The Question of Enclaves
© Prakash J. Mascarenhas, Bombay, India.
In all matters we must strive that we not be, as the beasts, mastered by our passions, but that we master our passions by reason, morality and law.
The Indian Union claims enclaves cannot exist or be permitted to exist, and that states must be territorially contiguous.
She took and she holds the EIP on the basis of these claims.
Let us examine these claims:
British India had numerous — some 550 of them! — 'Princely States' or sub-sovereign monarchies embedded in her territory. Some of these, the majority, were directly or indirectly, the (remains of) ancient states and monarchies, or at least, were not entirely the creation of the English. A small minority of these states, however, and these entirely minor states, were purely of English creation.
Overtime, these states had become subordinated to British India, but with Independence, England informed them that they had returned to full sovereignity.
Many of these States consciously choose to maintain themselves as sovereign and independent entities; however Nehru's government unleashed a systematic campaign of disinformation and intimidation, including the assassination of such prominient persons who withstood him, such as the Dewan of Travancore.
If the Indian Union had behaved in a proper and honest manner many of these Princely States would have maintained themselves as sovereign and independent entities, so that there would have been many more embedded enclaves than just the French and Portuguese enclaves.
Moreover, concerning the European-Administered Enclaves embedded on her coasts, the Indian Union did not have and does not have a right to absorb or incorporate their territories without reference to their peoples.
Merely because they are enclaves does not negate the reality of their distinct identity and right to a place in the Community of States.
In my analysis of the Indian Union's attitude towards her territorial extent I have conclusively demonstrated her inconsistent attitude towards the secessionist territories and towards embedded enclaves.
Not only that, she has deliberately and hypocritically set out to mislead and dupe persons of various loyalties to move and agitate for the absorbtion of these enclaves in the process callously disrupting their normality and persecuting their populations.
As the ideology of the modern state as a nation developed, so too has arisen the idea that the state's territory cannot and must not contain or permit to contain enclaves, whether as Independent States or as possessions of other states. This is the so-called principle of territorial contiguity.
However, such an idea is false. Firstly, a state is not the same thing as a nation. By and large, no state in the world is entirely and absolutely coterminus with the territory of any one nation. States actually comprise territories of one or more nations, and usually, the national territories fall in more than one state.
Secondly, a state does not have the right to include territories without the express consent of their peoples. Otherwise, this is merely the kleptomaniac urge of territorial collectionism.
Therefore, enclaves have the right, both in morality and in law, to exist unmolested by the state whose territory encompasses it.
Throughtout the world there are many such enclave-states. Besides the nominal Vatican City, we have, in Europe, Monaco, Andorra, San Marino; in Africa, Lesotho, Swaziland, Gambia, Rio Muni, etc.; in Asia, Brunei and Singapore.
Previously, there were many more enclave-states than just these few, but most of them have been encroached upon by their neighbours because of the above attitude.
As enclaves, the EIP too has the full moral and legal right to exist, and is under no legal, moral or 'natural' obligation towards the Indian Union which, by and large, encompasses its parts.