Publication

This paper seeks to provide a critical reading of the basis of the region which has come to be known as "South Asia" in the general literature. The first section discusses the conventional basis used to demarcate regions in the literature. The second part shows the manner how four bases for framing the region are used to demonstrate the "objective" basis of a South Asian region. In the third section, the author shows points of disagreement on each of the different bases for "naturalness" of the South Asian region. The last section examines the politics of region-mapping in the case of South Asia. The author concludes that the politics of region demarcation has been intimately influenced by the colonial encounter and that the colonial, as far as framing the region of South Asia is concerned, still is an important factor.