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| Tuesday, 8 February 2005 |
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SAARC tossed in political rough seas by Lynn Ockersz SAARC has once again been rocked and allowed to run aground. The disruption caused to the SAARC process is evident in the fact that the SAARC Heads of State and Government Summit which was scheduled to be held in Dhaka this week has been postponed following a decision by India to pull out of the annual parley.
The development which is seen to have the closest bearing on the Indian decision is the sacking of the Nepalese government by King Gyanendra and the assumption of emergency powers by the latter, reportedly for the next three years. Thus, constitutional governance in Nepal is being held in abeyance and given India's political sensitivities, the drastic decision to pull out of the SAARC Summit shouldn't come as a surprise, although justifying it would prove difficult from the point of view of SAARC's long-term interests. From New Delhi's viewpoint, Nepal is a veritable buffer state between India and China, long seen as India's rival for regional predominance. Traditionally, India has been supportive of democratic administrations in Nepal, though these have been notoriously rare, given Nepal's monarchical state structure and the dampening impact it has had on the democratic process in Nepal. The Nepali Congress party, for instance, which has figured prominently in Nepal's botched democratic experiment has enjoyed considerable backing from India's centre over the years. It shouldn't come as a surprise, then, if the suspension of constitutional governance in Nepal should earn New Delhi's displeasure and provoke some drastic decisions on its part - in this instance, India's withdrawal from the SAARC Summit. Given India's geostrategic perspective on the Himalayan region, it would prefer a democratically-elected administration in Kathmandu, which in turn would have a commonality of interests with India. In the absence of these political conditions, India is likely to view its border with Nepal as an exposed flank which would need to be policed with extra vigour. The "security situation" in Dhaka, where the SAARC Summit was to be held and which is scene to some political unrest, was also seen as influencing India's decision to pull out of the parley, but this is likely to have weighed less heavily than the political developments in Nepal. Given India's regional predominance, regional political developments may have to be viewed from New Delhi's standpoint too for the conduct of a balanced assessment of the consequences flowing from India's decision over SAARC, but there is no denying that the SAARC process, which had just scrambled on to its feet, has suffered another major setback as a result of the Indian withdrawal. Some individual SAARC member states then, are continuing to be oblivious to the larger interests of the SAARC region in their obsession with short-term political considerations or individual gains. A suspension of the SAARC process would mean that less progress would be made towards, for instance, collective poverty alleviation and the establishment of a SAARC Free Trade Area. Needless to say, a diminishing of the SAARC process would register a setback for the SAARC masses. SAARC is no stranger to this on again off again process, but it would be stating the plainly obvious to say that the regional grouping is yet to make any major headway in realising its core aims. As is known, for a major part of its history, SAARC has been victim to the chronic ups and downs in Indo-Pakistani relations. Is SAARC willing to persist in this seemingly aimless journey? Apparently, SAARC is receiving less priority by some of its leading member states. We hope we are wrong in this supposition but the need is great for the SAARC Seven to arrive at a fresh understanding on the need to keep SAARC going and to fashion the modalities for its perpetuation. |
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