Writing this in the month that marks yet another year of our Independence reminds us of physical orders that were marked off in different parts of Asia and Africa in the last century. It gives us a chance to think about walls of different kinds in our physical world while the www of internet operates in ether. Natural borders like the Himalayas have caused different kinds of linked societies to develop over the millennia but have man-made walls done well? The Great Wall of China did not. Nor did the Berlin Wall.
Ever since the Stone Age, people have lived in “trust” groups of 15 or 20 with whom they hunted or traded; or with whom they had children. Even a casual look at patterns of life in villages and small towns shows us that this has not changed very much. Why? Because people are by nature clannish and tribal. The reason large groups of strangers (or any stranger at all) is viewed with suspicion is because we immediately feel threatened with disruption or wonder which way things might go. Since it is better policy to be safe than sorry we “wall” off the stranger or strangers.
Paul Salopek, who undertook to follow the “Road out of Eden” travelling from Africa on foot, outward into different parts of the world, was recently in India where he found the borders between India and Pakistan utterly artificial. True there were Hindus amongst Muslims on one side and Muslims among Hindus on the other, but “People on both sides are Punjabis. They grow the same crops, like the same music, eat the same foods and dress similarly.” Salopek also dwelt at some length on the sociology of walls and borders saying that if you travelled at great speed over geographic terrain in a car or train or plane you never really come into contact with people except in artificial environments like airports.
As Salopek travels from country to country, culture to culture, he finds people to be pretty much the same. “I don’t see colour or language any more. Whether it is a Bedouin nomad in Saudi Arabia, a photojournalist from Turkey or a brilliant scientist in Georgia, they all talk about the same things — family, jobs, governments, climate change, about what they have or do not have. Worries are the same; so are their hopes.”
Erasing borders
Geographical borders are fluid; they might change with war, policies or famines but the border that divides our inner and outer selves is the ultimate border that should really concern us. They are walls of prejudice, of ignorance, of fear and worst of all — pride in being all of these things. They give us a false sense of security and safety.
Possibly because the world seems to be shrinking with electronic communication creating a borderless world, the walls in the mind are gaining strength. Do we still surround ourselves with fences and walls? Of course we do and the invisible ones are the hardest to break down. Most people feel safe in communities that subscribe to the same beliefs and norms and right or wrong cling to the same patterns of social behaviour. Surely therefore the ultimate border is the human skin: the wall between the inner and the outer self which is the border we can’t seem to get rid of. All spiritual quests have been journeys of the mind to get through this final emotional frontier, the fence of the self. Surely ‘independence’ is to control strong personal prejudices and communicate meaningfully with the other.
Mini Krishnan is Series Editor, Living in Harmony, Oxford University Press, India
