Questioning "South Asia"

Read Manan Ahmed in Cliopatria, in reference to Ashis Nandy's column in the Times of India.

I like Manan's response to Nandy, but I have to say that I find some of the specifics Nandy's column a little questionable. Take, for instance, this sentence:

It [the term South Asia] has allowed the Indian state to hijack the right to the Indic civilisation, forcing other states in the region to seek new bases for their political cultures and disown crucial aspects of their cultural selves.

I see what he's getting at here (kind of), but the grammar is confusing. What does it mean to say that the state has "hijacked the right" to a civilization? I presume he's talking about the ongoing government interference in academic curriculum in India, but he never says that specifically anywhere in the column.

I think Nandy makes many interesting small points, but the bigger pieces of his argument don't hang together.