Hurdles to Regional Cooperation in South Asia

Paper presented at 25th Year’s Celebrations of Action Aid, Bangladesh on March 29th 2009

In the age of globalization, countries are coming ever so closer as borders fall to bring them into economic integration. Although globalization as a concept has come into common usage not very long ago, the trend towards this regional integration of nations started long before globalization came into common usage. The trend towards regional integration started soon after the second Great War in Europe. Globalization has both its supporters as well as opponents; but there are few who would argue about regional cooperation.

There are many examples of successful regional organizations formed for economic benefit to compete better in a globalized world. European Union is the best example. ASEAN is another. Then there are others such as NAFTA. Some of these organizations are moving towards political integration and bringing in other issues such as security to strengthen their regional organizations. In fact, no matter which regional organization one takes as an example, the result is the same; they have all moved through stages of integration that have benefitted both the organizations themselves and the member nations in a manner that can be best described as win-win for all.

These successful regional organizations no doubt had led late President Ziaur Rahman to propose towards the end of the 1970s a South Asian trading bloc that sowed the seeds of a regional organization for South Asia that ultimately matured when the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) was formed in Dhaka in 1985. SAARC brought 7 South Asian countries together that had the following strong points for regional integration:

1. More than 1.4 billion that is roughly 1/5th of humanity; majority of whom live below the poverty line;
2. Countries sharing common history, culture and civilization spread over few thousand years
3. Region where poverty is significant and where regional cooperation can be a major key to development.

Despite great potentials, SAARC has not evolved in the same way as has EU or ASEAN. In fact, the founding fathers of SAARC themselves were aware of the problems that they thought would stand in way of the organization evolving to its fullest potentials. In the charter therefore they clearly incorporated the fact that contentious bilateral issues would not be discussed in the framework of SAARC while adopting the following objectives in its Charter:
· to promote the welfare of the peoples of South Asia and to improve their quality of life;
· to accelerate economic growth, social progress and cultural development in the region and to provide all individuals the opportunity to live in dignity and to realize their full potential;
· to promote and strengthen collective self-reliance among the countries of South Asia;
· to contribute to mutual trust, understanding and appreciation of one another's problems;
· to promote active collaboration and mutual assistance in the economic, social, cultural, technical and scientific fields;
· to strengthen cooperation with other developing countries;
· to strengthen cooperation among themselves in international forums on matters of common interest; and
· to cooperate with international and regional organizations with similar aims and purposes.
Anyone reading through the list cannot help sensing that existing bilateral problems among the member countries must have been upper most in the minds of the Founding fathers of the SAARC Charter about what the association could achieve. They were negative about its prospects , feeling that if bilateral issues were allowed to be discussed within SAARC, it would stand in the way of achieving the prospects and promises it had on issues of common nature to all the member countries. The objectives have thus been set out in a manner that is vague and does not render the organization with that positive environment within which to lead it to match the effectiveness or the successes of other regional organizations. As a consequence, some critical issues for removal of poverty as for example water cannot be discussed within SAARC as Bangladesh and India have problems related to it.
SAARC has therefore restricted itself with the Charter that it has adopted from emerging as a successful regional organization because member countries have among them serious bilateral problems. In fact, political rivalries among the member nations have stood in the way of SAARC growing meaningfully. The major political issues in this context are:
1. Kashmir issue between Pakistan and India
2. The Sri Lankan Civil War; and
3. Bangladesh-India problems over the waters of the common rivers.
4. Alleged “illegal migration” from Bangladesh to India; and
5. Cross border terrorism.
6. The unequal size of the member countries with Maldives and Bhutan often expressing concern over this issue.
As a consequence of these rivalries, the “core” issues could never be addressed meaningfully and have thus not succeeded in integrating the member countries in any concrete manner. In fact, over the years SAARC has been in existence, the region has seen India-Pakistan coming close to a nuclear war ; SAARC Summit postponed on political differences; and a fence built by India on its border with Bangladesh and Pakistan.
SAARC was visualized by its dreamer President Ziaur Rahman as a trade bloc. Trade came into contention quite sometime after SAARC was launched with an Integrated Program of Action (IPA) in nine areas, namely, Agriculture, Rural Development; Telecommunications, Meteorology; Health and Population Activities; Transport; Postal Services; Sports; and Arts and Culture. On trade issues, SAARC has limped badly. Member countries have expressed their unwillingness to sign a free trade agreement. India has free trade agreements with Sri Lanka, Maldives, Bhutan and Nepal. Such agreements by India with Pakistan and Bangladesh have been stalled on political and economic concerns. India has raised fencing across its borders with Bangladesh and Pakistan, apparently to counter smuggling and cross border terrorism that has further pushed back efforts towards free trade. SAPTA that was reached in the Male Summit in 1990 led Bangladesh to lower tariff against Indian imports on a wide range of items. India failed to reciprocate the Bangladeshi gesture. In the Islamabad Summit in 2004, the member states finally signed SAFTA, addressing their desire to make the region a free trade zone. The agreement came into force in 2006. Under the agreement, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Maldives will make their countries free trade areas for the SAARC member countries. Bangladesh, Nepal and Bhutan as LDCs will have 4 more years to do the same.
SAARC Secretary General in his recent visit to Bangladesh has been candid about the organization. He stressed upon the need to strengthen bilateral cooperation between the member states in order to lead to more intense regional cooperation. In other words, he has correctly assessed the conflicts among the member states in their bilateral cooperation as the main reason for SAARC not yet emerging as a successful regional organization. This conflict in bilateral relations as a major impediment to successful regional cooperation involves India at the core.
In a paper by Professor Ben Crow of University of California, Santa Cruz, written almost a decade ago on impediments to regional cooperation in South Asia, the author had identified India’s insistence on bilateral rather than multilateral negotiations for resolving bilateral conflicts as one of the most important reason for sustaining conflicts in the region. One is well aware that when SAARC was in the contemplating stages, India was the country that was reluctant about such an organization fearing that a regional organization would allow countries with which India has bilateral problems (that includes the rest of the member states) to group together against her. In fact, it is this Indian perception that has led to the negative induction of the clause that contentious bilateral issues will not figure in SAARC framework.
Ben Crowe, while seeking at alternate ways to reinvigorate SAARC, has mentioned water as an issue with which to overcome problems in India’s bilateral relations with her neighbours. While India has resolved its water sharing issues with Pakistan successfully, in its eastern and northern frontiers, it has left the water sharing problems, particularly with Bangladesh, un resolved with disastrous consequences for the latter. Fifty-four of Bangladesh’s 56 rivers that sustains life and livelihood inn Bangladesh run from India where the Ganges is the most important one. Bangladesh and India signed an agreement on sharing water of the Ganges in 1996 for sharing water of this mighty river available during the dry season at Farakka where India has unilaterally built the barrage but since the signing of the agreement, water flow at Farakka has become low for sharing due to withdrawal of waters at upstream in other Indian provinces. The 1996 agreement however assures Bangladesh 90% of the agreed quantum in the dry season and does not take into account the issues of availability. India therefore now faces treaty obligation to Bangladesh to give her the agreed share of water during the dry season from the Ganges.
A change in the Indian mindset from bilateralism towards multilateralism will not just augment water available at Ganges during the dry season; there are a host of other benefits here that could eventually help regional cooperation by overcoming persistent bilateral problems. This sub-region is, according to independent studies, one of the richest areas of the world in terms of availability of water. During the monsoon, in the absence of a sub-regional cooperation between Bangladesh, India and Nepal on water management, the waters flood this region causing havoc and devastation and most of the water is rained into the Bay of Bengal. It is retaining this water and managing it to augment dry season flow that holds the key to harnessing this natural resource for welfare of the people living in the Ganges basin which added to the people who live in the other great river basin of the world, namely the Brahmaputra Basin, is home to more poor people that the whole of Sub-Sahara taken together.
A multilateral negotiation with the countries of the sub-region on sharing waters of the mighty Ganges by building dams in Nepal would not just help manage water effectively, control floods, augment dry season flows, these dams will also allow generation of electricity that could be shared in a region where lack of electricity is a major hurdle to economic development. Water can thus be used in this region not just to bring about economic miracle; such cooperation on water would also help improve bilateral conflicts and ease way for strengthening SAARC. India’s recent move to build a barrage at Tippaihmukh on Bangladesh’s northeastern border is going to deprive the latter of waters of Surma and Kushiara and will only add to complicating bilateral relations, obstructing regional cooperation. Here India’s responsibility is of the essence but thus far she has made precious little moves that could help bilateral relations improve for creating the conditions necessary for regional cooperation.
Thus the key to strengthening SAARC lies in improving bilateral relations. In such efforts, where need be, the member countries should seek a multilateral approach to cooperation that in turn will create the confidence towards greater integration. The need of the moment is to tackle the air of distrust which has been entrenched further by the emergence of cross border terrorism that involves India and Pakistan. India is also concerned about Bangladesh that she considers as a “soft underbelly” for cross border terrorism. In this context, the proposal that Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina made upon assuming power for a South Asian Task Force has not met with the degree of approval from India that Bangladesh anticipated. When the idea was floated first, Indian Home Minister P. Chidambaram was very enthusiastic; so was opposition leader LK Advani. Then when the Indian FM came to Dhaka, the Indian interest had turned lukewarm; perhaps because they were hoping that the proposal would be bilateral rather than multilateral. India took shelter under a SAARC agreement on this subject that has hardly been activated since being incorporated in the framework of SAARC years ago.
The fruits of regional cooperation are immense but politics is the bane of success of a regional organization for South Asia. While building blocks for strengthening regional cooperation through improvement of bilateral relations among member countries of SAARC is feasible on northeast among India, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal, given political will of the countries concerned; it is Pakistan-India relations, both nuclear powers and a history of bad relations that saw them fight two conventional wars and come close to a nuclear one that stands between South Asia and successful regional cooperation. Bad relations are also causing both the countries to spend billions of dollars in defense expenditures that could so well go for welfare of their peoples. India’s recent strides in global politics and economics have added to the air of dominance that she always had which is not good for regional cooperation. India’s recent successes globally should encourage her to use her newly found strength for strengthening regional cooperation and one hopes that after the elections to be held there shortly, the new Indian leadership would move that way. This notwithstanding, Pakistan’s current political situation is a new dark cloud over the future of SAARC. Unless Pakistan stabilizes politically and India sees the wisdom to cooperate regionally by improving her bilateral relations with her neighbours, SAARC will limp its way to the future cooperating on the Integrated Programme of Action (IPA) in areas that will hardly help the region achieve dramatic results through regional cooperation. As a regional organization, SAARC will fall far short of realizing even a part of its true potentials till these political relations are streamlined in a win-win situation of all the member states of the association. The region seems quite a distance away from such a possibility.