Great expectations

The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc) on paper looks like a very good idea. The eight member states held their inaugural meeting in Dhaka in December 1985. They have a combined economy that is the third largest in the world after the US and China and the eighth largest in terms of nominal GDP. Given that all the member states are developing nations, this looks impressive. It would be considerably more impressive if India and Pakistan could bury their differences and exploit the huge trading potential that exists between not only themselves, but other members of the group.



Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will be attending the Saarc Summit being held in Kathmandu, Nepal, on November 26-27, as will his Indian counterpart Narendra Modi. As is usual, there is much speculation about the possibility of the two men meeting on the margins of the conference. Attempting to read anything from unscripted semi-informal meetings that have no written record in the public domain is a virtual impossibility, and informed guesswork and unverifiable leaks are going to be primary sources if any meeting does take place.

What is known is that once again, relations between India and Pakistan are at a crux. Tensions along the Line of Control notwithstanding, the Modi government is well into its honeymoon period and is going to have to be seen to deliver on some of its electoral promises, particularly in the economic sector. The government of Nawaz Sharif has been rattled by protests in Islamabad and elsewhere, and it, too, is in need of being seen to deliver something beyond the merely anodyne if it is not to weaken further. The bottom line is that it is not just the two men at the top who have to want to make an enhanced peace a possibility; it is the political and military layers below them that have to want the same as they do. The challenge for India and Pakistan at Saarc is to find themselves on the same page. The theme for this year’s conference is “Deeper integration for peace and prosperity”. We can but hope.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 25^th, 2014.

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