Notional Nations, Real and Imagined

I remember my first overseas trip, which was to Belgium.

- MADHAVAN NARAYANAN

On a weekend trip, a colleague and I took a train ride from Brussels to another nation, and were back by the same evening after three-hour rides either way. Across the border, Luxembourg made us wonder there could be a country as small—and with sovereign status and special tax laws that enable weekend drivers from Brussels to fill up their tanks with cheaper petrol.

The memories of Luxembourg, an area of about 2,600 sq km and a population less than 700,000, came flooding last week as I heard of Westarctica, a ‘micro nation’ in the news after a dubiously enterprising resident of Delhi’s satellite town Ghaziabad was arrested on charges of posing as the envoy of that ‘country’ as a cover for alleged money laundering.

Luxembourg is smaller than India’s National Capital Region but it is properly recognised as a ‘micro state’, unlike Westarctica—which does exist in some way, but as a micro nation. While micro states enjoy international recognition, micro nations are often self-proclaimed territories that few acknowledge.