South Asia: Moving from Programmes of Cooperation to a Cooperative Programme

Regionalism in South Asia is celebrated through the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC). But, in practice regionalism rarely functions through the activities of SAARC. Regionalism in South Asia is viewed as a tool to manage the structural dynamics of the region and not as a mechanism to address regional concerns. The purpose of a regional dialogue is to discuss common problems and evolve remedial measures to which all parties can contribute and reap comparable benefits. But, in practice regional dialogue in South Asia is an exercise in one-upmanship where the regional blame-game is exhibited at its worst.
The Charter of SAARC does not categorize the forum as an explicit political or economic or strategic grouping. Its imprecise character was considered an asset; a flexibility which could adapt to emerging demands. The initial phase justified this approach, given the recent origin of the nation-state system in South Asia. But South Asian countries have not worked towards evolving a specific mandate for the regional forum. Even 22 years after its formation the SAARC programme remains as amorphous and vague as it was in 1985.
Regionalism refers to intensifying political, economic or strategic processes of cooperation among states. Such intensification and coordination of activities is not visible in the SAARC. There has been multiplication of institutional structures and proliferation of regional meetings, but few successes in terms of specific action-based programmes. Regional dialogue is dominated by the negative agenda of thrusting the responsibility for the regional challenges on specific national policies, rather than evolving a mutual approach to address the concerns.
The political goal of cooperation, namely, a political union, may be an ambitious objective for many regional groupings, but convergence of certain political practices which have regional and extra-regional implications could surely be on the agenda. Likewise, an economic union may qualify as the ultimate step in economic cooperation, but a free trade area is a more realizable target. A common defense system for a region is yet a far dream, but a coordinated defense strategy for strategic concerns has been evolved by regional groupings around the world.
If South Asian cooperation is measured against these political, economic or strategic yard sticks, the record would be extremely unimpressive. The saddest part is not that SAARC has not achieved the desired results in these spheres, but surprisingly SAARC has not even taken the initial steps in that direction. The strongest defense in favor of SAARC is its ability to survive despite widespread regional animosity. But, this defense is now being extended as a rationale for the existence of SAARC. To insulate SAARC from undue challenges, comparisons with the accomplishments of EU and ASEAN are discouraged. But by depriving SAARC activities a minimum denominator for genuine evaluation, its aspirations are being condensed.
SAARC claims to keep political disagreements out of the regional agenda to allow a congenial climate for dialogue. But, in fact the process of cooperation is challenged by the political uncertainties in the region. By ignoring regional realities SAARC cannot claim to create regional harmony. Moreover, if political disagreements are not discussed across the table, these would lead to greater regional tensions. SAARC defeats the very purpose of a regional forum. SAARC could personalize the process of political dialogue in the region so as to address the specific political contentions without appearing too intrusive with regard to bilateral relations.
Each state in South Asia has specific economic interests to safeguard. The process of economic cooperation needs to take cognizance of these concerns while forging regional economic agreements. Such concerns voiced by some member states are usually projected as mischievous attempts to disrupt the process of economic cooperation. The purpose of economic cooperation is safeguarding the interests of all parties rather than merely achieving a few institutional targets.
According to Barry Buzan, security interdependency means that two states make a hostile or friendly pairing and their behavior is regularly interactive. Buzan has emphasized on one security interdependency in the region, namely India and Pakistan. And this security interdependency has come to dominate the regional strategic discourse for over two decades. For evolving a viable regional security dialogue it is imperative that security concerns of the region are discussed beyond the India-Pakistan framework. Issues of political assassinations, sectarian violence, democratic instability, armed insurgency are challenges faced by all states in South Asia. A regional analysis of such threats and remedial measures needs to figure in the regional security dialogue.
Instead of the lengthy deliberations made at recent SAARC Standing Committee and Council of Ministers meetings in December 2007, the 15th SAARC Summit will merely need to comprehend the above stated facts. SAARC claims to have entered the implementation phase; the focus should now be on framing, refining and implementing general conventions of cooperation in the region, rather than implementing isolated programmes of cooperation. Hopefully in future, the member states will more actively invest to build a culture of cooperation in South Asia.

The article was also published at http://www.ipcs.org/South_Asia_articles2.jsp?action=showView&kValue=2481&country=1016&status=article&mod=a