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Post-Westphalia, development of international relations and law
were Euro-centric. Two World Wars brought America as a major
player. Freedom of colonies allowed some role to the countries
of Asia and Africa but the law still remained West-oriented
informed by the hegemony of modernising discourse. Chaturvedi
underlines three stages of this growth of law and hegemony. The
civilisational stage emphasised the civilising role of Europe.
The next stage was of the Darwinian theory of natural selection,
emphasising the natural superiority of Europeans and the need
for expansion of their home space as lords and masters. The last
stage has been termed as ‘Ideological,’ with the start of
the Cold War. After 1989, the USA wanted to emerge as the Asian
power too. He feels that geo-politics should be polycentric
allowing a role to civil society and not centered on nation or
state only. He wants multiplicity of small resistances.
Chaturvedi’s prescription suffers because of negation of the
logic of economies of scale and power of state.
Paula Banarjee
thinks that the term ‘frontier’ has psychological tinge of
desire of expansion. ‘Border’ is precisely defined boundary.
In Western discourse, borders create ‘nations.’ Contiguous
to border are borderlands. These are the spaces of sharing as
also of conflicts. In a very perceptive analysis, she argues
that historically Indians had no idea of a precise border. Even
a village, the basic social and administrative unit, did not
have defined border. The Empires of the North had no concept of
oceanic boundary. Borders of the North gradually faded into the
hills and snows of the Himalayas. The imperial Britain, however,
created a cartographic border for India, which India inherited
on Independence. The Indian state or diplomacy had no idea of
creating a border historically, politically or naturally. This,
Banerjee feels, is at the root of our border disputes all
around. Historically, the main issue of border in the North was
of protection of trade routes and transfer of the right of their
protection. Once the issue of protection of trade routes is
sorted out, the rest will be easy, according to Bannerjee.
Looking to the direction of latest negotiations between India
and China, Banerjee seems to be right.
In an essay, Anita
Sengupta narrates the problems of state formation in terms of
linguistic and ethnic nationalities in Turkmenistan areas at the
dawn of Socialist Russia. Any solution resulted in no
nationality, except Uzbeks in one area, having any ethnic or
linguistic absolute majority. Ultimately, the idea had to be
abandoned and the right to secession revoked. Result was a
centralised order of client states at the periphery of a central
core.
The USA has to
beware of the pitfalls in its imperial project in Asia. Indrani
Chatterjee brings out the diplomatic dilemma of Britain in the
great game in the context of slave trade in Central Asia and
northern parts of India. It wanted abolition of slavery but
wanted payment to owners in turn to respect the right of
property. However, it did not want to undertake the financial
liability. Also the slave trade territories belonged to China or
Khanates or the Kashmir state. It cleverly evolved the policy of
only the last generation of slaves being freed and that too at
the cost of Kashmir on the Indian side while encouraging China
to fund the release of entire families in their territory.
Rita Manchanda and
Samaddar emphasise the necessity of dialogue between India and
Pakistan. Manchanda points to the continuity of peace
initiatives at various levels during the entire history of
conflict. This, for her, shows the larger desire for peace,
which is possible through a larger role for civil society. The
fact is that there is no strong peace constituency, more so in
Pakistan. Only a strong and well-knit interest group badly
affected by hostilities can form a strong constituency of peace.
In modern times trade, industry and migrant professionals form
such constituency. However, industrialists and traders, more so
from Pakistan, want protection from the other and are,
therefore, anti-trade. Samaddar rightly bemoans the tendency to
talk down and not to talk with in the dialogue.
The last essay by
Samaddar is must-read for its perceptive analysis of post-Cold
War developments. Challenging the epistemological basis of Cold
War historiography and calling the Cold War period as the
longest period of peace, he calls it a period of continuous
scattered low-level wars having their own history. Samaddar
feels that nation-state means investment in citizenship. This
creates the ‘other’ of non-citizen. And the most important
non-citizen is the migrant. Europe, during inter-war period,
expelled its own other, ‘the Jew,’ to consolidate its
citizenship. However, the post-war period saw new migrants.
Colonisation had seen the creation of largest number of global
migrants. The problem of investing them with citizenship still
remains unsolved. Samaddar feels that the present theory of
international relations is totally incapable of dealing with
this problem.
Is this the end?
How is it different from ‘the end of the history’? Can a
coordinated international effort not succeed in creating state
in these war zones, since they are small areas? Can we not
bypass the process of state formation there? Can the process of
liberalisation of trade and movements not solve it? How do we
move towards universal citizenship without a universal empire?
Samaddar rightly leaves these questions for our investigation.
He has made a valuable contribution in raising these.
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