While the Islamabad summit did make much progress, bilateral relations between Pakistan and India once again hogged the limelight. Is it possible for Saarc to ever come out of this bilateral shadow?

FOLLOWING the media coverage of the 12th Saarc Heads of State Summit in Islamabad, one could be forgiven for thinking it was an Indo-Pak — and not a regional — summit. Such was the extent to which bilateral issues dominated the event.

The media frenzy started with the initial meeting between the two prime ministers. The meeting between Prime Minister Vajpayee and President Musharraf provoked further speculation about progress on bilateral normalization. Then the final day brought a joint statement by Indian and Pakistani foreign ministers in which the two sides announced that they would be holding talks in February.

Among other things, the statement said: “The two leaders are confident that the resumption of the composite dialogue will lead to peaceful settlement of all bilateral issues, including Jammu and Kashmir, to the satisfaction of both sides.”

Given India’s refusal in the past to discuss Kashmir (seeing it as an internal matter), and given the fact that there has been no high-level dialogue on such issues between India and Pakistan for over two years, the announcement was indeed ‘historic’. “History has been made,” was President Musharraf’s verdict in the press conference he gave following the joint statement. In that press conference at least 95 per cent of the questions were about Indo-Pak developments. Saarc hardly got a look in.

The fact is that this was by no means the first Saarc event to be hijacked by the India-Pakistan relationship. The enduring image from the 2002 Heads of State Summit in Kathmandu is of President Musharraf walking across the stage and offering his hand to a bemused Vajpayee. Media coverage of that summit was also dominated by Indo-Pak relations, which were much more acrimonious at the time than they are today. The Kathmandu Summit was itself postponed because of Indo-Pak animosity. Originally to be held in November 1999, that meeting proved impossible when the Indians objected to Pakistan’s military government.

The question is, why are Saarc events constantly overshadowed by developments in the bilateral India-Pakistan relationship? More importantly, is it possible for Saarc to ever come out from that bilateral shadow?

In response to the first question, one major reason why the bilateral relationship dominates Saarc events is that they represent an excellent opportunity to improve that relationship. High-level bilateral meetings between Indian and Pakistani leaders are few and far between.

In recent years there have just been two: the 1998 Vajpayee-Sharif meeting in Lahore, and the 2001 Vajpayee-Musharraf meeting at Agra. The level of hype and expectation that surrounds such meetings inevitably proves impossible to satisfy. Progress in bilateral relations requires dialogue in an atmosphere free of pressure and the glare of publicity. Saarc summits, in which Indian and Pakistani leaders can interact with no formal bilateral agenda, offer something closer to such an atmosphere.

The other important factor is that both the last two Saarc summits have taken place in a context of prominent (strained and improving, respectively) relations between India and Pakistan. Kathmandu 2002 took place at a time when India and Pakistan appeared headed for war; Islamabad 2004, as they head back to peace and normalization. Those highly prominent bilateral contexts aggravate Indo-Pak domination of Saarc events.

Other Saarc members effectively get relegated to playing bit parts in the Indo-Pak show. This situation is, not surprisingly, extremely frustrating for them. But their dilemma is that, as the two biggest members, India and Pakistan dominate not just Saarc events, but Saarc itself. Take India and Pakistan out of the picture, and you lose 87 per cent (in terms of population) of Saarc.

Formed in 1985, the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation has seven members — Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka — which are bound together by the Saarc Charter that was adopted by Heads of State at the founding Summit in Dhaka.

The Charter, among others things, includes two major objectives: to promote the welfare of the peoples of South Asia and to improve their quality of life; and to accelerate economic growth, social progress and cultural development in the region.

These objectives are to be achieved through cooperation “based on respect for the principles of sovereign equality, territorial integrity, political independence, non-interference in the internal affairs of other states and mutual benefit.”

Fast-forward eighteen years, and it is clear that Saarc has not even come close to achieving its objectives. Home to around one-fifth of humanity, South Asia also has the largest concentration of the world’s poor. Per capita income varies from $600 in Sri Lanka to just $180 in Bhutan. Illiteracy, maternal and infant mortality, child labour, exploitation and abuse of women, and other socio-economic ills are rife throughout the region.

A major reason — though by no means the sole one — for Saarc’s failure is the on-off hostility between India and Pakistan. Saarc’s progress is dependent on cooperation between its member states. But when the two biggest members are not even talking to each other, regional cooperation becomes impossible. This applies to other members, too. The Indo-Pak relationship is not the only potential source of conflict within Saarc: India-Bangladesh and India-Sri Lanka relations have also been problematic.

Other obstacles to regional cooperation include concerns, particularly among smaller states, about Indian hegemony and domination. But by far the biggest hurdle to Saarc progress remains Indo-Pak hostility.

How can Saarc get round this hurdle? One approach is for Saarc to suspend all attempts at regional cooperation until the Indo-Pak relationship is resolved. A cursory review of other regional bodies — the European Union, the Association of South East Asian Nations, etc — shows that the minimum requirement for regional progress is regional harmony and an ability to talk and work together.

This applies as much to relatively unambitious bodies like Saarc (seeking economic cooperation) as it does to more ambitious bodies like the EU (seeking a common foreign and defence policy). Until Saarc can meet this minimum requirement, it is useless to expect anything from it.

But an alternative approach is for Saarc itself to try to improve the Indo-Pak relationship. One of the most common criticizms levelled against Saarc is that its Charter allows no ‘interference’ in the internal affairs of member states. There have been many calls for that Charter to be modified: a regional organization should be able to mediate in intra-regional disputes, goes the argument.

The counter-argument is that giving Saarc such authority could dissuade some countries from joining the body, for empowering Saarc may imply a diminution of national sovereignty. India, in particular, would have a big problem with this.

Even if the Saarc Charter could be modified to allow it to get involved in member states’ internal affairs, would this help in the case of Indo-Pak tension? As stated above, India and Pakistan form 87 per cent of Saarc. Is it realistic to expect the remaining 13 per cent to mediate between them? In the event of another Indo-Pak war, for example, what enforcement measures could the other Saarc members apply to end the conflict? Sadly, Saarc as the route to Indo-Pak peace appears unlikely.

What this means, in effect, is that Saarc must attempt to make as much progress as it can, within the constraints imposed by the Indo-Pak relationship. And it must take advantage of periods of warm Indo-Pak relations. This was the approach taken in Islamabad at the 12th Saarc Summit. Smaller member states lauded the process of normalization and dialogue embarked on by India and Pakistan, and they pushed the Saarc agenda forward.

Thanks to the media focus on the Indo-Pak Joint Statement, this probably did not come across clearly, but the summit actually made substantive progress. There were three major agreements to come out of the summit: SAFTA, a Social Charter, and an Additional Protocol to the Regional Convention on the Suppression of Terrorism.

The South Asia Free Trade Agreement (SAFTA) has been on the cards for some years now, but was delayed by the usual Indo-Pak acrimony. It is a follow-on to the South Asia Preferential Trade Agreement (SAPTA), signed at the 7th Saarc Summit.

SAPTA and now SAFTA are designed to address the anomalies of intra-regional trade: like, for instance, the fact that it can be more expensive for South Asian manufacturers to deal with their immediate neighbours than with extra-regional countries in the Gulf or the Far East.

Both the agreements entail the reduction of tariffs between member countries. SAPTA required members to set tariffs for each other 10 per cent lower than those for extra-regional countries. SAFTA goes further, setting actual limits for tariffs.

SAFTA is due to come into effect on January 1, 2006. In the initial two-year period, the so-called Non Least Developed Countries (India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka) are to cut tariffs to 20 per cent, while the remaining LDCs are to cut them to 30 per cent. In the subsequent period — five years for Non-LDCs and eight years for LDCs — all tariffs are to come down to 0.5 per cent.

If implemented, SAFTA has the potential to help realize the original Saarc objective of liberalizing trade between member countries. It has to be stressed, though, that lowering tariffs will not automatically boost intra-regional trade. One problem is that many South Asian countries produce similar kinds of exports: textiles, garments, tea, coffee, sugar. The market for these within South Asia is, therefore, limited. Another concern is that India, as the biggest economy in the region, could flood the smaller countries with its exports.

On the plus side, however, there is the evidence of heightened trade through free-trade pacts already operational in South Asia. Trade between India and China grew seven-fold after their bilateral agreement, signed less than five years ago. Similarly, trade between India and Sri Lanka has grown by 50 per cent since they signed a mutual pact two years ago. All South Asian countries are aware of the tremendous progress towards regional economic zones being made by ASEAN, the EU and others. There is, therefore, considerable incentive for them to make SAFTA work.

The ten-point Social Charter requires member states to take legislative, executive and administrative measures for the social uplift of their peoples. Target areas for the Charter include education, health, human resource development, poverty alleviation and women’s development. Furthermore, it requires them to share and review their implementation strategies with each other. The Social Charter represents acknowledgement of the dire human development indicators in most parts of the region. The Additional Protocol on Terrorism supplements the Convention agreed at the 1987 Kathmandu Saarc Summit. It addresses the funding aspect of terrorism, criminalizing the “provision, collection or acquisition of funds for the purpose of committing terrorist acts”.

Agreeing to this Protocol was harder than it first appeared, because of the sometimes considerable differences in the interpretation of the word ‘terrorism’ between member states — notably India and Pakistan. But as the recent attacks on President Musharraf and an earlier attack on the Sri Lankan Prime Minister showed, terrorism is a common scourge. Working together to tackle this common problem has to be the way forward.

The 12th Saarc Summit did achieve a great deal on paper, but implementation is again hostage to the state of relations between India and Pakistan. Only if these continue on the current warm footing can Saarc hope to realize the reduction in tariffs envisaged by SAFTA, or the sharing of implementation strategies for human development envisaged in the Social Charter. The bottom line for Saarc is that, no matter how hard it tries, it cannot break free from its dependence on good Indo-Pak relations.

Given this dependence, perhaps it would be more appropriate to describe the real achievement at Islamabad — from the Saarc as well as the bilateral perspective — as the Indo-Pak Joint Statement. Progress on the bilateral front means progress for Saarc overall.