The Hindu Business Line : SAARC in India's strategic vision

At a time when much of South Asia is in foment, the SAARC summit is scheduled for January first week in Islamabad. Lest the meeting is reduced to an India-Pakistan soap opera, New Delhi has to go with a positive agenda. Top priority must be the signing of a framework agreement on SAFTA, and sending the message that economic cooperation cannot be stymied by the territorial ambitions or imagined grievances of members, says G. Parthasarathy.

The Prime Minister, Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee, with the Pakistan Information Minister, Sheikh Ahmed Rashid, and the I&B Minister, Mr Ravi Shankar Prasad, at the SAARC Information Ministers Conference in New Delhi on November 11. Pakistan's preoccupation with bilateral issues at the regional meet will only lead to the marginalisation and irrelevance of SAARC. — V. Sudershan

ADDRESSING THE Combined Commanders Conference of the armed forces on November 1, the Prime Minister, Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee, gave India's military brass a bird's eye view of the global and regional parameters that define New Delhi's quest for national security. The armed forces commanders were told that India could not confine itself to basing its foreign and security policies on the goodwill of any single power.

Being non-aligned involved partnerships with a variety of countries. If Brazil, South Africa and China were key partners and indeed allies in the World Trade Organisation, the United States and Russia were important on issues of national security and in confronting the menace of terrorism.

Mr Vajpayee spoke of the new dynamism that characterises India's relations with Asean (Association of South East Asian Nations) and the need for new and innovative approaches to deal with differences with China. He categorically rejected the narrow Pakistan-centric vision that is widely prevalent in our security establishment.

The Prime Minister defined India's security perimeter as extending across the Indian Ocean from the Persian Gulf to the Straits of Malacca, including Central Asia and Afghanistan in the northwest, China in the northeast and extending to South East Asia.

While New Delhi can derive satisfaction from developments in its relations with major power centres of the world, its imaginative approach to the WTO and its growing economic integration with Asean, it cannot be too pleased with developments in its South Asian neighbourhood.

Led by the hawkish Gen Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistan military establishment continues to believe that resort to nuclear blackmail and terrorism will force India to yield in Kashmir and elsewhere. Nepal is confronting a deadly Maoist insurgency, with its ruler appearing determined to address this challenge by stifling democratic freedoms. Bangladesh, led by Begum Khaleda Zia, makes some noises professing friendship, while fomenting insurgencies in the North-East.

And Sri Lanka is in the midst of a constitutional crisis, as the peace initiative launched by its Prime Minister, Mr Ranil Wikremasinghe lies mired in uncertainty, with the LTTE determined to dismember the country.

Complicating matters for New Delhi is the growing propensity of external powers to meddle in the internal affairs of South Asian states.

If the Norwegians show little understanding of the imperatives of national unity in Sri Lanka, the Americans have been slow in realising that a Maoist insurgency in Nepal can be dealt only by a judicious combination of democratic political accommodation, socio-economic transformation and military force.

It is in this environment that India has to prepare for the forthcoming SAARC Summit in Islamabad, scheduled for the first week of January 2004. Gen Musharraf and his publicity hounds will spare no effort to portray that an obdurate India is missing a golden opportunity to engage in a bilateral dialogue.

And there will be no dearth of Indian views echoing this. The entire effort will be to reduce the SAARC Summit to an India-Pakistan soap opera.

It is for this reason that New Delhi has to go to the Summit with a positive agenda. Foremost amongst the items to be focussed on is the finalisation and signing of a framework Agreement on a South Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA).

It is evident that Pakistan has been pushed to a corner and sees no alternative to signing such an agreement. The Pakistan Commerce Minister has at the same time categorically stated that India will be granted MFN (most-favoured nation) trade facilities only when differences over Kashmir are resolved.

Pakistan's strategy will, therefore, be to pretend that it is cooperating on moves for a SAFTA, while in actual fact refraining from taking any measures to implement what is agreed upon.

Pakistan agreed in Kathmandu to implement the proposals envisaged in the report submitted by the SAARC "Group of Eminent Persons". Under these proposals, Pakistan is obliged to move towards removing all tariff and non-tariff barriers to trade with India and other SAARC members by 2008.

This process has to commence immediately, with a 20 per cent reduction in tariffs annually, if the schedule of removing all trade barriers by 2008 is to be adhered to. Pakistan is also obliged to change its present trade policies, by replacing its present list of a restricted number of items permitted for import from India, with a small and steadily dwindling negative list.

New Delhi should insist that Pakistan would establish its bona fides and commitment to South Asian Economic integration only if it takes these measures. The Islamabad Summit should also agree on comprehensive measures for the harmonisation and mutual recognition of standards, adoption of common tariff nomenclatures, harmonisation of Customs procedures and provision of transport and transit facilities.

Addressing SAARC Information Ministers on November 11, Mr Vajpayee served notice that if Pakistan went on stalling progress on economic integration in South Asia by repeating its hackneyed clichés about bilateral differences hampering regional cooperation, it would lead to the increasing marginalisation and indeed irrelevance of SAARC.

"If SAARC cannot organise itself, it will simply miss the boat," Mr Vajpayee asserted. He went at length to point out how bilateral differences and historic animosities had not come in the way of economic integration in Asean and Europe.

He also pointedly referred to the fact that India did have other routes through groupings like BIMSTEC to move ahead with measures for constructive economic cooperation if Pakistan chose to persist with its present ways. The strategy that India will adopt at the Islamabad SAARC Summit is now taking shape. It will involve telling Pakistan, other SAARC members and the international community that while New Delhi is desirous of promoting regional economic cooperation, it will not allow Pakistan, or any other country to stymie the promotion of such cooperation because of territorial ambitions, or imagined grievances.

While New Delhi is placing considerable attention on its diplomatic strategy to make SAARC a meaningful forum for regional cooperation, it would do well to ensure that the Islamabad Summit does not end in a media fiasco and indeed disaster like the much-hyped Agra Summit.

I have noticed how upset our other SAARC neighbours get when the media gets excessively engrossed in photographing and covering only what transpires between India and Pakistan during regional conferences.

New Delhi should take measures to see that our spokespersons, particularly the Foreign Minister and the Foreign Secretary, are available on a continuing basis to interact with the media during the Summit.

Second, questions from the media on India-Pakistan relations should be responded to by pointing out that the SAARC Summit is not an occasion to focus on bilateral problems. Finally, maximum publicity should be given to the Prime Minister's meetings with leaders of countries, other than Pakistan. Mr Vajpayee very tactfully put paid to the Pakistan Information Minister, Mr Sheikh Rashid's efforts to seek to convey a "message" from the Pakistani Prime Minister, Mr Jamali, during the New Delhi meeting of Information Ministers.

It is important to let Pakistan know that it should not expect to let its unrealistic ambitions for "parity" with India to cloud the reality that within SAARC, Pakistan is nothing more than one of the six members which share common land and maritime frontiers with India.

Nothing used to amuse me more in Pakistan than the exertions of some Pakistani scholars to describe the Indian subcontinent as the "Indo-Pak" subcontinent. Carried to its logical conclusion they will next demand that the Indian Ocean should be renamed the "Indo-Pak Ocean"!!

(The author is former High Commissioner to Pakistan.)

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