By P Kharel
India was never enthusiastic about forming a regional grouping in South Asia, with all members having equal say and consensus decisions are mandatory. When Sri Lank and Pakistan proved very receptive to the idea and the Maldives, too, seemed interested, India’s Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi thought why not give the proposal a try.
When the leaders of six countries (Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Pakistan) met for the first summit in Dhaka in December 1985, Rajiv Gandhi was the newest to the office. He was anointed prime minister hours after his mother Indira was assassinated by her bodyguards on October 31 the previous year. Afghanistan joined SAARC later. (This scribe was among journalists present during the SAARC launch in Dhaka representing The Rising Nepal.)
King Birendra and Bangladesh’s President Ziaur Rahman were the key figures who spearheaded the campaign for forming a South Asian regional grouping. The late Rahman’s son Tarique Rahman is Bangladesh’s executive prime minister today. It is natural for Rahman to call aloud for reviving SAARC whose last summit was hosted by Nepal 12 years ago in 2014. Nepal’s desire to pass on the baton to Pakistan, the next host-in-waiting, is acute.
NEPAL’S EARLY INITIATIVES: King Birendra had obliquely referred to the prospect of a South Asian grouping for cooperation in his keynote address to the United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries held in Paris in September 1981, with emphasis on international aid and support for trade.
Rajiv’s idea was to divide as well as size Nepal and seize the initiative for keeping the smaller members to their place. The idea of the collective team was to work for collective benefit through a concrete display of South-South cooperation in a region that was non-aligned and basically poor, mostly least developed.
Inexperience in Rajiv Gandhi showed. He was after all an elected prime minister of the world’s “largest democracy”, meaning the leader of the most-populous multiparty democracy. (Reference to the term “largest” was a subtle slight against China’s one-party communist system. India has been engaged in armed conflicts, including the 1962 brief war, over longstanding border issues left unresolved even today.)
LOGO & SECRETARIAT: The logo submitted by Nepal for SAARC’s adoption earned the highest points from experts from all countries, including Nepal’s Lain Singh Bangdel, by the time the inaugural summit took off at the Bangladeshi capital. By the time the second summit was held in India two years later, Kathmandu was agreed upon as the venue for the SAARC Secretariat.
India did not show interest in hosting the secretariat on its well-deserved assessment that no consensus on its bid would be attained. The Maldives knew of its limitations while Sri Lanka made a reluctant bid during the talks. Pakistan proposed Kathmandu, followed by support from Sri Lanka. Bhutan stood away from the race, as it expressed inability to even organise a summit in the first decade-plus due to “lack of the necessary infrastructure”. Bangladesh was very keen to convince its peers about its claim for playing host to the permanent secretariat. When its effort failed to attain consensus, its next choice was Kathmandu as the most conveniently placed venue.
Technically, New Delhi might have been an appropriate choice for the regional secretariat, as delegations from member states could assemble and meet with relative convenience in terms of travel time connectivity. But it could not muster the required unanimous support. Rajiv felt let down while Pakistan had reasons for satisfaction as its push came around to be accepted at the end of the day.
The ultimate choice sounded diplomatically natural. The Indian side considered the outcome a personal triumph for King Birendra, who was the region’s senior-most head of state while Rajiv was the youngest premier after he succeeded Indira the previous autumn.
New Delhi took umbrage at the smaller countries gaining voice by subtly “ganging up” against the largest democracy, whose multiparty democracy had the longest record, barring the draconian Emergency rule that Indira Gandhi clamped on her people for two and a half years in 1975-77. After the Emergency ended, the hurriedly cobbled Janata Party won a massive mandate. The new party in government was basically a hodgepodge coalition of parties getting together with the sole purpose of keeping the Congress out of power for the first time since the country’s independence in 1947.
BELATED ADMISSION: The massive mandate the opposition obtained in the polls installed the Gandhian septuagenarian leader Morarji Desai as prime minister while the election rout saw Indira herself in defeat from what was previously considered a Congress stronghold.
Desai, who admitted drinking urine as a therapy, was accused by an American journalist as working for the American intelligence agency CIA—an accusation he vehemently denied. He also told a press meeting in New Delhi that the merger of Sikkim in India was not appropriate, though he admitting that he could not do anything about it “now”.
Hence, New Delhi’s latest attitude toward SAARC generates an ominous sign for other member states. In the long run, India might have the most to lose, with smaller groups developing alternative routes, more effective than the BIMSTEC that India floated to keep Pakistan out but the setup is limping from the very beginning.
Sri Lanka will look beyond India eastward, the Maldives sights Central Asia and the Gulf region in particular. Bangladesh is making long and fast strides in promoting its ties with Pakistan and Nepal. According to various Indian leaders and experts who are bent on patriotic reactions than professional analyses, Nepal seeks to veer away from their definition of the “special relationship” that New Delhi claims even if never acknowledged by Nepal.
Time has not run out for India to change course for respecting the legitimate interests of its neighbours and generating stronger bonds with at least some, if not all, in the region.
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