South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal 10 | 2014 Ideas of South Asia Symbolic Representations and Political Uses Aminah Mohammad-Arif and Blandine Ripert (dir.) Electronic version URL: http://journals.openedition.org/samaj/3699 DOI: 10.4000/samaj.3699 ISSN: 1960-6060 Publisher Association pour la recherche sur l'Asie du Sud (ARAS) Electronic reference Aminah Mohammad-Arif and Blandine Ripert (dir.), South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal, 10 | 2014, « Ideas of South Asia » [Online], Online since 25 December 2014, connection on 03 March 2020. URL : http://journals.openedition.org/samaj/3699 ; DOI:10.4000/samaj.3699 This text was automatically generated on 3 March 2020. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. 1 TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction. Imaginations and Constructions of South Asia: An Enchanting Abstraction? Aminah Mohammad-Arif ‘India, that is Bharat…’: One Country, Two Names Catherine Clémentin-Ojha India in the Muslim Imagination: Cartography and Landscape in 19th Century Urdu Literature Faisal Devji A Strange Love of the Land: Identity, Poetry and Politics in the (Un)Making of South Asia Sudipta Kaviraj Poetics and Politics of Borderland Dwelling: Baltis in Kargil Radhika Gupta Impasse and Opportunity: Reframing Postcolonial Territory at the India-Bangladesh Border Jason Cons Anthropology, Politics, and Place in Sri Lanka: South Asian Reflections from an Island Adrift Jonathan Spencer Thinking India in South Africa: Gandhi’s Conundrum Claude Markovits The Construction, Mobilization and Limits of South Asianism in North America Anouck Carsignol From South Asia to Southasianism: A Nepalese Activist’s Perspective An interview with Kanak Mani Dixit Blandine Ripert Afterword. On Region and Nation Sanjay Subrahmanyam South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal, 10 | 2014 2 Introduction. Imaginations and Constructions of South Asia: An Enchanting Abstraction? Aminah Mohammad-Arif Introduction1 South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal, 10 | 2014 3 1 The idea for this special issue of SAMAJ2 came up in 2010 when the Directorial Committee3 in charge of France’s largest research centre on South Asian studies tried to change its name from Centre d’Études de l’Inde et de l’Asie du Sud (Centre for Indian and South Asian Studies) to Centre d’Études Sud-Asiatiques (Centre for South Asian Studies). Our institutions, the EHESS and the CNRS, as well as a number of colleagues, objected to the change of the name, arguing that ‘Asie du Sud’ was too unfamiliar a term in France. The proposal was dropped but the objections triggered a curiosity to know more about the history of the name, its multiple meanings and uses, and the notion(s) behind it.4 2 The term ‘South Asia’ is indeed interesting for several reasons. First, it refers to a region5 where several religions, that may be identified with different ‘civilizations’, have been interacting, potentially challenging the idea that a region forms a cultural realm. Second is the ambivalent role of British colonization, which on the one hand laid the foundations (partly started by the Mughals) for a mental representation of the region, through its unification policies, and on the other contributed to create divisions between distinct states and across common cultures at the time of Independence. Third, the Indian Subcontinent, a more familiar term for ‘South Asia’, has been characterized by a tragic history that witnessed several partitions rendering notions of ‘region’ and ‘regionalism’ particularly sensitive. Fourth is the peculiar dominating position of a single country, India, and the specific nature of another one, Pakistan, which is the only country, along with Israel, established in the name of a religion (see Devji 2013). This gives both region and regionalism a unique flavour as compared to regional constructions in other parts of the world. 3 In this introduction, I will focus on the polysemy of the term ‘South Asia’, and the notions behind it. To highlight some of the underlying debates behind the politics of naming and the formation of a region(alism), I will take as entry points the multi- layered processes of construction, and deconstruction (through contestations), by various actors. I will thus try to answer the following questions: what does the expression ‘South Asia’ convey that ‘Indian Subcontinent’ does not? In other words, as a term, is ‘South Asia’ systematically interchangeable with ‘Indian Subcontinent’? The name ‘South Asia’ is only a few decades old, but how new is the process of imagining and constructing the region as a common cultural space? What are the underlying stakes and ideologies behind such constructions? In the process, different meanings of regionalism will be examined: first is the top-down construction of a series of economic and political institutions, whose aim is to foster collaboration between the different states of the Subcontinent; second is a bottom-up construction nurtured by a sentiment of belonging, which is expressed at the level of both emotions and practices. 4 Given the multiplicity of constructions, this special issue has been entitled ‘Ideas of South Asia’ but I will sometimes use the singular (‘idea’) whenever I mean South Asia as South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal, 10 | 2014 4 a civilizational entity. It should be noted that I am borrowing the phrase ‘idea(s) of South Asia from Sunil Khilnani’s The Idea of India (1997) not only because of its conceptual relevance but also because, as we shall see below, there may be some significant similitudes between both ‘ideas’. Since the use of the term ‘South Asia’ is at the core of the discussion here, I will use ‘Subcontinent’ to refer to the region in descriptive terms without endorsing it with any particular meaning (however the use of the word ‘Subcontinent’ will also be discussed in the conclusion). 5 The number of publications dealing with the notion of South Asia is fairly limited. This lack of reflective research work on South Asia as a category could be interlinked to the fact that most scholars work on a single country of the region. However, a few projects have emerged, almost simultaneously, in the past few years, as if time had come to reflect upon South Asia in its multiple dimensions, the name itself, the notions behind it, the issue of regionalism and so on. Among these projects is a book entitled South Asia 2060 (2013), in which the authors (academics, journalists, policy-makers, etc.) mostly express their views about the chances of success of ‘South Asia’ as an expression of regional construction. The journal Seminar (2012) has also published a special issue entitled A country of our own: A Symposium on Re-imagining South Asia which includes essays reflecting on the notion as a civilizational entity defined by historical and cultural continuities. But as interesting as these essays are, they do not fully address the category ‘South Asia’ as such (see infra). A book published by David Gellner (2013) does deal with South Asia as an analytical category but limits itself to the (admittedly stimulating) notion of ‘northern South Asia’, and focuses on ‘borderland lives’. Last but not least, the non-academic magazine Himal Southasian is devoted to publishing articles related to South Asia (see infra), including some that tackle the notion directly. The August 2008 special issue, entitled Southasian Exists, is a case in point, as several authors (including scholars, writers, journalists, human rights activists) comment on the notion of South Asia in short essays. Some of Himal Southasian’s most significant articles have been assembled in a book edited by Kanak Mani Dixit, The Southasian Sensibility. But although Himal Southasian’s articles are usually very articulate, they are not academic sources as such. This special issue will therefore attempt to partly fill the gap, although doing it is no easy chore. 6 Writing this introduction indeed turned out to be a difficult task for at least four reasons. First, the subject requires a constant shift from etymology to social sciences (see Emerson 1984: 14), i.e. from the name ‘South Asia’ to the multiple notion(s) behind it (region, regionalism, civilizational entity and so on), necessitating a constant vigilance so as not to confuse both. Second, it demands a multidisciplinary approach, including disciplines other than mine (anthropology), such as history and political science. Third, the magnitude of the task is such that some angles have been privileged (constructions from below, brief comparisons with Europe), while other aspects, which would have been interesting, have been left aside (such as the comparison with South America6) or only alluded to (like the geopolitical dimension). Fourth, the subject would necessitate thorough knowledge of several countries and parts of the Subcontinent whereas most of the empirical examples I have taken are only about India and Pakistan. The co-editor of this special issue, Blandine Ripert, and I have however solicited authors capable of covering other countries of the region (although unfortunately not all). South Asia Multidisciplinary Academic Journal, 10 | 2014 5 7 In this introduction, I will first examine the emergence of the category ‘South Asia’ by tracing the history of the term. In the process, without neglecting top-down constructions (as embodied by SAARC), I will pinpoint some of the contestations around the expression and the notions behind it, in order to highlight the limitations of the category, externally as well as internally. I will then show that, despite these caveats, ‘South Asia’ may not be a mere abstraction, by examining how the notion is constructed from below. In order to give anthropological substance to the argument, I will first study the everyday constructions of the notion and then focus on ‘conscious’ and more politicized constructions. Tracing the genealogy of the name 8 It is not easy to determine who first coined the word ‘South(ern) Asia’.