One handshake salvaged the 18th Summit meeting of the South Asian Association Regional Cooperation (SAARC), held in the Nepalese capital Katmandu last week, from being branded as a total 'failure'.
A brief meeting between Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his Pakistani counterpart Nawaz Sharif held at the retreat had helped the regional forum to strike a last minute deal to create a regional electricity grid and agree to allow a three-month gestation period for approval of motor vehicles and regional railway pacts that aim at boosting regional connectivity.
However, the face-saving move, apparently, came following an intense pressure exerted by the smaller neighbours of South Asian powerhouse India and its arch rival Pakistan to make the latest SAARC summit somewhat productive.
The last moment 'achievement', however, could not help South Asia, one of the least integrated regions in the world, to go near the objectives for which the SAARC forum had been launched in the Bangladesh capital nearly three decades back.
The speech delivered by Nepalese Prime Minister Sushil Koirala at the closing ceremony of the summit highlighted the frustration of smaller members with the slow pace of progress towards greater regional integration.
"Despite several transformative potentials in the region, our achievement stands short of expectations", Koirala said, not pointing accusing fingers at the parties primarily responsible for not making serious efforts for strengthening the regional integration. But the identity of countries that have stalled the progress of the forum is no secret. Even a layman of any SAARC member country would know it.
The Nepalese PM made an appeal to the fellow leaders to 'summon the political will' to translate their words into action. The appeal, in fact, was directed towards the leaders of India and Pakistan.
The basic objective behind floating the SAARC was to forge greater economic cooperation among the South Asian countries through enhancement of trade and greater connectivity and increased people-to-people contact.
While most other regional forums have flourished in terms of economic cooperation, the SAARC has not been able to make any tangible headway.
The inter-regional trade, an important indicator of economic cooperation has not progressed much. The volume of cross-border trade of all the south Asian countries still accounts for only 5.0 to 6.0 per cent of the total trade that they carry out annually. The cooperation in other areas, compared to other regional forums has not also developed much.
The bilateral irritants have been standing in the way of any fruitful cooperation among the SAARC member states. It is quite natural for the neighbouring countries to have some problems among themselves. South Asia is also no exception to this. But when such problems tend to cause irritation of severe nature between two neighbours, it becomes really difficult to carry forward any initiative of cooperation on both bilateral and multilateral planes.
This has in fact happened in the case of Pakistan and India. There were a few moves to improve relations between them but never the much-expected signs of a thaw were visible. India, the largest among the SAARC members, has also not been able to earn that much of trust of its smaller neighbours. On the bilateral plane, the latter have some problems with India and they, rightly or wrongly, are blaming the former for not showing enough goodwill to resolve those.
Acting as a mediator, the SAARC could be a useful forum to make contribution to resolution of bilateral irritants within its fold. But, unfortunately, the SAARC charter has forbidden referring of bilateral issues to the multilateral forum. The restriction was imposed, reportedly, at the insistence of an influential member country.
Of late yet another issue has emerged and drawn the attention of the SAARC members. That is China's reported willingness to become a full member of the Forum. China is now enjoying the status of an Observer as is the case with the United States and some other countries.
Pakistan has been strongly pleading for the elevation of China's status. It is not difficult to understand the underlying reason behind it. Most other smaller South Asian countries are also supportive of the elevation bid. The vast economic resources and the potential to act as a 'balancing' factor against India are, apparently, prompting these countries to extend tacit support to the move to engage China in a more active role in the regional forum.
But India, as expected, is resisting pressure from the fellow SAARC members to elevate China's position out of the fear that the latter might try to torpedo initiatives under SAARC that might offer strategic and economic advantage to it (India). Indications are quite strong that India would now try to woo its neighbours closer to it using various means in the face of Chinese challenge. China, too, may not fall behind in its bid.
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