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Soft Borders
Prakash Nanda
Max Weber, one of the foremost intellectuals of the last century, had once argued that borders “are not simply lines on maps where one jurisdiction ends and another begins. … borders are political institutions: no rule-bound economic, social or political life can function without them.” Many admirers of Weber have even suggested that the whole history of human
organization and the modern state can be summarized as a continuous effort to bring territorial borders to coincide with systemic functional boundaries so that the entire population is subject to the widest possible common social, economic and political functions. The idea is that borders do not pose legitimacy problems, both within and beyond, in relation to identity, security and governance. And, for borders to become legitimate, it is universally accepted that they must be clearly delineated and
recognizable. Secondly, there should be international legal recognition of them, although in the cases of divided countries (India-Pakistan, Israel-Palestine, China-Taiwan), the strictest application of this criterion could be little tricky.
How does this Weberian maxim hold in the wake of General Pervez Musharraf’s last visit to India? The Pakistani strongman now says that since he would never accept the LoC in Kashmir as the international border and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is talking of making borders ‘irrelevant’, an attempt should be made at finding a way out. He, indeed, is in
favor of having ‘soft borders’. Incidentally, Musharraf had remarked that the recent opening of a bus service linking two parts of Kashmir is the first step towards a ‘soft border’ in the divided territory.
Musharraf may have talked of a soft border in the context of Kashmir. But his statement is sure to encourage all those in South Asia who have been advocating the free movement of people, ideas, goods and services inside the subcontinent in the same way as one sees them in the European Union (EU). Besides, the advocates of ‘soft borders’ cite the impacts of the irreversible ‘globalisation’ process in which it is difficult to confront seemingly national challenges without international cooperation. Whether it is trade or terrorism or environmental issues or illegal immigration, no country in the world is capable of solving them on its own. In this sense, the limitations of national sovereignty are to be seen in the context of the growing irrelevance of the traditional concept of borders. In the case of the Indian subcontinent, these features of international relations are argued to be all the more formidable since politically, culturally and economically, most of the subcontinent has, most of the time (historically), been one. Manmohan Singh (irrelevance of the borders) and Musharraf (soft border) may not have expressed it in so many words, but one can argue that their views revive the hopes of a South Asian confederation in which there will be sovereign entities but they will gradually have a common currency and common security.
It may be noted that the modern state-system is the legacy of what the political scientists call the Treaty of Westphalia. Here, the borders are hard and fixed, there is a high cultural and socio-economic homogeneity, there is one centre of authority and the redistribution of goods is centrally regulated, there is one single type of citizenship, and the army and police establish full sovereignty over the entire territory. But now, the trends are those of a neo-medieval empire where the borders are soft zones in flux, where socio-economic discrepancies persist and cultural identities coexist, where there is interpenetration between various types of political units and loyalties, where the distinction between the centre and periphery is the most crucial but blurred, where redistribution is based on different types of solidarities and transnational networks, where there are diversified kinds of citizenship with different sets of rights and duties, where there are variegated and overlapping military and police institutions, and where sovereignty is divided along functional and territorial lines. In fact, these new trends are most visible in the EU.
All this does not suggest that the EU is not facing challenges from within, from those who still see virtues in the Westphalian state system. Differences do exist among the EU members on its evolving constitution (French President J Chirac, a great votary of EU, is now beset with the most important political battle of his life on this score, following the rejection of the proposed constitution by his people). There are differing views on how to get the right balance between market-based economies and Europe’s chosen level of social protection. European countries still differ on how far to extend the boundaries of community activity, inter alia – Legal, Home Security, Education, Health and other social issues. They also disagree on how to confront the phenomena of immigration and cross-cultural integration. But over all, these differences are not of serious proportions to derail the EU as such. One may paraphrase here George Orwell – if all borders in Europe will become obsolete one day, some borders might become obsolete much more slowly than others.
What about South Asia? There can be no argument over the fact that the idea of soft borders needs to be systematically nurtured. After all, the concept of soft borders implies multiculturalism, multi-ethnicity and diversity that thinking citizens of the subcontinent stand for. The idea is also worth pursuing for the solidarity of and benefits to the people of the subcontinent.
At the same time, however, it is to be admitted that borders within the subcontinent will take much longer than those in the EU to become soft and irrelevant. Unlike the situation in the EU, in South Asia, the countries, at least the major ones, are not of equal size and strength. Europe has no single dominant state. The EU constructed around the first three, now seven large states. Europe never had one single dominant economy. But South Asia is essentially India-centric (and India cannot do anything about it); as a result the smaller countries always suspect Indian domination. There is then the added dimension of ‘religion’ (on the basis of which India was partitioned) at a time when fundamentalists are catching the imagination of the poor, unemployed youth and a section of the political leadership in the region. The Islamic fundamentalists, whatever the likes of Musharraf may say, are still hell-bent on disintegrating India; in fact some of them vow to fly their flag on the historic Red Fort of Delhi.
Viewed thus, the best option for South Asia at the moment is to have multifunctional borders. South Asian borders should be made soft, but in such a manner that they are easily convertible from soft and fuzzy entities into hard and sharply defined barriers when there are threats to the population, property and social
organizations. Because, it is impossible for borders as political institutions to
mobilize popular support if they cannot effectively protect the population living on a given territory. For instance, in the name of soft borders, one should not allow a situation when the ever-rising illegal influx of Bangladeshis into India changes the demographic composition of east and north-east India, which, in turn, could accelerate the demand for another partition of the country.
Whatever may be the merits of soft borders (some of which we have discussed), the fact remains that they cannot stem the simultaneous and equally popular tide of nationalism in the world. In post-Soviet Russia, nationalism is emerging both as a political tool by which a strongman ruler, Vladimir Putin, aims to unite a disoriented society. In the Arab world, a controversial satellite television channel (al Jazeera) has become the improbable vehicle for pan-Arab cultural solidarity, while America’s intervention in the region is spurring a nationalist sensibility in states including post-Saddam Iraq. In the US itself, the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the homeland have engendered a rally-around-the-flag patriotism not seen since Pearl Harbour.
America’s unabashed, flag-displaying patriotis–even the subway cars in the New York city system are adorned with American flag decals these days – is often remarked upon as a striking feature by foreign guests, and it indeed distinguishes the nation from most other mature Western democracies. In a World Values Survey taken in 1999-2000, 72 per cent of Americans said they were ‘very proud’ of their country, compared with 49 per cent of the British, 40 per cent of the French, 39 per cent of the Italians, and 20 per cent of the Dutch. “Americans have consistently and overwhelmingly been foremost among peoples in their patriotism and their identification with their country,” the political scientist Samuel Huntington observed in a recent essay.
All those ‘unthinking’ votaries of a soft border in India, better, beware!
The writer is Political & Strategic Affairs Editor, Sahara Television. Courtesy: Indian Defence Review vol. 20.2
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