WORLD PEACE FORUM

Conference on
In Pursuit of Common Security: Peace, Mutual Trust
& Responsibility
In Beijing, Peoples Republic of China
June 20-22, 2014
South Asian Regional Cooperation & Security
By
Subramanian Swamy Ph.D. (Harvard)
Former Cabinet Minister of Commerce,
Law & Justice, Government of India
Chairman, BJP Committee for Strategic Action &
Member, BJP National Executive Committee

swamy39@gmail.com
swamy@post.harvard.edu

South Asian Regional Cooperation & Security

Subramanian Swamy Ph.D. (Harvard)

Former Cabinet Minister of Commerce,
Law & Justice, Government of India
Chairman, BJP Committee for Strategic Action.

1. Introduction

Nine nations of South Asia, all with common borders with India, have a
shared culture and a long common history. South Asia nations constitute only 3
per cent of the worlds area, but houses 21 per cent of the global population.
South Asian nations also make an integrated condominium of common rivers,
mountain system, ocean and a conjoint ecological system. That is, South Asian
nations destiny is either to sink or swim together in the battle against poverty
and unemployment as well as in meeting the challenges of environment,
national security, and globalization. The regions factor endowment for
economic production is also more or less the same.
At the present juncture in global affairs, while the world over countries
are regrouped in mega-trade and political blocs, e.g., NAFTA, ASEAN,EU,
Shanghai Forum etc., South Asia despite having already in place since 1985 an
Institutional machinery called (South Asian Association for Regional
Cooperation), is an arena of conflict, distrust and mutual contradiction. India
more significantly, constituting 70% or more of SAARC area and population

seems to have a political conflicts with all its neighbours perhaps except with
Bhutan.
There is today, therefore, an urgent need for structuring a new paradigm
of regional cooperation in South Asia, with priority assigned to achieving mutual
peace and harmony and joint ventures in fields ranging from education, science
and technology, infrastructure, telecommunication to energy, Information
Technology, media freedom and national security. Thus, South Asia ought to,
recognizing its common legacy of factor endowments and experience of
Imperialism ought to tap full potential of the region especially in human
resources and the demographic dividend by joint ventures. That is why Prime
Minister Narendra Modis first visit abroad as PM, to Bhutan, signals a
realization in India.
2. SAARC Structure
South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) was
established at the First Summit in Dhaka on December 7-8, 1985. The last
Summit the 17th was held in Addu in Maldives in November, 2011. The18th
Summit is scheduled to be held in Nepal in November, 2014. SAARC members
are the eight nations of South Asia: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Nepal,
India, Maldives, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, with Observer nations: USA, China, Iran,
EU, and Myanmar.
The SAARC Charter mandates that decisions, at all levels in the SAARC, are
only of multilateral issues and taken on the basis of unanimity for inclusion in
the Agenda.

Article X (2) of the Charter, thus, excludes bilateral and contentious

issues from the ambit of SAARC deliberations.
Article I of the SAARC Charter lists eight objectives of the Association:
1. To promote the welfare of the people of South Asia and to improve
their quality of life.
2. To accelerate economic growth, social progress and cultural
development in the region and to provide all individuals the
opportunity to live in dignity and to realize their full potentials.
3. To promote and strengthen collective self-reliance among the
countries of South Asia.
4. To contribute to mutual trust, understanding and appreciation of each
others problems.
5. To promote active collaboration and mutual assistance in the
economic, social, cultural, technical and scientific fields.
6. To strengthen cooperation with other developing countries.
7. To strengthen cooperation among themselves in international matters
of common interest.
8. To cooperate with international and regional organizations with
similar aims and purposes.

SAARC has yet to develop into a conflict-mediating or conflictresolving institution both on multilateral and bilateral issues. It succeeded
however in evolving as a forum and a framework which does not have the
capacity to devise instruments and techniques for consultations on bilateral and
multilateral political and security problems.

The SAARC Secretariat located in Kathmandu is headed by a

Secretary General (nominated by Member States in alphabetical rotation), 8
Directors, one from each Member State, and the General Service staff. The
Secretary-Generals term is 3 years and the incumbent is from Sri Lanka (since
January 1, 1999). The Secretariat budget is shared by Member States. India
meets 38.10 per cent of the budget.
SAARC was also thrown into a limbo because India decided to Inject
by seeking indefinite postponement of the 11th SAARC Summit Scheduled to be
held in Kathmandu in November 1999 because of the Political developments in
Pakistan (i.e. military takeover). Pakistan was not wrong in holding that Indias
decision to scuttle the 11th SAARC Summit dealt a severe blow to the
organization and the future prospects of regional co-operation, because the
reasons cited by India in seeking the postponement were purely within the
domain of internal affairs of Pakistan and therefore extraneous to the Charter
provisions.
India was alone in proposing the postponement of the Summit. All
SAARC States, except India, had been of the view that the Summit should be
held as scheduled. In a statement on the postponement of the Summit, Sri
Lanka as the SAARC Chair, emphasised that the working procedures of SAARC
do not provide for the Association to involve itself in the internal affairs of
member States. The Government of Sri Lanka also expressed the view that a
deviation for whatever reason, from the path of collective endeavour
commenced through SAARC, would at this juncture have4 serious and damaging
consequences for the progress, peace and security of South Asia.

A shortcoming in the current situation is that unlike Europe, SAARC

is not an association of nearly equally sized countries. India is about 70 per cent
of the size of South Asia, and the six other nations in SAARC have a common
border bilaterally only with India, and not with each other. The economic
disparity among South Asian nations is also quite wide.
It is clear that a South Asian cooperation is a revolution waiting to
happen. If the sub-continent leadership rises to the occasion, at least the
institutional framework already developed under SAARC will not be found
wanting.
But unfortunately the development in South Asia is in the opposite
direction. Pakistan has explicit and implicit complicity in terrorist movements
and providing sanctuary and the Government of Pakistan remaining in denial of
the same, has placed serious road blocks on the evolution of SAARC. The feeble
efforts of Bangladesh to check illegal immigration into India and the Indian
government to date, permitting to internationalise its bilateral differences with
Sri Lanka on the so-called human rights issues arising from the 2009 antiinsurgency war.
Terrorism and Drug Trafficking
The SAARC Convention on Suppression of Terrorism was signed as
long ago as November 1987 and came into effect on August 22, 1998 after
ratification by all Member States. The Convention gives a regional focus to
established principles of international law in this field. Under the Convention,
Member States are committed to extradite or prosecute alleged terrorists, thus
preventing them from enjoying safe havens; this aspect remains to become fully

operational, because internal enabling legislation has so far not yet been
enacted by two members, Pakistan and Bangladesh. Problems thus remain with
regard to implementation. Exchange of information intelligence and expertise
are amongst the areas identified for mutual cooperation. Regional cooperation
is also envisaged in preventive action to combat terrorism. A SAARC Terrorists
Offences Monitoring Desk (STOMD) has been established in Colombo to collate,
analyse and disseminate information about terrorist incidents, tactics and
methods.
The SAARC Convention: Narcotics Drug and Psychotropic
Substances (NDPS) was signed in November 1990 and came into force On
September 15, 1993 following ratification by all Member States. The Convention
seeks to reinforce and supplement at the regional level the provisions of
relevant international conventions and promote regional cooperation in both
law enforcement and demand reduction. The SAARC Drug Offences Monitoring
Desk has been established at Colombo to exchange information and intelligence
on drug offences. A MoU between SAARC and the United Nations International
Drug Control Programme (UNDCP) has been signed.
A Proposed Road Map
To overcome this impasse in SAARC, and to make it work, two preconditions have to obtain: (1) India has to go the extra mile to make SAARC
work and because India is 70 per cent of South Asia, land and other six have
borders only with India. (2) South Asian countries have to work on the common
values and shared perceptions of the people of the region, consciously
eschewing the essentially political differences. Transparency in action in

bilateral dealings is thus key to achieving this pre-condition. No country of the

region should either act big brother or dog-in-the-manger. The leadership has to
be enlightened in its own countrys national interest to rise to need of the hour.
Hence, mindful of the uphill task of promoting South Asian regional
Integration, I suggest:
(a)

SAARC should do all it can to facilitate the creation of the South

Asian Free Trade Area (SAFTA) immediately, if possible by
December 15, 2014.

(b)

SAARC should strive to enhance investment activity between its

member states, and not merely trade. South Asian Joint Venture
promotion schemes should also be promoted on a priority.

(c)

The energy sector linked together through a unified South Asian

electric power grid system and countries could Pool their technical
and financial resources in Collaborative projects.

(d)

Broader popular support at the grassroot levels could be vastly

improved by encouraging freer legal movement of people by
minimizing immigration procedures.

(e)

Take effective steps to deter cross border, illegal migration,

Terrorist attacks, and block narcotics drug traffic.

(f)

Resolve that no SAARC nation will seek to internationalise bilateral

issues beyond SAARC perimeter.

It should be remembered that EU was possible only due to conclusion

drawn by the people of Europe, after the experience of two terrible World
Wars, that a third World War would destroy Europe totally. Furthermore, there

were a few leaders like Adenauer, de Gaulle, Schuma and de Gasperi who had a
vision of a peaceful development of the continent and dared to embark towards
this goal. But as the popular saying goes, It takes two to tango. With two of
the eight SAARC nations in possession of deliverable nuclear weapons, it is
imperative for the peaceful existence of SAARC nations to effectively bind
together and develop harmoniously.
Conclusion:
The failure to address adequately the question of secure, peaceful
and stable regional climate-free of tension and mistrust appears to be a major
impediment in realising meaningful co-operation among South Asian countries,
seriously hampering decision making and implementation of agreements with
respect to co-operative ventures in the core area of economic and commercial
co-operation.
The problem however of incorporating political questions into
SAARC consultations is that the South Asian countries, do not perceive as yet a
common threat that supersedes traditional bilateral perceptions. If in the 1950s,
if India had not tilted to the Soviet Union, a common South Asian perspective
would have emerged at least after the disastrous Soviet occupation of
Afghanistan in 1997.
A common foreign threat has successfully cemented other regional
groupings. South Asia would have been similarly united in a political purpose.
Today in SAARC, poverty and unemployment elimination cannot be sufficient
for cementing a common purpose for a vibrant SAARC.

There are thus five crucial issues before the SAARC nations today:
First, SAARC is off and on in a limbo ever since it got derailed by the
cancellation of the Summit that was scheduled for November, 1999 in
Kathmandu. This the first issue is: How to grapple with SAARCs uncertain
future and how to put it back on the rails again, and not permit in the future,
international political changes to affect the functioning of the SAARC.
Second, SAARC has to resolve whether the essential economic
cooperation in an increasingly globalized would economy, can be achieved
despite the continuing unresolved political conflicts. The issue is whether
political differences can be set aside, while a more harmonious environment be
created through healthy economic cooperation.
Third, can SAARC, as required in the Charter, insulate its
deliberations for long from contentious political questions of each member
country? For example, should a SAARC Summit be cancelled because of a
military coup? India by cancelling the SAARC Summit after a military coup in
Pakistan, had unwittingly and implicitly introduced politics into SAARC without
grappling with it. This has nearly destroyed the institution of SAARC. Hence,
would it not have been better, as the Pakistani Prime Minister had wanted in
the Colombo summit in 1998, to explicitly incorporate political discussions in
SAARC? The third issue thus is: whether SAARC is so fragile that it cannot
survive if political questions are raised.
Fourth, given that India is seventy per cent of SAARC geographically
and economically, and that the remaining SAARC nations have borders only

with India and not with each other, unlike in European Union, does India have
the special responsibility to go the extra mile to make SAARC work?
Fifth, given the WTO disciplines are to be enforced, does SAARC
need a level playing field regional agreement, modelled on GATT, and a
Regional Trade Organization (RTO) to enforce it?
In my view, the further evolution of SAARC and to grapple with
these five issues, will require the co-operation of China and USA in SAARC
deliberations, even in a sub-committee of SAARC. This is because several of
SAARC countries are unlikely to accept bilateral solution unless the Chinese and
the Americans are kept in the loop. At present China and USA are in on
Observers Group of the SAARC.