So, wild thought. Hear me out.
What if we rewrote the idea of South Asia? Not as a hot mess of sibling rivalries and closed borders, but as something far more ambitious. A united front. Not in a utopian, Bollywood ending kind of way, but in a “we’ve tried everything else, might as well try sanity” kind of way.
Imagine India, Pakistan, Bangladesh (and yes, Nepal, Bhutan, Maldives, and Sri Lanka) forming an economic and strategic bloc. Not just the old wine of SAARC or Akhand Bharat in a slightly less cracked bottle (or a crackpot head), but a reinvention. A common currency (are we willing to let go of the Rupee, or be strong enough to enforce it?). A free trade agreement (like open borders kind of free trade, with 0% duty and no non-tariff barriers). Joint defence. Shared intelligence (will ISI listen? Will RAW? I don’t know. That’s why we need political leaders controlling public discourse, and not the other way around). Collective bargaining on the world stage. The kind of partnership where we look at each other and say, “You know what? Maybe our real enemies aren’t each other.”
Yes, I know. History. Hurt. Ego. Religion. Borders drawn in blood. Speeches full of fire and fury. I’m not ignoring any of it. But at some point, we have to ask: is this working? Are we stronger alone? Are we safer? Happier? Healthier? Why can we not even moot such an idea? Maybe it will take a generation. Maybe two. Maybe more.
When Mao was asked about what he thought of the French Revolution, he famously (though most certainly apocryphally) quipped that it was early days yet to gauge its real impact. So, why think short-term? Why not think in generations? In decades? Indeed, in centuries?
And yes, I know there will always be bad actors. Terrorists, radicals, secessionists, religious extremists, ideological purists, and all sorts of generally angry people with flags, slogans, and an abundance of time. But haven’t they always existed? Did we ever live in a world free of them? Why let fear of them dictate the future of 2 billion people?
We can’t keep letting the worst of us write the rules for the rest of us.
We deal with them as they arise. Like we always have. Whack-a-mole, but with intelligence and resolve. Not paranoia.
Because the world is being carved up again. New empires. Old powers. Fresh playgrounds for the powerful. But this isn’t new. Only the actors have changed. The plot is the same. It is a cycle, and unless we find a way to speak with one voice, we will be spoken for. By people and powers we have no control over.
This is not impossible; it’s just inconvenient, which, in my experience, is often how good ideas start.
Maybe it’s time to revive something like the Non-Aligned Movement. Not for nostalgia. Not to wax lyrical about Nehru and Tito and Nasser. But out of necessity. A third way. A voice that says, “We’re not here to take sides. We’re here to take a stand.”
Anyway. These are just thoughts. Big ones. Scary ones. But if you’ve lived through enough like I have, you realise that fear is usually a sign you’re asking the right questions.
GB Shaw said (not apocryhally, in this case),
The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable man persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.
And maybe, just maybe, we can all be unreasonable for a while.
