Context: In the backdrop of troublesome territorial assertions, the South Asian region needs to be rethought of as a region of regions.
Ongoing territorial assertions:

• Kalapani dispute between India and Nepal
• Ladakh – Galwan valley dispute between India and China

Issues witnessed in solving the territorial dispute

• State-centrism: State-centrism, within the assumption of a South Asia, has given the state structure the propriety to be the sole arbiter of disputes, if any, among communities and regions falling within the territorial limits of nation states. This means that territorial boundaries are valued more than lives, livelihoods and the well-being of the people located at the edges of nation states.
• Region is contested idea: The term “region” seems to be a contested idea in a South Asian context as none of the South Asian states has ever recognized and respected the idea of regional identity or regional politics. South Asia needs to be rethought, not as a region of states, but as a region of regions.

Reason for equating South Asia as region of region:

• Lifestyle of people: The people living at the edges of nation states within South Asia does not actually belong to any of the two nation states. Or in other words, they belong to both the states at the same time as they frequently move from one nation to other for economic livelihood, to meet their ethnic relatives etc.
• Success of regional groupings: The state centric view of nations and mere rhetoric of regional cooperation is going to endanger the future of other regional experiments such as the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) or the Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Nepal (BBIN) sub-regional initiative.

Road Ahead

• Both India and Nepal as well as other South Asian countries need to rethink South Asia as a region of regions before they submit to the enticements of a new language of “regional cooperation” to solve existing issues and for peace in region.