How can we bring about better governance? Clearly, one way is by devolving power to the lowest unit of government so that people are encouraged to develop a stake in running their own affairs instead of depending on the sarkar at the district, state, or national level to do things for them. This is an extremely difficult task as is shown in those Indian states (Bihar and Assam to name two) which refused to hold local body elections for years, despite court orders to them. They defied court rulings and the Constitution as well, for it is laid down specifically in the Great Book that such elections must be held every five years. Unless we develop ways of dispossessing such recalcitrant state governments of those powers which harms the Constitution and local governance, the changes which we seek will remain just that—in the realm of the sought.

It is local governance which will give us a more sensitive response to the problems of local conflict and representation of ethnic, religious and linguistic communities. This does not mean that we should not develop a national, even regional, macro-approach to these problems. We must. But the problems will have to be solved at the micro-level, where the action really takes place.

Migrants, refugees and internally displaced people are among the world’s most vulnerable communities. There are three basic bonds that bind them:9

1. Disruption: Most have left behind the support of traditional values, extended families, friends, and familar ways of life. With limited means, they face new and uncertain situations.

2. Differences: Culture and language often set them apart from their new neighbours.

3. Difficulties of Access: Many are ineligible for health care benefits, are unfamiliar with family planning programmes, and unable to obtain information easily.

Over and above these concerns, migrants and migration, especially international migration, has become a ‘critical issue for countries of South Asia, as it involves more and more themes of nations and nationalism, particularly post-colonial nationhood in a region marked by massive population flows.’10

Note that phrase at the end: massive population flows.

The numbers we have spoken about in this book are huge. They may appear small if you compare them to the size of India’s population or that of China, each over a billion strong. But the size of just the ‘missing’ Bangladeshi population is the equivalent of seven Bhutans, or nearly a quarter of Nepal.

Refugee Watch, a magazine which reports on conditions of refugee groups in different parts of the world with a special focus on South Asia, has commented that a study of South Asia’s immigration problem would show ‘how the flow of unwanted migrants and refugees results in the marginalisation of the nation—the nation they leave, the nation they enter.’11