SAARC: A dim reference to regional cooperation

Golam Sarwar, Secretary General of the South Asian Association of Regional Cooperation (SAARC) came on an official visit to India on May11-15. A press release of the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) issued at the conclusion of Sarwar’s visit noted that he and his Indian interlocutors “had detailed discussions on various issues of regional cooperation within SAARC”. The press release went to emphasise; “During these discussions, India reiterated its commitment towards regional cooperation for growth and prosperity of the people of South Asia through SAARC. It also underlined that India considers SAARC as an important regional association for cooperation in South Asia and has been taking several efforts and initiatives to bring the peoples of South Asia closer to each other”.

It is significant that the MEA press release uses the indefinite article while referring to SAARC in the context of South Asian regional organisations. That is not how it would have been referred to by India when it was formed in 1985 or in the decades thereafter. In that period, it was thought by its then 7 member states –Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka—as the most significant organization of South Asia. There were also hopes that South Asian countries, overcoming the obstacles that prevented multilateral cooperation, would make SAARC the vehicle for the region’s integration. The examples of countries of Europe and South-East Asia and how they were cooperating in what was in the 1980s called the European Economic Community (EEC) and Association of South-Eastern Nations (ASEAN) respectively were before the countries of South Asia. However, that did not happen. Bilateral difficulties, including between India and Pakistan, came in the way of SAARC achieving its potential.

Truth be told, one of the principal negatives in the development of SAARC was the suspicion in some of the countries about each other and India. The fact is that India’s weight within South Asia is massive from the viewpoint of any metric. It dwarfs the other member-states, which became 8 in 2007 when Afghanistan joined SAARC, and that in itself breeds misgivings. Even when India made it clear that on economic issues it did not look for exact reciprocity but, like any other state it could not abandon its basic interests—relating to, for instance to its territorial integrity and security—the approaches of some SAARC states remained entrenched in negative mindsets. India’s western neighbour did not give up its hostility which manifested itself in the adoption of policies that promoted violence against India. This was especially harmful for SAARC.

The most important illustration of the fact that SAARC has languished over the past decade and does not really occupy the imagination of the peoples of its member-states lies in the inability of its top leaders to hold a summit for over a decade. The last SAARC summit was held in Kathmandu in 2014. The next was to be convened in Islamabad in November 2016. India refused to attend the summit after the Uri attack in September that year. Bangladesh, Afghanistan and Bhutan also expressed their inability to make it to the summit. It had to be postponed and that postponement has continued. Indeed, the absence of an India-Pakistan bilateral engagement over the past five years and the prevailing attitudes in Islamabad do not augur well for SAARC. The changes in Afghanistan of August 2021 also are particularly challenging for SAARC for the international community has not formally recognized the Taliban government which itself continues to call itself interim.

That nature abhors a vacuum is a cliché but it is nevertheless true. As SAARC continues to languish in a ‘vacuum’ its member-states, including India, have sought to fill the ‘vacuum’ through the creation of sub-regional organizations. Some of these, such as the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC) has a footprint which goes beyond SAARC countries. BIMSTEC, for instance, has Myanmar and Thailand as members along with Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and India. BIMSTEC seeks to integrate these countries in web of cooperation and connectivity. BIMSTEC was set up in 1997 but it has attempted over the past two decades to become cohesive. The seriousness of its member-states about the organization also came to the fore when they agreed in 2014 to establish a permanent secretariat in Dhaka.

On its part, Pakistan has sought to develop greater commercial and economic links with the region to its west. It has given weight to its membership of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) and the Economic Cooperation Organisation (ECO). The latter consists of 8 countries—Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Turkey, besides Pakistan. Besides, Pakistan is seeking to get economically closer to China with the development of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). However, the advantages that the country will derive from CPEC is a matter of debate among Pakistani economists.

The fact is that South Asia has been a natural geographical unit since times immemorial which provided the basis of its economic and commercial integration in a natural way even when it was not one political unit in the past. Indeed, the whole of South Asia was seldom part of one state. However, that did not impede economic and commercial cooperation among its peoples. That should be so today too. To achieve that and knit South Asia in a web of connectivity would require a vision of a thriving SAARC among its leaders. Also, the smaller states would have to shed their biases and insecurities against India. Above all, India’s western neighbour will have to drastically re-orient its approach towards this country.