Nature has always barricaded different parts of earth; these obstacles created nations over millennia. Oceans, Rivers, mountain ridges, deserts and forests created segregated spaces in which languages, cultures, religions and even genes developed in diversified ways. The borders between nations were not impossible to cross, yet, these were difficult endeavours. Intrepid travellers went across; they either stayed there and created cultural and linguistic diffusion or came back and brought knowledge and fables, encouraging others to take the same adventure. When too many travelled, these became trade routes and ambitious rulers soon followed with their armies. They were called invaders, who fell into three categories. Either they robbed or went back, or subjugated the local population and ruled as colonial masters or they became somewhat assimilated with the local population though maintaining superiority for their alien traits. Each of these created its share of miseries for the indigenous population. But these miseries could be transitional and minor when compared to what the invaders did to the natural national borders. They marginalised nature’s barricades and drew lines on paper instead. These lines divided people with common language, culture and genes into heterogeneous nations and loyalties were divided. What were heretofore nations within which people shared common traits became split nations, with one part considering themselves as sons of the soil and treating others as outsiders. These others who were there as conquerors treated the former as inferior and tried to impose their language, culture and religion on them.

The greatest emperor of the world of his time ruled over a tiny principality and had the power to crown kings and emperors all over Europe and settle disputes between them. In May 1493, the disputes between the two nations which had discovered lands in the east and the west, led Pope Alexander IV to draw a north-south “pole-to-pole” line on the eastern side of the Atlantic Ocean, decreeing that to the West of it lay Spanish possessions raising a presumption that lands to the east of it belonged to Portugal. The rough line drawn by the Pope was formalized into a formal one by The Treaty of Tordesillas. The Brazilian bulge protruded across this line and hence fell to the share of Portugal as did all the “discoveries” in Africa and Asia. Ownership of almost all of North and South America, with the exception of Brazil, thus came to Spain. The huge mass of humanity living in the “discovered” lands had no say in the matter. This was proof, if one was needed, of the power of a line on paper over the oceans, rivers and mountains that separated languages, cultures and religions.

If we look at the conflict zones around the world, the lines drawn by human beings on paper will be found at the root of them. The extreme example is Africa where the entire continent was arbitrarily divided into countries by the colonial masters with scant attention to tribal affinities and animosities. As long as the colonial powers were there, they kept the tribal rivalries under check. With sudden decolonisation at the beginning of the twentieth century, the inter-tribal frictions boomed and have continued till this day. Even islands of modernity like parts of South Africa, Kenya and Nigeria are suffering from these tribal conflicts with Rwanda-Burundi conflict or the ones in the two Congos and in Sudan being extreme examples. The example of Ethiopia shows how the conflicts created new lines on paper and that, in turn, created more conflicts with the spawning of Somalia, Somaliland, Djibouti and Eritrea. Only relatively mono-tribal countries like Bechuanaland, modern Botswana, Lesotho, and Swaziland have escaped serious tribal conflicts.

The worst consequences of these lines drawn on paper, continue in North Africa, West Asia and South Asia. Central Asia has escaped major ethnic wars so far because the former colonial power, the USSR, had emerged as the Russian Federation that still enjoyed vast influence in these regions. All of them hosted substantial Russian populations and the official script continued to be the Russian Cyrillic script. If someday Russia ceases to be a major power, or the influence of China exceeds that of Russia, this region is likely to see major ethnic conflicts.

In West Asia, after the ottoman Empire collapsed, almost all the borders were drawn by colonial masters and kingdoms and countries were created by them, despite serious ethnic friction. The thin majority of the Sunni in Syria ruled by the Shia Assad family created decades long conflict and the emergence of the Sunni ISIS. The thin majority of the Shia in Iraq, ruled by Sunni Saddam, similarly led to the continuing conflict and the followers of Saddam boosted ISIS substantially. The creation of borders, for bringing into existence of the State of Israel, has been rocking the world till today with extreme violence. Yemen is split on Shia-Sunni lines and no solution will work until the country is divided on sectarian basis. The arbitrary lines failed to take note of minorities like Kurds who remain till today divided across national boundaries. The Druze, an offshoot of the Shia sect, lived comfortably in Assad’s regime but now, with a Sunni ruler in Damascus, they are passing through hard times. The Kurdish-speaking Yazidis, whose religion has many overlaps with the Hindu religion, suffered genocide at the hands of the ISIS. They may never have a homeland and may be ultimately dispersed around the world as migrants.

The split of the British Empire in South Asia by McMahon, Durand and Radcliffe Lines created disastrous consequences and the largest forced migration in human history and continues to do so. The McMahon Line defined the border of Tibet and India, (China was not a party to the agreement) reached at Delhi in March 1914 between representatives of the Dalai Lama and British India, included Burma or modern Myanmar. China repudiated it later and renegotiated its border with Myanmar. The 2,649 km Durand Line, drawn in 1893, as the border between British India and Afghanistan, is not recognised by Afghanistan and they want the border far to the East of it by incorporating a large part of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KPK) province of Pakistan. This line created the geographical oddity called the Wakhan Corridor to give China access to Afghanistan.

The Radcliffe line, dividing India and Pakistan, was published two days after the so-called Independence on 15 August 1947 and the delay did not matter because what both countries got at that time was dominion status. It was only in June 1947 that Sir Cyril Radcliffe was given the task of dividing 450,000 sq kms of the subcontinent into three parts, India, West Pakistan and East Pakistan. The hastily drawn lines created the mess of Kashmir, Siachen Glacier, the Chicken’s Neck, and Indian and Pakistani enclaves in East Pakistan surrounded by a rival country. Up to 18 million people in a total population of 390 million migrated to the other side of the border and up to one million perished in the riots and revenge killings and we have not seen the end of it yet, 78 years later.

Stronger nations continue to push the borders towards weaker neighbours. Hitler did it in Europe and so did the USSR. Russia is pushing its border westwards in Ukraine and Trump is trying to push the US border towards east and north by threatening takeover of Greenland and even Canada. The man-made lines drawn with a pencil on perishable paper continue to divide and traumatise humanity more than any barricade of nature.

( R N prasher is a former IAS officer. The views expressed are his personal. )