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Again SAARC, the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation is at stake. The 13th SAARC summit scheduled to be held in Dhaka on Feb 6-7, 2005 was postponed on Feb 2 after India announced that it would not be able to attend it due to security concerns (in Bangladesh) and political situation (in Nepal) in the 'neighbourhood'.
This is the second time postponement of 13th summit; originally it was scheduled to be held on last January 11-13, 2005 which was postponed due to tsunami disaster in this region.
This is the fifth time in the almost two-decade history of the SAARC that India has caused postponement of a summit. The last time it did so was on the occasion of the 12th summit slated for January 2003 in Islamabad.
SAARC rules, tradition and practice require the presence of all seven-member states for the holding of its apex meetings. Although bilateral problems must be out of agenda according to SAARC charter, but India made the decision pointing to the bilateral issues. On this ground, as a host, Bangladesh officially expressed her disappointment on the postponement and angrily explained the decision as 'unacceptable' and 'unwarranted.
India again proved by this decision that she has lack of commitment to this regional forum, and economic integration and development of this region. From the recent-past developments relating to SAARC, it seems that SAARC has gotten extra-ordinary treatment mainly from two countries like Bangladesh and India for two different reasons: (i) India always in indisposition in accomplishing all commitments toward regional cooperation, and also in attending the apex summits; (ii) For Bangladesh, the SAARC is more emotional than the reality as it is the main architect of this forum, as well as Bangladesh government and the people believe in a prosperous and developed South Asia due to socio-cultural homogeneity of this region.
Now the question arises -- why is India in indisposition about SAARC? Probably regional politics and conflicts are one of the main causes. India and Pakistan are always at confrontation; also many unsolved issues like border disputes, common river water-sharing, huge trade imbalance make the relations sour between India and Bangladesh. Although India showed two reasons for taking responsibility of summit postponement, how much these are justifying the decision? Nepal's situation can not be solved by this way, moreover India's current stance if it is to avoid Nepal king or to make them in pressure is truly unrealistic. If this is the reason for uplifting democracy in Nepal, there is no strong reason to sit with Pakistan and Bhutan too. But India is not doing so, rather their recent relationship development with Myanmar and Pakistan invalidates this reason of postponement.
There is a common view that the decision was made mainly to put pressure on present ruling government of Bangladesh. 'Security concern in Bangladesh' is not acceptable in the sense Bangladesh's security situation is not as much bad as in different regions of India. Many in Bangladesh are finding connections between India's current decision and main opposition political party Awami League's stance and appeal for postponing SAARC summit. Whatever may be the reasons, India's decision was based on truly political and bilateral issues. Unlikely though, SAARC charter was developed keeping this in mind and there is no room for discussion on bilateral or multilateral disputes in this regional forum. The vision of this forum is only on regional cooperation and economic development, which seems a far reaching objective yet.
Although the achievements of SAARC are not significant, a remarkable progress has been made in SAFTA initiatives and it was scheduled to be finalised by this summit to be effective from January 1, 2006. Definitely, by this postponement its launching will be delayed. Some other recent progress in energy sector cooperation and creating fund for poverty alleviation for this region will certainly be delayed by the Indian decision.
Concerning benefits from bilateral or South Asian regional cooperation, reality is that India is always the beneficiary. Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Maldives and Sri Lanka are the big markets of Indian commodities, among them Bangladesh is probably the biggest one. Whatever may be the reasons of India's indisposition, the late-hour decision not to join the summit is a serious irresponsibility as well as disregard to other South Asian nations. This irresponsibility and lack of commitment to regional cooperation also pose serious questions on their capability to have a permanent seat in the Security Council of the UN.
At the moment, the Asian community is still a dream. It should have surprised us, but makes us optimistic too when Indian Prime Minister Singh said in an interview last year that India favoured the establishment of an Asian Community as an extension of the East Asian Community. India is claiming that it is pre-positioning itself in Asia as an economic powerhouse for the 21st century. India's view was that an ASEAN-plus-four formula that included India would be the first building block for a future Asian Community.
A comparison of India's economic situation with China may be of relevance. Last year, a report by JP Morgan showed that India was 13 years behind China in almost every area, except in its financial system and rule of law. Just for a record, China has a foreign reserve of US$403.3 billion while India has only $115.3 billion. China's GDP is twice India's $1.09 trillion. This comparison simply foresees where India is, and becoming an economic powerhouse in Asia would not be so easy for India.
Bangladesh is important for India from both trade and strategic point of view. India's people should know that economic conditions of the seven-sister provinces are well behind the other parts of India only due to political decision on cooperation with Bangladesh. The decision not to join SAARC summit in Dhaka has come at the time when two important developments are on the way between these two countries: one, Bangladesh has agreed to give transit on a tri-nation gas pipeline to import gas from Myanmar to India, two, India will give transit in return to import goods from Nepal and Bhutan to Bangladesh. These two issues drew appreciation from worldwide media. But definitely implementing these two issues will be hampered somewhat with the current development in bilateral relations, which would not be good for any one.
If the decision not to join SAARC summit was politically motivated, it must be a serious concern for India too. Prime Minister Sing was nominated as the Prime Minister of India after refusal of Sonia Gandhi as a reward mainly based on his excellent job on economic reform and open-minded view during his previous tenure as finance minister of India. It is therefore surprising that Mr. Sing refused to join the summit of regional economic cooperation and integration due to alleged political biasness. Regional cooperation should not be subsided by regional politics.
It is the appropriate time for the SAARC members to rethink about the mandatory provision requiring the top leaders to attend the summit. We feel that it was a noble idea to float the SAARC keeping in mind that the leaders at least might get an opportunity to discuss different bilateral issues unofficially during the summit. But the way the things are going on, members may think about the amendment to the related clause so that SAARC's agenda is not disrupted due to any one country's unilateral decision. This is necessary for the greater interest of this region.
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