All eyes on Modi at SAARC summit

All eyes are on India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the South Asian leaders have gathered at the Himalayan capital for the 18th summit beginning on Wednesday with an ambition for “deeper integration” of the world’s one of the “least integrated” regions.

This is the first SAARC summit for Modi who, through his invitation to the grouping’s leaders at his inauguration and subsequent speeches at different levels, has instilled a new hope for this region, home to almost a quarter of world’s population, 40 percent of whom are poor.

Even before leaving Delhi, in a statement, he said “development of close relations with our neighbours is a key priority for my Government”.

“Kathmandu gives him a big platform to prove that. If he cannot join with high aim, he will miss this opportunity,” believes M Humayun Kabir, a former Bangladesh ambassador who served in India, US and Nepal among many countries in his diplomatic career.

Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka are the members of the grouping born in 1985 in Bangladesh.

“Deeper Integration for Peace and Prosperity” is the theme of this year’s summit, though there have been efforts for deeper integration since early 1990s to boost its economic integration.

Connectivity has been the central point of many summits before. A number of trade agreements at bilateral, sub-regional, and multilateral levels had also been signed.

But the group has failed to come up with any collective gains. Even the intra-regional trade is still less than 5 percent.

“Trust deficit is the main illness of the regional countries,” the former ambassador Kabir told bdnews24.com.

“You will see strict visa regime that means you don’t trust each other. But if you really want the movement of people visa regime should be eased.”

Though Modi sent out a strong message of cooperation with the neighbours, India’s relations with Pakistan still remain patchy.

In August, the Indian government called off talks between the foreign secretaries scheduled in Islamabad angered by the Pakistan High Commissioner’s refusal to call off talks with Kashmiri separatist leaders.

The move has stalled the India-Pakistan dialogue process restarted by Modi soon after his assumption of office.

Analysts say the relations between India and Pakistan determine whether the regional grouping can move smoothly.

“Modi has become a regional leader and for that he has to go through a peaceful process to settle any issue,” Kabir observed.

He believed that “for any positive development in South Asia, India has to be there and cooperate, otherwise it will not happen”.

“The question is whether India will do that?”

“This summit can be a turning point,” he remarked.

However, Modi has agreed on signing SAARC road and railway connectivity before coming to Kathmandu, though those will not finally be signed as Pakistan is not ready for that.

India’s Ministry of External Affairs, before his arrival, in a short documentary said he is now set “to unveil ambitious SAARC agenda that will intertwine the region together in the wake of win-win opportunities”, building upon his initial meetings after coming to the power.

Former SAARC secretary general Sheel Kant Sharma said Modi gave priority on SAARC from the day one and he became already known as a “man of action” so “his thrust is always on action”.

He said past summits had made a number of decisions and declarations, “but now everybody’s expectation is that India’s dynamic leader and his commitment to neighbours can do something which will move things together”.

He told the documentary that the attempt had to be “to restore” the connectivity “so that people can travel freely, they could move visa free,” which was possible until 1960s.

India is also expected to proactively join its efforts with other South Asian countries to make South Asian Union.

Executive Director of the Colombo-based Institute of Policy Studies Saman Kelegama said the region already had SAFTA in place, and SAARC Agreement on Trade in Services.

“We have to see that both these agreements progress and that intra-regional trade and investment increase.”

He, however, stressed on creating SAARC Development Bank that Modi recently proposed.

However, the SAARC Secretariat needs to be overhauled with more capacities to deal with the issues and help countries implement the decisions.

“It’s a bureaucratic organisation. How long can you progress with this?” asked former ambassador Kabir.

He suggested elevating the level of the SAARC Secretary General to at least minister from the current foreign secretary level.

A Kathmandu-based researcher, however, wants to remain optimistic.

“Modi has challenges (particularly India-Pakistan relations) and once he can settle the issue, there could be a lot of prospects,” Radheshyam Malla, who coordinates dialogue on international affairs for a think-tank, the Asian Institute of Diplomacy and International Affairs (AIDIA), told bdnews24.com.

“We need to be quite hopeful. There is no alternative to being hopeful and people should also work for that to put pressure (on the leaders)”.

He said the primary objective should be “to get integrated and to start working for the sake of regional development, which is a must”.

“…rather than going back and having kind of criticism regarding whether SAARC did great or not, its time leaders of all the countries got united, have common agenda and then start work on it for the sake of the people, development of their countries and overall development of the region.”

“It is right time they started work on it,” Malla said.

He, however, believed the challenge would be to transform the platform from a talking place to a vibrant organisation of activities and implementations.

Bangladesh is also stressing on actions based on the decisions to make the regional grouping a forum for the “commoners” of the region.