth, may that have quick growth again/O purifier, we may not injure thy vitals or heart." This hymn dedicated to the mother earth in the Atharva Veda contains the essence of man’s humble attitude towards nature and eco-friendly development.

The concept of inter-being, propounded by Buddhist thinker Thich Nhat Hanh can be of great use in the present controversy. Unity and diversity interpenetrate each other freely as all phenomena are interdependent. Humanity is an integral part of nature. So, when nature is defiled, people ultimately suffer. Negative consequences follow when cultures alienate themselves from nature.

Relationship between man and nature is fundamentally ecological. The essence of this ethic lies in another Buddhist thinker, Joanna Macy uses beauteous and sublime a term, the "eco-self" — the greening of the self that can help one to transcend separateness, alienation and fragmentation. It is in this context that the plea for small projects to meet today’s developmental needs has its validity. China generates 15,000 MW of hydel power from about 48,000 mini and small projects. If China can do it, why cannot India?

The controversy about small versus mega projects apart, the book by Verghese is a veritable mini library on water resources of the Ganga-Brahamputra-Barak basin and other related issues. It contains a mine of information which can be of great use to all those who are interested in making proper use of the rich bounty of nature in this basin.

Camus the controversial
by Rumina Sethi

Introducing Camus by David Zane Mairowitz and Alain Korkos. Icon, Cambridge. Pages 176. £ 8.88.

"INTRODUCING Camus" is one of a series of introductory books intended by its publishers to make available a wide range of authors and concepts to the reading public. Although its comic-book form belies expectations of any serious intent, or content for that matter, these introductory books do enjoy readership among serious students and academics.

The frame of this work is biographical with perfectly encrusted set-pieces of Camus’s novel and philosophical essays as they must have come along in his fairly short life. What the book does in its own eccentric way is to link up Camus’s personality with his writings in ways which enable us to see enunciation in terms compatible with environment, aided, of course, by the visual aspect which quite precisely evoke the right milieu.

The beginning is dramatic as it starts with the end: Camus’s death in a car accident in 1960. Fortunately for Camus, the end came before Algerian independence because by the year 1957, Camus had begun to be seen as some kind of traitor to the Algerian cause. Born in Algeria when pressures of French colonialism were acute, Camus ardently believed that the Arabs and Frenchmen would have to find a way to live together; there could be no solution in Algerian independence.

Camus was, of course, thinking of his family in Algeria — his working class widowed mother and his uncle — who would be foreigners in their own country with the victory of the Muslim puritans. His inability to denounce the FLN wholeheartedly earned him the displeasure of the pied-noirs; on the other hand, he would not join the racist French Algerians.

In the wreckage of the Facel-Vega was discovered the highly illegible, hand-written manuscript of Camus’s unfinished novel, "The First Man". This autobiographical novel makes explicit Camus’s lifelong obsession with his native Algeria, its punishing sunlight, and the symbolic Mediterranean which links the two sides of his identity. The Mediterranean was not simply sun, sea and sand, but a pagan world of physical sensation which could stand up against the tyranny and war Camus had experienced in occupied France.

One of the best and most lyrical references to the Mediterranean sensualist is to be found in "Noces" in Camus’s grandiose descriptions of the Roman ruins at Tipasa on Algeria’s western coast. Camus, "touched" by the sun, recounts a vision within which the first glimmer of the Absurd may be detected: "I love this life with abandon and wish to speak of it boldly: it makes me proud of my human condition. Yet people have often told me: there’s nothing to be proud of. Yes, there is: this sun, this sea, my heart leaping with youth, the salty taste of my body and this vast landscape in which tenderness and glory merge in blue and yellow. It is to conquer this that I need my strength and my resources. Everything here leaves me intact, I surrender nothing of myself, and don no mask: learning patiently and arduously how to live is enough for me, well worth all their arts of living."

Significant as sensuality is to him, just so is absurdity of death, thrown up into prominence all the more owing to a reductiveness on the level of physicality. Nowhere more apt is this statement than in the opening of "L’Etranger". "Maman died today. Or maybe yesterday. I don’t know. I received a telegram from the Home: Mother deceased. Funeral tomorrow. Yours sincerely. That doesn’t mean a thing. Maybe it was yesterday."

Meursault, the hero, like his philosophical counterpart, Sisyphus, is all mer and soleil, sea and sun, until his arrest, arraignment, incarceration, trial and punishment. The world of justice, the courts, the typical two-facedness of lawyers is one to which the hero of Camus’s novel is as much a "stranger" as is Josef K. in Kafka’s "The Trial", whose influence is felt here. Except that, unlike Kafka’s K., Camus’s hero does not try in the least to make sense of his life inevitability. In "Le Mythe de Sisyphe," Camus was to write: "A world which can be explained, even through bad reasoning, is a familiar one. On the other hand, in a world suddenly devoid of illusion and light, man feels like a stranger."

And yet, this absence of explanation is not in itself the idea of the Absurd. What is absurd in not so much the category of the irrational but the futile effort to make sense of it, to strive endlessly to find clarity in purposelessness. This goes against the logic of the doctrine of liberal humanism which involves a relentless pursuit of order, clarity, rationality and reason to get to a universal truth.

For Camus, coming to terms with the Absurd constitutes a release from duality, a dilemma he probed in "Le Mythe". Camus arrived at the conclusion that although activity is useless, without any future, there are men without hope who are yet endowed with "a lucid indifference", a situation not unlike Melville’s Ahab who chases the white whale in "Moby Dick", following his adventure to the extreme, knowing all the while that he is a prince in an illusory kingdom.

But the ultimate Absurd Hero is the mythical figure Sisyphus who is condemned by the gods to roll a stone endlessly up to the top of a hill, only to have it roll down and to start his task all over again. Camus claims to be interested in the moment of "pause" when Sisyphus has to go back down the hill, for that is when the consciousness of his fate and thus his acceptance of it begins. Sisyphus is without the merest hope, and yet he becomes the Absurd man the moment he accepts this and "says yes to his task", when he himself chooses to continue the torture which has been imposed on him. He is master of his own fate. The absence of any controlling force in the universe thus becomes a positive factor.

Sisyphus is the perfect symbolic hero for Camus in that he attempted to save mankind from death which in its very incomprehensibility is also a kind of pointlessness. At the same time, he was also a metaphor for France suffering under the terrible weight of Nazi occupation.

This was also the period of Camus’s disenchantment with Communism. His "revolt" in this period was identified with moderation which opened up a virtual pandora’s box. Everything that Camus wrote in "The Rebel" was scrutinised and attacked. As the two authors of "Introducing Camus" illustrate, modern socialism, from it starting point as a rebellion against capitalism, is "the crowning example" which, in Camus’s view, used "its own rebels as mere instruments towards a desired goal". Each rebellion thus turns into tyranny because every new state is hegemonic and oppressive, not just.

The most celebrated attack on Camus came from Sartre whose name was frequently linked to Camus’s. Camus was accused in "Les Temps Modernes" of refusing to deal with history and direct political action. In turn, Camus counter-attacked "Monsieur le Directeur" Sartre calling him a "bourgeois intellectual" who had denied his origins and done violence to his own intelligence. Thus began one of the famous intellectual battles with Camus facing disillusionment with the Communist Party and Sartre accepting realistically that was the only alternative for the Left.

It is owing to such a moderate position that Camus was damned and misconstrued when it came to the issue of Algerian independence. Camus naively considered the French-Algerians to be as indigenous to Algeria as the Muslims, believing the two could live together. "We are not enemies and we can live together happily in this land which is ours," Camus said. Predictably, guerrilla warfare and mass killings in Algeria forced many of the pied-noirs out. Camus was, at best, a "well-meaning coloniser", as Memmi was to address him.

Camus’s real concerns, of course, were private: he believed in justice but the safety and security of his mother mattered more than his life-long commitment to an ideal. Thus he made the famous statement at the Nobel ceremony:"I must condemn a terrorism that works blindly in the streets of Algiers and one day might strike at my mother and my family. I believe in justice, but I will defend my mother before justice." Camus was perhaps unwittingly going against Meursault who is condemned to die for not sufficiently loving his mother.

Paradoxically for Camus, the writer who was an advocate of an unthreatening universe and consequently a potential threat for the Christian or capitalist civilisation, has now become a classic with "L’Etranger" having sold over six million copies worldwide. Horror of horrors, he was banned in Maoist China for "appealing to bourgeois taste."

Changing fashions in Economic growth
Write view
by Randeep Wadehra

Open Economic Development edited by D.T. Nanje Gowda. Himalaya Publishing House, New Delhi. Pages 359. Rs 550.

WHEN we gained freedom it was taken for granted that the path to economic salvation lay along the socialist route. The Soviet style planned economy inspired our five year Plans.

However, as with most other things, our leaders did not go the whole hog in adopting the socialist pattern of society.If there was admiration for the state-controlled fast-paced development, there was also a sneaking yearning for free enterprise the capitalist system offered.

Therefore, a middle path was adopted. It was dubbed "mixed economy".

However, that did not close the economic debate. With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the realisation dawned that socialist economic fundamentals were not really as strong as they had originally appeared. Added to this was the example of the Asian Tigers like South Korea, Singapore and Thailand which were, to begin with, way behind us in every sphere of economic activity, but had leap-frogged out of the category of the developing nations. Thus, from 1991 onwards India abandonded the socialist path, and free market economy became the new mantra, triggering off a fresh round of debate as to the optimum mix for sustaining economic growth.

C. Rangarajan, in this paper, does not dispute the necessity of state intervention in economy.

In fact, the former RBI Governor points out that Adam Smith, the Scottish political economist and philosopher, who, in his "Wealth of Nations" (1776) had laid the foundations of classical free-market economic theory, too had conceded the role of the state in three main tasks — namely, defending its citizens from the violence and invasion of other independent societies; protecting every member of society from injustice or oppression of every other member of it; and erecting and maintaining certain public works and public institutions which can never be in the interest of any individual or small of individuals to erect and maintain, because the profit would never repay the expense though it may frequently do much more than repay it to society.

Even though Mikhail Gorbachev had said in the Guardian on June 21, 1990, "The market came with the dawn of civilisation and it is not an invention of capitalism... If it leads to improving the well-being of the people, there is no contradiction with socialism," Rangarajan, pointing to the "Pareto optimality situation" and by referring to the Great Depression of 1930 stresses his plea for optimum state intervention. According to him, the issue is not either state or the market, but what kind of state intervention and by what means. Since the mixed economy is a reality the world over, the need for dynamic state intervention to correct the imbalances wrought by market forces becomes imperative.

The volume under review has been divided into four sections. The first section has nine papers dealing with the various aspects of development. Rangarajan dwells upon the respective roles of the market and state in an economy; Reddy examines the role of economists while Monga’s concern is restructuring the planning and reforms regime.

Similarly, Y.K. Alagh feels that our domestic agriculture set-up should be in tune with our export promotion efforts.

In the second section there are six essays that explore the scope and status of reforms in the finance, banking and external trade sectors.

Section three gives a historical perspective and the current situation of international economics. Issues like factor mobility, emergence of the Euro, capital account liberalisation, etc. have been looked into. Also the lessons from the East Asian crisis have been drawn.

The six papers in section four deal primarily with economic theory. Brahananda gives a detailed account of Amartya Sen’s contribution to welfare economics. He also surveys major developments in modern economics in a separate paper.

V.N. Balasubramanyam gives an overview of the "Nobel-laureate-in-waiting" Jadgish Bhagwati’s contribution to international economics — enumerating how his work has dominated the thinking on trade theory and policy in our own times, prompting Paul Samuelson to describe it as the "age of Bhagwati".

The presentations are thought provoking and enlightening. If you are a student of economics or an aspiring management graduate, this gem of a work can help broaden your horizons.

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National Security Problem in India by Longjam Randeep Singh. APH, New Delhi. Pages 170. Rs 400.

IN India, we normally think of the 1947 partition as the greatest parting blow to the Indian aspirations by the departing colonial power. But we forget that seeds of a far more dangerous trend were sown in the North-East, the fruits of which we are still reaping. Add to this, the maladministration and crass indifference to the people’s problems in the region, the predicament becomes explosive.

The vast ethnic and sub-culture diversity too is a contributing factor.

The Indian subcontinent is densely populated, with different linguistic ethnic groups competing for their share of national identity.

The situation becomes more complex when we realise that economic development has not been even. Thus we have people living in different stages of human evolution — from the pre-historic stage to the post-modern 21st century.

In the North-East too the economic progress has been uneven. This has led to conflicts between the tribal and non-tribal groups besides igniting inter-tribal rivalries. The eventual result in insurgency. The author has tried to analyse the region’s problems in order to arrive at a solution, including formulating a counter-insurgency strategy.

Before going ahead with this thesis, he tries to explain the relationship between internal security and external threat. He points out that tribal insurgencies have occurred mostly in border regions.

Internal disturbances can hasten a nation’s disintegration process. Singh states that an insurgent group’s main aim is to weaken the people’s support to the regime and to create an impression that its downfall is imminent. This way chaos is engineered which helps the insurgents to have a shot at capturing power. There is also a paradigm shift in terrorism.

There were political reasons as well. In June, 1947, the Naga leader Z.A. Phizo along with a handful of supporters under the banner of Naga National Council met Akbar Hyadri, the then Governor of Assam. After three days of parleys a document was signed which the Nagas interpreted as giving them the power to secede from the Republic of India within 10 years. The Government of India disputed this contention. Consequently, in 1955 the Naga movement took a violent turn. Similarly, in Manipur the Revolutionary Nationalist Party was set up in 1953. When Nehru rejected their demand for a separate administrative set-up there was insurgency.

When colonial powers started declining in the 20th century, new nations emerged. Most of these countries inherited several contradictions in their polity. Economic disparities, ideological conflicts, ethnic mistrust and such other discords and inconsistencies that ultimately became major destabilising factors. Terrorism is only one of them.

Book extract
Carpenter’s son relives his childhood

(Gurdial Singh, this year’s joint Jnanpith Award winner, has just come out with the first volume of his autobiography "Nianhe Mattian". Jaspal Singh renders many interesting passes in English.)

AS a small child I was suffering from rachitis and was reduced to a bundle of bones. Aunt Daya Kaur latter told me that wrinkles had appeared all over my body and my complexion had turned absolutely black like the colour of a kettle. My head had gone nearly bald but for a sparse brittle growth of hair.

My uncle (taiya) and father were extremely worried because I was the first male child in both families. "Vaids", "hakims" and doctors failed to cure my condition. At last a lame sadhu wearing matted locks on his head gave his prescription. He exhorted my elders to bring a dead cobra, make me sit on it and wash me with water brought from seven wells....

After this ritual small paper-wrapped doses of medicine were administered to me for a month or so and I was completely cured.... That sadhu had become a god for our family. When he visited us again six months after my recovery, he stayed for many days and we served him with extreme devotion.....

As advised by my mother, I would fold my hands and bow my head in obeisance to the sadhu. Delighted he would address my father sitting at his feet thus, "Jagat Singh, this child of yours shall one day bring laurels to your family. He will be a man of learning. You must send him to some school...." He would leave all of a sudden as he had arrived, limping his way back to God knows where...

In the long winter nights my father would wrap me in a heavy quilt and read me from those "qissas" which were very popular in all houses. "Qissas" of "Jani chor", "Rup Basant", "Nal-Damyanti" and Sadhu Daya Singh’s "Jindgi Bilas" were his favourites.... I committed to memory a few lines from Sadhu Daya Singh’s "qissa" "Jindgi Bilas" and recited them to the boys with a sense of pride .... We were only four members in the family — father, mother, my elder sister Seeto and me. Both my mother and sister would also listen to my father’s reading with interest but they would go to sleep while listening. I would never sleep as long as he read. My father would put a marker where he had left reading but I always wished he would read more.

While lying in the bed the tales of "qissas" would be fresh in my mind and I would go to sleep thinking about them. My dreams were also full of the characters from the legends. Sometimes a man would become a woman; at others both brothers Rup and Basant would take a flight on their favourite swan. Sometimes everything got jumbled up — human beings would look like animals and vice versa and they would prowl around dilapidated houses and mansions.

I often dreamt of a menacing bull that would chase me. I would run in terror but it would catch up with me and trample me under its hooves. I would scream. Everybody sleeping around would wake up. They would ask, "What is the matter?"I was so terrified that I could not utter a word. Mother would often say, "If he listens to the tales of thieves and robbers, what else will he have if not such fits....."

There was a boy by the name Kalia who was very short and stout. Because of his black complexion everybody, including his kin, called him Kalia. He had big eyes, a huge flat nose, protruding forehead and an oval head like that of the black begging bowl (chippi) of a sadhu. He had short, stubby hands like those of a midget. All of us teased him. He would try to frighten us with his big scowling eyes and then hurl dirty abuses at us. When we did not desist, he would pounce upon one of us and thrash him. After that we would not let him play with us for a few days. His monkey-like face would shrink. He would seek pardon in utter supplication. We would ask him to rub his big nose in the dusty street and only then would we then allow him to play with us....

As summer holidays passed, some mysterious fear would overtake us. We would lose interest in playful bathing and swimming in the village pond. The homework phobia would possess our mind when we thought of the 200 sums we were supposed to solve during the holidays. We would look at it like this, "It needs only 20 days at the rate of 10 sums a day".... But when 20 days were left we would still not start doing it and then we would think of solving 15 sums a day. But now the days seemed very short. As the time passed, school fear intensified. Some boys preferred being caned by teachers to the torture of solving the sums. Though I was much frightened, I also took heart by looking at the "brave" ones.

At such times Ghaniya was our model. He was short in stature. Running his hands over his cropped head and winking his round bulging eyes, he would say in a carefree way, "Don’t you worry, a couple of whip lashes does no harm to the hips".... Whenever he quarrelled with somebody, he abused in English, "son of a bitch...." when somebody asked him the meaning of it, he would make a monkey face and say, "What is there in meaning? Did not the abuse hit you like a rock? Are you not hurt? Bloody English is like the stones along the railway track, it injures you wherever it strikes. Do you understand the meaning now....?"

Our school was a small nine-room structure designed in the shape of the letter "H"in the English alphabet. The first room on the right was that of the head master Madan Mohan Sharma. a reed screen covered its door. Mr Sharma would emerge out of his room at the time of the morning prayer on the open ground. He would brighten up at the sight of the boys standing in neat rows for the prayer. All teachers also stood in a line to the left of the head master. Only master Pritam Chand, physical training instructor, would move around to see whether everybody was standing in military style. Afraid of his curses and kicks we would maintain it. I have not seen or heard of a more strict teacher throughout my life. He would severely punish children if they did not maintain proper order. All boys in the school called him "tom cat" in utter contempt.

One day I asked Ghaniya why he was called "tom-cat". He contorted his face and said, "What a fool you are! Can’t you see his cat-like brown eyes and, second, he pounces upon his victims like a wild tom cat as if he would tear the entrails out of you. Should we call him a squirril and not a tom cat?"...... School for the boys like me was not a happy place. From the first to the fourth class most of the boys reluctantly went there. I still remember, many of them were literally pushed out of their homes to the school and their unwashed and sour faces had lines of dried tears. When such boys were caught by the "tom-cat", they could not even weep. Some of them would silently wail in agony and even faint as they were hit. When Mr Sharma heard of such things, he would call Pritam Chand and pull him up. But he would say calmly, "I can’t tolerate it, Sir. If you do not like it, get me transferred to some other school."

Sometimes we liked the school when "tom cat" would teach us scouting drill in a khaki uniform with blue and yellow flags — one-two-three, three-two-one. When we did it in perfect order, his eyes would glisten and he would applaud. His praise was more valuable to us than all the "good" points given in our notebooks by other teachers.....

At that time I could not understand why Natha Bhishti visited Jaito Mandi everyday. Whenever he came there he made it a point to visit my uncle (taiya) at his workshop. He held a heavy lathi in his hand and was bow-legged. Being a little obese he would sway as he walked.... My uncle usually beamed a welcome smile. He welcomed him in such a jovial manner that all my fear of uncle’s stern behaviour would disappear. Leaving my play half way I would come running to his side and get lost in their long exchange of wisdom. Other children would keep playing in the compound.... And when he realised that it was time to go back to the village riding one of the grain carts that had come to the mandi to sell grain, he would rise and say, "Well, I take your leave now or I will be late. I have yet to buy some grocery from the shop of Phuman Mal. My uncle would say, "What a grand find... Your Phuman Mal is a cheat of the first water." Natha would burst into laughter and say, "What will he cheat me of? I buy on credit and pay him in kind after the rabi and kharif harvests. Payment of interest is put off. He keeps on chasing me biding his time. And you know, I don’t yield anything to such a person. He reaches the well, I am out in the field. Where will he find me? He can’t stop selling me either lest his earlier credit should be lost. I keep my account like this that I pay every legitimate paisa for the purchases but never pay anything towards interest. So do you understand?"My uncle would have a hearty laugh — "I never knew you have become so wise...."

Uncle was fond of working with iron but my father felt more at ease with wood.... when my father needed the help of Budha, our helper in the workshop, my uncle sent him. At such a time he had to work the furnace air pump himself and heat the iron to a red hot temperature. Sometimes he would allow me to help him with the air pump which I immensely liked. I would love operating it with all my strength and see the iron heated in the furnace. I felt a strange contentment.....

In the night sometimes I would sleep with my uncle. He would narrate some fairy tale.... His heroes were princes who would perform miracles. Their elephants, horses, servants and friends, everybody had miraculous power. They could bring out water from the bowels of the earth by shooting their arrows. They could slit a tiger’s entrails out as somebody cuts a melon. When they ventured out in search of a princess, whose smile bloomed like a flower, they surmounted dangerous hurdles and inaccessible peaks. They would cheerfully undergo all trials in order to meet the princess with an enchanting smile. But in the end, they would always retrieve her and come back to their own land to live happily thereafter....

In the cattle fair at Mandi there was much entertainment. Kavishers would sing songs of the valour of folk heroes. There were shows (akharas) of dancing boys with music and songs. In the afternoon farmers, after selling their cattle, would sit in a circle with liquor bottles in their bags. Young handsome boys with a gaudy make-up would dance in silken skirts (ghagras) held by silken strings. They had closely shaved their beards. Their eyes were touched up with antimony and the lips had dark red colour of the walnut bark. Their hair was adorned with dome-like (saggi-phul) ornaments. They had silk shirts, striped head-scarfs(chunni) and they would clap and dance like eunuchs. The people would shower silver coins on them. Some inebriated ones would hold the coin between their teeth and the dancing boy would understand the gesture kicked up and snatch the coin with his teeth. There was a dancing boy by the name Barkat. He was famous as "Faridkotia dancer". They say he was the dancer at the court of the Raja of Faridkot. He was of medium stature, had a slim body, wheatish complexion and sharp feminine features. He attracted the maximum crowd....

As we were trying to spot a place to watch the performance, a camel kicked my friend Ismail. He was thrown like a football. The man on the camel pulled at the reins and mercilessly whipped the camel raising a lot of dust from its neck. We ran to Ismail’s rescue. His knees were injured but there was nothing serious. Diala spat on his knees and rubbed them and dragged him away ..... The camel rider now started cursing him in a filthy language — "You son of a bitch.... Had you been killed your mother picking up her heavy skirt would have come running. Loudly wailing and screaming, she would say, ‘My prince-like son has been killed!’ These urban women have nothing to do except to breed like flies. I would have been charged with murder. Bloody mother riders, if you have given birth to so many, now take care of them properly. They huddle them together like chicks and let them out in the morning..." He was drunk. His camel was really beastly. It had black ears with dark black eyes. When it looked around, it looked like a demon.....

Barkat had worn a red shirt over a green skirt (ghagra). He would clap and spin like a top in the centre of the arena and then would come in front of his musicians. When he did this his skirt would billow like an umbrella. Underneath his white legs were visible and the inebriated farmers would go mad and shout hysterically. Barkat would hold his head-scarf by its ends and open it like the wings of a bird and the tasselled braid would sway in the wind.The people sitting around would heave deep sighs. A tall stout young man with a trimmed beard rose in front of us. He wobbled as he got up and thumping his chest, he shouted in a frenzy, "You’ve squeezed life out of us, Barkatia!" His friends pulled him down and made him sit.... Clad in new and old dresses with multi-coloured turbans on their head, tall six-footer Malwais would sit around in a ring like charmed snakes and the long necks of the snorting camels above them looked like the hoods of hissing cobras. As the red disc of the sun went down, the camels and horses set off in all directions with jingling chains around their knees or their neck, trumpeting like elephants, their riders swaying back and forth. They kick up clouds of dust all over.The earth shook as the horses galloped past. The waves of colourful turbans looked like a rainbow in this cloud of dust. Barkat had disappeared like a shadow.

I was suffering from chronic malaria which the doctors at Jaito Mandi diagnosed as tuberculosis. My family was worried. My elder sister Seeto also died of consumption at a young age. My father took me to Patiala where I had an x-ray examination and the doctors said my lungs were clear... Still my father talked to some relatives of consumption patients, and they advised that I should be taken to Kasauli where fresh air would heal whatever the disease.... We set out for Kasauli via Ambala and Kalka. It was evening when we reached there. My father was overjoyed to see electric lights in the town market..... We enquired about the gurdwara. Just at the foot of the Kasauli hill there was a small but beautiful gurdwara. We spent the night there. In the morning we had bath and then we went for breakfast in a eating house in front of the gurdwara. The owner gave us every information about the area. A mile or so towards north, there was a village where a number of Punjabi families had settled. They rented out rooms. The very first house at the end of the narrow path was that of Dr Badri Nath. We knocked at the door. The inmates welcomed us as if they already knew us. My father was surprised to learn that it was a simple family exactly like our own.... They had dug out a room from the hill side. We took this room, bought some provisions from the market. After two days my father left me in the care of that family. The boy of the family Sujit became my friend.... My mother also joined me after a few days. Both my mother and I were supposed to spend the summer there. We had become very friendly with the family of our house-owner.... We spent two months there and when we went back my health had improved a lot... Next summer again my father left my mother and me at Kasauli. This time that family gave us a room in the main house itself. After a month my father brought my tool-box and talked to a Kasauli carpenter to give me work. He then took my mother back. Sujit’s mother became very sick. She was shifted to Delhi.... I met Mistry Pakhar Singh at Sanawar who asked me about my training as a carpenter. When I told him that I was a trained carpenter and also had all the tools, he invited me to work with him at one and half rupees a day.... After a month and half I was tired of this work. I told Pakhar that I wanted to go back home and asked him to settle my accounts.... After a few days I along with Pritam (another boy carpenter) went around Kasauli bungalows in search of work. We found work with a family that had just migrated from Rawalpindi.... Pakistan had not yet come into existence but a decision to that effect had been taken and there were pre-partition riots everywhere.....

One day my father reached Kasauli with a heavy sword in his hand. He had come to take me back in the wake of the riots. All the Kasauli Muslims had suddenly disappeared the previous night under the cover of darkness. We walked down toKalka in the evening...... Somehow we reached Jaito Mandi the next day..... A few days after when in the evening four or five of my friends were sitting on a bench at the railway platform, a train steamed in. It had come from Bathinda and was going to Muktsar and Fazilka. There was commotion as the train stopped. I did not know from where two or three tall hefty men armed with swords and spears had come there.They were dragging a 30 or 40 year-old man and a woman out of a compartment who were resisting with all their might. Then in no time some people from inside pushed them out and they fell on the platform. As they got up their two young children also came down and clinging to their legs, started screaming in terrified voice that pierced the sky. Meanwhile the train steamed off... All the four were led to a deserted place at a distance. The woman wailed and screamed uncontrollably, beseeching and imploring the armed men to spare their lives. But the man with the sword with bushy beard was saying, "We are not going to harm you. We will send you to Pakistan. You are bound for it, is not it?" The woman wept, touching their feet in utter supplication. Her husband stood petrified at a distance. The children would sometimes cling to the mother and at others the father. Then the man with the sword shouted "Take off your clothes so that you are packed off to Pakistan."But the woman went on wailing and screaming. The man with the spear tore her shirt and salwar. She was naked and could be seen from a distance in the moonlight. The man with the sword at once struck and cut off her breasts. She became unconscious and was silent. Both children fell on the blood-soaked body of the mother. The man with the sword gave a couple of blows and the children also fell silent. There was a pool of blood around them. I started feeling giddy but Diala held me by the arm.... The husband of the dead woman ran for his life.... The man with the sword called back the people chasing him, "He can’t escape. He’ll he caught and killed in the next village...." My legs had given way... Diala was proudly stating, "We cut to pieces three women in the Teli mohalla after tearing their clothes off.... About 50 or 60 families of refugees from Pakistan say, "We have been treated like this on the other side of the border....."

Now half a century has gone by when this incident took place. A new colony has come up at the place where I had seen the dead bodies of that woman and her children. A friend of mine lives there whom I often visit. But even today I distinctly see the dead bodies of that naked woman and her children.

They reject the concept of nation-state
by Bhupinder Brar

The Marginal Nation: Transborder Migration from Bangladesh to West Bengal by Ranabir Samaddar. Sage Publications, New Delhi. Pages 228. Rs 325.

IF the South Asian states had their way, the subcontinent would be nothing but neatly carved nations. People would then not merely accept the boundaries drawn around them, they would also respect them, consider them sacrosanct, and live and die for them. Borders would be more vital to their lives than bread, national honour dearer than home. No one would ever want to leave the "sacred motherland", whatever the compulsions, and whatever the costs.

The South Asian states have not had their way, however. Loyalties of their populations have remained divided, and their borders are challenged constantly, as much from within as from outside. If there are those within their territories who are willing to die defending the boundaries, there are also others who are equally willing to die, not to protect these boundaries but in order to erase them. Feeling trapped as if they were internal colonies, several religious and ethnic groups have in all these countries made desperate moves to break loose, and they have waged protracted violent struggles which the states with all their military might have been unable to put down.

Such separatist movements have been studied extensively by scholars. What they have not focused so much on is another set of people who also opt out, but for less spectacular reasons and in less spectacular ways. In ones and twos, they move stealthily and illegally across the borders in the middle of night. They are the transborder migrants in search of livelihood and security. States try to prevent them from leaving or from coming in. They try to push them back. But their number has increased over the years and they are a source of tension between states.

Samaddar’s book is about such migrants, but his is not an attempt typical of a demographer mapping population flows, or of an economist interested in causes and effects of labour movement. Samaddar relates to these migrants because their story represents the grey areas of nation-making in South Asia. These people live on the margins of nations as marginal men and women before they decide to move, and when they move they demonstrate in turn how marginal the issues of nationalism and nationhood are to their lives. Hence the suggestive title of the book.

Why do such people belong to the margins of nations? Did they always do so, and must they always belong there? Samaddar’s answers to these questions are at once insightful, innovative and provocative. No, he would argue, they did not belong to margins before the nation-making states arrived on the scene.

These people had lived out their material and cultural lives rooted firmly and organically in their respective regions. They had lived there for generations, if not "from times immemorial". The region was central to their existence just as, they felt, they were "centered" in their region.

The good thing about regions is that they do not have sharply drawn boundaries. They fade in and fade out gradually on a geographical continuum. There are thus no margins to a region and, as such, these people could not have lived on the margins.

On the other hand, a nation state must insist on sharp boundaries which separate the "inside" from the "outside", and thereby "insiders" from the "outsiders". They must project common history even if such history has to be invented. They must celebrate common "national" culture even if such culture is in reality the culture only of the dominant majority. They must project a common national destiny even if such destiny excludes equally valid alternative visions of future. Nations must have a "national" core towards which all territories, cultures and visions must gravitate. They must assimilate and lose distinct identities in the melting pot.

Obviously, there are those who refuse to melt, and there are those who fail to do so. Such peoples are seen as threats to national unity and security. They are sought to be curtailed and their cultures and regions marginalised. For the linguistic, ethnic or religious minorities, organised resistance against majoritarian nationalism may well be a viable option. For the disorganised and the vulnerable poor, however, there is no choice but to migrate.

Samaddar’s point, therefore, would be that just as at one level the separatism of ethnic and cultural minorities exposes how artificial, arbitrary, unjust and oppressive "national" borders are, transborder migrations do the same at another level. The latter may not be as heroic or dramatic in appearance but it is probably more significant than the former in its implications.

What the separatist movements prove is a limited point. They tell us that states which set out to assimilate minorities in their nation-building zeal did not succeed. However, the separatist movements are no less smitten by the idea of nationalism, nationhood and sovereign nation-states than those who tried to assimilate them. They rebel, but their rebellion is just a mirror image of the oppression of the oppressor.

The transborder migrants, on the other hand, prove much more. They prove the artificiality not of this particular nation-state or the other, but of the very idea of nation-state. They prove how in the last analysis bread is more important to people than borders.

Little wonder, then, that South Asia has not proved to be a set of seven distinct melting pots, tight lids firmly secured on them. It has proved instead to be a set of boiling pots. When the contents of these pots boil, they boil over invariably and inevitably into one another. Tightly secured lids are in such conditions not merely futile but also dangerous. They could blow off violently, or even blow up the pots themselves.

Unmindful of these lurking dangers, the South Asian states remain engaged in aggressive nationalism. No wonder that they constantly evoke in one another an extreme sense of insecurity. That leads in turn to arms build-up and arms race. It also leads to garrison mentality, regimentation, excessive centralisation, suppression of democracy and human rights — all in the name of national security.

This is a vicious cycle that helps no one but its costs are staggering. It occurs at the expense of development, democracy, peace, poverty alleviation and human rights. This cycle must be broken. That can be done only by looking beyond exclusionary and aggressive forms of nationalism.

Samaddar argues therefore for a more pluralistic, porous and open South Asia. If the states of the subcontinent were to heed his sane voice, they would solve many problems of their own making, transborder migration being just one of them.