Living on the Margins. Minorities in South Asia - EURAC

Trends
Production of communalism or minority repression is located in multiple realities and at
several levels. At one level, it is related to the various nationalist movements that
construct nationalist positions and its end product - the state. To an extent this is
inevitable given the political culture in South Asia and which relies almost entirely on
ethno-nationalist identities to produce the politics that creates the State.
For example, the Bangladesh nationalist movement was dominantly anti-Pakistani in
nature and did not have an anti-Hindu or minority construction. But the dynamics of the
situation in 1971 generated high repression of the Hindus and created opportunities to
grab Hindu property, belongings and business and subsequently was mainstreamed at the
national level after the war.
But there is another factor is influential. No state is friendly with each other in South Asia
and each minority has a counterpart population in another state. This results in minorities
acquiring a new meaning in the region. Thus the state level relationships amongst south
Asians determine how the minorities are treated by the state power holders. So the
Hindus in Bangladesh, Muslims and North Easterners in India, all minorities in Pakistan,
Tamils in Sri Lanka, madhesis in Nepal - are all mistreated. Minorities in fact become
proxy citizens of the other country and become the Enemy. This also prevents them from
being treated as a minority. As a full or part 'enemy' population, they have fewer rights.
The issue of the socio-economic vulnerability of minority groups is so contingent upon
various factors of statehood that it offers little by the way of relief for the beleaguered
populations strewn across south Asia. As it affects all south Asia and is linked to the
management of foreign policy and internal resource gathering including appropriation,
elimination of this phenomenon of marginalization, dispossession and exclusion is more
complex than the ability of one or two nations to address. Since Indian, Pakistan,
Bangladesh, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bhutan all have minority problems that result in creating
refugees, it is not the problem of a rogue state but common to the cluster of postcolonial
states that have emerged in the region and their collective inability to deal
equally and equitable with all population groups of their respective States.
Epilogue
Return of the 'native' Pinaki Das
After many summers, Pinaki Das has returned home to his native 'desh' in the Sylhet
district of Bangladesh bordering on Assam. He has begun to support social activities in
the locality. He finds his relationship with his fellow villagers has improved
dramatically. In fact, he has become a social leader, respected and loved in the area. He
has no desire to leave Bangladesh and go to India. He has found himself after so many
years after returning to the village from where it all began. 21
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