As a regional platform, Saarc must address specific concerns of nation-states. If it does, it has a future
There is a propitious constellation of forces that is pointing towards something big in the region. For, all the countries from the Hindukush to the Indian Ocean are now headed by democratically-elected leaders. The public opinion in the region is ripe with positive outlook but more importantly, there has been an intellectual breakthrough, particularly in India, to move away to something more imaginative for the region. With these forebearings, it would be nothing short of a tragedy if the South Asian project doesn’t take off. While the Indian Prime Minister’s first trip to Bhutan and then his request to Indian Space Research Organisation for developing a satellite for South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation augurs new beginnings, the region’s leadership is yet to articulate the new South Asian idea.
One of the ideas that need to find more resonance in our political articulation is the difference between Saarc and the South Asian region. There are three problems with the Saarc definition. First, Saarc is a bureaucratic term which bestows nation-state legitimacy to the concept of regionalism. While the region shares language, culture, religion and history, the deep coagulation of nation state-ism needs breaking. Second, Saarc as a framework restricts cooperation. A project which features Tibet or Myanmar will not be considered South Asian because it doesn’t fall within the definition of Saarc. There is a need for a parallel imaginative understanding of South Asia outside the ambit of Saarc.
Third, because Saarc is strongly linked to the nation- states, that provincialism which ideally is what Saarc should have graduated into, can never happen. Sindh trading with Rajasthan or Skardu learning from the North-East States of India remains an aspiration.
This new leadership must also challenge the ‘security question’. legitimate concerns remain but security cannot become the point of relegation of all regional aspirations. There is increasing evidence that the security question has been driven by vested interests and rent seekers across the borders. Indeed, one may even argue that it is South Asia’s current security paradigm which has turned it into one of the most insecure regions in the world.
Saarc trade might assist in breaking the security paranoia within the region. Currently, the intra-Saarc trade stands at just five per cent of the total investment. India’s Ministry of Commerce and Industry argues that these figures get distorted because of India’s large proportion of world trade of around $800 billion. But, the fact remains that world over, regional groupings have big countries as part of their alliances yet, the intra-grouping trade is not skewed. Brazil in Mercosur, Germany in the EU, the US in North American Free Trade Agreement, and then is the Association of Southeast Asian Nations which, in spite of the presence of large countries like Indonesia and Singapore, are close to realising 26 per cent trade in their grouping.
Additionally, our risk-adverse political class who fear the question of “What if this went wrong” must be galvanised. Of course there will be pitfalls, if a grand coalition within the region is to be created. What is then required are mechanisms that could fortify our political class and create path dependencies, which in case of another mishap in the region can build an intellectual and political argument to protect them from the hawks of the region.
Most commentators suggest that the region is highly political, leading to an impasse in dialogue each time such attempts are made. But in reality, it is exactly the opposite. The political class of South Asia doesn’t meet and neither does it articulate its fears. There is a need to create a broader political culture of publicly talking so that it becomes a convention rather than an exception for them to make commentaries about the aspirations or concerns within the region. This will also open the ambit of the dialogue agenda.
In addition, one has to look not far but at Asean and then the African Union where political integration preceded economic and intellectual integration. The region currently presents an opportunity for a political integration with democracy. Politicising South Asia would also take it beyond the English-speaking sphere to the vernacular
South Asia because, unless the political ownership goes beyond the English-speaking sphere and the privileged, rarefied confines of the Saarc Secretariat, a new era will not begin. If there is going to be any breakthrough in the region it has to be in the next two years.