PARAGRAPH, WORDS AND MEANING

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PARAGRAPH, WORDS AND MEANING

PARAGRAPH OF THE DAY –

Time for renewal –

Reflecting on this context, one is reminded of a South African proverb which says one must invent a stranger to renew oneself. The stranger is the other that renews the self, reveals the unities and reciprocities behind difference. In the South Asian context, India must adapt these words of wisdom by inventing and reinventing the neighbour every day. It has to invent a South Asia which is civilisational, reciprocal, local in its diversity. Merely thinking as a nation state reveals the procrustean nature of the Indian mind, making it a victim of 19th century mindsets. Even experiments which could have been promising have lost their creative power. One of the most exciting of these regional ideas was the creation of the South Asian University (SAU), with a faculty from all South Asian countries. While we have the faculty, what we lack is a South Asian theory of culture and knowledge which should anchor this imagination. SAU looks like any other university, part of the embassy set in South Delhi. It needs a manifesto which makes South Asia central to its imagination. Such a manifesto must transform ecology and culture into a theory of South Asian diversity and difference. The borderland, the frontier, the island, the riverine communities have to anchor a local imagination which diversifies South Asia as a region. Out of ecology should emerge a creative sense of regionalism as a new style of ecological politics rather than treating the region as a lesser order of politics in a global regime. Second, the availability of eccentricity as dissent, alternatives, minorities has to be reworked constitutionally so the focus is not on trite obsessions with India-Pakistan but a genuine exploration of voices and theories. One has to weave ideas of Swadeshi and Swaraj into foreign policy, where South Asia creates the availability of vernaculars. SAU as a dialogue of ecologies, religions, vernaculars located in a civilisational frame can add to the ideas of knowledge, sustain memories and defeated cultures without getting bogged in the modern sentimentality called development. South Asia as a concept to be sustainable and creative has to be life-giving. Diversity becomes the next axis of the South Asia imagination. Between its demographic density and its ethnic diversity, South Asia offers an experiment in religious dialogue, an exercise in the cultivation of informal economies, a surge for human rights where culture and livelihoods become central. The creativity of civil society and social movements marks the dynamism of these regions. In fact, South Asia is going to become a site for the growing battle between human rights/cultural diversity and the fundamentalist imagination. South Asia, with its motley collection of minorities, has to rethink the question of the border and border crossings which are so crucial to the survival of these groups. One is thinking not only of the Rohingya, but the Rohingya as a paradigm for border crossings. We need an open idea of hospitality and the nation so ethnic imaginations do not merely become destabilising but provide new vernaculars of the imagination in terms of inventive notions of citizenship, livelihood and regionalism. One has to allow for tribal, ethnic, nomadic and pastoral groups moving freely without being hounded by the panopticon called the boundary.

WORDS AND MEANING –

Procrustean

Meaning: (especially of a framework or system) enforcing uniformity or conformity without regard to natural variation or individuality.

Example: “a fixed Procrustean rule”

 Embassy

Meaning: The official residence or offices of an ambassador.

Example: “the Chilean embassy in Moscow”

Synonyms: Consulate, Legation

Manifesto

Meaning: A public declaration of policy and aims, especially one issued before an election by a political party or candidate.

Example: “he may fudge key issues in the Labour manifesto”

Synonyms: Declaration, Proclamation

28) Riverine

Meaning: Relating to or situated on a river or riverbank; riparian.

Example: “a riverine village”

Eccentricity

Meaning: An eccentric act or habit.

Example: “her eccentricities were amusing rather than irritating”

Synonyms: Singularity, Weirdness

30) Obsessions

Meaning: An idea or thought that continually preoccupies or intrudes on a person’s mind.

Example: “he was in the grip of an obsession he was powerless to resist”

Synonyms: Fixation, Mania

Vernaculars

Meaning: The language or dialect spoken by the ordinary people of a country or region.

Example: “he wrote in the vernacular to reach a larger audience”

Synonyms: Argot, Jargon

Antonyms: Latin, Formal Language

Bogged

Meaning: Be prevented from making progress in a task or activity.

Example: “you must not get bogged down in detail”

Synonyms: Mire, Entangle

Motley

Meaning: Incongruously varied in appearance or character; disparate.

Example: “a motley crew of discontents and zealots”

Synonyms: Miscellaneous, Disparate

Antonyms: Homogeneous, Uniform

Nomadic

Meaning: A member of a group of people who move from one place to another rather than living in one place all of the time.

Example: A tribe of Somalian desert nomads.

Pastoral

Meaning: Associated with country life.

Example: “the view was pastoral, with rolling fields and grazing sheep”

Synonyms: Rural, Countrified

Antonyms: Urban

Hounded

Meaning: Harass, persecute, or pursue relentlessly.

Example: “she was hounded by the Italian press”

Synonyms: Harass, Persecute

Panopticon

Meaning: A prison with cells (= rooms) arranged in a circle, so that the people in them can be seen at all times from the centre