ABSTRACT
South Asia as a post-colonial as well as a post-partition region has a lot to offer to those interested in the geopolitical triad of bordering, ordering and othering. It is useful to acknowledge at the outset that contemporary South Asia is, paradoxically, both a rich and poor region due to the mismatch between opportunities and capacities. The political acrimony in South Asia continues to overshadow the prospects of economic linkages and trade flows, despite occasional sparks of hope. Hard borders embody and represent political anxieties between neighbors. In South Asia, borderlands are in most cases considered as homelands. It is argued by Emmanuel Brunet-Jailly that to “understand borders and borderlands, social scientists need to focus on lenses of analysis that underscore the tug of war between agency and structural processes”. Further, Emmanuel added that “complex social processes that establishes borders”.
