Round The
World
New Delhi, 7 June
2019
SAARC & Modi
SOUNDING THE DEATH-KNELL?
By Dr D.K.Giri
(Prof. International Politics, JMI)
The invitation to
heads of BIMSTEC countries (Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral
Technical and Economic Cooperation) for the swearing-in ceremony of Narendra
Modi’s second government on 30 May almost sounded the death-knell for SAARC
(South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation). In five years, SAARC was
allowed to die a natural death.
Recall Modi had laid
the red carpet for SAARC leaders in his first swearing-in as Prime Minister in
2014. In the second term of his government, he had replaced it with BIMSTEC. It
is not just symbolic, but a heavily substantial change. It is matter of time,
SAARC is administered the euthanasia by South Asian leaders, and buried.
The terminal illness
of SAARC had begun quite some time ago, but was diagnosed when India as a
member of BRICS invited BIMSTEC in 2016 to Goa, as a part of BRICS outreach
efforts in the developing world. In the same year, SAARC suffered another setback
as the 19th Summit scheduled to be held in Pakistan, was suspended
sin-e-die. The member countries declined to attend the Summit in the absence of
a conducive environment, in particular, the scene of insecurity created by
Pakistan-sponsored terrorism in the region.
Admittedly, SAARC
process has been stalled by the India-Pakistan hostility which shows no sign of
abatement. Although SAARC does not discuss bilateral issues; the climate of
confidence is cluttered, and the India-Pakistan animosity spills over to the
functioning of SAARC, and paralyse it. The new member of SAARC Afghanistan also
suffers from Pakistan’s machinations and proxy aggression on its territory.
New Delhi, perhaps,
wisely decided that South Asian cooperation cannot proceed with a hostile,
obdurate, and terrorist-infested Pakistan. It decided to isolate Pakistan by
building up BIMSTEC, which includes five SAARC members and two members of ASEAN
– Myanmar and Thailand. These two members will provide access to New Delhi to
penetrate the ASEAN territory. Three members that are left out of BIMSTEC are
Pakistan, Maldives and Afghanistan. New Delhi is resetting ties with Maldives
after a pro-India government took over in the island country. And India has
deep defence and development relations with Afghanistan.
New Delhi has thus
managed to isolate Pakistan in the South Asian region. But talking about SAARC,
which started in 1985 with good intentions of some of the South Asian leaders,
shall we sing the ‘Swan Song’? Like the aphorism goes “the road to hell is
paved with good intentions”, SAARC was doomed from the beginning. The leaders
failed to foresee the complications in its functioning due to the internecine
enmity between India and Pakistan.
Perhaps, the leaders
had thought that one could talk about collective good by sidelining the
bilateral issues. Little did they realise, the ‘Kashmir issue’ between India
and Pakistan, so emotive and volatile, could engulf SAARC. That is exactly what
happened, the smoke rising from India-Pakistan fire has blinded the path for
SAARC. Since the fire is not likely to extinguish, it is better to stop the journey
of SAARC, and rather withdraw it from any movement. That said, let us draw the
trajectory of SAARC until 2014, and examine if it could have had a chance to
survive despite India-Pakistan hostility.
SAARC envisioned by
Zia ur Rehman of Bangladesh in 1970s was shrouded in mistrust and suspicion.
New Delhi was reluctant to join as it was seen to be a pro-American grouping to
counter Soviet Union with which India had close ties. But members had
lackadaisical approach to it, the institutions took too long to develop, and
mechanisms were weak to take swift decisions. Since 1985, summits have been
postponed 11 times for political reasons either bilateral or internal.
The foremost reason
for failure in addition to India-Pakistan conundrum is the problem of
implementation. A number of regional agreements have been signed, but they have
not been implemented. Quite often, Pakistan throws a spanner. For instance SAARC-MVA
agreement during the 18th summit at Kathmandu could not be
implemented because of Pakistan’s reluctance. Similarly, Islamabad objected to
the satellite project proposed by New Delhi. It has been established that
Pakistan did not allow any SAARC agenda to proceed.
The second area of
failure is the common security. The member countries did not have a common
perception of threat. While India appealed to Pakistan about cross-border
terrorism, the latter was indifferent.
Third, SAARC did not
have any conflict management mechanism. The leaders envisaged a conflict-free
situation to promote cooperation. But any meaningful cooperation has to be
preceded by conflict resolution. Consequently, in absence of mediation for
conflict resolution, disputes among the member countries affected the
consensus-building and stunted the integration process.
Fourth, in view of
the slow progress of SAARC, member countries turned to bilateralism. That
in-turn hampered the growth of SAARC. Bilateralism should contribute to
multilateralism, not substitute it.
Fifth, SAARC did not
receive adequate attention in terms of resources, and encouragement of
non-governmental players. Notably, the European Union, which is by far the best
example of regional integration despite its current troubles, was built by movement
of four elements – capital, people, goods and services. There were no
substantive movement of any of these amongst SAARC countries.
There were heavy visa
restrictions for people in and out of Pakistan, only India and Nepal have had
visa free movement. Goods were also heavily taxed or smuggled; capital and
services also did not have hassle-free movement. South Asian Free Trade
Association, SAFTA touted as an example of regional cooperation did not improve
multilateral trade in the region.
Obviously, before the
agreements are made and signed, confidence building measures among the
contracting parties are put in place. SAARC heavily lacked in this area, and
was bound to fail. On the other hand, BIMSTEC founded in 1997, has been
pervaded by an atmosphere of goodwill and friendship. That will stand it in good
stead despite, as critics point out, BIMSTEC’s achievements has been less than
impressive. It should be noted that BIMSTEC was operating in the shadow of
SAARC, hence grew slowly. With SAARC being sounded the death-knell, BIMSTEC
will move faster as a new platform.
A word or two about
the status of regional cooperation and the fate of BIMSTEC; there is renewed
doubt about regional cooperation as the preferred mechanism for peace and
prosperity of participating countries, mainly in the wake of Brexit and US
withdrawing from trans-pacific partnership in 2017.
Arguably, Brexit and
Donald Trump are considered to be aberrations in normal functioning of
democracy, as they remind us of Plato and Aristotle’s caution about democratic
politics. However, democracy renews and self-rectifies itself. These ‘abnormal
times’ will pass, and regional cooperation leading to healthy multilateralism
will stay. Therefore, BIMSTEC and such regional initiatives have a future for
peace & prosperity of their people.---INFA
(Copyright, India
News & Feature Alliance)
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