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As efforts resume to kickstart the stalled SAARC process, with Pakistan sounding out regional political leaders on the holding of the long-postponed SAARC Heads of State and Government summit in January in Islamabad, a new round of fierce violence in Kashmir raises the spectre of accelerated moves to ground the regional amity exercise by reverting the Indo-Paskitani equation to one of mutual distrust and hostility.

Even as this commentary is being penned, the news of another bloody incident in Kashmir has hit the headlines. This time around, a car bomb, apparently aimed at an Indian army convey, has claimed at least seven lives and wounded 37 persons at a fruit market in Kashmir. Earlier, it was learnt that a visit to Srinagar by Indian Premier Atal Behari Vajpayee was greeted by violent incidents of a similar kind. Hizbul Mujahideen, described by Reuters as "Pro-Pakistan", had reportedly claimed responsibility for the latest blast which raises fresh questions on the longevity of the present thaw in Indo-Paskitani ties.

Female relatives of Indian Kashmiri man Abdul Samad express their grief in Srinagar, 06 September 2003, after he was killed by a blast in which suspected rebels detonated explosives in a car as an army convoy including a high-ranking officer drove through a fruit market on the outskirts of the city. At least six people were killed and 25 injured. AFP

The timing of these incidents proves that the destabilising effects sought by them are really region-wide and not merely centred on Indo-Pakistani relations. Here are efforts being marshalled to get the SAARC process going amid the propitious setting of a degree of Indo-Pakistani amity, than the region is jolted once again by a resurgence of destabilising violence in Kashmir. While the new round of bloodletting is likely to have a dampening impact on current efforts to normalize Indo-Pakistani ties, the SAARC process is also apparently sought to be harmed through the infliction of damage to this pivotal relationship. For, regional amity is crucially dependent on healthy relations between India and Pakistan.

Accordingly, the biggest casualty of the current tensions is likely to be the SAARC process itself and consequently the peoples of this region who constitute the bulk of the world's acutely poor.

Now more than ever do we need a vigorous dialogue among the SAARC Seven on efforts to alleviate poverty in South Asia on a self-help basis. The complex issues continuing to dog the dialogue between the Third World and the world's affluent countries in the WTO process, should underline afresh the need for closer cooperation among the world's poor for a more independent approach among the latter for a degree of economic independence and sustenance. Therefore, the establishment and sustenance of SAARC amity would prove crucial in the days ahead.

The SAARC process cannot be allowed to run aground once again, whatever the challenges on the ground. SAARC unity has never been more crucial.