IN its manifesto Crossing the Divide, addressed to the UN General Assembly, the 'Group of Eminent Persons' convened by the UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan to which I belong, which also includes Richard von Weizsacker, Jacques Delors, Nadime Gordimer, Prince Hassan of Jordan, Amartya Sen and a dozen other personalities, has stated: It is ill advised to consider primordial ties as necessarily detrimental to the cosmopolitan spirit.