Beyond the Restrictive Sociopolitical Autonomy and Sovereignty

Ananta Kumar Giri cautions us extrapolating a dynamic direction of
ethnic cross-fertilization-with necessary embracing of culturally and spiritually
creative spaces. In simultaneously accommodating roots and routes
such approach historicizes and contextualizes transnational encounters
and connections and turning societal into splendid common good. In
addition, this dialogical turn integrates the concerns and actions of the self
as well as the other into a collective self-renewal. However, the challenges
pointed out correctly by Kalyan Kumar Chakravarty in the foreword
enthuses us into the situation that this border crossing currently occurs
in an almost unequal, asymmetric and under less collaborative constellations.
For instance, in the current world, dominant political elites remain
distant, greedy and narrow-minded, particularly in recurring exploitation
of ethnic differences for political ends. Meanwhile cynical economic
oligarchs, with diverging ideological bases, often strategize for capital
expansion. Similarly, speculative media moguls routinely subvert sincere
transnational public communication for sensationalism and superficiality.
From their part academics engage internal debates with innately inaccessible
jargon for most. Even transnational ethnic communities occasionally
preoccupy themselves with internal, often politically instinctive rivalries of
us versus them.