We are all assembled here as south Asians. We may be keralites, gujaratis, srilankans, indians but we are all south Asians. We should never forget that South asia a very important region of the world. 2/3rd of world population lives here. We are a region marked by a huge Diversity of religions, languages, culture and yet we have a Shared heritag. We haved shared Histories, family ties, cultural ties cutting across political borders.. even our Ecosystem – our mountains, rivers flow across the region. We must also remember that we are a very important ‘Market’ in the era of globalization.

South Asia is also a Conflict ridden region. We have conflicts based on religion, nationalities, right to self-determintation as seen in Kashmir, NE, tribal regions of Pakistan and Bangladesh. We have the question of Tamils being excluded on account of their background. And we have the age old conflict based on caste. There are conflicts within respecive countrie and Conflict between nations. It is utterly shameful that our respective governemnts continue with mind boggling Defence spending even as our people don't have drinking water, our children don't have schools to go to and a large percentage of our popultaiton is hungry. It is ironical that the two biggest countries in south Asia pride themsleves for being Nuclear powers. Increasingly our govts are getting posessed with the mindsets of National security. A lot of human rights violations are happening under this paranoiac paradigm. The govt are appropriating sweeping powers to themselves under this paradigm and ordinary citizens are incarcerated without trial without justice. There is so much suspicion of neighbours and our people are denied visas by our different govts. It is interesting how there is Free movement of capital in the region but not of the people under the strict visa regime.

The last over two decades have seen a rise of forces of religious extremism and communal-fascism which has led to so much violence and destruction of civil property in the region. There is a bogey of Nationalism in every country – of the hindutva, islamic and sinhala varieties which has led to tremendous suffering and misery for ordinary people. This rise of religious extremism and politics of religious divide is patronized by various political parties some of whom have come to power by raising intolerance and advocating killings of those belongin to other communities. Our region has seen a naked nexus between Communal fascist organizations and the ruling powers. These communal fascist forces are also the forces of injustice, inequality, patriarchy and are opposed to democracy and freedom and human rights.
The Role of state in generating conflict, fostering conflict, sometimes actively participating as in Gujarat and harnessing the divison is very clear. Our govts are curbing dissent in all forms. Another major threat to all of us is the arrival of American influence in our region. People are robbed of land, livelihoods and civil liberties by the advent of forces of globalization signified in big capital. Also the over enthusiastic participation and total co-option of our various govts in the so-called war on terror is making the project complete. If you are a muslim you are a terrorist, otherwise you are a maoist, if not you are a naxalite. Resepctive govts in the region are busy bringing about draconian security legislation to detain, incarcerate, toruture and even kill innocent citizens. There is a vulgar race to win friendship of american govt and american businesses and the ordinary people belonging to the region are forgotten.

I am from Gujarat and would like to end on a little personal note. It is relevant to share here because it will tell you how state supported communal violence robs a person of her entire being; how her entire existence gets shaken up. I've grown up with a bery dominant image since childhood ; the image of my grand mother's home completely burnt down, all household items I was so familiar to being destroyed every time there was a riot in the city. My grand mother was poor and had a home on the 'border' , where she bore the brunt of somany riots, nobody in our family remembers how many times her home was burnt down. My sisters and I used to visit the house with our mohter to take stock of the damage when the curfew would be lifted in the mornings for two hours for women and children. The image of my dadi's ransacked home has stayed with me. Only till my parents' home was burnt down once again in 1990 in the violence following the rathyatra. It took me full growing up, late into 2002 to realize how courageous my father must have been to buy a home in a non-muslim housing board colony in spite of his mother's home having been burnt down repeatedly. He was encouraged by his college teachers friends community to buy a house as they were all buying houses in the same neighbourhood. And yet what happended in 2002 surpassed it all. It is not the loss of physical property that I really mind so much personally. But the way I lost everything in 2002, friends who I was closer to than my own sisters, well-wishers, acquaintances all turned away just because we all became hindus and muslims. We were not friends any more. It raised so many questions for me -philosophical questions, questions about the menaing of life, questions about love, friendship, humanity. Questions to which I am still serving for answers..