Natural Panjab: Thinking beyond ideology and politics

Race, nation, religion and ethnicity are not real in any objective sense; they are ideological constructs. That is not to say that ideology is not important and doesn’t impact our lives; to the contrary, the whole world is bedeviled by ideological forces. It may even be argued that ideology is a boon that fuels the human imagination to produce art, music, literature, culture and a sense of belonging. But it is this very same capacity to imagine that can also fuel violence in the name of group affiliations, based on any number of makers of difference linked primarily to race, caste, religion ethnicity and nationality.

Historic genocides, such as the Jewish holocaust in the 1940s, the murder of 1.5 million Armenians in Turkey in 1915, the horrific carnage in Panjab following partition in 1947, the Sikh genocide of 1984, and more recently, the terrible so-called ‘ethnic cleansing’ that took place following the collapse of Yugoslavia in the 1990s, are all examples of the way in which, through the manipulation of ideology and basic human fears, neighbours, can be turned on each other!

Closer to home, when we talk about Indians, Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, various stereotypes and tropes come instantly to mind, but we forget these nations are but three generations old. Before 1947 no such nations or states existed. Indeed, most of the nation-states that exist in the world today only came into existence less than 100 years ago.

Nations reside, as scholars such as Anthony Smith, Ernest Gellner and Benedict Anderson remind us, largely in the imagination. And as we have found in the collapse of empires, nation-states can be quite unstable entities and world history is littered with the remnants and memories of defunct states, large and small.

Whether it is the partition of India in 1947, the fall of the Soviet Union in the late 1980s, the disintegration of Yugoslavia in the 1990’s to influence from the United Nations, there have been many modern-day impetuses for the formation of new nations. While some nation-states emerged after a bloody conflict, others came into existence through peaceful agreements and transfers of power. One could argue that the withdrawal of the UK, popularly known as ‘Brexit’, from the European Union is one such contemporary example. But the key point is, the political map of the world is constantly in flux, and there can be no certainty about the future of states.

If we cannot be certain about the political determination of nation-states, then is there a way of establishing a more stable basis for talking about the world and the place of humanity? One way is to focus on geography and demography. In this regard, the map of natural Panjab offers a fascinatingly different perspective. As Panjab means land of the ‘five rivers’, this map is literally based on the physical, which can be scientifically and objectively determined, rather than the ideological, which, as argued above is open to contestation.

And so, though the development of any culture is the product of complex social, historic political processes, arguably, some of the deeper aspects the culture – whether this is Panjab or another geographically distinct part of the world – can, as anthropologists have shown, be significantly determined by the natural environment. It is worth noting here that much of traditional poetry heavily draws on drama and expression produced by nature, as can be so expansively seen in the writings of the Panjabi Sufis and Gurus embodied in the Sikh scripture Guru Granth Sahib.

When, commentators talk about India and its geographical make-up, various terms are used, such as ‘the Indian-sub continent’, ‘Bharat‘, ‘Maha-Bharat‘ and South Asia. All these terms have a function, but rarely do commentators talk about the Panjab Region! This is surprising given the huge geographical spread (46 million square km), population (approaching 200 million), and biodiversity.

I do not know how long India, Pakistan or Bangladesh might last, but what I do know is that well after they have gone and new states have to come into being, the Panjab will prevail. Politics is important because it can have devastating impacts on people and the land. And so perhaps a solution to overcoming bigotry, racism, hate, toxic nationalism that arises from politics is for us to realise that the land and people who live on it are sovereign, i.e. nobody really has a right to claim either as theirs. And the role hence of whatever state is in place must be to protect, and not exploit and destroy, the only thing that can guarantee we have a future, that is our natural world.

[Gurnam Singh is an academic activist dedicated to human rights, liberty, equality, social and environmental justice. He is an Associate Professor of Sociology at University of Warwick, UK. He can be contacted at Gurnam.singh.1@warwick.ac.uk]

* This is the opinion of the writer and does not necessarily represent the views of Asia Samachar.

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