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SPEAKING
FREELY
SAARC close to use-by
date
By Farid Bakht
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times
Online feature that allows guest writers to have
their say. Please click here
if you are interested in
contributing.
The 13th summit of
the South Asian Association for Regional
Cooperation - or SAARC - was due to meet February
6-7 in Dhaka. The meeting was "postponed" for the
second time. The first meeting, set for January,
was pushed back in the wake of the tsunami. This
time, India unilaterally decided it would not
participate, citing the royal coup in Nepal and
the "deteriorating security situation in
Bangladesh" following the assassination of a
former finance minister and opposition leader.
The reasons cited are not credible, given
the extensive security preparations that were made
in Dhaka and the Nepalese king's intention to
attend the summit personally. Major progress on a
free-trade agreement was expected.
SAARC and its seven members - India,
Pakistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, Maldives, Nepal and Sri
Lanka - is now in the midst of a crisis. It was a
grand idea for the 1970s. Made in Bangladesh. But
it may already be out of date. We all know SAARC
has been a dead duck because India and Pakistan
persist in their pointless rivalry. Everyone
supports the latest rapprochement between India
and Pakistan, even if it is 30 years too late.
The emergence of
Bangladesh was an opportunity to discard
Britannia's poisoned gift of communalism. The absurdity
of the two provinces East and West Pakistan
was exposed and put to an end. Bangladesh
won its independence. The Pakistani military was
humiliated and went back to its barracks with its
tail between its legs. Unfortunately, it was not punished
for its actions and Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto reneged on
his promises for a progressive and modern society.
If both had happened, we would have seen a
different South Asia emerge. Pakistan would have
diverted resources from an unnecessarily bloated
military machine into a modern industrializing
economy. They might have negotiated with India
over Kashmir, leading to independence or autonomy
(whatever the Kashmiris voted for in a
UN-supervised election) and moved on.
Instead, the Pakistani military decided
to play its version of the "Great Game". The Indian
administration decided to ignore the aspirations
of Kashmiris. Not surprisingly, the "Switzerland
of Asia" went up in flames. The Taliban would not
have been possible without Pakistan's
Inter-Intelligence Service and the need for the
Pakistani military to prove useful to Washington.
The gas factor
The giant
US company Unocal wants to supply India with
gas and oil from Central Asia. To do so it needs a
pipeline to go through Afghanistan and Pakistan.
The Iranians are also eyeing the Indian market. So
how big is the gas factor in the talks between
India and Pakistan?
Neither pipeline is
feasible because there is absolutely no chance of
stability. Ex-Unocal adviser Hamid Karzai is
president of Afghanistan in name only. He is in
effect only the mayor of Kabul. President General
Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan cannot guarantee the
safety of his own life, let alone a pipeline
through lawless Balochistan in the southwest or
the infamous North-West Frontier Province.
At best, India and Pakistan can agree to
withdraw troops from frontiers, open up road and
rail links and legalize the trade that is already
happening. Talk of a union is premature and next
to impossible, given present mindsets.
Already, they are locking horns over
a proposed dam that could block the Indus River
in Pakistan. The entente looks as though it will not last
that long.
SAARC can never take off until
the issue of 1947 and partition is solved once and
for all. A solution means acceptance of the other
to survive and genuine moves to cooperate.
Moreover, diplomats and the two militaries have to
grow up and graduate from playing imperial games.
These petty jealousies have given us the most
stupid of wars over a glacier in Kashmir - the
Siachen.
China-India
rivalries
The world has moved on. China
is the manufacturing workshop of the global
economy, just as Manchester was in 19th-century Britain.
China's economy is fragile and will go bust in the
next few years, but the Chinese are following the upward
trajectory of the Wild West American economy of
the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Booms were
followed by busts, only for another boom to appear
soon after. China may be volatile, but the giant
is awake and is not going back to sleep.
How is South Asia reacting to this? Many Indian
think-tanks, stuffed with retired colonels, are
talking up a rivalry between India and China. They
are entrapped in the Pentagon world view that
China needs to be "contained" and that the US will
"ally" with India in this endeavor. But why? For
whose gain?
It is true that in 1962
China and India needlessly went to war in the
Himalayas over a British-drawn border. Jingoism got
the better of sense. The ill-equipped Indian
military was swept aside. The Chinese could have
marched into Dacca and Calcutta (now referred to as
Dhaka and Kolkata). They didn't and have shown no
inclination of militarily expanding in this
direction. So why engage in this pointless
competition? For more glaciers?
It
would be far more sensible for India and China to
get closer. They are making some tentative steps
but the effort lacks true willpower. India needs to look
northeast toward China. India should invest in
China. China should invest in India. In the 1940s,
a US general called "Vinegar Joe" Stilwell dreamed
of building an all-weather road from Calcutta to
southern China. For the wrong purpose maybe, but
still breathtaking in its vision. A Sino-Indian
partnership would inevitably lead to the
construction of such transport links to move
billions of euros' worth of annual trade.
The Seven Sister states of northeastern India
would no longer be the frontier but would lie smack in
the middle of this economic growth zone. The
Indian central government would have an incentive
to plow resources into these neglected states
and allow more freedom to solve the 50-year
insurgencies.
Bangladesh would have the
most to gain from such an outcome. Those pipe
dreams of becoming a transport hub would become a
reality, as would be the possibility of its
manufacturing industry supplying regional markets.
For example, it is more economical for Bangladeshi
cement to be sold to the northeast as it is nearer
to those markets.
And what of Myanmar? Once
the leaders decide to risk it and go for a Chinese-style
economic thrust, they will find that there
will be an avalanche of Chinese, Indian and Thai
investment. Chittagong and Sitwe (Myanmar) ports
are nearer to Kunming than Shanghai is. It is
only a matter of time. Five years? Ten years?
Again, Bangladesh gains because of geography.
For the past few years, another grouping
has emerged. BIMSTEC, an economic cooperation
which includes Bangladesh, India, Myanmar, Sri
Lanka, Thailand, Bhutan and Nepal but excludes
China and Pakistan. Then, there is the grouping of
Bay of Bengal nations.
Unknown to many,
there is another entity called BICM. This stands
for Bangladesh, India, China and Myanmar. For
anyone thinking it through, BICM should be the
real aim, not SAARC. In the emerging geopolitical
realities of this generation, it would be far more
beneficial to concentrate on BICM. If it ever
became a real association or bloc, it would be
unstoppable. Unthinkable now among the elite, it
would generate the most support from the
populations of the participating countries.
Is Pakistan worth it?
In a
choice between China and Pakistan, the answer
should be obvious.
SAARC
will have to justify
itself. It has some competition. We cannot stop
and start every time India and Pakistan have a
spat. Economies, business and nations need stability.
After World War I, the French showed vindictiveness
in trying to cripple and punish Germany
though crushing "reparations". In contrast,
in the early 1950s, the French showed maturity
and good sense by working closely with then-West
Germany to build the foundations for today's
European Union. Islamabad and New Delhi seem
to be following the earlier French model. We
cannot wait for them to grow up.
In
Bangladesh there are still influential people who
cannot forget that they lost in 1971. Growing up
in a flat rice-growing delta, they still look to
the west to the hilly, mountainous regions beyond
Punjab, as if they have any cultural similarities.
They do not. That is a dead-end.
Bangladeshi prime minister Khaleda Zia
had the vision for SAARC in the 1970s. It could
have worked then if India and Pakistan had buried
the hatchet.
Really looking to the
east
Now, we need a new vision
for a new century. Bangladesh's Foreign Ministry
says it has a policy that is "looking east".
If it is looking, one wonders what it is seeing. How
else can one explain why it incredibly risked
relations with this century's superpower, China,
in allowing the Taiwanese to dish out visas in
Dhaka?
The Bangladeshi establishment is
not alone in being myopic. Ignoring internal
opposition, a part of the Indian establishment
thinks it can cavalierly destroy Bangladesh, as a
by-product of the monstrous River-Linking Project.
They want to divert the Ganges and Brahmaputra
waters to the southern and western states. What is
the point of a South Asian union or economic
association if one of its members loses the basis
of having a functioning nation?
Water is
key to Bangladesh's survival. Period. If the
project goes ahead, the "C" in SAARC will not
stand for cooperation. It will mean confrontation,
as millions migrate to India in search of a
livelihood. There is a disconnect between fine
words in SAARC summits and the real issues of
water (and even gas).
There is an absolute
necessity to work together. All players need to
have a better handle on their geopolitical
position and understand who their true friends
are. The strange thing is that many ordinary
people seem to be aware of these realities. So why
do intellectuals and the establishments miss the
big picture?
Farid Bakht is the
founder member of Futurebangla, an institute
dedicated to social change in Bangladesh. Based in
London and Dhaka, he is promoting a greater role
for the diaspora in economic decision-making.
Previously, he worked in the government in
Bangladesh and then as an analyst and entrepreneur
in the telecom sector in the UK.
Speaking Freely is an Asia Times
Online feature that allows guest writers to have
their say. Please click here
if you are interested in
contributing.
(Copyright Farid
Bakht, 2005) |
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