There is a need to re-conceptualise the idea of South Asia as people with shared histories, Kanak Mani Dixit, editor of ‘Himal Southasian,’ a quarterly review magazine covering politics and culture, said at a lecture in the city on Thursday.
Speaking at the ‘R&D lecture series’ organised by the Humanities and Social Sciences department of IIT-Madras, Mr. Dixit urged the audience to resist the programmatic way of thinking about South Asia as nation states. “Instead of ultra-nationalism, we must use our shared cultural identities and kickstart economic growth,” he said.
“Summits such as the SAARC summit bring only nation states together. It has been converted into place where head of states grandstand to their public. We must learn to think of South Asia beyond SAARC,” he said.
He proposed that States that share borders with other countries (for instance, Sind province in Pakistan and Gujarat and Rajasthan), must have more autonomy so that they can pursue their own economic plan. “The federal structure in all of the South Asian countries must be deepened, so that people-to-people contact with other States can improve,” he said.
