South Asia is seen as a geo-strategic, geo-economic unit by some and a single civilizational whole by others. The program of regional cooperation was expected to benefit immensely from the historical and cultural ties connecting people across national borders in South Asia. Such assessments created positive possibilities regarding cooperation in the region. Despite differences over the modalities and strategies of cooperation, all states in the region subscribe to its beneficial impact. The King of Nepal, Briendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev had during the speech at the First Inaugural Session of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) Summit in 1985, stated that, “regional cooperation can strengthen the building of a lasting edifice of peaceful co-existence through initiatives and interactions in the fields like the cultural, scientific, technological and economic spheres.” SAARC was expected to be an instrument for the “promotion of peace, progress and stability in this part of the world. It can also enhance our sovereignty and foster peace, freedom and social justice among member states. It will, above all, be a framework for the promotion of the welfare and prosperity of our peoples and the improvement of their quality of life.”
But cooperation in specific sectors at the regional level has not confirmed to the much-preferred receptivity of the positive impulses. States of South Asia are placed in a historically unique situation, where the processes of state formation, industrialization, democratization and interdependence have synchronized making problems of adjustment and adaptation difficult. The dilemmas and contradictions inherent in South Asian cooperation have resulted from the simultaneous impact of these transformative forces. Consequently the process of regional cooperation in South Asia encounters several hurdles.
With trade and investment being guided by trans-national factors economic regionalism has emerged as the driving force for sustaining economic networking around the globe. In this background lack of cooperation in South Asia is attributed to the poor rate of economic development and absence of economic complementarities among the states of the region. Most of the pre conditions needed to enhance the probability of a successful free trade agreement were not present in South Asia. These included: high pre arrangement tariffs, high level of trade before any arrangement, the existence of complementary rather than competitive trade, and differences in economic structure based on competitiveness. The characteristic features of South Asian economic interaction do not exhibit an encouraging picture : a) restrictive trade policies, b) lack of information, c) resource constraint and thus dependence on external aid, which in turn, is tied to imports from aid donors, d) non-availability of exportable surpluses of desired specification, e) high costs of production, f) inadequate transit facilities and transport network, g) imbalance in trade, h) lack of standardization of documentation and complexity of procedures.
Most scholars are of the opinion that unless problems like Kashmir, Siachen, illegal immigration, sharing the waters of common rivers and trade and transit facilities are not solved among South Asian states cooperation cannot be successful. Bilateral disputes among South Asian countries spill over into the regional domain in the form of distrust and hostility.
Proposals on wide ranging issues like visa-relaxation, open skies agreement, regional food security reserve, regional development fund, anti-terrorism measures, open economic interaction, regional university have been elaborately discussed and debated at these meetings. But in terms of concrete implementation not much headway has been made. After endorsing the formal proposals the SAARC countries find it difficult in agreeing and working out the specifics of these agreements. Expectations and perspectives appear to clash at the implementation stage.
According to Perry Thornton, SAARC’s most difficult obstacle lies in the structural characteristic of the system: the overwhelming predominance of India. Geographical position, traditional and cultural links, economic potential, political clout and strategic capacity make India’s position in South Asia pre-eminent and its conversion into pre-dominance through the regional route creates greater anxieties. Though India claims to play a leadership role in the regional forum, neighbors view it as an attempt to institutionalize Indian hegemony on the subcontinent.
The distribution of gains from cooperative activities in the India centric South Asian region has created the fear among smaller countries of emerging as net losers from the process. It is usually considered that given India’s potential, regional benefits will cluster around this more developed regional pole. The apprehension that products from India will sweep local markets and cripple national industrial development has discouraged countries like Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan to lift barriers on regional trade.
Though challenges confronting SAARC are huge, the regional body cannot be termed as a failure. SAARC provides the regional states a forum to discuss regional issues and voice national concerns. Discussions on counter-terrorism, preferential trading, energy cooperation, climate change, regional university, control of trafficking in narcotics have allowed the South Asian states to develop a regional agenda.
The success of SAARC is contingent on perceptual shifts among regional states rather than rhetorical claims. Regional cooperation in South Asia as in other Third World regions is a mechanism to satisfy national aspirations and realize national goals. Hence, assurances of regional benefits have been weak motivational factors in sustaining cooperation. SAARC will flourish only when South Asian states perceive SAARC as a medium for enhancing national prosperity and stability, rather than merely forum for inter-state cooperation.
