The SAARC Problematique

By Madhukar S.J.B.Rana
E-mailo:shaligrm@mos.com.np
Former Special Adviser, MOFA
30 January, 2003

Late King Birendra of Nepal had actually, as early as 1977 at the Colombo Plan Ministerial Meeting held in Kathmandu, made the first ever international call for regional cooperation through multi-functional harnessing of the Himalayan waters. But this could not ignite regional cooperation per se as the Royal call focused on water--- a highly conflict-ridden strategic natural resource, nationally or bilaterally. As well as the fact that it called for the inclusion of China as a part of this region at a time when India was extremely suspicious of Nepal's foreign policy proclamation of 1975 to have it internationally recognized as a Zone of Peace in South Asia.

It also is reflective of Nepal's diplomatic inability to promote a sound long-term vision with the requisite short-term initiatives at the level of foreign policy making. It is relevant to mentioned here that in 1978, during the state visits of US President Carter and British Prime Minister Callahan, two world leaders had expressed their interest to support regional cooperation over water. Infact, the US even went so far as to endorse China's participation in it.

The statesmanship of President Ziaur Rahman, on the one hand, and the adroit diplomatic leadership of Bangladesh, on the other, were exemplary in the ability of that nation to be the prime mover, from 1980 till 1985, for the quest for regional cooperation among the seven of the eight South Asian nations (Afghanistan being territorially occupied by the Soviet Union at the time). It successfully initiated the South Asian regional cooperation (SARC) process which culminated in the formation of SAARC, as association, as we now know it.

It is probable that President Ziaur Rahman took upon this challenge of regional cooperation to propel his newly born nation to mobilize more foreign aid and hence be less dependent on India; and to divert the attention of the Bangladeshi intelligentsia away from the horrors of national politics as his government's birth was through a coup d'etat against its very founder-President, Mujibur Rehman.

The asymmetry that India enjoys in South Asia and the fears this casts on all neighbours naturally led Bhutan, Nepal, and Sri Lanka to readily endorse the concept. Pakistan and India were both suspicious of the notion as Pakistan felt that behind the notion lay the hand of India, while to India it was perceived as having the hidden hand of China. It was only, ironically enough, when the two foreign offices conferred with each other that they cautiously agreed to examine the Bangladesh Concept Paper circulated in 1980. Thus Pakistan and India reluctantly endorsed SAARC as a regional confidence-building mechanism that would avoid cooperation in all controversial areas by empowering each country with the power of veto.

Prologue

Sixteen years have elapsed since the founding of SAARC at Dhaka in December 1985. Sadly, it has achieved so little. As a late-comer, it had the advantage of being able to learn from others' experiences and so leap-frog the regional cooperation process, if it so wished. Not to be ignored have been the huge expenses incurred for the eleven SAARC Summits to date. This one is being undertaken by Nepal when its economy is in near-tatters with the astronomic rise in the security budget, deceleration in the GDP growth, the drastic fall in foreign exchange receipts and the declaration of a national emergency to combat Maoist terrorism.

SAARC Dynamics: Seven Fears and One Hope

What have been the underlying collective reasons for the creation of SAARC? The best answer is this: fear on the part of South Asians. Yes, fear is a great motivator for collective action. To be precise, there are 5 general- category fears coupled with 2 specific fears--- and 1 grand hope that one can identify.

For fear-general we have: (a) fear of geo-strategic marginalization by the rapid emergence of regional blocs in Europe, South East Asia and North America, (b) fear of political, economic and cultural domination by the industrial North with the waning economic might of the Soviet Union, (c) fear for the outstanding progress achieved by China through market-oriented policy reforms, (d) fear of the consequences on internal and regional peace and security arising from endemic poverty, population explosion, acute social inequality and the demands of sub-nationalisms throughout the length and breadth of South Asia, and, as already stated at the outset, (e) fear of asymmetry from the dominant position of India, which country alone shares borders with all of its regional neighbours.

The specific fears are : (f) fear of dependency on any Super Power, (g) fear of alienation from the masses amidst the ruling elite in Pakistan as they find the State weaving unstable military and economic alliances with countries outside the region. The one great fear that South Asia was devoid of is the threat to its collective security from outside the region that inter alia largely explains the birth of most other regional groupings.

But SAARC embodies also a grand hope as when both India and Pakistan assumed that it could serve to garner mutual confidence-building measures towards eventual bilateral detente and rapprochement.

Catch 22 Situation

Devoid of common security interests SAARC can, theoretically speaking, 'freeze' the politics of the region and concentrate on economic areas and thus collectively garner confidence in the region to tackle the ticklish political issues later on. This route SAARC has avoided so far. However, it is attempting to adopt it, as seen from the recommendations by the Group of Eminent Persons (GEP) to the 10th and 11th Summits. We await the final outcome.

The peculiar SAARC route has been to keep bilateral political differences in the forefront and, without solving these outstanding issues, to not move forward on core economic areas except very, very haltingly. The snail's pace of sub-regional cooperation endorsed by the 9th Summit at Male is further testimony to this fact.

Thus we find that the Indo-Pakistan divide has continued to hold despite SAARC. In fact, the nuclearization of these two countries has widened the gap and made it a much more dangerous region to live in. Militarization of South Asia proceeds at an unprecedented pace compared to all other regions of the world. Perhaps a Social Union is a primary necessity through innovative People-to-People interface to bring unity and harmony amidst South Asia's Kashmiris, Punjabis, Sindhis, Bengalis, and Tamils. For this a more prominent political space has to be yielded to the representative of the media, cultural and linguistic societies.

Witness the poor state of affairs in the Regional Centers that exemplify the state of the art in regional institution building for functional cooperation over information, tuberculosis, human resources and agriculture. How far have these centers served as catalysts for deepening regional cooperation towards sectoral or sub-sectoral coordination, harmonization and integration is a vital question for the success of the SAARC model of cooperation that concentrates on non-economic core areas.

Lack of headway in SAARC can be gauged by the fact that the SAARC process is basically within the corridors of the foreign ministries and hence susceptible to bilateral political machinations. Even the directors of the SAARC Secretariat are deputed by the foreign offices for short stints of duty. This suggests that cooperation is predominantly political with the presence of a minimal regional consciousness therein as well as questionable professional loyalty to the functioning of the Secretariat as such.

Future Trajectory

The fact that the SAARC process is on is in itself highly significant given the fierce terrorism in the region. Our leaders are, no doubt, cognizant of the costs of non-cooperation. How the SAARC problematique unfolds in future would depend on how strategic relations in South Asia evolves with the entry now of NATO into Afghanistan, the evolving geo-economics in Central Asia, China's interest in the Bay of Bengal, and last but not least, the level of global and intra-regional inequalities and the plight of the poor. Having Afghanistan in SAARC will open a new window of opportunity for SAARC's resilience and further innovation towards additional avenues for sub-regional cooperation as well as engineering inter-regional cooperation.