It may well have been another futile exercise, another attempt to scale the mountain of difficulties. Yet the people's SAARC held in New Delhi its meeting-their fifteenth-this week to re-emphasise upon the official SAARC summit at Thimpu that the countries in South Asia would continue to lag behind in development until they realize that they have no go from cooperation.
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Representatives of human rights, trade unions, women groups and others from all the eight countries in the SAARC -- Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Pakistan, Nepal, Maldives and Sri Lanka -- vied with one another to demand a union of South Asian countries, like the European Union, while retaining their individual identity and sovereignty. Some even saw the prospects of one market, one visa and one currency. In the statement they adopted after the two-day conference, the representatives (60 from Pakistan alone) "reaffirmed the South Asian people's commitment to creating a South Asia free from all discrimination, exclusion and domination."
Indeed, these are lofty ideals. But they are worth pursuing. The participants were not only passionate about them but also committed to rise above nationalism and parochialism to make the dream of South Asia Union come true. Their speeches had no rancour, no bitterness and no allegation. They seemed to read one another's mind and talked of steps how to live together as friendly neighbours.
All the eight countries are different in their own way. Yet they are similar in one way: the years of foreign rule has hammered their outlook in a civilisational mould which reflects commonality. But, unfortunately, they seek solution to their basic problems, not from within the region but from outside.
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| Sri Lankan President Mahinda Rajapaksa (C) is greeted by South Asian Association for Regional Co-operation (SAARC) Leaders (L/R) Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan and Madhav Kumar Nepal of Nepal as Jigme Yoser Thinley of Bhutan looks on during the closing ceremony of the summit in Thimphu on Thursday. |
This dependence is the fallout of their slavery. The British who ruled practically the entire region were ruthless masters. They used people in the region as brick and mortar to build the structure of the empire. Any big or odd stone that did not fit in was crushed or thrown aside. Not many rose to challenge the system and a few who did were nipped in the bud. Others were eliminated.
Still this region, people of different traditions, defeated Great Britain and rolled out the mighty empire. In their journey towards independence, they fell and rose but reached their destination. It is a saga of suffering and sacrifice which is recalled even today.
South Asia has learned the lesson that every enslaved country does from humiliation. But what it has not is that people have to join hands with one another to overcome the problems. Together they can fight to determine the path they should take, the tactics they should adopt and the ally they should seek. All this demands an understanding that they are together, no chinks in the armour. This cannot be assumed. A method has to be devised to ascertain opinion, yes or no.
What do people think? What do the participants in the struggle for betterment feel? This effort to determine sows the seed of accountability. If some are to be made answerable, they should have the powers to act. Who should such people be? How would they be spotted out? In the 17th century the English established themselves as the world's supreme against rival claimants, especially the crown. Since then the idea of popular sovereignty has become an integral part of civilized governments. Some nations like France learned from England's example.
We in South Asia are a watchful people. We were determined to throw out the foreign rule. We also wanted to devise a system to rule ourselves. Our experience was all that the British taught us -- the different acts under which the carefully selected people would come to the assemblies and parliaments to rule. A very few came directly, elected by the people. That was our democratic system. Our struggle in different parts of the region was to have more and more elected representatives.
We shed one another's blood, although we were independent. The subcontinent of India was partitioned into India and Pakistan on the basis of religion. Sri Lanka was only given freedom and Bhutan as well when it was not the British protectorate. When the constitution in the newly independent countries was framed, the people's say was naturally the most. The biggest achievement through the constitution was to keep the rights of people supreme and to ensure that the nations did not substitute white masters with brown sahibs.
It was not the question of government alone. It was also the question of constitutional guarantee whereby sovereignty stayed with the people: How to ensure that the right of the voters in elections was theirs. And does democracy mean only going to the polling booths and registering votes? The answer to such questions may be able to tell whether democracy would survive in South Asia.
The people's wishes -- and prayers -- would have fructified to a large extent by this time if the hostility between India and Pakistan had been overcome. The fact is that even what the two countries agree upon at the summit remain on paper because the decisions are not acceptable to the establishment, the ultimate arbiter, in their respective country.
Both India and Pakistan have not been able to overcome their differences going back to the days before partition. In a way, it is the same old bias between Hindus and Muslims. Parochialism spoils the thinking of secular India when it comes to Pakistan. On the other hand, Pakistan has never adopted secularism even after Quaid-e-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah's declaration that the state would have nothing to do with religion.
Between August 1947 and 2010, the two countries have fought several a Kashmir war and two general wars in 1965 and 1971, apart from covert wars like the Raan of Kutch, Gibraltor, Siachin, Grand Slam and Kargil. Both are also nuclear powers. Still they love to hate each other. Kashmir and water are symptoms, not the disease. The disease is the bias, suspicion and mistrust which appear in one form or another. You can solve one issue but another will rear its ugly head because the basic Hindu-Muslim divide stays. How do the two nations get away from it? The sooner we find an answer to this question, the stronger will the SAARC be.
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