Henry Kissinger said that while understanding geo-political problems, one cannot divorce the historical context and that the solutions that ignore historical context often fail. This cannot be truer than in the case of South Asia, where India, Pakistan and the region are stuck in perpetual chaos. It is an area that has been a common market for centuries but finds it hard to enable free trade. The chaos in South Asia has to do with the very concept of the nation states of India and Pakistan in a region that has traditionally been a subcontinent of hundreds of autonomous states. And one way or the other, until this conflict is resolved, South Asia’s instability will remain.However, before we proceed, let us understand the historical political structure of South Asia and its implications. The best parallel of South Asia can be Europe. South Asia has been a continent (subcontinent) with many sovereign, semi-sovereign and subordinate states, duchies and principalities with tribal belts on the peripheries. In the last 1,000 or so years, the area had one big power centre of Delhi/Lahore, and five strong unions of principalities (regional power centers) of Maratha (current Maharashtra), Rajputana (current Rajasthan), Malwa (current Madhya Pradesh), Bengal and Deccan (current Hyderabad). Apart from this, there were hundreds of unions and tribal arrangements that existed in the continent. The regions fought for their political autonomy fiercely and the Delhi/Lahore kingdom kept encroaching and receding from other principalities depending on relative strength or weakness. In this flux, the only constant was the fragmented political structure of the subcontinent. Even in the most unified (Delhi-dominated) times of the subcontinent, Delhi rule never extended beyond Deccan. Bengal would keep moving in and out of the Sultanate on a regular basis and the same was the status of Rajputana, Sindh and Malwa. However, despite this political fragmentation, the area remained one market with the currency of the Delhi/Lahore kingdom defining the monetary and trade system. So, though a bouquet of similar civilisations and strongly inter-linked economies, India has never existed as a centralised nation state ever. Then came the British with the power of the Industrial Revolution on their backs. They conquered an alien land, in the process making allies and opponents among the bunch of principalities. Because of the changing nature of technology, British control extended from Madras to NWFP. To govern this large continent, they needed to unify it into one political entity and thus they coined the term ‘Indian state’. They coined institutions like the Indian National Congress, Royal Indian Army, Indian Legislative Council, etc, and moved the capital to Delhi (the central power in earlier fragmented India). However, even this Indian state had 562 principalities and many more tribal peripheries, and British rule was resisted for its centrality. The struggle against British colonisation becomes so dominated by Congress and Muslim League, and by the question of Hindu and Muslim, that the longest struggles of self-rule in NWFP, Balochistan, Sindh, Maratha, Tamil Nadu, Bengal, Kashmir, North East and the east of India are totally ignored in the mainstream narratives. Most of India had not accepted unified governance; the question of Hindu and Muslim, to a greater extent, was either an extension of or diversion from the question of regional sovereignty. And then, at the stroke of midnight in August 1947, India was divided into two separate states, not on historical lines but on religious ones. With this, at least, the issue of colonisation by aliens was out of the picture but India and Pakistan were left at the whims of Delhi and Lahore, and returned to the age-old struggle of regions against Delhi/Lahore control. It should not come as a surprise that the first secession was of Bengal from Pakistan. It should not be a surprise either that the fault lines of Pakistan are drawn across the Indus, which the state is still trying to grout. And why stick to Pakistan only? It should not be a surprise that one third of India is under insurgencies. Punjab is a province in India where a Sikh-led militant struggle had elements in it looking favourably to Pakistani Punjab (Lahore). Neither should it be a surprise that Maharashtra, the south and east of India resist attempts by the central government to encroach on their governance territory. Also, it is in this historical context that most of India’s neighbours fear Delhi’s dominance. With this context in place, what lies ahead for South Asia? For one, the future of its two larger, heterogeneous states, India and Pakistan, lies in more devolution and regional autonomy. If the experiments of Indian and Pakistani states are to be successful, it will require more self-rule, devolved power to the regions and communities, and a model based on inclusion. Secondly, with a strong India at the centre, keeping in view the historical desire for sovereignty and the resistance to Delhi/Lahore dominance, an economic union of South Asia is highly unlikely. South Asia would have been an ideal common market if the division had been on the lines of regional states with a very loose confederationist structure at the centre. However, what we have now makes the South Asian common market unlikely. In fact, it is highly likely that states other than India may reach some sort of common market (customs union) arrangement excluding India. Since this economic integration sans India will face strong resistance from India, the shift of these nations to China to counter India will accelerate. Maybe it is time Pakistan starts exploring free trade agreements (FTAs) and customs unions with Bangladesh and Sri Lanka outside the South Asian Free Trade Agreement (SAFTA). That seems the only way forward till the people of South Asia prevail to correct in the region what needs to be corrected. The writer is a freelance columnist and may be contacted at aalimalik@gmail.com