Vivek H. Dehejia
This morning, I was reflecting on some tweets by one of INI’s bloggers and tweeters, @pragmatic_d, who was questioning the proliferation of the term “South Asia” to describe the region in which we fall. He asked the question, if you’re generalizing about “South Asia”, test your idea out on (say) Bhutan, Maldives, and Nepal, and then see if the generalization holds.
As someone who spends a good chunk of the year in North America, and who was educated, and works in, the North American academic system, this struck a chord with me. So often, one will read about chairs, lectures, centres, institutes, whatever of “South Asian Studies”, when what is really meant is usually Indian studies. Sometimes, one sees the illogical formulation “Indian and South Asian Studies”. If India is indeed part of South Asia, then it’s redundant, and, if we’re not, it’s just wrong. Either way, it doesn’t make sense.
The reason, in my view, is some combination of political correctness, bland generalization of the unknown “Other”, stereotyping, or simply intellectual laziness. After all, if you don’t really know the difference between India and other countries in this general geographical region, you can just lump them all together under the moniker “South Asia” and hope what you’re saying is right about some of them.
It’s not always so innocuous (even though intellectual laziness isn’t really – although I won’t belabour the point). Sometimes, in the attempt to perpetuate a failing multicultural ideology, groups of people are clubbed together for reasons of convenience – say, for instance, to apply for grants. So there is one pot of money from which (say) a Bharatanatyam school and a Nepali folk dance school would receive funds, so they all classify themselves as “South Asian” to qualify for those funds.
There is also the uneasy relationship between non-resident Indians and Pakistanis in North America. Not willing, or able, to discuss politics openly, they obfuscate, and just say we’re all the same, it’s all South Asia, there’s no real difference between India and Pakistan. This is self-evidently not the case, as recent events in Pakistan clearly demonstrate. Yet it takes courage to articulate this position when you’re a vulnerable minority in a sea of white faces, many of whom don’t want any of you there in the first place. So you just shut up and nod and smile nicely and say “Yes, sir, we’re all like that only, sir, we’re all South Asians”. If you’re lucky, you get a pat on the back, a gold sticker pinned to your lapel, and told you’re a “good” immigrant.
Equally exasperating, I was reflecting on the fact that in Western media, the BJP almost always gets saddled with the prefix, “Hindu nationalist”. Now, before I continue further, let me say in the interests of full disclosure that I never have, do not today, and likely never will, belong to any political party. I cherish my intellectual freedom and autonomy too much to tether myself to any one political party’s ideology, even though I may find parts of its manifesto attractive.
Still, every Indian, whatever party you belong to, or don’t, should be annoyed by this. After all, wouldn’t Americans be annoyed if say the Indian media always tagged the Republican Party as “fundamentalist Christian”? There are lots of those on the right wing of the Republican Party, and in the new Tea Party movement, its offshoot, certainly as many as there are “Hindu fundamentalists” in the BJP. Both parties, though, are big tents, and have as many economic liberals who are secular and non-religious, or even anti-religious, within their ranks.
It reflects a basically patronizing and if I may say neo-colonial mode of thinking. A political party in India can’t just be a political party. It has to be modified, tagged, and explained to the Western audience as being “Hindu fundamentalist” or “right wing” or whatever else. By the same token, some foreign media routinely tag the Congress Party as “socialist” or “left wing”. While this may be closer to the truth, it’s still equally ridiculous. We’re not tagging the Democratic Party as (say) “trade-union-influenced” all the time, are we? To borrow a trope from the late Edward Said, the “Other” gets exoticized, and thereby dehumanized.
Let’s not forget the great lesson of George Orwell and “Newspeak”: words do matter, and how we describe things in words isn’t innocuous, it often reflects politics, ideology, or something else even more sinister. So let’s banish “South Asia” from our vocabulary, and not add gratuitous labels where none are needed.
Vivek H. Dehejia, economist, professor, and writer, comments on the politics of economics in India. You may follow him on Twitter@vdehejia.
You’re right in saying that political correctness plays a role in the use of the term ‘South Asia’, but I would say that it’s acceptably PC. It’s funny how the tiniest countries: Bhutan, the Maldives and Nepal are mentioned in the ‘South Asian’ context, but not the key bigger players: Pakistan and Bangladesh. Or Sri Lanka. (If allowed I’d quibble that even Afghanistan to an extent is within the confines of south Asia.)
Even if one were to dismiss the smaller countries as being irrelevant to the kind of discussions you mention – not calling the region (or the people from there) South Asia would be rather inconsiderate of over 300 million people, the populations of Pakistan and Bangladesh combined.
The “recent events in Pakistan clearly demonstrate” the systemic failure in governance and the intense radicalisation of the country, but they don’t negate the ethnic and cultural commonalities between the people in the three large countries in the region.
Almost the entire south asian region is vibrantly multi-lingual, culturally diverse, and has been shaped by the same historical forces… but I guess if one is determined to look for differences (and more specifically, perhaps if one is desperate to distance India from even a token association with Pakistan), then I admit that it’s a bit hard to stop it.
PS:
You make some excellent points. My point is not to deny the cultural commonalities across the large countries in the region – that would be folly. Indeed, there is much to celebrate here. The culture of India itself is a testament to absorbing influences from many cultures, languages, religions, etc. My point is that the use of the term South Asia in the North American context is not a reflection on this cultural pluralism, but rather a convenient, politically correct, and often lazy moniker. There is a world of difference between pointing out legitimate and important differences between the polities of India and Pakistan and in your words being “desperate” to distance them. No desperation is required. Facts speak for themselves.
“Even if one were to dismiss the smaller countries as being irrelevant to the kind of discussions you mention – not calling the region (or the people from there) South Asia would be rather inconsiderate of over 300 million people, the populations of Pakistan and Bangladesh combined.”
Would you rather be inconsiderate of 1100 million people from India than 300 million people of Pakistan and Bangladesh.
-Tarun
Resident of Indian Sub-continent
CONgress is more likely tagged “secular” and/or “centrist” by foreign journos who mostly hang out with Indian “secu-libers” – a jamat full of BJP-bashers so foreign ones pick up n parley their biases to the rest of world. An incestuous world of ELM.
To start off with, I must say that I agree more with your expanded article than what you’d originally put up. Calling things like Bhangra as south asian are completely asinine and artificial. (Aside: Coming from south India, I prefer calling Bhangra Punjabi rather than Indian, myself… given that I found many Americans who could identify better with Bhangra than I did.
)
However, I’m still against the hard-line stance of some of the other INI folk to “banish” the term South Asia. Like your title rightly points out, this is about the *abuse* of language. As you’ve pointed out, not only are there numerous cases of misuse, but there is also systemic abuse of the term south asia that is going on. However, in my professional and personal life I’ve come across many legitimate uses that justify the need for a name like south asia:
-South Asia as a geographic entity: I prefer it’s use in this context to “Indian subcontinent”. The PCness is reasonably justified.
-South Asia in climate change literature: The region as a whole is affected by the monsoon, faces a lot of the same challenges and problems.
-South Asia in development circles: While India on the whole is much better off than its neighbors in terms of development, sections and regions of India are often comparably terrible. The bureaucratic machinery and the nature of poverty are all quite similar across the board.
-South Asia in truly pluralistic cultural contexts. (Like some friends of mine at Madison, WI putting up annual performance of ‘Yoni ki baat’, a “south asian” take on the Vagina monologues. Here it was truly south asian: you had performances by Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Nepali women apart from several Indians which
When ‘South Asia’ is used for generalization, it will face the same problems as all other generalizations: of having significant exceptions. It should be used long as the usage is judicious and restricted to where it can be seen as a legitimate regional entity or as a fair generalization.
@Tarun
Calling the entire region as “South Asia” and using it to refer to 1.5 billion people is unfair to Indians? Is the use of the term “Asia” unfair to Indians as well? Or is that somehow okay?
Argh, I’m spamming your article now. Apologies. The comment box jammed up.
The full text was:
“-South Asia in truly pluralistic cultural contexts. (Like some friends of mine at Madison, WI putting up an annual performance of ‘Yoni ki baat’, a “south asian” take on the Vagina monologues. Here it was truly south asian: you had performances by Pakistani, Bangladeshi and Nepali women apart from several Indians which were woven together in an artless manner. “