Opinion - Editorials

Moving SAARC forward

SOUTH ASIAN COOPERATION can make headway in a meaningful manner for the region's huge population only if India and Pakistan show genuine progress towards normality in their bilateral relations. Their continuing differences have stunted the growth of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC), launched ambitiously in 1985. The organisation has no doubt expanded interaction among the seven member-nations in a range of areas, including agriculture, meteorology, health, education, human resource development, and tourism. However, the discord between the two main players has held up progress in the vital area of trade where the region's complementarities are waiting to be exploited for the common good. These differences have forced the regional organisation to miss deadlines in 2001 and 2002 for a proposed treaty for a free trade area. It is against this background that the announcement of an agreement to hold a summit meeting of SAARC early next year in Islamabad will be hailed in the whole region. It gives the organisation a political shot in the arm, without which it will remain weak and ineffective. Many roadblocks remain before the preferential trade agreement and, subsequently, the free trade area become a reality. But the summit should put SAARC back on the rails and steaming.

The announcement of the summit was itself a message considering the complexity of inter-state relations and the interplay of forces in the region. The run-up to January 2004 will test the resolve especially of the political leadership of India and Pakistan to look beyond unsavoury and problematical recent happenings to a larger and brighter picture of regional cooperation. The consensus on holding a summit mirrors the movement of India-Pakistan relations towards normality. Several positive steps have been taken on the bilateral front. The High Commissioner of Pakistan, Aziz Ahmed Khan, has presented his credentials to the President, and with his counterpart, Shiv Shankar Menon, reaching Islamabad, a year and a half of diplomatic rupture has ended. Parliamentarians have made reciprocal visits and a Pakistani business delegation has exchanged views and experiences with Indian businesspersons and officials. At another level, the Lahore-Delhi bus service has been resumed, raising hope that air and rail links will also be restored. Confident that its concerns over liberalisation of trade will be addressed, Islamabad now appears ready to talk about lowering trade barriers.

The challenge before the governments of the SAARC countries is to firm up trade and commercial interaction in the region in tune with the improvement in political ties between India and Pakistan. As the region's largest nation, India carries the additional responsibility of showing greater flexibility and readiness than it has done so far in responding to the needs of other, and especially much smaller, SAARC members. Whether it is landlocked Nepal's requirement of transit facilities or Bangladesh's need for trade outlets, there is much that India can do by acting on the principle of non-reciprocity, a principle that can do a world of good for good neighbourliness. Regional dreamers within SAARC will point out that trade-driven politics is, after all, behind the impressive successes of the European Union and the Association of South East Asian Nations, both politically disparate groupings. But it should be remembered it has taken time and enormous hard work to build these two major success stories of regional cooperation. Absent the requisite political will, it is not surprising that SAARC is not in the same league. If it is to fulfil the aspirations of its peoples — it represents a fifth of the world's population — it must demonstrate a readiness to prevent the business of regional cooperation from being undermined by bilateral differences and disputes.

© Copyright 2000 - 2009 The Hindu