The Sri Lankan eco­nomic and po­lit­i­cal cri­sis has ex­posed the state of a coun­try looted by its “de­mo­c­ra­t­i­cally-elected rulers” af­ter mil­i­tar­ily sup­press­ing the rights of the Tamil pop­u­la­tion. The Pak­istan po­lit­i­cal cri­sis also has eco­nomic roots and se­ri­ous la­cu­nae of gov­er­nance. Po­lit­i­cal com­men­ta­tor, writer and pro­tag­o­nist of Na­tions With­out States, Coven­try-based Jagdeesh Singh ex­plains how in their very con­cep­tion the coun­tries of South Asia were im­pe­ri­al­is­tic and how the new rulers con­tinue that legacy to the detri­ment of the le­git­i­mate rights and as­pi­ra­tions of their pop­u­la­tions.

Whet­her it is Sri Lanka, Pak­istan, In­dia, Nepal or Bangladesh, they are all on fire, some sim­mer­ing and some in a con­fla­gra­tion. The en­tirety of these du­bi­ously con­structed and ut­terly dys­func­tional states have in­flicted poverty, ab­ject poor health ser­vices and ed­u­ca­tion, ram­pant hu­man rights abuses, po­lice abuses and ter­ror and cor­rupt and dire pub­lic fa­cil­i­ties on the civil­ian pop­u­la­tions that they are sup­posed to be serv­ing. All of these states have failed to de­liver dig­ni­fied and qual­i­ta­tive wel­fare and gov­er­nance to the hun­dreds of mil­lions of peo­ples of South Asia, over the last 75-80 years, even af­ter the seem­ing ‘in­de­pen­dence’ from British im­pe­ri­al­ism.

Over the decades these states have been op­pres­sive, au­thor­i­tar­ian and un­de­mo­c­ra­tic. The names of the rulers and their par­ties do not mat­ter much. They have all been run­ning the coun­tries as plun­der­ers. With­out an iota of doubt, the peo­ple owe them noth­ing but con­tempt and re­jec­tion.

Each of these states has con­tin­ued a com­bined and col­lec­tive pat­tern of mass-scale cor­rup­tion, state vi­o­lence and mur­der, po­lice bru­tal­ity and tor­ture, and pub­lic ser­vice fail­ures (e.g. In­di­a’s phe­nom­e­nal health fail­ure on covid care and pro­tec­tion). The ed­u­ca­tion, em­ploy­ment and health ser­vices given by these states to their wholly dis­em­pow­ered peo­ple re­main a mod­ern-day mis­ery on a truly colos­sal and ab­ject scale.

The states of South Asia are a di­rect con­tin­u­a­tion of for­mer British In­dian im­pe­ri­al­ism. They are de­signed by de­fault to con­tinue the same old enor­mous con­cen­tra­tions and abuses of power.

It is a mat­ter of dire shame, that west­ern states like Britain, USA and Canada con­tinue to give colos­sal lev­els of fund­ing, mon­e­tary aid and pa­tron­age and sup­port to these di­a­bol­i­cally dys­func­tional and op­pres­sive states; mak­ing the for­mer wholly com­plicit.

These states are a di­rect con­tin­u­a­tion of for­mer British In­dian im­pe­ri­al­ism. They are de­signed by de­fault to con­tinue the same old enor­mous con­cen­tra­tions and abuses of power. The only ben­e­fi­cia­ries from the ex­is­tence and con­tin­u­a­tion of these states are the se­nior pow­er­ful elites who gov­ern cor­ruptly and abu­sively and make in­fi­nite amounts of money in the process.

The col­lab­o­ra­tive po­lit­i­cal classes who en­joy their ex­or­bi­tant in­comes in par­lia­men­tary po­si­tions give blind me­chan­i­cal con­sent and ap­proval to their gov­ern­men­t’s mis­deeds and gain added mon­e­tary ben­e­fits and priv­i­leges in­clud­ing won­der­ous per­sonal pen­sions. The crim­i­nal classes, si­mul­ta­ne­ously ben­e­fit and gain the abil­ity to profit from their vast crim­i­nal­ity in the midst of the en­dur­ing and ram­pant chaos and dis­or­der that is so iconic of these states.

Each of the South Asian coun­tries is in­di­vid­u­ally and col­lec­tively, a bub­bling vol­cano.

They are each, in­di­vid­u­ally and col­lec­tively, a bub­bling vol­cano. Af­ter 80-years of the same bub­bling com­pre­hen­sive mis­ery and fail­ures: the con­di­tions are ripe and ma­ture for a com­plete over­haul and pop­u­lar up­ris­ings, and a re­place­ment of these over-sized, op­pres­sive, cen­tralised state struc­tures with more lo­calised, self-de­ter­min­ing, de­moc­ra­tised, smaller, man­age­able and op­er­a­ble ter­ri­to­r­ial units based on ac­tual coun­tries and in­dige­nous eth­nic peo­ples, rather than the colo­nially-in­vented na­tions like In­dia, Pak­istan and Sri Lanka -each de­mo­c­ra­t­i­cally and qual­i­ta­tively failed states, caus­ing their civil­ians to flee abroad in tens of mil­lions in search of a qual­ity of life that they yearn.

Why are states’ struc­tures, laws and bu­reau­cracy only for the peo­ple to en­dure and bear the bur­den of?  Why do peo­ple have to be ‘loy­al’, ‘obe­di­ent’ and ‘com­pli­ant’ to the in­tru­sive and im­pos­ing de­mands of these state pow­ers? What lit­tle ben­e­fits and pro­tec­tions do the peo­ple gain from these states?