Here is a riddle. After being in public life for decades, how was it possible for the dominant political elites of undivided India, with the sole exception of Mahatma Gandhi, not to anticipate the unprecedented violence that would accompany partition? Stranger still, the region’s post-independence elites seem to have learned nothing from this heartbreaking experience.

From the Battle of Plassey in 1757 to their departure in 1947, the British ruled the subcontinent for 190 years. Since then, as independent nations, India and Pakistan have spent almost 75 years. But over that long period of time, how successful have we been in managing our affairs fairly and impartially? Isn’t the region still in the grip of inter-community, intercast, interlinguistic, interethnic and above all inter-state conflicts?

What we continue to have instead are deafening and deceptive slogans extolling national greatness. A version of the Hindi slogan “Mera Bharat mahan” (my India is great) exists in all other parts of the region. The language used may be different, but the feeling is boring and similar.

For our own benefit, basking in such false glory must cease. We can start by recognizing that South Asia is one of the most unequal and conflict-torn regions in the world. Without internalizing this fundamental reality, we cannot move forward.

Numerous faults are rife in the region. For the purposes of this essay, we will only mention two. The first is the still exorcised ghost of communitarianism, which continues to haunt us ceaselessly. The second is the unrealized social agenda of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, separate from its political agenda.

As long as academic and social activist Asghar Ali Engineer (1939-2013) was with us, we had a steady supply of information on the causes of community riots in India. Through his writings and analyzes, Engineer explained how, in most cases, these riots were deliberately engineered by special interests. This is a point that the indefatigable Ravish Kumar, perhaps India’s most astute TV news anchor, continues to make. Last month’s anti-Hindu riots in Bangladesh are just the latest proof of this basic truth.

The comparison with the German experience is instructive. From the 1950s on, clear political interventions by the state sought to sensitize people against the danger of succumbing to the deeply regressive propensities of pre-war German society.

Comparison with Merkel

Lately, there are a few drops in the wind indicating a pro-Nazi resurgence, but Angela Merkel’s 16-year reign shows that mainstream German politics are sticking to their post-war commitments.

An exemplary and discreet leader, Merkel’s contributions will be remembered for two reasons, both relevant to our region. First, in the face of growing Islamophobia across Europe, she has risen up like a rock and opened her country’s borders to around one million Muslim refugees from West Asia. Second, from the Greek debt crunch to the Brexit turmoil, it has gone through one crisis after another, making sure nothing would tip the European Union’s boat.

From a recent column by Mark Tully in the Hindustan times, it is impossible to ignore how diametrically opposed Merkel is to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Merkel is low-key and not particularly articulate. She hates glamor and avoids sensationalism. A fervent Christian, she does not let her religiosity interfere with her role as a political leader.

And she assiduously avoids self-advertising. It is therefore not surprising that “last month a YouGov poll awarded Merkel the highest marks of all world leaders, indicating that there are other ways for politicians to acquire charisma than ‘self-promotion’.

But it’s not just Modi. One could go so far as to say that no leader in South Asia today compares to Merkel. Far from facing the threat of religious or ethnic fanaticism, our past and present leaders (with the notable exception of Pandit Nehru) have exploited them for short-term political ends. India and Sri Lanka provide the worst examples today.

SAARC vs. EU

Moving on to our second point, on the issue of regionalism, SAARC is lagging behind the European Union. Much has been written about his political failures, but his non-political failures are just as grotesque. The problem with most Third World nations, it seems, is that they prefer form over substance.

A few years ago, I put together a sample of five years of India’s bilateral agreements to assess their progress. My data has shown that agreements signed with developed countries fare much better than those signed with developing countries. These have often remained largely agreements on paper.

What is true for India’s bilateral agreements is also true for SAARC agreements. The list of failures is long: Regional Convention on Combating the Crime of Trafficking in Women and Children for Prostitution, SAARC Consortium on Open and Distance Learning, SAARC Agricultural Information Center (Dhaka) , SAARC Tuberculosis Center (Kathmandu), SAARC Documentation Center (New Delhi), SAARC Human Resource Development Center (Islamabad), SAARC Cultural Center (Kandy) and information from SAARC (Kathmandu).

We are far from done: SAARC Chamber of Commerce and Industry, South Asian Federation of Accountants, SAARCLAW, Architectural Bodies, SAARC Recognized Management and Development Institutions, Federation of Women Academics of Saarc, Association of Urban Planners of SAARC, Cardiac Society of SAARC, SAARC Forum of Diploma Engineers, Federation of Teachers of the Saar, Foundation of Writers and Literature of the Saar, Federation of State Insurance Bodies , Society of radiology of the countries of the Saar, Society of surgical care of the Saarc, Saarc of dermatologists, venereologists and leprologists … the list goes on.

How many of us remember SAARC Audio Visual Exchange? It was intended to broadcast general interest programs produced throughout the region on national television channels. The project collapsed under pressure from cable TV, but was it so difficult to foresee this challenge? The universal domination of politics was so complete that everything else took a back seat.

In short, regional elites have failed to engender even a semblance of regional consciousness. But their failure does not mean that such consciousness does not have organic roots. Here is a small example: the Architects Asia Cup.

This tournament is made up of teams from India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Thailand and Malaysia. Each year they meet in a different South Asian city and play cricket. They compete, they make new friends. Imagine what can be achieved if we open the doors to South Asian tourism and large-scale cultural exchange.

Community hatred

I have sufficient personal experience to end this column. In March 2002, I was invited to speak at the International Islamic University in Islamabad. Held against the backdrop of the Hindu-Muslim riots in Gujarat a few weeks earlier, I thought it was safe to start with a few thoughts on what had happened.

Without mince words, I told my audience that a riot was inevitable given the circumstances. The stage had been set since the mid-1980s, thanks to the community build-up of the Ram Temple movement. The spark was provided by the burning to death of 59 Hindu pilgrims on a train in Godhra, allegedly by Muslim extremists. What was not inevitable, however, was the duration of the riots. Gujarat-era chief minister Narendra Modi was (willfully?) Nonchalant in his response and his negligence gave Hindu rioters carte blanche.

About 2,000 people – the vast majority Muslim – were massacred. I then compared the situation to the anti-Tamil riots that rocked Colombo in July 1983. President Junius Jayewardene had also been slow (again, allegedly deliberately) to act, thus giving the Sinhala rioters four days to unleash their anti-pogrom. -tamoul. .

What struck me most was the lively and open discussion that followed, which focused mainly on the sectarian failures of the state in Pakistan and India.

In the Pakistani case, my audience explained, it was enough to replace the Hindu-Muslims with the Shiite-Sunnis. Not for once did I feel like I was not addressing a crowd of students from Jawaharlal Nehru University. My thoughtful view is that South Asian regionalism will be more secure in the hands of the common man. Too long, we have trusted our political classes to be overwhelmed with misery, mistrust and wickedness.

Partha S Ghosh is Senior Fellow, Institute of Social Sciences, New Delhi.

This article first appeared in Dhaka Tribune.