[Reader-list] Shahidul Alam detained by Indian Border Security Force

[Rahul Asthana]

Dear Shuddha,
Please read my reply to Anupam.The analogy was not implied.
I think that there can be valid reasons to enforce man made , ephemeral , artificial etc. borders. That catch-all reason alone is not enough to strike down the restriction for free flow of human beings between national borders. 
In principle there is nothing wrong or right about free flow of capital or human beings."Artificial, ephemeral, man-made" geographical and administrational borders are necessary,among other things because of the simple reason of accountability and manageability, as functional units for economic co-operation and security.Someone representing a particular geographic continuum is accountable and responsible for the decisions taken with respect to it.
I want you to come up with some good reasons why you think the boundaries and definition of a nation state should not be observed. Let me repeat, saying that it is an "artificial, ephemeral, man-made border" , so it should be stricken down is not a good reason.

Thanks
Rahul


--- On Sat, 6/20/09, Shuddhabrata Sengupta <shuddha at sarai.net> wrote:

> From: Shuddhabrata Sengupta <shuddha at sarai.net>
> Subject: Re: [Reader-list] Shahidul Alam detained by Indian Border Security Force
> To: "Rahul Asthana" <rahul_capri at yahoo.com>
> Cc: "sarai list" <reader-list at sarai.net>, "anupam chakravartty" <c.anupam at gmail.com>
> Date: Saturday, June 20, 2009, 2:28 AM
> 
>  Dear Rahul, 
> I have always felt quite at home in the world,
> regardless of whether I was on the terrace of my Old
> Rajendra Nagar house in New Delhi, which once housed
> refugees from West Pakistan before it housed my migrant
> parents and me (where I live), or I was on hilltop in
> Damascus, or in a ruined factory in Warsaw, or on the border
> between East and West Jerusalem. I do not sense a feeling of
> being 'not at home' when I am not in my own country,
> and there are many places in my own country, where I do not
> feel quite as home as I would have liked to, for instance in
> the wide, paranoiac, expansive and empty boulevards of
> Lutyens Delhi. In Delhi, take me to Akbar Road, and I will
> feel a foreigner (even a bit of an illegal migrant), leave
> me in Karol Bagh, Chitli Qabar, Mehrauli, Khan Market or
> Jungpura, and I will do just fine. Home, after all, is where
> the heart is. And my heart is not in the Lutyens Bungalow
> Zone of New Delhi. 
> So I don't quite understand the analogy of
> locked homes and fenced countries. After all, we lock our
> homes, primarily against the possible attacks of our own
> fellow citizens. So, since we lock our homes against our own
> fellow citizens, logically, then, following your line of
> thinking, should we not turn the whole country into one vast
> prison, where everyone watches out for the danger that is
> everybody else.We don't even have to look as far as the
> next Bangladeshi.
> Or, as my friends and I had reason to say in
> another context, 'Is the outer wall of the detention
> centre, the inner wall of the city?"
> regards, 
> Shuddha
> 
> On 19-Jun-09, at 9:39 PM, Rahul Asthana
> wrote:
> 
> Dear
> Anupam,Your
> question is a straw man.I am not drawing any analogy between
> nation and home.My question to Shuddha is based upon his
> statement about artificial borders etc.
> ThanksRahul
>  
>  Shuddhabrata
> SenguptaThe Sarai Programme at
> CSDSRaqs Media Collectiveshuddha at sarai.netwww.sarai.netwww.raqsmediacollective.net
>  
>