No cooperation whatsoever
“The reason behind Pakistan’s reluctance to christening India of MFN is rather theocratic if not ludicrous; the government did reveal the intentions of doing so but were halted by the religious fanatics (who seem to object to everything remotely related to modernism)”
The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation may appear to be an oxymoronic phrase to the pragmatists because the region maybe there, the cooperation is certainly missing. The security concerns (after the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan), water crisis in the region and to resurrect the dead trade amongst South Asian countries served as an impetus to the formation of this coalition. But SAARC has failed to address any of these issues that served as a foundation to this alliance. The region has never been more vulnerable to the dearth of security and rise of terrorism (not even when the region was “governed” by the British for a good two centuries), water conflict continues to grow between the two old nemesis (India and Pakistan) and the situation of trade can be evaluated through the fact that in this day and age Pakistan has still not given India the Most Favoured Nation (MFN) status; which is, to put simply, the most essential thing to do according to World Trade Organisation (WTO) in order to have trade ties.
The reason behind Pakistan’s reluctance to christening India of MFN is rather theocratic if not ludicrous; the government did reveal the intentions of doing so but were halted by the religious fanatics (who seem to object to everything remotely related to modernism) because they simply couldn’t digest the idea of Pakistan issuing India (read: infidels) the status of Most Favoured Nation (yes, they took the term too literally), hence the two big players of the SAARC have been devoid of trade which makes the overall trade of the region negligible as well. The missing trade among other members of the alliance (cult) is due to the lack of tradable product diversity. Afghanistan specialises in production of opium: legal trade of which would be too harsh even for a region like SAARC. Sri Lanka mainly exports tea, textile products, rice and similar agricultural products which can easily be produced in any part of the region. Nepal trades in knotted carpets, yarn and fabric, none of which are exotic for the region. Bangladesh has been the cheap haven for textile products for US, UK and Europe; again can’t offer anything out of ordinary for its fellow members. Bhutan’s lion’s share of exports is to India but mostly in the form of electricity and its major export products are mostly indigenous to the region. And Maldives exports fish to Europe and East Asian countries on a very small scale. While India is one the most rapidly growing economies, yet its export base is mostly in the west. And our beloved Pakistan’s all major exports are textile related as well which usually find their home in either west or China. SAARC has completely failed to create any type of trade linkages in the region but that is mainly due to the fact that SAARC has failed to come up with any idea to diversify the production capacities of the member countries, hence rendering it to be a redundant organisation in terms of trade (which is the major part of any regional cooperation program).
SAARC’s second most calamitous failure is to achieve any sort of regional harmony and unified security amongst its members. The most infamous clash of Kashmir between the two arch rivals has not been addressed in three decades of its existence and the cross firing on Indo-Pak border continues to create more and more rifts between the neighbours. This conflict, whose origin is primarily Kashmir, has led to failure in achieving any consensus on energy, trade or visa agreements. SAARC wasn’t useful in any way during the recent India-Nepal conflict which caused trade relations between the two countries to suffer. The Pak-Afghan porous border, which has caused the security condition of region to become rather grave, has not been addressed by SAARC either. Conflict resolution and unified stance against security concerns being the founding elements of the organisation, it has failed unquestionably on this front as well, raising questions to its existence all the more.
“There have been talks and agreements on energy cooperation but nothing has ever materialised in as much as three decades. There is a lack of land connectivity by road and rail which adversely affects the little trade that exists amongst the members”
Be it serene beaches of Maldives and Sri Lanka, or breathtaking highlands of Pakistan and Nepal, or cultural richness of Bhutan and India; the region has huge prospects for tourism, not only from abroad but within the region as well. But during all these years SAARC has failed to bring about even a minute change in the visa policies of any of its members towards the others. It is pretty hard to obtain a visa to visit any of the SAARC member countries for a citizen of a member country for tourism purposes, let alone for work, business or study.
The region on a whole, even India (a growing economic giant), faces alarming energy crises; which not only affect the industry of these countries but also the domestic affairs of the citizens. There have been talks and agreements on energy cooperation but nothing has ever materialised in as much as three decades. There is a lack of land connectivity by road and rail which adversely affects the little trade that exists amongst the members due to high costs of trade and loss of time.
There are as many as 12 specialised centres of SAARC spread over its member countries, ranging from energy centre to agricultural centre to cultural centre to disaster management centre. But by the look of their portfolios and comparing them to the reality one is forced to believe that these centres have been inefficient if not useless over all these years. Their use can be understood simply by looking at one centre that would have been useful, if it were functional, in last one decade. The entire region has been hit by one disaster after another; be it the earthquake of 2005 in Pakistan or the Indian Ocean earthquake of 2004, or the South Asian floods of 2007 which took lives and damaged properties in India, Pakistan, Bhutan, Bangladesh and Nepal. Even these calamities haven’t made theSAARC Disaster Management Centre (SDMC) to come up with a unified action plan to address these issues which affect everyone the same irrespective of the borders and nationalities.
The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation is nothing but a sham. There is no cooperation whatsoever. There is little or nonexistent trade, tourism and connectivity is absent, security and disaster management is overlooked. If not these issues, on the basis of which the body was formed, are being addressed in this so called cooperation then what is being done? It is time that SAARC brings about some serious changes in its upcoming summit in 2016 and cooperate on any one of the issues if not all. In times when developed countries are improving their cooperation through TPP (Trans-Pacific Partnership) and TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership), It is the need of the hour for SAARC to be efficient and not scarce.
