Pakistan Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in Egypt last week with Bangladesh’s interim leader Muhammad Yunus
The Revival of SAARC and the Larger Question of Regional Solidarity and Integration
By Dr Saeed Ahmed Rid
Islamabad
“I am a big fan of the idea of SAARC. I keep harping on the issue. I want a summit of SAARC leaders even if it is only for a photo session because that will carry a strong message,” said Dr Mohammad Yunus , leader of Bangladesh's interim government, speaking to Pakistani Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on the sidelines of a summit in Cairo on Thursday, the D-8 Organization for Economic Cooperation between eight Muslim-majority countries.
Dr Yunus made a similar statement immediately after taking oath in August as the Chief Adviser of Bangladesh's interim government. Since then, he has been consistently calling for the revival and revitalization of SAARC, the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation.
Established in 1985 with high hopes of building bridges and making South Asia an effectively interconnected region, the organization has become almost dysfunctional as it approaches its 40th anniversary.
The 19th SAARC summit scheduled in Islamabad, 2016, could not take place as India boycotted the event, blaming Pakistan for the Uri attack in Indian-administered Kashmir. Afghanistan, Bangladesh and Bhutan also boycotted the event, on Indian insistence.
India's consistent refusal to travel to Pakistan has made the SAARC summit impossible since then. External Affairs Minister Jaishankar’s trip to Islamabad on 15 October 2024 for the Shanghai Cooperation Organization heads of government summit was a welcome exception.
However, SAARC remains in limbo as its all major decisions are to be made with consensus in a SAARC summit.
Imperial legacy
Historically, the region comprising the eight member countries of SAARC -- India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal, Maldives, and Afghanistan -- was simply termed “India” taking its name from the mighty river Indus and the Indus Valley civilization, one of the oldest in the world.
The modern South Asian civilization is the product of cultural patterns established over centuries-old global migrations, conquests, and settlements. Diverse influences on South Asia come from cultures including Mesopotamia, Greek, Arab, Turco-Mongol, Persian, and European.
The British occupation of this region beginning in the 18th century marked the first time that South Asia was ruled by a single centralized authority. The British colonists divided and merged many territories arbitrarily based on their imperial interests with no consideration for the socio-cultural, ethnic, linguistic, and religious complexities of the region.
More than 90 percent of the region came under British imperial control, barring Nepal, Bhutan, and Afghanistan. However, Nepal and Afghanistan lost some territory to the British crown, leading to current border disputes with India and Pakistan respectively.
As India inherited the largest part of British India, it also inherited territorial disputes with China, Pakistan, Nepal and Myanmar. These territorial disputes stemming from the British colonial legacy are now the biggest hurdle in South Asian solidarity and regional integration.
India and Pakistan's dispute over Kashmir, the Sino-Indian disputes over the MacMohan Line, the Pakistan-Afghanistan discontent over the Durand Line, the India-Nepal grievances in the Kala Pani area are bones of contention that stand in the way of regional cooperation and collaboration.
However, it is not just territorial disputes that haunt South Asia. The European notions of territory, border, nation, nationalism, sovereignty, and nation-state which were introduced to the region over time were alien in the South Asian context and created many unmanageable frictions and divisions within the region.
Now, to heal the colonial wounds, South Asia needs a better understanding of its past and a pragmatic outlook for the future. For this, it is essential for South Asian scholars to collaborate and develop a more nuanced understanding of our colonial past, as well as the future.
Sugata Bose and Aysha Jalal’s book Modern South Asia (Oxford University Press, 1997) is a good attempt in this direction. I also participated in a book project with Indian and Bangladeshi authors titled 'The Aftermath of the Bangladesh Liberation War of 1971' (Routledge, 2024).
More such collaborative work is essential to help the people and leadership of South Asia imagine beyond their prisms of narrow nationalism.
Besides Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Nepal have also been pushing for the revival of SAARC. However, the uncompromising stance of the Modi-led government in India makes such a revival look like a distant dream.
India is pushing for the Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC), launched in 1997, as an alternative to SAARC. However, BIMSTEC does not include Pakistan, Afghanistan and Maldives.
Nepal, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka hold that any regional organization which excludes Pakistan cannot be considered a representative regional organization for South Asia.
None of this has stopped the 'peacemongers' of South Asia from forging alliances at the people-to-people level.
In August 2019, a few months after the COVID-19 pandemic began, the Modi government unilaterally revoked Article 370 and 35a in the disputed region of Kashmir. This brought India-Pakistan relations to another low, making physical meetings between the people in South Asia virtually impossible because of increasingly stringent visa restrictions.
Meanwhile, the groundbreaking peace initiative Aman ki Asha (Desire for Peace) launched by The Times of India and Jang Group of Publications in Pakistan, launched in 2010, has also been more or less dormant since 2014.
Peacemongers
The pandemic led to several cloud-based video conferencing platforms cropping up to allow business and education to function when physical meetings were not possible. This also provided an opportunity for South Asian peace activists abroad and in their home countries, who were already connected through social media, to hold discussions and seminars online.
One such virtual discussion on 28 March 2021, culminated with the formation of the Southasia Peace Action Network or Sapan, bringing 'peacemonger' groups and individuals working towards peace and stability between India and Pakistan under one umbrella.
In March 2023, Sapan passed a resolution urging the governments in South Asia to convene an official SAARC Summit at the earliest. They called upon the governments of the South Asia region to
1. Commit to holding a future SAARC Summit soon;
2. Provide a clear-cut plan on how SAARC can be revived;
3. Work towards deeper integration in South Asia and allowing people-to-people contact and restoring road, rail, and air connectivity;
4. Act on the need to "uphold the genuine economic and social conditions of all peoples of the region, keeping aside narrow nationalist agendas.”
After Narendra Modi was re-elected to power in June this year, he pointedly did not invite Pakistan to his oathtaking ceremony.
“In the spirit of 'Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam' – the world is one family – we hope you will revise your stand and extend a hand of friendship to all SAARC countries, including Pakistan,” urged Sapan in a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi , June 11, 2024.
If India remains unwilling to travel to Pakistan for a SAARC summit, some other alternatives must be thought out. One option can be to organize the virtual SAARC summit hosted by Pakistan.
Another alternative can be to take a cue from the International Cricket Council (ICC) decision regarding both India and Pakistan playing each other on a neutral venue, it can be decided until India changes its mind regarding traveling to Pakistan, the SAARC summits may be organized in other SAARC countries except Pakistan and India.
In any case, the future of SAARC cannot and must not be held hostage to the Indian unwillingness to travel to Pakistan.
(Dr Saeed Ahmed Rid is a longtime supporter of cross-border regionalism and dialogue. He is Assistant Professor, National Institute of Pakistan Studies, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, and is a founder member of the Southasia Peace Action Network and its Advisory Council.) – Sapan News
