Muslims in Indian Army - under represented and under-previliged

Possible domination of SAARC by India was raised at many informal
bilateral discussions in the month’s preceding SAARC’s establishment
in December 1985, writes Thalif Deen

WHEN Pierre Trudeau, a former prime minister of Canada, was once asked
what it was like to share space with a giant neighbour like the United
States, he said the Canadians always felt they were living next to a
monstrous elephant.


One feels the beast’s every twitch, said Trudeau, even as the United
States continues to influence its neighbour politically, economically
and culturally.
Ernest Corea, a former Sri Lankan ambassador to the United States,
draws a similar political parallel between India, a potential Asian
superpower, and the 23-year-old South Asian Association for Regional
Cooperation (SAARC), which holds its fifth summit meeting in Sri Lanka
next week.
Asked if India’s preeminent role in the region will continue to
determine and influence the decisions of SAARC, he said that possible
domination of SAARC by India was raised at many informal bilateral
discussions in the month’s preceding SAARC’s establishment in December
1985.

India’s neighbours feared that it would lurch from being a big brother
to a big bully, Corea told IPS. Comprising Afghanistan, Bangladesh,
Bhutan, India, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan and Sri Lanka, SAARC is
described as one of the world’s biggest regional organisations,
accounting for more than 1.5 billion people, of which a little over a
billion are Indians.


The tiny Indian Ocean island of Maldives, the smallest of the SAARC
members, has a population of only about 380,000.Corea said Indian
bureaucrats, on the other hand, were concerned that smaller countries
in the region, including Bhutan, Nepal, Sri Lanka and the Maldives,
would gang up against India within the SAARC context.


Eventually, all South Asian countries felt that the long-term benefits
of regional cooperation were worth seeking, whatever other problems
might be encountered in the process, he said. India’s influence has
not been as negative as some regional politicians feared it would be.
India’s leadership style has changed and keeps evolving, he added.


Its unilateral decision to waive duty on imports of all goods from the
five least developed SAARC countries (Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan,
Maldives, and Afghanistan) is a sign of the directions in which Indian
policy could move, said Corea, who served as an adviser to former Sri
Lankan Foreign Minister Shahul Hameed, during the run-up to the
creation of SAARC.


As of now, SAARC is credited with several achievements, including the
creation of a South Asian Free Trade Agreement (SAFTA); a US$300
million ($420 million) SAARC Development Fund for poverty alleviation;
a SAARC food bank; and a proposed South Asian university to be located
in India.


Rohitha Bogollagama, the foreign minister of Sri Lanka, the country
hosting the SAARC summit July 27-August 3, says South Asia is an
active partner in the dynamic process of South-South cooperation,
which is creating a new trade geography across Asia.


In 2006, intra-SAARC official trade was as high as 63 per cent for
Nepal and 42.8 per cent for Afghanistan. The figure for Sri Lanka is
17 per cent—and rising.
As never before, he pointed out, the borders in South Asia are
opening, paving the way for greater people-to-people connectivity.
Intra-regional tourism is booming and increased exchanges between
youth, civil society and parliamentarians are taking place.


The establishment of the South Asian University will strengthen the
dialogue between academics, experts, policymakers, students and
teachers as well as promote inter-institutional cooperation and
partnerships, Bogollagama told IPS.
However, he said these positive developments are being challenged by
global crises of food and energy security, together with climate
change, which are impacting on the daily lives of our people.


One of the key challenges for SAARC this year will be to oversee an
urgent expansion and investment in agriculture, with a view to
providing food security, based on home grown produce, Corea said..
Additionally, the eight Asian nations will also share experiences on
appropriate nutrition policies and related strategies for development
such as school feeding programmes, he added.


By 2015, the 10 economies of the 40-year-old Association of South-east
Asian Nations (ASEAN)—comprising Brunei, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos,
Malaysia, Myanmar (Burma), the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand,
Vietnam—will be merged into a single market and production base. Asked
if there could be a similar common market for SAARC, at least in the
distant future, Corea told IPS that comparisons don’t really work:
Each regional organisation develops in its own way, based on its own
circumstances.
ASEAN was formed in 1967 —18 years before SAARC formally came into
being—and initially lumbered along, but has made substantial progress
since then, he said.


Only an astrologer in a region dominated by astro-politics would dare
to predict what course SAARC will take in the future, Corea added.
At the political level, the SAARC Charter specifically bars any
discussion of bilateral or contentious issues in a region overwhelmed
by disputes—specificall y between India and Pakistan. Asked whether
this is justified, in the context of a regional organisation, Corea
said keeping bilateral issues out of regional discussions makes
practical sense.


The exclusion of contentious issues from SAARC discussions, however,
stands logic on its head, he said. One of the advantages of regional
cooperation is that it provides opportunities for contentious issues
to be jointly tackled and resolved.


Asked whether SAARC’s longstanding principle of taking decisions on
the basis of unanimity wouldn’t fly in the face of a cardinal
principle of majority rule in a democracy, Corea said reaching
unanimity on any issue, in any context, involves a strenuous process
requiring time, patience, mutual respect and, above all, a genuine
commitment by all parties concerned to settle the issue under
consideration.


When unanimity is, in fact, achieved, the decision reached is solid,
because it does not create a disaffected minority, he said. For that
reason, he argued, decision-making- by-unanimity is a more
representative and effective mode than decision-making- by-majority.



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