Is SAARC still breathing?

Is SAARC still breathing?
J.N. Dixit

The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), since its inception in December 1985, has had a chequered career. The current state of inactivity of the SAARC should be of particular concern, not only because the summit meetings have not been held for two years but also, from all indications, they may not be held in the foreseeable future.

SAARC, as an idea, was mooted by the late President General Zia-ur-Rahman of Bangladesh in January 1981. India's initial reaction was of caution because of the apprehension that the organisation could be utilised as a platform for its smaller neighbours to combine and exert pressure on India on issues they felt strongly about. Ultimately, India agreed to join SAARC, provided that its own interests were not to be compromised with. The SAARC charter, therefore, stipulated specifically that the forum would primarily function to enhance regional cooperation in the economic, technological, cultural and social fields. Bilateral political disputes were not to be brought up.

Fifteen years down the line, and its success in moving towards the objectives for which it was established can at best be described as sporadic. SAARC summits and ministerial deliberations had been interrupted or postponed on several occasions. More recently, General Pervez Musharraf's coup in October 1999 led to India's reluctance to participate in SAARC meetings in which a military regime of Pakistan was represented. The official level meeting of SAARC representatives in Colombo in November, which was chaired by Sri Lankan Foreign Minister Lakshman Kadirgamar, came to the conclusion that given the current political atmosphere, the foreign minister-level meetings of the SAARC, as well as the SAARC summit, may not be held even in the year 2001.

The disappointment over SAARC's performance has given a fillip to non-governmental initiatives by eminent leaders and intellectuals of the region. The idea is to activate processes of cooperation through non-governmental channels through the interaction of the civil societies of the various SAARC states. The latest initiative is the creation of a forum of eminent persons of South Asia, chaired by former prime minister, I.K. Gujral. The first meeting of this group was held in Kathmandu last month. The nuclear weaponisation of India and Pakistan has, of course, lent such initiatives a certain urgency. There is also the general agreement in most countries of SAARC that regional cooperation is not only desirable but essential to overcome the critical problems of poverty, health, illiteracy, development and distributive justice in the region.

But the success of such initiatives depends on the extent of concrete cooperation that already exists between SAARC countries. Briefly, it can be said that SAARC has provided a platform for sharing information on social, cultural, economic, developmental and technological issues. There has been some progress in formulating suggestions and terms of cooperation in the fields of agriculture, tourism, creation of databanks as well as integrated plans for poverty alleviation in the region.

Technical level discussions have been completed and consensus has been developed for the creation of a South Asian Preferential Trade Area, which should lead to the creation of a South Asia Common Market and then a South Asian Economic Community. While the constituent elements in arrangements for these objectives have been agreed upon, there have been differences of opinion about the time-frame within which this project should be completed. More importantly, Pakistan keeps chanting the mantra that unless the problem of Kashmir is solved, it cannot participate in these processes. It is in this context that the November 2000 meeting of SAARC officials in Colombo decided that the discussions on these subjects and other technical projects of cooperation should be continued. A higher level political meeting cannot be held given the existing political atmosphere in the South Asian region.

The difficulties, then, that have affected SAARC cooperation include the asymmetry between India on the one hand, and its other neighbours on the other, in terms of demography, economic and technological capacity and military strength (although this should not be a major factor any more with Pakistan's nuclearisation). The situation is compounded by the bilateral disputes characterising relations between Nepal and Bhutan, Pakistan and Bangladesh, India and Pakistan, India and Bangladesh, India and Sri Lanka.

At a deeper level, India's neighbours are subjected to political, socio-cultural apprehensions about their own national identities and security, because of the overlapping phenomena of ethnicity, language and religion. These apprehensions have led countries of the region to search for links with other powers to counterbalance the overarching influence of India. Therefore, we find that Pakistan is keen on assuming an Islamic identity rooted in relations with countries of the Gulf and West Asia. Bangladesh has similar aspirations in its relationship with Malaysia and Indonesia. Sri Lanka, at one point of time, was more keen to be part of ASEAN than SAARC. Indian strategic thinkers are similarly inclined towards having closer ties with ASEAN.

That the prospects of SAARC cooperation are not encouraging is clear from the current drift and delay in the institutional political discourse between the governments of the region at the requisite high levels. One has also to acknowledge that despite the Track-II initiatives taken, none of them have impacted on the policies of the governments in the region. The basic predicament that emerges is that none of the member countries of SAARC seem to have a profound and deep commitment to SAARC, or the conviction that it is an important institution for our future well being.

Two requirements have to be fulfilled if SAARC cooperation has to be meaningful. First, there should be a purposive effort at resolving all the major political disputes between the member countries of SAARC. Unless this happens, the necessary atmosphere of trust and mutual confidence will not come about. Secondly, the shared feeling of the need for South Asian cooperation must manifest itself among the governments of the region which should then translate itself into required policy decisions. But all this appears to be a very distant prospect at present.

The basic predicament is that none of the member countries of SAARC seem to have a deep commitment to it, or the conviction that it is important for our future well-being