The 18th summit of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) is taking place in Kathmandu later this week in a new setting when the eight member countries have to pay attention to devising ways to make “Safta-plus” a reality. The South Asia Free Trade Area Agreement was signed in 2006. Tariffs have come down. But other crucial issues continue to bedevil trade.
While this is likely to be the key question in the minds of the leaders — including Prime Minister Narendra Modi — at the summit, the media seems focused somewhere else — on the tantalising question of whether Mr Modi will meet his Pakistan counterpart, Mr Nawaz Sharif.
The two had begun with a promise when Mr Modi was sworn in as Prime Minister, but the mood changed overnight when the Pakistan high commissioner in India talked to Kashmiri separatists on the eve of foreign secretary talks and the Modi government called off any substantive official engagements. Much has happened since then. Mr Sharif has declared that he would confabulate with Kashmiri separatists before engaging India. He has also asked US President Barack Obama to raise Kashmir when he comes to India in January.
All this pretty much makes clear that there is no worthwhile meeting ground between the two sides at this stage. India has re-emphasised that any conversations can take place only within the bilateral framework laid down at Simla and reiterated in Lahore. However, nothing bars courtesy exchanges between leaders of neighbouring countries. It may be premature to read any meanings in such a development if it materialises.
In Saarc, there has been a long-standing complaint that non-congenial India-Pakistan bilateral relations have retarded the progress in economy and trade in South Asia. At the Thimphu Saarc in 2010, all the Saarc leaders had taken a joint initiative one morning to call on the PMs of India and Pakistan to resume their stalled dialogue and the move worked as a positive trigger. At this stage, we do not seem to be at such a happy conjuncture.
Prime Minister Modi may then do well to stay focused on Saarc qua Saarc in Kathmandu. Establishing the political framework for connectivity — of transport and energy networks through roads, railways and air — so that development corridors can be set up between as many Saarc nations as possible — can be the best thing that could have happened to Saarc in a long time. A political push in such a direction by the Indian leader is itself imbued with positive meaning.
