SAARC: World focus on South Asia

C. D. Bhatta

The 15th SAARC Summit has concluded in the Sri Lankan capital, Colombo, with the signing of the Colombo Declaration.

The Colombo Declaration, like the past declarations, has principally agreed to collectively address various issues that confront our society, such as climate change, terrorism, rising oil prices, energy crisis, the looming food crisis, fresh commitment to eradicate poverty and revitalising the notion of free trade through SAFTA.

The leaders have decided to hold the 16th Summit in the Maldives.

An interesting aspect of the Summit was that many important nations and power blocs of the world attended it either as an observer or would-be observer.

When we look at the major achievement(s) of SAARC - the only tangible achievement has been its expansion.

The SAARC leaders had talked about eradicating poverty some 10 years ago, but nothing has been done till now. Despite all these, it is always good to have a chattering club in the region, which can at least bring both protagonists and antagonists together. And to some extent, it will help to reduce inter-state conflict(s) in the region.

The sudden and rapid expansion of SAARC with the entry of Afghanistan as a full member, and China, Japan, Iran, Mauritius, South Korea, Australia, the United States and European Union with observer status manifests its importance strategically and economically, for one reason or another.

The expansion also triggers some fundamental questions, such as what shape SAARC will eventually take, why is there a sudden rush for expansion, or rather why is there growing attraction towards South Asia and what would be the future role of the smaller states?

To answer these questions, allow me to borrow some of my own arguments, which might have appeared earlier.

The composite answer to these questions is coupled with maintaining the equation of ‘geopolitics’ in Asia. It is mainly because of South Asia’s proximity to central Asia, a region that carries vast reservoirs of natural resources, and the location of two emerging world economies -India and China - in Asia.

These factors are surely going to dictate the international political economy of the 21st century.

China and Japan’s entry to the club as observers does not spark any furore within the region because of improving relations between India and China, but it certainly has become a matter of concern for the EU and America. What is not clear yet is how the smaller states like Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal will benefit from this expansion.

There are chances that the smaller states might be marginalised when the big powers penetrate such an association.

The commitments expressed (in principle) by the South Asian leaders are, perhaps, a bit too ambitious. This is because the concept of ‘regionalism’ has not yet emerged in South Asia despite the existence of SAARC, mainly due to the missing degree of complementarity.

Although South Asian states have a common history (in terms of state formation), not all SAARC countries share common values that are rooted in culture, language and religion. It is absolutely important to have common values for a successful regional bloc, say scholars on regionalism.

The success of the European Union, ASEAN and NAFTA rest on these basic common values, and they are hardly available in South Asia.

All regional states and observers have their own reasons for joining SAARC, which were driven more from the point of national interest than by regional interests.

The level of mistrust that runs through South Asia, the inability of SAARC to assist in resolving internal conflicts in the region, which has created a space for extra regional forces, makes it almost impossible to have any sort of collective endeavour in the region.

The classic example is Sri Lanka - where the conflict has been going on for more than two decades, but then international powers had to intervene for its resolution (although it has not yet succeeded).

No regional initiative has been made to resolve the conflict, and the same goes with other inter and intrastate conflicts which are unattended (rather triggered) by the regional states.

The best that could have been hoped from South Asia is free trade from which the smaller States could benefit.

But again, this can only happen when the larger states (India, Pakistan) surrender their interests for collective benefits.

Whatever the level of trade that exists in South Asia has nothing to do with SAARC. This has been there even before the birth of SAARC.

Finally, one cannot deny or undermine the fact that there is a great deal of affinity amongst South Asians and also an unflinching desire to advance that affinity for a common benefit. But problems at the state level which are rooted in common values, have made it virtually impossible to translate that desire into a reality.

SAARC as an association has not been able to resolve bilateral and contentious issues because of its modus operandi based on its Charter.

New initiative

There is a genuine need to have an alternative approach to resolving both high intensity and low intensity conflicts for full-scale integration.

Perhaps, the proposition of a SAARC Social Charter and initiative from Track-II level for peace building, conflict resolution and conflict management in South Asia is a way forward to ridding the region of these problems and building up a ‘South Asian Commonwealth’.

This would be easier to achieve, given the common history we South Asians share. And one can pin down high hope on this approach.

The emerging South Asian civil society for sure can play a very significant role in this regard.

High level of people-to-people contact in South Asia could bring some sort of regional togetherness.

Rising Nepal