In the dismal record of South Asian regionalism, the 14th summit of the South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation might be remembered for initiating two trends. One is India’s new-found political will to accelerate regional integration through unilateral gestures on opening its market to its neighbours. The other is a change in the very composition of the Saarc.

The presence of the foreign ministers of Japan and China, who are participating as observers along with the US, European Union and South Korea, marks the increasing global interest in the subcontinent.

China and Japan would inevitably draw the Saarc into the larger framework of Asian geopolitics. However, it is the presence of Hamid Karzai, the president of Afghanistan, which returns Saarc to its true geographic moorings.

The subcontinent’s north western corner has for ages defined the region’s external relations as well as the internal dynamics. Whether it was the 19th century Great Game between Britain and Russia or its continuation as the Cold War between Washington and Moscow in the 20th century, Afghanistan was the decisive theatre.

The Soviet Union’s decade-long occupation of Afghanistan from the late 1970s and the western response to it unleashed the forces of Islamic extremism and fused it with international terrorism. It encouraged Gen Zia ul Haq to push Pakistan towards Islamic extremism and construct a dangerous liaison between the Pak Army and the jihadis.

The withdrawal of the Soviet troops in the late 1980s and the anarchy that ensued resulted in the birth of the Taliban, with a little help from Pakistan. The rest — 9/11 and the international intervention in Afghanistan — is history in the making.

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